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toiling in a kitchen. I turned and walked back about twenty yards, passing the door that led to the cashier’s cage. At the opposite end of the hallway a narrow passage led up a steep flight of wooden steps. A sign above the entrance said CHULIP KUMJI. Do Not Enter.
    So I entered.
    Ancient steps creaked.
    The walls and the ceiling were made of varnished wood— I’d left the main cement structure of the hotel behind. Puffs of incense wafted past. Jasmine. Pungent, like something from a temple.
    At the top of the stairwell, wood slat flooring spread twenty feet toward the open door of what must’ve been an executive suite. The room was open and spacious. Windows peered out onto the gray clouds hovering above the green of the Yellow Sea.
    The incense came from an alcove with a wooden shelf illuminated by a yellow electric bulb. A large photograph had once sat on the shelf, framed in intricately carved wood and backed by black silk. But the glass covering of the photograph lay smashed, the frame broken in two, and the photograph itself had been torn into pieces. Someone, however, had picked up the pieces and arranged them in a neat pile on the shattered glass. Whoever had piled up the shredded pieces had also taken the time to slide two new sticks of incense into a bronze burner. The wicks glowed red near the top: they’d been lit a half hour ago.
    I knelt and began to sort the torn photograph. Bits of an eye, a nose, an ear. A neatly cinched tie beneath a starched white collar. A woman’s face. Arms covered with intricately embroidered silk. As I shuffled through, I realized that she was an elderly woman with white hair, wearing an expensive chima-chogori, the traditional skirt and blouse of Korea. The man, also elderly, wore an ill-fitting Western suit.
    Ancestors. Someone’s parents or grandparents or great-grandparents.
    I set the bits of photograph down and walked into the suite’s office.
    The view startled me. A vast panorama of Inchon Harbor, suffused with the glow of sunlight. To the south, a row of half-a-dozen merchant vessels, flying the flags of various countries: Greece, Panama, the Philippines. Directly in front, five hundred yards straight out, between the Olympos Hotel and the Yellow Sea, the twelve-foot-high breakwater made of thick wooden pillars and jumbled stone. To the north, a small island surrounded by tiny fishing vessels, most without outboard motors: only bamboo masts and sails hammered from beaten straw, made for plying an ancient way of life. And beyond the island, the churning waters of the Yellow Sea. Above it all, like jealous dragons examining their domain, great storm clouds squatted on thick haunches. A few splats of rain spattered the window pane.
    I examined the office.
    Couches made of hand-carved mahogany padded with embroidered cushions. Lining the walls, blue-green celadon vases, a porcelain statuette of a fat Buddha, and red plaques slashed with aphorisms written in gold Chinese characters. Sitting in the center of the room, a flat desk made of varnished teak and an expensive-looking leather swivel chair. In front of the desk, a glass-topped coffee table with crystal ashtrays and a mother-of-pearl inlaid serving tray. This had to be the owner’s office. Couldn’t be otherwise. And those ancestors in the hallway were probably his.
    Nothing in the office seemed to be disturbed. Unlike the alcove out front.
    Behind the desk, I stepped into blood. I gawked at the puddle of red spreading to the back wall. In spots, the blood was pooled so thickly it looked like jelly on a birthday cake. Deep purple.
    I inhaled deeply, trying to fight the dizziness that suddenly overcame me. But the sweet cloying scent of blood made it worse. I held onto the edge of the desk, taking quick shallow breaths until the feeling passed. Then I stood upright.
    There was more moisture: a puddle of clear liquid pushed up against the thicker blood. I knelt and dipped my finger in and lifted it to my nose. No