‘By the way, we called her Eve!’ I interjected.
Ignoring me, she went on to relate how eleven years ago she and Eve had received that extraordinary first summons from Kosti and had congregated at his lab, where to their astonishment they received their first dispatches from Eva and Iris. She described their disbelief on discovering that in another now – ours – Wall Street and the same clueless oligarchy remained in full control. Saddened and perplexed, they corresponded with their counterparts until, one day in November 2025, Kosti informed them that the wormhole had suddenly expanded and that the Other Costa had made a surprise visit.
‘As soon as I heard, I dropped everything I was doing to go to Costa’s – or rather Kosti’s – lab to admire this so-called wormtunnel with my own eyes. Who should I find there but Eva – or Eve, if you insist – who had also been summoned. I should have guessed something else was afoot because Mari and Cleo were there too. While I was admiring the wormtunnel’s pitch-black beauty, this Costa,’ she said pointing to my friend, ‘appears through it, scaring the living daylights out of me. Moments later, it’s Eva’s turn to be stunned as her strange-looking clone walks out of the wormtunnel, holding on to a young man – Thomas, I presumed. While the two Evas, Thomas, Cleo and Mari went next door to talk about goodness knows what, I was left in the lab with my two Costas. That’s when this one,’ pointing again at Costa, ‘dropped the bomb that he had only crossed over as a ruse – apparently to get your Eva and her Thomas to follow him – and that he was going straight back to destroy his lab. True to his word, after coolly saying goodbye to my Costa, he looked at me, grinned and walked calmly into the void. Without thinking,’ she concluded, ‘I just followed him. When moments later I appeared unannounced in his lab, he looked cross but said nothing. After inspecting his instruments for a few minutes, he looked at me again to say that we had just made it – the wormhole had vanished.’
‘But why? Why on earth would you do that?’ I asked her.
‘Surely if there is one thing you know about me, Yango,’ she replied cheerfully, ‘it is that I am a dissident. There was nothing for me on the other side to dissent from except their political correctness and smugness at having created the perfect society. All it took was one look at this man,’ she said, pointing at my dishevelled friend, ‘and I knew what I had to do – that I was more useful here.’
Costa had not been sure, she explained further, how to deal with her sudden arrival in his lab but had insisted that she hide there until after her counterpart had left for the airport. Then together they hatched a plan. They agreed that she would keep a low profile, that they would tell the other Iris nothing and that they would go about their lives separately. Costa gave her a sizeable sum of money and organized paperwork for her. She adopted a different name and a different identity: Catherine Beaumont, a retired professor from some community college in Austin, Texas. They had stayed in touch, infrequently and carefully, to ensure the other was OK, but since Costa moved to England, they had hardly seen each other at all until now.
‘Do you regret crossing over?’ I asked.
‘Hell no!’ she replied with a tinge of American accent. ‘This Now, my dear Yango, your abhorrent Technofeudalism, is my natural habitat – it’s so bloody awful that I feel alive and usefully dangerous. Having experienced the OC rebellion and seen the institutions it created, I am more confident over here than anyone I know when lambasting the stupidity of the ruling class and its system. It is far easier to subvert them here, let me tell you!’
As she was telling her story, Costa had quietly excused himself to go to the ‘restroom’. Through the window, I now caught sight of him outside the teashop, putting his helmet on, preparing for yet another disappearing act on his motorbike. She was not surprised. ‘That’s Costa for you,’ she said. ‘Drifting is now his way of being, a dreadful fact we must learn to respect.’
I nodded and in the brief silence that ensued took a good look at her. For the first time, I felt able to focus on her face without panicking about my mental equilibrium.
She looked back into my eyes, smiled, held my right hand in both of hers, and asked, ‘And how are you, Yango?’
‘Better than in many, many years, Iris,’ I replied.
I was looking forward to the start of a brilliant old friendship.
Yango Varo, a few minutes before midnight
Saturday 28 July 2036
YANIS VAROUFAKIS is the author of the international bestseller Talking to My Daughter: A Brief History of Capitalism and two previous books, Adults in the Room, a memoir of his time as finance minister of Greece, and an economic history of Europe, And the Weak Suffer What They Must? Born in Athens in 1961, Yanis Varoufakis was for many years a professor of economics in England, Australia, and the United States before he entered politics. He is co-founder of the international grassroots movement DiEM25, and in 2019 won election as its leader in the Greek parliament. He is currently professor of economics at the University of Athens. yanisvaroufakis.eu / @yanisvaroufakis
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