Turing's Delirium

by Edmundo Paz Soldán

  But where could a cryptanalyst find work in the country in which you were unlucky enough to have been born? Emigrate to the United States? Send your résumé to the NSA? You continued studying biology, looking at codes simply as a sophisticated hobby. At times you would play with them and ask yourself whether an expert geneticist was not, in a way, also a cryptanalyst; there were secret messages in DNA too, and deciphering them would perhaps lead you to the primitive nucleus of life. But no, you preferred to work with words. You began to develop your own secret codes, irritating your friends with letters they could read but not understand.

  Everything changed as a result of the political instability. The university was closed. Montenegro was dictator, and the military was fighting a bloody battle to eradicate communism, whose revolutionary flags were sparking unrest in middle-class students, politicians, and workers. The two of you found yourselves at a loss for what to do. A cousin of Ruth's in the military, knowing your skills, offered you both work at the Dirección de Orden Político (DOP, the Office of Political Stability), which was later renamed the Servicio de Inteligencia de la Nación, the National Intelligence Service, or SIN. Albert, an American consultant from the CIA, was organizing an agency that would report to the DOP; its exclusive mission would be to intercept and decode messages from opposition parties. Ruth's cousin could arrange an interview with Albert. "You'll be providing a great service to the country," he said, twirling his long mustache. "We're surrounded by conspirators with foreign backing. We need trained people in order to face them on equal terms. We need to excise this cancer from our organization."

  You swirl your glass of whiskey—concentric circles forming on the surface—and remember that key moment in your life. Ruth had squinted her eyes and looked at you, unsure. Work for the military? For a dictatorship? It was you who convinced her: it was a job to survive, there was no need to be so righteous. "It can never be just a job to survive," she had said. "It's better to die of hunger than to work for the wrong cause." "Easy to say, but it's not a luxury we can afford right now." Ruth's next words, spoken softly, were as sharp as a knife: "Don't you believe in anything with conviction, Miguel? Do you at least believe in God?" "There's order behind chaos," was his well-thought-out reply. "There's purpose behind chance. Our mission is to search for order and purpose. If both of those words are synonymous with God, then I believe in him. That is, I believe in the possibility that one day I might find him. But don't ask me to look for him in a church."

  You asked her at least to let you meet with Albert—you wouldn't lose anything by it. Oh, how you returned from that meeting in the plaza: transformed, seduced by that handsome, blue-eyed man with long brown hair and graying beard, who was so cultured and spoke proper Spanish, his accent indefinable, somewhere between German and American. You finally convinced Ruth, and you both started to work for Montenegro's government. She didn't last long. You did. You have been working for the government ever since. You have served, without favoritism, spineless dictators and cruel ones, democratic presidents who respected the law and others quite open to breaking, by any means possible, the backbone of the unions and the opposition. To do so, you concentrated obsessively on your work without wondering about the consequences. In your eyes, the government is a great abstraction, an enormous, faceless machine. You follow orders without questioning them; your principles are those of the current administration. And this is how they have repaid your loyalty: promoting you, but in reality distancing you from the action.

  You finish your glass of whiskey, get up off the couch, and take the stairs to your room, thinking about Carla, about Flavia, about the message you received. On the wall is a wood-framed, yellowing, somewhat faded picture of all the personnel who started the Black Chamber. The photo had been Ruth's idea: all eighty of you were lined up in two rows on the stairs at the entrance. Some were looking at the camera, others to one side. Groups of five people formed one letter of a bilateral cipher code that was written by Francis Bacon in De Augmentis Scientiarum. According to that code, the combination of two letters was enough to represent all the letters in the alphabet. Thus, a was represented by aaaaa, b by aaaab, c by aaaba, arid so on. In the photo, those who were looking at the camera stood for the letter a and those who were looking to one side the letter b. The first five in the first row, from left to right: front, side, front, front, side—the letter k. Thus, the eighty of you spelled out the phrase knowledge is power.

  To the left, also in a wood frame, is a black-and-white photograph of Alan Turing; behind him is the bombe—the enormous machine he invented to defeat Enigma and that was a precursor to the computer. You stop. A little black ant is walking on the glass that covers the photo, just on Turing's cheek. You take out your handkerchief and squash it.

  You look at the ant carefully. His decapitated body is still moving. Nothing happens by chance; there is a reason for every action, even though most often that reason is hidden. What does the ant on Turing's photo mean? The impotence, the desperation at being faced with the continuous proliferation of messages around you, slides down your throat like bile. Sooner or later you will take out a knife and cleave it into the heart of the world, so that it will reveal its secrets once and for all. But no, violence is not for you. It's more likely that you'll wind up vanquishing or being vanquished by your attempts to understand the stubborn, continuous whispering of the universe.

  You put your handkerchief in your pocket and continue up the stairs.

  Thanks to Ruth, you already knew about Turing when you met Albert. You were honored when, three months after starting work at the Black Chamber, Albert decided that all of his advisers should have nicknames and he named you Turing. By that time your exceptional ability to decipher messages had made you Albert's top adviser.

  Your cell phone rings for the second time that night: they need you at the Black Chamber.

  Chapter 12

  RUTH SÁENZ KNEW the ritual by heart. She would walk into classrooms where chalk particles floated in the morning light filtering in through the windows; she would set her Argentine brown leather briefcase—survivor of taxi abandonments and sudden downpours—on the table; ignoring the handful of sleepy adolescents who were supposedly her students and who would look at her indolently, she would write the day's topics on the dark green chalkboard; she would turn around and after a few minutes of announcements, a couple of comments to lighten the mood, to make her students feel that there was nothing to fear, that they were all in it together, begin her well-practiced routine. The clicking of her heels crossing the room from left to right, her voice that started out doubtful but gained confidence, her restless hand that took every opportunity to write cryptic signs on the board.

  It has been twenty years already. She can still remember the days when not even a freckled, green-eyed student's frenzied asthma attack had derailed her. Now all it takes is for her to spy the outrageous color scheme of a student's clothing or, yesterday, the inopportune ringing of a cell phone for the next few lines of her mental paragraph to be covered by a black spot, blotting them out, erasing them.

  That day had been like so many others. She had put up with a student who was applying lipstick while she spoke of the impact that decoding the Zimmermann telegram had had on the course of World War I. With her brightest smile, she had endured the student she discovered e-mailing his girlfriend. She had ignored, to the best of her ability, the dark-haired girl who was surreptitiously doing a crossword. But now that class was coming to an end, the hallway was becoming noisy, the seats in the first row were creaking, restless, and she felt the approach of something that all her colleagues had faced but to which she had naively thought she was immune.

  "Prof, you have chalk on your back."

  "Well, that's good. It means you're at least paying attention to something."

  But she was the one who wasn't paying as much attention as usual. Class would be over at nine; just a few hours later she would be meeting with Judge Cardona. When they first spoke and s
he told him she was willing to tell him everything she knew, she hadn't been entirely sure. Slowly, she convinced herself that it was inevitable. The night before had been Miguel's last chance to accept his share of responsibility. Everything would have been different if he had. At least they would have had time to find a solution that would ease their consciences. Her conscience, she should say: all those years, giving Miguel one more chance. What had he said last night? I'm not worried. I've never shot anyone. I've never even touched anyone. I never left my office.

  It was time for her to accept that he was at peace with the past. She wasn't—thus the need to speak with Cardona, despite her anxieties and hesitations. She didn't know what it would lead to, but she was certain that she had run out of excuses. How did that quote from Dante go that she had recently read in a history book? The hottest places of hell are reserved for those who in times of moral crisis maintain their neutrality. Or something like that. Indeed.

  Ruth walked toward the window. She had asked a rhetorical question—without first-rate cryptanalysts, would the Allies have won both world wars?—and decided not to fill the silence with her own easy answers. Let them make something up, dare to explore the obvious. She brushed chalk off her purple blouse, which went well with her new black pants. Out in the patio, around the immense pepper tree that had survived more than one fire, students were patting one another on the back and making plans for the rave that weekend, exchanging telephone numbers and chatroom nicknames, maybe even passing OxyContin and Ritalin between the pages of their notebooks. Such complacency; it made one feel guilty for bothering to try to teach them anything. Didn't they know that the university would be closing at noon to avoid the blockades and protests that were being announced for that afternoon? Rio Fugitivo was falling to pieces, and it was as if they hadn't heard. What had happened to the university as a place where one questioned the system and oneself? Perhaps it was different at the state university.

  She moved away from the window. Maybe she should have done what many of her colleagues had: accept that her work didn't interest anyone else, simply devote herself to her research and make teaching secondary, a foggy, obligatory footnote. Twenty years, and all she had to show was an occasional thank-you postcard from a student who, passing through Helsinki or Aruba, for some obscure reason remembered some phrase of hers, some class, some chat during office hours.

  One of her students held up her hand. It was Elka, tall and thin, dark-haired, her features slightly Indian.

  "Without first-class cryptanalysts, the Allies would never have been able to defeat the Germans," she said. "But that supposition is just as valid as this other: with better cryptographers, the Germans would never have been defeated. There are so many factors that decide the course of a war—it's impossible for just one of them to be the deciding factor. Or one might be, just not the one we expect."

  Elka was intelligent, even though she wasn't terribly interested in showing it. She hardly ever participated in discussions, didn't try her hardest on exams. Ruth was surprised to find her voice screeching, unpleasant. Maybe that was what inhibited her? At one time Ruth had been traumatized by her crooked teeth and thin lips, as if drawn with a fine brush. Ah, the difficulties and embarrassments of the genetic code.

  "My whole class," Ruth said, walking nearer, adopting the most persuasive tone in her arsenal, "is aimed at convincing you that there is one reason that's more important than all the others. If Enigma hadn't been decoded during World War II, the war would have gone on for at least another couple of years and the outcome would have been uncertain."

  "That's easy for you to say," Elka went on, looking nervously at the tile floor speckled with gum. "Every professor thinks that his or her science has the definitive answer to a problem. They don't realize that the limits of their own discipline blind them and prevent them from seeing the forest for the trees."

  Why so aggressive? As Ruth walked toward Elka, out of the corner of her right eye she saw something that took her a moment to process. Once she finally had, the force of the impact surprised her. Gustavo, her best student—dimpled cheeks and James Dean sideburns—was oblivious of the discussion and, protected by a barrier of books on a chair, was typing industriously on his cell phone. Probably playing solitaire.

  The lyrics from a song Ruth had once sung at a karaoke came to mind: "All your yesterdays've gone to waste, All your yesterdays are tomorrow's memory of loss." She turned around, grabbed her briefcase off the table, and left the classroom, slamming the door. Her heels echoed in the hallway. She walked quickly to her office.

  A glass of water. The desire to break down in tears. She shouldn't be so impulsive. She usually wasn't. But she had been for two days in a row already. What was wrong with her? She wanted the ballet dancers that surrounded her on the walls, attentive Degas prints, to impart some of their peace to her. That's why they were there, after all. One, two, three ... The books on the shelves, the announcements for that month's concerts at the university, the blurry photo that one of her students had e-mailed from Moscow. Four, five, six ... In a metallic frame, a four-year-old Flavia playing in the garden with a toy rake, her smile wide, her expression bright—long, long before she withdrew into the shell in which she lived now. Ruth's favorite photo. Seven, eight ... Miguel in black and white, his hand over his mouth, unable to look directly at the camera. Why that irritating habit? Nine ... Yellow leaves in the plant pots; they needed watering. Ten. Her manuscript in the bottom right-hand drawer of her desk. The black book of Montenegro's dictatorship, nearly three hundred pages written in different codes.

  She took off her shoes. Degas's dancers. Maybe that should have been her world.

  A knock at the door. She wanted to shout, "No one's here!" Her good manners got the better of her.

  It was Gustavo.

  "Professor, I'm so sorry." His hands behind his back, as if hiding a knife. "It wasn't my inten—"

  "I should have thrown it on the floor."

  "It's nothing personal. Your classes are the most bearable, by far. It's the semester. By this point, all we can think about is summer holidays."

  "At least you're honest."

  "You know I love your class." His gaze was remorseful. "The topic is incredible—it's made me look at world history differently."

  "What was on your cell phone that couldn't wait a few more minutes?"

  "Battleship with my girlfriend in her statistics class."

  "At least I'm not the only one."

  "It has to do with your class. The German ships are sunk because the Allies have found the code. How do you keep the Germans from finding out that the Allies know, or might know, all their secrets? Knowing too much can be counterproductive."

  "It usually is. Don't do it. Don't do it again. Please." Ruth shook her head in a gesture of defeat or exhaustion.

  She prayed she would feel more optimistic when she saw Judge Cardona. She had to be able to maintain the conviction of her principles, latent for so many decades; her words had to be able to obey her ideas and wishes. All she wanted was to live up to the image she had once had of herself.

  Chapter 13

  THE WOMAN HAS JUST LEFT. Her high heels still echo in the hallway, harbingers of bad luck. In the dark room, seated on the wicker chair from which he conducted their conversation, Judge Cardona believes he has achieved an important victory. He scratches his right cheek, as if his nails might be able to make the spots disappear. He lights a cigarette and smokes it indolently, letting the ash fall onto the red paisley carpet. He is drinking a beer out of the bottle. Some of it drips onto his shirt. In his hands is the tape recorder. Victory? Pathetic moments, really, when the world becomes heavier. Pathetic as it is, it's a victory all the same. The vigil is embellished by sudden fury. He looks for the BMP in his briefcase. For months now he has been addicted to Bolivian marching powder. What a name. The world has always been devoid of sensation, is unable to stimulate him on its own. He needs chemicals to feel alive. He has tried other drugs—coca
ine, heroin—but nothing has produced the euphoria that BMP does. When he first discovered it, he was drowning in indolence; not even the memory of his cousin meant much. A friend who was an LAB flight engineer passed him a couple of tablets at a party. He threw up in the elevator, but then his easily tired eyelids stayed open until the soft morning light; he wound up asleep in a bar at eight o'clock in the morning, his face in what was left of his fricassee. A powerful ex-minister of justice for Montenegro and all. What would the papers have said if a photographer had captured a moment like that? He hasn't given up BMP since then. He crushes two tablets, rubs the powder on his gums, and lies down on the bed.

  The television is on. The Coalition's blockade was sporadic throughout the morning. It is now two-thirty on a Thursday afternoon, people are heading to the plaza, and neighborhood committees are beginning to protest. Soldiers are posted at strategic bridges and gas stations. He changes the channel, muting the volume: images of a bomb exploding at a nightclub in Bogotá. The news—as abusive as the excess of scandalous news is—works well, but his best BMP experiences have been while watching cartoons, especially Road Runner; the coyote's complete lack of common sense and his relentless persistence are ideal for the drug. This time, however, he would rather turn off the television. He rewinds the cassette. The agitated voice of the woman, whom he had known just how to steer to the best fishing grounds, would go well with BMP. Information that reveals broad tracts of his past is there, captured on tape. He can amplify that voice or turn it down; the tape is elastic and, with its continuous hiss, is willing to help bring what happened back to life. Perhaps now a small step can start him on the path to rebuilding his life.