The History Mystery

by Ana Maria Machado

  ‘Or at least with a ready-made chemistry project,’ joked Sonia. She was feeling a bit nervous, and she was trying to cover up. ‘We have to hand in our paper to Ms Nancy next week, remember? Just as Matt suggested back on that very first day, when Mr Costa gave us such a good grade for our history project.’

  But the boys didn’t find this very funny, so Sonia decided to keep her mouth shut from now on.

  They tried for hours, the three of them in front of the computer monitor. They overcame many obstacles. They came to the tower of the wizard with his pointy hat – without any stars or magic wand. But this time the wizard’s assistant did not show up.

  It was a huge disappointment. They had all been sure that something was going to happen, but nothing did.

  The day would have been a total waste, only that when she arrived home that night Sonia found a printed sheet of paper on the desk, next to a brief note in Andrea’s handwriting.

  Unfortunately, Pedro was no longer with her. They had said goodbye outside her building and he had already left. And he had no mobile phone.

  Sonia read what was written on the two pieces of paper over and over again while she waited for Pedro to get home so that she could talk to him on the landline.

  The note from Andrea said:

  Sonia,

  I talked to Colin and he sent this copy of the contaminated message for Pedro. Anyway, he wants Pedro to call him, because he also wants to investigate this computer virus thing.

  All the best,

  Andrea

  On the other sheet was a much longer message. Sonia read it once, then she read it again, paying close attention.

  She closed her eyes to think. The language it used was so weird, some bits were hard to understand. She really needed to read it more than twice.

  Trading the safety of the closed seas for the amplitude of the surrounding ocean, after a few nights we started to perceive the Polar Star drowning in the horizon. After maintaining the course for a few days further, I reached for the first time your gracious lands. Others had already arrived in these parts, and about their finds I had read extensively. But none such reading had prepared this notary for the beauty of your coast, reaching wide as far as the eye could see. Nor for the great barriers it boasts along the sea in some parts – sometimes white, others red, with the earth above covered by trees – nor for its white beaches, ripe with tall palm trees and infinite waters.

  I appreciated it so and learned to admire the loveliness and goodness of your people with such strength that I continued to visit you throughout the centuries, even if rarely noticed by anyone. Or, on the rare occasion in which such a risk occurred, I have always succeeded so that the encounter presented itself as a dream, delirium or fantasy, as was required of my difficult condition. It has only been in these more recent times, faced with the unexpected possibilities of what you call the ‘new technologies’, that I have occasionally succumbed to the temptation of breaking the ropes that bind me and making rapid visits to some of you, with much caution and prudence.

  In previous times, the captain of a vessel would occasionally order a few of their crew to descend among the inhabitants of the land, to note how they lived and discover from them all that could be discovered, even if the languages spoken were not the same. I feel now as if I am acting as such.

  Today, however, as I perceived in your writings a reference to the job of notary, I came to the realisation that we are brothers in office, and that this may per fortune bring us together. If such a thing comes to occur, this notary officer, now a Christian, will find immense satisfaction on the path to redemption, and shall pray in grace to the Lord Our Saviour, who commences to free him of his millennial condemnation.

  Vasco Manoel Coutinho

  Pedro listened while Sonia read him the message over the phone.

  When she had finished, all he said was, ‘Wow! Could you read it again, please?’

  So she read it again, and by now Pedro was really interested.

  ‘That’s mad! Another one! And it’s signed! He says he’s a notary – some kind of lawyer, I suppose. It sounds like he’s one of the first Europeans to discover the Americas, don’t you think? That stuff about “your gracious lands”?’

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ said Sonia, ‘but then there’s all that other stuff about computers and so on. Weird.’

  ‘With so many messages coming, our man’s got to have slipped up some time; we just need to find out when and where.’

  ‘But how do we do that?’

  ‘I don’t know, Sonia. But we have to find a clue. I’m not going to ask you to read it again, that’d be a bit much. But I’m really starting to feel that we’re going to be able to work this out.’

  ‘Do you have a fax machine at home?’ asked Sonia. ‘Because I could fax it to you and then you can read it as many times as you like.’

  ‘No, I don’t. But why don’t you just scan it and email it to me.’

  ‘We haven’t got a scanner here. I could scan it in my dad’s office, but not until Monday.’

  ‘That’s no use. If we have to wait until Monday, you might as well give it to me yourself at school.’

  The message wasn’t all that long, Sonia thought. She could type it up and email it to him.

  She was just about to say that, when Pedro said, ‘I think I’ll come over to your place tomorrow and take a look. Would that be OK? Or are you sick of me after spending a whole Saturday together?’

  Was it OK? Of course it was! Two days in a row with Pedro all to herself, and at the weekend too. She really seemed to be in luck. In a way, the Brainy Hacker was playing Cupid. These pranks were helping to bring Pedro close to her.

  ‘Yeah, that’s all right,’ she said, trying not to sound too enthusiastic. ‘That way, we can compare all the stuff we’ve already got from this guy, and we’ll definitely come up with a clue. It’s just a matter of strategy.’

  And of luck, she thought. Lots of luck.

  7 – Message in a Bottle

  Sonia and Pedro spent a good part of Sunday morning organising the information they already had about the Brainy Hacker. They not only worked on what he (or she) had left by way of the weird messages, but they also made a summary of what they remembered from the other appearance that hadn’t left a printed record. They read it all over and over and made lots of notes, using up piles of scrap paper.

  They only interrupted their work for lunch, which was a fantastic Sunday spaghetti dish cooked by Sonia’s Italian grandmother. The tomato sauce had been left cooking over a low heat since morning, filling the house with a tempting smell that made it harder and harder for the kids to concentrate as the clock moved forward and their stomachs told them it was time to eat.

  ‘You’re staying to lunch with us, Pedro, right?’ said Mrs D’Angelo hospitably. ‘I’m going to set an extra place at the table.’

  ‘Nonna’s food is amazing,’ said Sonia.

  There was no need to insist. Pedro had heard of her famous spaghetti, even though he’d never tasted it. And the delicious smell was irresistible.

  ‘I didn’t tell my mum I was staying out for lunch,’ said Pedro. ‘But yes, I’ll stay, thank you. I just need to phone home and let them know.’

  When he hung up the phone, he asked, ‘Is it alright if I use your phone again? My mum says there’s an urgent message for me. Apparently, Matt has called my house three times already. If he has spent his Sunday morning calling me, something must have happened.’

  Something certainly had. A new attack from the Brainy Hacker.

  By now, almost all the friends had been exchanging ideas and impressions about the joker’s activities. All except for Faye, who was too scatterbrained (or at least that’s what they all thought), and Matt, who had heard all the stories but never had anything to tell. To be honest, he was starting to feel a bit jealous that nobody had sent him any mysterious messages. He was also slightly anxious that his friends would start thinking he might be to blame for what was
happening. After all, if he was the only one who wasn’t getting these weird messages, that made him a natural suspect.

  That was why he got so excited when he joined the club: he had finally got a message. This was what he wanted to tell Pedro so urgently, why he’d made all those phone calls, as the other two soon found out.

  ‘Now the guy says he’s a priest, Pedro! Can you imagine?’

  ‘No, I can’t imagine,’ answered Pedro. ‘You couldn’t make this stuff up. Did you manage to print out the message?’

  ‘Of course!’ said Matt. ‘After everything you have been saying, how could I let this pass? I printed everything out. I’ve got the page right here in my hand. Want me to read it out for you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Matt read it, and then Pedro asked Matt to email the document to him.

  By now, Carol had got interested in all this as well. It really bugged Sonia, but her younger sister wouldn’t go away, so there the three of them were, all curiosity, standing around the computer. Sure enough, the message came through, and soon they were reading on the screen:

  Although you have an evangelist’s name, you do not seem to apply yourself much to the written word, which is a shame. Especially during an epoch in which there is such ease to learn to read.

  There were times when almost all people in a society were illiterate. Only a few had access to written pages. Books were rare and precious, and none but the very rich could afford to own them. It is no wonder that it was so, as each volume demanded painstaking and intensive work from all of us, who dedicated ourselves to copying so that the texts could multiply and perpetuate themselves.

  In the West, in monasteries such as the one where my companions and I worked in our scriptorium in teams of five at a time, only the Church and the universities could claim to gather people skilled in reading and writing. Even kings and emperors were illiterate.

  Fortunately, I had the opportunity, years later, to experience different realities. Even when fate brought me to your continent centuries later, as a member of the Jesuit company, so many among us had this skill that we even managed to assemble a small compilation of the vocabulary of the peoples found on these shores.

  The written word of some of my companions managed to reach a larger extension, to go beyond the immediate surroundings and the people who were close to them and defend poor locations from the cruelty and evildoings of those who thought only of enslaving them, as if they were not human and had no soul. In a way, this written word had an effect, by influencing our society so that it would not accept that the peoples found in the New World were reduced to captivity and treated as animals. However, such protection ultimately directed the cruelty to other peoples, and the sad fate of slavery fell upon the shoulders of our African brothers, who were for centuries victims of this atrocity.

  Therefore, one cannot help observing that humanity only walks in slow and short steps, on a path with abundant setbacks and detours. Even if sometimes one has the impression that there have been improvements, we are soon obliged to note melancholically that there are other aspects to consider.

  At any rate, it seems doubtless that without the transmission of wisdom and knowledge from other generations through the art of the written word, our situation would look grimmer still. Each individual would be forced to start from the beginning and reinvent it all. And Our Lord’s work would move in circles, condemned to repetition throughout the centuries, as the pagans would tell with the story of poor Sisyphus.

  As this poor scribe who, try as he might, can never succeed in finding a kind soul to free him from his sorrows, woe is me!

  It ended just like that. Suddenly. No goodbyes. They rang Matt again, asking if there was anything missing. There wasn’t, he said. But he couldn’t contain his excitement any more and wanted to meet them.

  ‘Can I come over?’ he pleaded.

  Of course he could. Soon they were all gathered, rereading the printouts of the message that Matt brought for everyone.

  ‘Hey, you know what? There’s something new here!’ said Pedro, as he finished reading the message again.

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Matt. ‘Do you know this priest?’

  ‘No, that’s not it. But look: he repeats a lot of the stuff he already said before, in the other messages. He makes a big deal about writing, says he’s all proud that he’s one of the few who knew how to read and write, stuff like that.’

  ‘He always says that,’ Sonya interjected. ‘That’s not new, Pedro.’

  ‘No, you’re right, that’s not the new bit.’

  She did like Pedro, but sometimes she wished he didn’t have to go round and round when he was talking. She sighed inwardly and waited.

  ‘What’s different this time is that he is quite clear about living in different centuries. See, in the second paragraph, he says “in monasteries such as the one where my companions and I worked in our scriptorium …” A scriptorium is where medieval monks made their manuscripts, so that’s the Middle Ages, right?’

  The others nodded.

  ‘And then, look, later it says, “Even when fate brought me to your continent, centuries later, as a member of the Jesuit company …” So now he’s a Jesuit missionary to the Americas, and he even says “centuries later”. That’s what’s new, Sonia. He is specifically saying he has lived in different times. It’s a bit like what the wizard’s assistant was saying before, but this time it’s much clearer.’

  Sonia had to agree.

  ‘What about this Sisyphus person?’ asked Matt. ‘Do you know anything about him?’

  ‘I do,’ said Sonia. ‘I’ve heard of him. My grandpa was talking about him the other day. It’s a Greek myth, I think, and it’s about a man who was condemned to push a huge rock uphill for all eternity. I don’t know why, but I remember that as soon as he arrived on the top and stopped to rest, the rock would roll downhill and he had to do it all over again.’

  ‘Listen, Matt,’ Pedro said. ‘Before I talked to you, Sonia and I were making a list of the things that we have gathered from all the messages.’

  ‘Show him the list,’ suggested Sonia, and they showed it to him.

  • It’s someone who’s proud of knowing how to read and write.

  • It’s set in a different place and time in each message.

  • His grammar is pretty mixed up.

  • He writes in an old-fashioned style, but the text arrives by computer.

  • Changes sex.

  ‘Wait, I don’t get it,’ said Matt. ‘What do you mean, “changes sex”?’

  ‘Oh, yeah, right, we didn’t explain that,’ said Sonia. ‘What we meant was that sometimes the hacker says they’re a woman: an Egyptian queen, a merchant’s wife, whatever … But at other times they write as if they’re a man.’

  ‘This priest, or the notary from the ship, for instance,’ Pedro recalled. ‘Or the alchemist’s assistant. And Marco Polo.’

  ‘What assistant?’ asked Matt, feeling a bit left out of secrets the others seemed to be in on. ‘What alchemist? What notary? What are you talking about?’

  ‘You should explain it to him properly,’ said Carol. ‘You can’t expect him to guess!’

  She was right, of course. A lot of the messages Pedro had mentioned were very recent. They’d only come in over the weekend. He and Sonia hadn’t had a chance to tell the others yet.

  ‘Well, the alchemist’s assistant is this wizard who appeared in the middle of Will’s computer game and started writing on the screen, but he didn’t leave a written message, because Will closed it,’ Pedro began. ‘The notary guy is new too – we only heard from him last night.’

  Matt was obviously putting all the pieces together in his head as he read the messages and listened to what Sonia and Pedro were telling him, and at last he said, ‘I think we can add something to that list of yours.’

  ‘What?’ asked the other two together.

  ‘I’m not exactly sure – I can’t explain it properly. But I get the impression t
his guy’s asking for help. And I feel like helping him.’

  ‘Help?’ asked Sonia, puzzled. ‘Who? The hacker? You mean this person wants to turn us into accomplices or something?’

  ‘Hey, listen,’ said Pedro, ‘hacking into other people’s computers is a crime: we could go to jail for that. You can count me out.’

  Matt didn’t know what they were talking about.

  ‘I’ll tell you what I’m thinking,’ said Pedro. ‘This is clearly not a virus, but a hacker, right?’

  Matt agreed that it did look like that.

  ‘We’re dealing with someone smart and competent,’ said Pedro, ‘someone who’s really good with computers, someone who knows his history and uses that as a kind of disguise. He changes what he says depending on who he’s talking to. He moves from ancient Egypt to Babylon to Medieval times to the time of the explorers, and so on. And he or she takes on the character of a queen, an alchemist, a scribe, a priest, a merchant …’

  ‘We think this person knows us pretty well,’ Sonia added, ‘because he is able to pick up on what we are thinking or working on.’

  ‘This last message to you, Matt,’ said Pedro, ‘mentions your name being the same as one of the Evangelists. Those were the people who wrote the gospels, and one of them was Matthew. That’s pretty personal, right? This guy really does know us.’

  ‘Or he can read thoughts,’ suggested Carol, but nobody took any notice of her.

  Pedro continued. ‘These weird messages look like some kind of joke or game. But it may not be a game at all. The way I see it, this is a way of marking territory, of showing that someone has been there and has left a trail. That’s what hackers do. We still don’t know who it is, or why they’re doing it, or why we were chosen – or if perhaps this is happening also to other people out there, but we haven’t heard about it.

  ‘The thing is, this might be serious. And I hate to keep saying this, but hacking is a crime, and I really don’t like the idea of getting mixed up with a hacker.’

  The others stayed silent, thinking.

  ‘I mean,’ Pedro went on after a while, ‘what if the guy breaks into a bank system and steals a load of money? Or hacks into some government stuff, destroys a security system? He could do anything. Stuff we can’t even imagine. People could get hurt, you know?’