The Cusanus Game

  “The Americans have always had a somewhat problematic relationship to reality.”

  “Yes, because they confuse reality with their way of life. Their worldview has been influenced more by the wishful and anxious fantasies served to them by Hollywood than by the facts of the reality in which they live—to say nothing of the reality of the world outside the United States.”

  I thought of Sarah. “That’s not completely true, Ernesto.”

  He waved dismissively. “I know, there are exceptions. Especially among the scientists, but most of them, above all the politicians, really do seem to live in another universe.”

  “Do you have any idea why the Rinascita Institute wants to send us through the Amsterdam tunnel?”

  “That I can tell you. First of all, it extends farther into the past; secondly, they have the most experience there with trips; and thirdly, it’s the best developed. That is, they’ve stationed their own people along the route, who can help the travelers if they run into trouble.”

  “Which is not the case here in Venice.”

  “In more recent times, it is, but the tunnel construction into the sixteenth century is dragging on. Frans can certainly tell you something about that.”

  “But he doesn’t. That’s why I’m asking you.”

  Ernesto smiled, flattered. “Well, this is how it is: Here in Venice they have a few well-documented places. Such as San Francesco della Vigna. They know quite precisely what changes in the courtyard of the monastery from week to week, sometimes even from day to day. All the details are stored and can be retrieved and holographed as needed. That allows a precise targeting, of course. The traveler arrives at the aimed-for point in time—to the week, even to the day. But the whole thing has one serious drawback: Incredible amounts of data must be stored. The position of every stone someone heedlessly plunked down in the monastery courtyard, every board that was leaned against the wall, every tool a tradesman forgot somewhere in the area—everything must be documented and retrievable in order to construct the simulation in the studio. You understand?”

  “Yes, I understand.”

  “In Amsterdam they can do that with considerably greater ease, especially when it comes to the simulation of a medieval scene. The southern shore of the Zuiderzee was a godforsaken area into the late sixteenth century. Hunters wading around in the mud in search of ducks, occasionally a fisherman inspecting his traps, now and then a few peasants cutting fresh reeds for the roofs of their houses. Otherwise not a soul far and wide. There you can tunnel to your heart’s content, of course. But there’s also a disadvantage: It’s immensely difficult to aim. It can even happen that the traveler is dropped off a year earlier or later.” Suddenly his ICom chirped. “Excuse me,” he said, then stood up and went to the window to carry on a conversation in a low voice.

  The institute’s cafeteria was on the second floor of the old wing, where there were real windows. Beyond the Fondamenta Nuove, San Michele could be made out, looming closer in the clear autumn midday light. The cypresses stood like a cordon along the southern enclosing wall, as if they had to guard the dead and prevent them from breaking out again at night.

  Ernesto brought back two espressos from the vending machine when he returned to the table. The brown sludge smelled disgusting, as always at the institute. Why did people put up with that? Were they so accustomed to simulations that they no longer even recognized the smell and taste of real coffee?

  We work on real reality—don’t make me laugh!

  “Thanks,” I said. “So you’ve stored the past on a computer, if I understood that correctly.”

  “Not exactly,” he replied. “More along the lines of … well, how your life is stored in the photos that have been taken of you since your earliest childhood. Those photos are the tunnel.”

  He scratched the sugar out of the paper cup and licked off the plastic spoon.

  “The pictures that you need are brought back for you by the travelers.”

  “Exactly. No photos, of course—at most a charcoal or red chalk drawing. The transition won’t work if you try to take a camera with you into the past, because that could possibly change the world.”

  “Change the world? I keep hearing that. What does that mean?”

  Ernesto sighed. “Yes. That’s the way it is. New parallel universes are constantly arising. Saint Everett help us. You’ll learn all this for yourself before you’re sent off.”

  “And who determines what gets through as luggage and what doesn’t?” I asked.

  “No one knows exactly. Falcotti would probably say that God ordains it. Professor Auerbach from the CIA thinks it’s a sort of supercomputer with a self-preservation program of the future that decides. But it was soon discovered that there is in any case an iron law: No technical artifact can be transported toward the past, lest anachronisms occur. No cameras, no modern weapons, not even details of clothing such as snap buttons or zippers.”

  “The future of the universe hinges on snap buttons and zippers? You must be kidding.”

  “I’m afraid not, as experience has shown. We are reliant, and indeed exclusively, on what the travelers can transport in here.” He tapped his temple.

  I nodded and discreetly pushed aside the cup of coffee, which had gotten cold.

  “It works like this: Take Amsterdam, for example. A traveler returns from the end of the tunnel. Together with the visualists he constructs an image of what he saw in the year twelve so-and-so—that’s how far the people from the CIA have ventured by now. He travels once again, carefully seeks contact with inhabitants of that time and inquires: Was a tree cut down near here last winter? Where exactly? Aha. That hut over there, it’s new, isn’t it? Since when has it been there? It was built last autumn? Have there been any other changes here? No? With that information he returns. The simulation is reworked. The tree is restored to its place, the new hut removed. And again the journey is taken to the thirteenth century. Indeed! There stands the old tree; the hut, on the other hand, not yet. Another half a year done. Next jump … That’s the job of the tunnel diggers, Domenica. In that way they burrow farther and farther. Sometimes it goes faster, sometimes slower. Sometimes they manage forty or fifty years per year. And eventually the Amsterdam people will stumble on a sign that says: Day of Creation. End of the road.”

  Ernesto chuckled, folded his arms behind his almost bald head, and stretched his long legs out in front of him.

  “I didn’t imagine it being so arduous.”

  “Arduous? That’s child’s play! Here in Venice it’s arduous. There were years when they barely managed to advance another month into the past. In a whole year! That’s real backbreaking work. The visualists are often in complete despair, there are so many details to take into account. It’s a constant back and forth.”

  “But I haven’t gotten that impression at all.”

  “You mean because of Frans?”—He gave a wave of his hand—“That can happen. A question of accuracy of aim. Don’t worry.”

  “Damn it! Everyone here tells me not to worry, but the more I delve into the technical principles, the more my head spins at the thought of what thin ice you’re all treading on.”

  Ernesto puffed out his cheeks and nervously rubbed his forehead below his receding hairline.

  “I don’t deny that there’s still a lot to do.”

  “Just that you’re sitting comfortably in a chair in front of your monitor in the control room while Frans creeps around the sixteenth century and risks his neck.”

  “The travelers need us. Have to be able to rely on us.”

  “That’s certainly clear. And I hope you do a good job, Ernesto.”

  * * *

  FOR DAYS I avoided the studio. I didn’t want to see the image of the simulation anymore. It paralyzed me, for it hadn’t changed for twenty-three days. Then I ventured there again after all and cast a glance into the shadows of the cloister. Nothing. Not the slightest movement. In the control room a solitary technician was listening motio
nlessly to the whispering of his cranial implant.

  “Has he ever been gone this long before?” I asked Kazuichi.

  “Yeah, yeah,” he declared, smiling. “He’s been gone for a whole month before. The return trip didn’t work right away because he had something bulky with him.”

  “Something bulky?”

  “Copies of building plans for some palazzo. I don’t remember which it was.”

  “Do you think that this time too he…?”

  “No, no. He’s had a lot of experience since then,” Kazuichi tried to reassure me.

  * * *

  THIRTY DAYS HAD now gone by and four more solitons had passed through heading upward, I heard, but none of them released the courtyard of San Francesco from its stasis. It seemed to me as if Kazuichi looked somewhat worried. That Japanese man’s expression was so hard to read.

  Any number of things could have happened to Frans. I had questioned my Scarabeo about 1572. What an unquiet and dangerous time! In the Arsenale there had been a fire in June of 1569. Four almost-finished galleys went missing; more than a dozen ships were damaged. Arson was suspected; a heightened state of alert was decreed. An eye was kept above all on strangers roaming around in the vicinity. In 1570 Cyprus was lost. The humiliation of Famagosta still inflamed passions. After being betrayed and captured, Marcantonio Bragadin, who had audaciously led the defense of the besieged city, was publicly flayed by the Ottomans. In the meantime, satisfaction had been attained and the disgrace avenged at Lepanto by sinking the Ottoman fleet, but the foreboding that this might have been the last stroke of the paw of the lion of San Marco and the star was irrevocably sinking nonetheless spread a sense of nervousness and insecurity. The Signoria resorted to a policy of “bilancia,” of subtle balance. A shameful policy of rotten compromises with the Sublime Porte, said many patriots. “The powers that be in the Palazzo Ducale bow and scrape as if our fleet had been defeated at Lepanto,” they murmured, watching with mistrust the coming and going of the papal and imperial delegations, which haggled for money and support, reasserted claims to power, and strove to increase their influence—attracted like hyenas scenting the approaching death of a fat prey. The city was teeming with spies, informants, and denouncers, snooping around on the squares and in the palazzi, in the taverns and the brothels, and the judges in the Purgatorio and the Inferno made short work of anyone on whom even the shadow of a suspicion fell.

  How easily Frans, as a stranger, could get caught between the millstones, when so many inhabitants of the time were ground between them. Spies were executed by the sword. Or had they been hanged? Broken on the wheel? Drowned? Or simply left to waste away in the lead chambers?

  I slept badly.

  * * *

  LUIGI HAD A surprise for me. He reported a positive change in my account balance. A five-thousand-euro “monthly training grant,” retroactively effective as of July. The money had been transferred by a company named Timelink Manpower in The Hague via Banca Ambrosiana, which had been resurrected as if by a miracle under Paul VII. I had a twenty-five-thousand-euro fortune in my account! Nothing like that had ever happened to me before in my whole life!

  “Shall I invest it for you?” Luigi asked helpfully.

  “You can do what you want with it, just don’t squander it.”

  “I’ll manage it for you, Domenica. But we have to save and submit an authorization.”

  “You’re getting on my nerves.”

  “I’m sorry, but it is my duty to call your attention to this.”

  “Take me out to eat instead.”

  “You mean you would like me to make a reservation for you?”

  “Yes, and a date with all the Romans who are still here. My treat.”

  “Incidentally, an invitation has arrived.”

  “From whom?”

  “From Ernesto Caputi. He is taking his leave.”

  * * *

  ERNESTO WAS TO depart for Amsterdam on December 12. He would receive his further training there at the Hendrik Casimir Institute, the former workplace of the legendary Hla Thilawuntha from Burma.

  “I’m looking forward to it,” said Ernesto, his eyes shining.

  “There’s no missing that,” Renata mocked.

  Ernesto looked around blankly as we all laughed, and then he laughed with us.

  He had invited us to a good-bye meal at the Madonna, an old restaurant rich in tradition on a covered side street southwest of the Rialto Bridge. It consisted of a dozen interconnected dining rooms and exuded an intimate ambiance.

  The fish soup was excellent, as was the orate, and the house wine, a dry Prosecco from Valdobbiadene, was top quality. Still, things never really livened up. Perhaps I was to blame for that, because I had infected all of them with my worries and my gloom. But Marcello too was gazing sadly at his plate and had scarcely said a word.

  “What’s the matter, Marcello?” I asked. “I’ve never seen you like this.”

  “His hormones are a bit off-kilter,” Renata interjected. “I think we’d better leave him alone.”

  “Is he in love?” I asked.

  “He’s always in love. No, he’s fallen into the hands of the doctors. They’re adapting him for the eighteenth century. They’ve injected him with buckyballs full of nanos—that affects his spirits.”

  Marcello gave me a suffering look with his dark eyes.

  “That lies in store for the two of us as well,” Renata declared.

  Ernesto didn’t let anything interfere with his excited mood. He had blissfulness in his eyes and beads of sweat on his forehead below his receding hairline as he raved about “CIA Mission Control,” which could oversee the activities of two dozen time travelers at the same time.

  “Hey,” said Renata, “keep your feet on the ground! You watch freeriders jump onto a train passing through and hope they catch a train coming in the opposite direction that will eventually bring them back.”

  “Well, that’s not exactly true,” replied Ernesto. “Professor Ishida is just prone to little jokes like that. Isn’t that right?”

  He looked at Kazuichi in search of support, but he only grinned inscrutably.

  “That’s true,” I said. “You’ll never believe how funny I find those little jokes.”

  “Okay, stop,” said Renata. “It’s my fault. I was talking nonsense. Forgive me. It’s his party.”

  She gestured with a nod to Ernesto, who was looking somewhat uncomprehendingly from one face to another.

  “Let’s hear it for Mission Control!” I exclaimed, draining my glass—and then another … and a few more.

  I didn’t recall exactly how we had gotten home. I could remember only the dense fog, deserted streets, and pools of light on damp cobblestones. And that, giggling, we had puzzled over Kazuichi’s compass finger, but couldn’t make sense of its directions, because the Japanese man was just as drunk as the rest of us. Ultimately, we had gotten lost and, staggering arm in arm, stared aghast from a narrow step into the black water of a canal that had suddenly opened up in front of us. We had come within a hairsbreadth of stumbling into it.

  * * *

  DECEMBER 18. FRANS still had not returned. For thirty-two days he had now been away.

  That morning I had brought Renata to the train station. She was traveling via Milano, Domodossola, Bern, Basel, and Cologne to Amsterdam, because she was with certainty on the wanted lists stored in the Austrians’ computers. Somewhere in a train station, in a pedestrian passage, or on a busy square, one of the ubiquitous surveillance cameras would be able to identify her face in the crowd and trigger an alarm.

  We took the vaporetto to Santa Lucia. It was a clear morning. The colors of the faiences on the facades of the elegant palazzi along the Canal Grande gleamed in the rising sun. The gold in the frescos glowed, faces of saints came to life, eyes unexpectedly returned the viewer’s gaze. But the signs of decay, of shabbiness and decline, were unmistakable in the unsparing light of the still-low sun.

  In the large glassed-in c
afeteria of the train station was a noisy school class. About thirty twelve-to-fourteen-year-olds in ugly ocher school uniforms with red piping were flopped, slouching, on the benches, waiting for their departure. The obligatory Venice trip was over. Anoraks and caps were piled on the floor. Smart travel bags lay in a group like a herd of garishly colored seals, huddled together anxiously in an unfamiliar environment. Their chips were programmed onto the IComs of their owners, so that they could not get lost or be forgotten. They began to move halfheartedly whenever their owners changed seats or went to one of the kiosks. Almost all the schoolchildren wore sensoelectronic BioPets on their chests or their upper arms, where they clung, whimpering and begging their masters for food and affection. But like all sentient beings they had to bear the torments that their merciless gods inflicted on them.

  Some of the boys and girls had interconnected their game modules into small holovid arenas in which they pitted animals against each other. King Kongs, Godzillas, giant scorpions, roaring brontosauruses reared up and stomped toward each other. Cherry-red fountains sprayed into nothingness; severed body parts whirled away and disappeared on the periphery. It smelled like warm blood.

  “Always the same cruel crap,” Renata said crossly.

  The rudimentary AIs of the pets panicked. The half-creatures wriggled, tugged, and screamed in utter confusion. I watched with fascination. Emotions escalated. Some travelers turned to the schoolchildren and scolded them. The saleswomen at the counter of the cafeteria were shouting something that was lost in the tumult.

  “Stop!”

  Like an almighty supreme deity, the resolute face of the teacher suddenly appeared on the holostages, shut down the game programs, put an end to the carnage, and swept the chimeras into nothingness.

  The hysterical whimpering and squealing of the pets abated only gradually. They had to be soothed by stroking and coaxing.