by Lavie Tidhar
“This seems like the pronouncement of some philosopher,” Artemis said, winking at Arvardan. She retrieved some cookies from a drawer and handed them to everyone.
“Isn’t this just like how the bits are just 1’s and 0’s, but some will make them into useful tools, while others will make them into malicious viruses?” Arvardan said. Wagner snapped his fingers happily. “Very good, Wang Er. That’s exactly it. You are a credit to programmers.”
Duras looked at the clock hanging on the wall, and reminded the other four that time was up. The Talking Club could not meet for too long each time. The longer their Listeners remained shielded and off the grid, the greater the risk of exposure.
“All right. Let’s take the final half–hour to complete today’s activities.”
Artemis cleaned away the empty cups on the table, and Lancelot and Wagner both got up to stretch out their shoulders and backs, a bit sore from sitting for so long. Only Duras remained seated without moving.
“Activities? What activities?” Arvardan asked. What would the Talking Club do other than talk?
“Oh, right. We do have other activities.” Artemis moved her bangs out of the way, and gave him a seductive smile. “We still have to have frank exchanges with each other.”
“Frank exchanges?”
“Yes, fucking, to speak plainly.”
Arvardan’s face turned white, and his breathing quickened. His stomach felt as if it had just been injected with air chilled to thirty degrees below zero. He couldn’t believe his ears.
Of course, the appropriate authorities did permit sexual activities, but only between married couples. And there was a complex set of algorithms that computed the legally permitted frequency and lengths of their couplings based on the couple’s age, physical health, income level, professions, environment, climate, and record of rule–violations. As for unmarried individuals such as Arvardan, it was completely illegal to engage in any sexual activity whatsoever (including masturbation) or to read or view any material related to sex — all immoral words having been eliminated from the List of Healthy Words in any case.
“The Talking Club has freedom of speech, as well as the freedom to go to bed with anyone,” Artemis said without any embarrassment. “We talk to each other, and then choose whoever we like to make love with, just as we choose to speak the words that we like.”
Lancelot saw the awkward expression on Arvardan’s face. He walked over and lightly clapped Arvardan’s shoulders. He said, gently, “Of course, we won’t force anyone. This is all built on the foundation of consenting adults. I still have to leave early to pick up my kids. You have just the right number without me.”
Arvardan’s face flushed bright red. He felt hot, like the CPU in his computer during the summer. He couldn’t even lift his eyes to look at Artemis. He had desired female company for so long, but this was the first time he had been so close to that goal.
Lancelot said his goodbyes to everyone. Artemis left the bedroom to Wagner and Duras, and took the hand of Arvardan, who was close to panicking, and led him to another bedroom. This one clearly belonged to Artemis herself. The room was appointed simply, very neat and clean.
Artemis took the initiative. Under her seductive ministrations, Arvardan gradually let himself go, and allowed the primitive desires hidden deep within his heart to come out. He had yearned for any kind of release from his dry, boxed–in life by imagining the smooth, mellow voice of a real woman, and now his dreams were finally coming true. Arvardan did not know if there was a distinction between his desire for her and his desire to say “Fuck you, you sonovabitch,” but now was not the time for analysis.
When he woke up, he saw that Artemis was lying beside him, her naked body like a white jade statue. Even in sleep, her pose was beautiful. He lifted himself, yawned, and then Artemis opened her eyes.
“Feels good, doesn’t it?” she asked.
“Yes…” Arvardan didn’t know what else to say. He paused, then said hesitantly, “Before, with Lancelot and Wagner, did you also… ummm, what I mean is, like we did just now?”
“Yes,” Artemis said, gently. She sat up, her hair hanging over her shoulder to cover her chest. Her forthrightness confused Arvardan. There was an uncomfortable hush in the room, and then Artemis broke the silence: “You remember the story today? The woman in the story handed the man a note that said, ‘I love you.’”
“Yes,” Arvardan said.
“The word ‘love’ does not exist in the List of Healthy Words promulgated by the appropriate authorities.” Artemis’s eyes were filled with regret and loss.
“I love you,” Arvardan said, without thinking. He knew that it was possible to say anything he wanted in this room.
“Thank you.” Artemis gave him a perfunctory smile. She put on her clothes and hurried Arvardan to do the same. Arvardan was a bit disappointed. She had not responded as enthusiastically as he had wished, but as though what he had just said was not all that important.
By now Duras and Wagner had already left. Artemis walked him to the door, handed him his Listener, and then reminded him, “Once outside, remember not to mention anything about the Talking Club or anyone here. Outside of the Talking Club, we are strangers.”
“I understand,” Arvardan said. He turned to leave.
“Wang Er.”
Arvardan turned at her words. Before he knew what was happening, two soft lips covered his lips, then a low voice sounded by his ear. “Thank you. I love you, too.”
Arvardan felt his eyes grow wet. He put on the Listener, opened the door, and walked back into the suffocating world. But now, he was in a very different mood from when he had first showed up.
After this, Arvardan’s mental condition clearly improved. He carefully treasured the joy of having a secret club. Every week or two weeks, the five members met. They talked, sang, or listened to Duras tell the story of Nineteen Eighty–Four. Arvardan enjoyed frank exchanges with Artemis a few more times, and occasionally did the same with Duras. Now he had two personas: one was Arvardan, who existed in real life and on the Web, and the other was Wang Er, member of the Talking Club.
At one meeting, Arvardan asked, “Are we the only ones who gather to talk in private in the whole State?”
“It is said that there are some places in the State, far from the Capital and deeply hidden in the mountains, where the truly radical not only gather to talk, but also organize for violence. They shout as they rush at the State’s agents, and even curse at the firing squads as they are executed,” Wagner said.
“Can we join them?” Arvardan asked.
“Only if you are willing to give up your safe and still–comfortable life. The radicals live in places so desolate that except for free speech there is nothing else, not even enough clean water,” Wagner said, a little coldly.
Arvardan flinched and did not pursue the topic further. He certainly desired talk, but not to the point where he was willing to give up all that he had, little though it was. Distilled water was still better than no water. The Talking Club provided sufficient nourishment to sustain the dried husk of his spirit. Bottom line: he was easily satisfied.
At another meeting, the topic of conversation turned to sensitive words. Arvardan remembered that long ago — his memory was growing hazy — the appropriate authorities had actually issued a List of Sensitive Words. People who ran the various Web sites were told to refer to it secretly in administering the sites. He was not sure how that system had evolved into the present one. That day, Wagner brought a bottle of wine for the occasion and was in good spirits. He explained to them the history of the “shielding” system. As a Web Regulator, he had access to the historical records for this process.
Initially, the State only shielded certain sensitive words, but the State quickly discovered that this was essentially useless. Many simply mixed in special characters or numbers or misspelled words to get around the inspection system. The appropriate authorities had to respond by trying to shield these variant spellings
. But, as everyone knew, the combinations of different characters to approximate the appearance of different words were virtually limitless. Provided you had some imagination, it was always possible to come up with a novel combination and get your meaning across. For example, the word “politics” could be written as “polit/cs,” “政itics,” “pol/itic$,” and so on.
After the appropriate authorities finally caught on to the problem, they took a new tack. Since it was not possible to filter out all possible combinations of characters that might spell out a word, the solution was to forbid the use of anything except real dictionary words. This procedure was initially very successful. The number of rule–violators went down significantly. But, very soon, people discovered it was possible to use puns, homonyms, or rhyming slang to continue to express the same dangerous ideas. Even if the appropriate authorities filtered out all sensitive words and all possible puns and homonyms with those words, it was useless. Imaginative citizens gave their creativity free rein, and used metaphor, metonymy, analogy, etymology, rhyming slang, and other rhetorical tricks to substitute non–sensitive words for sensitive ones. The human mind was far more creative than the computer. The computer might shield off one path, but the people had many more paths to choose from.
This contest, under the surface, seemed to go the way of the people. But then, a man who could think outside the box appeared. It was unclear who he really was: some said that he was the chief administrator at the appropriate authorities; others said that he was a dangerous man who had been arrested for using too many sensitive words. He was the cause of the turn in the tide of the battle between the State and the people.
He suggested to the appropriate authorities that the regulations should no longer explain what was forbidden. Instead, the regulations should set forth what could be said, and how to say it. The appropriate authorities immediately took this advice, and issued new regulations. The List of Sensitive Words was eliminated, and in its place was the List of Healthy Words.
This time, the people were on the losing side. In the past, they had delighted in playing cat–and–mouse games with the appropriate authorities on the Web and in daily life. But now the appropriate authorities had them by the throat, since the entire framework and building blocks of language were now under their control.
Nonetheless, the people refused to give up. They began to select words from the List of Healthy Words and use them in novel combinations to express illegal meanings. For example, writing “stabilize” twice in a row meant “topple,” “stabilize” plus “prosperity” meant “shield.” The appropriate authorities had to keep an eye on this sort of trend, and day after day, eliminate more and more words from the List of Healthy Words to prevent their use in these new roles.
“So long as the world even contained two words or even two letters, then it would be possible to continue the free exchange of ideas — you know Morse code?”
Wagner paused, drained his cup, and gave a satisfied burp.
“But, the price for this war is the loss of language. Our ability to express ourselves continues to get poorer, and more dry and banal. More and more, people will choose silence. But this is a good thing as far as the appropriate authorities are concerned.” Lancelot had a worried expression on his face, and rhythmically knocked against the desk. “If you think about it, isn’t it the people’s desire for freedom the very thing that’s pushing language to the edge of death? Ironic, isn’t it? The appropriate authorities will have the last laugh.”
“No, no. They will not understand the emotion behind laughter,” Wagner said.
“Actually, I think the appropriate authorities have always operated in a state of fear. They are terrified that people will have the use of too many words, and express too many thoughts, making their control difficult,” Artemis put on the stiff, cold expression she wore for work, and imitated the common speech pattern: “Let us build a healthy and stable Web!”
Duras, Lancelot, and Wagner all burst into laughter. The only one who didn’t laugh was Arvardan. He was stuck on the last thing that Lancelot had said: in the war between the people and the appropriate authorities, the final conclusion was the death of language. Then the Talking Club was nothing more than a chance to enjoy the brief, final quiet moment that came from pulling shut the curtains on the windows of a train speeding toward the edge of a cliff.
Duras could not attend the frank exchange phase of the Talking Club that time because it was her time of the month, and she left early. Artemis washed the cups and smiled at the three men: “Should we try a three–on–one?”
Lancelot patted Arvardan on the shoulder. “I have some things I want to discuss with Wang Er. We’ll stay here a bit.” Artemis took Wagner to the other bedroom. Arvardan was confused, unsure of what Lancelot wanted.
Lancelot sat back on the couch. The engineer’s expression became serious. “Wagner has told you about the radical organizations?” Arvardan nodded.
“What do you think of them?”
“I admire them. But I’m not sure if it’s necessary to go that far. Men cannot live on words alone.” Although Arvardan had never been to the mountains, he had heard plenty about their desolation.
Lancelot laughed bitterly and drained the coffee cup in front of him. “I was once a member of the radicals. But now I’m a deserter.”
Arvardan stared at him.
“In the beginning, I had lots of ideals. I went to the mountains and joined them. But when the rush of freedom had passed, what followed was only constant deprivation and suffering. I wavered and finally abandoned my friends, snuck back to the Capital, and now I hide in a girl’s bedroom, chat, fuck, and drink coffee, and say I’m satisfied with my life.”
“You regret leaving?”
“My regret is not what’s important.” Lancelot handed a piece of paper to him. The paper was thin, light, and had a single address written on it.
“Memorize it and swallow the paper,” Lancelot said. “This is how you get to the mountains and get in touch with them. If you change your mind about your life, you can go any time.”
“Have you given this to the others, too?”
“No. The Talking Club is enough for the rest of us. But something is different about you. You remind me a lot of the younger me. Though you look quiet, inside you there is a dangerous spark. I have lost the ambition and the will to change the world, but I do not want to see everyone become like me.”
“But I—”
“You don’t need to promise me anything. This is only an option, that’s all.”
After returning home from the Talking Club, Arvardan lay on his cot with his hands under his head, and sank into thought. He was infatuated with Artemis and could not help himself. Arvardan envied Winston from Duras’s telling of Nineteen Eighty–Four. He and Julia had their own room, a world that only belonged only to the two of them.
(He also thought about what Lancelot had said to him about the radicals, but soon he put it out of his mind — the image of radicals hiding in the mountains was simply not as alluring as the body of Artemis.)
Once, when he was engaging in a “frank exchange” with Artemis, he had revealed his thoughts to her. She didn’t answer him directly but only said that the relationship between them could not go beyond what they had — the limit of what was possible. The appropriate authorities would not be napping forever. “We can only compress our emotional lives into the weekly meetings of the Talking Club. It’s already a great luxury,” she said, as she gently stroked his chest. “In the Talking Club, we are Artemis and Wang Er. But any other time, you are ARVARDAN19842015BNKF, and I am ALICE19387465BJHD.”
Arvardan could only sigh in response. He really shouldn’t have asked for more.
Along with his emotions, the Web also changed. Ever since he had joined the Talking Club, Arvardan had gradually begun noticing some of the hidden aspects of the Web. Just as Wagner had said, the war between the people and the appropriate authorities never ended. Always, thought and speech lea
ked from the cracks.
Arvardan noticed that within the formulaic e–mails and BBS forum posts were hidden many details that were worth paying attention to, just like his “title.” There were all kinds of codes and hidden meanings. These puzzles came from different individuals, and the format and decoding technique differed for each. Arvardan didn’t know what was hidden behind some of the codes, but one thing was certain: the Talking Club was not the only underground gathering. Wagner was right: always, individuals were attempting to use “healthy” words to express “unhealthy” thoughts.
In the past, Arvardan had only vaguely felt that he was being constrained, but now he could see clearly the pulsing arteries and veins of this system, and the various tricks played on him by the appropriate authorities. The freedom that he enjoyed at the Talking Club only made him even more aware of the lack of freedom in his life.
“Fuck you, you sonovabitch!”
At every meeting, the three male members would shout this curse out loud. They understood very well that this had no effect on the appropriate authorities, but they loved the feeling the curse brought them.
One week, Arvardan was particularly busy. His colleague, for unknown reasons, had been shielded. This meant that the whole project fell on his shoulders. The project involved designing a piece of software for the appropriate authorities, which would be used to control the energy distribution for a new, high–powered, active Listener. (It was unusual for Arvardan to be told this much, but since his colleague was gone, his superiors had to give him the bigger picture.) The software was complex, and he had to spend more than twelve hours a day working in front of the computer, only pausing to eat, take a drink of distilled water, or nap briefly on his cot when his body could no longer take the abuse. His room was filled with the stench of sweaty socks and shirts.