by Primo Levi
“It’s not that I don’t feel like working anymore,” he said to me. “On the contrary, as you know, I have other interests now, of a different kind, and I feel the need to have the whole day to myself. At Fort Kiddiwanee they were very understanding, and besides, because of the assembler-ants, which you know about already, it’s in their interest.”
“My congratulations. I didn’t know that the matter had come to such a favorable conclusion.”
“Yes, yes, I gave them an exclusive: every month a pound of trained ants at three dollars each. So they didn’t nitpick: total liquidation, an eight-thousand-dollar bonus, a retirement package of the highest order, and on top of it all a gift that I want to show you. A gift unique in all the world, at least for now.”
We had, in the meantime, returned to the stand, and we sat in two armchairs at the back. “It’s not news to you,” Simpson continued. “Even apart from the business of the social insects, I had already become a little fed up with the ‘new frontier’ of those excellent people. Last year, for example, with the scarcity of executives* in America, they churned out a series of measuring devices as substitutes for aptitude tests and hiring interviews, and they expected me to sell them in Italy as well. They were to be arranged in sequence: the candidate enters, goes through a tunnel like a car in a car wash, and when he comes out the other side, his file is already printed with his qualifications, his classifications, his mental profile, his IQ . . .”
“His what?”
“Oh, yes, sorry: his intelligence quotient, his proposed duties, and the salary on offer. Once upon a time, I was passionate about these little games; today I don’t have the least taste for it, and they even give me a vague sense of unease. And now this!”
Mr. Simpson took from the display case a black box that appeared to me to be a geodetic instrument:
“It’s a VIP-SCAN: that’s exactly what it’s called. It’s a probe for VIPs, Very Important Persons.* It’s also supposed to be useful in the selection of executives. It should be used (surreptitiously, of course) during the preliminary ‘friendly conversation.’ Excuse me a minute—you’ll allow me, right?”
He pointed the lens at me and held the button down for about a minute: “Speak, please, it doesn’t matter what, say whatever you like. Pace forward and backward a bit. That’s enough, it’s done. Let’s see: 28 hundredths. That’s not bad, but you aren’t a VIP. That’s exactly the kind of thing that irritates me, twenty-eight for someone like you! But don’t be offended, I only wanted to show you that this thing is a poor judge and, in addition, it’s calibrated according to American standards. No, I don’t know exactly how it functions, and I’m not even that interested, upon my word of honor; I only know that the score is allotted based on factors such as the cut and design of one’s suit, the length of one’s cigar (and you don’t smoke), the condition of one’s teeth, and the pace and rhythm of one’s speech. I’m sorry, perhaps I shouldn’t have done that, but if it makes you feel any better, my score barely makes it to twenty-five and that’s only after I have just shaved, otherwise it doesn’t get past twenty points. Anyway, it’s madnesss! Either they don’t sell, and then it’s bad news for the Italian NATCA, or they do sell, and then shivers run down my spine at the thought of a class of managers made up entirely of 100 hundredths. So you see, it’s another good reason for me to leave.”
He lowered his voice and put his hand confidentially on my knee. “. . . But if you come over to my place one of these days, when the Fair is over, I’ll show you the first and foremost reason I’m leaving. It’s that gift I told you about: a Torec, a Total Recorder.* With that in the house, as well as a small selection of tapes, a nice pension, and my bees, why should I continue to trouble myself with customers?”
Simpson apologized for inviting me to his office instead of to his home: “We might be a little less comfortable here, but we won’t be disturbed; there’s nothing more irritating than a telephone call just as we’re enjoying ourselves, and no one calls here except during office hours. I must also confess that my wife isn’t too fond of this gadget and doesn’t want to see it anywhere near her.”
He gave me a competent demonstration of the Torec, displaying his characteristic incapacity to marvel at anything, which in my opinion derives from his long history as a salesman of marvels. The Torec, he explained to me, is a total recording instrument. It’s not a typical office machine; it’s a revolutionary device. It’s based on the Andrac, the contrivance created and described by R. Vacca, and tested on himself: based, that is to say, on direct communication between nerve circuits and electrical circuits. With the Andrac, if you undergo a small surgical intervention, it’s possible, for example, to activate a telex or to drive a car simply by means of nerve impulses, without any muscular intervention. In other words, it’s enough to “want it.” The Torec, instead, takes advantage of the corresponding receptive mechanism, in that it excites sensations in the brain without the intermediation of the senses. In contrast to the Andrac, however, the Torec doesn’t require invasive intervention. The sensations recorded on the tapes are transmitted by way of skin electrodes, without the need for any preparatory operation.
The listener, or rather the user, has only to put on a helmet, and during the entire playing of the tape he receives the complete and systematized series of sensations contained on the tape itself: visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, taste, kinesthetic, and painful, as well as the so-called internal sensations that each of us receives from our individual memory while in a waking state. In short, all the afferent messages that the brain, or rather (in keeping with Aristotle) the passive intellect, is capable of receiving. The transmission comes not via the user’s sense organs, which remain cut off, but directly at the level of the nervous system, using a code that NATCA keeps a secret. The result is a total experience. The spectator relives integrally the event that the tape suggests to him—he feels as if he were directly participating or even that he himself is the actor. This sensation has nothing in common with hallucination or with dreaming because, as long as the tape is playing, it is indistinguishable from reality. When the tape has finished, one retains one’s normal memory, but during each use of the tape the natural memory is supplanted by the artificial memories recorded on the tape, and so one doesn’t remember earlier uses, and therefore neither fatigue nor boredom arises. Each individual tape can be used repeatedly and indefinitely, and every time the experience is as intense and full of surprises as it was the first time.
With the Torec, Simpson concluded, a person has nothing to worry about. “You understand: whatever sensation you want to try, all you have to do is choose the tape. Do you want to go on a cruise to the Antilles? Or climb the Matterhorn? Or circle around the Earth for an hour, free of gravity and all that? Or be Sergeant Abel F. Cooper and exterminate a gang of Vietcong? Well, then, shut yourself in your bedroom, put on the helmet, relax, and let Torec take charge.”
I was silent for a few seconds while Simpson peered at me through his glasses with benevolent curiosity. Then he said, “You look perplexed.”
“It seems to me,” I responded, “that this Torec is the ultimate machine. Or, rather, a subversive machine: no other NATCA machine, in fact, no other machine that has ever been invented, contains such a threat to our customs and to the order of our society. It will discourage all initiative, in fact, all human activity; it will be the last big step, following mass entertainment and mass communication. At our house, for example, ever since we bought a television, my son sits in front of it for hours and doesn’t play anymore, drawn to it like a moth to a flame. Myself no, I walk away, although it requires willpower. But who will have the willpower to leave a Torec offering? It seems quite a bit more dangerous than any drug. Who would work anymore? Who would continue to look after the family?”
“I never told you the Torec was for sale,” Simpson said. “In fact, I told you that I had received it as a gift, a gift unique in all the world, sent to me when I retired. If we want to split hairs
, I must add that it’s not even really a gift; legally, the machine is still owned by NATCA and has been loaned to me for an indefinite period, not only as a reward but also because I am experimenting with its long-term effects.”
“In any case,” I said, “if they have studied and built it, that’s because they intend to sell it.”
“It’s a simple matter. For every action they take, NATCA’s owners have only two goals, which are then reduced to one: make money and acquire prestige, which leads to making more money. It’s understandable that they want to produce the Torec in a series and sell millions of units, but they still have their heads enough on their shoulders to realize that Congress would not remain indifferent to the unregulated diffusion of an instrument such as this one. Therefore, over the past few months, after the prototype was produced, their first concern has been to shield it with an armor of patents so that not even one bolt remains exposed. Their second is to gain the legislature’s consent for it to be distributed in all retirement homes and allocated at no cost to every invalid and terminal patient. Finally, and this is their most ambitious plan, they would like the entire active population’s right to a pension to coincide, by law, with the right to a Torec.”
“Making you the prototype, so to speak, for the retiree of tomorrow?”
“Yes, and I assure you that I don’t mind the experience in the least. The Torec arrived only two weeks ago, but I have already had the most enchanting evenings; sure, you’re right, it requires willpower and good sense not to let oneself become overwhelmed, not to dedicate entire days to it, and I would never let a young person use it, but at my age it’s invaluable. Don’t you want to try it? I have promised not to lend or sell it, but you are a discreet person, and I believe an exception could be made in your case. You know, they also asked me to analyze its possibilities as a teaching aid, for the study of geography, for example, or the natural sciences, and I would much appreciate your opinion.
“Sit back and relax,” he said to me, “and maybe it would be better if we closed the blinds. Yes, like that, with your back to the light, that will work perfectly. I own only thirty or so tapes, but another seventy are in customs in Genoa and I hope to receive them soon. Then I’ll have the entire selection so far in existence.”
“Who produces the tapes? How are they made?”
“There is talk of producing artificial tapes, but for now these are made by recording actual subjects. The procedure is known only in a general way: down there at Fort Kiddiwanee, in the Torec Division, the opportunity to make a series of recordings is offered to anyone who regularly, or even occasionally, has some experience that lends itself to commercial exploitation: to aviators, explorers, scuba divers, seducers or seductresses, and many other categories of individuals that you yourself might imagine if you were to think about it for a moment. Let’s suppose that the subject accepts and that an agreement is reached about rights—speaking of which, I heard that the amount we’re talking about is quite high, from two to five thousand dollars a tape, but often, to obtain a usable registration, it’s necessary to repeat a recording ten to twenty times. So: if an agreement is reached, they put a helmet on the subject’s head, more or less like this one, and he doesn’t have to do anything other than wear it during the entire length of the recording. There’s no more to it than that. All of his sensations are transmitted via radio to the central recording device, and then from the first tape they make as many copies as they want with the usual technology.”
“But then . . . but if the subject knows that each of his sensations will be recorded, then this consciousness of his will also be recorded on the tape. You’ll relive the blastoff not of any astronaut but of an astronaut who knows that he has a Torec helmet on his head and that he is the object of a recording.”
“Exactly,” Simpson said. “In fact, this underlying consciousness is distinctly perceivable on the majority of the tapes I’ve used, but some subjects, with practice, learn to repress it during the recording and relegate it to the subconscious, where the Torec can’t reach. On the other hand, it doesn’t make that big a difference. As for the helmet, it doesn’t bother you at all: the sensation of ‘helmet on the head,’ which is recorded on all the tapes, corresponds directly to the one induced by the reception helmet.”
I was about to expound to him other objections I had of a philosophical nature, but Simpson interrupted me. “Do you want to begin with this one? It’s one of my favorites. You know, in America soccer isn’t very popular, but since living in Italy I’ve become an avid Milan fan; in fact, I was the one who put together the deal between Rasmussen and NATCA, and I was responsible for the recording myself. He got three million lire out of it, and NATCA got a fantastic tape. Gosh, what a midfielder! Here, have a seat, put on the helmet, and then you’ll tell me what you think.”
“But I don’t understand a thing about soccer. Not only have I never played, not even as a kid, but I’ve never seen a game, not even on television!”
“It doesn’t matter,” Simpson said, still totally vibrant with enthusiasm, and he turned it on.
The sun was low and hot, the air dusty: I perceived an intense odor of overturned earth. I was sweating and my ankle hurt slightly. I was running with extremely light strides just behind the ball, I looked out of the corner of my eye to my left, and felt nimble and ready, like a loaded spring. Another player wearing red and black entered into my visual field; the ball scraped the ground as I passed it to him, surprising an opponent, then I ran ahead while the goalie came out of the goal toward the right. I heard the rising roar of the crowd, I saw the ball passed back toward me, a little ahead to take advantage of my sprint. I was on it in a flash and, using my left foot, I kicked it into the goal with precision, effortlessly, in front of the goalie’s outstretched hands. I felt a wave of joy course through my veins, and a little later the bitter aftertaste of adrenaline in my mouth. Then everything was over and I found myself in the armchair.
“You see? It’s very short, but a little jewel. Were you aware of the recording? No, right? When one is near the goal there are other things to think about.”
“It’s true. I have to admit, it’s an odd sensation. It’s thrilling to feel one’s own body so young and compliant, a sensation I lost decades ago. And to score, too, yes, that’s great: you don’t think about anything else, you are totally focused on one point, like a bullet. And the roar of the crowd! And yet, I don’t know if you noticed, in that instant in which I waited, in which he waited for the pass, a stray thought made its way in: a tall brunette named Claudia, who has a date with him at nine at San Babila. It lasts only a second but it’s very clear—time, place, previous history, everything. Did you feel it?”
“Sure, of course, but these things aren’t important; actually, they increase the sensation of the real. You realize that one can’t exactly become a tabula rasa, and show up for the recording as if born the second before. I know that many have refused to sign the contract for reasons relating to this kind of thing, because they have some memories they want to keep secret. So what do you say? Do you want to have another go?”
I asked Simpson to show me the titles of his other tapes. They were very short and not particularly appealing; some were even incomprehensible, perhaps because of the Italian translation.
“It would be better if you advised me,” I said. “I have no idea how to choose.”
“You’re right. Just as with books or movies, you can’t trust titles. And you do realize, as I already told you, that there are only about a hundred tapes available; but I recently saw a galley proof of the 1967 catalogue, and it’s enough to make you dizzy. Actually, I’ll show it to you. It seems to me very informative in terms of the ‘American Way of Life,’* and more generally an attempt to systematize conceivable experience.”
The catalogue listed more than nine hundred titles, each one followed by a number from the Dewey decimal classification, and was divided into seven sections. The first was labeled ART AND NATURE, the relevant
tapes marked by a white stripe, and contained titles such as “Sunset in Venice,” “Paestum and Metapontum as Seen by Quasimodo,” “Hurricane Magdalene,” “A Day Among Cod Fishermen,” “Polar Route,” “Chicago Seen by Allen Ginsberg,” “We Skin-Divers,” “A Meditation on the Sphinx by Emily S. Stoddard.” Simpson pointed out to me that this was not about sensations for the masses, like those of the crude and vulgar man who visits Venice or witnesses, by chance, some natural wonder; every subject had been written and recorded using good writers and poets, who placed their culture and sensibility at the disposition of the tapes’ consumers.
The tapes in the second section had a red stripe and were labeled POWER. The section was further divided into the subsections: “Violence,” “War,” “Sport,” “Authority,” “Wealth,” and “Miscellaneous.” “The division is arbitrary,” Simpson said. “For example, in my opinion the tape you just tried, ‘Rasmussen’s Goal,’ should have had a white stripe instead of a red. In general, the tapes with red stripes interest me very little. But I’ve heard that already in America there is a growing black market for tapes: they mysteriously disappear from the NATCA offices and are bought up by teenagers who own pirate Torecs fabricated by unscrupulous radio engineers to the best of their ability. The red-stripe tapes are the most in demand. But maybe this isn’t such a bad thing; a youth who experiences a brawl while sitting in a cafeteria* is unlikely to actually participate in a real one.”
“Why not? What if he gets a taste for it . . . Wouldn’t they react just like leopards, who, once they’ve tasted human blood, can’t get enough of it afterward?”
Simpson looked at me curiously. “Of course, you are an Italian intellectual. I know your kind well. Nice middle-class family, enough money, a mother who is fearful and possessive, Catholic school, no military service, no competitive sports, except maybe a little tennis. You pursue one or more women with no passion, one of them married, a not too taxing job, guaranteed for life. That’s how it is, right?”