Turing's Delirium (24 page)

Such a normal conversation is out of place amid the shouts and explosions that are increasingly closer, flames and columns of smoke rising up from the McDonald's. Maybe there is nothing normal about that conversation. After all, when would she have another opportunity to converse with a soldier?

"It's not an easy job," he says. "When they send us to remove the blockades, sometimes I see people I know on the other side. They insult me and call me a traitor. Uh, maybe they're right. But unless they can get me another job, a decent one that I like, I'll stick with this. It's all I've got. What am I gonna do? We all do what we like. Or what we can."

They reach the entrance. The other soldiers haven't moved, and five more have come as reinforcements, along with two German shepherds straining at their chains as if trying to break them. Ruth stops, uncertain. She does not know what to do, where to go, what route to take. To the left are the main door and the McDonald's that is on fire; to the right, blockaded streets and a group of demonstrators marching, chanting a chorus of antigovernment slogans.
An end, an end to this globalizing trend
... Two police cars with their sirens screeching block the way. She stands looking at one of the German shepherds, his shiny black coat, the saliva dripping from his vicious canines. Perhaps it had been a bad idea to come to the university. Perhaps she should have gone home.

A couple of video messages are waiting on her cell phone. One from Miguel, another from Flavia. She doesn't open them. She is tired of getting messages from Miguel, who, bored in the archives, calls without anything to say, just to waste time. As for Flavia, nothing she does seems urgent. For years now Ruth hasn't cared much about her. Perhaps ever since she found herself competing with Flavia for Miguel's meager time, for his diminishing affection, and soon discovered that she was losing.

A big-bellied sergeant holding a cap in his right hand approaches the soldier that accompanies Ruth. He asks him what the hell this woman is doing standing in the doorway.

"Can't you see that it's dangerous?" he shouts. "Didn't I tell you to evacuate all civilians? I don't want a single soul in the university."

"We did evacuate everyone, sir," the soldier replies, his tone frightened. "This lady came later. She's a professor. She wanted to go to her office to get a manuscript."

"And so what did you do, huh? Don't tell me you went with her."

"It's just that ... sir."

"It's just that nothing. Did you go with her?"

"She told me it was urgent. She needed to work at home."

"And since when did they hire you as secretary? Or office boy? If it's all right with you, then damn it, why not let everyone line up here to go in and get their papers? And let the world fall to pieces in the meantime. The only reason I don't lock you up right now is because we need people. But you'll hear from me later."

"Yes, sir." The soldier stands at attention.

The sergeant approaches Ruth. In ceremonious tones, he says to her, "Pardon me, ma'am. May I see what you're holding?"

"Nothing that would interest you, officer."

"Sergeant, please. And begging your pardon, I'll decide whether it interests me or not."

Ruth shows him the manuscript without letting go of it. The sergeant looks at the tide page.

"And what are these hieroglyphics?"

"It's a book I'm writing. About coded messages in Bolivia's history. I'm a historian."

The sergeant's eyes sparkle, the muscles in his face stretch as he grins: it is as if he has just discovered that his shrewdness has stood him in good stead once again. A book about secret messages can only be a secret message itself.

"Allow me," he says, and before Ruth can reply he has the manuscript in his hands. He opens it at random, reviews a few pages. Line after line of letters that do not form comprehensible words, that do not make up a coherent paragraph, a chapter that makes any sense.

"You'll have to excuse me, ma'am," he says emphatically, "but I'm going to have to hold on to your book. I'm going to have to review it calmly, just to be on the safe side."

"Sergeant, this is an affront!" Ruth shouts, reaching out for her manuscript with one hand. "I haven't got a minute to waste. I need to get to work immediately."

"I understand, I do. But you do see that the situation—"

"I have nothing to do with what's going on. What, do you think they're secret messages from the Coalition? A secret plan to get rid of GlobaLux? The addresses for members of the Resistance?"

"Calm down, ma'am. I'm the one who doesn't have a minute to waste. Don't make me arrest you. There's nothing to be afraid of if you've nothing to hide."

The sergeant turns his back on her. Ruth throws herself at and pushes him. He takes two steps forward, loses his balance, but manages not to fall. He turns around and orders his men to arrest her.

Ruth's nose begins to bleed again. Several explosions can be heard.

I
'M TIRED, SO TIRED
. And the light still shines in my eyes.

There's nothing I can do ... But wait ... I will be reincarnated in a young body. There will be a period of hope. Of energy ... Of plans that can be brought to fruition. A young body. But never very young. I will be a parasite on another body. That has already been comfortably installed in life ... And I will help it to explore the multiple possibilities for its talents...

It has always been thus. I have no childhood. I never have. Some say it's the best time of life. I don't think so. But I really can't say...

Sometimes images of a playful child come to me. I don't know who he is ... I don't know where he came from. He's running through pastures on the outskirts of a town ... He's taking apart and putting back together a typewriter that he found in a garbage dump. He's writing on it ... Words that make no sense. Secret codes.

I'd like to have a childhood. At least once in my life.

Tired body ... Sore stomach. Neck. Eyes that don't want to close. Phlegm in my throat ... The inevitable flowing of blood...

The machine that counts my heartbeats is still working.

I'd like ... At some point ... To die ... And not wake up. Perhaps it's too much to ask. Perhaps the being that is responsible for me ... The one that has given me this miracle and this misfortune. Will take pity on me and give me a definitive end. Meanwhile. I will continue to be many men.

I was Charles Babbage. Professor at Cambridge. Known for many things ... The most important of which was to announce. Circa 1820. The principles that would serve as the basis for computers ... I was obsessed with the idea of using machines to do mathematical calculations ... I dreamed about building an analytical engine and a differential engine ... I even resigned from my professorship at Cambridge for seven years. I died at the age of seventy-eight without having realized my plans. However. My ideas remained. Other men after me ... Made it possible for the logical structure of my analytical engine ... To serve as the basis for computers.

I was drawn to cryptology because of my interest in statistics ... I liked to count the frequency with which a letter was repeated in a text. That was the reason ... That I was one of the first to use mathematical formulas to solve problems of cryptanalysis. I was one of the first to use algebra ... It surprises me that there weren't many others before me.

One small step. At the time ... That would later have enormous consequences.

Like everything of mine.

Unfortunately. I didn't continue my research. The notes I'd been taking were left incomplete ... I became involved in other things. I became distracted ... What could I do? That's how I was.

The rain beats against my window. On the roof. It mists my view of the mountains of Rio Fugitivo. Their outlines blur. A diffuse, somber light takes hold of the day.

I've always liked the rain. Saying
always
is no hyperbole here. My personality is more akin to twilight than to bright, sunny days. So radiant. The sunlight in this city. I had to create my own semidarkness. And hide myself away in it.

There's noise outside my room. I have a visitor. Is it Turing ... Or is it someone else...

I don't want to see anyone. I don't want anything. I'm just waiting. For an end to this cruel cosmic joke ... That keeps me here. On the periphery of the periphery. While elsewhere battles are being fought ... The heart of an empire is being attacked and defended using secret messages ... People will say it's my fault ... That I chose to stay in this place. It's true. At that time. What I was doing seemed important ... My presence was needed here. It's true. It was my fault.

Electric ant...

But I wasn't the one to decide all of my steps. I write my destiny. While someone writes me.

I was José Marti. I was José Marti. Marti José was I. José was I Marti. Was. Marti. I. José. I dreamed of a free Cuba ... And dedicated all of my efforts to the struggle for freedom. I lived in New York for many years. Meeting with patriots who thought like me. And who wanted our island to be free from the Spanish yoke...

In 1894. I planned an uprising. Together with José Maria Rodriguez. And Enrique Collazo ... We coordinated it with the movement of Fernandina ... To avoid dangerous indiscretions. That could shatter our plan. We decided to encrypt it. I used a polyalphabetic substitution code ... When I contacted Juan Alberto Gómez. One of our main contacts ... I used four alphabets. The code word was HABANA. Six letters. But one letter repeated three times ... Resulting in four different letters. It wasn't necessary to note anything down. You just had to memorize the rhythm ... Which was 9-2-3-2-16-2. This meant that ... When it was alphabet 9.
A
corresponded to 9.
B
to 10.
C
to 11. And so on ... When it was alphabet 2.
A
corresponded to 2.
B
to 3. And so on ... In order to decipher. The rhythm was placed below the code. Let's say that we wrote

 

9-6-30-6-28-2-14-8-32-15-13-29

 

And underneath it the rhythm:

 

3-2-16-2-9-2-3-2-16-2-9-2

 

That meant that first you had to see which letter corresponds to the number 9 in alphabet 3 ... The
g
... And then what corresponds to 6 in alphabet
2...
The
e
... The resulting phrase: GENERALGOMEZ. Not difficult ... Once you have the key. In my letters to Enrique Collazo. I also used four alphabets ... But the code word was MARIA.

Medieval towers. Ruins of fortifications.

A special envoy was to take the letter to General Gomez ... In the plan for the uprising ... We wrote that a cable would be sent "that will indicate you are able and free to work on the island"...Then there would be a final cable indicating "that outside what needs to be done is done"...And which would say "hold off lifting personal security until ten days after receipt of the cable"...The instructions indicated that they were to "assure the benevolence or indecision of the Spaniards rooted on the island"...That they were not to take any "purely nationalistic or terrorist measures"...But they were to "use the full force of weapons against any Spaniard who is armed"...

The plan failed. Because one of our own. Committed treason against us ... And warned of the shipment of arms that we planned to send to Cuba. From the United States. The shipment was seized. So you can see that to win a revolution. It isn't enough to encrypt a message. People like to talk more than they should ... They don't want. To become. A Universal. Turing. Machine.

Which is a pity.

I'm tired. There's noise outside my room. A lot of noise.

Only the rain will make me at all happy this afternoon. Which is on its way to piling up. With so many. Other. Afternoons.

Kaufbeuren. Rosenheim. Huettenhain.

RAMÍREZ-GRAHAM HAS JUST
received a message from Baez: Sáenz's daughter is willing to cooperate. A squad car has gone to pick her up and bring her to the Black Chamber immediately. Ramírez-Graham turns off his cell phone and sets it down on a pile of files on the desk in his office. He stares at the slow, unpredictable movement of the angelfish in the crystal-clear water of the aquarium. The way they elude the galleon sunk in the depths. The treasure spilling out of the chest. The floating diver on a rescue mission.

He is still not entirely convinced of the merits of the idea, but it is to his advantage not to reject any option.
Thinking outside the box ... Thinking outside the box
... He would rather catch Kandinsky using conventional methods, keep the confrontation as a clash of intellects in which one encrypts codes or takes advantage of a system's weaknesses in order to penetrate it, and the other deciphers the codes or finds the fingerprints left by the criminal when he hacked into the system. But his fear of possible failure is stronger. He has not been trained for it, has never experienced it, does not know how to cope with it.

He pours himself a cup of coffee and leans back in his swivel chair, facing the luminous windows that, together with his paintings, add color to this building of bare walls and oppressive ceilings. The liquid burns his tongue. He is drinking it not because he likes the taste but to calm his nerves. How many cups today? Four, despite the fact that he has enough trouble sleeping as it is. His nausea has come back; perhaps an ulcer is developing.

The pile of files belongs to Operation Turing. He would have liked to have finished reading them but has not been able to get very far since he arrived at his office; the struggle against the Resistance demanded his urgent attention. Still, he has already reviewed most of the files and does not think he will find the incriminating document that will solve the mystery, the phrases that will point in an unmistakable direction. Instead, he thinks he already has the most important information and now all that is missing is some intellectual effort in order to get to the bottom of the matter. Or perhaps a stroke of luck, devastating intuition, will be enough.