Turing's Delirium (10 page)

"All right," he says. "Do you have someone particular in mind?"

"There are plenty of Rats," Baez suggests. "Any one of them could help us."

"Rats are corrupt," Santana replies, "and they often sell false information. Ask our colleagues in the intelligence service. They've gotten rid of a few innocent people by blindly following information they got from Rats."

"I think I know who could help us," Marisa asserts. "In fact, I know that Albert turned to her during his last few months here. She's young, likely still in high school. Her name is Flavia, and she maintains the most up-to-date site on Latin American hackers. Sometimes—I don't know how she does it—she manages to get exclusive interviews with them."

"Is she from here?" Ramírez-Graham asks. "From Rio Fugitivo?"

"Uh-huh," Baez says. "She's all right, but she's not as good as Marisa makes her out to be."

"She's Turing's daughter," Marisa says, smiling. "And I'm sorry, Baez, but your prejudices are showing. Flavia's not only good, she's very good."

"Our Turing's daughter?" Ramírez-Graham asks, suspecting that they are making fun of him.

"Is there another Turing alive?" Marisa says, making the final thrust.

Our Turing? No fucking way!

T
HE CLOUDS SHINE BRIGHTER
than a carnival. The new moon has wrapped itself around a mast. Every afternoon is a port. And I remember ... Because I don't know what else to do. I hold a dark passionflower in my hand. My taciturn face is extraordinarily remote ... My slender, leather-braider's fingers. I remember my voice ... That I can no longer hear. Slow. Resentful. Nasal. Every now and then sibilant.

I am an electric ant ... And tired ... I am fed through tubes. They're waiting for my resurrection any time now ... Neither one nor the other. I won't die.

I'm tired ... Shadow after shadow visits my room. Who would have imagined. I arrived here many years ago. Which is nothing from my perspective. And I stayed.

My former colleagues come. They sit down. Look at the clock. The minutes pass. They're in a hurry. The day is ending. But Turing could spend the whole afternoon. He's waiting for the oracle ... The phrase he'll decipher ... The one that will allow him to go on with the week ... The month ... The year.

Poor Turing. He doesn't know how to be happy. He hasn't changed since I met him. When he was Miguel Sáenz and didn't even know that Turing had existed. One sultry day ... A slate-colored storm curtaining the sky. The trees were flailing wildly. He came alone. Looking for work. For him and his wife ... They had been recommended. I had been told that they were talented. They could be useful to us. They could be useful to Montenegro. They could be useful to me...

It was my idea. Like in Bletchley Park ... Linguists. Mathematicians. Crossword puzzle experts. Chess players ... People who would use their intellect. Who knew about logic. Like Turing ... Who would have imagined. He looked like he was the brightest. He ended up being the brightest. And the most useful ... He had a good memory. And. That's all that interested him. He wanted to be a human computer. Pure logic ... Or at least that's what it seemed like to me...

I remember the cigarette in the hard visage. His gray overcoat. Against the now limitless storm cloud in that park. But I didn't know how prodigious his memory might be, and even that was nothing compared to me. Who was Memory itself. Of cryptanalysis. Of cryptography. Or are they the same?

At that time I was studying Latin ... I studied during my free time. Between interviews. He was impressed by the books in my briefcase. Lhomond's
De Viris Illustribus.
.. Quicherat's
Thesaurus.
Julius Caesar's commentaries. That great cryptographer ... An odd-numbered volume of Pliny's
Naturalis Historia.

He was more impressed by my anecdotes about the profession for which I wanted to recruit him ... Running through centuries as if they were afternoons ... Speaking of details as if I had been there. As if I were immortal...

What's certain is that he didn't know. Maybe deep down inside we all know that we're immortal ... Sooner or later. Every man will do everything there is to do and know everything there is to know.

Nothing impressed him as much as my tale of 1586. Of my participation in Walsingham's trap for Mary Queen of Scots ... At that time I was Thomas Phelippes. In the midst of the storm ... Both absorbed. I told the future Turing about Phelippes. As if Phelippes were someone else ... But Turing could sense that I knew Phelippes too well. He could sense Phelippes. Would have liked to have been Phelippes ... I told him. What I wouldn't give to have been him. To participate. Somehow. In history...

Electric ant. Having come to Rio Fugitivo who knows why.
Tempus fugit...

Mary had been accused of conspiring against her cousin Elizabeth. Queen of England ... Mary wanted the throne of England for herself. She had escaped from Scotland ... She was a Catholic queen and the Protestant nobles had organized a revolt against her. They put her in jail. Forced her to abdicate ... A year later Mary escaped from prison. She wanted to regain the throne, but the troops loyal to her were defeated at Langside. Near Glasgow...

Facts and more facts. Dates and more dates. Names and more names. Everything can be ciphered in a code. History can be ciphered ... Perhaps our lives are no more than a message in code awaiting its decoder ... It's one way to understand such loss.

The guard has left the window open. Or maybe it was the nurse. A warm breeze blows into the room ... Caressing me. The birds are singing in the trees ... Like they used to sing in the green valley. The one I remember.

What valley? What period in my life? The medieval towers. A hummingbird suspended in the air. Seconds. That seem like minutes. Time doesn't pass ... It passes. But it doesn't.

The weather is about to change. It'll rain soon. That's how it's been every day lately.

Mary found refuge in England. Elizabeth was Protestant and afraid of Mary ... The Catholic English saw Mary as their queen. Not Elizabeth. So Elizabeth decided to keep her under house arrest for twenty years. Poor Mary. They say she was very beautiful ... Intelligent ... Unlucky ... I remember the black velvet dress she wore the day she was executed. The charm of her accent. Her gentle manners. She was no longer the same. Her skin had aged. Her continual illnesses ... Religion and its wars. The loss of the throne...

The future Turing listened to me with his mouth agape. Hanging on my every word in the persistent rain ... Perhaps he was seduced by the surface layer. Perhaps he was searching for the messages that were hidden behind the story ... Those who take up codes never stop searching. They are alert to the messages that others wish to send. They are alert to the world. Alert to their own messages ... Messages that someone inside might be sending without their knowledge. Suspecting themselves ... No one ever said that this profession attracted balanced individuals. The unhealthy pathology of the cryptanalyst. The paranoid pathology of the cryptanalyst.

He who lives by the code dies by the code.

Once twenty years of house arrest had passed. Sir Francis Walsingham. Elizabeth's minister ... Who had created a secret police force with fifty-three agents across the European continent. Machiavellian ... If the word weren't so overused. But time marches on and everything becomes overused ... Infiltrated Mary's inner circle. He placed one of his men as Mary's messenger.

One of Mary's followers. Babington. Just twenty-four years of age. Conceived of an ambitious plan. To free her ... Then murder Elizabeth so that a rebellion by Catholic Englishmen would put Mary on the throne of England. Mary sent coded messages to her followers ... The messenger ... Before delivering the letters. Copied them and gave them to Walsingham. Sir Francis had an experienced cryptologist in his employ. Phelippes. Sir Francis knew that kingdoms are not won or lost by weapons alone. You also have to know how to read secret messages.

Decipher them ... Decode them ... Dismantle them...

You have to know how to read the words hidden behind the words. That's what I want for you. Future Turing ... To help me keep this government in power. With so many conspirators around. We need the military and the paramilitary. People trained to kill ... But we also need cryptologists ... People trained to think. Or to decipher the thinking of others ... The ideas hidden in the mist of words ... It was raining. I could see that my speech was convincing. I could see that the future Turing would never leave my side.

I spit up blood. I sleep with my eyes open. I shake during the night. My body is rebelling ... Can immortals die? Did I come to Rio Fugitivo to die?

I must have done something terrible to have been sent to this country. After having been in the great centers of civilization... Deciding the fate of the planet. I wind up on the periphery of the periphery ... But you don't argue. You do what you have to do. And I did it well ... I did it well ... I can continue on my way in peace. This country has an admirable secret service ... There is democracy today. But whoever wants to could try to remain in power ... The infrastructure is solid. Whoever wants to tell secrets behind the government's back. Has his days numbered...

And meanwhile. I spit up blood.

I'd like to know how it was that I thought what I thought. How it was that I decided what I decided. It's very hard to imagine how you thought.

You chase your own tail.

The letters between Babington and Mary were ciphered using an index that consisted of twenty-one symbols corresponding to the letters of the alphabet ... Except for
j, v,
and
w
. And thirty-six more symbols that represented words or phrases.
And. For. With. Your Name. Send. Myne.
Et cetera. Unfortunately for them ... Walsingham believed in the importance of cryptanalysis. Ever since he came across a book by Girolamo Cardano ... That great mathematician and cryptographer ... Author of the first book on the theory of probabilities. Creator of a steganographic device arid of the first autokey system...

Walsingham had a school for code decipherers in London. Any self-respecting government should have had one at their disposal ... Phelippes was his cipher secretary. This I told the future Turing ... I was his cipher secretary. He was short. Bearded. His face pocked by measles ... His vision poor. He was about thirty years old. A linguist. He knew French. Italian. Spanish. German ... He was already a famous cryptanalyst in Europe. Phelippes. I told the future Turing as the storm rained down ... It was difficult for me to speak in the third person. But that's the way my life was. That's the way my life is. First and third person at the same time. Always.

The messages between Babington and Mary could be deciphered using a simple analysis of frequencies ... Babington and Mary. Confident that they were using a secure system of communication. Spoke with increasing frankness about their plans to assassinate Elizabeth ... The message on July 17,1586, sealed Mary's fate. It spoke of the
design
... She was worried about being freed before or at the same time that Elizabeth was killed. She was afraid that her captors would kill her. Walsingham had what he wanted. But he wanted more ... To tear the conspiracy out by its roots ... He asked Phelippes. He asked me ... To forge Mary's handwriting and ask Babington to give her the names of the other conspirators...

Phelippes was a great forger. He could forge anyone's handwriting. I was a great forger. I could forge anyone's handwriting ... So I did. That's how they fell. Poor Babington and Mary ... If they had communicated without codes. They would have been more discreet ... But they lived at a time when cryptanalysis was advancing more quickly than cryptography ... A magic time in which decipherers surpassed encrypters. My kingdom for an analysis of frequencies.

On February 8, 1587. Mary. Queen of Scots ... Was executed. Decapitated. In the great hall of Fotheringhay Castle ... All of this I told the future Turing in the midst of the storm ... The city shrouded in mist. Like the messages. We wound up drenched ... Huge raindrops running down our faces. Our pants were soaked. Our shoes were waterlogged. It didn't matter ... The future Turing saw himself as a Phelippes.

He saw himself as I saw myself. As I have always seen myself ... I, who have no beginning and do not know if I will have an end. He saw himself helping to disarm a conspiracy ... Forming part of history. The secret possessor of secrets ... He saw that he could be more than he was. He saw that deciphering codes was not a game ... Lives were at stake. The destinies of countries. Of kingdoms. A correct deciphering would abolish chance...

He's been with me ever since. Never abandoning me. Electric ant ... Connected to tubes that keep it alive. Connected to tubes that keep me alive. Or would my heart continue to beat even if there were no tubes?

Y
OU WALK
into the living room, a glass of whiskey in your hand, the ice rattling in the amber liquid. You sit down on the green velvet sofa and turn on the television, anxious to delay your encounter with Ruth in the bedroom. It's a strange game without any winners. She does the same thing, closeting herself in the study preparing for classes, correcting exams, reading the biographies of scientists and spies. There are nights when the bedroom remains empty until the early morning. Sometimes you sleep on the sofa, cursing Ruth out loud, insults that you will have forgotten by morning, while she, plagued by insomnia, her body immune to sleeping pills, invents work to fill the time.

The whiskey no longer burns your throat but slides down naturally, as tends to happen as the evening wears on, after the first few glasses. You become lost in thought, counting the vertical brown stripes on the sofa.

The announcer with a trimmed beard on the main news channel is announcing the attack that was perpetrated by the Resistance and turns the story over to a reporter at the entrance to the Presidential Palace. The virus has swept through government computers, and none of its Web sites have been left untouched (nor was GlobaLux safe from the attack). Images of the graffiti on the sites are broadcast: photos of Montenegro with a noose around his neck, insults about the technocrats who are governing the country without understanding it. The secretary of state has declared a state of emergency. The Workers' Union and well-known civic and indigenous leaders have expressed their solidarity with the hackers. The Coalition is continuing its preparations for the blockade of Rio Fugitivo tomorrow. You can picture the young cryptanalysts and software code experts at the Black Chamber, high on adrenaline, in search of the clues that will lead them to the perpetrators. They will call soon, and you will have to go back to the office. They need your experience to trace the history of the evasive Resistance, to find coincidences in the encrypted code, the sometimes invisible signature that the murderer leaves behind on the body, the fingerprints left at the scene of the crime. They need the memory of the archives, which is not entirely artificial yet but soon will be. Ramírez-Graham has ordered that all documents be scanned and digitized—drawer after drawer of papers. In the end, all of the papers stored in the basement will be transferred to the hard drive of some minuscule computer.