Turing's Delirium (19 page)

Crypto City, the Black Chamber ... Since he had come from such humble origins, who would have thought he would have gotten this far? He was devoted to mathematics thanks to his mother. Exhausted after a long day at the public school where she worked, she still had time to sit down with him at the kitchen table and teach him the theory of numbers, using games she took from
The Man Who Counted.
He learned almost without noticing. Beremiz Samir, the man who counted, found poetry in numbers. He could distribute thirty-five camels between three Arab brothers and have the brothers be satisfied that the division was just. With four number fours he could form any number (zero = 44–44; one = 44/44; two = 4/4 + 4/4; three = 4+4+4/4; four = 4+(4-4)/4...). He preferred the number 496 to 499, since 496 was a perfect number (one equal to the sum of all its factors, excluding itself). He could explain how it was possible that a Muslim judge could give three sisters different numbers of apples (50 for one, 30 for another, and 10 for the third), ask them to sell the apples for the same price, and still manage to have them all earn the same amount of money.

Almost without noticing, Ramírez-Graham went from playing those games to creating his own. He was interested in cryptology, an arcane branch of mathematics, because of the multiple applications it contained for the theory of numbers. When a copy of the software program called Mathematica fell into his hands, he began to program cryptographic systems on his own. He could not understand how mathematicians had survived before the computer was invented. For those who worked with enormous numbers, like cryptologists, the speed of the computer was an ally without par. A century had passed before it was discovered that one of Fermat's numbers was not a prime number, as his celebrated theory suggested, and two and a half centuries before it was discovered that another number was not prime; with a program like Mathematica on the computer, those centuries became less than two seconds. Fermat thought that the number 2
³²
+ 1 was prime; using Mathematica, you only had to type the command FactorInteger and then [2
³²
+ 1] to discover almost instantly that Fermat was wrong.

Even though his grades in high school were not very good, he was accepted into the University of Chicago because of affirmative action, which had done so much for Latinos. But he outdid himself in Chicago: he had a job offer from the NSA two years before he graduated. Even though years of solid work in Crypto City did not make him a star, it did make him a presence who was well trusted by his superiors. He had to remember all of that before giving up on Kandinsky.

He sits down in one of the chairs with the files he brought from the Black Chamber. The light from a lamp illuminates his profile, leaving the other half in shadow. Supersonic lies down at his feet and wags his tail, vainly attempting to attract his attention. Electronic dogs are just as annoying and needy as real dogs, but at least they don't shit everywhere.

The files are classified documents, found in a special section of the archives—the Archive of Archives—inaccessible to all but the director of the Black Chamber. They tell the story of how the chamber was founded in early 1975 and of its first few years of operation. They explain the reasons that gave rise to the building, how the original mission was established, what the directors were looking for when they hired personnel.

He would like to find out more about Albert. The entire building is under his spell. Whenever Ramírez-Graham goes into his office, he can't help but remember that Albert used to work there. At times he feels a ghostly silhouette is watching him work, controlling his steps and his words. That silhouette is attached by a rusting chain to the Enigma machine, like a grandfather in
One Hundred Years of Solitude.
He had liked that novel but had also laughed at how his schoolmates believed it was the extravagant and exotic reality of Latin America. Sure, they do things differently down there, he would tell them, but it isn't exotic. At least, that was not the Cochabamba of his vacations. There were parties and drugs and television and a great deal of beer, just like in Chicago. No grandfather chained to a tree, no beautiful adolescent ascending to heaven. But now that he lived here, fuck, his imagination was betraying him. Maybe García Márquez had been right.

He has thought about visiting Albert at the house where he lies secluded and dying, but before disturbing him he needs to have a sense of the Black Chamber and clarify the legend. These documents will help him to do that. And they will help him to forget about Kandinsky for a while.

He ponders his empty bowl of Cheerios, disinclined to rouse himself for more. If only Supersonic were a robot—now that would be something. If he could buy a robot that he could send to the kitchen to bring him more Cheerios, and while we're at it, the bottle of Old Parr ... The monthly salary for a maid in this country was not even one hundred dollars. At times he was tempted to hire one, but he couldn't bring himself to do so. It would be far too strange having someone live in his apartment, serving him from six in the morning until ten at night, maybe rifling through his drawers when he was out. Once when he was on vacation in Cochabamba he had gone out with a girl whose father watched television without ever leaving his chair. Since he did not have a remote control, he used the maid to change channels. As he sat watching his favorite programs in the living room, the maid had to stand in the doorway the entire time, attentive to his slightest gesture. Ramírez-Graham would never forget that sight.

As he reviews the documents, he thinks about Svetlana. He would give anything for her to be here in this very living room, he sitting in the chair and she sprawled on the floor, working on her laptop as she had in Georgetown, preparing a report for the insurance company where she works.

But now he can't think of her without thinking about their son. He can picture him crawling on the rug, pulling Supersonic's tail, the dog patiently taking it—his software recognizing children and having been programmed not to react to their provocations. Ramírez-Graham looks down at his feet. Now he sees him, now he doesn't.

The documents in the file he is holding tell of Operation Turing. He read the first few pages without paying much attention; Albert, after all, was obsessed with Turing and before giving that name to Sáenz had also used it to name a room in the chamber and a couple of secret operations. Ramírez-Graham soon discovers that this operation refers to the Turing he knows, to the head of the archives—a man he views as someone like his grandfather, useless but refusing to retire.

He finishes his glass of Old Parr. Supersonic growls at the wind that buffets the windows. Reading on, Ramírez-Graham gradually learns that between 1975 and 1977, certain intercepted messages came into Albert's hands and were sent directly to Turing. The argument: they were particularly difficult, and Albert did not want to waste time having other analysts try to solve them. Turing had quickly become his right-hand man, and Albert believed him to be nothing less than infallible.

The light of the lamp flickers, the images on the TV blur: another GlobaLux blackout. Ramírez-Graham closes the file and tries to resign himself. Patience, patience. No wonder everyone here is so religious.

It's impossible—he'll never get used to so many annoyances. He just wants to do his work and not worry about whether or not the infrastructure is falling to pieces.

Ten minutes later, the lamp and the television come back to life. He opens the file again. Something doesn't seem quite right. For a secret message to be considered difficult, first you have to try to solve it. Or was Albert capable of deciding at a glance how difficult a message was? And as far as he knew, Turing was not terribly fond of computers. He tried to decipher messages using pencil and paper, as if the real Turing had never existed, as if cryptanalysis hadn't been mechanized a century and a half ago. A truly difficult message needed to be attacked with the brute force of a Cray. An analyst came on the scene only after the computer had identified certain weak spots in the message. Even using that approach, a great number of messages went unsolved. And yet Turing had deciphered everything that Albert had put on his desk. Either the people encrypting messages in Bolivia in the seventies used extremely rudimentary methods, which was possible, or Turing was a natural, one of the most brilliant cryptanalysts in the history of cryptanalysis.

Something does not add up. He tells himself that he'd better keep reading.

The lamp and television go dark. He gets out of his chair, feels around for his cell phone. He doesn't know whom to call, what to do.

In the darkness of his apartment, Ramírez-Graham pictures Turing twenty-five years ago, young, at the height of his power at the Black Chamber. He pictures him in an office full of papers, receiving the files that Albert hands him, immediately setting to work, not willing to let down the person who holds him in such high regard.

For the first time he feels compassion for that tired old man he has relegated to the basement, whom he thinks of firing at any moment.

J
UDGE CARDONA LEAVES
the hotel with his black briefcase in hand and comes upon a hostile, cloudy sky, the sense that drizzle is imminent. It had been brighter in the hotel room. He does not remember Rio Fugitivo being like this, a city of weak sunshine and gray clouds about to pour rain. Nostalgia has gotten the better of him, and the sunny days from his childhood and adolescence, which perhaps were few, have eclipsed all others. It happens to the best of us. We are restless creatures, governed by an incurable desire for paradise. But paradise is not what we have been given, so we invent it in our memories, based on a few furtive weeks when we were happy, perhaps in the beginning or somewhere along the way where the road forked and life took us. The tricks of fate, which can also bring happiness.

There are police in the plaza and the neighboring streets are deserted, with sticks, nails, and stones scattered on the pavement and sidewalks and debris swirling in the wind. It is Friday afternoon. Yesterday, after the woman left, Judge Cardona overindulged in BMP and passed out on the white tile bathroom floor after vomiting violently. He woke up today at noon, a bitter taste in his throat and mouth, his palate extremely dry. "History was being made as I slept," Cardona, stroking his beard, says to the doorman..

The doorman tells him that he was right to have stayed in his room. The evidence of yesterday afternoon's and this morning's confrontations is all over the streets. Everything is blockaded. Yesterday a group of demonstrators took the plaza and then the police took it back. Today they plan to reach the mayor's and the prefect's offices; the police have cordoned off the plaza. "If I were you, I'd stay in my room. This is going to get ugly. The demonstrators will be back with renewed force, and the police will use tear gas. I've seen it a thousand times. You learn a lot working in the main plaza." He blinks as if he has no control over the muscles in his eyelids.

"Unfortunately," Cardona says, scratching his right cheek, "I have urgent business."

Every time he comes to Río Fugitivo, something strange happens. Existing in multiple historical temporalities, its inhabitants dream of the modern convenience of cable TV but are anchored to the premodern past of strikes and street protests. It's no different from the rest of the country. Many Internet cafés do not progress make. Many supermarkets and shopping centers either.

Cardona had better walk. Avenida de las Acacias is relatively close by, only about ten blocks away. He touches his briefcase and feels protected—from the future, the past, himself. His legs are tingling and exhaustingly heavy; the effects of BMP are still coursing through his body. Dry throat, nausea. Perhaps he should wait a while, until his mind clears, until the fog lifts. No, no, no. He has waited long enough. Neither lucidity nor a lack thereof will change the radical cruelty of the facts. There are such things as avenging angels, whose only purpose in coming to earth is to exterminate. Oh, to whom do you entrust your soul? Perhaps he should go to the cathedral on the other side of the plaza, behind the scrawny palm trees, as a prologue to what cannot then be undone. Perhaps the wine-colored spots, scattered over his body like an archipelago in entropy, will disappear from his skin, and with them any sensation of fulfilling a pact, any reminder of an obligation. But no. Someone has to be responsible for the cousin who is dead. Someone has to be responsible for Mirtha. Someone, however feverish he might be, has to atone for his own sins. All the questions he has about the hell of a dictatorship can be reduced to just one, or several grouped under the same theme: who is ultimately responsible when a life is taken? Who, conscious of his actions or not, assumed this celestial right? Infamy should not remain in an abstraction called "the dictatorship," it should be personalized in a body that breathes, in a face with eyes that avoid or meet your gaze.

Cardona walks through a group of policemen. A sergeant with thick hands and a white mustache stops talking on his walkie-talkie and looks at Cardona as if he knows him from somewhere. The spots are easily recognizable; perhaps the beard has thrown him off. He asks Cardona for his ID card, his tone slightly annoyed; Cardona shows it to him. The sergeant is. surprised to discover a well-known name. He looks at Cardona as if making sure that the person in front of him is in fact someone who was once minister of justice. His tone changes: This is no time to be out on the street. The demonstrators are just two blocks away. Cardona replies that he has an urgent business meeting to attend and, since the sergeant is so worried about his security, asks him please to assign two officers to escort him.

The sergeant calls over two of his men. "Mamani. Quiroz. Accompany the judge to the barricade and return immediately." Mamani and Quiroz, with their sleepy, fearful eyes, station themselves on either side of him.
They could be my children,
he thinks. But he has never had children. It had been difficult for him to find a stable relationship, to make plans for the future.