Decoded (21 page)

This type of self-deprecation wasn’t due to Rong Jinzhen feeling dissatisfied within himself; no, it was due to the enormous respect he had for Professor Johannes.

In truth, besides Klaus Johannes, there was no one else that he admired other than himself; he didn’t believe that anyone else in Unit 701 could break BLACK if he couldn’t. He didn’t have confidence in his colleagues; or at least his reason for feeling this way was completely straightforward: no one else at Unit 701 showed any sincere admiration for Klaus Johannes. Amidst the clattering of the train across the tracks, he clearly heard himself speak to his hero. ‘They cannot see your intellectual magnificence, and if they did, they would only be afraid of it. But I cannot understand nor trust their reasoning. To appreciate something that is truly beautiful requires courage and talent; without this, beauty can only terrify.’

Rong Jinzhen believed that only in the eyes of other geniuses could one’s own genius be valued. In the eyes of the common man, geniuses were quite likely to be seen as freaks or fools. This was because those with superior intellect had left the common man behind, had marched far off into new frontiers, so far that even if the commoner raised his eyes to look, he could not see them, thus thinking erroneously that the genius had fallen behind. This was the plebeian way of thinking. All it took for them to exclude – to fear – a genius was for the latter to be uncommunicative; they would never realize that the genius’ silence issued from his fear and not from contempt.

It was here that Rong Jinzhen believed the reasons for his distance from his colleagues lay: he could appreciate and thus respect Johannes’ abilities. He could bask in this giant’s intellectual brilliance – it shone over him and through him as if he were glass – but no one else was able to see; they were like stone and Johannes’ brilliance could not shine through them.

Continuing this train of thought, Rong Jinzhen felt that comparing geniuses to glass and commoners to rock was particularly apposite. Geniuses after all had many of the qualities of glass: they were delicate, easily broken, very fragile; not at all like stone. Even if a stone were to be cracked, it wouldn’t shatter like glass; perhaps a corner or a face would be broken off, but it would still remain a stone, and could still be used as a stone. Glass, however, did not have this resilience: its innate quality was vulnerability; to be cracked meant to be shattered, each shard becoming useless. Geniuses were just like this: all it took was for you to snap off their outstretched head, like breaking a lever in two. The remaining bits would be worthless. He again thought of his hero: if there were no ciphers in need of decryption, what would be his worth? Nothing!

Everything that happened after this was totally unreal, because it was too real.

That’s how it goes: when things seem too real they become unreal; people have trouble believing them – just like most people can’t believe that in any mountainous area in Guangxi you can take a sewing needle and exchange it for a cow, or even for one pure silver broadsword. No one can deny, however, that it was ten years ago, whilst dreaming of Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev (1834–1907) – who had himself been given the idea of creating the periodic table in a dream – that the secret to cracking PURPLE had come to Rong Jinzhen. This was of course an extraordinary story, but what happened next far exceeded it.

In the middle of the night, Rong Jinzhen had been woken by the sound of the train pulling into a station. As was his habit, upon waking he immediately reached out his hand to touch the safety-deposit box that was under his bunk.

It was there! Still chained to the leg of the tea table. Feeling at ease, he lay back down, trying to differentiate between the scattered sound of footsteps and the blare of the train station’s public address system.

The public address system informed him that they had arrived in B City.

The next stop would be A City.

‘Still three hours to go . . . And then home . . . Home . . . Only a hundred and eighty minutes left. . . Sleep a little more, home . . . ’ In a daze, he fell back to sleep.

Before a moment passed, however, the train whistle blew sharply, signalling its departure from the station, waking him up once more. The clacking upon the tracks grew ever more intense, and just as music gradually increases a person’s level of excitement, it prevented him from falling asleep. He never slept soundly in any case; how could he endure such auditory violence? The sounds of the train rolled over him, thoroughly waking him up. Light from the moon flitted into the cabin, shining directly upon his berth. The shadows tossed about, fluctuating sharply, tempting his drowsy eyes. Just then, he noticed something unusual out of the corner of his eye. What was it, what was wrong? Making a lazy attempt to ascertain what had happened, rolling it over in his mind, he finally realized that his leather attaché case which had been hanging on a hook on the wall – a bag very much like a teacher’s black briefcase – was gone. He got up abruptly, searching in his berth for it. It wasn’t there. Then he got down and looked round the floor, the tea table, under his pillow. It was nowhere to be found!

He noisily roused Vasili and the professor, the latter telling him that about an hour before when he had got up to use the toilet (please remember that it was an hour ago), he had seen a young man in military plainclothes on the connecting platform, leaning against the door-frame smoking a cigarette. On his way out, however, the young man had disappeared without a trace. In his hand he had been holding an attaché case very much like the one Rong Jinzhen had just described.

The professor said, ‘At the time, I gave it little thought, thinking that it must have been his case because he was just standing there, smoking, I never really paid much attention to what was in his hands, it seemed as though he were in no hurry, would just finish his smoke and leave, but now – ah, I should have been more attentive.’ The professor’s voice was full of empathy.

Rong Jinzhen thought it most likely that it had been that man in the military clothes who had stolen his case. Even though it seemed as though he had just been standing there, in truth he had been deciding upon his mark. The professor’s trip to the bathroom gave him his opportunity, like seeing tracks in the snow – following them would lead you to the tiger’s cave. You could speculate that whilst the professor was in the lavatory, the man had made his move, he had ‘made use of every second and every inch’.

Mulling this over in his head, Rong Jinzhen couldn’t help but laugh bitterly.

[Transcript of the interview with Director Zheng]

In truth, cryptography is very much like having to make good use of every second and every inch.

Ciphers are very much like an enormous, seamless net, thus seemingly unreal. But once a cipher is used, they are like anyone’s mouth: it is very hard to avoid slips of the tongue. These slips are like rivulets of blood, splitting open a gash, providing a glimmer of hope for those attempting to crack the cipher. Just as lightening splits open the sky, a sharp mind squirrels itself into the gaps, passes into the inner labyrinth of a cipher as if it was a normal corridor, and sometimes even finds access to heaven. These last few years, Rong Jinzhen had used an enormous amount of patience in waiting for the gaps in the sky to open, he had waited through a countless number of days and nights, and yet he still had not succeeded in deciphering BLACK.

This was highly irregular. It was downright strange.

In trying to find a cause for this state of affairs, we at Unit 701 thought about two things:

1. Cracking PURPLE had forced our adversary to grit his teeth and bear the pain, to be ever more cautious when opening his mouth, to be circumspect and deliberate, to ensure that not one drop of water was spilt. It made us feel invulnerable.

2. Rong Jinzhen had failed to detect any errors within BLACK. The drops of water fell right through his hands. And what’s more, the chances of this happening were rather high. Think about it: Liseiwicz truly understood Rong Jinzhen; he could easily have warned the creators of BLACK of Rong Jinzhen’s skill at decryption and assisted them in developing countermeasures. Quite honestly, they were once like father and son, but now, because of their respective political positions and beliefs, the spiritual gulf between them was greater than any geographical distance. I still remember to this day the moment we learnt that Liseiwicz was in fact Weinacht – everyone in our organization wanted to come clean to Rong Jinzhen, to tell him of Liseiwicz’s clever ruse, to beg him to be wary. And guess what he said upon learning about this? He said, ‘Tell him to go to hell, this devil in the temple of science!’*

* This recalls the preface written by Young Lillie for Jinzhen’s thesis.

To reiterate, our adversary was increasingly cautious, making fewer and fewer mistakes; thus making it easier for us to miss things. Even if we were less than diligent, it would still have been obvious that our opponent had begun to make fewer errors. We were like an uneven mortise and tenon, echoing each other, nipping at each other, but never quite linking up; there was a heretofore unseen perfection in the network of lies we wove. But this perfection was strange and frightening. For Rong Jinzhen, each day and each night was greeted with a feeling of cold terror. No one but his wife knew what he was going through; for he had told her everything about the problems he was experiencing in his dreams: on the path to breaking a cipher, he was already too tired to be on his guard. His faith, his inner tranquillity had already met with the threat of despair; he was sick and tired of making his moves and fending off countermoves . . .

[To be continued]

Now, thinking of what had happened, thinking of how the thief had kept watch on them, thinking of his stolen leather attaché case, Rong Jinzhen’s thoughts became focused on his own vigilance and desperation. He mocked himself: ‘I thought of other people – the cryptographers who had constructed BLACK as well as those who had used it – and how difficult it was to get close to them, close to it. Yet it was so terribly easy for me to have my bag stolen, a task that took all of half a cigarette.’ He laughed to himself and smiled a bitter smile once again.

In truth, at this time Rong Jinzhen had yet to realize the gravity of the situation, had yet to think about the seriousness of his predicament. Thinking about what was inside, all he could remember was the return train ticket and the receipt for his lodgings, as well as 200 yuan or more worth of food stamps and an assortment of credentials. Johannes’ book was in there as well; he had put it in there last night before heading to bed. Realizing that he had lost a prized possession sent a pang through his heart. Still, comparing these things to what was still safely locked away in the safety-deposit box made him appreciate his good fortune, to be glad he had just narrowly escaped calamity.

It goes without saying that what the thief had desired to take was the safety-deposit box. That would have been a disaster. Now it seemed as though there was nothing to be worried about: what had happened was regrettable and that’s all; a pity, but not something to dread.

Ten minutes later, the carriage had become peaceful once again. Vasili and the professor had done much to console him and the emotional upheaval of losing his case had gradually receded. He felt calm. However, once he settled back into the dark of his berth, the peace of just minutes ago seemed to be swallowed by the night, shattered by the clacking of the train upon the tracks. It made him sink into a sea of regret.

Regret is a frame of mind; to recollect means to use one’s brain, to mentally exert oneself.

Was there anything else in the leather attaché case?

He turned it over in his mind.

Since all he now had was an imaginary briefcase, he needed to use his imagination to pull open the zipper. But as soon as he began this train of thought, his mind was invaded and harassed by feelings of regret and pity, turning his mind blank, making it impossible to open the zipper. All that was in front of his eyes was a large dizzying expanse of gloom. This was the outside of his leather attaché case, not the inside. Gradually, the feeling of regret began to subside and his thoughts returned to what was inside. His thinking was urgent, focused; much like the forcefulness of water running off melting snow – rising, pooling together, rising again, and again pooling together. Finally, he tore open the zipper and there was a blast of blue light that blazed in front of his eyes. It was as if an assassin’s hand had just flashed before him, making him stumble backwards into his bunk. He screamed, ‘My god, Vasili!’

‘What is it?’ Vasili had jumped up out of his berth; in the dark he could see Rong Jinzhen shivering.

‘My notebook! My notebook! . . . ’ Rong Jinzhen’s voice trailed off.

As it turned out, he had put his notebook in his briefcase.

Think about it: as a solitary person, a man generally sunk in deep contemplation of something or other, Rong Jinzhen gave the impression that he often heard fantastic, astonishing sounds. These reverberations would seem as if they had drifted in from somewhere far, far away, as if emanating from some spiritual realm. But they would never fully manifest themselves, they wouldn’t wait for him, they would always fall short of what was hoped for, and yet, without warning, he would encounter them on the fringes of perception. They would come uninvited, appear within his dreams, in the dreams within dreams, behind the words in a book he was reading – cryptic, always in new forms, mysterious in nature. What I would like to say is that these sounds – inspirations, really – would seem to spring from somewhere between heaven and earth, but in truth they came from Rong Jinzhen; they were ejected from his soul, they radiated out from his being, flickering once and then disappearing. He had to write them down immediately or they would be lost. As fast as they came, they left, even their shadows vanished. Because of this, Rong Jinzhen had got into the habit of always carrying a notebook on his person, everywhere he went, at all times; the notebook seemed as if it were his shadow, quietly striding alongside him.

I know it was a 64-page blue leather notebook; the title page contained a top-secret number as well as Rong Jinzhen’s personal serial number; inside were his notes and scribblings made over the last few years when he was working on BLACK. Normally, Rong Jinzhen would put the notebook in his top left-hand pocket, but this time, since he had to carrying along any number of official credentials and papers, he decided to bring a leather attaché case with him, placing the notebook in with them. The leather case was one that had been given to him by our director upon his return from a trip overseas. It was made of very fine calf ’s skin, very delicate and lightweight, with a wide elastic strap that you could carry in your hand and hoop around your waist, making it into an extension of your clothes. His notebook was inside. Certainly, Rong Jinzhen never suspected that anything would happen – he didn’t believe he could lose it, he most likely felt as though it would always be there . . .

[To be continued]

Over the past few days, Rong Jinzhen had gone through two notebooks.

He used up the first one four days ago. On that day, he had left the conference early and returned to his room feeling rather angry because of a particularly idiotic and dim-witted presentation. Panting with rage he reclined on his bed and stared out the window. From the outset, he noticed that the sky outside was slanted; he blinked, and yet it still spun. He began to realize that his line of sight was becoming blurred: the window, the sky, the city, the setting sun, everything was quietly slipping away, and in its place there emerged a flowing atmosphere and the sound of the setting sun scorching the sky – he saw the firmament as a formless and swirling mass with hot embers drifting through space on into nothingness. The heavens burned and darkness swelled up, eventually engulfing him. At that moment he understood, and he felt his body transform into an electric current. He glimmered, his entire body began to float; he had become some form of energy. Like a blazing flame he began to burn, to swirl, to evaporate, to drift into nothingness. Then at that instant, a clear sound rang out, like the graceful resonance of a butterfly flapping its wings . . . this was the sound of his fate, the sound of nature, the flash, the blaze, the spritely imp – he had to record it.

This was the moment he had used up an entire notebook, and later he felt rather pleased about what he had written. It was the wrath he had felt that had ignited him, the ire towards that mindless presentation that had inspired him. The second notebook he had filled out in the wee hours of the previous morning. Whilst dreaming and swaying back and forth in unison with the train’s movements, Rong Jinzhen had dreamt of Professor Johannes. They had spoken at length in his dream, and upon waking, Rong Jinzhen immediately reached for his notebook to record their conversation.