Turing's Delirium (29 page)

She heads to a corner of the cell and sits down on the floor, her back against the wall. She brings her hands up to her face and strokes the bridge of her nose. Her nostrils hurt. Perhaps tiny ribbons of blood are pooling there, about to let go. She mustn't forget to call the doctor again tomorrow morning, first thing.

She tries to calm herself. These drops of blood that fall from her nose are nothing to worry about. She has just been tense these past few weeks. All the rest is simply rampant hypochondria, with a meaning so clear and simple that she couldn't see it: the blood was her body's way of rejecting Miguel and her own way of life. The truth was staring at her the whole time.

True, the same thing had happened to her mom. But she hadn't paid attention to what was occurring inside her body, couldn't imagine that her cells were degenerating so rapidly, even though they were. At least Ruth has gone to the doctor, and now she just has to wait for the test results. She shouldn't get carried away until she gets in touch with the doctor. Cancer might be hereditary, but that does not mean it is her fate.

Her last violent visit with her mother is still as vivid as if it had happened yesterday. How could it be otherwise? Her mom was in her room, leaning up against two pillows in bed. Her robe was stained with phlegm. In the semidarkness, Ruth was surprised by her mother's baldness, the sudden way the taut skin on her cheeks had contracted and was wrinkled like an empty wineskin. In less than two months she had gone from living an active retirement to unimaginable suffering. She was crying, and Ruth approached to comfort her. "Don't touch me," her mother said angrily. "Don't look at me ... I'm ashamed to let you see me like this." Ruth had tried to joke. "Oh, Mom, you're still so vain." "I want you to leave ... You, your brothers, your dad ... Leave me alone!" Her hands were shaking, and it was difficult for her to breathe. Ruth wanted to console her. Perhaps she had come at the wrong time, but there had never been a good time in the last two months, ever since the night her mom had complained about a pain in her chest. The next day the doctor who saw her at the hospital sent her to see a specialist, but not before telling her that he feared the worst. By the end of that day the oncologist had confirmed their suspicions and was categorical in his diagnosis: the cancer was so far advanced in her liver and lungs that he gave her less than six months to live. "But I hardly smoke at all," her mom shrieked in the hospital hallway. That was a lie: she smoked two packs a day. Ruth sat down on the edge of the bed. She watched her mom search for something behind the pillows; suddenly she was brandishing a gun. "Put that down, Mom! Where did you get it?" It was the gun with the pearl handle that her dad had bought back when there was a rash of burglaries in the neighborhood. "Go on, sweetheart ... I can't take it anymore." Ruth tried to take the gun away from her mom, who aimed it at her own chest and fired.

A woman sitting next to her jumps up and holds Ruth's hands in hers. Her face is round, her eyes red and very wide.

"Oh, please," she says, "you have to try and help us when you get outta here."

"You may get out before I do."

"How? Why, just look at your clothes. You'll be leaving here in no time. Just like that."

"What did they pick you up for?"

"We were blocking the avenue to the airport. The soldiers came and chased us with chains, grabbing us and our husbands too. But we had to protest! The power bill has gone up so much that we can't pay, and they've got no right. We're tired of them sticking it to us."

"You're absolutely right. It's the same all over the city."

"If you get out, don't forget about us. I'm Eulalia Vázquez." She points to the woman next to her. "And she's Juanita Siles."

"If you get out first, remember me. Ruth Sáenz."

They shake hands. Ruth closes her eyes, overcome by exhaustion. She should be at home, relaxing in the tub, up to her neck in hot water. All those times she had to fight for the bathroom with Flavia, who spent hours in there. What can a person be doing in a bathroom that takes so long? And Miguel didn't let Ruth assert her authority but defended Flavia and let her get away with everything.

The baby continues to cry. She wants to shut him up, to have the cries and shouts of her cellmates disappear. She understands, knows what they are going through, but it is hard to remain calm with so much desperation around. More than anything, she wants to keep a cool head.

Ruth realizes that the blame for the strange course her life has taken can be laid at Miguel's feet. The man for whom her first attraction had taken her by surprise. She liked the long periods of silence in which he would get lost, his evasive glances, his humble gestures that tried not to attract attention. Introspective and intelligent, he was everything that Ruth looked for in a man. She had hated the ones she had dated as a teenager and young adult: loud, clumsy, aggressive in their masculinity. Miguel also understood her passion for the art of codes, which others had found boring and, in the end,
out of place
in a country like theirs. As a boyfriend of hers had once said, "We have a duty to pursue passions that are more useful to the nation." She had responded that the nation was an arbitrary limit for passions, that the only confine that would suffice was the universe. Years later, when she told Miguel this story, he had applauded her response. Ah, Turing: he had wanted her to teach him and had wound up knowing more than the teacher. Not only that, he had given himself over to cryptanalysis as if nothing else existed. Sure, it was important to try to transcend context in your activities, but that did not mean losing sight of it entirely.

She argues with Miguel in silence. She has done this so often before that she knows the exchange of opinions by heart, the veiled accusations and the surprising firmness of the replies. Over the past few months she has had the courage to tell him to his face, but maybe she waited too long, until the intense grumbling of unspoken phrases had already resulted in irrevocable damage. Today's gesture is not enough to counteract the accumulated anger and bitterness or to put their lives on course again, propped up as they are, heading steadily into the abyss.

Exhausted, she sleeps. It will be a fitful night: she will be woken several times because of the children or her cellmates crying. Fatigue will help her to fall back asleep quickly. She will have nightmares—the bloody waters of the Fugitivo River carrying her manuscript away, or she will want to read a book, only to discover that it has been written in a code incomprehensible to her.

 

The next day, in the afternoon, the mustached officer approaches the cell door and calls her name. She stands up, surprised. The other women bang on the bars, begging to be let free. The police officer opens the door and tells Ruth to follow him.

She crosses the threshold. The pale light filtering in through a window hurts her eyes. Only then does she realize that her cell had been in utter darkness and that she had had to strain to make out the faces and silhouettes of her cellmates.

She looks at the rain outside the window, trying to find beauty in the falling raindrops that cut the day into parallel lines.

"Hurry up," the officer says, grumbling. "The chief needs to speak with you."

R
AMÍREZ-GRAHAM IS DRINKING
a cup of black coffee in his office. He has finished reading the files that he took out of the archives. He learned little about Albert but much about Turing. What he knows saddens him. He had better leave politics as soon as possible and get back to his algorithms. He has to escape from the Black Chamber.

Baez calls him. "Boss, I need you to come to the Security Room right away." Ramírez-Graham does not feel like moving. Baez thinks everything is urgent.

"Anything to do with Turing's daughter?"

He spoke with her a few hours ago. Then he had spoken with Moreiras, the head of the SIN in Rio Fugitivo. A few minutes ago Moreiras had called him with information. There were only a few houses like the one they were looking for near San Ignacio—it was basically an upper-middle-class neighborhood. However, he had good news: they had discovered that the family in one of those houses, which was also a mechanic's shop, didn't know where to find their oldest son, a young man of about twenty. Could it be that the circle was finally closing?

"No, but everything to do with our Turing," Baez replies.

Ramírez-Graham stands up angrily. It is impossible to have a minute's rest at the Black Chamber. He had been able to relax more in his office at the NSA, even though he had more work. Perhaps that had something to do with the fact that he was not the boss at the NSA and could shirk his responsibilities for a few minutes. Perhaps it was another cultural difference: in Rio Fugitivo no one seemed capable of making a decision. Ramírez-Graham even had to sign the orders for the monthly allotment of toilet paper for the building. While Baez was one of his most capable and independent subordinates, Ramírez-Graham now thinks that he should actually have reprimanded him at the beginning for not consulting him when the matter of the Resistance first exploded. Baez had wanted to take care of Kandinsky himself, as if he were a minor problem, and had failed to highlight the seriousness of the situation until two weeks after the first attack on the government sites, when he was left no choice. Still, that frustrated act of independence had won him points in Ramírez-Graham's eyes and turned Baez into one of his most trusted men. It had caused rumblings in the hallways: Baez had been at the Black Chamber only a little over three months when he was promoted to the Central Committee.

The Security Room houses the monitors for the closed-circuit system that surveils the building and surrounding areas. Baez is leaning over the shoulder of one of the guards. Ramírez-Graham takes a Starburst out of his pants pocket and approaches them. His gaze rests on what they are watching: Turing, yes, Turing, searching through the files in what Ramírez-Graham calls the Archive of Archives, the small area to which only he has authorized access. It must be frustrating for someone in charge of the archives to have an inaccessible island within reach in the midst of that enormous ocean of documentation. What a temptation, as well, to see what is hidden there, to discover the beginning, the creation myth of the Black Chamber.

The creation myth: Ramírez-Graham had better speak with Turing. He had better reveal the real Albert, the real Black Chamber to him. It would hurt, but someone had to do it. Such daring in that insidious plan. Truly impressive. And it was true: as a professor of his used to say, if your ideas aren't daring, then why have them? But it should not therefore be concluded that daring justifies sacrificing the truth.

"Boss," Baez says anxiously, "are you going to fire him?"

"If I fired him, I'd have to fire everyone."

"I don't get it."

"I'm not sure whether I get it myself," he says, turning around, chewing his Starburst. "Tell Mr. Sáenz I'll be waiting for him in my office, please."

 

Turing enters Ramírez-Graham's office, looking down at the floor as if trying to pass unnoticed. Ramírez-Graham cannot help but feel sorry for him, a ghost with glasses. But no, a ghost has more presence.

"Sit down, please. Coffee? Candy?" he asks, offering him the package of Starbursts.

"No, thank you."

"You're doing me a favor. These were hard to find. I was told you could buy them at a store that sells imported products, but no. An old woman sells them in a kiosk in Bohemia."

Ramírez-Graham stands up and walks to the window. He sits back down again. Should he tell him everything? He has no choice.

"Mr. Sáenz, I don't know whether you know this, but there are hidden cameras in every office and corner of this building. The cameras have caught you doing strange things in the archives on several occasions. Not terribly hygienic, in truth."

Turing shifts in his seat.

"The McDonald's cup. The Road Runner."

"Ah ... I can explain. I have a problem. Incontinence. I'll bring you a doctor's certificate."

"I let it go because, well, you weren't bothering anyone." Ramírez-Graham picks up his coffee cup, holding it in the air as if forgetting about it. Svetlana always used to laugh at that gesture, telling him that it was as if he were posing, motionless, waiting for the photographer's flash. "But a few minutes ago the cameras caught you in the section of the archives that's off-limits. Yes, I know, we should have separated it from the rest of the room, put on a door and several locks. It was too tempting there, so handy. It's one of the many problems I found when I arrived, but there's not enough time to deal with everything. However good our intentions might be."

"I wasn't doing anything wrong. I was just curious."

"You wanted to know about Albert. About your creator."

"Someone here insulted him. I wanted to make sure that what he said wasn't true."

"You didn't find the documents. You didn't find them because I have them. I was curious too. Albert is an enigma to us all. But tell me, what was the insult?"

"That Albert ... was a Nazi fugitive."

"Yes, yes, I've heard the rumors. I'm sorry to say that I don't know how much truth there is to them, but I don't think there's much. No creo que son ciertos. Sean ciertos, I mean. They would have extradited him like they did Klaus Barbie when democracy returned."

"That's true. They didn't do anything. After 1982 he was technically no longer the boss, but he stayed on as an adviser, and everyone knew that in reality he was in charge."

"He was lucky. What goes on in the chamber is so secret that it took a long time before most people realized what his role was during the dictatorships. Well. I don't know what to say. I can tell you, though, other things that are important."

Turing makes some guttural noises, as if he is clearing his throat.

"The last time I went to see him," he says, "Albert spoke three words. Kaufbeuren. Rosenheim. Wettenhein. I found out that the first two are the names of cities in Germany. I didn't really hear them too well, but by searching I found out how they were spelled. Kaufbeuren, Rosenheim. I have no idea about the third, but maybe I didn't hear it right. My wife would know, but I don't know where she is. I've called her several times, but she must have turned off her cell phone."