The History Mystery

by Ana Maria Machado

  ‘Gregorio … de … Gonzaga,’ said the voice, hesitant.

  ‘Gonzaga? Or was it Alvarenga?’ Robbie suggested, checking one of the sheets of paper in front of him. This time the answer came without any hesitation:

  ‘Gonzaga or Alvarenga. It’s all the same. Like Gregorio, it doesn’t matter. They are all poets. And brave. Masters of the written word.’

  Pedro scribbled furiously on another sheet of paper, while Robbie continued the interview.

  ‘Well, well, the names of many famous Brazilian poets rolled into one! So, your parents were very fond of poetry and your name is Gregorio de Gonzaga Alvarenga, a tribute to many poets?’

  Now he could see the other sheet of paper that Pedro was holding up: ‘SAY THAT WE’RE HERE.’

  Meanwhile, the metallic voice was replying, ‘The name does not matter. A name … What’s in a name? I could be named after a whole team, because I am many.’

  On the other side of the glass wall, the technician laughed out loud and commented, ‘This guy’s completely insane! Must be calling from a mental institution! I’d like to see how Robert gets out of this one …’

  But Robbie seemed pretty comfortable. He continued to chat with the person with the metallic voice.

  ‘My dear Gregorio Alvarenga, I think I have a surprise for you. Your friends to whom you have just dedicated that song, at least some of them, are here with us in the studio. I would love to say that our producers did a whole lot of teamwork to locate them, but I’d rather tell the truth. It’s just an amazing coincidence, because they are my friends too and have just dropped by to see me.’

  ‘I know …’ answered Gregorio – or whoever was the owner of that voice, with his whole array of names.

  What did he know? That they were there? Or that they were friends with the broadcaster? But Robbie didn’t even seem to hear those two short words, because he went on talking. ‘If you like, you can say a few words. To all of our listeners, of course. But especially to them, since they’re almost all here.’

  ‘Almost all? Why? Who is missing? Is Faye there?’

  As Robbie was explaining that the only one missing was William, something surprising happened. When he heard Faye’s name pronounced by that metallic voice, Matt suddenly snapped out of the paralysed state he had been in. He let go of Faye’s hand, stepped up to the console and pressed a little button – the one that had been used a moment ago to activate the microphone in the outer room and allow communication with the booth, when the producer had told Robbie he would be on air in ten seconds.

  Everyone heard Matt’s voice sounding over the conversation, transmitted live to the whole community of listeners. ‘What’s the deal, man?’ he said to this Gregorio person. ‘Why are you so interested? And what do you want with Faye?’

  ‘Calm down, my boy, I just asked because I’ve spoken to her before,’ answered Gregorio God-knows-what, in his metallic, computer-distorted voice.

  ‘Well, now you can talk to all of us,’ replied Matt, with his finger still on the button.

  From the other side of the glass, Robert Freitas tried to take control of the situation. In the outer room, the technician took Matt’s hand off the control, while Robbie addressed the listeners.

  ‘My friends, you have just heard one of the people to whom this afternoon’s song has been dedicated. Matt, who is on a visit to our studio, has been asking a few questions of Gregorio Alvarenga. This is Vila Teodora Community Radio, with the Robert Freitas show, always on the air to make friends and give everyone a voice. So, Mr Gregorio Alvarenga, what have you got to say to us?’

  ‘Well, as a representative of the poets, all I have to say is that the verses we write are waiting for readers to come and find our poems, and find in them the emotions and thoughts that have travelled over distances and have conquered time.’

  Thinking that he really needed to put an end to this crazy conversation and carry on with his show, Robbie prepared to say goodbye before playing another jingle and passing on to another segment of the programme.

  ‘Very well, this has been Gregorio Alvarenga, today’s participant listener. Thank you so much for your words, on behalf of all our listeners.’

  On the other side of the glass, the technician relaxed, glad that the tension created by all these improvisations and interruptions had lifted. He was just about to play the jingle, as soon as Robbie gave him the signal, but then Matt, seeing that the technician had let his guard down, pressed the little button again. Only this time he had had time to think and put his ideas in order, so he was able to say, calmly and objectively: ‘This is Matt here again. I’m sorry, Gregorio, but before you leave, could you please quickly tell us whether you need any assistance? And what can we do to help you?’

  Robbie tried to get control of the situation again. ‘Very briefly, please,’ he added, ‘as we’re running out of time.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Gregorio, ‘I do need help, and lots of it. Actually, I must confess that is the reason I am here. I am making use of this radio show to ask for help. For a long time now, I have noticed how Robert Freitas does such a great job on this show, helping people. So you’re quite right, I really do need help.’

  This comment disarmed Robbie. There was still plenty of time – the programme still had nearly two hours to run – and at this stage, he really couldn’t just cut off this Gregorio de Gonzaga or Alvarenga or whatever his name was and take him off the air. There was nothing for it but to let him continue.

  ‘In that case,’ said Robbie, ‘please explain to us your problem. But please, try to be concise.’

  ‘Can I tell you my story? It’s necessary for you to understand.’

  ‘Briefly, please, keep it short.’

  ‘Well, I think we can say, to put it briefly, that I worked for a while in a laboratory, and there was a bit of an accident. I was splashed by one of the products that my master was using, and I have had to live with the consequences. For ever.’

  Ah, a work-related injury. Something concrete, at last. Robbie was used to hearing stories like this. He was more comfortable with this. He knew what kind of things he should say in this situation. He could carry on with the programme.

  ‘We’ve had cases like this on the show before. We have a lawyer, in fact, who can give you some guidance. What our friend needs to do is write us a letter, explaining the whole thing in detail, what happened, the name of the company, whether there were any witnesses and so on. All the details you have. It would be good, too, if you could let us have some proof, maybe a medical report or an eyewitness account, a police report, even, if you happened to report the incident to the police at the time. We will study your situation carefully and forward your request for compensation.’

  While Robbie was saying all this on the radio, his friends in the outer room of the studio were discussing the whole thing. Of course they knew what this was about. It was that incident with the wizard, the story the Brainy Hacker had told through Will’s computer game. Some of the Elixir of Youth had dropped on him and he had become like a zombie, floating around throughout the centuries. And now here was this guy confirming the story.

  ‘No, no,’ Gregorio was saying. ‘I’m not looking for compensation. I just want to rest.’

  ‘And how can we help?’ asked Robbie. ‘Would you like to be sent to some kind of clinic maybe, for a bit of R and R?’

  They all listened carefully. On both sides of the glass. And the whole radio audience must have been listening too.

  ‘That’s why I took part in the rap contest,’ said Gregorio. ‘With my song on this subject.’

  Robbie immediately recognised the rap he was referring to, and he sang one of the verses:

  If nobody reads it,

  then one day it will cease to be.

  If it isn’t written down,

  what’s it worth, the poetry?

  Robbie was back in charge of the show now.

  ‘So it was you who wrote that song? In that case, we’re talking to an old f
riend of this show. But I didn’t know it was you, because I didn’t recognise the name you used today when you dedicated the song.’

  ‘That’s because I used a different name this time,’ said the metallic voice. ‘But the message I am trying to get across is that poetry is eternal. Stories too. Literature is eternal. That’s what endures. Not us. People keep changing, some die, others are born. But what is written down is what endures. The written word crosses time and space; it communicates with those who are far away. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a letter or an email, a book or a parchment. Words are the mark we leave on the world.’

  There! thought Robbie. There was no doubt about it, the guy was delirious. He was going to have to cut this speech short somehow.

  ‘Our friend is right,’ he announced. ‘Thank you for reminding us. But now our time is up and we have to say goodbye.’

  ‘Just one last thing,’ insisted the metallic voice. ‘The human spirit lives forever in books –’

  ‘All right, thank you.’

  ‘… and when the books are read,’ continued the voice, not stopping even to take a breath, not giving Robbie a chance to cut him off (because you really can’t hang up halfway through a sentence), ‘the human spirit stays alive for ever, it doesn’t die, and then I can rest because everything that humanity has ever done will continue here, present, helping everyone who is born anywhere, but if reading disappears, I go back to my damnation, my enchantment, my curse, condemned to wander forever, it’s dangerous, it’s a huge risk, it’s –’

  Robbie couldn’t take any more. The programme was already a mess. Things couldn’t go on like that. He signalled to the technician, gesturing counter-clockwise with his hands.

  The technician knew what he meant and started slowly turning a big button on the console, while with his other hand he slowly turned a different button in the opposite direction. The sound of the metallic voice slowly faded, as the sound of the jingle got louder. So ended the conversation with Gregorio de Gonzaga, or Alvarenga, or whoever he was. The Brainy Hacker. The Poetic Hacker, maybe they should call him now. The wizard’s assistant, who travelled through time defending the written word and who had pestered the friends for so long.

  13 – Like a Movie

  You know how sometimes you get information at the end of a movie or a TV programme, just a few sentences about what happened to the characters after the story ends?

  Johnny is in prison.

  Jack and Jill got married and moved to the Bahamas.

  Mr So-and-so became president of the company.

  Rosie and Roger had triplets and opened a stall selling watermelons in a farmer’s market in Cornwall.

  That kind of thing.

  I thought I might end this book that way too – but not just yet. I have a bit more to tell you first, about what happened when Robbie’s radio show ended.

  The kids stayed for a while around the radio station, hanging out, waiting for Robbie to come off air.

  The mysterious Gregorio Alvarenga didn’t show up again. Not there and not anywhere else. Not under this name or any other. Not on mobile phones, computer games or email attachments. The Brainy Hacker just disappeared as suddenly as he had come. Except for one last message that Robbie got as he was getting ready to leave the studio that Saturday.

  The four friends who’d been at the radio station phoned Will, and he came over to meet them. Robbie soon joined the others after the show, and they all went to get a bite to eat. They had a lot to talk about.

  The first thing was this one last email that had arrived on the station’s computer after the end of Robbie’s show. It was addressed to the famous broadcaster Robert Freitas ‘and today’s guests’.

  There was no readable identification in the header, just some numbers and letters mixed randomly, as if they were encrypted. The subject line read ‘Message for you’. After that it was all clear. You could read the whole message and understand everything. No squiggly characters, no mysteries:

  My friends,

  It’s quite possible that this greeting, on the very day that we met, will also be a goodbye. I know you will help me, now that you’ve understood the trouble that has been afflicting me for so long.

  You will surely come to my rescue, as you have understood that I am a spirit wandering throughout eternity. With this help you will give me, it’s possible that we will no longer need to have this kind of direct contact in the future.

  Perhaps I will miss you. I have grown to appreciate and care for each of you. Yes, I will miss you, I admit it. But I will no longer suffer.

  Either way, we can always meet again, in the best possible way: on the pages of the books you read, with the joy and the awe of discoveries. In other words, in the situation for which words and the way to transmit them has been created so that they can persist. The written language and its reading. This is what allows human beings to travel through time and conquer death.

  There he goes again, the friends were all thinking privately. All this waffle about reading. But still they read on, kind of interested at the same time.

  Back in Ancient Greece, Hippocrates wrote: ‘Life is short, art is long’. People still quote this saying today.

  I think it is part of human nature to be conscious that everything is fleeting and one day we shall die. Other animals do not share this awareness. But along with this knowledge of how things pass comes the human desire to conquer death. That is also part of the human condition.

  Yes, they’d got that part. Ages ago.

  In the Middle Ages, alchemists like my master searched for an elixir that would allow them to survive throughout the centuries, individually, in the flesh. They did not realise that that is not the way to conquer time. We can only achieve this collectively, as a species, through the history of all people, by passing things along.

  The friends looked at one another. But still they read on. They’d got used to their Brainy Hacker’s rambling ways and strange use of language.

  For this to work, we need memories, transmitted from one generation to the next, and the way we preserve those memories is through the written word.

  They sighed. Same old, same old.

  Because those droplets fell on me all those centuries ago in the alchemist’s laboratory, a small part of my spirit has been unable to die. My individual consciousness has been aware of all kinds of writings and memories throughout time. And this has meant that I have never been able to rest. No individual can stand this. We all need the balance between memory and oblivion. Forgetting is a necessary blessing. Not only is life more brief than art: that is the way it is supposed to be.

  It is bad enough that I am condemned to half-live for ever, but when I started to feel worried recently that people might be forgetting how important the written word is, that they are in danger of abandoning literature in favour of the image – well, that made me more restless than ever. I began to think that nature itself and the future of this planet were under threat from the rampant advancement of new technologies invented by men. I became truly worried about humankind’s destructive capabilities.

  That is why I felt I had to reach out to you and try to convince you of the value of reading. I am now more at ease. I managed to make contact with you and I am certain that you have understood me. So now I can rest.

  I wish you a long and happy life, immersed in still longer art.

  Many thanks,

  Best regards from

  Gregorio Alvarenga Gonzaga Dias Bilac Bandeira Drummond de Castro Alves …

  The list faded away, mixing names of many famous poets, until it finally became illegible.

  The friends read the message, curious and touched. There was silence for a few moments, and then they all suddenly started talking.

  ‘That’s a bit clearer …’

  ‘They’re all poets, those names.’

  ‘Yeah …’

  ‘We can understand what the guy wanted. Sort of.’

  ‘Maybe he’s not all that crazy
…’

  They went on talking then, about everything that had happened over the time in which the Brainy Hacker had visited them. Everything that has been told here and that you already know. They went over it all again, as if they were afraid they might forget.

  The story was, of course, incredible. At the same time, they’d had the experience. They’d read the messages. The best they could do was pretend it was all true, even if they knew it couldn’t be. And after all, that’s how all stories work, really, whether it’s in books, movies or on TV. We all know it’s not real, but we go along with it, and that allows us to be entertained, touched, excited, to become thoughtful and to learn stuff.

  So the friends decided to pretend to believe the whole daft story about how, a long time ago, some drops of liquid that were being tested as a component of the Elixir of Youth fell on an alchemist’s assistant. Part of this person, touched by that liquid, ended up existing forever. Not in body, but in spirit. Precisely the part that can live in everything that humankind writes, and that allows humans to conquer distance and time and allows them to communicate with future generations.

  And then somehow he’d got hold of the idea that writing and literature were under some kind of threat, and he mounted a very weird kind of one-man reading-promotion programme, aimed at this particular group of friends.

  Why them? Nobody knows. Least of all them, but he seems to feel now that he has gotten his point across.

  This is all, of course, nonsense in the opinion of our friends. They didn’t really get the connection he had made between his own situation and the threat he thought the written word was facing. But he did genuinely seem to fear that if nobody read any more, he would end up lost, floating and fluttering forever, like waves lost in space, formed by the reverberation of words that had been spoken and written in the past and that nobody would receive in the future.

  Sonia, Pedro, Matt, Faye, Will and Robbie didn’t think that reading and writing were coming to an end. Still, just to be on the safe side, and because they felt a kind of loyalty to the weird Brainy Hacker, they thought they would give a little hand.