by Lavie Tidhar
Luckily, by then he had arrived at the fifth floor. The elevator doors opened, and opposite was the door to suite B. The door was green, the paint chipped, and splats of ink covered the door frame.
Arvardan took a deep breath, and pressed the doorbell.
Arvardan thought the rhythm of the steps within the door sounded familiar, as though he had heard it somewhere. The door cracked open halfway, and a young woman held onto the doorknob as she filled the doorway, leaning forward to stare at Arvardan. She said, suspiciously:
“Who, are, you, looking, for?”
It was the voice behind the counter at the Department of Web Security, BBS Section. She looked beautiful: hunter green wool sweater, hair worn short in a tight bun in the typical style, skin so fair it was pale, and lips glowing with the flush of health.
Looking into the woman’s eyes, Arvardan hesitated, and then raised his right hand: “Title.”
Arvardan stared at the woman tensely. If the woman reported his strange behavior to the police, then he would be arrested and interrogated as to why he had gone to a stranger’s home. The crime of “willfully lolling about” was only slightly less serious than the crime of “using sensitive words.”
The woman nodded, barely perceptibly, and carefully gestured with her right hand for him to come in. Arvardan was about to speak, but the woman glared at him, and he swallowed and obediently followed her into the apartment.
Once they were in, the woman shut the door immediately, and then pulled a lead–grey curtain over the doorway. Arvardan blinked anxiously, and looked about him. The apartment had two bedrooms and a living room. The living room had a couch and a coffee table, on top of which there were a few bunches of red and purple plastic flowers. Next to one of the walls was a desk with a computer. A common white wall calendar hung on the wall, but the owner had taken care to decorate its edges with pink paper, giving it a homier feel. Arvardan noticed that the shoe rack next to the door held four pairs of shoes, all of different sizes. This meant that he wasn’t the only guest here today.
Arvardan was still uneasy. Suddenly the woman clapped him lightly on the back, indicating that he should continue inside. The two of them went across the living room, through a short hallway, and arrived at a bedroom. The bedroom door was curtained by the same kind of lead–grey curtain. The woman lifted the curtain and pushed open the bedroom door.
Arvardan saw three smiling individuals in a room decorated with real, fresh flowers. The room was also full of antiques that existed only in Arvardan’s memory: an Impressionist painting, a wooden sculpture from Uganda, and a silver candelabra. But there was no computer.
As he hesitated, the woman entered the room. She carefully pulled the curtain closed and shut the door. She turned around:
“Welcome to the Talking Club!”
The Talking Club?
Out of habit, Arvardan did not say the words aloud. He wasn’t certain if the words were healthy, and so asked his question only with his eyes.
“You can speak as freely as you like in here. This damned device won’t work here.” The woman pointed to his Listener. There was no warning beep. It didn’t seem to hear the two sensitive words in her speech: “freely” and “damned.”
Arvardan remembered the man he had seen a week ago at the bus stop. If he took off his Listener, would what happened to that man also happen to him? The woman saw that he was hesitant. She pointed to the lead–grey curtain at the door: “Don’t worry. This can shield off the signal for the Listener. No one will know.”
“Who, are, you? What, is, this, place?”
Arvardan took off the Listener. He spoke in a low voice. It was still too difficult for him to shift out of the manner of speech demanded by the appropriate authorities.
“This is the Talking Club. Here, you may speak as you like,” said another man as he got up. He was tall and thin, the glasses over his nose particularly thick.
Arvardan mumbled, but could not speak out loud. He was embarrassed by the stares of the four others, and his face flushed bright red. The woman who had opened the door for him gave him a sympathetic look: “You poor thing. Don’t be so tense. Everyone is like this when they first arrive. Over time you’ll get used to it.”
She put a hand on Arvardan’s shoulder: “Actually, we’ve met. At least I’ve seen you, but you haven’t seen me.” As she spoke, she reached up and let down her hair. The black tresses fell to her shoulders, and in that moment Arvardan thought she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
Arvardan finally spoke a whole sentence, though the words still did not flow smoothly. “I… remember you, remember your voice.”
“Really?” The woman laughed. She sat him on a couch, and handed him a glass of water. Arvardan noticed that this was an old–fashioned glass, etched with a flowery pattern. The water inside the glass gave off a faint fragrance. Arvardan tried a sip. The sweet taste was particularly stimulating for a tongue that had grown used to distilled water.
“This wasn’t easy to obtain. Even we can’t get it every week.” The woman sat next to him, looking intently at him with her dark eyes. ”How did you find out about us?”
Arvardan explained the process by which he had discovered the sequence of clues. The other four nodded in approval. “Smart man. Your brain hasn’t become mush,” said a thirty–something man with a few extra pounds. His voice was very loud.
The middle–aged man with glasses put his hands together in a gesture of agreement. “You are a natural for membership in the Talking Club.”
“All right,” the fat man said, “let’s give a round of applause to formally welcome the new member.”
The other four applauded, and the sound of their clapping filled the small bedroom. Arvardan lifted the glass to them, embarrassed. When the applause died down, he timidly lifted his head, and asked, “Can I ask a question? What exactly is the Talking Club?”
The woman who had brought him in responded:
“The Talking Club is a gathering where we can say anything we want. There are no sensitive words here, and no healthy Web. This is a space to release your soul and stretch out your body.”
“Our principle is just this: talk,” added the middle–aged man, and he adjusted his glasses.
“But, what can I talk about?”
“Anything. You can talk about anything in your heart.” The middle–aged man smiled.
This is an audacious gathering. It’s clearly criminal, Arvardan thought. But he found himself attracted to the idea of being a criminal in this way.
“Of course, we need to make certain things clear,” the woman said. “Talking is dangerous. Every member faces the danger of arrest by the appropriate authorities. State agents may break through the door at any moment, and capture us under the charges of illegal assembly and using illegal language. You have the right to refuse to join us, and leave immediately.”
Arvardan listened to the woman’s warning. He hesitated. But he thought that if he left now, then he would go back to his life, suffocating in a quagmire. Arvardan had not known that he had such a strong yearning to talk.
“I will not leave. I will join you, talking.”
“Perfect! Oh, why don’t we start with self–introductions?” The woman was delighted. She stood up. “Let’s start with me. My name is Artemis. As for my Web Access Serial? To hell with it. Who cares? I have my own name.”
Her words made everyone, including Arvardan, laugh. Then she continued. “Still, Artemis is just a pseudonym. She’s a goddess from Greek mythology.”
“Pseudonym?”
“Right. It’s not the same as the name on my Personal Identification Card.”
“But, why?”
“Aren’t you sick of the name they have for you in their files? I want to give myself a name that I like, even if there’s just one place to use it. In the Talking Club we each have picked a name for ourselves. That’s how we address one another.”
Arvardan nodded thoughtfully. He understood Artemi
s’s feeling. When using the BBS forums, he had hoped to pick a name that he liked, and not be assigned a user name.
Through Artemis’s self–introduction, Arvardan learned that she was a staffer at the Department of Web Security, BBS Section. She was twenty–three, single, and hated cockroaches and spiders. Her hobbies included sewing and gardening, and the flowers in the bedroom were secretly cut and brought back by her from outside the Capital.
Next was the middle–aged man. His name was Lancelot. He was forty–one, an engineer at the Capital Electric Plant. The name “Lancelot” came from the Arthurian legends, and belonged to a faithful knight. Lancelot was married and had two children: a boy (aged three) and a girl (aged four). They liked lemon–flavored candy the most. Lancelot hoped that he would be able to bring the kids to the next gathering of the Club. The children were still learning to talk, and he wanted them to learn real speech.
The thirty–something overweight man was a Web Regulator for the Department of Web Security named Wagner. This surprised Arvardan. He had had the impression that Web Regulators were all cold, expressionless men, but the man before Arvardan was corpuscular, oily, and his mustache curled up spiritedly at the ends. He loved cigars and the opera, and took advantage of the special privileges available to Web Regulators to obtain them.
“Wagner got us the curtains that can shield the signals from the Listener,” Artemis added. Wagner tipped an imaginary hat and bowed to her.
The fourth member of the Talking Club was a woman in a black uniform. She had just turned thirty. Her name was Duras, and she worked as an editor at the Capital Daily Times. She was even thinner than Artemis, and her high cheeks contrasted with her sunken eyes. Her thin lips didn’t part much from each other even when she spoke, and never revealed her teeth. She liked cats and dogs, even though she had no pets now.
“It’s you next,” Artemis said to Arvardan. Arvardan took a minute to think, and then introduced himself to the group, stammering many times. When he tried to describe his hobbies, for a moment he couldn’t think of any. He had never had to think about hobbies before.
Artemis put her hand on his shoulder again, and tried to help him. “Well, what’s the one thing you really want to do?”
“I can really say anything?”
“Anything. There are no restrictions here.”
Arvardan thought that he had finally found an opportunity. He cleared his throat, scratched his head, and broke into a loud, crisp shout: “Fuck you, you sonovabitch!”
All the others were stunned. Wagner was the first to recover. He held onto his cigar with his teeth and applauded vigorously. Then he took the cigar in his hand, and loudly exclaimed: “Fantastic! This should be our formal membership oath.”
Artemis and Duras both giggled. Arvardan thought that beyond the novelty of speaking with the Club, he really enjoyed the sense of contempt for the appropriate authorities in voicing the string of swearwords.
Artemis tilted her head and asked him. “What do you wish to name yourself?”
“Ummm… Wang Er,” Arvardan said. This was a Chinese name. He had once had a Chinese friend who loved to tell stories. In all his stories, the main character was named Wang Er.[2]
The mood in the bedroom was now friendly and easy, and conversation became more natural. Everyone got into a comfortable position, and Artemis refilled everyone’s cup from a kettle from time to time. Arvardan gradually let go of his tension, and felt that his brain had never been so relaxed.
Artemis filled his cup with sweet water again, “It’s impossible to speak freely in our daily lives. We need this space. But we can’t openly advertise for membership, and it’s far too risky to try to find new members through physical contact. So Lancelot designed a system of clues and hints, and Wagner and I used our system access privileges to leave the clues in places. Only those who discovered and solved the clues would find the Club.”
“My system wasn’t designed just for safety,” Lancelot said. He took off his glasses and carefully polished them. “It’s also a qualifying exam for potential new members. Members of the Talking Club must be in possession of intelligence and wisdom, passionate, and full of yearning for freedom.”
Wagner held his cigar between two fingers, flicked the ash into an ashtray, then said loudly, “In my experience, most applicants for permission to use the BBS service are nostalgic for the past or desire something new and fresh in their lives. They think that the BBS forums will show them something different from daily life — of course, reality is far otherwise, since the State’s control over the BBS forums is even stricter than the regulation of e–mail — but their desire indicates that they want to be free. Thus, we hide our clues in the BBS documents so that only applicants for BBS service can find them. And only those who are smart and observant can find all the hints and follow their trail to find this place.”
“You are the second person to find the Talking Club. The first was Miss Duras,” Artemis said to Arvardan. Arvardan gazed at Duras in admiration. Duras lightly said, “It’s no big deal. My job is all about playing with words.”
Arvardan remembered the crazy man he had met at the bus stop a week ago. He told the others his story. When he was finished, Lancelot shook his head, and sighed.
“I’ve seen this sort of thing, too. It happened to a colleague of mine. This shows the necessity for something like the Talking Club as a pressure–release valve. Living constantly under the restrictions imposed by sensitive words will drive people crazy because they can neither think nor express themselves.”
Wagner moved his heavy body to the side. “This is exactly what the appropriate authorities want to see. Then only the stupid will survive. A society full of stupid men is a stable one.”
“You are also a member of the appropriate authorities, Mr. Wagner,” Artemis said lightly as she refilled Wagner’s cup.
“Miss Artemis, I’m an ordinary man just like any other, with the sole distinction that I’m allowed to use a few more sensitive words.”
Everyone laughed. Arvardan had never seen so many people speak so much. He found, to his own surprise, that he quickly felt at home among these people. The distance and sense of unfamiliarity between them melted away quickly. Also, his dizziness and congested chest, problems that had become habits, disappeared.
Quickly the topic of conversation turned from the Talking Club itself to broader interests. Artemis sang a song; Lancelot told a few jokes; Duras told everyone about the customs of the southern provinces of the State; Wagner even sang an aria from an opera. Even though Arvardan couldn’t understand a word of this last contribution, he did not hold back his applause. In a shielded corner of the Capital, five individuals unwilling to sink into silence were enjoying a most precious luxury — talking.
“Wang Er, do you know Nineteen Eighty–Four?” Artemis asked. She sat down next to Arvardan. Arvardan shook his head. “I only know that 1984 is part of my Web Access Serial.”
“It’s a book.”
“Book?” This was an old word. Now that computer technology had advanced to the point that all information was contained by the Web, anyone could go to the online library to get the digital editions of published material. The appropriate authorities considered physical books to be an unnecessary waste, and they had gradually disappeared.
Wagner said, “It is understandable that the appropriate authorities prefer electronic books. With electronic books, all you need is FIND and REPLACE to eliminate all unhealthy words in a book and decontaminate it. But to correct and edit physical books would take forever.”
“Nineteen Eighty–Four is a great book. It’s what an old philosopher predicted about our modern world,” Artemis said earnestly. “Long ago, the book perceived the struggle between restraint and freedom over the flesh and over the soul. It’s the foundation of the Talking Club.”
“How can one read this book?” Arvardan asked, staring into Artemis’s dark eyes.
“We can’t find a paper copy, and of course the onli
ne library won’t have it.” Lancelot shook his head, and then broke into another smile. He gestured with his left hand at Duras. “Our Miss Duras should be proud of her memory. When she was young, she was fortunate enough to have read this book, and could recall most of it.”
“Wonderful! Then she wrote it out, right?”
“That would be far too dangerous. Right now, owning physical books is a great crime, and would risk exposing the Talking Club. Instead, every time the Talking Club meets, we ask Miss Duras to recite some of it.”
Everyone quieted. Duras stood up and walked to the middle of the room. Arvardan casually put his arm around Artemis’s shoulders, and she leaned toward him, her hair drifting between them. A faint feminine fragrance found its way to his nose and caused his heart to skip a few beats.
Duras’s voice was not loud, but clear and forceful. Her memory was indeed amazing: not only did she remember the plot, but also she could even recount many of the details and recite entire passages verbatim. Duras got to the part where Julia pretended to fall and secretly handed a note with the words “I love you” to Winston. Duras’s retelling was so lively that she captivated everyone. Artemis was especially absorbed in the story and didn’t notice Arvardan’s eyes, which never left her.
“The author of Nineteen Eighty–Four predicted the progress of totalitarianism, but could not predict the progress of technology.” Wagner gave his opinion as Duras paused for a drink. Arvardan thought that Wagner’s appearance belied his quickness: he was a very perceptive technocrat.
“In Oceania, it was still possible to pass secret notes to each other and express one’s hidden thoughts. But now things are different. The appropriate authorities have forced all of us to live on the Web, where even if we wanted to pass secret notes to each other the Web Regulators would see everything. There is no place to hide. And in real life? We still have to contend with the Listener.” Wagner knocked his cigar against his thighs. “To put it simply: technology is neutral. But the progress of technology will cause a free world to become ever freer, and a totalitarian world to become ever more repressive.”
