A Spy in Time

by Imraan Coovadia

  The librarian had tied his handkerchief around his head in order to sleep better, when I rolled the trolley back to his desk. He lifted the handkerchief off his black eyes, offended that I would disturb him. He was so thin, I noticed, that you could see the gleam of bone in his dark brown face.

  “You have what you came for?”

  I said, “I got most of it. Thank you.”

  “You are most welcome.”

  “I want to find out who is supplying items to a government agency. Is there an easy way to find out?”

  The librarian folded his handkerchief into a square on his palm before he answered.

  “This is Brazil. There is no easy way to find out anything.”

  “I see that.”

  “But you may have some luck at the company registration office. It is not far from here. I will draw you a map.”

  At the library and company registration office, I filled pages of my notebook with information the brassheads would have loved to know. I discovered the name of Muller’s business venture: Reliable Machines. It had been founded in Munich in 1948 and was domiciled in Panama City, along with certain subsidiary enterprises in Morocco and Buenos Aires and, for some reason I couldn’t discern, a consultancy devoted to the appraisal of pieces of sculpture, the provenance of which was ancient Ife and Benin. I had known something about Muller’s side interest in antiquities, but it was the first time I had heard the full name and designation of the Board of Protection.

  Muller had emigrated to Brazil in 1961, according to news reports, and had been granted citizenship in 1962 in a ceremony over which Admiral Coriolis had presided. In the same year, Reliable Machines had established itself as a provider to the armed forces of the Republic. I couldn’t find birth records for any such person as Keswyn Muller, but I did find a variety of patents assigned to the company, originally submitted in Geneva in 1937 under the name of K Muller, then a Swiss resident. The files had to do with the internal design of coding and decoding circuits.

  I didn’t have the expertise to interpret the technical specifications but somebody like Coriolis would have seen their value for his own purposes. Polish signals intelligence officers had brought similar devices to the United Kingdom in 1939. Their plans had been incorporated into the Enigma machine which had been used to locate and destroy German submarines in the Atlantic.

  I took a taxi home through busy streets. The cars and trucks, buses and vans flashed past without making an impression. My mind was full. I paid the driver and went into the elevator of the building without remembering what I was doing.

  I came back to the present when the elevator doors opened to reveal João standing there, his face drawn like a curtain. Behind him lay two open suitcases.

  “What happened, João?”

  “My controller sent a message. I found it in the drop today, when I went to deliver your report and mine.”

  I went into the apartment and waited as João locked the door behind us, holding my notebook in both hands. The contents of the shelves had been pulled onto the floor. The door of the safe stood open, revealing stacks of money, blank keys, transmitters, computer punch cards, and other pieces of observational equipment.

  “And what do they say?”

  “They’re closing down the residencies across the board, as a result of Muller, because they don’t know if they can track us. I am being pulled off station and so, as it happens, are you, Mr. Eleven. We go tonight. Agency has set up an exit point starting at midnight. I have to conclude some business before then. I will give you the coordinates in case I don’t get back here in time.”

  I hadn’t realized that my mind was made up until João said the words out loud. My heart was beating so fast I thought I would faint, blood rushing in my ears, and yet I wanted to be nowhere else in that minute, only in old Rio amidst her black-and-white ghosts.

  “I can’t go back, João. There are connections here that I have to understand. I have to meet Keswyn Muller face-to-face. I have to confront him with what he’s done, the demons he’s unleashed.”

  “You can’t disobey a direct order from the brassheads.”

  “On the contrary, João. They want me to disobey these orders. That is precisely why they allowed Akiko to talk to me, why they subliminally encouraged her. They allowed her to give me an eight-hundred-digit prime.”

  “What are you talking about, Mr. Eleven?”

  “It’s the only thing that makes sense. When Akiko thought she was outsmarting them, she was doing their bidding. She wanted me to save your life. They wanted it at some level, I believe, or some fraction of the thinking machines at the top. I want it too, João Twenty, and that’s why I can’t allow you to go back and die like a dog. They don’t want me to let you either, otherwise I would not be here in Rio. I will let you in on a real secret. If you don’t come with me, I am certain this will be the last day of your life.”

  The tram to Santa Teresa was swift. We went past Candelária Church, along Rua Joaquim Murtinho, in a matter of minutes up onto the aqueduct. The carriage rattled on the elevated track, swaying from one side to the other. I watched the cables join above the tracks, sparks flying in every direction when a tram came in the opposite direction. In the distance ran rows of concrete apartment buildings, abutting the cruel jungle and the stale ocean.

  João was almost lost in his leather jacket. What had I given up on his account? I had broken my most sacred promises to the Agency and to the doctrine. I saw in the tram window that my reflection was almost imperceptible.

  Near the end of the journey, João broke into my thoughts.

  “Mr. Eleven, tell me one thing. Are you doing this because of Akiko Thirteen? You were in love with her and you would do anything on her behalf? Is that the case?”

  Was he jealous? Was I jealous? Were we all suffering from reflection sickness? I looked out of the window and up at the statue. I felt as if the tram were moving into the care of Christ the Redeemer.

  “I didn’t know her well enough. We were together only for a few days.”

  He leant towards me.

  “Then you care so much about my welfare?”

  “That’s not it. I know you even less, to be honest, João. I liked you immediately. Who wouldn’t? Who wouldn’t admire the spirit of your residency? But I don’t know you well enough to give up my entire life.”

  “Then, may I ask, why are we on the run together? I don’t care so much about my life, to give up every shred of honor and decency to keep my skin. And what exactly has happened to Akiko?”

  I had no answers. I was in the trap again. I couldn’t say that a sense of destiny had taken hold of me and had brought João under my protection. I certainly couldn’t tell him the full truth about Akiko’s sacrifice. On that day, I couldn’t utter the half of what was in my heart, as if a spell had been put on me.

  When we reached the Largo dos Guimarães and got down from the tram, I turned to João. For no reason I can explain, I put my arms around him for an instant. His beard irritated me. I let him go.

  The men on the square looked at us, then turned back to their card games and conversations in the sun. I saw them as specters in the sunshine, pale-skinned men who would be buried centuries before I was scheduled to be born. The tram took on new passengers while the driver watched from his compartment, his shirt rolled above the elbows.

  I followed João across the square to the pavement where, on the counter of a small cabin, a man was slicing coconuts with a cleaver. The tram clanked in a circle, the driver changing the sign on the door to Centro, and slid underneath its cable to the aqueduct. I waited until it disappeared before turning back to João.

  “You loved Akiko Thirteen despite her white skin, João.”

  “She didn’t tell me about her condition. In any case, I live here in the old world. I don’t have the same prejudices as you most probably do.”

 
Two men in priest’s robes went by, their faces severe. I waited until they were out of earshot.

  “I believe you knew at a subconscious level, João, and you loved her despite the fact. So did I. I loved her because I knew she was hiding in plain sight. Therefore, I couldn’t let you be shot down like a dog. I couldn’t let the past take its course.”

  João put a hand to his forehead, trying to remember the exact words. “Lord, let me have the courage to accept the things which should not be changed…”

  “Quote S Natanson until the cows come home. He wasn’t consistent himself. When he sent his wife back, he was prepared to alter the entire course of history.”

  “He knew she would fail, Mr. Eleven. She didn’t have the energy at her disposal to make any kind of difference. They must have been desperate to try anything, although the equations clearly ruled it out. To attempt the impossible…for me, that is the description of heroism.”

  During our short conversation, a jeep had arrived on the square. Three soldiers got out. They looked at us curiously and we moved to the far end of the square. The revolver João had given me was heavy in my pocket.

  I kept talking. I thought I would never get a chance to talk again. “You said it yourself, João. There’s no measuring rod. Everything may have changed, in fact, as a result of the actions of S Natanson, because of what his wife did, and we don’t know because we changed along with it. Without her intervention, would anybody have made it into the mines? Who knows?”

  “She would have needed a nearly infinite amount of energy. Where was she supposed to find it?”

  I didn’t have an argument to make. So I kept quiet. We avoided the soldiers and went past the museum and the old convent on the side of Morro do Desterro, walked along the road, underneath a canopy of trees, a pattern of sunshine and shadow like a curtain on the Earth. The old white mansions rose around us behind their heavy shutters.

  I let myself think that I had saved both of us. The air had been heavy between us since I’d arrived in old Brazil. I had been a co-conspirator against João Twenty, cold as any calculating monster in its bronze skin. At some level, he had processed the fact that he had been under sentence of death. I had not seen him so happy, his beard gleaming in a passing band of sunshine.

  At the entrance to Muller’s compound, João paused. He went back to the subject.

  “When you arrived, Mr. Eleven, you changed my life.”

  “How so?”

  “Until you arrived, I’d never had the chance to say one word regarding Akiko. She is a special and remarkable personality. I had bottled up all my feelings about her.”

  “So would you say that you knew and accepted what she was?”

  “I cannot say I knew the color of her complexion, because I never saw her without the effect of the skin-darkening creams. I am grateful to you for something else entirely, as I say. To have a chance to talk about her for one day of my existence is more important than saving a mere life, even if it is my own. That I can never forget no matter how long I have left to live. And I hope to make it to a hundred and forty at least.”

  I thought then that what made Akiko Thirteen special and remarkable was her predicament. She’d never wanted to be seen as a fair-skinned person, a throwback to the old world. In private, like others who tried to pass for black, Akiko likely painted her body with a skin-darkening cream made from seaweed extract, which turned her complexion purple-black from the feet to the scalp. She would have watched herself in a holographic mirror, looking for any sign her reflection could betray her, just as I would do for other reasons. In public she would have lived in fear of exposure, day and night, year by year, prophesying and even longing for the hour of revelation. It was this very pain and fear, changed into something beautiful, which had drawn João and then myself in her direction.

  A green light on the wall started flashing and the gate opened. The driveway was fifty yards of gravel leading to the two-story building. Old-fashioned earthmoving equipment, partially hidden by rubber blankets, stood on the margins.

  On our approach, the garage doors rose. It seemed strange beyond belief that inside a record was playing. It was a waltz, the sound of a needle on vinyl crackling through the speaker. The corridor on our right was dim. Its ceiling was covered with netting. At the end it opened into a lounge with damask couches. The curtains were drawn.

  Keswyn Muller was alone. He didn’t immediately get up. He had a number of records out on the table and was dusting them with a horsehair brush before putting them back in their sleeves.

  After a minute, Muller rose and lifted the needle off the record. He had a long housecoat on. His face was larger than I remembered.

  “Gentlemen. I pray you have a seat. I believe I have met each of you separately, on previous occasions.”

  João sat down on the couch opposite the table. I sat beside him.

  “Where is Soledad?”

  “Soledad went on ahead. She sends her apologies. As you know, unlike the privileged operatives of the Agency, we cannot be in two places at once.”

  Could we be in two places at once? Was I in two places at once because I travelled through the centuries? I had never cared to dispute the philosophy.

  There was a fierce light in Muller’s eyes when he talked. They were pinholes. Through them I imagined I could see a whirlpool, and for the first time since I’d lain in the graveyard I was frightened for the world. I looked at João, who knew no more than I did, and back at Keswyn Muller, the man who had somehow brought down the world and all possible worlds. The unprepossessing man who had tarried with the infinite.

  “I don’t know who you are, Dr. Muller. I don’t know whom you represent.”

  “But I know who you are. Would you like a confession? Would you like to know that you are in the right to chase me across the years? Right to put an end to my life, and to the life of my parents and grandparents before me?”

  I wanted to stand up and take Muller into custody, send him back to the future to face prosecution. But there was some promise beckoning in his face.

  “Under the Constitution, Dr. Muller, I am not required to extend due process. But if you want to set out the motivations for your deeds, naturally I am eager to understand.”

  “First let me serve you. You will allow me the courtesy.”

  He went into an adjoining room. The sound of dishes and a kettle boiling. Muller singing to himself, bars of the waltz on the record player. He returned with a tea service, bearing the tray against his chest. On it were three porcelain cups and a kettle embossed with flowers.

  Muller set the tray on the ground between us and made no motion for a minute. Then he leant forward and poured, admiring the fragrance of the bronze water as he did. He gave one to João and one to me, placing a pewter teaspoon on each saucer. I wasn’t comfortable. I didn’t drink.

  For another minute, no words passed between us. At the bottom of my forever dream lay this tea ceremony with Muller, a comedy in a dark house reeking of wood and tea at the top of old forgotten Rio. I had landed in a dim room with paintings on the walls. In them were stern black men and women, ships and islands, rubber plantations and, in more than one or two, baskets of bones and skulls arranged on a table. There were suggestions of a connoisseur’s hand behind the selection. A Beninese mask, the face curved into black wood, hung on a wire. The nose on a single triangle. Strange to run across a familiar object so far away from home.

  Muller noticed my interest in the mask. Without comment, he picked it from the wall and put it in my hands. It was heavy, as I expected. As I turned it round, I was conscious that the wood in my hands was as warm as man’s blood. I put it over my face, watched Muller, then turned to see João, who made no attempt to answer my gaze, his hands over his eyes as if the light were too bright. I shivered, thought about what had been done inside the thing, looking out from within the mask on the action of the w
earer’s hands. The carvers of Benin had known more than was healthy about the existence of evil. I put the thing face-up on the table.

  “You want to know the truth? Which sinister organization forced an end to your interference with the entirety of human history?”

  I was too tired to argue, dead enough to lie in a grave for a hundred thousand years. “Give it to me straight.”

  Muller stood up and took the mask back into his hands. He turned it around and around, faster and faster, as if it would begin to spin of its own accord.

  “I am the humble corresponding secretary of the Board of Protection for the Society of African Antiquities.”

  “Maybe I have heard the name of your society before, the Board of Protection, but that is all.”

  “In fact, it was founded in Munich, June 1898, by Victor Kallenbach and Oscar Weisel. The selfsame Weisel, certainly, who later on would become my doctor father at the Collegium in Coburg. Weisel, certainly, who was strangled in a prison cell on the instruction of Rudolf Diels. Weisel, by the way, who made us conscious of the inner spiritual connection between slavery on the continent and the Sperrgebiet, in Namibia, and then the camps at Dachau. One genocide is the secret inspiration of the next. One genocide paves the way for the next. That is the true thread of history ignored by Natanson.”

  My eyes were watering so badly I couldn’t think. I certainly couldn’t judge the significance of Muller’s confession. I couldn’t tell what was happening, only that some process was underway that I couldn’t control.

  I turned to ask João but he was already gone. He was lying back on the couch, no sign of alertness. His hands were open on his lap; his cup was steaming. I looked at the steam from the tiny cup in my hand. It was still pouring out as vigorously as before, the product of some chemical reaction.