Appliance Read online

  Janey had recently discarded a favourite loose-knit cardigan due to an unsightly pull in one of the threads. He decided to use it as a test object. Its complex organic woollenness coupled with the repeating loops of the weave made it an interesting candidate for analysis.

  He put it into one of the units and then examined its softness, its luxuriousness, its cardiganness, once it had appeared in the unit opposite. It hadn’t changed. Even the pulled thread was itself just as it had been.

  ‘The problem with translation is often: do I alter, or even correct, what I translate so that it makes better sense in the new language? or do I hold as close to the original as I can and so muddy the meaning? What is it to understand a thing over and above it merely being the thing it is? More importantly, though: I’m still not going to wear it.’

  And that was indeed where he was going wrong with the machine. He was trying to teach it to understand when it didn’t need to understand. It needed only to do. To analyse, unravel, re-form. No understanding. No changes to be made. No improvements.

  ¶

  But the work at the institute suddenly stalled, just as they felt they were getting somewhere, and all because of the risk of weaponisation. As soon as they’d got it working, effectively, unerroneously, they had to stop the whole programme, at once.

  Everybody knew that if a system like this had the potential to be abused then it would indeed be abused. Send through a bomb. Send through a man with a bomb. Or a gun. Or a knife. Send it direct: into the heart of the problem. It would make war so much easier. But in such theoretical situations how could the machine ever be made to distinguish and then separate out the component parts? How could such a threat be neutralised?

  ‘It’s your machine. Surely you can tell it to do whatever you want. Tell it what not to do. In translation I may have a duty to properly render the original, but I don’t have to take on the work. I read the original beforehand, and if I don’t like it: I discard it. It simply doesn’t get done.’

  As straightforward as that. They had a machine that analysed things perfectly, inside and out. The machine didn’t need to understand the intent, nor fix the problem, nor even neutralise, but it could recognise. That’s what it was best at. And, in recognising what it shouldn’t send, it could simply not send. It could reject.

  So that was solved.

  ¶

  They found a house in a valley, amid mountains, at the end of a long winding track, far away from anywhere that might conceivably be called local. The house was large and the land it governed was wide, but they could afford it: the upkeep of fences and fields and farmable stock.

  They had a daughter. But when they sent her off to school she came right back.

  ‘Because she doesn’t get on with the other children. Because she doesn’t like the busyness of the outside world. Too many minds, all clamouring. She can’t get in. She can’t speak to them all at once. But she can see them, all thinking, all that noise. She knows it’s there, even if she can’t be sure of the words.’

  So they schooled her at home.

  Her father taught her the facts, the truth of the matter, all that could be reasoned and understood. Her mother taught her opinions and interpretations, the inexplicable aspects of the world, its many mysteries.

  ¶

  Janey drove their daughter to the city, to the art galleries; a necessary part of her education. They both enjoyed the long and carefree drive, the empty roads.

  In the city too, there was no great congestion. The traffic lights blinked leisurely, guiding the few road users on their way. Finding parking spaces wasn’t hard.

  Only the gallery itself was busy: the people milling through each room in silent observation of the art.

  ‘Here is a glimpse of things as they once were. Paintings deemed precious enough never to be transported. They are fixed points. It’s the people who are required to do the moving.’

  Visitors popped in and out of the gallery spaces, though the overall number at any one time stayed the same.

  ‘One small vestige of sanity in a world whose mind is steadily narrowing, closing in upon itself. A world getting smaller, more cramped, tangled, messy. Less space to breathe, or even think.’

  Heading homeward they dipped into the new hypermarket on the city’s outskirts. A shop with all seasons of food, from all worldly regions, all shipped in direct. A shop with its own transport hub.

  ‘Don’t believe the claims of freshness. Always read the label. One shouldn’t eat anything too easily obtainable. A little effort, locally sourced, traditionally preserved, is always best. The extra cost is worth it in the end.’

  Leaving, they passed long lines of customers, bags bulging with exotic produce, inching slowly forward to the busy exit booths.

  ‘Making things cheaper won’t help them. It only endorses their poverty. It exacerbates how freely they waste what they don’t cherish. Not to mention the effect of all that rich food on their unrefined insides.’

  ¶

  The daughter liked guns. She liked their precision, their mathematical aim. She went out often with the neighbouring farmboy and his rifle.

  She liked shooting things from afar, especially rabbits, because you could never shoot too many rabbits. No matter the numbers culled there were always enough.

  Her parents didn’t mind her keenness for bloodsports. If she was happy her father was sure to be happy. Her mother, also, openly approved.

  ‘It’s always wise to keep things in check. Matters can so easily get out of hand.’

  So when their daughter took a stronger interest in the possibilities afforded by the military her ambitions were met with nothing but encouragement, with easy positivity.

  ‘The world is already such a messy place, it stands to reason something bad will happen. It crinkles up too quickly. You’ll need to keep it straightened out. After all, we can’t blame anyone but ourselves. We created the means by which the mess could be made, and in so doing created the means by which that mess may be cleared up. It’s only right to be prepared. We didn’t look far enough ahead. We didn’t look deeply enough.’

  ¶

  And when one midwinter day Janey was found to be riddled with cancer, with small discreet tumours spotting themselves at points throughout her insides, she went on pretending that everything was fine, that all was in fact quite normal.

  ‘Because why not? It’s a common enough complaint. So many people get it. Why not me?’

  And Christmas went on as planned, and expensive gifts were exchanged, such as books with leather spines and colour plates, and fine silver goblets from which to drink mulled wine, and gloves of pale blue cashmere, and embroidered handkerchiefs of purple silk.

  ‘Because it’s no good buying things not meant to last. Nor things that can be easily replaced. Or what’s the good of giving them at all?’

  And then later, after a meal she’d insisted on cooking herself, when they were lounging together in front of the fire, listening to carols in the evening’s soft and multicoloured light, her husband wondered out loud just how she managed to stay so calm.

  ‘Because I’m certain that you can, and will, fix it. Your machines will be able to see what the matter is. All you need to do is find a way for them to transport that matter out. Or transport me but leave behind those pieces that are undesirable. It’s just what you were always striving for.’

  Except it wasn’t quite as straightforward as that.

  ¶

  The husband had to try and find a way to undo all his research, to get back to his original trajectory.

  He’d made a machine that did not understand what it was hearing when it fired its soundwaves in and through and back.

  All it could do was listen and repeat.

  ‘Écoutez et répétez. Slushaĭte i povtoriaĭte. Zuhören und wiederholen.’

  It had no comprehension of what should, or should not, go into composing an object, a thing, a body of any sort: of what components were right, or good, or best
.

  Its approach was holistic. Whatever it saw was just how it should be. There was a purity in that. A truth. Just like the truth and purity of numbers.

  ‘But surely through looking it can differentiate. It knows its language of numbers and particles. With these spots being this, and those being that. If so it can identify what’s what.’

  It could and it did, and with one further stipulation: if through analysis certain unwanted substances were indeed detected then the body, in its wholeness, could be rejected. That was the extent of its capabilities: to send or not to send. There were no half-measures. No partial transferrals.

  ‘But the machine was made by you. You tell it what it can and cannot do. You command. You control how it operates, how it deals with what it finds. You can make it anew.’

  And yes, it should have been possible. And now he put all his effort to that end.

  But it wasn’t the same as when he’d set out all those years ago. His own mind had become fixed. It had found at length its perfect translation, devoid of any ambiguity. He could not be as fluid in his thinking as once he was.

  His numbers too had settled in their ways. He couldn’t see how to make the machine do anything other than what it already did. He couldn’t make the machine understand that not all matter was to be moved, that some indeed was to be left out.

  ‘What after all should the new gaps be filled with? Scrumpled-up newspaper? Swabs of cotton wool? Pre-moulded foam?’

  ¶

  Janey left it to him to find the cure, for his long-relinquished quest for the holy grail to carry on now as before. But for all her efforts at brightness, at daily gaiety, sometimes Janey faltered, sometimes she just felt really sick, and she’d withdraw to her room and lie perfectly still, waiting for her old self to re-emerge, to surge up through this new self that she didn’t recognise.

  ‘At least, in the end, there’ll be one less person around in the world. One less user adding to the mess. A permanent removal from the field. Then maybe someone else can fill the gap I leave behind.’

  And the work on the machine continued. And the machine itself became ever more finely tuned, ever more sophisticated in its singular application. Fresh confidence in its overall perception of the nature of things meant people no longer had to suffer the indignity of travelling naked. The noise too became a lot quieter. There was a new sense of precision in the sound, a fine intrusive hum with a laser-like aim, superseding the old scattergun approach.

  ‘Which only means more people want to use it. And so its delays remain about the same. Nothing ever really changes. There’s no translation of the human condition. We only think we’re moving forward. It only seems that way. And all the while we’re really going sideways. Taking a roundabout course. Avoiding the unsightly areas.’

  And Janey’s husband strived and strived. And Janey’s husband failed and failed and failed. And Janey herself became bed-bound, too weak to do more than raise and read the books arranged to be within her reach.

  ‘In the end I can at least translate myself. One final time. Back into earth. And in so doing better know the world.’

  ¶

  Their daughter returned from her service abroad. Her languages made her an excellent traveller, an asset to the military mind: in how to comprehend the enemy.

  ‘How many connections did you make? How many new routes did you find? How many pathways did you open in those people that you met?’

  The transporter network made it easier for her to bypass those aspects of the world she didn’t much like, to skip over the mess, to go straight to the problem, the matter at hand.

  ‘How much fitter is the world because of you? How many wrongs have you helped to put right? What substance is used to replace what you take out?’

  But it was only a fleeting visit. The problems of the world didn’t stop just because she was on leave. The ease with which any problem could be identified was only equalled by the ease with which it could spread.

  ¶

  And Janey’s husband sat by Janey’s bed through all the moments she was awake.

  ‘And when they write your grand biography they’ll mention me. They’ll say I was the little wife that kept you happy all those many years. I don’t mind that. I don’t mind that they’ll never know.’

  But he was certain. Even if they never asked, he’d be sure to tell them. He’d tell them everything.

  And while Janey slept he went back to his numbers. It was all he could do, all he was good for. It was what she’d asked of him. He couldn’t refuse.

  If only he could somehow translate himself, to work harder, to try better, to find what he’d been searching for all this time.

  ‘The trouble is: there never really was a grail. It was a cup. And the cup wasn’t magic. Just a cup. And if you search for something that never was there to begin with, no hope can make the search worth all that effort. But there are always other cups, reliable cups, forgotten cups.’

  Still he couldn’t stop searching. He couldn’t go back on his word. He couldn’t change himself so readily. He wasn’t like her.

  Deep down she was always so much better than him. He knew it to be so. She was better than him through and through.

  He loved her all the more for that.

  6. A Misunderstanding

  FLO PUSHES open the black swing-door of the washroom and ducks inside. Her heart is pounding. She feels dizzy, queasy. For a moment she steadies herself beside the short row of basins, breathing deep and slow. She doesn’t have long.

  The lighting in the washroom echoes that of the bar: loops of pink and green neon give Flo’s face a weird unworldly quality in the large oval mirror.

  She unzips her purse and digs around inside, her hand closing upon a small blocky device. She draws it out. It is no bigger than a pack of cigarettes, its thin metal casing a clean matt black.

  She ejects the mini cassette tape and holds it up closer to the green light, checking the reels are fully rewound before easing it neatly back into the machine. Softly she snaps the lid shut. With the tip of her finger she slides the tiny red record button upward till it locks in place, then, holding her breath, presses the device to her ear: no hiss of playback, only the faint dull whirr of capstans slowly spooling.

  Flo slips the device very carefully into an outer pocket of her purse and zips it in tight. She closes her eyes. She clenches her fists. She breathes out.

  For weeks now Flo has been trying to get an interview with the Transport Secretary, but her every request has been refused. She is used to this. She understands this. She is after all no more than a junior reporter. Not many contacts. Not much clout. Most of her life these days consists in leaving polite but insistent messages for various low-grade officials who never call her back, or else doorstepping nervous men in brown suits as they hurriedly leave the town hall. But Flo steadfastly refuses to be deterred.

  Today’s confrontation has been worse than most: to have tailed her man all the way to this odd little corner of town only to have him turn on her, in front of other potential sources, in front of other journalists. Had she really pressed him so hard? No. She doesn’t believe so. But what he’d said, what he’d called her. It still smarts. It’ll take more than a few martinis to shake that off.

  And yet the day is not quite lost. For in this out-of-the-way establishment she has caught sight of someone far more interesting than any of the small-town officials she’s aspired to interview. Someone much more deeply embedded in the industry. Someone she would never have dreamed of approaching, not officially. Better still, from what she’s caught of his conversation with the barman, he’s a talker.

  Flo glances at her dim dark-eyed reflection. Even she can’t see quite who she is or what her intentions might be. From her purse she takes out a small black plastic cylinder and uncaps it, twisting up its soft red wax as she leans in close to the mirror. Her hands tremble. She applies the lipstick thickly. She needs it to show. The same goes for the mascara: the brush redrawn throu
gh her lashes till they stand out stiff. A touch of overkill? Perhaps. Or just necessity. She untucks her blouse to adjust her skirt, turning the waistband up to expose an inch or two more thigh. It’s worth a shot.

  She closes her purse. She checks her watch. Only a couple of minutes have passed. As an afterthought she steps into an open cubicle and pulls the chain before stepping back through the swing-door and on into the bar.

  What has she missed? What, if anything, has changed? She scans the room casually as she walks.

  A couple quietly smooching in a dingy corner. A loner in a long grey overcoat and dipped hat seated close to the exit, his folded newspaper and untouched tumbler of bourbon laid out before him. Plus the tall elderly man with the high cheekbones and thinning swept-back hair, sitting up at the bar, chatting to the barman.

  No one glances Flo’s way as she re-enters the scene, but she registers them all. Each one an accessory, a lurid character in a story she is fast making her own.

  She resumes her own seat at the bar, a few stools down from the elderly gentleman, her half-drunk martini just as she left it. Carefully, smoothly, she lifts and places her purse on the bar-top, its discreet rectangular bulge angled away from her.

  Music is playing. Quiet background music. Jazz or blues or something. She hopes its soft wash of cymbals and brassy nasal whine won’t get picked up too much by her recorder. She tries to give the impression of someone lost in their thoughts, staring gloomily into her drink, but all the while her ears strain to catch the thread of conversation.

  It’s the tall man who’s at this moment talking: easily, unconcernedly, confidently.

  ‘—not that the company is squeaky clean. I’m not saying that. Then again, nor am I suggesting there’s any dirt to be uncovered, so to speak. That’s the wrong way to think of it. What you could say is how damn boring they are in their reliability, and that the very reason everyone depends on them, the reason everyone trusts and accepts unquestioningly that the machines, indeed the whole network, works just fine, is because, well—the machines do work just fine. It’s that simple.’