What will that future be like? I recently read an article, purporting to demonstrate that the interpersonal relationships of computer programmers suffer because of their constant contact with the computer. It used to be, the author went on to say, that a person could carry on a conversation only with another person. There was no other choice if he wanted to talk or to make love, even though
that other person might, at times, have seemed dull and stupid, or even deceitful.
But now you can have a conversation with a computer; a computer not only understands, but replies. Moreover, you know the computer will not deceive you, or leave you; it will always be there, and may even outlive you. Soon, the article argued, you will be able to sit down in front of a friend of the sixth generation or so and converse with it wisely, as you could do with no human being. Can you love a computer, too? If the operator asks that question at all, the author suspects that yes, he will love it and, moreover, the computer will love him back. Who else could they love without being unfaithful?
It was a variation on the theme of robots, our future masters. It was neither inspiring nor, fortunately, very believable.
Because the results of the institute's work, important though they were, produced nothing but public concern, it did not enjoy official favour. It did not even have its own building. Its employees worked at two sites at opposite ends of the city. And, though a quarter of its employees were programmers, the institute had had its only mainframe computer confiscated, so the programmers had to travel to three other locations where they could get an hour or two of computer time to process their information on the state of our environment.
Because data transmission was something you can only read about in this country, the need for a courier became obvious. His — my — job was to deliver from one workplace to another everything that needed delivering. Sometimes it was just the newsletter, at other times a box of diskettes, bundles of punch cards or reams of computer print-outs.
Often there was nothing at all or, like today, flowers. In such cases, I would sit for a while in the modern hall of the institute in the Southern City — an enormous complex of high-rise apartments — and read a book, or study the WordPerfect manual that Engineer Klíma pressed upon me with the injunction that I must not leave the institute without some useful insight into the things a computer can do. In any case, he claimed, this knowledge would certainly be useful in my own profession.
I finally got my slice of Okay Pizza and left the gloomy passageway. A circular bench was occupied by tourists also eating pizza. A dark-haired woman, perhaps Italian or Spanish, was sitting on the lap of her Italian or Spanish boyfriend, feeding him. She had a very short skirt, short legs, and a firm left breast. Her boyfriend's hand covered the right one. I have never been to Italy or Spain, though I have always felt drawn to those countries, not so much by their famous historical attractions as by my theory that the people there are of a passionate nature, with whole, integrated characters and thus with interesting stories to tell. But perhaps I'm wrong; this beautiful young woman probably worked in a department store, and her story wouldn't be much different than the stories of our Czech girls who work in Kotva or Máj here in Prague. She noticed that I was observing her and stuck her tongue out at me. I looked away, above her. For the first time in my life I noticed an enormous clock which, not surprisingly, displayed some unreal time.
I started up Wenceslas Square towards the subway station. I don't find walking through the city distracting. In no time I'm alone, composing a story, a speech or a letter in my head. I don't enjoy writing letters, but sometimes I
like to imagine writing to women I have loved, or even to authors who've drawn me to them with a sentence, an image or an idea. I also write imaginary letters to important personages — but such letters tend to be brief, and questioning rather than reproachful. I actually wrote some of the love letters, but so far, not a single one of the other kind.
In the subway train there was a group of young girls, probably students, or apprentices from one of the department stores. They were not wearing uniforms, yet they all seemed alike, as though they were all from the hand of a single uninspired and untalented artist. I took one of the newsletters out of my bag and opened it:
INTERNAL DIRECTIVES AND INSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLES FOR THE USE OF THE F.C.S.N. FOR THE PURPOSES ESTABLISHED BY THE DECLARATION OF THE F.M.F., M.F., CSR, SSR, AND THE U.R.O. # 21/1986 SB., ON THE F.S.CP.
Deciphering the headlines immediately absorbed all my attention, and while I read the details about the Fund for Cultural and Social Needs, the train rushed through the dark tunnel, carrying me to my next destination.
It was a six and a half minute walk from the subway station to the institute. The horizon on all sides was punctuated by blocks of grey, mostly unfinished pre-fab high-rise apartments with enormous broad-shouldered cranes towering above them; inspiration for poets who did not have to live there. But the walk itself was pleasant. There was a meadow on one side, and the pavement was separated from the road on the other side by a thick hedge of wild rose. With a little imagination, you could pretend you were walking down to the beach on the Baltic coast.
A fat guitarist was sitting in the porter's office. Students from the conservatory took turns working shifts on the door: the guitarist, a violinist and a clarinet player. All of them had the same peculiarity: they took no notice whatever of what went on outside the porter's booth. The guitarist had a girlfriend with him, and she was sitting on the table with her back to the new arrivals, symbolically emphasizing the wall between the world of the conservatory students and that of the computer programmers. Unobserved, I walked past the porter's lodge, then down several corridors before I came to the door to the main hall of the institute.
The building was new, clean, and full of light. What I liked most about it was a small atrium where, thanks to the efforts of the female programmers, dragon trees, dieffenbachia, plectranthus and even a tiny palm tree I was unable to classify flourished.
There was no one in the hall except a little girl sitting at a table drinking milk from a carton. I thought she must be Engineer Vandas' daughter, and I asked her where her father was.
She shrugged her shoulders and handed me a piece of coloured paper. 'Look what I drawed.'
The picture showed a bed, and on the bed was a figure sliced in two, with flowers laid on her breast.
'Who's that?' I asked.
'It's Mama, of course,' she said.
There was a fresh item on the notice board, a clipping from Lidová demokracie.
MYSTERY UNRAVELLED
Suva: After a sixty-five-year investigation, the Fiji police recently detained an eighty-two-year-old confidence man, R. Tama, who, according to police spokesmen,
had 'dishonoured a hundred and thirty-two women and girls.' The police had long known about the octogenarian Romeo but lacked evidence. They later discovered that all of the women had subsequently perished in a coconut grove not far from Tama's place of residence. Another remarkable circumstance, however, was the fact that all of them had died when a coconut had fallen on their heads. The mystery was solved when Constable Ratilau discovered a personal computer and a large number of programmes under a mattress stuffed with palm leaves in Tama's air-conditioned apartment. Tama had used the computer to calculate when a coconut from a particular tree would fall. Then he would send his 'wives' to lie under the tree. Sources close to the investigation said that an unnamed Japanese electronics firm had, not without profit, helped to produce Tama's computer programmes.