At last, she said, and she was kind, “All right.”
I am my fingers gripping the table.
I am the table.
Body of plastic and metal.
I am cold.
I am the sky growing dark outside.
I am the washing sea.
Tears are merely salt water and warmth on my face; nothing more. Chemicals. Mucin, lysozyme, lactoferrin, lacritin, glucose, urea, sodium, potassium, that’s all tears are. A biological mechanism for the cleansing of the eye. Curious fact: tears of emotion have a slightly different chemical composition than basal or reflexive tears.
I am knowledge.
And again, Byron says, and there is so much kindness in her voice, an old woman smiling at me across the table, resisting the temptation, perhaps, to put her hand in mine, “All right.”
I made her write down the terms of our bargain.
Why: having delivered the base code of Perfection, Byron14 to give to Why, as soon as available, access to and knowledge of treatments such as may make her memorable.
Signed by both.
Neither of us offered up thoughts on what would happen in the face of betrayal. It would have been rude.
I took a photo of the napkin on which our deal was struck; so did she. Then I made her take a photo of me, my face, holding the napkin beneath it. She asked why; I said to remember.
She didn’t ask why again.
We ate dinner, and she told me a joke she’d heard once from a Russian oligarch about fish. It was long, and surprisingly dirty.
I felt the salty lines on my skin where tears had dried, but they were someone else’s tears. I was only my voice. I told her the one about the patriarch, the rabbi and the mullah.
She laughed, hearty and true, and when the bill came paid without asking, and looked out at the now-dark sea and said, “How shall we keep in contact?”
“I will send you a message with my instructions. You keep the napkin — a reminder of your commitments.”
“I am not likely to forget.”
“No,” I replied, without rancour. “You will forget. But I’ll help you remember.”
“We have a deal, though I don’t understand your terms.”
We shook hands. There were thin calluses, reinforced and softened by repetition, on the bends of her right hand. I wondered if she had children, and imagined that if she did, they must love her very much.
“You are an extraordinary woman, Why,” she mused. “Strange as it has been, I am glad to have made your acquaintance.”
“My name is Hope,” I replied. “You’ll have the opportunity to make my acquaintance again.”
I waited for our hostess to clear away the dishes, put my napkin on the table by the USB stick, smiled politely, and was gone.
Chapter 57
Things that I miss about being remembered:
• Friendship
• Love
• Company
• Truth
• Understanding
• Perspective
Things it is impossible to do alone:
• Build a monument
• Kiss
• Get references
• Play poker
• Talk through problems with a friend
A question: is it worth letting Filipa stick electrodes in my skull, erasing every aspect of who I am and what I believe in, if it permits me to be remembered?
I lie awake in the night, and have no idea.
Chapter 58
The ferry back to Mokpo.
Byron was on it, sitting in the same spot again, eyebrows drawn, fists tight balls in her lap. Had she slept last night? There were dark rims round her eyes, perhaps she’d been kept awake by the sound of the sea.
I passed her a couple of times, and she looked surprised every time, marvelling that her powers of observation had let her down.
I smiled once, frowned once, ignored her the third time, returned to my seat with a bottle of flat fizzy water, took a sip, returned to watching the sea.
Climbing off the ferry in Mokpo, knees loose after the sea, Byron briefly looked concerned, but shook her head and walked briskly into town, no need to consult a map.
I followed her to the station. She saw me several times, but as each time was the first time, she made nothing of it. She bought three tickets to three different destinations, boarded the first train, then got off as the doors were about to close; I stumbled foolishly after her, she saw me, my cover totally blown, but again, fine, she would forget.
She boarded the second train, a slower service that crawled through flat countryside and low, perfectly round hills towards Daegu. I sat a few seats away, discovered that my chair could turn one hundred and eighty degrees, giggled at this revelation, soon grew bored. In Daegu she took a room in a motel, and I took the room next to hers, and that night, when she went to find something to eat, I broke in and went through everything she owned, which was:
• Five pairs of pants, black
• Seven pairs of socks, grey
• Two bras, black
• Two shirts, one white, one grey, linen and cotton
• Two pairs of jeans, blue
• Three passports — one British, one French, one Canadian, in three names
• One combat knife, ceramic
• One toothbrush
• One tube of toothpaste
• One bottle of eyedrops
• One pair of reading glasses, flexible metal, powerful lens in the left, marginally weaker lens in the right, creating two different worlds as I peered through them
• One traveller’s guide to Korea
• One copy of the international edition of Die Welt, five days old
• One bottle of sleeping pills, unopened
• One laptop, password protected
A single hair had been stuck down with saliva over the laptop lid. I removed it, popped the laptop’s internal shell, inserted a tiny flash drive I’d purchased from a dealer in Seoul. I sealed the computer again, licked the hair to return it to its place, and photographed everything in sight.
Neither the Tokyo USB stick nor the napkin on which we’d written our bargain was anywhere to be found.
In a café across the street from Gyesan cathedral, a low building of red brick and fluted arches, I drank cheap coffee and gnawed on the tough, crackling curl of chicken legs served in a plastic bag, and contacted Byron14 again.
whatwherewhy: To remind you of our bargain. You will give me access to all your research into treatments. You will help me develop a protocol for myself.
Byron14: So I see from a napkin in my possession. I see it has my signature — though I do not remember signing it.
whatwherewhy: I trust you on this.
Byron14: Strange that trust should live amongst thieves.
whatwherewhy: You have an honest face.
Byron14: You have seen it? I would be fascinated to see yours.
whatwherewhy: I am the woman in the photo on your phone.
Byron14: I do not remember taking it.
whatwherewhy: But the photo is there. Contact me when you are ready to honour your side of the bargain.
Byron14: Are you following me, whatwherewhy?
whatwherewhy: No.
I logged off.
I sought company in Daegu, but the best I could come up with was a production of Turandot at the Daegu Opera House. The audience in the stalls wore black tie and silk; the Chinese princess was played by an Albanian, the Persian prince by a Korean, the desperate woman who dies for love by an Argentinian. As Liu stabbed herself to death for the sake of the man who wanted to marry the princess who was torturing her, a woman in the third row from the front screamed in horror, and I wondered what personal tragedy had driven her to such a big reaction to a bad plot. At the end of every act the leads came in front of the curtain to curtsey and bow, and when the final curtain fell the sopranos held bunches of flowers passed to them by a stagehand, and the audience stood to cheer.