House of Secrets: A Bletchley Park Novella Read online

  During lunchtime, I opened the envelope. Spicy clove from the Colonel’s cigar, cut by a subtle note of tea rose oil. Ruth described the spa she was at. Strict meal times, salted baths, Celtic-knotting classes, and no newspapers. Apparently, many have retreated to such places, trying to pretend the war isn’t happening. Next door, she wrote, the Doctor housed evacuee children, and they like to scamper across the spa’s garden. There was a boy who has been giving her bunches of wild flowers.

  …His puppy-dog look is like yours, Robin. Oh, how I miss our walks! Do not worry. I plan to return soon. There’s something very important I have to tell you when we meet. Love, R.W.

  There was something else: a locket of hair knotted into a golden loop of infinity, with no beginning and no end, a charm as tangled as our lives.

  Wednesday, 11 July 1940

  I must calm down. I must calm down.

  Eight o’clock, I was in the parlor waiting for Alan to ride by. The clock had chimed eight, nine, and at ten, Mrs. Crumley retired to bed. Had he forgotten? Has he forgotten, I wondered, did he give up? No.

  Just as my doubts were heaviest, I heard the wheeze and rattle of Alan’s bicycle. I lifted the curtain and saw him at the garden fence, a hand steadying what looked like a coal-miner’s helmet. Then he started ringing the bell so insistently I had to go out, lest he woke the neighborhood.

  Near the privet fence, I saw he had a flashlight strapped to a helmet with a black silk stocking. No doubt, he had a perfectly good explanation for it, so I didn’t ask about it.

  “You’ve been waiting for me,” he said plainly. “Every night I ride by, every window on the street is dark—except yours.” He had seen right through my cover. “Come. I found a beach nearby. I need someone to talk to, Robin. As a friend.”

  I yielded—my willpower was sapped by the long wait—and we cycled north. By his Mad Hatter’s light, I glimpsed road-signs, pointing in wrong directions. The first German bombers had hit the coast yesterday, and the Home Guard has rearranged all the signs to confuse would-be land invaders. “If the bombers come, your hat will make you a target,” I told Alan.

  He answered in his implacably reasonable voice. “Unlikely. One, we’re in the middle of nowhere. Two, why would they bomb a single light?”

  The bicycles brought us far, the wheels spinning over gravel, silt, then slippery sand. We pushed past a line of trees and braked near a cliff.

  At its ledge, we sat, legs dangling down into unfathomable darkness. Alan pointed at will’o’wisps detaching from the distant Park, the gauzy lamps of buses ferrying spirits from the last shift. There are more than two thousand people working at the Park now, an unceasing operation.

  He doffed his helmet, and as he did, it pointed down. A well of light on the chalky limestone.

  “Do you believe in the soul, Alan?” I asked.

  He scratched his neck. “Consciousness fascinates me. Take away our spark, and we’re blood and flesh and bone. If that is the spirit, yes.” He paused, as if weighing his faith. “Can you keep a secret, Robin?” I gave him a thin smile: he knows my entire life is a secret. “We’re engineering a mechanical beast to help us against Enigma. The Park will soon become a factory to process not dozens, not hundreds, but thousands of messages,” he said, his mind ranging ahead. “The war’s a catalyst for progress. Look at the Park. All the great minds assembled. The friendships forged, ideas bouncing around like molecules, striking free idea after idea. Imagine all that intellectual firepower turned towards ignorance. The proofs, the theories debunked, the ideas we’ve come up with since the war can fill a decade’s worth of science journals. After the war, I have an idea for a machine that can solve many problems. It will replicate a human brain. In ten years, twenty perhaps, but some day, there’ll be a machine with free will.” He looked like someone who’d stepped out of a time travel machine bearing good news, except I couldn’t see what good something like his invention would do. It seemed unnatural, I told him and he chuckled. “As Shaw put it, ‘Some people see things as they are and say why. I see things that never were and say, why not?’”

  His imagination is the sky, expansive and unfettered.

  Unspoken was the possibility that the Germans would win. There’d be no sunny future, only prisoner tattoos, branded on our skins. “Will your machines make things better? Will it feel pain? Can it think? Can it fall in love?”

  “I’m not sure humans do all those. The Germans numb themselves to others’ pain. Few people think, truly think, for themselves. Some people aren’t allowed to love.” He looked up at the stars as if waiting for one of them to blink out.

  I couldn’t deny what he said. “If you can’t tell the difference between a human and a machine, maybe there’s none.”

  He mulled my words. “It’s a striking thought. I shall think more about that. Maybe a thinking machine will make us question assumptions about ourselves. Are we any better than them? Are we superior? Maybe they’ll show us up. That’ll be the day.”

  “They’ll be the Other.”

  “Or they’ll become the new gods,” he said mischievously. He flicked the switch of his helmet light. “Close your eyes. I’ve something to show you.” When he bade me open my eyes again, the darkness felt oppressive. Then, my sight adjusted, and I saw stars glimmering above like the shiny scales of fish in an ocean. A sea of stars. “Ahem. I did promise a beach.” He pointed out Orion, then explained the solar system, the tug and tussle of planets. He spoke of Newton and Kepler, and the laws of celestial bodies. “Did you know that Galileo was persecuted by the Church for claiming the Earth revolved around the Sun? Now, we acknowledge he’s right. We answer to, not dictate, the universe. People feel the way they do because—”

  “—and society feels the way it feels.” I said quietly. “Maybe it’s better to be a machine.”

  “If you were one, what will you do?”

  “Obey. Isn’t that what they do?”

  “I haven’t the foggiest.” He lowered himself onto a crooked elbow. “Life will be tedious without mysteries. Like your answer—to obey. How odd.”

  “There’s always someone in charge. Someone in command. Someone you’re obliged to.” I reflected on my life.. “I’ve never made claims to courage.”

  “How honest.” He leaned closer until our faces were half an arm’s span apart. “A thought, Robin. You owe me half a cigarette. Also, I’m the only one with a flashlight. Does that mean I’m in charge?”

  “Clever. But I’m not a machine.”

  “Ah.” His face hovered inches away. His breath on my cheek stirred up a boldness I never thought I’d feel. “So…who are you?” he asked.

  I think I touched his cheek first.

  Tuesday, 23 July 1940

  Stars have no concept of time or fear or hate. They live out their lives as they’re meant to be. I’ve been spending so much time with Alan I’ve not written much, dear journal. These days, words feel inadequate. How can they suffice to describe feelings? Can a mirror capture the sun? Can a bottle contain a cloud? Yet I feel like I should write, lest I forget this shiniest time of my life.

  Let me be brief and brave: I am no longer afraid. In fact, I feel very courageous these days. Recklessly so, since there are unresolved problems.

  Gordie popped by Mrs. Crumley’s today. He charmed Mrs. Crumley with a small bottle of wine then handed me a wax-sealed memo. “A little bird told me you’re dating the Colonel’s daughter. Is that why you’ve been busy?” I desperately wanted to share, but I was afraid that one truth would lead to another. I told him I had an appointment instead.

  “I see,” he said slowly when I told him I had urgent work to see to.

  For a brief moment, he looked like he had more to say, a warning, remonstration, something. Instead, he gave me a professional smile, the one that didn’t touch his eyes. “I shall not trouble you then.”

  After he left, I broke the seal of the envelope and read the Colonel’s memo. Ruth is returning in a week. Do not forget, the Colo
nel had underlined that phrase.

  I tossed it in the fire. I didn’t want to think about it. I refused to. I defy my fear.

  After dinner, I am to meet Alan—he told me he didn’t believe in ghosts, so we are going to the haunted watermill the bookstore owner had told me about.

  There’s nothing to be afraid of. Nothing!

  Thursday, 1 August 1940

  There are few words to describe what Ruth did. Sacrilege. Travesty. Sin. The mad woman should be locked in a padded cell! Be charitable, I try to remind myself, for I wasn’t faultless. I’d forgotten she was to return yester-evening, so I had stayed out with Alan.

  Maybe some bit of me did it on purpose. When I returned, the hearth was crackling. I thought it odd: why a fire in summer? That was when Mrs. Crumley sallied from the kitchen to hector me. “Miss Windermere waited for you. For hours!”

  I murmured something palliative before going upstairs. Then I entered my room and saw the destruction.

  My clothes were unraveled from my trunk, strewn over the floor. All my books were gone. When I saw the empty table, I sprinted downstairs. “Where are my books?” I shouted like some demented goblin, even though I already guessed the dreaded answer. Inside the fireplace, the books were piled neatly like hearth bricks. Leather covers curled and vaporized into soot. When I grabbed the poker and tried to pry them out, all I did was skewer them deeper.

  Nietzsche, Schopenhauer—the philosophers burned. The Brothers Grimm, Wilde, my journal—the ravenous fire swallowed our stories, then belched a flaming, writhing page to taunt me. I remember Belle rising on his hinds, clawing at the fragment rising in the heat, as if he were dancing. He batted the page…and it crumbled.

  I slumped on my hinds. Then Mrs. Crumley, the crone, annotated my scene of despair. “Shame on you for making a woman cry.”

  Back in my room, as I picked the flowers from the floor, I found my cherished cigarette butt near my chair. It must have drifted out of my old journal.

  It escaped. It survived. There are small blessings.

  This morning, I cycled straight to the village bookstore and bought a new journal.

  Placing my hands on its stiff, cool paper, calms me. I feel better after writing all this down. Where I’d felt fury, now, I feel composed. It’s clear something has to be done about Ruth.

  Late night

  For dinner, Mrs. Crumley served something burnt and cold. My bags are packed. I shall move out tomorrow. And I’ve decided to tell the Colonel what Ruth did. I won’t complain, no, I’ll express concern and tell it true. She upended my room. She’s clearly not in the right mind. The carcasses of the flowers are evidence: buds violently beheaded, the petals ripped. Didn’t she shear her hair in grief? Extended recuperation at the spa is needed. The Colonel will see sense. I will muster my arts of persuasion.

  Sweeter reminiscences are due after this deluge of bad news. Last night, while my books burned, Alan and I had gone to the millpond. Our only witness was an ewe who’d strayed from its flock, its fleece bathed in the moonlight rippling in the water. It looked petrified when we jackknifed into the water. After the five-mile cycle, the cold was a delightful shock.

  As we treaded water, Alan described a code-breaking prototype machine. “I know what I’ll call it. Agnes Dei.” The Lamb of God. It’s his way of teasing me, a private joke. The one-tonne beast is being built by dozens of engineers, who are piecing together thousands of moving parts. When it operates, it will sounds like ten thousand knitting needles unpicking the steel-woven warp of infinity. It’s a weapon in the battle against Enigma. Alan back-paddled as he spoke—his athlete’s body leaving a clean wake behind.

  Then he segued to something else. He started talking about the Dorabella Cipher created by the composer Edward Elgar, how some of them were working on it on the side.

  Listening to Alan, I realized I have no conception of the world he sees, and I experienced a sad premonition he’d leave me behind, far, far behind.

  “That’s silly, Robin. To see the universe, all you have to do is close your eyes,” he said and splashed me. In the lake, we floated as equals.

  He’s gone now, off to a hush-hush location to put Agnes Dei through its final paces. He’ll be back in two weeks.

  I’ve checked: his landlady has a spare room. Imagine Alan’s surprise when he returns and finds me in the parlor. “Hello, Mr. Turing.” I’d look up from my book, feigning surprise. “You’re here?”

  Re-reading what I wrote above, I can see my soul laid bare: its fears, its hopes, its dreams.

  There’s a sputtering sound of cars reverberating down the quiet street. It is most odd. Only the night-shift bus goes around so late.

  From my window, I spy several lights haunting the road, and it reminded me of Alan and his head-lamp. Even the memory of him brings a light to my heart.

  There is a firm conviction. I’ve found something worth fighting for.

  I should sleep soon, for I need my wits before I confront the Colonel.

  ?—1940

  After the frosty silence in the gardens

  After the agony in stony places

  The shouting and the crying

  Prison and place and reverberation.

  Am I mad? I think therefore I am not mad. I can still remember poetry so I can’t be mad.

  I’m in a cell. No, not Balliol, this is smaller. Impregnable stone walls as cold as ice. A dribbly faucet. A filthy latrine. There’s a tiny ledge for a candle beside a single bed. If I stand on the bed, I can see a walled courtyard past the steel rods barring the semicircular window. Outside, a red-leaved tree is topped by a miserly sliver of sky. I can describe it all, but I know not where I am. Days? Weeks? Months? Time has no meaning, except sun up and sun down, its light casting different lengths of shadow. The silence gnaws like a mind-destroying madness. The Park, the time I spent there, these last few…Months? Weeks? Days? Did all that happen?

  No, no, Robin, doubt will kill you. Maybe if I retrace the last night at Mrs. Crumley, I can make sense of it all, how after I placed my pen down, soldiers had burst into my room and twisted my arms behind me…

  I remember Mrs. Crumley clucking away, “I knew he didn’t seem right. He harbored German books. I saw all!” Her treachery made no difference. I knew I was doomed when I saw the Colonel waiting outside his car, a claw on his walking stick. I opened my mouth to demand explanation, and he wedged a book—my stolen journal—into my mouth.

  The night I went swimming, I’d hidden my journal behind my stacks. Ruth must have found it. I thought she burned it along with my other books. I was wrong.

  The Colonel leaned in so close I could smell the furious stink of clove. Dark, sinister eyes. “You dare touch my daughter, you pervert.” His calm concealed a roiling rage deeper than any ocean. He rammed his walking cane into my crotch, and crimson pain shot through me.

  As he told me before, the Windermeres never forget their debts.

  I was driven, dragged, then tossed into a dank cell. After that, a brutish guard flung a book inside. I recognized my old journal’s worn cover as it slapped the floor. Then he threw the new journal in as well. Spine cracked, pages splayed—it hit my head. “Bullseye!” he crowed. “Wipe yer arse with it. We’re on short rations thanks to those Kraut friends of yours.”

  For days after that, I wondered whether I’d be trialed. I was sorely tried as it was. I had no stationery to write. To help me make sense of my thoughts.

  Until today. Two zip-mouthed guards hauled me inside a van and brought me here. The room is almost identical, except under the filthy bedframe, I found a chewed pencil. My heart almost burst!

  Captivity causes the senses to desiccate. I’d turned the pencil over and over, before I bit on it to make sure it was real.

  I may be condemned. The Colonel has imprisoned me. Who’s there to stop him? Who knows I am here? Has the same thing happened to others before? Of course. And the world has ignored them. Us.

  But I can write again. My words shall be my
solace and triumph over captivity.

  ?—1940

  I think of Job, how God had allowed the Devil to inflict the worse pains on him to see whether he would change or waver in his faith. Every day, there is a bowl of gruel and water shoved through a door flap. I can’t even hear other prisoners here. Is this a punishment or a test?

  I wish I had a Bible because I can’t remember how Job triumphed in the end. I feel like I have holes in my memory. I don’t know what date it is. I’d asked a guard once, and he told me time no longer mattered for me.

  I sleep with my journal tucked in my small clothes because I’m afraid they’d take it away. My hair is tangled, and I can smell myself. My scent is my new friend. It gives me an animal comfort—it is one more thing that cannot be taken from me.

  I fear I’ll run out of pages, so I shall keep my writing to the minimum. A rationed sanity.

  Friday, 4 November 1940

  Today, a miracle happened.

  It took me a while to trust my ears when I heard the knocking on my cell door. It was so odd, so courteous, I thought I imagined it. Knock, knock—it happened again! I scrambled to the door, diving for the trapdoor first. I saw pant legs! Then I crept up to the door grille. I smelled tobacco. It was Gordie! “What are you doing here?” I cried. My hoarse voice sounded foreign; it had been so long since I spoke aloud.

  “I was about to ask the same of you.” Gordie was so calm it seemed surreal. He smoked his pipe casually, as if he were in some pub, as he told me that Mrs. Crumley has told everyone I sneaked away in the middle of night. I was officially considered a deserter. Gordie had searched for me until he saw my name on a list of prisoners here.

  “What list?,” I asked, and he fell silent.

  At the Park, I’d heard of a secret group, unbound by law, constrained only by their mandate to maintain security. I thought of the people I knew who’d disappeared. Moran. Riceman. Who else? What happened to them? Had the Major condemned them? Was Gordie part of this? Or did everyone have their agenda, wrestling for power in the midst of war?