The Network - Jason Elliot [32]
At ten o’clock I lurch into the grey morning with a sharp pain in my head where the cognac has etched Category 2 damage in the region of my cerebellum. The house reeks of cigar smoke, so I throw open the windows and put the coffee percolator to work in the kitchen. Taking the first sip, I hear myself whisper, ‘I must not do this again,’ and wonder how often I’ve uttered the same words. My Afghan maps are scattered on the floor by the sofa where I’ve fallen asleep. As I’m gathering them up there’s a triple knock at the door. I flee upstairs, throw on some clothes and return to the door.
The daylight is painfully bright. In front of me stands a clean-shaven middle-aged man with a sheaf of paperwork in his hand, and for a terrible moment I think of all the letters from the Television Licensing Authority which I’ve thrown away unopened.
‘Good morning, sir. I hope I’m not disturbing you.’
I don’t like the ‘sir’ part. It makes him sound like a policeman. But he doesn’t look like one. He’s wearing a black suit like an undertaker’s, for which he’s grown slightly too big, and a tie with green and red diagonals that hurts to look at.
‘Of course not,’ I reply with an unconvincing smile.
‘I wonder if I can ask whether you read the Bible?’ he asks. Resting in the crook of his arm like Moses in a basket is a sheaf of denominational literature.
‘I do, as a matter of fact.’
A smile of pleasant surprise spreads across his face, but it’s not a morning to give the enemy too much room for manoeuvre, because I don’t do religion on a hangover.
‘I also read the Qur’an. I have a soft spot for Marcus Aurelius too, and he was a pagan.’
The smile fades. He’s not really expecting this and a slight stutter comes into his voice. ‘But … but do you believe your actions in this life make a difference in the world to come?’
‘If we’re going to be judged on something in an afterlife, I think it’ll probably be our inactions. It’s not difficult to live a pious life, if you think about it, imagining you’ll be saved if you stick to a few rules. But think of all the good things you could have done but didn’t because you were too lazy or complacent. I think we’ll be judged on our potential.’
He’s frowning now.
‘I forget where I first heard the idea, but it does stay with you. I think it’s somewhere in the Qur’an.’
I pluck a copy of the Watchtower from his grasp and thank him warmly, saying I hope I’ll see him again soon. The speed at which he walks away up the drive suggests I won’t.
With a feeling of guilty victory I return to my coffee. Then I close the windows in the sitting room because the light is hurting my eyes, and sit down at the table, taking the postcard from the mantelpiece where I left it. I read it again several times. There’s nothing out of the ordinary about the text. I wonder if the picture, depicting a nomad leading a line of camels, is intended to convey a meaning. It’s the identity of ‘Mohammed’ that bothers me. I wonder if it might be worth looking through my diaries from the period I was last in Kabul, but if the card was sent months earlier, whoever Mohammed is will have given up hearing from me.
I take the card to the kitchen and boil the kettle, hold the card in the steam and gently work a corner of the stamp with the tip of a knife. I’m not sure what to expect – anything strange or out of the ordinary.
As the stamp begins to curl back in the steam, what I see is even stranger. Under the stamp, in the same ink as the writing on the card, is a tiny drawing of a dinosaur with a smiling face.
It’s a stegosaurus.
Cryptography is the science of hiding the true meaning of a message by disguising it; encrypting it by some means known to the recipient but not to others. As long as the sender and the recipient keep their means of encryption secret, the effort needed by