The Passenger (The Passenger, #1)(88)

When he got back to the city he called Kline.

You’re back.

Sort of.

You want to meet me for a drink?

Sure.

Tujague’s?

What time?

Six.

I’ll see you then.

They sat at one of the small wooden tables in the bar and ordered gin and tonics. Kline clouded the lenses of his glasses with a quick breath each and wiped them with his handkerchief. He put them on and looked at Western.

What do you see? said Western.

Did you know that there’s a system that can scan your eye electronically with the same accuracy as a fingerprint and you dont even know it’s being done?

Is that supposed to comfort me?

Kline looked out at the street. Identity is everything.

All right.

You might think that fingerprints and numbers give you a distinct identity. But soon there will be no identity so distinct as simply to have none. The truth is that everyone is under arrest. Or soon will be. They dont have to restrict your movements. They just have to know where you are.

It sounds like paranoia to me.

It is paranoia.

The waiter brought the drinks. Kline raised his glass. Cheers, he said.

Happy days. What else have you got in the way of good news?

You shouldnt despond. Information and survival will ultimately be the same thing. Sooner than you think.

What else?

Difficult to say. Electronic money. Sooner rather than later.

Okay.

There wont be any actual money. Just transactions. And every transaction will be a matter of record. Forever.

You dont think people will object to this?

They’ll get used to it. The government will explain that it will help to defeat crime. Drugs. The sort of large scale international arbitrage that threatens the stability of currencies. You can make up your own list.

But anything that you buy or sell will be a matter of record.

Yes.

A stick of gum.

Yes. What the government hasnt figured on yet is that this scheme will be followed by the advent of private currencies. And shutting these down will mean the rescinding of certain parts of the Constitution.

Well. Again, I’m sure you know what this conversation sounds like.

Of course. Let’s get back to you.

All right.

Do you think they’ve seized your father’s papers at Princeton?

Probably.

You’re past all that.

I dont know what they’re up to and I never will. And now I dont care. I just want them to leave me alone.

They wont. You didnt get along. You and your father.

I didnt have a problem with my father. And I didnt have a problem with the bomb. The bomb was always coming. Now it’s here. It’s lying doggo for the present. But it wont stay that way. My father died alone in Mexico. I have to live with that. I have to live with a lot of things. I went to see him a few months before he died. He wasnt doing well. There was nothing that I could do for him. But that didnt excuse doing nothing.

How good a physicist was he?

He was smart. But smart is not enough. You have to have the balls to dismantle the existing structure. He made some wrong choices. A lot of his friends had Nobel Prizes but he wasnt going to get one.

Is that such a big deal?

In physics it is.

How good a mathematician was your sister?

We come back to that from time to time. There’s no answer to it. Mathematics is not physics. The physical sciences can be weighed against each other. And against what we suppose to be the world. Mathematics cant be weighed against anything.

How smart was she?

Who knows? She saw everything differently. She would figure something out and then half the time she couldnt explain to you how she’d done it. It was hard for her to understand what it was that you didnt understand. That smart.

He looked at Kline. I think that up to the age of eight or so she was pretty much like any other precocious kid. Questioning everything. Always waving her hand in class. Then something happened to her. She just got quiet. Strangely polite. She seemed to understand that she had to be careful how she treated people.

He sat staring at his glass. He ran his finger down the side of it. We’re married to Greek geometry. But she wasnt. She didnt draw pictures. She hardly even did calculations.

He looked up at Kline. I cant answer your questions. She had a good heart. I think it occurred to her fairly early that she was going to have to be good to people.

Why did she kill herself?

Western looked away. At the next table a woman was watching him. She was leaning slightly forward. Ignoring the two men sitting at the table with her. He looked at Kline.

And then you’ll shut up.

I think so.

Because she wanted to. She didnt like it here. She told me from the time she was about fourteen that she was probably going to kill herself. We had long conversations about it. They must have sounded pretty strange. She always won. She was smarter than me. A lot smarter.

I’m sorry, said Kline.

Western didnt answer. The woman sat watching him. The lights were coming up along the street.

We were in love with each other. Innocently at first. For me anyway. I was in over my head. I always was. The answer to your question is no.

That wasnt my question.

Sure it was.

Kline spooned away the water from the table with the back of his hand where his glass had wept. He put the glass back down. Did your father know that she was bright?