B007P4V3G4 EBOK (13 page)

'No, Your Excellency,' I'll reply resolutely, for I know that my
reply will startle him, 'from now on, I shall devote myself entirely
to the critical investigation and control of the application of
artificial intelligence!'

The president gawps at me. I see a big chunk of sausage on his
pink tongue. I myself, as though quite unaware of any provocation,
stuff down a goodly cob of com.

'Well,' I then go on, 'I have always been wondering, of course,
whether the artificial intelligence set at the state's disposal was
indeed being employed properly. Alas, I have never had the time
to be able to research the subjects of its application and processing.
I could have asked the DRAIN inspector, but what could guarantee
me the reliability of his information? No, I have resolved to get to
the bottom of the affair now.'

The president looks deathly pale and I have to draw his
attention to the piece of sausage in order for it not to go down
quite the wrong way.

'You see,' I continue, relishing in fulsome measure that the head
of state is standing as though rooted to the ground, listening to
me, 'you see, Your Excellency, the artificial intelligence produced,
by myself, among others, is of such a quality that it must not be
frittered away - I mean, that it can only be intended for distribution
to individuals who are truly deserving - to those in government,
for instance - so that they might execute their tasks even better: to
state lawyers, to leaders of business, to high civil servants. D'you
see? It would be a disaster if everyone in the country could take
advantage of it with as much right or in equal measure, if the
common people, if even female individuals were administered it!
Chaos would be the result. The hallmark of intelligence, after all, is
that not everyone possesses like measure of it and that only the
most intelligent know what it's like to handle it - right? I cannot
bear the thought that all those beakers of precious intelligence
which, in the course of the years, thanks to my

The president gives me a few hard, amiable slaps. He has turned
quite red in the face and stands there laughing loudly: 'Ho-ho, my
dear fellow, I quite misunderstood you at first! Am I right in
understanding you have your eye on a ministerial position?'

We drive along. A little way. Now back a little. Stop. I slam into
the rear panel.

We must be right in front of the entrance. The driver switches
off the ignition. He's getting out now. Will the guard of honour be
standing there? I hear hellish shouting and other mayhem. It's clear
people are awaiting me on the edges of their seats with expectation.
The music is even more modem than I thought. Oh, my stomach,
my bowels, my lungs, my throat, my heart ... I can't get up. I hear
my driver's footsteps. I'm now able to press myself up at the front
but I still can't manage the rear. I hear him fidgeting at the door.
There comes the light! Oh, my short-sighted eyes and all that
flashing! Help me, please, help: I can't get up any more, I'm not
getting any air, I can't see anything at all. Support me, up to the
threshold: thence applause shall bear me along.

J.M.A. Biesheuvel

Isaac had been standing on the afterdeck for hours already. He was
a pleasant but slightly strange boy: when working on board he
longed for a job ashore and when in an office he longed for the
sea. He could not bear the dull monotony of existence ashore, and
he did not have money to make sea voyages. But when he was on
a the capacity of random member of the crew (bespectacled, hence always a cabin-boy, mess steward or officers' steward,
never able seaman let alone mate: his big - he had to
deal with the rough bragging rant of the sailors who played cards
with knives on the table and bawled out one another and Isaac, no
holds barred. Isaac was never truly one of them. Aboard ship he
fitted into the community least of all, even less than in the harbour
town, the bottling plant or in the factory or office, and each time
again he believed he would find true romance precisely on a ship.
When the work was done you could always find him on the
afterdeck. It was already two hours past midnight now, but Isaac
continued to stand there because it was such a moon-clear night;
you could clearly see all the familiar stars of the southern hemisphere and the wake foaming dangerously white behind the ship
(one who has stood on the afterdeck of a ship sailing in open sea
knows that at dark of night, by day, in rain or in fog, in polar
regions or in the tropics, in grey, green or clear-blue water, always
and always she sails along a white road, that road running from
the horizon to the propeller: someone drowning who crosses its
path a quarter of an hour later no longer sees the road).

There was a lovely balmy breeze. If you looked closely you
could indeed see the horizon or, a little closer by, the light-speck
of a ship luffing away that, had Isaac arrived an hour earlier, had
been sailing straight towards him. But, as will become clear, our
senses can deceive us. There are philosophers who maintain that all
that is, is imagination, and that the opposite is not to be proved
either! Isaac sailed on a tramp steamer and never saw ships at
night. He thought of how long it would be before he would be home again. He looked at the winches, the bollards, the ropes, the
railing and the easy chair he had set out for himself on
the afterdeck. At a given moment Isaac saw the little light in the
distance swerve abruptly; it seemed to describe a short turn on the
water and then it came straight at him. When it was coming ever
closer, Isaac had reached the conclusion that this could hardly be
or purport to be a ship as it was so much subject to the 'motion of
the waves' and particularly because there was never more than a
single light. A ship with only one stem light burning? Dangerous.
When the extraordinary conveyance had approached Isaac to a
distance of four hundred yards, he saw it was a motorbike. For the
first time in his life something happened to Isaac which 'could
rightly be said to be extraordinary'. What he saw now, someone
else would not dare invent, nor be able to, not in his wildest
dreams. At first Isaac was afraid but in the end he could not
assume that a new prophet or Messiah would move over the earth
in this Christians maintain that Jesus has walked
on water. The motorbike had approached Isaac to within sixteen
metres or so. Isaac stood there calling out and waving like no
tomorrow but in his excitement he forgot to cast out a rope
ladder. This was brought to his attention by the rider of the
motorbike. As his accent showed, the stranger turned out to be a
fellow countryman of Isaac's. He steered his bike in an extraordinary manner and extremely carefully to the rope ladder; seated
on his bike he behaved towards the smooth side of the ship like a
boxer still probing his opponent in the ring for a
slight shaking of the upper torso, hopping rapidly from one foot to
the other and making defensive or on the contrary in fact aggressive gestures with the arms and then - upsidaisy! - he jumped bike
and all in a single go on to the rope ladder. 'Careful, careful,' he
cried continually. The man wore specs which were not a little
steamed up, and a cap of which the leather flaps, intended to
protect eyes and ears from the seawater, jutted out a long way.
The motorbike was an ordinary motorbike. It had no special
equipment. Isaac helped the man set the bike down on deck. The
man said: 'Give me something to eat.' Isaac went to fetch it. He
noticed that the sailors, mates and engine room crew had knocked
off already. When Isaac returned he asked the stranger: 'Why do
you ride on the water?' The man maintained he wanted to set a
record.

'How's it possible that you can ride on water?' asked Isaac, surprised. 'It's a matter of practice,' said the man, 'I began by
putting a pin down flat on the water. If you do that very carefully
it stays afloat. Over a long period of time, I took ever more heavy
objects. My bike was what I was after, of course, and in the end I
did make my first measly circuits of the town pond. Now I ride
across the entire world. I don't come ashore anywhere but because
I must eat from time to time, I'll frequently ride up to a ship. I
prefer to go in dark of night best of all. Everyone's asleep then.
The first few times I went up to ships in broad daylight but people
went all of a doodah then. First they cried out that this was the
most beautiful thing they'd experienced in their entire lives and
then they began to talk gibberish or they went mad. I intend to do
forty-thousand kilometres across the mind a few
kilometres more here or there, I don't: as long as I'm right round
the globe. I want to do something no one's ever been able to do
before. That's always been my ideal.' 'Are you never afraid of
drowning?' Isaac asked.

'Why no,' said the man. 'It's the way you steer the thing, that's
the clue, and carefully adding a touch more acceleration each time,
and easing off. A high wave, for instance, you should never take at
a great speed otherwise the sides of the tyres get wet and once
that's happened, you're up the creek.' 'Yes, I can see that,' said
Isaac who was looking at the man, full of admiration. The man was
quite simply gorging himself. He drank too: lots of milk and
alcohol. Finally he asked for a little bottle of iodine, for he had
need of that. Meanwhile an hour had passed and the man slung his
bike overboard again and hung it on the rope ladder. Then he took
his leave of Isaac. The latter asked whether it wasn't possible for
him to join him for the rest of the journey on the motorbike, riding
pillion. 'I could show you the way, for I've sailed a lot,' he
concluded his question. But the man burst out laughing. 'You'd
have to practise for years first,' the man said, 'but if I wanted to as
such, I'd take you along. I can steer well enough and I could pump
up my tyres so that it'd work, but I don't feel like it. What are you
to me? I've been riding at sea for months now and then all of a
sudden you'd join me for the final week? What point'd that be? I
happen to be after a single-handed record. I can't explain to the
people at the finish that you only joined at the final stage, can I?
Besides, I'd have to do my level best to keep the bike going
with two people. And I've never practised with a second. How do
I know what unexpected movements you might make? The thing is to dance airily across the water, as it were,' the man went on.
D'you know about tight-rope walking?' he asked, Isaac who, not
quite understanding the point of the question, said 'no'. 'Well,' the
man said, 'you've got to keep your balance all the time with
the bike and you must keep your tyres as high as possible on the
waves.' Then he took his leave and descended the ladder again
with his bike. Isaac wanted to adjust the rope ladder a touch but
again the man cried 'Careful, careful!' at every turn, very loudly this
time. Almost having reached the water, he started the engine, full
pelt, so that the wheels whizzed round in the air above the water.
Occasionally the man would hold the tyres very carefully against
the surface of the water and at a given moment he jumped, in an
unexpected movement, from the rope ladder on to the roaring bike
which jetted off at breakneck speed. It was already getting light a
little. Isaac felt sad. The bike had disappeared over the horizon
within a quarter of an hour. So Isaac went to bed for an hour. Next
day he told the radiographer what had befallen him that night. The
latter shrugged his shoulders and when Isaac kept pressing him he
began to laugh. An hour later the entire ship knew that Isaac had
seen a man ride over the water at night. Everyone laughed. Once
the day had passed Isaac was very sleepy. But before going to bed
he walked down to the afterdeck for a moment. The sun had just
gone down. It promised to be a fine night again. A little more
cloud this time. Involuntarily, Isaac began to search the sea,
peering. But of course the man on the motorbike was nowhere to
be seen. Isaac was on the verge of tears; he didn't belong ashore,
he didn't belong to the crew, he didn't even belong to the man
with the motorbike. He looked at the foaming, dangerous wake
and at the birds flying along, following the ship. He had the feeling
he was a lonely man and gradually he came to the realisation that
it would always stay like that. He lit a cigarette and began to hum
a psalm but he could barely hear his own voice. It had begun to
blow and that's why the propeller would rise from the water now
and then, spinning like mad, only to end up back in the water again
with a booming blow. Isaac looked at one of the sea birds and
wished he was able to fly like that creature and go where he
wished. He wanted to fly, following the ships, or far away over the
horizon. Without him being aware of it himself, he began to
imitate the movements of the wings of the albatrosses in the air.
The bosun happened to see it. He giggled, for he saw that Isaac
was standing with his feet planted firmly on