‘As soon as possible.’

‘That will be tomorrow.’

‘Then set it up for as soon as possible.’

Perhaps it was because I had been so unpleasant to him, or perhaps it was because he was so nervous, that our conversation was very formal and we didn’t say anything that wasn’t relevant to the matter in hand; there were no jokes, no chatting, and no polite remarks – in fact when he left we did not even say goodbye.

6

The following morning after breakfast, as I left the restaurant, I saw two people come out of my bodyguards’ room next door. One of them was Party Secretary Wang and the other was someone I had never seen before. Party Secretary Wang introduced us, and informed me that the man was here to meet me, that he had a PhD in mathematics and had arrived back from the Soviet Union the year before. He was the first candidate that I saw. After that a stream of visitors came through my room, and by that evening I had interviewed twelve people, of whom two were women comrades. Of these people, only half stayed in my room for more than five minutes. That means that I threw most of them out pretty quickly, including the man with the PhD who had studied in Russia. Afterwards Party Secretary Wang said that he thought he was by far the best candidate, and that was why he had arranged for me to meet him first, and brought him round personally. The fact is that after he entered the room, I didn’t even say a word to him; I just watched him for a bit and then told him to leave.

Why?

Party Secretary Wang asked me that question incessantly.

As I explained, when we entered my room, I had deliberately adopted an arrogant manner and did not say a word to him. It was a psychological test. He didn’t realize that, and seeing me not say a word and looking like I hadn’t even noticed his existence, from start to finish he kept a solicitous, empty smile on his face as he tried to ingratiate himself with me. If I indicated that I wanted to smoke, he came rushing forward to light my cigarette; and he took it upon himself to make tea. The way I thought about it, someone like that would be perfect for a job working with other people, but not for the soul-destroying work of cryptography. Anderov used to say that cracking ciphers is like communicating with the dead. You don’t have to worry about other people’s feelings, you don’t need to be thoughtful and considerate – you just have to work out a way to listen to the heartbeats of the dead.

Yes, cryptography is like listening to the heartbeats of the dead.