Читать книгу Revenge of the Translator - Brice Matthieussent - Страница 42

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* So David chose another angle of attack, another weapon: the computer virus, signaled in a relatively clear message signed “Z” on Prote’s computer screen. An ersatz for the dreamed aerial attack, an economical consolation prize: rather than concentrating his efforts on the immensity of the sky and taking flying lesson, to carry out his heinous crime like other notorious evildoers, David makes do with that rigid plastic box swarming with 0s and 1s, clumped together in morphing constellations, in mathematical throngs organized with all the geometric precision of the nocturnal summer sky. Like an interplanetary probe with precise movements and programmed noxiousness, the frisky virus of a numerical galaxy with clusters of neighboring bytes, rigorously tearing through entire sections, extinguishing gigantic swaths of binary material, in a single vengeful flap of the wing annihilating planets, rings, asteroids and satellites, entire solar systems, white dwarfs and supernovas, plunging stellar memory into an unknown chaos, a new night.

“The damage is done. The virus works its way through the machine, like a rat. Z.” At first Prote took these few words for a stupid joke, the mere provocation of an intruder after breaking and entering the Normandy cottage where Prote has his office. The crowbar abandoned near the white door testifies to the presence of a criminal. The cottage had a visitor … But given the lack of any vandalism or any immediately identifiable theft, Prote quickly forgets the incident, puts the door back in place, sits at his desk, lights a Lucky Strike, and, already absorbed in the new chapter of his novel-in-progress, starts tapping away on his keyboard. Soon, however, the French writer is in the grips of doubt, skepticism, then consternation, finally anger: his words, his lines, dialogues, paragraphs, chapters, are inexorably eroded, sometimes a few characters, sometimes several syllables, or entire phrases, disappear without explanation, in an entirely random and incomprehensible manner, sucked up by the chasm of the screen like the stars of the universe in a powerful black hole, each destruction accompanied by a little melodious and exasperating pfuiit.

What to do? What defense to mount? Who to suspect? Who benefits from this crime? Do I have a mortal enemy, wonders Prote, who, rather than directly attacking my person or my published books, chose to lash out at my work in progress? Could I possibly suspect my little Doris, so devoted? Ah, I can’t stand these mocking pfuiits! It’s like the muted detonation of a pistol equipped with a silencer, whose every bullet destroys a few thousand characters of my novel. No, Doris is too loyal, too loving and helpful. It could be anyone, but not my dear Doris. Perhaps she has already received my letter in America. Perhaps she is writing back to me at this very moment … It’s more likely my concierge, the postman, my grouchy neighbor, the bad-tempered butcher, one of my former mistresses or wives, my cleaning lady bribed by a prankster, or it could even be my American translator with the drab name, Grey, that’s it, David Grey. But no, I can’t really imagine them slowly shooting my computer’s memory full of holes, inflicting an electronic Alzheimer’s. My Hungarian translator perhaps, Stefan Esterházy? Impossible: we hardly know each other. It could be that seductive Italian, Pietro Listo, who Doris found rather charming and cajoling, but whom I deemed effeminate and hardly straightforward, perhaps an opportunist prepared to do anything to translate my next book? No, that’s not realistic. But then who? First things first, let’s shut down this nasty ruse.

So, from Prote’s inferior point of view, the book is a can of worms, a haystack in which he has lost the precious needle of his text. It is now riddled with a virus of unknown origin. For the moment, Prote remains in the dark with his anger and speculations. (Tamperer’s Night)