Memoirs From the Grey Tower

Chapter Seventeen

At first, Arnold didn’t tell me that Andemund was under isolated investigation. I simply noticed that I hadn’t seen him for a long time. During this period, Arnold seemed to have an unusual amount of free time and started making all sorts of excuses to spend time with me.

I had moved back to my old place and resumed my weekly Sunday visits to the Major General’s residence to tutor little Joe. The brat had surprisingly mellowed out; instead of making me chase him all over the house, he now sat obediently in the study, waiting for me.

Arnold was often in the study too, pretending to be busy. He would flip through books, open the window for air, or ask, “Alan, are you hungry? Should I ask the servants to prepare some snacks?”

Eventually, he would shove little Joe away from the desk, sit beside me, and spread open a book. “I’ve been getting really interested in math lately. Can you help me understand this passage?”

The little brat tugged on Arnold’s sleeve. “Cousin, your book is upside down.”

Arnold coughed, quietly closed Newton’s Principia Mathematica, rubbed his nose, and retreated to the side.

His uncharacteristic lack of flirting made me deeply uneasy.

In gloomy times, people often sought their own distractions. The Cambridge Mathematics Club, which I had once been a part of, organized a small private gathering exclusively for professors and students from the mathematics department. Hoping to reconnect with old acquaintances and perhaps find job opportunities, I decided to attend.

The gathering was held in the backyard garden of a professor’s home. There, I ran into Arnold again. Small groups of people were chatting, scattered across the garden, and Arnold, smiling and holding a wine glass, made his way toward me.

I asked him, “Why aren’t you off flirting? How do you have time for a gathering like this?”

He raised his glass boldly and, in front of everyone, flirtatiously winked at me. “Alan, I’m wooing you!”

I could only shrug to the people around me. “He’s joking.”

The event featured rare desserts, and I found a small round table where I could sit and focus on enjoying a plum pudding. About five or six meters away, near the garden fence, a group of four or five people were discussing calculus. Suddenly, I heard a girl say, “So, you’re working at the Golf and Chess Club now?”

The person who replied was hidden in the crowd, wearing a soft hat and scarf. His voice was cool and distant. “Something like that.”

The girl’s voice was sweet. “I’m Emily Roth. I’ve published a paper on abstract algebra in Science and Logic.”

I suddenly remembered her. We had both been members of the Mathematics Club, and in our third year, she had recommended my group theory paper to Dr. Watt in London.

“I’m teaching at the university now,” Emily continued. “Several of my friends have gone to America—Europe isn’t safe. Speaking of which, there’s someone who stayed in Cambridge, Alan, who works on group theory—perhaps you’ve heard of him?”

Surprised, I turned my gaze in their direction.

The man seemed equally startled. “You mean Alan Caster? What’s he doing now?”

Emily gestured toward me with her chin and tucked her curls to partially shield her face. “The one with the chestnut hair over there. He doesn’t seem to be doing much now—just tutors on weekends. Alan’s actually quite talented.”

Although I had been consumed with battling Enigma, to others it must have seemed like I was doing nothing—spending my last two years of university locked in the Math Club’s activity room, writing an unpublished paper, and, after graduation, failing to join any mathematics institute or university. I nodded toward the group in acknowledgment, but to my surprise, the man who had asked the question stood up.

Through the crowd, I couldn’t make out his face; all I saw was him taking off his soft hat and bowing slightly toward me in greeting.

Then, he sat back down, retreating into the cluster of people chatting around him.

“For Enigma,” he said.

His voice was steady and measured, just loud enough to be heard.

Arnold, who was sitting beside me, was animatedly chatting with a girl. After a while, he turned to look in the man’s direction and asked, puzzled, “Alan, who’s that guy over there? I feel like he’s been watching you.”

In this war, men over the age of seventeen were enlisting en masse, forming queues at recruitment offices that stretched down entire streets. Everywhere, propaganda and speeches urged people to fight for Britain. Clashes between Nazi-supporting Blackshirts and ordinary citizens were frequent, and rumors swirled through the air.

The government had gathered scientists to form the Operations Research (OR) group. Some of my friends were working in government labs, researching optimal torpedo configurations and effective anti-aircraft firing methods.

Andemund had once told me that mathematics was a terrifying discipline. When mathematicians stepped out of their papers and books and wielded their knowledge as a weapon of war, it became the most formidable weapon of all.

During the later air raids on London, the OR group improved the effectiveness of anti-aircraft fire—from shooting down one Nazi plane per 200 shells to one per 20 shells. It was their triumph, a victory for mathematics.

This was a battle without gunpowder, and I wanted to do my part.

I told Arnold about this, but he only comforted me, saying, “Alan, you don’t have to do anything. Just settle down and have a romance with me.”

I gave it a try.

At that time, Arnold already knew that Andemund was under isolated investigation. He even knew the reason, but he never said a word about it to me. Instead, he took me on constant dates—to the movies, the park, and concerts by Polish musicians exiled in Britain.

In the darkness of the cinema, he wrapped an arm around my waist and asked, “Alan, how about you dump Andemund and spend the rest of your life with me?”

I reminded him, “We already broke up.”

In the dark, Arnold pulled down the turned-up collar of my coat and kissed my neck. Whispering seductively into my ear, he said, “I mean I want you to let go of him in your heart and be with me. I’m not weighed down by the kind of responsibilities he has. I have a job; I can support you to study mathematics for a lifetime. We can go out holding hands to the movies every week. What do you think?”

On the screen, a couple madly in love were kissing in the middle of the street. I stared intently at the screen, pretending not to hear Arnold’s question.

After a long time, Arnold finally pulled away and sighed.

The little brat, meanwhile, was the most miserable of us all. His cousin forced him to show up on time for lessons, deliver roses to me, and replace all his sketchbooks with arithmetic workbooks.

Holding one of the roses, I told Arnold with a blank expression, “You could give these to me yourself.”

With his hands in his pockets, he stepped out from behind the door. “Darling, I like surprising you.”

He asked me, “Alan, we’ve been dating for a month now. Do you feel anything?”

I thought about it carefully for a moment and answered honestly, “No.”

The psychologist looked utterly disappointed, collapsing into a chair and tilting his head back. “Damn it! But I feel something—what am I supposed to do?!”

Arnold always felt something when he was flirting, so he obviously knew what to do and didn’t need to worry.

It was on a December afternoon that I received an invitation from Military Intelligence Headquarters.

The next morning, I went to 367 Queen’s Avenue in London and met Mr. Bruce. The place was a highly classified institution with no sign on the door, and everyone inside wore military uniforms. Mr. Bruce, a senior official dressed in a navy uniform, received me behind his desk.

He highly praised my work in cracking Enigma and asked if I was willing to join the "Golf and Chess Club."

“Alan Caster, are you willing to follow in the footsteps of Mr. and Mrs. Caster, serving His Majesty the King and the people of Britain from the shadows, where no one can see?”

I swore my willingness.

What followed was a series of tedious qualification checks. I was isolated for about three days, during which Mr. Bruce repeatedly confirmed my identity as “Alan Caster,” asked numerous questions about my childhood and experiences with my parents, and meticulously compared me to the photos in a file.

The forty-something man smiled behind his round glasses. “Let me tell you something, Alan. We received your file a long time ago, and it showed that you are exceptionally capable. However, Mr. Garcia always deemed you untrustworthy, which is why he refused to let you join Plinton Manor. Now, however, Sir C believes you are trustworthy. He trusts not only you but also your family.”

For a moment, I was bewildered. “Who is Sir C?”

I later learned that while I was trying to date Arnold and forget Andemund, he was engaged in a life-and-death struggle. On the surface, he appeared composed and at ease, but in reality, he was standing at the very gates of hell, where the slightest misstep could drag him into the abyss.

At the time, the Navy’s independent intelligence agency was set to merge into MI6, and they wanted to establish their own leadership. The Lyndon incident served as the perfect catalyst. On reflection, it was clear that Lyndon alone could not have bribed two internal spies—someone in the shadows was supporting him. How many interests were entangled in this matter was anyone’s guess.

Moreover, there were forces beyond my comprehension, such as Whitehall and Sir C. The latter’s influence was powerful enough to overturn Andemund’s decisions about me and even determine whether the future head of MI6 would be Andemund or someone aligned with the Navy.

As I dug deeper, I realized that Lyndon wasn’t the whole story. Andemund, in his effort to protect me, had concealed a truth—a truth that was the very reason he had stopped me from entering Plinton Manor.

The gravity of this secret was so severe that it cost him Whitehall’s trust and subjected him to a grueling three-month isolation review.

During his absence, I was granted access to Plinton Manor and offered an official and honorable position: deciphering encoded messages in the Seventh Office of the Cryptography Division.

The ciphers in the Seventh Office weren’t as highly classified as those in the First Office, which Lyndon had once accessed, so the encryption systems were comparatively simpler. Stepping into Plinton Manor once more, I followed the winding paths to reach the small building that housed the Seventh Office.

I pushed open the door, set my briefcase on the nearest desk, and greeted my new colleagues.

One of them was sitting on the windowsill, sipping coffee. He had shoulder-length black curls and a prominent nose.

He turned his head lazily and looked at me. “Hello, Alan.”

I recognized that slightly cool voice—it was the same one I had heard at the Mathematics Club gathering.

“For Enigma.” He raised his coffee cup, saluting me for the second time. “You’ve finally decided to do something serious.”