Outside the Wire Read online

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  Earlier that Tuesday afternoon I had sat in a small waiting room of the Chicago Tabulating Devices Corporation. I came with the tacit approval of my thesis advisor in the form of a letter of support. But in truth I was quite insecure in my thesis that a relay logic algorithm could be installed in the C.T.D.C.’s tabulator when the opportunity to put it into practice had come. But with Dr. Wireman’s letter of introduction, my box of punched cards and enough enthusiasm to convince a legion of accounting executives that my theories could revolutionize the industry, I steeled my resolve.

  The exterior room in which I had been retained was sparsely furnished. I could just detect the sounds of a busy autumn afternoon in the city. A clock ticked audibly. The clock’s mechanism was visible through a wedge of glass, like a pie piece cut from the porcelain face.

  I could make out my own distorted reflection in the glass overlaying the clockwork gears. I had worn a modest walking suit with a buttoned-shirt and coat. I had struggled all the morning before the mirror trying to find the right combination of professionally stylish yet femininely demure. I had even removed the decorative feathers from my hat in an effort to appear as one who should be taken seriously. I adjusted a hatpin that held the hat in question securely to my bun.

  As I sat looking at the clock, I tugged and straightened my skirt in a vain attempt to keep my ankles covered.

  “I’m sorry, but are you here with Tony Farragolo?”

  I turned from the clock to see a nervous little man in a rumpled brown jacket that seemed a size too big for him. As he stood there blinking through his glasses I couldn't help but think of a little boy in a boatman’s life preserving jacket.

  I stood and proffered a hand.

  The small man looked up at me and then down at my hand as if unsure what to do. Finally he reached to grasp me by the fingers but I slid my gloved hand forward to shake as a man would.

  “I am Antonia Farragolo,” I said with two firm shakes.

  The man had a limp grasp and pulled his hand away quickly.

  “Antonia?” the man asked.

  I smiled with more confidence than I felt and nodded.

  The little man seemed at a loss and then as if reminded by a nervous tick, regained his composure.

  “I’m Teddy Nussbaum. I was told…” he trailed off.

  I had no doubt that he must have expected me to have been a man, but I disingenuously said, “Yes?”

  Mr., Nussbaum opened his mouth as if to speak and then appeared to think better of it.

  He sighed.

  I smiled warmly.

  “Please follow me.”

  I felt a little jolt as I gathered my box of punched cards and ledger and fell in behind the little man. I had made it past the first obstruction and I felt unstoppable.

  We traveled down a short corridor, one wall pierced by windows. Through the glass I could see rows of young men at desks pressing keys on arithmetic devices and pulling levers. Each pull of a lever resulted in an incremental release of paper from the top of the device. Manual tabulation.

  Soon manual tabulation would be a thing of the past. In just a few years it would be the twentieth century and I could see a single machine and a few dozen punched cards replacing the entire room of accounting clerks.

  The future was thrilling, but how unfortunate that it only came at you one day at a time.

  I followed close behind Mr. Nussbaum and almost bumped into him when he stopped before a doorway. He turned to regard me with a peculiar, almost sad expression and then opened the door for me.

  The room was sparsely furnished but for the large walnut desk swathed in accounting sheets. At the desk sat a squat, pallid man of middle age. Pale with a receding hairline and deep lines carved at the corners of his tight, lipless seam of a mouth. His gaze made me feel that I was the fly to his toad.

  The little man introduced me awkwardly, and then the man behind the desk was introduced to me as Mr. Colund. I could see he held the letter of introduction that Professor Wireman had written.

  I stepped forward, shifting my box and ledger to my left hand and proferred my right hand just as I had practiced. Mr. Colund gave me a flaccid, perfunctory handshake and a confused smile.

  I stood in an awkward silence after disengaging my hand.

  The man actually stared at the swell of my breasts and said in a flat tone, "You're a woman."

  I wanted to comment on his keen powers of observation, but instead I did that little dip, where my eyes drop down to catch his and pull them back up to my face and said, “Yes, so I am told.”

  A little flush of red crept up his neck and he said, "I beg your pardon, but Dr. Wireman wrote that I was to be introduced to a student of his named Tony Farragolo." He waved my letter about absently.

  “My name is Antonia. Dr. Wireman insists on shortening it to Tony.”

  Colund folded the paper and nodded.

  “I assure you, Mr. Colund, I am well versed in the use of the Hollerith card. I have been studying the installation of relay logic algorithms by means of preconstructed punched-cards with Dr. Wireman for the past two years.” When he said nothing I leaned forward and continued, “You see, Mr. Colund, I have this theory that by means of serial installation of the bits of data on punched cards one might generate complex codes through the use of your tabulator, the Magnotronic Tabulator…”

  “Is that Mrs. or Miss?”

  “Miss, Sir,” I said.

  Mr. Colund nodded and appraised me with dead eyes before he said, “I ask, as your brow is not quite so brutishly sloping as would be expected of one coming from the Apennine Peninsula, so the name might have been an unfortunate choice in marriage. And then there is the narrowness of the zygomatic arches, with the set of your eyes giving the illusion of an insightful nature.”

  I bit down on the inside of my lower lip and waited for him to finish his physiognomic musing.

  “Though the insightful nature could well be a subversive element in your nature. Are you a suffragist, Miss Farragolo?”

  I sighed quietly. As it has always been, must it always continue to be? “Sir, I have been fortunate to study with Professor Wireman and simply wish to be afforded the opportunity to test the theories we have developed.”

  “Yes, yes, Miss Farragolo, I am sure Dr. Wireman is convinced of your capabilities, but you see. Well, when I heard he wanted to send me an Italian I was hesitant to entertain his fancies. But a woman.”

  I smiled as coyly as I could and said, “Why, Mr. Colund, do you dislike women?”

  Mr. Nussbaum cleared his throat behind me. Mr. Colund glanced from Mr. Nussbaum to me.

  Before he could recover the momentum of his objection I said, “Sir, Professor Wireman has been collaborating with this firm in the automation of arithmetic processes for nearly a decade. Do you think he would have arranged for me to come down here if there wasn’t something I could offer?”

  Mr. Nussbaum cleared his throat again and said, “Mr. Colund, this is the initiate that Dr. Wireman has sent. I don’t think there is time to find another.”

  I looked down at the little man and the disconcerting oddness of his words. He stared straight at Mr. Colund and wouldn’t meet my gaze.

  Mr. Colund nodded, tapping my folded letter on the edge of the desk. He pulled a watch from a vest pocket and nodded again. He said to Mr. Nussbaum, “It is the first night of the new moon.”

  “Excuse me, Sir, but I am unsure what this is about,” I said.

  Mr. Colund looked up at me again and said, “It’s late in the day, Miss Farragolo, but would you mind trying this generation of complex code all in one day? It might require you stay past midnight.”

  I held myself in place so as not to execute a little jig right there. Then I nodded proudly. Two obstructions down. I would show these men that I could do it.

  Mr. Nussbaum led me to a service elevator. One flight below the ground floor and down a deserted corridor. A ligh
t green discoloration to the industrial off-white paint hinted at mold taking root in the block walls.

  "Goodness, but it's warm down here.”

  Mr. Nussbaum didn't respond. He stopped his slow march and turned into a small room. It wasn't much larger than a broom closet and smelled musty. A single electrical light bulb hung suspended on a cord in the center of the ceiling.

  Against the far wall, the Magnotronic Tabulator rested on a solitary desk. Sleek, burnished walnut and polished brass, it was a sight to behold.

  The box I carried prevented me from clapping my hands together at the sight.

  An old model ticker tape machine sat beside it, coated in a thin layer of dust.

  Mr. Nussbaum explained the basic operation of the device. It was much like the larger Hollerinth Tabulator I had worked with at the college. The largest and most thrilling difference was that the serial inputs could be converted into magnotronic impulses that would be carried much like telegraph signals through a large cable that led from the base of the device to a brass plate on the wall.

  I placed my box of cards beside the machine and turned to shake Mr. Nussbaum’s hand again, but the little man had gone.

  The room and the behavior of the two men elicited in me an insecure feeling, but I would not let my own fears become an obstacle. There were no more obstacles but the time it would require to make the inputs.

  I sat at the workstation and reflexively cracked my knuckles.

  I spent the next few hours loading cards into the input slit, moving the lever first down to lower the cards and then back up to engage the pins that would pass through the slits and engage metallic contacts. This would load a small packet of information, much like a single sentence but spoken in a binary code of my own invention.

  I lost myself in the work and, after I know not how long, I said, "Three more cards of coded data, my lovely device. Shall we see it you are able to perform the calculations?"

  A waft of moist warm air blew up my skirt cuff and I jumped back. Under the desk, against the wall was an air vent that I hadn't noticed before. I leaned under the desk and could just hear the hum of machinery.

  And there was something else. Something wet. The air coming up through the vent smelled acidic but foul, like too-ripe tomatoes.

  I sat back up in my chair and took a deep breath.

  I cracked my knuckles again and started to enter my last few cards, and that's when I heard the door lock.