The Burning of the Abominable House
four tenants, twelve deeds, and a computer asked to put them in order
SEVEN LINES
- The programmerOn the back is the index: twelve deeds in alphabetical order, with the page numbers burned black.
- The programmerTwelve pairs for each of twelve deeds: twelve to the twelfth power. Almost nine trillion stories.
- The programmerEvery policy pays, unless the right person did the wrong thing.
- The programmerEvery rule I add throws away a trillion stories.
- The programmerThe computer stops. It will not accept a story with anyone innocent in it.
- The programmerThe house comes back up out of the ashes, and I ring the bell with my suitcase.
- The programmerI am the second programmer.
HOW IT IS MADE
In Italo Calvino’s story a house has burned down with its four tenants, and all that survives of a copybook recording what they did to each other is its index: twelve deeds in alphabetical order, with the page numbers burned away. An insurance agent asks a programmer to have his computer reconstruct the lost account. The programmer counts the possible stories, writes rules to throw most of them out, adds the agent to the cast, adds himself, and works out that he has been set up.
It is set in the programmer’s room: a computer cabinet on the left, a corkboard in the middle, his desk on the right, and above the board a counter of possible stories. The board shows the house burning, the copybook front and back, the four tenants as pinned cards, the grid of who did what to whom, the four insurance policies, the rules, the house rising again in the computer, and the two computers. The counter shows exact numbers: each of the twelve deeds is one ordered pair of distinct people, so four people give twelve to the twelfth power stories, and each rule removes the stories that break it. The deeds appear only in the copybook’s index; the narration names none of the sexual ones.
The sound follows the room: the cabinet’s hum, a house fire, a plastic folder lifted out of ash, cards pinned to cork, a counter rolling, typing, an error beep, rain at the window, a doorbell, a two-tone siren getting closer, and a safety catch.
FOR THE BENCH
Count the stories, then cut them down. With four people there are 4 * 3 = 12 ordered pairs, and each of twelve deeds takes one, so there are 12 ** 12 stories. Use BigInt, because the number is past what a JavaScript number holds exactly once you reach six people: 30n ** 12n. Calvino’s programmer gives a slightly different total; work out 12n ** 12n yourself and check him. Then make the problem small enough to list: three people, three deeds. Write every story as an array of pairs, write each rule as a function that returns false for a story that breaks it (s => s.knifing[0] !== 'B'), and keep the stories that pass every rule with stories.filter(s => rules.every(r => r(s))). Print how many are left after each rule. Then take a rule out and watch the count go back up.
After Italo Calvino, The Burning of the Abominable House, in Numbers in the Dark, translated by Tim Parks. Narration paraphrases Calvino. Download the film (mp4).
THE SCRIPT
THE RUINS
The programmer. Skiller, from the insurance company, comes back tonight for the results. I have not written the program yet.
The programmer. The house stood on a hump of waste ground, between the railway and the scrapyards. It burned from the roof to the cellar.
The programmer. Four people lived in it. All four died in the fire, and what was left of them tells us nothing.
The programmer. One thing came through: a copybook in a plastic folder. The pages burned. The cover did not.
The programmer. On the front, a title: it promises to set down every abominable thing that was done in this house.
The programmer. On the back is the index: twelve deeds in alphabetical order, with the page numbers burned black.
The programmer. A thirteenth is missing from the list. The fire.
THE COUNT
The programmer. The widow Roessler, who kept the boarding house.
The programmer. Ogiva, the girl she adopted, who modelled for magazines, with a shaved head and a hundred wigs.
The programmer. Inigo, a disowned young lord, who owned the house and rented a room in it from his own tenant.
The programmer. And Belindo Kid, a wrestler past his best, the one lodger who paid.
The programmer. Suppose each deed was done by one of them to one other. Four people make twelve ordered pairs.
The programmer. Twelve pairs for each of twelve deeds: twelve to the twelfth power. Almost nine trillion stories.
The programmer. The police did not try to read them. Whoever did what, they reasoned, burned with whoever it was done to.
THE POLICIES
The programmer. The insurance company cannot be so calm. There are four policies.
The programmer. Inigo insured the house against fire. If he set the fire, the company owes nothing.
The programmer. The widow insured her own life, for Ogiva. If Ogiva killed her, nothing.
The programmer. Ogiva insured her wigs. If she burned them herself, nothing.
The programmer. The widow insured Belindo's tour against injury. If she drove him to his death, nothing.
The programmer. Every policy pays, unless the right person did the wrong thing.
The programmer. Skiller wants the machine to tell him which of the nine trillion stories that is.
THE RULES
The programmer. So I write rules, to throw out the stories that cannot have happened.
The programmer. Belindo does not use a knife. And nobody strangles Belindo; their fingers would not go round his neck.
The programmer. Belindo can only be tied up if somebody has a gun on him first.
The programmer. If you have slandered someone, you have nothing left to blackmail them with, and no reason to snoop.
The programmer. And nobody who was strangled was also knifed.
The programmer. Every rule I add throws away a trillion stories.
The programmer. Then I picture one of them. Drugs for the wrestler. A boy who wants some too. A threat, a rope, two fingers on a throat.
The programmer. And a body that has to look like a suicide. So, a knife.
The programmer. Stop. That breaks my own rule. I take it out, and the stories come back.
THE FIFTH PERSON
The programmer. There is a fifth person in this story. Skiller sold all four policies.
The programmer. He sat in their lounge. He drank their tea. He knew each of them.
The programmer. Then why bring the problem to me? Did he find the copybook in the ashes, or leave it there?
The programmer. I put him on a card. Five people, twenty pairs.
The programmer. I try a story where the house was innocent until he rang the bell, and all the harm came in with him.
The programmer. And one where he is the only innocent, called in by four people, each with a plan against the other three.
The programmer. The computer stops. It will not accept a story with anyone innocent in it.
THE SIXTH PERSON
The programmer. The house is ash, and they are all dead. Inside the computer, I can put the facts in another order.
The programmer. I add a sixth character. Myself.
The programmer. The house comes back up out of the ashes, and I ring the bell with my suitcase.
The programmer. Waldemar, systems analyst. I ask for a room.
The programmer. I tell them what I work on at night: a system that turns each private vice into a part of the general good.
The programmer. They say nothing. They think Skiller sent me.
The programmer. They are right.
The programmer. If I am only his instrument, my program is a copy of his. For this to come out, we have to be enemies.
THE SECOND PROGRAMMER
Skiller. Good evening. My company is studying how households contribute to disasters. With your permission, we would like to observe you. There are discounts on your policies.
The programmer. He already knows what each of them will do. Another computer told him.
The programmer. A bank of names: people inclined to fraud and harm, hundreds of thousands of them.
The programmer. Get them to insure everything. Let them stage their accidents and finish each other off. The company keeps the evidence and pays no one.
The programmer. Some deeds in the index never happened. They are noise, put there so the clients' guilt hides the company's.
The programmer. After the fire, he takes the data to a second computer, whose programmer knows none of this, to check that no one can trace it back.
The programmer. I am the second programmer.
The programmer. Between two computers, the winner is not the one that plays better. It is the one that works out how the other is playing better than it.
The programmer. Mine now holds the other one's winning game.
The programmer. The doorbell. Skiller sold me a fire policy too.
The programmer. I can hear the siren. I rang the fire brigade an hour ago. I release the safety catch, and go to the door.