Page 23 of Code 6

The old woman looked at her quizzically. “How is that the same?”

“Every answer a census enumerator records is a piece of information. Every piece of information becomes a hole in a Hollerith card. One card for every person. Millions and millions of cards. All read by a machine, just like the piano that plays itself.”

The old woman looked up from her wheelchair with dismay. “It’s not like the piano at all,” she said, her voice shaking.

Kate’s heart sank, saddened that her explanation had fallen flat. “Why do you say that?”

“A piano makesmusic,” she said. “The world needs all the music it can get. Why would anyone need so much...information?”

Kate was speechless, but the woman clearly wasn’t expecting an answer.

A museum employee came up behind the wheelchair and said, “Time for your break, Mrs. B.”

“I just had a break,” she said.

“Doctor’s orders,” he said, as he wheeled her away, leaving Kate and Bass alone with the Hollerith machine.

“Who is that woman?” asked Kate.

“She’s a volunteer,” said Bass. “A survivor. And my aunt.”

“Your aunt? But you didn’t even say hello.”

“She has no idea who I am anymore. But she remembers her time at Buchenwald like it was yesterday.”

“I’m sorry,” said Kate.

“Me, too. She’ll be gone soon. They’ll all be gone. No one to tell the stories.”

“Those stories will live on.”

“I’m afraid they won’t. I see signs of it already. I call it Holocaust fatigue. We need storytellers who connect with people your age. A talented young playwright, perhaps.”

“I’m young, I suppose. But one out of three is probably not what you’re looking for.”

“I do mean you, Kate. I want you to write a play about the world’s first personal information catastrophe—the abuse of technology and the systematic identification of Jews for extermination.”

“That’s a totally different play from the one I wrote.”

“Yes.”

“You want me to pitch everything I wrote and create a new play?”

“Precisely. Aren’t you flattered?”

“Thoroughly,” she said, but with only half a heart. “But I’m also nervous.”

“Don’t be. You should feel nothing but liberated.”

“But you said it yourself a minute ago. Maybe I was subconsciously steering clear of this story out of fear of my father’s reaction.”

“I didn’t say subconsciously.”

“I didn’tchooseto write the less compelling story.”

“Yes, you did, Kate. And I’m asking you to reconsider. Because I don’t think that’s the playwright you want to be—doomed to writing small because you’re afraid to think big. Or afraid of what others might think.”

That was exactly how the drunk Irving Bass had made her feel at Ford’s Theatre. He was still a jerk when sober, but it was harder to disagree with him.

---