Cheesecake

My mum made cheesecake, and it was wonderful - well, what amalgam of sugar and fat, with just a faint matrix of starch to hold it all together - isn’t wonderful?  Once I asked her for the recipe, but she wasn’t a recipe kind of cook. She’d learned it from her mother, and all the quantities were by look and feel. I don’t think she even had timings that made any sense because they were all linked to her oven and its peculiarities. When she changed cookers some time in the 1970s it all changed and there were some ruined cakes for a while.

My mum’s cheesecake was wonderful, but it wasn’t a matter for reflection or interpretation. It was a thing in itself, as Kant would say. I didn’t think of it as a Jewish cheesecake, it was just a thing we had in our family, the way we did most Jewish stuff. We were members of a synagogue, but we didn’t really participate in anything communal, family life and celebrations and food were at the core of our Jewish identity. That, and an ongoing anthropological process of classification of things and activities into Jewish and Non-Jewish, in a way that would have been familiar to Lenny Bruce, or - weirdly - to Nancy Mitford. 

But I didn’t really know that the cheesecake was Jewish until I found out that it wasn’t. This happened in the late 1990s, when I was working in a tech company based in Hammersmith. Things had started to go not so well with the company, and my workmates and I responded to the failings of strategy and senior management by taking longer and longer lunch breaks. We went further afield in our quest for more interesting lunches, and eventually discovered the cafe in the Polish Cultural Centre that had been in West London since shortly after the Second World War. It was like some inter-war canteen, with the menu mainly in Polish, and the clientele a mixture of really old Polish men who looked like they’d been there since 1946, and recent-wave Polish immigrants - young building workers and tradesmen, and tired looking young women. 

I can’t remember what I ate - something that had a lot of cabbage but no pork, I think - but I finished off with the cheesecake. And it was my mum’s cheesecake - not similar, but exactly the same - a Proustian moment, defined by the texture, the taste, the shape and dimensions of the portion. Of course this was a surprise, but it was one of those special surprises when you realise something that you acknowledge ought to have been obvious all along. Our Jewish cheesecake was a Polish cheesecake.

Well, why not? My ancestors had lived in Poland - a rather vague geographical expression that had shifted this way and that over the centuries - for perhaps a thousand years. What ought to have been surprising was not that they’d picked something up over that period, but how small that something was, and how unacknowledged. Except occasionally to distinguish ourselves from Jews of other kinds of extraction - Litvaks, or German Jews who were ‘Yekkes’, or Dutch Jews who were ‘choots’, we never described ourselves as Polish. If they were quoting their own parents, they’d refer to the place they’d come from as ‘The Heim’, or sometimes as Russia. I knew not one Polish word, and had no idea where in Poland my ancestors had lived. My parents’ memories were of their parents and grandparents speaking Yiddish, not Polish. My Dad did have a memory of his own grandfather, speaking Polish to a lost and bewildered soldier from the Free Polish Army in London - and the point of the story was how surprised he had been that his grandfather could speak Polish.

But there it was, in a cafe in West London - my mother’s cheesecake, a Polish cheesecake. And there I was, brought face to face with the fact that my heritage - however I’d understood it - was part Polish. And this despite the fact that our self definition had not only been not Polish, but self-affirmedly not-Polish. My dad remembered his grandfather - the same one as in the other story - being pleased by the newsreel footage of the Nazi bombing of Warsaw, despite the fact that the Poles were our allies and the Germans our deadliest enemies. “Worse than the Germans,” I’d heard said of Poles often enough as a child. The Jewish Nobel Laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer writes of Polish peasants with not just loathing, but contempt and disgust. Of course, we knew that none of this counted as racism, because we’d been the victims and the Poles the perpetrators.

A few years later, on a work trip - by then a different tech company - to Warsaw with a Polish colleague, to visit Polish clients, I’d been struck by this all over again. Lots of the food was alien, pork-based stuff, but lots more was recognisable as the food of my childhood...beigels, borscht, latkes, pickled herrings and cucumbers, stuffed cabbage and smetana - exactly like the stuff I’d grown up with. 

Walking up and down the streets I was struck by how similar everyone’s faces were. There was definitely a Polish face, and I knew how much the faces of my ancestors must have stood out, because it wasn’t their face. Though every so often there would be a person who didn’t have that look, whose head was a different shape and whose complexion and hair colour were completely different; and I’d wonder if their ancestors and mine had been related or connected. 

The names of those streets were familiar too, from books that I’d read about Jewish Warsaw - including the works of Bashevis Singer. Jewish Warsaw; one third of the population of Warsaw had been Jewish before the War. What was it like for Warsaw, afterwards, for the Jews who had made up so big a part of its urban life to not be there? What would it be like for say London to wake up one day and find all its Black people - and everything that they contributed to the city - gone? 

I made the mistake of trying to talk about this to my Polish colleague. An expression of fierce distaste descended on her face. “It’s better that we don’t talk about this,” she said. So I wasn’t the only one in denial.

Salussola 1945

Salussola 1945

Sometimes when I come home Uncle Stefano’s bicycle is parked at the back of the house. Then I know not to go in because he is visiting Mummy and they are doing private things. Mummy says I don’t want to see the private things so I go back to the piazza and play there. He’s not really an uncle but Mummy says it’s nice if I call him Uncle Stefano, so I do.

I play mummies and daddies with my doll. My doll is Mummy. I don’t have a doll to be Daddy so I use my teddy bear. Daddy doesn’t really look like a bear but I don’t remember what he looks like very well so the bear is good enough. I was only little when he went away to Africa to fight the English. Now he is in Africa but a different Africa and he doesn’t fight the English any more. He is a prisoner but he is not in a prison, he works on a farm. He writes letters to Mummy but it takes them a long time to arrive because they have to go to the Red Cross first. Mummy says the English might send him home now that Italy is not fighting them any more.

Uncle Stefano’s visits to Mummy are a secret, but they are one of those secrets that everyone knows, like who really brings the presents at Christmas. Uncle Stefano parks his bicycle at the back of the house so that everyone can pretend his visits are secret. Mummy says that sometimes the best place to hide a secret thing is inside another secret. She says I will understand when I am older.

Uncle Stefano is gone when his bicycle is not there anymore. Then I can come home and Mummy takes me back to the piazza. I have a lemonade and a little sweet cake, and Mummy has coffee. The old ladies in the piazza, who all wear only black, look away when we arrive and make a clicking noise with their mouths. These noises mean that they think Mummy is not a nice lady. Because Uncle Stefano comes to visit during the afternoons. Mummy doesn’t wear black. She wears a white dress, and lipstick, and she smells nice, not like the old ladies. I wear the pretty blue dress that Mummy bought me.

The Black Brigade sit at a table in the piazza. They wear black shirts with medals, and black boots. They look at Mummy but they don’t talk to us. The Captain makes a nasty joke about bicycles and they all laugh a horrid old-man laugh. Mummy says something quietly, but loud enough for them to hear, about how strange it is that such brave fascists are drinking coffee in Italy and not fighting in Africa or in Russia.

The Captain says Mummy should be glad that he and his men are there to protect from the partisans, because the Communists don’t like whores and string them up when they can. It’s because they believe in free love, he says to his men, and whores don’t give anything away for free. Then they all laugh again.

Sometimes there are German soldiers in the piazza. They look tired and their uniforms are not smart like the Black Brigade. They are nervous and hold their guns at the ready, even in the town. The Captain and his men salute the soldiers and heil them but the soldiers do not respond or return the salutes. They smile at Mummy, though, and sometimes she smiles back.

Uncle Stefano used to be a soldier, but in another war, a long time ago. He was wounded and that’s why he walks funny. Mummy says he was very brave and could wear medals if he wanted to, but he doesn’t.

Sometimes at night other men come to visit Mummy. I am supposed to be asleep, but I hear them arrive at the back door, and I hear their low voices in the passageway. Once I crept out of my room to see them. They wear dark clothes, and they have guns like the soldiers.

Mummy gives them grappa to drink, and little packets of brown paper. I don’t know what is in the packets, but I think it might be one of the private things that Mummy does with Uncle Stefano. He brings a bag when he visits, and once I saw that it was full of brown packets like the ones Mummy gives to the men.

Mummy says that honour and shame are cousins, not enemies, and sometimes they help each other out. She says I will understand when I am older.

The Cheat

Scene: A throne room. GOD is seated on a celestial throne. He is reading a report. Beams of light stream from behind him. To his left an angel plays a harp; to his right a twelve-person gospel choir sings.

Enter the Angel of Death. He is dressed all in black and carries a ledger under his arm.

GOD: Well?

AoD: Not this time. Not this time either.

GOD: Again? How many times does that make it?

AoD: Thirty four. Thirty four years, it’s been. Thirty four games, and I haven’t won a single one.

GOD: Obviously.

AoD: Obviously. You know, it wasn’t my idea, the whole chess game thing. I liked it better when I just turned up and tapped them on the shoulder. It was you that suggested -

GOD: Well, it works out just fine for almost everyone. Even Grand Masters, they feel like they’ve had a fair go, and they lose, and they come without a fuss. Everyone except him.

AoD: I think he might be cheating.

GOD: You can’t cheat at chess. It’s all there, right in the open, all the pieces.

AoD: Maybe he’s using some kind of magic.

GOD: Don’t come over all Harry Potter on me, D. There’s no such thing as magic.

AoD: Well, there’s some sort of trick. Something to do with bending time.

GOD: What do you mean, “bending time”?

AoD: Don’t ask me. You’re the one that lives in the Eternal Present. For me it’s all linear, one damn thing after another, until the end of time. But it might be a maths thing. He’s a mathematician, isn’t he?

GOD: (Nodding) He is...well, that would explain why he doesn’t look...what is it, a hundred and three?

AoD: (Consults ledger) A hundred and seven actually. I don’t think he’d have that girlfriend, if he looked a hundred and seven.

GOD: So what happens, when he bends time?

AoD: It feels just like a normal game of chess. I’m seeing like thirty moves ahead, which is enough to beat anyone, right? Only somehow the moves that I’m seeing ahead, they’ve...already happened. So I’m not seeing ahead at all, I’m seeing behind. And pieces that were taken, they’re back on the board again, in different positions.

GOD: Does he...could he just be sneaking them back on, when you’re not looking?

AoD: (Looks at GOD with an exasperated expression)

GOD: Sorry...I just asked.

AoD: And that’s not even the worst of it, not this time.

GOD: What?

AoD: Notice anything? Anything different about me?

GOD: Of course I do. I’m omniscient, I notice everything. Just give me a minute. Oh, where’s your scythe?

AoD: (Points at GOD) Bingo. We’re on the empty beach, and I’ve lost again, and I’m just about to get up and leave. And then he says, “Fancy another game? And just to make it interesting…”

A poem about opposites

Opposites

...if cattle or horses or lions had hands and could draw,
And could sculpt like men, then the horses would draw their gods
Like horses, and cattle like cattle; and each they would shape
Bodies of gods in the likeness, each kind, of their own.


Xenophanes

Cold, hot; true or not
Man made God in his own shape
And so shaped the world.

The name of the game;
Bilateral symmetry.
On the one hand, but…

We think the world in dyads
Two hands, ears, eyes - don’t you see?
What if we’d had three?

Walking on Sand

The sand is scorching, even through my white plastic sandals. I am six years old.

I am sitting on a towel, underneath a red and white beach umbrella. I’m shaded from the direct sun, but it is still very hot. I am resting my narrow back against my Daddy’s shin. I push my hands into the warm sand, scoop some up to let it fall through my fingers. Just below the surface the sand is damp, cooler.

The beach is a low thrum of sound. Dark men in straw hats walk up and down with enormous ice boxes on their back. They are calling in Italian, but I know that their rhythmic cries and songs mean that they are selling ice creams and cold melon.

I have finished my ice cream. My fingers are sticky and I am still very hot. Mummy and Daddy are reading their books, dozing. The sea is fifty yards away, through a few more ranks of towels and loungers and umbrellas. I tell Mummy and Daddy that I want to go in the water; they say I should turn round and wave to them when I reach the sea.

I hop and skip across the burning sand. At the shoreline the sand is cool, soothing between my toes. I look back at the red and white umbrella. I know Mummy and Daddy are underneath it, though I can’t see them in the bright sunlight. I wave, turn and wade into the water. I am wearing a red and white hat with the name of the resort and a picture of a friendly smiling mouse.

The sea is warm, gentle. I submerge my shoulders, enjoying the feeling of buoyancy. I watch some young men playing football with a red and white beach ball. I walk out of the water, back on to the cool wet sand. I know that I just need to walk back in a straight line, the way that I came down to the sea, and there will be Mummy and Daddy.

But I can’t see the red and white umbrella, or Mummy and Daddy. The faces of the people on the beach are blurred. My severe myopia will not be diagnosed until later in the year.

I walk up and down on a short stretch of the waterline. Soon Daddy will come to find me. But he does not come. After what seems like a very long time I start to cry.

Instantly I am surrounded by kind people, moved that a child is crying. They speak to me in Italian, and though I don’t understand them, I know they are kind. One takes my hand, and a big group walks with me along the beach, calling to help me find Mummy and Daddy. And here they are, and I cry some more and then I stop. There is much thanking and patting of shoulders, and the nice people go back to their own beach towels.

***

And now another little brown boy stands on an Italian shore. The early morning sky is cobalt blue. Now the sand is not hot. The boy’s feet sink its icy chill.

His clothes are wet, and his teeth are chattering. He is wearing an orange life jacket. Heaps of wet rags are scattered all along the beach. There are people lying at the edge of the water. Their limbs bob lazily back and forth in the waves. 

The boy cannot find his Mummy and Daddy. He cannot understand Italian, or English. Perhaps he speaks Arabic, or Tigrinya, or Kurdish. He cries. Soon the kind Italian people will come, and help him find his Mummy and Daddy. Won’t they?

The Exchange of Beautiful Ideas

The building was not at all as he had imagined it. Standing in the chill wind that blew shreds of litter across the deserted piazza, Robin felt as if he was getting his disappointment in first, before he even went through the double doors. The grey of the concrete matched the grey of the sky behind. A desultory strip of red tiles divided the ground floor from the eight stories above, as if someone had told the architect at the last minute that some form of decoration was required.

Apart from this the building, which occupied one side of the square, was a dull matt slab with mean dark windows and a flat roof. Next to the doors there was a scrappy sign in tarnished metal, screwed into the concrete.  “The Exchange of Beautiful Ideas”, it proclaimed, in three centimetre Times Roman.

Robin walked slowly up to the entrance, the shoebox that held his idea resting heavily against his bent arm.

Inside the air was too warm, and uncomfortably dry. There were notice boards with flapping leaflets and schedules. A woman in a nondescript uniform jacket sat behind a reception counter, her eyes fixed on a screen. She did not look up as Robin approached.

“Excuse me,” he said, and then she did look up, with a show of reluctance. “I’ve got an idea that I’d like to -”

“What sort of idea?” said the woman, turning her attention back to her screen, which now cast a blue-green glow onto her face.

Robin hesitated for a moment. He had not expected to have to explain his idea at the reception desk.

“It’s...it’s about how people can be nicer to each other, by -”

“Social and political, third floor. Second door on the left,” said the woman, in a bored tone. “They’ll explain how the exchange works to you there.”

The lift to the third floor seemed as decrepit as everything else about the place. The door slid closed with agonizing slowness. Inside, there were two signs about what do in the event of an emergency, with contradictory instructions as to which buttons to press and what number to call. There was no sign of a telephone.

At the third floor the corridor was dimly lit. One of the overhead strip lights flickered and buzzed. There were more unkempt-looking noticeboards. The second door on the left had another metal sign that read ‘Social and Political’. One of the corner screws was missing.

The room was too small for its contents. There was another counter, with another uniformed woman sitting behind it. Shelves crammed with bulging lever arch files covered the walls from floor to ceiling.  Behind the counter there was a table, on which Robin could see piles of paper spilling onto the floor.

The woman behind the counter gave Robin a friendly smile, and for the first time that day he felt himself relax a little.

“I have an idea,” he said. “I hope it’s - I think it’s beautiful, and I’d like to -”

“Here’s the form, and the notes,” said the smiling woman. “It’s quite straightforward, but if you need any help just ask.” She handed him a thin sheaf of papers and indicated a desk on the other side of the room.

Robin sat down and looked at the form. There were several pages for personal information, but only a very small space in which he was requested to describe the idea itself. He looked around for a pen, and finding none, took out his own.

The minutes passed, slowly. Robin was aware of the ticking of a large electric clock above the counter. The personal information sections were exhaustive but easy enough to understand. The notes, and the later parts of the form, were very confusing. At last he finished, and went back to the woman at the desk.

She took the form from him and begun to copy out his entries on what looked to be a very old computer. She typed slowly, pecking at the keyboard with two fingers, and looking backwards and forwards between the handwritten form, the keys, and the flickering monochrome monitor.

“Wouldn’t it have been quicker if I’d just typed it straight in myself?” asked Robin.

The woman shrugged. “Administrative Improvements is on the sixth floor,” she said. “We’re just Social and Political here.”

Robin waited for what seemed like a long time.

“You’ve not assigned a nominated beneficiary,” the woman said, at last. “Or signed the primary assertion of ownership. We can’t put it in if you don’t do that.”

“I don’t understand,” said Robin, feeling small and stupid. “I don’t want to own anything. I  just want to exchange my idea. My beautiful idea.”

“Don’t worry,” said the woman, in the patient, slow tone one would use to explain to a not very bright child. “A lot of people find it confusing, the first time they file an idea.”

She thinks I’m an idiot, thought Robin.

“The whole point of the exchange is to enable ideas to be owned,” she said. “So that they can be traded. Bought and sold.”

“Oh,” said Robin. “I thought the exchange was to encourage the spread of ideas. Like a sort of library.”

“Exactly!” said the woman. “You wouldn’t steal books from a library, would you?”

“Of course not,” said Robin. “Only, an idea isn't the same as a book, is it?”

“No, it’s not,” said the woman. “A proper idea is unique. That’s what makes it intellectual property. And we can’t have people stealing each other’s property. That’s why we made the exchange; to establish ownership and property in thought. Because everything should belong to someone.”

“But I want my idea to spread,” said Robin. “I want as many people as possible to hear about it. A book in a library, well, only one person can borrow it at a time...unless there’s two copies, of course, and then…” His voice trailed away.

“We can’t have two copies of an idea,” said the woman, with a hint of irritation creeping in to her voice. Her smile had vanished. “How would we know which was the real one?”

“Aren’t they both the real one?” asked Robin. “A copy of the idea is...well, it is the same as the real one. Exactly the same. It’s not a counterfeit idea, or anything like that.”

“It’s a pirated idea,” said the woman. “The originator owns the idea, unless they’ve sold it to someone else, and then the buyer owns it. If anyone else has the idea, then they’ve stolen it. Like they walked into a shop and taken took something off the shelf without paying for it.”

“No they haven’t,” said Robin, who was also becoming irritated now. “Because if I steal something from a shop it’s not there anymore. But if someone else has my idea, I’ve still got it. It’s not gone anywhere.”

“If we followed your logic, nobody would make ideas,” said the woman. “There’d be no point, if they couldn’t own them. What would be the incentive?”

“I don’t have ideas because of an incentive,” Robin replied. “I have them because I think about something, and it leads to an idea. Or it doesn’t...but whether it does or not is nothing to do with incentives or ownership. It’s what brains do, have ideas.”

And then Robin had another idea.

“You know what?” he said. “I don’t think I want to put my idea into the exchange after all. I’ll find somewhere else to put it.”

“Suit yourself,” said the woman. “Only mind out. Someone else might put your idea - “ she held up her fingers to make air quotes as she said the word - “Into the exchange. And then it wouldn’t be yours anymore, it would be theirs.”

“I’ll take the chance,” said Robin. “And all this talk about owning ideas has given me another idea. I don’t know what I’ll do with it. I just know I won’t be putting it into the exchange.”

“Suit yourself,” said the woman, shrugging. “I don’t care either way.” She began to peck at her keyboard again.

Robin left the room and walked back to the lift.

Information wants to be free, he thought. Now there’s an idea.

Prologue: Mohács, August 1526

A field somewhere in Central Europe. It is early afternoon. The day has been hot, but Summer thunderstorms have been raging for the last two hours. The sky is dark with clouds, and heavy rain is falling. The ground is sodden and marshy.

Two men sit on horseback. Their uniforms are drenched. Water has pooled in the brims of their hats and is trickling thickly down their necks and faces. One of the men is agitated. He shifts in his seat, walks his horse this way and that, peers into the murk. The other is calm, unmoving, almost...bored.

“I can't see a thing,” says the agitated man. “Can you see anything? How can we make a report if we can't see anything?”

The second man says nothing, sits very still. It is as if he is sniffing the rain like a dog.

“Most important battle of our lives – maybe of the whole history of the kingdom. And we're here, and we don't know what's going on. So useless, I feel so useless...”

“S'what it's always like,” says the calm man. “Battles. They look all neat and purposeful on the maps, and in the military manuals. When you're there, in the middle of it, you never know what's going on. And don't tell me it's different for the generals. They know less than anyone.”

The two men sit on their mounts in silence for a few minutes. At last the calm one says: “There. Hear that?”

The agitated one grimaces, cups a hand behind his ear. “Marching feet? Drums?”

“Drums. And war trumpets,” says the other. “The Ottomans are bringing up their reserves. The Janissaries. They're going to attack our line right in the centre.”

“And where are ours? Our reserves? What are we doing?” says the agitated one, now more agitated than ever.

“Still waiting,” says the calm man. “Waiting for the Turks to slog their way through this damned bog. They make it through and on to the firm ground, our cavalry'll have them. What you don't hear is as important as what you do hear.”

“What's that? What do you mean? What are you talking about? What should I hear, or not hear?”

“The Turkish cannons,” says the calm man. “You don't hear any artillery. So the Turks didn't manage to get theirs here on to the battlefield. Probably stuck in the mud somewhere on account of all of this wonderful, marvellous rain. And no artillery means that our cavalry are safe. The flower of Magyar chivalry -” he paused to spit; “Safe to do the thing that they do best. A head-on charge straight into the enemy ranks. And for once, just this time, because of the rain, it's going to work.”

He stops talking, as if he is embarrassed at speaking for so long. The two men sit in silence for a while longer. The agitated one walks his horse some more. He cocks his head on one side. “More thunder?”

The other shakes his head. “The heavy cavalry. The Turks must have made it across the marsh. Their drums are louder now.”

“I wish I could see!” says the agitated man. “This is the moment that saves the kingdom from the Ottomans! And we – we are here, and yet we're missing it...”

“I won't tell anyone if you don't,” says the calm one. “It's all over now, bar the slaughter. The Turks are wedged between the bog and our knights. Infantry against cavalry, on an open field, without any cannons to back them up. I don't suppose there'll be many going home.”

He lifts his hat, tips water out onto the ground. “Come on, let's go and make that report. And get out of the rain.”

The agitated man casts one more desperate glance towards the sound of battle, then both wheel their horses around.

One Shoe Tale

I've written a novella. I've self-published on Kindle. It is the first piece of fiction that I am prepared to own up to. It's a straightforward Marxist hard-boiled noire fairy-tale pastiche in an alternative-history context – you know the sort of thing. Imagine “Cinderella" written by a Hungarian Dashiel Hammett in a parallel universe. 

You can find it here.

The paperback version is here.

I'd be really happy if you would download or buy a copy, read it, and leave a nice review. Anyone can publish on the new platforms, but everything there disappears without trace unless it gets reviews and recommendations. If you like it, please recommend.

I wrote it as a bit of fun with my tongue firmly in my cheek. There is some “adult” material in there, so don't read it if that sort of thing offends you.

Cross-Pynchoning

>“I don't understand! Why can't you help me?” wails the caller. “You're the fourth person I've spoken to. Everyone just puts me through to someone else.”

“It's OK lady,” says the policeman, in tones usually reserved for a disconsolate child. “This stuff is always upsetting – not just for you, for everyone it happens to. We're sort of the experts in these cases.”

He sighs, and leans back from the vidscreen. “I'll try to make is as simple as I can, and don't worry if you need me to explain anything twice. Just ask.”

“Th-thanks,” sobs the young woman. “Tell me again about the pensioning thing.”

“Not pensioning, pynchoning,” corrects the policeman. “Or in your case, cross-pynchoning.”

“It's like this. Imagine a rich guy, or a rich lady. They pay to live in a gated community. They pay to drive on the priority roads, so they don't have to sit in traffic jams behind the likes of you and me. They eat in Old Dollar restaurants, not the Carbon Dollar places we go to. So they don't want to rub shoulders with us on the interwebs either.”

“What has this got to do with my pictures?” asks the woman.

“See, the rich people, they have this thing called Pry Vuh Sea...” The woman looks at him blankly.

The policeman tries again. “You know, like in the old days – when some things about people were sort of secret. Well, not exactly secret, just things you didn't tell everyone.”

“Yeah, I know it's kind of hard to take in. You and all your friends are posting pics and vids of yourself twenty-four seven, and telling each other and everyone else what you are doing and thinking and what you had for breakfast.” He pauses for effect. “And these folk are doing the opposite.”

“Thing is, everybody leaves traces on the interwebs, even if they don't mean to. But the very rich, they don't like this. They don't want to be in the same space as you, even a virtual space. It makes them feel dirty, like you touched them.”

“So they pay for a pynchoning service. Back in the twentieth, there was this writer – sort of a blogger, but on paper things called books – called Pynchon. He went to a lot of trouble to make himself disappear – found all the old paper records of himself and tore them up, stuff like that. So now they call a bot that trawls through the webs, cleaning up those traces – the billing records, the address databases, and the CCTV footage -- they call that a pynchoning service, after the writer guy. The bot just erases everything on the web that's a trace of the rich people.”

“But I'm not rich, and I haven't paid for any service,” whines the caller.

“That's what I've been trying to explain for the last half an hour. You haven't, but you look or sound like someone else who has paid for pynchoning. Enough like them for the bot to be erasing the traces of you. Maybe you've got the same name as a rich lady, or there's something similar about your behavioural footprint – the shape of the traces that you leave. Anyway, the bot has a fix on you now, and any trace you make gets rubbed out. We call it cross-pynchoning because it's like cross-fire. Nobody wanted to wipe you out, you just got caught in the cross-fire.”

“And it won't just be the pictures, I'm afraid. It's going to get worse.”

“Worse? What do you mean, worse?” asks the woman.

“It's going to be everything, I'm afraid. Your high school records. Your medical records. Your accounts. If it's still there now, it'll be gone soon. The bots have a very high level of access on all the major public servers.”

“This must be against the law! Why can't you do something?” She is gasping now, and her voice is shrill and loud.

The policeman looks embarrassed. “It's...it's a very grey area. The identity laws are mainly about theft. Somebody steals your identity to get stuff they aren't supposed to have, it's against the law. You try to use someone else's identity, it's a crime. But the law is about the deception and the thing you use it for. Identity wipe? Did anything get stolen? Did anyone lose any money that was coming to them? Nah...so no crime.”

“So what am I supposed to do?”

The policeman shrugs helplessly. “Live with it. Change your name and start over. I can recommend a counsellor that helps with cases like this. Unless you are really, really rich – then you could try a counter-pynchoner; but you aren't really rich, are you? Because if you were, you wouldn't be calling me, would you?”

For a while the woman caller stares at the image of the policeman on her vidscreen. After a long minute she hangs up, and his screen goes dark. The policeman goes back to his keyboard. He knows that she will call back for the name of the counsellor in a few hours. They usually did.