The Garden of Forking Paths

“If only my mouth, before it should be silenced by a bullet, could shout this name in such a way that it could be heard in Germany…”

German spy Dr. Yu Tsun knows the name of the town where British artillery has assembled in advance of an attack, but he must find a way to relay that intelligence to “the Chief,” his handler, who awaits this news in Berlin. Tsun’s choices in the story all depend on his determination to deliver this message. The reference to a bullet holds some irony; Tsun is the one who, in his mission, will turn a gun on another man.

“The telephone directory gave me the name of the one person capable of passing on the information.” 

Almost as if in a protracted joke with a surprise punchline, or as if in a puzzle that eventually solves itself, the true meaning of Tsun’s statement only reveals itself at the end of the story as Tsun assassinates a man with the same name as the town he must convey. The news story of the assassination becomes his coded message, and his victim “passes on the information” when his name appears in the paper. Tsun’s wording creates irony because it shifts agency onto Dr. Albert instead of Tsun, the actual agent in this mission.