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“Madden was implacable. Rather, to be more accurate, he was obliged to be implacable. An Irishman in the service of England, a man suspected of equivocal feelings if not of actual treachery, how could he fail to welcome and seize upon this extraordinary piece of luck: the discovery, capture and perhaps the deaths of two agents of Imperial Germany?” 

This passage occurs early in the story, after Yu Tsun realizes that Madden has captured or killed Runeberg and will now be seeking to arrest or kill Yu Tsun. Yu Tsun identifies Madden’s Irish identity as a driving force in his relentless pursuit of German spies. Like Yu Tsun’s complicated relationship with his own service to Germany, this demonstrates Borges’s theme of the contradictory nature of loyalty. Madden works for Britain but is Irish, not English. World War I took place during a period of revolution in Ireland. At the start of the war, Ireland was a part of the United Kingdom, and most Irish people supported the war. However, by 1916, when the story takes place, Ireland had declared independence from Britain, with Germany sending arms to support the rebellion, rendering Madden’s loyalty to Britain quite complex.

“The future exists now,” I replied. “But I am your friend. Can I take another look at the letter?”

Yu Tsun speaks these words to Stephen Albert at the end of their time together, just before he kills Albert. Yu Tsun’s insistence that he is Albert’s friend echoes an earlier exchange, in which he declares his friendship across all the infinite combinations of their meeting suggested by his great-grandfather’s theories of time and Albert corrects him, saying that in some of those variations, they are enemies. This second iteration of the idea of friendship between them illustrates the contradictory nature of loyalty. In this moment, Yu Tsun acts simultaneously as Albert’s friend and his enemy. Yu Tsun shoots Albert in order to achieve his goal of passing his message to the Chief in Berlin. Murdering Albert in cold blood is the act of an enemy. However, he takes care to kill him instantly, with as little pain as possible. Later in the story, he refers to his sorrow and regret over killing Albert. Although Yu Tsun acts as Albert’s enemy, he still thinks of him as a great man and his friend, and he feels loyal in this way even as he has tricked Albert and ended his life.

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