Philippe Claudel - The Investigation

“Not really …” the Investigator murmured.

“Come, don’t be so modest!” said the Manager, tapping his visitor on the thigh. Then he took a long, deep breath, shut his eyes, exhaled, and opened his eyes again. “Remind me, what’s the exact purpose of your visit?”

“To tell the truth, it’s not really a visit. I’m here to conduct an Investigation into the suicides that have plagued the Enterprise.”

“Suicides? News to me … I’ve been kept out of the loop, no doubt. My Co-Workers know it’s best not to cross me. Suicides, imagine that! If I’d been aware of them, God only knows what I might have done! Suicides …”

There was a pause, and then the Manager began to speak again in a kind of reverie. A discreet smile brightened his face, as if he were mentally caressing a pleasant idea. “Suicide. I’ve never thought about it, but after all, yes, why not, it’s no stupider than anything else.…”

When he went on after the next pause, the smile had been left behind. “You know, I devote my time to one thing only: trying to understand why we’ve reached this point. I imagine that’s what people expect of me, but I’m not making any progress. Results are nil. Counterproductivity, total. Is there someone somewhere, just one person, able to understand? What might your personal thoughts on this be?”

The Investigator was quite vexed by the direction the interview had taken so far. He slowly shrugged his shoulders, which could be interpreted either as concurrence with the Manager’s questions or as metaphysical hesitation.

“Just so,” said the Manager. “Just so. You’re wise, you’re maturing at a tremendous rate! But as for me, I’m not you, alas, I’m not you, I’ve got my hands in the grease. I’m just a simple pawn, a sort of flour mite. Have you read the philosophers? Of course you’ve read them, a man like you has read them. Believe it or not, they send me into a state of intellectual catalepsy. It’s drastic. And they must know it, the bastards! Without a doubt, they did it on purpose. Basically, they were exceedingly cruel individuals and also incredible cowards.”

As the Manager talked, he wrung his fingers as though he wanted to yank them off. “My goodness, if you knew what my days were like. Since it’s just the two of us, I could tell you about them, my days, how I spend them — I spend them wondering. Yes. I wonder, I ponder. I don’t leave this office. That’s all I do. Under the eyes of …”

He broke off, coughing, and the Investigator had the impression that he was turning toward the large photograph of the good-natured, smiling old man, whose bushy white eyebrows elegantly matched the big, slightly floppy bow tie that closed his shirt collar. The Manager nodded and turned back to the Investigator.

“Yes, I wonder,” the Manager began again. “What’s become of our ideals? We’ve trampled on them, we’ve laid them waste! I don’t mean you, I wouldn’t take such a liberty, you’re different, you’re above, but me, me, I’m as contemptible as rat droppings, I’m a centipede, an old cigarette butt, wet, torn, crushed under the heel of an anonymous and scornful shoe, yes I am, yes I am, don’t say no to make me feel better! I beg you, don’t handle me with care! You must be terrible — just, but terrible! And all that, for what? Why? I’m asking you, I’m asking you, I know you know, because you, you do know, don’t you? Don’t you know?”

The Investigator, not daring to disappoint the Manager, nodded his head.

“Of course you know.… Oh, this is all so … But I’m wandering!”

He clapped his hands, sprang up nimbly, danced a few steps, caught one foot in the thick rug, and almost fell. “Look at me!” he cried. “I have resources, don’t I? I’m not on my way out, not yet, despite my age! What do you think?”

The Investigator was getting weaker. His armchair had turned into a great mouth that was gradually swallowing him, and he found the man before him, who was jumping around like an athlete warming up, even more disturbing than the Policeman in the Hotel.

The Manager began to do entrechats, up-and-down bounces, long leaps. He pirouetted and ran to the back of the room, where he made the sign of the cross, took a run-up, and charged at his desk, over which he attempted to jump and which he nearly managed to clear, except that at the last moment, when he was suspended in the air, his left foot struck the massive black marble inkwell and he crashed heavily against the glass wall.

The Investigator prepared to go to his aid, but the Manager was already getting to his feet. Smiling, he massaged a knee and an elbow, repeating the whole while, “I didn’t hurt myself, not at all. I’ve got the hang of it. The hang of it … You’ll tell them, won’t you? You’ll tell them that I’m at the peak of my powers? That I can still, I don’t know what, I guess, hold on, hold on, yes, that’s it, I can still hold on!!! I’m here. I’m here! You’ll tell them? Please? Please …”

The Manager knelt before the Investigator. He lifted up his joined hands. His eyes were wet with tears. He besought his companion.

“Of course,” the Investigator said, “I’ll tell them. I’ll tell them, there’s no need to worry about that.” And at the very moment when he pronounced those words, which seemed to come from someone other than himself, he wondered how he could get out of the situation he was in.

“Sometimes at night, I have the feeling that I’m the captain of an enormous airliner.” The Manager’s voice had thinned to a murmur. “Five hundred passengers are in my charge, or five thousand, or five hundred thousand, I don’t know anymore. I’m flying the aircraft.…”

Still on his knees, he embraced the Investigator’s legs. For several seconds, contorting his mouth, he imitated the sound of the jet engines.

“I’m the great pilot. The people in the plane sleep, read, dream about those they love, build their futures on sweet, tender fantasies, and I, I, I’m the last and only, God has placed His index finger on my forehead, I know the route, I know the skies, the stars, wind currents, souls, there’s this big instrument panel in front of me, all illuminated, with all these magnificent buttons, white, opal, yellow, red, silver, all these lives that come on, go off, blink, these levers, so pleasant to the touch, how intoxicating it is to feel the destinies of all those people at my back, shut up in the same aluminum cabin, but I’m only a man, a man, damn it, why me? Why on earth am I the captain? Why me? I don’t know a thing about flying! Not a thing! I don’t know how to read a map, I have no sense of direction, and I’ve never been able to make so much as a kite take off! It’s a horrible dream.”

There was a silence. The Manager had begun to weep, and his tears were wetting the Investigator’s trousers. Although he was thoroughly annoyed by this turn of events, the Investigator didn’t dare say anything. He was pondering what to do when the Manager bounded to his feet, smoothed his pants, rubbed his face with his hands, wiped away his tears, and offered the Investigator a countenance smoothed by a beaming smile. “All the same, life is marvelous, don’t you think?”

The Investigator didn’t reply. He’d just seen a man in ruins before his eyes, a man like an old, worn-out battery, unable to hold a charge, and then, suddenly, the same man — but was he truly the same? — was wiping all the tears from his face with the back of his hand and rejoicing in existence. The Investigator didn’t have time to reply.

“With your permission, I need to step away for a few seconds. I’ll be right back.” The Manager pointed at a door located to the left of his huge desk.

“Please, go right ahead,” said the Investigator. The Manager clapped his hands, performed an elegant entrechat, and danced toward the door in bossa-nova rhythm. Then, having reached his goal, he turned around, saluted an imaginary public with a graceful movement of his hand, opened the door, and vanished, closing it behind him.