Philippe Claudel - The Investigation

The ground was covered by a not very thick layer of delicate, perfectly pure snow. The Investigator had just noticed it. Blackness covered the sky, and this white carpet was on the ground, and he was sitting on it. Wind buffeted his long white coat, which he was still wearing, carefully buttoned up, and which appeared to be keeping him pleasantly warm. The hard hat protected his balding head. He was freezing, certainly, and yet he wasn’t cold, not cold at all. He even had the impression that he was languishing in palpable, unctuous heat. He could have fallen asleep there, in front of the entrance, yes, he could have slept there for hours and escaped from his situation, which made no sense.

The Watchman waited, his left fist against his hip, his right hand on the butt of his revolver.

“I’m hungry,” the Investigator finally said. “I would eat anything, whatever I could get. I won’t make a fuss, I swear to you.…”

The Watchman immediately relaxed, blew his breath out hard, took his hand off his weapon, and wiped his forehead. “Good God, you scared me! That was close! Yes, you just saved your life! I was on the point of deciding that you were a mole!”

“A mole?”

“Yes, I thought you’d been turned, if you prefer. It’s a classic expression in espionage.”

“But I’m not a spy, I’m the In—”

“I know perfectly well who you are, but you’re missing the point. Consider: Someone is sent to investigate a wave of suicides, but he himself turns out to have dangerous, potentially suicidal tendencies; therefore, everything’s distorted, the system sabotages itself, the whole shebang explodes, it’s the end of all things! Now do you grasp my meaning?”

“Not very well …” the Investigator murmured. He could no longer feel his hands, which were thrust into the snow.

“It doesn’t matter. But get up, for heaven’s sake! You have to leave right away. You’ll come back tomorrow.”

The Watchman grabbed him, raised him to his feet, propped him against a wall, and then started rummaging in his own pockets. Eventually, he found what he was looking for and handed it to the Investigator. “Take that, it’s all I’ve got.”

The Investigator took hold of a largish stonelike object, brown and wrinkled, about four inches long, more or less round, and curved in the middle. He raised his eyes to the Watchman, not daring to formulate his question, but the latter anticipated him: “Top-quality. It may be a little dry. It’s probably been forgotten in my uniform for the past three months, but I offer it with all my heart.”

And as the Investigator hesitated before the thing he was holding in his hand, the Watchman became frosty again and asked in a suspicious tone, “On top of everything else, do you mean to tell me you don’t eat pork?”

TREMBLING WITH FEAR BUT FINALLY outside on the sidewalk, the Investigator turned around for a last glimpse of the Guard. The latter didn’t notice, however, as he’d already gone back to his newspaper and sandwich. When the Investigator looked at him, the Guard was the picture of calm, tranquilly chewing and reading the sports page.

Earlier, inside the Enterprise, the Watchman had barely spoken to the Investigator again after giving him the sausage. The snow covering the red, green, blue, and yellow lines on the ground made them impossible to see, and the Watchman had limited himself to indicating the way out by mechanical gestures. When they were nearing the Guardhouse, the Watchman had stopped the Investigator and ordered him to remove his white coat, hard hat, and badge.

“They’ll be returned to you tomorrow,” the Watchman said. “Equipment belonging to the Enterprise cannot leave the Enterprise.”

The Investigator thrust his hands into his pockets, found the key ring with the old man’s photograph, and started to return it to the Watchman. “No, keep it,” he said. “It’ll bring you luck!”

Reluctantly, the Investigator handed over the heavy coat and the too-small cap. It was a little as if he’d suddenly found himself naked, naked and frozen. His raincoat and suit were much too light and still too damp to protect him from the intensifying cold. “Yesterday,” he said, “the Guard, I think, asked me if I had an Exceptional Authorization. Would it be possible for me to obtain one? I believe it could come in handy.…”

The Investigator went into a slight crouch, expecting a refusal, an outraged response, a sermon, perhaps some improbable — or hysterical — explanation, but the Watchman didn’t say a word. From the top pocket of his jumpsuit he took a pen and from one of the side pockets a square piece of what looked like cardboard. He scribbled something on it and gave the document to the Investigator.

“There you are. I don’t know what purpose an Exceptional Authorization may serve in your case, but you’re welcome to it. And now I must ask you to excuse me. I have work to do.”

He turned on his heel, walked away with long strides, and disappeared into the darkness and the swirling snow. The Investigator looked at what the Watchman had given him. It was a promotional coaster for a brand of beer. On the back of the stained, chipped square, the Watchman had written, “Exceptional Authorization granted to the holder of this card.”

The Investigator was on the verge of calling him back, but he didn’t have the strength. After all, the beer coaster fit in with all the rest. What else did he expect? He walked resolutely over to the Guardhouse, in which he could see some light, and in that light, a man’s bent head.

The Investigator had to traverse some distance in order to get to the man, even though, in a straight line, he couldn’t have been more than twenty yards away. But the caltrop barriers, the rolls of barbed wire, the chicanes, and the chevaux-de-frise, all of which were now back in place, were designed to create a labyrinthine passage that prevented precipitous exits as well as intrusions. Seeing that the Guard had noticed him and was observing his progress, the Investigator opted to solicit his favor with a little wave and a smile, but the movement caused the right side of his raincoat, the one with the torn and hanging pocket, to catch on the iron teeth of a piece of barbed wire, which summarily ripped a foot-long gash in the fabric. Inanimate matter is admirable; it knows no feelings, and therefore its existence is unencumbered by any weakness. You place it somewhere, and it performs its office. Only the elements, over the course of millennia, interfere with it, but it knows nothing of that. In spite of the accident, the Investigator kept a smile on his face. He didn’t want the Guard to scrutinize him too closely, because it wouldn’t have taken him long to notice that the Investigator looked like a tramp.

“Good evening!”

The Investigator needed to summon up all his remaining energy in order to pronounce those simple words in a natural tone of voice. The Guard was in the act of spreading the contents of a can of pâté on a demi-baguette. He was a nearly bald man with a roundish face. The newspaper in front of him, opened to the page with the sports scores, was strewn with bread crumbs. A half-empty bottle of wine stood next to an ashtray, in which a lit cigarette was smoking. Above the Guard’s head and a little to his left, monitor screens displayed fixed images of different interior and exterior parts of the Enterprise. No human being appeared on any screen. Those fragmentary images of the place gave a disturbing impression of unreality, as if surveillance cameras had been installed to watch over abandoned or never-used cinematic sets.

The Guard had raised his eyes and pressed the switch on his microphone. “Good evening!” he said. “Not too warm, is it?”