Philippe Claudel - The Investigation

The Investigator was disconcerted by the Guard’s cordial voice and relaxed air. He looked at the Investigator, smiling and continuing to slather his bread with the pâté, whose delicious fragrance filtered through the tiny perforations in the glass panel that separated them.

“I have an Exceptional Authorization!” the Investigator proclaimed, pressing the coaster against the glass.

The Guard glanced automatically at the piece of cardboard and then shifted his gaze to the Investigator. “I’m not sure what your Authorization authorizes you to do, but you look so proud to have it that I’m happy for your sake.”

He took a large swig of wine, followed it with a last drag on his cigarette, crushed it out, and started eating his sandwich. The Investigator watched him with such longing that the other noticed it. “You look like you’re in pitiful shape. Let me guess: This wasn’t your lucky day, right?”

The Investigator nodded. The man’s spontaneous kindness deeply moved him and almost made him forget his hunger. He felt his eyes getting misty.

“Go on, hurry back to your room, where it’s nice and warm. Loitering around in this weather is only going to bring you grief. You’ve been exploited enough as it is, don’t you think?”

The Guard took another bite of his sandwich. Although the Investigator had no clear idea of what, or whom, the man was talking about, he took pleasure in drawing out this fraternal moment.

“What Department are you in?” asked the Guard. “Janitorial Services? You’re a modern-day slave! One more! I hope at least you’re not giving your all, are you? You and I, and thousands of others, we don’t count for them. We’re nothing. We’re barely numbers on personnel lists. Some would find the situation depressing, but I couldn’t care less. Look at me: The rule states that it’s forbidden to smoke, drink, or eat while on duty; I do all three at the same time. I trample on the rule. They want to make us do crappy work no one wants to do? Then let’s do a crappy job! I’m a free man. Since I’ve taken an immediate liking to you, I’m going to give you an example of what I mean: I’m a Guard, so therefore I’m supposed to protect the Enterprise from any and all unauthorized entry, right?”

The Investigator nodded. He’d lost control over the movements of his body, which was shaking with cold. On his head, a heavy accumulation of snow provided him with a curious hat. The Guard kept on talking while continuing to devour his sandwich. “I assure you that hundreds of individuals could come here with the intent of stealing everything not nailed down and I wouldn’t lift my little finger to stop them, I’d let them through without pressing the least of the emergency buttons you see here in front of me. I daresay I’d open the gates even wider for them, and I’d applaud as they filled their trucks with whatever they could steal!”

The Guard took another big gulp of wine, straight from the bottle. “I don’t mean to offend you,” he went on, “but look at yourself. Do you see what a state they’ve reduced you to? And all so they can keep raking in more profits! If I might give you a word of advice: A man in your position could cause some real damage. Instead of cleaning up their offices, you could sabotage all the computers. Oh, of course I don’t mean by smashing them with a hammer, but by more discreet methods: a little water spilled on a keyboard, a cup of coffee in the ventilation grill of a hard-disk-drive cover, a tube of glue in a printer, the contents of your vacuum cleaner in the air-conditioning ducts, and maybe even a good old short-circuit now and then — the classics always work, that’s why they’re classics — and the whole thing collapses! The Enterprise is a colossus with feet of clay. Our world is a colossus with feet of clay. The problem is that few people like you — I mean little people, the exploited, the hungry, the weak, the contemporary slaves — few such people realize the truth. The time is past for taking to the streets and chopping off the heads of kings. There haven’t been any kings for a long time. Today’s monarchs don’t have heads, or faces, either. They’re complex financial mechanisms, algorithms, projections, speculations on risks and losses, fifth-degree equations. Their thrones aren’t material thrones, they’re screens, fiber optics, printed circuit boards, and their nobility is the encrypted information that circulates through them at speeds faster than light. Their castles have become databases. If you break one of the Enterprise’s computers, one among thousands, you cut off one of the monarch’s fingers. Do you understand?”

The Guard took another large mouthful of wine, gargling the liquid before swallowing it. The Investigator had listened to him with mouth agape, looking like a perfect idiot. The snow gave his thin shoulders a more marked, rectangular outline, thanks to which he became a sort of noncommissioned officer of the night, a stupefied sergeant in a routed army who’d been thrown into a conflict and could no longer recall the reason for the fighting. “Don’t you think you ought to be more careful about what you say?” he ventured to ask.

“Careful? Why? For whose sake? I have no master. I know no authority. People like me still exist. Why do you think I do this job that everyone else refuses? Because I don’t want to play the game. Look at me, behind this glass. I’m a total symbol! But wait, you’re not a policeman, are you? Eh?”

“Of course not,” said the Investigator.

“And the person who claims to be the Investigator — you’re not him, either, right? My colleague warned me about this guy. He tried to force his way in here last night, around ten o’clock. His pretext was an Investigation into the suicides. An Investigation into the suicides at ten o’clock at night — do they think we’re that stupid? I’m convinced this individual is actually a Downsizer. Another one. We get one a month. And every time, there are layoffs right and left. Those people have no morals — you realize that, don’t you? If we’d let them, they’d come here even at night so they could get an early start on their repulsive tasks! Of course you’re not the Investigator. With your miserable face, those three little hairs on your head, and your rags, you’re like me, you’re not him!”

“Of course not …” replied the Investigator, trembling — not solely from the cold — and clutching, in his raincoat’s one remaining pocket, the old sausage that had been the Watchman’s gift to him.

“I swear to you that if that individual comes back tonight,” the Guard began again, “I won’t be as amiable as my colleague. I’ll fry him!”

“You’ll … fry him?”

“Without batting an eye! You see that lever?” said the Guard, pointing to a kind of rubber-coated handle set into the wall. “If I pull it down, I send a twenty-thousand-volt current into all the metal barriers you see around you. Even if he doesn’t touch them, even if he stands still in the place where you’re standing right now, for example, the amperage is so high that in two or three seconds the repugnant creature will be reduced to a common heap of ashes!”

“A heap of ashes …” the Investigator groaned.

“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust!” the Guard concluded. A tiny morsel of pâté had fallen from his sandwich and now adorned his chin.

ORDINARILY, THE INVESTIGATOR DIDN’T dream much. His nights were calm, and in the morning, he only rarely remembered his dreams — except for the recurrent one about the copy machine. He was in his office. He needed to create a duplicate copy of an Investigation dossier. He went to the room where the photocopier was located and started to reproduce the documents in the dossier, but the toner cartridge was almost out of ink, and the machine quickly put itself into pause mode. Since he didn’t know how to change the cartridge — his function was to conduct successful Investigations, not to maintain photocopy machines — he stood there helplessly, with no idea what to do. Most fortunately, that distressing dream had never become reality. But this — that is to say, everything that had happened to him since he’d set foot in this town — was quite obviously a nightmare. What else could it be? Nothing else. Yes, a nightmare. A long nightmare, certainly diabolical in its complex, subtle, convoluted realism, but a nightmare nonetheless!