Philippe Claudel - The Investigation

Another dream?

No, some tangible signs of the incident remained: a sharp pain in his left shoulder, and a sore spot on his forehead, which he rubbed as expiring snowflakes ran down his face. And then there was his suitcase, of course. His suitcase. Burst open, its contents spread over the ground, reminiscent of the bags and baggage one sees in news reports, floating on the surface of the ocean in the aftermath of one plane crash or another, the final witnesses of lives tossed by the currents, of lives disappeared, pulverized, annihilated, reduced to sweaters soaked in salt water, to trousers still in movement, even though the legs they contained are gone, to stuffed animals, surprised at having lost forever the arms of the children who held them.

The Investigator experienced some difficulty in gathering up his five shirts, his underwear, his pajamas, his toilet things, his polyester pants, his alarm clock, several pairs of socks, a bag (still empty) for his dirty laundry, his electric razor, and its rebellious cord. During the process, he stepped on a tube of toothpaste, which spurted out and lay on the ground like a big pink-and-blue worm, redolent of synthetic mint. Eventually, he was able to close the suitcase, which was heavier, because along with his personal items he was now carrying a little snow, a little rain, a little melancholy.

But it was imperative that he keep on walking. It was by this time full night, and he was finding the City more and more inhospitable, uninhabited, as it appeared to be, except by the occasional shadow with a body as solid as a bull, capable of staggering a man with a single blow of its horn. And to cap his misfortune, the Investigator launched into the first of three violent sneezes. He was sure he’d wake up the next day with his nose running, his throat dry, raspy, and nearly closed, and his feverish head stuck inside a snare drum. The prospect of such a morning filled him with mild dread. Ah, to wake up feeling like that, he thought, before beginning a long and no doubt tedious day of investigating, what rotten luck!

To wake up, yes. In a room, of course. But what room? Where?

SO THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE the Guardhouse? But it didn’t look anything like a guardhouse, nor did its surroundings look like the entrance to any enterprise whatsoever, much less to the Enterprise itself.

The Investigator had passed the place some three or four times without suspecting that it could be the Guardhouse: a kind of bunker, a massive parallelepiped of raw, unfinished concrete, pierced at irregular intervals by thin, vertical openings as narrow as arrow slits. All these features combined to give the impression of absolute closure. The building designated whoever approached it as an intruder, perhaps even an enemy. The chevaux-de-frise set up on all sides suggested that an attack was imminent and must be parried, and the rolls of barbed wire, the caltrop barriers, and the chicanes that could be glimpsed behind them intensified the general atmosphere of imminent threat. Images of fortified embassies in war-torn countries crossed the Investigator’s mind. But the Enterprise wasn’t an embassy, and the country wasn’t at war. According to the information that had been made available to him, the only things manufactured within these guarded precincts were innocuous communications products and the software to implement them, nothing with any strategic value, and it had been a long time since the production had been carried out in any actual secrecy. There was really no justification for taking such measures as these.

At last, the Investigator found a window on one side of the Guardhouse. There was a counter behind the window, and next to the window a buzzer set into the exterior wall. Behind the counter, on the other side of the thick glass panel — was it bulletproof glass? — a surgical light illuminated a small room, a few dozen square feet in area. The Investigator could see a desk, a chair, a calendar pinned to the back wall, and, higher up, a big display board with several long lines of lights, some on, some off, some blinking. On the left-hand wall, a group of television monitors offered a regular mosaic of views of the Enterprise: offices, warehouses, parking lots, stairways, empty workshops, cellars, loading docks.

The snowfall had stopped. The Investigator was trembling. He couldn’t feel his nose anymore. He’d turned up the collar of his raincoat as high as he could in an effort to protect his neck, but the coat was now thoroughly drenched, and the upturned collar only added to his discomfort. He pressed the buzzer. Nothing happened. He pressed it again and waited. He took a look around and called out, but without much hope, because no sound of human origin could be heard, only mechanical noises, the hum of engines or boilers or power stations or generators, which mingled with the rising murmur of the wind as it began to blow harder.

“What is it?”

The Investigator jumped. The crackling, slightly aggressive words had come from an intercom speaker located just to the left of the buzzer.

“Good day,” the Investigator managed to say after recovering from his surprise.

“Good evening,” answered the voice, which seemed to come from a great distance, from the depths of an infernal world. The Investigator apologized, explained himself, said who he was, recounted his waiting in front of the train station, his stop in the café, the Waiter’s directions, his long walk, his mistakes along the way, his repeated passages in front of the … The voice interrupted him right in the middle of a sentence.

“Are you in possession of an Exceptional Authorization?”

“Excuse me? I don’t understand.”

“Are you in possession of an Exceptional Authorization?”

“Exceptional Auth—? I’m the Investigator.… I don’t know what you’re talking about. Surely my visit here has been announced. I’m expected.…”

“For the last time, are you in possession, yes or no, of an Exceptional Authorization?”

“No, but I’ll surely get one tomorrow”—the Investigator, who was gradually losing his grasp, hesitated—“after I meet with a Manager.…”

“Without an Exceptional Authorization, you are not authorized to enter the premises of the Enterprise after 2100 hours.”

The Investigator was preparing to reply that it was only … But he glanced at his watch and could hardly believe it: almost quarter to ten. How was it possible? So that meant he’d been walking for hours? How could he have lost all sense of time like that?

“I’m confused,” he said. “I didn’t realize it was so late.”

“Come back tomorrow.”

The Investigator heard a sound like a cleaver coming down on a butcher’s block. The crackling ceased. He started to tremble even harder. His socks, too thin for the season anyway, were soaked through. The bottom parts of his trousers looked like wet rags. His fingers and toes were getting numb. He leaned on the buzzer one more time.

“Now what?” said the distant voice furiously.

“I’m very sorry to disturb you again, but I need a place to spend the night.”

“We’re not a hotel.”

“Exactly, so perhaps you could tell me where to find one?”

“We’re not the Tourist Office.”

The voice disappeared. This time, the Investigator concluded that it would be useless to ring again. He was seized by a great weariness, and at the same time, panic made his heart beat at an unusually high rate. He placed his hand on his chest and felt, through the layers of wet clothing, the rapid rhythm, the dull blows of the organ against the wall of flesh. It was as if somebody were knocking at a door, an inner door, a closed door, desperately, without ever getting a response, without anyone’s ever opening it for him.