Philippe Claudel - The Investigation

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t feeling very well …” the Investigator said with a moan.

The Policeman scrutinized his outfit but made no remark.

“I haven’t damaged anything, don’t worry. Or soiled anything, either. Take a look for yourself.”

The Policeman’s face suddenly hardened. “I’ve made no accusations. I was worried about you. I saw you charge into the restroom while I was busy finishing a report — I had my office door ajar, it’s too stuffy in there — and you treat me as if I were acting in the line of duty. What do you take me for? Do you think you’re the only one who cares about others’ misfortunes? Can you believe that the Displacees’ pitiful psychological and hygienic conditions don’t concern me as much as they do you? I may be the Policeman, but that doesn’t make me any less a human being. And even if I don’t vomit up my breakfast as you do, their fate nonetheless touches me, and I do everything in my power to make their Displacement as transitory as possible. I try to ensure that, within a very short time, they return to their own proper place, which they should never have left. Now please stand aside, I have work to do.”

The Investigator was still going over in his mind what the Policeman had just said, but the latter, his hands protected by a pair of pink rubber gloves, vigorously sprinkled a yellow liquid redolent of bleach and pine resin on the toilet and then, using a sponge, scrubbed the porcelain bowl with all his might.

“You’re not a policeman. This isn’t a luxury hotel. This is not reality. I’m in a novel, or a dream, and, what’s more, probably not in one of my own dreams but in another’s dream, the dream of a complex, perverse being having fun at my expense.”

The Policeman stood upright, gazed at the Investigator, seemed to reflect, and in the end dropped the sponge into the bucket. This act produced a strange sound, like a brief sob. Keeping his eyes on the Investigator, the Policeman slowly stripped off his gloves. Then he said, “Follow me.”

He said it without violence, almost gently. The Investigator, still surprised by the words that had come out of his own mouth and the tone in which he’d spoken them, was on the verge of apologizing, but he opted instead to remain silent and followed the other’s lead.

The Policeman stopped on the exterior steps of the Hotel and said, “I assume you’re getting ready to return to the Enterprise this morning for the purposes of your Investigation?”

It was a morning identical to that of the previous day: soft, caressed by a golden light, and filled with intense human activity. A concentrated, compact Crowd surged along the sidewalks on either side of the street, and the roadway was invisible under a flood of vehicles, packed closely together and rolling past at an extremely reduced speed. None of the drivers appeared to be complaining about the slowness of their progress.

“Mild in the morning, ferocious in the evening.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I’m speaking of the climate,” the Policeman explained. “At first, I was a little surprised, like you. It didn’t make any sense. During the first part of the day, the air is springlike, even summery, but inevitably, toward the end of the afternoon, there’s snow, followed in the evening hours by a frost that chews up your face, and then, to cap things off, down comes the night, too soon, falling like a guillotine blade. That could be a metaphor for life, but I’m not the Poet, I’m the Policeman.

“You pay too much attention to appearances. I really wonder how you can conduct an Investigation of any sort with so little discernment. You see me wearing a housekeeper’s smock and carrying a brush, and you jump to premature conclusions. Because my temporary office looks like a broom closet, you tell yourself I’m a simple cleaning person who’s lost his mind. No, don’t protest! According to what I’ve been told, that’s just what you thought. What a lack of imagination on your part! I could have taken offense. I could have arrested you on the spot — you’ve given me any number of reasons for doing that, ever since yesterday morning. I could have exercised my arbitrary, limitless power and subjected you to torture of one kind or another, but I believe in the virtues of pedagogy. Come with me.”

The Policeman crossed the sidewalk with the most breathtaking ease. The Crowd instantaneously divided into two separate floods. Men and women moved out of his way as he approached, colliding with one another to let him through. No one even grazed him. He reached the curb effortlessly and turned around to assess the Investigator’s reaction.

His mouth agape, the Investigator was staring as though he’d just witnessed a miracle. Observing this, the Policeman shrugged his shoulders and smiled, as if to say that the Investigator hadn’t seen anything yet. Then he turned toward the street, simply raising one arm and, at the same time, placing his left foot on the asphalt roadway. All the vehicles stopped at once. The sight was astonishing. It was as if a sea had abruptly parted, revealing its rocky bottom — in this case, ordinary blacktop, with ruts or potholes here and there — and forcing its waters to one side or the other. The Policeman crossed the street in a few seconds and stepped onto the opposite sidewalk. There, too, the Crowd took the greatest care to avoid him.

“Do you need any more proof that I’m really the Policeman?” he called out to the Investigator, but the latter was too stunned to reply. His brain was becoming some kind of dwarf mammal, shut up in a wheel and turning it from the inside at top speed, but not producing anything except gratuitous, meaningless, unnecessary motion, along with serious overheating.

“Come on over!” the Policeman cried.

Like an automaton, the Investigator obeyed, crossing the sidewalk and then the street under the mute protection of the Policeman, who oversaw the operation while holding vehicles and pedestrians, still unmoving, under his placid authority. When the Investigator reached the Policeman’s side, he set the traffic in motion again with a simple snap of his fingers. With bowed head and shame in his heart, the Investigator remained close to him. Then, after a silence that lasted an eternity, he sheepishly murmured, “Please forgive me.”

YOU’RE NOT THE FIRST to be fooled. Before, of course, it was different; things were clear. But I’m not a man who regrets the past,” the Policeman concluded magnanimously, shaking hands with the Investigator. This made him feel even more ashamed, and he lowered his eyes and said, “I have a confession to make.”

“Come, come, I’ve already told you that I—”

“It’s important to me,” the Investigator said, cutting him off. “I need to confess: This morning, I trashed my room. I wrecked it. I broke everything. I don’t know what got into me. It was stronger than I was, or, rather, I wasn’t myself. I’m shy and mild-mannered by nature, but this morning I turned into a monster, a savage beast. When I think back on it, I believe I would have been capable of killing someone.”

He kept his eyes fixed on the floor. He was prepared to put up with a long interrogation, a re-enactment, perhaps prolonged standing at attention, but the Policeman’s reaction was immediately good-natured: “Come on, you’re too hard on yourself! Killing! The things you say! My profession has taught me that killing’s not easy. It’s not something just anybody can do. And I don’t want to offend you, but you don’t have what it takes to be a murderer. You haven’t been designated as the Investigator for nothing. You weren’t considered qualified to be the Killer. Stick to your proper job. As for your room, don’t give it another thought! My people showed it to me while you were having breakfast. Now, it’s true you went at it pretty vigorously, but you were right to do so! The room was unworthy of you. The person responsible is the one who dared to assign you to that room. Nobody’s going to quibble with you about a little breakage! Case closed! Moreover, I’ve already filed my report, and the Guilty Party shall pay, I can guarantee you that!”