Philippe Claudel - The Investigation

The Shadow was waiting, but the Investigator turned away from him, for he saw ghostly figures coming to greet him as in a ceremony of condolence: silhouettes, ideas, recollections, holograms, fictional characters, among whom he clearly recognized the Policeman, the Giantess, who smiled at him, the Guide, the Manager, the Server, the Security Officer and the Guard, the Child with the burning eyes, the Psychologist, who hung back a little, the Tourists, the Displacees, the Crowd. They all seemed somewhat ill at ease as they spent a few moments in silence before the body of a man of average size, with a round face and a balding pate, a man who resembled them like a brother, who was the victim of a farce in which they’d played their roles without trying very hard to step out of them, because it’s more comfortable that way. They had always been well ahead of the Investigator, and so they remained, even if that didn’t help them in any way and wouldn’t save them.

There were still some letters, drawn by a hand writing on a blackboard. A needle piercing a vein to draw out blood or inject some liquid. A very clear image of slow dripping and the soothing music it produced, soon covered by the sound of sheets of paper being torn up and then burned, and the faint whisper of ink poured out onto the pages of a book.

“So what have I founded!!!???” the Shadow shouted for the last time.

In the Investigator’s weak, doomed heart, there still trembled one or two mute words, barely formed, before what remained of his consciousness was carried off into the void, like the last puff of a cigarette in the wind. Then everything in him died, the answer to the question, the signs, the traces of light, his memory, his doubts. He thought he heard a slight noise, like the sound made by the lid of a laptop computer when the screen is closed on keys still warm from the fingertips that have caressed them so long.

“Click.”

And then — nothing more.

Nothing more.

Philippe Claudel is the author of many novels, among them Brodeck , which won the Prix Goncourt des Lycéens in 2007 and the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in 2010. His novel By a Slow River has been translated into thirty languages and was awarded the Prix Renaudot in 2003 and the Elle Readers’ Literary Prize in 2004. Claudel also wrote and directed the 2008 film I’ve Loved You So Long , starring Kristin Scott Thomas, which won a BAFTA Award for Best Film Not in the English Language.