Philippe Claudel - The Investigation

There was no one behind the reception counter, but a strip of light showed under the door that the Giantess had pointed out as the entrance to the breakfast room. He walked over to the door, seized and turned the handle — thus producing an unpleasant squeal, a sound like human wailing — and pushed the door open.

Then he froze in the doorway.

The room was a very large hall whose other end he could barely make out, but what most astonished him was the fact that this vast space was packed with humanity. Although there were countless tables, he didn’t see an unoccupied chair at any of them. Hundreds of people were having breakfast, and all of them suspended their gestures and interrupted their conversations when the Investigator entered. Hundreds of eyes looked him over. He felt his face turning crimson. He prepared to utter some kind of apology, a few words, perhaps a general greeting, but he didn’t have time. After the several seconds of total silence that accompanied his entrance, the noise returned and filled the room again, a thousand noises, in fact, a veritable din of words and masticating jaws and throats swallowing liquids and breakfast rolls, the clinking and clanking of cups and saucers and glasses and chairs. He had yet to get over his surprise when a Server wearing a white coat and black pants appeared beside him.

“You’re in number 14?”

“Yes …” the Investigator said, stuttering a little.

“Please follow me.”

The Server led him halfway across the room. The meandering course they took allowed the Investigator to note that all the people sitting at the tables were speaking a foreign language — Slavic perhaps, unless it was Scandinavian or Middle Eastern.

“There you are, sir!” the Server said to him, pointing to an empty chair at a table for four. The other three seats were occupied by men with low foreheads, dark skin, and thick black hair. They bent over their cups, drinking and eating greedily.

The Investigator sat down. The Server awaited his order.

“I’ll have a cup of tea, some toast, and orange juice, please.”

“Tea, yes. Toast and orange juice, no.”

“Why not? At the rate I’m paying! Isn’t this supposed to be a four-star establishment?”

“You haven’t paid anything yet,” the Server pointed out dryly. “And the fact that this Hotel has four stars doesn’t give you unlimited rights, and especially not the right to behave like a person to whom everything is due.”

The Investigator was flabbergasted and incapable of replying. The Server turned to go, but the Investigator held him back. “Excuse me,” the Investigator said. “I’d like to ask you a question.”

The Server said nothing, but he didn’t go away, either. The Investigator thought this an encouraging sign. He said, “I just got here last night, and it seems to me, well, I believe your colleague, a tall woman in a bathrobe, I believe she gave me to understand that the Hotel was empty, and this morning I see that—”

“Tourists. There was a sudden, massive arrival of Tourists.”

“Tourists?” the Investigator repeated, remembering the depressing, unlovely streets he’d walked for hours in rain and snow, the endless wall, the gray buildings, the monstrous bulk of the Enterprise’s innumerable structures, the absence of all charm, all beauty.

“Our City attracts many Tourists,” the Server snapped. This declaration stunned the Investigator, and the Server, taking advantage of the ensuing silence, withdrew.

The Investigator unfolded his napkin and looked at his table companions, who continued to eat and drink. “Good day!” the Investigator greeted them.

None of the men replied or even looked up. The Server returned. He placed two rusks and a cup of black coffee in front of him and then went away before the Investigator had a chance to tell him that rusks and coffee were not at all what he’d ordered.

THE RUSKS TASTED LIKE HUMUS. As for the black coffee, it was beyond the shadow of a doubt the bitterest the Investigator had ever drunk in his life, and not even the copious amount of sugar he added succeeded in sweetening it. His three neighbors were devouring cheese omelets, cold cuts, smoked fish, large pickles marinated in vinegar, apple-and-cinnamon pastries, small, soft rolls of bread stuffed with raisins and almonds, and fresh fruit. They were drinking grapefruit juice, pineapple juice, and black tea whose delicious fragrance, full-bodied and smoky, entered the Investigator’s nostrils.

His table companions kept up a lively conversation, but the Investigator was unable to understand a single word. None of the others paid any attention to him.

He forced himself to drink his coffee, figuring that the hot liquid would do him good. He felt feverish and couldn’t stop blowing his nose. From time to time, he raised his eyes and looked around, trying to spot the Giantess, but she was nowhere in sight. There were only four or five Servers working in the big room, men who looked so much alike — short, somewhat round, balding — that they could have been taken for brothers. The Tourists, as he’d decided to call them, were making an unbelievable racket. They were all simply dressed men and women of around forty, and they were eating grossly, flinging themselves upon the abundant repast set before them. The Investigator determined that he was the only Guest who’d been served the rudimentary breakfast he was forcing himself to swallow, so when a Server passed near him, he asked whether he, too, could have an omelet and some fruit juice.

“Are you part of the group?”

“No, I’m—”

“Are you in room 14?”

“Yes.”

“I’m very sorry, but it’s not possible.”

“Come on, that’s ridiculous! Can’t you at least give me a little jam, or just some butter? If it’s only a matter of money, I’ll pay the additional charge.…”

“Don’t insist. In here, money doesn’t solve all problems.”

When the Investigator recovered from his shock and surprise, the Server was already far away. In his head, the Investigator reviewed all the articles contained in the Hotel Rules; he’d read them twice upon his arrival, and he didn’t remember a single one that made any reference at all to any sort of discrimination in regard to breakfast. He promised himself to point this out to someone in the Management as soon as he came across such a person.

Time was passing. The Investigator was reminded of this by an enormous wall clock, which punctuated every movement of its second hand with a resounding crack, like a hammer striking an anvil. He shouldn’t drag his heels. People must be waiting for him and growing impatient. He picked up his cup to finish his coffee, but just as he was bringing the cup to his mouth, his neighbor hit his elbow. The coffee spilled on him, on his coat and trousers. The Investigator cursed as he watched two dark-brown stains spreading over the light fabric. The man who had caused this disaster didn’t apologize. He kept eating and talking to the two others, who likewise acted as though the Investigator didn’t exist.

The Investigator rose from the table and walked rapidly toward a door under a sign that read TOILETS. He was beside himself. He’d had enough and more than enough, he thought, and he wondered whether he shouldn’t take the next train home. But what could he say to his Head of Section? How would he explain his premature return before the Investigation had taken place, before it had even begun? Would he say that he’d wandered around the City for hours in filthy weather? That he’d found the Hotel strange? That the breakfast he’d been served hadn’t suited him? That the coffee was dreadful? That the conduct of the Hotel staff was unacceptable? That his table companions hadn’t spoken to him?