Imre Kertész: Detective Story

“Then they should reopen the university,” Enrique suggested. Now the senior patrolman was about to let fly, but he thought better of it. A Salinas was a Salinas, after all.

“Clear off,” he ordered them. “I’ll be making a report. I hope your father wrings your neck.”

They continued their journey, side by side, Enrique at the wheel, Jill beside him. They were wordless, as if they did not know each other.

“Even so,” Enrique broke the silence, without casting a glance at Jill, “it wouldn’t hurt me to have at least an idea about what’s going on.”

“What would that be?” Jill shrugged. “Nothing.” She fell silent. “Except I just hate you.”

“I don’t hate you, Jill,” he said. “I’m just sorry that this is the way you feel.”

“It makes no difference. The main thing is we don’t wish to see each other ever again,” she stated.

“True,” he concurred.

They said no more. That was how they reached the city: wordlessly.

Enrique felt that at least now he knew what he wanted to know.

Something else happened that evening, something important, Enrique noted in his diary. Those few pages are like the record of a grilling — a genuine police interview in which he incriminated himself.

That was Enrique for you. He loved and hated, he was secretive and yet kept exhaustive records of his secrets.

I am opening Enrique’s diary. Listen to this.

It’s all been decided. Utterly unbelievable, and yet the most natural of all. It’s as if, at the depths of my most hidden instincts, I had actually long suspected it. I must write it down: I can’t go to bed now with this experience on my mind.

Let me try to sum up. That will be hard, so much has happened today, and now, late in the evening, all the complexions and events of this whole implausible day are spinning around at once in my head. Let’s get on with it, then.

So I drove Jill home: I owed her that much. Then I came home myself. I parked the car in the garage, stepped into the elevator, and came up. As I entered the apartment, I caught sight of Mother and Father somewhere in the deceptive succession of interconnected rooms. They were a long way off, each seated in an armchair. Father was wreathed in fragrant clouds of smoke. He was stretching out his long, muscular legs, his black patent-leather shoes gleaming in the twilight. He had unbuttoned the jacket of his impeccable suit and loosened his fashionable necktie.

Mother was sitting with a straight back, hands resting in her lap.

It was as though they were just waiting for something.

When they spotted me, Mother immediately jumped up and rushed toward me. The usual stuff: “Where were you?” “At the beach.” “You took a long time about it.” “Because the weather was fine.” One thing and another.

The old man did not stir, just kept on puffing on his cigarette. Finally, I said I needed a word with him. “Very well.” He got to his feet and let me go first, gesturing toward his study with one hand, the other loosely gripping my shoulder. I sensed his aroma: a smell of tobacco, cologne, and Father. All at once I also sensed the hand resting on my shoulder. Strength emanated from it. Strength, superiority, and assurance. It was stupid, but I nearly burst into tears so that he might take me in his arms, as he had done when I was a child. Maybe on account of Jill.

No matter. Anyway, I briefly told him the about business on the highway, just the essentials. He didn’t bat an eyelid.

“Did they find a camera on you?” he asked.

“No,” I said. By sheer accident — though I don’t say that to him. I had in fact intended to take some snapshots of Jill, but in my hurry I’d left the thing at home.

“They’ll probably fine you,” he dismissed the matter. “We’ll pay it off. A good thing we can still afford it.” He cracked a smile. He didn’t seem too upset. “What were you looking for out there?”

“I was at the beach.”

“On your own?”

“No.”

“And you took it into your heads to have a kiss and cuddle there, of all places?” He smirked.

I became cross. I don’t like it when the old man makes fun of my sexual desires. “We weren’t kissing.”

“Well what, then?”

“I wanted to show her something interesting out that way.”

“I see.” Father nodded, then got up and started to pace around the room. I was beginning to think he had forgotten me when all of a sudden I sensed him behind me. He placed a hand on my head.

“Enrique,” I hear his voice, “how do you spend your days?”

I shrugged my shoulders. What on earth was I supposed to say?

“Son,” he said, still in the same position, “Mother is worried about you.” Silly things come to my mind. I’m on my way to school, and he says: “Take care, son, Mother is worried about you.” Or I’m given my first car: “Be careful, son, Mother is worried about you.” Only ever “Mother,” never himself.

I didn’t know what to say, or even how to indicate what was coming to mind.

He walked away and sat down behind his desk, facing me. He switched the lamp on. It was already evening. All kinds of dark, heavy shadows stretching out in all directions into the room beyond the yellowish cone of light from the reading lamp. A homely feeling.

“Son,” he struck up again, “why aren’t you being straight with me? We have time. I’m listening.”

I let it all out then. Just as it came, disjointedly, angrily. Maybe that was the influence of Jill. I told him what I thought about it all. I told him I spent my days with nothing else but that occupying me, just that.

He heard me out very gravely, even though most of what I said was probably drivel, as I was rather on edge. Still, I could see he was taking it seriously — as seriously as I was myself. He had never looked at me that way before. It was as if he wanted to see right through me. And he had to have seen, because I wanted him to see that I wasn’t joking.

When I finished, he again got to his feet and swept his eyes round the room a few times, then sat back down.

“Is that just your opinion, Enrique,” he asked, “or is it more than that?”

“What do you mean, Dad?”

“Are you still a free agent,” he replied, “or are you already working …,” he hesitated, “for certain somebodies?” He spat it out in the end, just as stupidly as I did a few weeks ago to R.

“Not yet,” I said.

“Not yet,” he repeated. “In other words, you’ve tried?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“I’ve come up against certain obstacles.”

He nodded. “Such as being called Salinas, for example.”

“For example,” I replied.

There was a glint in his eyes, which I took to be gloating. Again it nettled me.

“But it’s a barrier that can be broken through, Dad,” I continued. “With patience and determination it’s possible to break through. I believe that, and I’ll prove it, just wait and see!”

Solemnly he ran an inquiring look over my face, which had a hard expression on it, I could feel. It was a strange duel, and at the time its strangeness was all I perceived. Now, of course, I can see its sense as well.

“Listen to me, Enrique,” he spoke again. “I have information from reliable sources that they are going to reopen the university before too long.”

“Too bad,” I commented. “We’ll be under even closer scrutiny; they’ll be able to step up surveillance.”

“Undoubtedly.” He nodded. “But you’ll be able to continue your studies.”

“I don’t wish to continue them,” I said. “There’s no point.”

“You mustn’t forget about your future, Enrique.”

“I’m living for the present, Dad.”

“Ah!” He waved that aside. “The present is just temporary.”