Imre Kertész: Detective Story

It was just his eyes that Maria found strange. The Corps’ narcotics experts would have conferred on them a more accurate term. At the time, that sort of thing was taken seriously — the Homeland’s moral subsistence rested on the Corps’ conscience. The Colonel placed great stress on that, wanting to see a clean people and clean souls. This was among the exceptional pronouncements that he would utter, with exactly the same emphasis, both in parliament and in the Corps’ premises. So on a few occasions we cracked down here and there. The price of drugs would go up. Ramón right then was left without a supply, and his eyes were even duller, even more steely-gray and vacant as a result. All he was left with were slander, fear, clearsightedness, and resentment.

Everything Ramón told Enrique was true. He had won a scholarship, he did have to work in his vacations, he was poor. By the way, he was not poor because his parents were poor: he had run away from home when he was seventeen. The devil knows how he managed not to acquire a criminal record, but we still knew about the things that were of interest to us. He ran off with Max, a well-known homosexual, who when filling out a form, in the space for occupation would write “philosopher.” Ramón then split up with Max and bummed around. He joined a commune that produced craft goods: they wove and sewed, a mix of men and women — in the nude. I’ll be damned if I know what the fun is in that. He left the commune and took up with a girl. He left the girl and took up with a woman who was ten years older. He left her … I won’t continue. A restless spirit was Ramón, as you can see. He was looking for solid ground under his feet because he was afraid, afraid of himself and everybody else. He was afraid of society because — so he says — he is familiar with its murderous laws. And he was afraid of the police above all; he feared and loathed them. But if you want my opinion, Ramón simply needed fear, God knows why. Don’t look to me for explanations; I know nothing about what makes the mind tick. I’m just a flatfoot, that’s the profession I trained for. What I can say, though, is that a guy like him was not exactly a big deal for us. We have more than enough of his type. They fear in order to be able to loosen up suddenly. They view everybody and everything as sordid so as to become sordid themselves. Apart from that, each of them individually is different.

Meanwhile this Ramón was attending the university. People there suspected almost nothing. He passed his examinations with flying colors. His knowledge earned him respect. His manner deceived his professors; he listened to them, and they talked to him. It was just his eyes … but then I have already touched on that. So, add it all up — that’s what kind of person Ramón was.

He fell into our hands by pure chance. That is to say, it was pure chance that he fell into our hands right then. It could easily have been any other time, but I have no doubt that sooner or later, whatever happened, he was going to fall into our hands. In this case, the occasion was offered by what Enrique’s diary refers to as “the ructions at the university.”

As ructions go, these ones were not such a big deal. We hauled in a few kids, but no one paid much attention. It was soon after Victory Day, and every prison and holding cell was packed, the detainees were crammed together in corridors like sardines. We were not given much time to clarify the workings of university democracy. A smack or two here and there, and Diaz would summarily release the bulk of them. His eye alighted on Ramón, however, and he had him stand up in the corridor, forehead and palms of the hands to the wall, as you’re supposed to do.

The day before we had worked through the night; I was fed up with the kids by then.

“What do you want from him?” I asked Diaz.

“I don’t know,” he replied. Diaz was indefatigable, and he had an infallible eye. We knew nothing about Ramón, except that he had no priors, which we learned over the telephone. Otherwise, nothing. It was still the early days, the Victory was still fresh, the records were as yet deficient. Tracking down an identity would take days. Diaz was in a hurry. We had things to do.

So he called him in from the corridor and sat him down. He fired a few questions at him, purely at random. Ramón held his ground well, but Diaz knew how to ask questions. About a quarter of an hour later Ramón started yelling. He couldn’t bear the tension any longer. When he told Enrique that he had to do something that would tie him to something for good, he hadn’t been lying. He was lucky that an eye had happened to spot this about him. And Diaz loved helping those in need.

As I say, Ramón started yelling. He dumped all his hatred on our heads. It was like someone throwing up. He called us character assassins, spinning nets to catch the innocent. Butchers, murderers, hangmen, and so on. Diaz listened with bowed head, elbows on the desk, hands covering his face. He was taking a breather. Then all of a sudden Ramón fell silent. Stillness descended, a long stillness. Diaz then got ponderously to his feet. He slowly made his way around, then popped one buttock on the front of the desk. His preferred position. He sat like that for a while, facing Ramón, then suddenly leaned forward. He didn’t overstrain himself, and took care not to leave any lasting marks. Rodriguez followed suit. Me being the new boy, I took down a record of the interrogation.

After that it wasn’t necessary to say a lot. Ramón took his seat again, and Diaz asked if he smoked. He did. Diaz offered him his cigar case. Rodriguez asked if he was thirsty. He was. Rodriguez set a glass before him and took the orange juice from the refrigerator. (We drank that deuced orange juice all day long on, amid all that diabolical work and heat.)

Diaz then briefly outlined what Ramón had to do, at what intervals, and through whom, and he explained in what form he was to make his reports.

It was from him that we first heard the name of Enrique Salinas.

I have to admit that up to this point I have skipped over some pages of Enrique’s diary. That was not a good idea. They tell an important strand in the story line leading to the fateful auto drive, so it was not clever of me to omit them.

Nor was it fair. But I am seeking to be fair: when better than now for me to be honest. Fair to Enrique, first and foremost, but also fair to Estella and to myself as well.

Let me leaf back through the pages, back almost to the beginning of Enrique’s diary.

That a mouth could have the shape (and movements) of a flower (a flower in a breeze) is quite incredible. And yet there is such a mouth.

I leaf further on: an empty page with just two letters on it:

E.J.

Estella Jill, or simply Jill. He preferred to use her second, English name. She was American on her mother’s side. Turning the page:

J. Like someone in whom the sun shines inside. I sunbathed the whole afternoon.

Yes, that too is Enrique’s voice. Suicidal thoughts, confused street scenes, self-encouragement, hatred, and love. And all of it side by side, knotted together, jumbled up. Enrique was an adolescent, a child.

I’m turning the pages. I leaf quite a bit further on, and then quite out of the blue:

How did it happen? I don’t know. All of a sudden I was holding her in my arms. I locked the door. I leaned over her, sank my mouth between her lips. We lay on the couch’s thick, Indian-weave blanket. We were naked and snuggled up to each other. I sensed that she desired me. Then a dreadful, stupid, and inexplicable thing happened. I have to write it down. The only way I shall shake it off is by writing it down. Yet even now I am overwhelmed by the hideous and, at the same time, ludicrous ordeal of those long, long minutes.