Imre Kertész: Detective Story

Among them was this C., whose name I won’t spell out. Enrique already mentioned him in his diary, if you recall. But Enrique wasn’t the only one to document him, rest assured. I’ll be a monkey’s uncle if he didn’t have a hand in the atrocity. But by the time we got wind that an atrocity was brewing, we could only snatch at thin air.

They would have nothing to do with Enrique. No way was it due to his money. There were wealthy kids in their ranks, more than one. Still, Enrique’s money would surely have come in handy for them. No, the trouble was he was a greenhorn. They, as I said, were real pros. It would never have entered their minds to run risks. It was only Enrique, in his child’s mind, who imagined he could just go up to them and enlist as if he were at a recruitment office.

He went over and found a happy bunch of students who amused him with their funny tales of university life. Each knew about a case, and the others would split their sides laughing.

Well, that’s what happened. Enrique then trailed back to Jill. She looked stunning in her jazzy dress on the beach that day, and even more stunning out of it. Enrique, however, was furious.

“Forget them,” Jill consoled him. “You aren’t one of them.”

“Why?” Enrique fumed. “Because my name is Salinas? Does that define a person?”

“You’re bourgeois,” Jill teased. She poked an index finger into the curly fuzz of hair on Enrique’s chest and gently scratched with her nail. That is a detail I got from Enrique’s diary. “You’re bourgeois, bourgeois. My little bourgeois,” she purred.

Enrique, however, was furious.

“Forget them,” Jill said. “It’s me you should concern yourself with now. Isn’t it great here? Why don’t you want to be happy?”

“Happy! Happy! …” Enrique fumed. But then, nice and slowly, he calmed down. From the scratching, I suppose. “Of course I want to be happy,” he said. “I love you, don’t I, God help me! But there are times when being happy — just happy, nothing else — is simply vile.”

“Why?” Jill inquired, her eyes half closed. The sunlight was blindingly strong that day.

“Because,” Enrique reasoned, “one can’t be happy in a place where everybody is unhappy.”

“Everybody?” Jill opened her eyes. “Look at me. I’m not.” She smiled. One could well believe that she was not unhappy.

What could Enrique do? He kissed her. After that they walked out to the water. The sea was warm, there were not many people around, and they swam out a fair distance. In Jill’s arms Enrique soon forgot about his frustration as well as his philosophy.

Only on the way home did it come to his mind again.

On the highway.

Enrique’s Alfa Romeo was speeding homeward with him at the wheel, Jill beside him. Their hair was fluttering, they raced along — until they came to a minimum speed sign. At that point Enrique took his foot off the gas and slowed to less than half the stipulated speed.

I need to say something about this highway. Some of you may not have been down that way, or else you don’t recall it too well. Or maybe you never noticed anything special about it. That can happen: after all, that’s what the minimum speed limit is for. Then again, some people only ever keep their eyes to the front. Lucky dogs: I always envied them.

In a nutshell, one of our establishments was situated out that way. Not exactly by the side of the road, but not far from it either. Those of you who have been there will know what I’m talking about. Our post was equipped with all the necessary paraphernalia: fences, electronics, watchtowers, and whatnot. Anyone who passed by and looked would have seen it — the outside, that is, not much more. We could hardly have shut down the highway as that would have forced the already-faltering commercial traffic into a detour around half the country. We could not force a bypass through, on account of the mountain chain: that sort of thing is pricey and might not even have been approved by parliament. You will have to ask their honors, the parliamentary representatives, whether they were aware of the situation and see what answers you get. Of course, they didn’t have a clue about anything. The only option that was left, therefore, was to set a minimum speed limit. That way people would not be able to see very much, though undoubtedly something. The Colonel didn’t mind that: a good citizen should be able to turn such a warning to his advantage. We set a fifty mph limit, but Enrique slowed down to twenty, according to the report that was issued on the traffic violation, and as was borne out by the appended photograph.

Jill was nervous — you bet she was. On top of which, Enrique wanted her to look in the direction of the establishment, but she didn’t feel like doing that.

“What do want from me?”

“Why don’t you want to look at it?” asked Enrique.

“Because it’s none of my business,” Jill fretted.

“So what is any of your business?” he pressed.

“You,” she said.

“Well then,” he plugged away, “that too is your business, because that is part of what I am.”

“That’s not true,” she protested. “You’re kidding yourself, Enrique. A normal person doesn’t concern himself constantly with that sort of thing. To you it’s nothing more than a drug. Whereas I, on the other hand, am sincere. Why can’t we love each other, Enrique? I want to be happy. I want to bear your children. Nothing else is of interest to me.”

“You’re a clever girl, Jill. I envy you. You don’t groan under the iron fist of dictatorship, you purr,” so Enrique. At least according to the diary, and Jill later confirmed it. “Why don’t you wish to take notice of it?”

“Because it doesn’t interest me,” she said. She was starting to get nettled.

“Jill,” he said, “you’re talking as if you hated the people who are being kept over there, behind the fence.”

“That’s right,” she confirmed. “I hate them, because they’re standing between us.”

Right then a police car howled up alongside, overtook them, then cut across to block the way ahead. Enrique was obliged to stop.

I dare say you know how it goes. A screeching of brakes, doors bursting open, boots thudding on the concrete highway. A pair does the work, one covers with a semiautomatic handgun. “Step out of there! Make it snappy, or I’ll drag you out! Upper body against the car, arms to the front, fingers spread!”

Something like that. A bit of jostling is unavoidable. Then the frisking. Women’s dresses are particularly suspicious — they have room for all manner of things. A lovely female body, for example. Jill carried a bruise on her breast for a long time afterward.

Luckily, no camera was found either on them or in the car, I should note. Nor any other suspicious articles. Even so, the senior patrolman wanted to arrest them. And then he set eyes on Enrique’s driver’s license.

“Salinas,” he reads. He casts an eye at the car. “The department store fellow?” he inquired.

He did not get an immediate answer.

“Right,” he heard finally. Not from Enrique, but from Jill.

“I’m asking you, Jack!” The patrolman gave Enrique a tap on the leg with a boot tip.

“You heard,” growled Enrique. The officer got ready to let fly, but his senior held him back.

“Didn’t you see the speed sign?” he asked. It was not exactly keen cross-questioning, but then they don’t always put the brightest men on highway patrol duty.

“Yes, I did,” said Enrique.

“Then why didn’t you keep to the limit?” the patrolman probed.

“I think one of the spark plugs is on the blink,” Enrique ventured.

“On the blink, my ass,” the senior patrolman opined. “You’d do better hitting your study books than bumming along the highway!”