The Collected Novels Of Jose Saramago Part 24

The superintendent was waiting for someone inside to ask Who is it, but the door simply opened and a woman appeared and said, Yes. The superintendent put his hand in his pocket and produced his identification, Police, he said, And what do the police want with the people who live in this apartment, asked the woman, The answers to a few questions, About what, Look, I hardly think the landing is the best place to begin an interrogation, Oh, so it's an interrogation, is it, asked the woman, Madam, even if I only had two questions to ask you, it would still be an interrogation, You appreciate precision in language I see, Especially in the answers I am given, Now that's a good answer, It wasn't difficult, you served it up to me on a plate, And I'll serve you up some others if what you're after is the truth, Looking for the truth is the fundamental aim of any policeman, Well, I'm very glad to hear you say that so emphatically, you'd better come in, my husband has just popped out to buy the newspapers, he won't be long, If you prefer, if you think it would be more proper, I can wait outside, Nonsense, come in, in what safer hands could anyone be than in those of the police, said the woman. The superintendent went in, the woman walked ahead of him and opened the door to a welcoming living-room in which one sensed a friendly, lived-in atmosphere, Please, superintendent, sit down, she said, and asked, Would you like a cup of coffee, No, thank you, we don't accept anything when we're on duty, Naturally, that's how all the great corruptions begin, a cup of coffee today, a cup of coffee tomorrow, and by the third cup, it's too late, It's one of our rules, madam, May I ask you to satisfy one little curiosity of mine, What's that, You told me that you were from the police, you showed me an ident.i.ty card that says you're a superintendent, but, as far as I know, the police withdrew from the capital some weeks ago, leaving us to fall into the clutches of the violence and crime that is rife everywhere, am I to understand from your presence here today that our policemen have come home, No, madam, we have not, to use your expression, come home, we are still on the other side of the dividing line, You must have strong reasons, then, to cross the frontier, Yes, very strong, And the questions you have come to ask are, naturally, to do with those reasons, Naturally, So I'd better wait until you ask them, Exactly. Three minutes later, they heard the front door open. The woman left the room and said to the person who had come in, Guess what, we've got a visitor, a police superintendent no less, And since when have police superintendents been interested in innocent people. These last words were spoken in the room itself, the doctor preceding his wife and addressing the superintendent, who answered, getting up out of the chair in which he had been sitting, There are no innocent people, even when not guilty of an actual crime, we are all unfailingly guilty of some fault, And what crime or fault are we being blamed for or accused of, There's no rush, doctor, let's make ourselves comfortable first, that way we can talk more easily. The doctor and his wife sat down on a sofa and waited. The superintendent remained silent for a few seconds, he was suddenly unsure which was the best tactic to adopt. It was one thing for the inspector and the sergeant, in order not to start the hare too early, to limit themselves, in accordance with the instructions they had been given, to asking questions about the murder of the blind man, but he, the superintendent, had his eyes fixed on a more ambitious goal, to find out if the woman before him, sitting beside her husband as calmly as if, owing nothing, she had nothing to fear, was, as well as being a murderer, also part of the diabolical plot that had caused the government's current state of humiliation, having forced it to bow its head and kneel. It is not known who in the official department of cryptography decided to bestow on the superintendent the grotesque code-name of puffin, doubtless some personal enemy, for a more fitting and justifiable nickname would be alekhine, the grand master of chess, who has, sadly, now left the ranks of the living. The doubt that had arisen dissipated like smoke and a solid certainty took its place. Observe with what sublime, combinatorial art he is about to develop the moves that will lead him, or so he thinks, to the final checkmate. With a sly smile, he said, Actually I wouldn't mind that cup of coffee you were kind enough to offer me, It's my duty to remind you that the police accept nothing while on duty, the doctor's wife replied, enjoying the game, Superintendents are authorized to infringe the rules whenever they think it appropriate, You mean when useful to the interests of the investigation, You could put it like that, And you're not afraid that the coffee I'm about to bring you will be a step along the road to corruption, Ah, I seem to remember you saying that that only happens with the third cup of coffee, No, what I said was that the third cup of coffee completed the corrupting process, the first opened the door, the second held it open so that the aspirant to corruption could enter without stumbling, the third slammed the door shut, Thank you for the warning, which I take as a piece of advice, and so I'll stop at the first cup, Which will be served at once, said the woman, and with that she left the room. The superintendent glanced at his watch. Are you in a hurry, asked the doctor pointedly, No, doctor, I'm not in a hurry, I was just wondering if I'm keeping you from your lunch, It's too early yet for lunch, And I was also wondering how long it will take before I can leave here with the answers I want, Does that mean that you know the answers you want or that you want answers to your questions, asked the doctor, adding, they are not the same thing, You're quite right, they're not, during the brief conversation I had alone with your wife, she had occasion to remark that I admire precision in language, and I see that is also the case with you, In my profession, it's not unusual for diagnostic errors to occur simply because of some linguistic imprecision, You know, I've been calling you doctor and you haven't yet asked me how I know you're a doctor, Because it seems to me a waste of time asking a policeman how he knows what he knows or claims to know, A good answer, just as one would not ask G.o.d how he became omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent, You're not saying that the police are G.o.d, are you, We are merely his modest representatives on earth, doctor, Oh, I thought they were the churches and the priests, The churches and the priests are only second in the ranks.

The woman came back with the coffee, three cups on a tray and a few plain biscuits. It seems that everything in this world is doomed to repeat itself, thought the superintendent, while his palate relived the tastes of breakfast at providential ltd, Thank you very much, but I'll just have the coffee, he said. When he replaced the cup on the tray, he thanked her again and added with a knowing smile, Excellent coffee, madam, I might even reconsider my decision not to have a second cup. The doctor and his wife had already finished theirs. None of them had touched the biscuits. The superintendent produced a notebook from his jacket pocket, prepared his pen, and allowed his voice to emerge in a neutral, expressionless tone, as if he were not really interested in the answer, What explanation would you give, madam, for the fact that during the epidemic four years ago you did not go blind. The doctor and his wife looked at each other, surprised, and she asked, How do you know that I didn't go blind four years ago, Just now, said the superintendent, your husband, with great perspicacity, remarked that he considered it a waste of time asking a policeman how he knows what he knows or claims to know, Yes, but I'm not my husband, And I do not have to reveal, either to you or to him, the secrets of my profession, it's enough that I know you did not go blind. The doctor made as if to intervene, but his wife placed her hand on his arm, All right, then, tell me, and I a.s.sume that this is not a secret, of what possible interest can it be to the police that I did or did not go blind four years ago, If you had gone blind like everyone else, if you had gone blind as I myself did, you can be quite sure that I would not be here now, Was it a crime not to go blind, she asked, No, not going blind wasn't and never could be a crime, although, now that you mention it, you were able to commit a crime precisely because you weren't blind, A crime, A murder. The woman glanced at her husband as if asking his advice, then turned rapidly back to the superintendent and said, Yes, it's true, I did kill a man. She did not go on, she kept her eyes fixed on him, waiting. The superintendent pretended to be writing something down in his notebook, but all he was doing was playing for time, trying to think what his next move would be. The woman's response had surprised him less because she had confessed to a murder than because of the way she had immediately fallen silent again afterward, as if there were nothing more to be said on the subject. And the truth is, he thought, it isn't the crime that interests me. I a.s.sume you had a good reason, he ventured, For what, asked the woman, For committing the crime, It wasn't a crime, What was it then, .An act of justice, That's what the courts are for, to administer justice, But I could hardly have gone and complained to the police, for as you yourself said, at the time, you were blind, like everyone else, Apart from you, Yes, apart from me, Who did you kill, A rapist, a vile creature, Are you telling me that you killed someone who was raping you, No, not me, a friend, Was she blind, Yes, she was, And the man was blind too, Yes, How did you kill him, With a pair of scissors, Did you stab him in the heart, No, in the throat, You don't have the face of a murderer, I'm not a murderer, You killed a man, He wasn't a man, superintendent, he was a bedbug. The superintendent wrote something else down and turned to the doctor, And where were you, sir, while your wife was busy killing this bedbug, In the dormitory of the former lunatic asylum where they had put us when they still thought that by isolating the first people to go blind they could stop the spread of the blindness, You are, I believe, an ophthalmologist, Yes, I had the privilege, if I can call it that, of dealing with the first person to go blind, A man or a woman, A man, Did he end up in the same dormitory, Yes, along with a few other people who were in my surgery at the time, Did it seem to you a good thing that your wife had murdered the rapist, It seemed necessary, Why, You wouldn't ask that question if you had been there, Possibly, but I wasn't, and so I'll ask you again why it seemed necessary to you that your wife should have killed the bedbug, that is, the man raping her friend, Someone had to do it, and she was the only one who could see, Just because the bedbug was a rapist, It wasn't just him, all the others in the same dormitory were demanding women in exchange for food, he was the ringleader, Your wife was also raped, Yes, Before or after her friend, Before. The superintendent made another note in his book, then asked, In your view, as an ophthalmologist, what explanation could there be for the fact that your wife did not go blind, In my view as an ophthalmologist, there is no explanation, You have a remarkable wife, sir, Yes, I do, but not just because of that, What happened afterward to the people who had been interned in that old lunatic asylum, There was a fire, most of them must have been burned alive or crushed by falling masonry, How do you know there was falling masonry, Very simple, because we could hear it once we were outside, And how did you and your wife escape, We got out in time, You were lucky, Yes, she guided us, Who do you mean by us, Myself and a few other people, the ones who had been in my surgery, Who were they, The first blind man, to whom I referred earlier, and his wife, a young woman with conjunctivitis, an older man with a cataract, and a young boy with a squint who was with his mother, And your wife helped them all escape from the fire, Yes, all of them, apart from the boy's mother, she wasn't in the asylum, she had got separated from her son, and they only found each other again weeks after we had recovered our sight, Who took care of the boy during that time, We did, Your wife and yourself, Yes, well, she did, because she could see, and the rest of us helped as best we could, Do you mean to say that you lived together as a group, with your wife as guide, As guide and provider, You were very lucky, said the superintendent again, You could call it that, Did you stay in touch with the people in the group once things had got back to normal, Yes, of course, And you still do, Apart from the first blind man, yes, Why that one exception, He wasn't a very nice person, In what sense, In all senses, That's too vague, Yes, I know, And you don't want to be more specific, Speak to him yourself and make up your own mind, Do you know where they live, Who, The first blind man and his wife, They split up, they're divorced, Do you still see her, Yes, we do, But not him, No, not him, Why, As I said, he's not a nice person. The superintendent went back to his notebook and wrote down his own name so that it would not look as if he had learned nothing from such a long interrogation. He was about to make his next move, the most problematic and risky of the whole game. He raised his head, looked at the doctor's wife, opened his mouth to speak, but she antic.i.p.ated him, You're a police superintendent, you came and identified yourself as such and have been asking us all kinds of questions, but aside from the matter of the premeditated murder which I committed and to which I have confessed, but for which there were no witnesses, some because they died, and all of them because they were blind, not to mention the fact that no one wants to know now what happened four years ago when everything was in chaos and the law was a mere dead letter, we are still waiting for you to tell us what brought you here, I think it's time you put your cards on the table, stopped beating about the bush and got straight down to what really interests the person who sent you here. Up until that moment, the superintendent had had a very clear idea of the aim of the mission with which he had been charged by the interior minister, neither more nor less than finding out if there was some relationship between the phenomenon of the blank votes and the woman sitting there before him, but her interpolation, blunt and to the point, had disarmed him, and, worse than that, had made him suddenly aware of how ridiculous it would seem if he were to ask her, with his eyes cast down because he would not have the courage to look at her, You wouldn't by any chance be the organizer, the leader, the head of the subversive movement that came into being in order to place democracy in a situation which it would be no exaggeration to describe as perilous, if not fatal, What subversive movement, she would ask, The one behind the blank votes, Are you telling me that casting a blank vote is a subversive act, she would ask again, If it happens in large numbers, yes, And where does it say that, in the const.i.tution, in the electoral law, in the ten commandments, in the highway code, on the cough medicine bottle, she would insist, Well, it's not written down exactly, but anyone can see that it's a simple matter of a hierarchy of values and of common sense, first there are the valid votes, then the blank votes, then the void votes, and, finally, the abstentions, I mean, obviously, democracy will be imperiled if one of those secondary categories overtakes the primary one, the votes are there so that we can make prudent use of them, And I'm the person to blame for what happened, That's what I'm trying to find out, And just how did I manage to get the majority of the population to cast blank votes, by slipping pamphlets under their doors, offering up midnight prayers and conjurations, adding a special chemical to the water supply, promising first prize in the lottery to everyone, or buying votes with the money my husband earns at his surgery, You kept your sight when everyone else was blind and you have been unable or unwilling to explain why, And that makes me guilty of a plot against world democracy, That's what I'm trying to find out, Well, go and find out, and when you've completed your investigation, come and tell me about it, until then you won't get another word out of me. And that, above all else, was what the superintendent did not want. He was just preparing to say that he had no further questions, but would return the following day, when the doorbell rang. The doctor got up and went to see who it was. He returned to the living-room accompanied by the inspector. This gentleman says he's a police inspector and that you gave him orders to come here, Yes, I did, said the superintendent, but I've finished my work for the day, we'll continue tomorrow at the same hour, Sir, you told me and the sergeant, the inspector broke in, but the superintendent cut him off, What I did or did not tell you is of no interest now, So, tomorrow, will all three of us come, Inspector, that question is impertinent, any decisions I make are made in the proper place and at the proper time, and you will find out what they are in due course, replied the superintendent angrily. He turned to the doctor's wife and said, Tomorrow, as you requested, I won't waste time with circ.u.mlocutions, I'll come straight to the point, and you'll find what I have to ask you no less extraordinary than I find the fact that you kept your sight during the general epidemic of blindness four years ago, I went blind, the inspector went blind, your husband went blind, but you did not, we'll find out if, in this case, the old dictum holds true, she that made the saucepan made the lid, So it's to do with saucepans, then, superintendent, asked the doctor's wife in a wry tone, No, it's to do with lids, madam, lids, replied the superintendent as he withdrew, relieved that his adversary had supplied him with a reasonably nimble exit line. He had a faint headache.

THEY DID NOT HAVE LUNCH TOGETHER. STICKING TO HIS TACTIC OF controlled dispersal, the superintendent reminded the inspector and the sergeant, when they went their separate ways, that they should not go to the same restaurants they had gone to yesterday, and, just as he would have done had he been his own subordinate, he himself scrupulously carried out the orders he had given. He did so in a spirit of self-sacrifice too, for he ended up choosing a restaurant which, despite the three stars promised on the menu, only put one on his plate. This time, there was not one meeting-point, but two, the sergeant was waiting at the first, and the inspector at the second. They both saw at once that their superior was not in the mood for conversation, the encounter with the ophthalmologist and his wife had clearly not gone well. And since they, in turn, had gleaned no useful results from their investigations, the planned exchange and study of information back at providential ltd, insurance and reinsurance, did not promise to be the smoothest of rides. This professional tension was only heightened by the unexpected and troubling question put to them by the garage attendant when they arrived in their car, Where are you gentlemen from. It is true that the superintendent, all honor to him and to his experience in the job, did not lose his cool, We're from providential ltd, he replied sharply, and then, even more sharply, We're going to park where we always park, in the company's designated s.p.a.ce, so your question is not just impertinent, it's rude, It may well be impertinent and rude, but I really don't remember seeing you here before, That, said the superintendent, is because not only are you rude, you also have a very poor memory, my colleagues here are new to the company and this is their first visit, but I've certainly been here before, now get out of our way will you, the driver's a little nervous and he might accidentally run you over. They parked the car and got into the lift. Not even considering that it might be a rash thing to say, the sergeant was eager to explain that he wasn't in the least nervous, that in the apt.i.tude tests he'd done before joining the police, he had been described as very calm, but the superintendent silenced him with a brusque gesture. And now, protected by the reinforced walls and soundproof floor and ceiling of providential ltd, he launched a pitiless attack, Did it not even occur to you, you idiot, that there might be microphones installed in the lift, I'm sorry, sir, really I am, I wasn't thinking, spluttered the poor man, Tomorrow, you can stay here and keep watch over the place and use the time to write out five hundred times I am an idiot, Sir, please, Oh, leave it, take no notice, I know I'm exaggerating, but that man annoyed me, we've been carefully avoiding using the front door so as not to draw attention to ourselves and then that creep shows up, Perhaps we should get our people to write him a note, the way they did with the porter before we arrived, suggested the inspector, That would be counter-productive, we don't want anyone to notice us at all, It may be too late for that, sir, perhaps if the service has another place in the city, it would be best if we moved in there, Oh, they have, they have, but as far as I know, none of them is currently in operation, We could try, No, there's no time, and, besides, the ministry wouldn't like the idea, this business has got to be sorted out quickly, urgently, May I speak frankly, sir, asked the inspector, Go ahead, Well, it seems to me we're up a blind alley or, worse still, trapped inside a poisoned wasps' nest, What makes you think that, It's hard to explain really, but the fact is that I feel as if we were sitting on a barrel of gunpowder with the fuse lit, and that it's going to blow up at any moment. The superintendent could have been listening to his own thoughts, but his position and the responsibility he bore to the mission he had been charged with allowed for no swerving from the straight road of duty, I disagree, he said, and with those two words brought the matter to a close. controlled dispersal, the superintendent reminded the inspector and the sergeant, when they went their separate ways, that they should not go to the same restaurants they had gone to yesterday, and, just as he would have done had he been his own subordinate, he himself scrupulously carried out the orders he had given. He did so in a spirit of self-sacrifice too, for he ended up choosing a restaurant which, despite the three stars promised on the menu, only put one on his plate. This time, there was not one meeting-point, but two, the sergeant was waiting at the first, and the inspector at the second. They both saw at once that their superior was not in the mood for conversation, the encounter with the ophthalmologist and his wife had clearly not gone well. And since they, in turn, had gleaned no useful results from their investigations, the planned exchange and study of information back at providential ltd, insurance and reinsurance, did not promise to be the smoothest of rides. This professional tension was only heightened by the unexpected and troubling question put to them by the garage attendant when they arrived in their car, Where are you gentlemen from. It is true that the superintendent, all honor to him and to his experience in the job, did not lose his cool, We're from providential ltd, he replied sharply, and then, even more sharply, We're going to park where we always park, in the company's designated s.p.a.ce, so your question is not just impertinent, it's rude, It may well be impertinent and rude, but I really don't remember seeing you here before, That, said the superintendent, is because not only are you rude, you also have a very poor memory, my colleagues here are new to the company and this is their first visit, but I've certainly been here before, now get out of our way will you, the driver's a little nervous and he might accidentally run you over. They parked the car and got into the lift. Not even considering that it might be a rash thing to say, the sergeant was eager to explain that he wasn't in the least nervous, that in the apt.i.tude tests he'd done before joining the police, he had been described as very calm, but the superintendent silenced him with a brusque gesture. And now, protected by the reinforced walls and soundproof floor and ceiling of providential ltd, he launched a pitiless attack, Did it not even occur to you, you idiot, that there might be microphones installed in the lift, I'm sorry, sir, really I am, I wasn't thinking, spluttered the poor man, Tomorrow, you can stay here and keep watch over the place and use the time to write out five hundred times I am an idiot, Sir, please, Oh, leave it, take no notice, I know I'm exaggerating, but that man annoyed me, we've been carefully avoiding using the front door so as not to draw attention to ourselves and then that creep shows up, Perhaps we should get our people to write him a note, the way they did with the porter before we arrived, suggested the inspector, That would be counter-productive, we don't want anyone to notice us at all, It may be too late for that, sir, perhaps if the service has another place in the city, it would be best if we moved in there, Oh, they have, they have, but as far as I know, none of them is currently in operation, We could try, No, there's no time, and, besides, the ministry wouldn't like the idea, this business has got to be sorted out quickly, urgently, May I speak frankly, sir, asked the inspector, Go ahead, Well, it seems to me we're up a blind alley or, worse still, trapped inside a poisoned wasps' nest, What makes you think that, It's hard to explain really, but the fact is that I feel as if we were sitting on a barrel of gunpowder with the fuse lit, and that it's going to blow up at any moment. The superintendent could have been listening to his own thoughts, but his position and the responsibility he bore to the mission he had been charged with allowed for no swerving from the straight road of duty, I disagree, he said, and with those two words brought the matter to a close.

Now they were sitting round the table where they had eaten breakfast that morning, with their notebooks open, ready for a brainstorming session. You start, the superintendent told the sergeant, As soon as I went into the apartment, he said, I could tell no one had tipped the woman off, Of course they hadn't, we had agreed that we would all arrive at half past ten, Yes, but I was a bit late, it was actually ten thirty-seven when I knocked on the door, confessed the sergeant, That doesn't matter now, carry on, let's not waste any more time, She told me to come in and asked if I would like a coffee, and I said I would, well, I didn't see why not, I felt almost like a visitor, then I told her that I was investigating what happened four years ago in the insane asylum, but then I thought it would be best not to broach the subject of the blind murder victim immediately, which is why I decided to ask instead about the cause of the fire, she found it odd that after four years we should want to revisit the very thing that everyone had been trying to forget, and I said that the idea now was to record as many facts as possible because the weeks when those events took place could no longer remain a blank in the nation's history, but she was no fool, she immediately pointed out the incongruity, that was the word she used, of us being in the situation in which we now find ourselves, with the city isolated and under a state of siege because of the blank votes, and someone having the idea of investigating what had happened during the plague of blindness, I have to admit, sir, that, at first, I was completely thrown and didn't know what to say in response, but I managed to come up with an explanation, which was that the investigation had been decided upon before the blank votes business, but that it had got delayed by bureaucratic red tape and that it had only been possible to implement it now, then she said that she had no idea what had caused the fire, it must have been mere coincidence, something that could easily have happened at any time, then I asked her how she had managed to get out, and she started telling me about the doctor's wife and praising her to the skies, saying what a remarkable person she was, completely unlike anyone she had met in her entire life, utterly remarkable, I'm sure, she said, that if it hadn't been for her, I wouldn't be here talking to you today, she saved us all, and it isn't just that she saved us, she did more than that, she protected us, fed us, looked after us, then I asked her who she meant when she used the personal p.r.o.noun us, and she listed, one by one, the people we already know about, and finally, she said that her then husband had also been part of the group, but that she didn't want to talk about him because they'd been divorced for three years, and that was all I learned from the conversation, sir, the impression I came away with was that the doctor's wife must be some kind of heroine, a truly n.o.ble soul. The superintendent pretended not to have heard those last few words. By doing so, he would not have to reprehend the sergeant for describing as a heroine and a truly n.o.ble soul a woman who was currently under suspicion of being involved in the worst crime that could, in the present circ.u.mstances, be committed against the nation. He felt tired. And in a quiet, flat voice, he asked the inspector to report on what he had learned at the house of the prost.i.tute and the old man with the black eye-patch, Well, if she was a prost.i.tute, I don't think she is any more, Why, asked the superintendent, Because she doesn't have the manners or gestures or words or style of a prost.i.tute, You seem to know a lot about prost.i.tutes, Not really sir, only the usual things, plus a bit of personal experience, but mainly preconceived ideas, Go on, They received me politely enough, but they didn't offer me any coffee, Are they married, Well, they were both wearing wedding rings, And what did you make of the old man, He's old, and that's about all there is to be said about him, There you're wrong, there is everything to be said about the old, it's just that no one asks them anything, and so they keep quiet, Well, he didn't, Good for him, carry on, Anyway, I started talking about the fire, as my colleague here did, but then realized that I wouldn't get anywhere doing that, and so I decided to make a head-on attack, I mentioned a letter that the police had received and which described certain criminal acts committed in the asylum before the fire, amongst them a murder, and I asked them if they knew anything about it, and she said that she did, that no one could possibly know more, since she herself was the murderer, And did she say what the murder weapon was, asked the superintendent, Yes, a pair of scissors, And did she stab the man in the heart, No, sir, in the throat, And what else, To be honest, I was completely taken aback, Yes, I can imagine, Suddenly we had two perpetrators for the same crime, Go on, What comes next is pure horror, The fire, you mean, No, sir, she started describing in shocking, almost brutal detail what happened to the women who were raped in the dormitory occupied by the blind men, And what did he do while his wife was describing all this, He just looked straight at me, with his one eye, as if he could see inside me, That's just your imagination, No, sir, I learned then that one eye can see better than two, because, not having the other eye to help it, it has to do all the work itself, Perhaps that's why they say that in the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king, Perhaps it is, sir, Go on, continue, When she had stopped talking, he began by saying that he didn't believe that the motive for my visit, that was the expression he used, had anything to do with ascertaining the causes of a fire of which nothing now remained or of clearing up the circ.u.mstances surrounding a murder that could never be proved, and that, if I had nothing more of any value to add, would I please leave, And what did you say, I invoked my authority as a policeman, said that I'd gone there with a mission to carry out and that I'd take whatever steps were necessary to do so, And what did he say, He replied that, in that case, I must be the only policeman on duty in the entire capital, since the police force had disappeared weeks ago, and that he therefore thanked me for my concern for their safety and, he hoped, my concern for the safety of a few other people too, since he couldn't quite believe that a policeman had been sent solely for the benefit of the two people in that room, And then, The situation had become difficult and I couldn't really do much more, the only way I could find of covering my retreat was by saying that they should prepare themselves for a confrontation in court because, according to the information we had, which was absolutely reliable, it was not she who had killed the leader of the blind criminals, but another person, a woman who had already been identified, And how did they react, At first, I thought I had frightened them, but the old man recovered at once and said that, there in their home, or wherever it might be, they would be accompanied by a lawyer who knew more about the law than the police, Do you think you really did frighten them, asked the superintendent, Yes, I think so, but obviously I can't be sure, They might have been afraid, but certainly not for themselves, Who for, then, sir, For the real murderer, the doctor's wife, But the prost.i.tute, Look, I don't know that we have the right to continue calling her that, inspector, All right, the wife of the man with the black eye-patch said that she was the killer, even though it's true that the man doesn't accuse her in his letter, but the doctor's wife, Who was, in fact, the real perpetrator of the crime, she herself confessed and confirmed as much to me. At this point, it was logical for the inspector and the sergeant to a.s.sume that their superior, now that he had touched on the subject of his own investigations, would give them a more or less complete report of what he had found out from his visit, but the superintendent merely said that he would be going back to the suspects' apartment the next day to interrogate them further and only then would he decide what to do next, And what about us, what should we do tomorrow, asked the inspector, Surveillance operations, nothing more, you take care of the ex-wife of the man who wrote the letter, she doesn't know you, so you shouldn't have any problem, Which means, automatically and by a process of elimination, said the sergeant, that I'll be taking care of the old man and the prost.i.tute, Unless you can prove that she really is a prost.i.tute, or continues to be one if she ever was, the use of the word prost.i.tute is henceforth banned from our conversations, Yes, sir, And even if she is, find some other way of referring to her, Yes, sir, I'll use her name, The names were all transcribed into my notebook, they are no longer in yours, If you'd just tell me what her name is, sir, then there'd be no more of this prost.i.tute business, Sorry, I can't, I consider that information to be, for the moment, confidential, Her name, or all the names, asked the sergeant, All of them, Well, then, I don't know what to call her, You can call her, for example, the girl with the dark gla.s.ses, But she wasn't wearing dark gla.s.ses, I can swear to that, Everyone has worn dark gla.s.ses at least once in their life, replied the superintendent, getting up. Shoulders hunched, he made his way over to the part of the office where he had his bedroom and closed the door behind him. I bet you he's going to get in touch with the ministry, said the inspector, What's up with him, asked the sergeant, He feels as bewildered as we do, It's as if he doesn't believe in what he's doing, Do you, No, but I'm just following orders, he's in charge, he shouldn't be giving off these confusing signals, because we'll be the ones to suffer the consequences, when the wave hits the rock, it's always the mussels that pay, Hm, I'm not sure how accurate a comparison that is, Why, Because it's always seems to me that the mussels are really glad when the water rushes over them, Search me, but I've certainly never heard mussels laugh, Oh, they not only laugh, they positively chuckle, it's just that the sound of the waves drowns them out, and you have to put your ear really close, That's not true, you're having fun now at the expense of a lowly sergeant, Don't get annoyed with me, it's simply a harmless way of pa.s.sing the time, There's a better way than that, What, Sleep, I'm tired, I'm going to bed, The superintendent might need you, What, to go and bang my head against a brick wall again, I don't think so, You're probably right, said the inspector, I'll follow your example and go and have a lie-down too, but I'll leave a note here to tell him to call us if he needs us, Good idea.

The superintendent had taken off his shoes and lain down on the bed. He was lying on his back, with his hands clasped behind his head, looking up at the ceiling, as if hoping for some advice from there or, if not that, at least what we usually call a disinterested opinion. Perhaps because it was soundproof, and therefore deaf, the ceiling had nothing to say to him, and, since it spent most of its time alone, it had practically lost the power of speech. The superintendent was going over in his mind the conversation he'd had with the doctor's wife and her husband, her face and his face, the dog that had got to its feet, growling, when he came in, only to lie down again at a word from his mistress, the old bra.s.s oil lamp which reminded him of an identical one that had been in his parents' house, but which had disappeared no one knew how, he was mixing these memories with what he had just heard from the mouths of the inspector and the sergeant and he was wondering what the h.e.l.l he was doing there. He had crossed the frontier in pure movie detective style, he had convinced himself that he had come to rescue his country from mortal danger, and, in the name of that conviction, had given his subordinates ridiculous orders for which they had been kind enough to forgive him, he had tried to hold together a precarious framework of suspicions that was gradually falling apart with each minute that pa.s.sed, and now he was wondering, surprised by a vague anxiety that made his diaphragm tighten, what reasonably credible information could he, the puffin, invent to transmit to an albatross who would, at this moment, be asking impatiently why he was so late in sending him news. What am I going to say to him, he wondered, that our suspicions about the osprey have been confirmed, that the husband and the others are part of the conspiracy, then he'll ask who these others are, and I'll say there's an old man with a black eye-patch who would really suit the code-name wolf-fish, and a girl with dark gla.s.ses whom we could call catfish, and the ex-wife of the guy who wrote the letter, and she could be called needle-fish, always a.s.suming you agree with these designations, albatross. The superintendent had already got up from the bed and was talking now on the red phone, he was saying, Yes, albatross, the people I've just mentioned are not really big fish, they were just lucky enough to meet the osprey, who protected them, And what did you make of the osprey, puffin, She seemed a decent woman, normal, intelligent, and, if everything the others said about her is true, albatross, and I'm inclined to think it is, then she is clearly a quite extraordinary person, So out of the ordinary, puffin, that she was capable of killing a man with a pair of scissors, According to the witnesses, albatross, the man was a vile rapist, a totally repellent creature, Let's not delude ourselves, puffin, it's clear to me that these people have cooked up a single version of events just in case anyone should ever come and interrogate them, they've had four years to do so, and the way I see it, from the information you've given me and from my own deductions and intuitions, I would bet anything you like that these five people const.i.tute an organized cell, probably, even, the head of that tapeworm we talked about a while ago, Neither I nor my colleagues had that impression, albatross, Well, puffin, you're going to have no option but to change your mind, We would need proof, without proof, we can do nothing, albatross, Find it, then, puffin, make a rigorous search of all their homes, But we can't make house searches without the authorization of a judge, albatross, I would remind you, puffin, that the city is under a state of siege and that all the inhabitants' rights and guarantees have been suspended, And what if we can't find any proof, albatross, I refuse to admit that possibility, puffin, you strike me as rather too ingenuous for a superintendent, as long as I've been interior minister, any proofs that weren't there always turned up in the end, What you're asking me to do is neither easy nor pleasant, albatross, I'm not asking, puffin, I'm ordering you, Yes, albatross, but I would just like to point out that we have found no evidence of any crime, there's no proof that the person whom it was decided to consider as a suspect is, in fact, a suspect, indeed, all the contacts we have made, all the interrogations we have carried out, point to the innocence of that person, The photograph taken of a detainee, puffin, is always that of someone presumed to be innocent, only afterward does one learn that the criminal was there all the time, May I ask a question, albatross, Ask and I will answer, puffin, I've always been good at giving answers, What will happen if no proof of guilt is found, The same as would happen if no proof of innocence were found, How should I understand that, albatross, That there are cases when the sentence has been handed down before the crime has even been committed, In that case, if I understand you rightly, albatross, I ask to be withdrawn from this mission, You will be withdrawn, puffin, I promise you, but not now, nor at your request, you will be withdrawn when this case is closed, and this case will only be closed thanks to the praiseworthy efforts of you and your a.s.sistants, now listen carefully, I'll give you five days, is that clear, five days, not a day longer, to hand over the whole cell to me, bound hand and foot, your osprey and her husband, to whom, poor thing, we didn't ever get round to giving a name, and the three little fishes who have just surfaced, the wolf, the cat and the needle, I want them crushed beneath a weight of evidence impossible to deny, slide out of, contradict or refute, that is what I want, puffin, All right, albatross, I'll do what I can, You will do exactly what I have just said, meanwhile, so that you don't think badly of me, and being, as I am, a reasonable person, I realize that you will need some help to bring your work to a successful conclusion, Are you going to send me another inspector, albatross, No, puffin, my help will be of a different nature, but just as effective, or possibly more so, than if I were to despatch all the police at my command, I don't understand, albatross, You will be the first to understand when the bell sounds, The bell, The bell for the last round, puffin. The line went dead.

The superintendent left the room when it was twenty minutes past six by the clock. He read the message that the inspector had left on the table and wrote underneath it, I have something to sort out, wait for me. He went down to the garage, got into the car, started it and headed for the exit ramp. There he stopped and beckoned to the attendant. Still smarting from the angry exchange of words and the ill-treatment he had received from the tenant of providential ltd, the man came reluctantly over to the car window and uttered the customary phrase, Can I help you, A while ago, I was rather rough with you, Oh, that's all right, we're used to it here, Yes, but I didn't mean to offend you, No, I'm sure you didn't, sir, Superintendent, I'm a police superintendent, here's my identification, Forgive me, superintendent, I would never have imagined, and the other gentlemen, The youngest is a sergeant and the other one is an inspector, I understand, superintendent, and I promise I won't bother you again, but I had the very best of intentions, We've been carrying out an investigation here, but that's finished now, and so we're just like anyone else, it's as if we were on holiday, although, for your own sake, I nevertheless recommend great discretion, remember that, even when he's on holiday, a policeman is still a policeman, it is, if you like, in his blood, Oh, I understand perfectly, superintendent, but, in that case, if you don't mind me speaking frankly, it would have been better not to have told me anything, what the eye doesn't see, the heart doesn't grieve over, he that knows nothing sees nothing, Yes, but I needed to tell someone, and you were the person nearest to hand. The car was already going up the ramp, but the superintendent had one further piece of advice, Keep your mouth shut, I wouldn't want to have to regret what I told you. He certainly would have regretted it if he had turned round, for he would have found the man muttering secretively into the phone, perhaps telling his wife that he had just met a police superintendent, perhaps informing the porter of the ident.i.ty of the three men in dark suits who always go straight up from the garage to providential ltd, insurance and reinsurance, perhaps this, perhaps that, we will probably never know the truth about this phone call. A few meters further on, the superintendent drew up by the kerb, took his notebook out of his jacket pocket, leafed through it until he reached the page where he had transcribed the names and addresses of the treacherous letter-writer's former companions, then consulted the map and the city guide to check again where the traitor's ex-wife lived, since she was closest. He also made a note of the route he would have to follow to the house of the man with the black eye-patch and the girl with the dark gla.s.ses. He smiled to remember the sergeant's confusion when he told him that this would be the perfect name for the wife of the old man with the black eye-patch, But she wasn't wearing dark gla.s.ses, the poor sergeant had replied, bewildered. That was unfair of me, thought the superintendent, I should have shown him the group photo, in which the girl is standing with her arms by her side and in her right hand is holding a pair of dark gla.s.ses, elementary, my dear watson, but one had to have a superintendent's eyes to notice such things. He started the car. An impulse had made him leave providential ltd, an impulse had made him tell the garage attendant who he was, an impulse is taking him now to the home of the divorcee, an impulse will take him to the home of the old man with the black eye-patch, and the same impulse would have driven him afterward to the home of the doctor's wife had he not told them, both wife and husband, that he would be back tomorrow, at the same time, to continue the interrogation. What interrogation, he thought, would he say to her, for example, you are suspected of being the organizer, the leader, the king-pin of the subversive movement that has placed democracy in such grave danger, I am referring to the blank vote movement, and don't play the innocent with me, don't waste my time asking me if I have proof of what I'm saying, you, madam, are the one who will have to prove her innocence, because you can be quite sure, madam, that the proof will appear when it's needed, it's just a matter of inventing one or two irrefutable ones, and even if they're not completely irrefutable, the circ.u.mstantial evidence, however remote in time, will be enough for us, as will the incomprehensible fact that you did not go blind four years ago when everyone else in the city was stumbling around and b.u.mping into lampposts, and before you say that one thing has nothing to do with the other, let me just say, she that made the saucepan made the lid, that, at least, albeit expressed in different words, is the opinion of my minister, whom I have to obey even if it makes my heart ache, now you will say, a superintendent's heart can't ache, well, that's what you think, you may know a lot about superintendents, but I can guarantee you know nothing about this one, it's true I didn't come here with the honest aim of finding out the truth, it's true that you will have been condemned before even being judged, but the heart of this puffin, which is what my minister calls me, is aching and I don't know how to make it stop, take my advice, confess, confess even if you're not guilty, the government will tell the people that they have been the victims of an unparalleled case of ma.s.s hypnosis, that you are a genius in the art, people might even be amused and life will get back on track, you'll spend a few years in prison, your friends will end up there too if we so choose, and meanwhile, of course, there'll be a reform of the electoral law and an end to blank votes, or else they'll be distributed equally amongst all the parties as valid votes, so that the percentages will not be affected, after all, dear lady, it's the percentages that count, as for the voters who abstain and fail to produce a medical certificate, why not publish their names in the newspapers just as, in the olden days, criminals were pilloried in the public square, the reason I'm speaking to you in this way is because I like you, and just so that you can see how much I like you, I will tell you that the greatest happiness life could have given me four years ago, apart from not having lost part of my family in that tragedy, which, alas, I did, would have been to be a member of the group that you protected, I wasn't a superintendent then, I was a blind inspector, just a blind inspector who, after recovering his sight, would be there in the photo along with the others whom you saved from the fire, and your dog would not have growled when he saw me, and if all that and more had happened, I would be able to declare on my word of honor to the interior minister that he is wrong, that an experience like that and four years of friendship are enough for anyone to say that they know a person well, and to think that I entered your house as an enemy and now don't know how to leave it, whether alone, in order to confess to the minister that I have failed in my mission, or accompanied by you, taking you to prison. These last thoughts did not come from the superintendent, he was now more concerned with finding somewhere to park than with antic.i.p.ating decisions on the fate of a suspect and on his own fate. He once more consulted his notebook and rang the bell of the apartment block where the ex-wife of the man who wrote the letter lives. He rang again and again, but the door did not open. He was reaching out his hand to make a fresh attempt, when he saw a ground-floor window open and an elderly woman in rollers and a housecoat poke her head out, Who are you looking for, she asked, The lady who lives in the first-floor apartment on the right, replied the superintendent, She's not in, in fact, I saw her go out, Do you know when she'll be back, No idea, but I'll be glad to give her a message, said the woman, Thank you, but it doesn't really matter, I'll come back another day. It didn't even occur to him that the woman with the rollers might be thinking that the divorcee on the first floor on the right had apparently taken to receiving male visitors, the one who came this morning and this one now, who was old enough to be her father. The superintendent glanced at the map open on the seat beside him, started the car and set off for his second objective. This time, no neighbors appeared at the windows. The street door was open and so he could go straight up to the second floor, this is where the old man with the black eye-patch and the girl with the dark gla.s.ses live, what a strange couple, it's understandable that their helplessness when blind would have brought them together, but four years had pa.s.sed, and while, for a young woman, four years are nothing, for an old man, it's more like eight. And yet they're still together, thought the superintendent. He rang the bell and waited. No one answered. He pressed his ear to the door and listened. Silence from the other side. He rang again out of habit, not because he expected anyone to come. He went down the stairs, got into the car and murmured, I know where they are. If he had had a direct line in his car and could have phoned the minister to tell him where he was going, he was sure the minister would reply in more or less these words, Bravo, puffin, that's the way to do it, catch those guys red-handed, but be careful, you should take reinforcements with you really, a man alone against five desperate villains, that's the kind of thing you only see in movies, besides, you don't know karate, that's after your time, Don't worry, albatross, I may not know karate, but I know what I'm doing, Go in there with your gun in your hand, terrify them, scare the s.h.i.t out of them, Yes, albatross, Good, I'll start sorting out your medal now, There's no hurry, albatross, we don't yet know if I'll get out of this enterprise alive, It's a dead cert, puffin, I have every confidence in you, oh, I certainly knew what I was doing when I appointed you to this mission, Yes, albatross.

The streetlights come on, the evening is creeping up the ramp of the sky, soon night will begin. The superintendent rang the bell, no reason for surprise, policemen mostly do ring the bell, they don't always kick the door down. The doctor's wife appeared, I was expecting you tomorrow, superintendent, I'm afraid I can't talk to you right now, she said, we have visitors, Yes, I know them, that is, I don't know them personally, but I know who they are, That doesn't seem reason enough for me to let you in, Please, My friends have nothing to do with what brought you here, Not even you know what brought me here, and it's high time you did, Come in.

THERE IS AN IDEA ABROAD THAT, GENERALLY SPEAKING, THE CONSCIENCE of a police superintendent tends, on professional grounds and on principle, to be fairly accommodating, not to say resigned to the incontrovertible fact, theoretically and practically proven, that what must be must be and that there's nothing to be done about it. The truth is, however, that, although it may not be the most common of spectacles, it has been known for one of these valuable public servants, by chance and when least expected, to find himself caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, that is, between what he should be and what he would prefer not to be. For the superintendent of providential ltd, insurance and reinsurance, that day has come. He had spent at most half an hour at the home of the doctor's wife, but that short time was enough to reveal to the astonished group gathered there the murky depths of his mission. He said he would do everything possible to divert from that place and those people the more than disquieting attentions of his superiors, but that he could not guarantee success, he told them he had been given the extremely tight deadline of five days to conclude the investigation and knew that the only acceptable verdict would be one of guilty, and, addressing the doctor's wife, he said The person they want to make the scapegoat, if you'll forgive the obvious impropriety of the expression, is you, madam, and, possibly indirectly, your husband, as for the others, I don't think you're in any real danger, your crime, madam, wasn't murdering that man, your great crime was not going blind when the rest of us did, the incomprehensible can be merely an object of scorn, but not if there is always a way of using it as a pretext. It is three o'clock in the morning, and the superintendent is tossing and turning in bed, unable to get to sleep. He is mentally making plans for the next day, he repeats them obsessively and then starts all over again, telling the inspector and the sergeant that, as arranged, he will go to the doctor's house to continue the interrogation of the wife, reminding them of the task he had charged them with, following the other members of the group, but, given the present situation, none of this makes sense any more, now what he needs to do is to impede, to hinder events, to invent for the investigation advances and delays that will, without making it too obvious, simultaneously feed and hamper the minister's plans, in short, he needs to wait and see what the minister's promised help involves. It was nearly half past three when the red telephone rang. The superintendent leapt out of bed, put on the slippers bearing the police insignia and, half-ran, half-stumbled over to the desk on which the phone stood. Even before he had sat down, he was putting the receiver to his ear and saying, h.e.l.lo, It's albatross here, said the voice at the other end, h.e.l.lo, albatross, puffin here, Now pay attention, puffin, I have some instructions for you, Yes, albatross, Today, at nine o'clock, this morning, not tonight, a person will be waiting for you at post six-north on the frontier, the army has been warned, so there'll be no problem, Am I to understand that this person is coming to replace me, albatross, There's no reason for you to think that, puffin, you have done well so far and will, I hope, continue to do so until this affair is closed, Thank you, albatross, and what are your orders, As I said, a person will be waiting for you at nine o'clock this morning at post six-north on the frontier, Yes, albatross, I've already made a note of that, You will give this person the photograph you mentioned, the one of the group in which the main suspect appears, you will also give him the list of names and addresses you obtained and which you have in your possession. The superintendent felt a shiver run down his spine, But that photograph is necessary for my on-going investigations, he said, Well, I don't think it's as necessary as you say it is, puffin, indeed, I would go so far as to say that you don't need it at all, given that, either personally or through your subordinates, you have already made contact with all the members of the gang, You mean group, don't you, albatross, A gang is a group, Yes, albatross, but not all groups are gangs, Why, puffin, I had no idea you were so concerned about correct definitions, you obviously make good use of dictionaries, Forgive me for correcting you, albatross, my mind's still a bit fuzzy, Were you asleep, No, albatross, I was thinking about what I have to do tomorrow, Well, now you know, the person who will be waiting for you at post six-north is a man about your age and he will be wearing a blue tie with white spots, I shouldn't think there will be many other ties like that at military posts on the frontier, Do I know him, albatross, No, you don't, he's not from our department, Ah, He will respond to your pa.s.sword with the phrase No, there's never enough, And what's mine, There's always plenty of time, Very good, albatross, your orders will be carried out, I'll be there on the frontier at nine o'clock to meet him, Now go back to bed and sleep well for the rest of the night, puffin, I myself have been working up until now, so I'm going to do the same, May I ask you a question, albatross, Of course, but keep it short, Does the photograph have anything to do with the help you promised me, Very sharp of you, puffin, nothing gets past you, does it, So it does have something to do with it, Yes, it has everything to do with it, but don't expect me to tell you how, if I told you that, it would ruin the element of surprise, Even though I'm the person directly responsible for the investigations, Exactly, Does that mean you don't trust me, albatross, Draw a square on the ground, puffin, and put yourself inside it, within the s.p.a.ce delineated by the lines of that square I trust you, but outside of it, I trust only myself, your investigation is that square, be content with the square and with your investigation, Yes, albatross, Sleep well, puffin, you'll hear from me before the week is out, I'll be here waiting, albatross, Good night, puffin, Good night, albatross. Despite the minister's conventional wishes for a good night's sleep, what little remained of the night did not prove of much use to the superintendent. Sleep refused to come, the doors and pa.s.sageways of the brain were all closed, and inside ruled insomnia, queen and absolute mistress. Why does he want the photo, he asked himself over and over again, what did he mean by that threat that I would hear from him before the week was out, there was no threat contained in the individual words, but the tone, yes, the tone was threatening, if the superintendent, after a lifetime of interrogating all kinds of people, has learned to distinguish in amongst the tangled labyrinth of syllables the path he must follow to get out, he is also perfectly capable of noticing the shadowy zones that each word produces and trails behind it whenever it is p.r.o.nounced. Say out loud the words You'll hear from me before the week is out, and you will see how easy it is to introduce into them a drop of insidious dread, the putrid stench of fear, the authoritarian timbre of a paternal ghost. The superintendent would prefer to think such soothing thoughts as these, But I have no reason to feel afraid, I do my work, I carry out the orders I'm given, and yet, in the depths of his conscience, he knew this was not true, he wasn't carrying out those orders for the simple reason that he did not believe that because the doctor's wife had not gone blind four years she was therefore to blame for eighty-three percent of the capital's voting population having cast blank votes, as if the first odd fact were automatically responsible for the second. Even he doesn't believe it, he thought, he just wants a target to aim at, if this one fails, he'll find another, and another, and another, as many as it takes until he finally gets it right, or until, by dint of sheer repet.i.tion, the people he is trying to persuade of his merits grow indifferent to the methods and processes he adopts. In either case, the party will have won. Thanks to the skeleton key of digression, sleep had managed to open a door, escape down one of the corridors and immediately set the superintendent dreaming that the interior minister had asked him for the photograph so that he could stick a pin through the eyes of the doctor's wife, all the while singing a wizard's spell, Blind you were not, blind you will be, white you wore, black you will see, with this pin I p.r.i.c.k you, from behind and before. Terrified, drenched in sweat, his heart pounding, the superintendent woke to the screams of the doctor's wife and the loud laughter of the minister, What an awful dream, he muttered as he turned on the light, what monstrous things the brain can generate. According to the clock, it was half past seven. He calculated how much time he would need to reach post six-north and was almost tempted to thank the nightmare for having been so kind as to wake him. He dragged himself out of bed, his head weighed heavy as lead, his legs weighed even more than his head, and he staggered uncertainly to the bathroom. He emerged twenty minutes later, slightly reinvigorated by the shower, newly shaved and ready for work. He put on a clean shirt and finished dressing, He'll be wearing a blue tie with white spots, he thought, and went into the kitchen to heat up a cup of coffee left over from the previous evening. The inspector and the sergeant must still have been sleeping, at least, they gave no sign of life. He munched his way unenthusiastically through a biscuit, and even bit into another one, then returned to the bathroom to clean his teeth. He went into the bedroom, placed in a medium-sized envelope the photograph and the list of names and addresses, having first copied the latter onto another piece of paper, and when he went back into the sitting-room, he heard noises coming from the room in the apartment where his subordinates were sleeping. He didn't wait for them, nor did he knock on their door. He scribbled a note, I had to go out early, I'm taking the car, do as I told you yesterday and concentrate on following the women, the wife of the man with the black eye-patch and the ex-wife of the man who wrote the letter, have lunch out if you can manage it, I'll be back here later this afternoon, I expect results. Clear orders, precise instructions, if only everything could be like