gic would say, but since when has logic ruled human decisions, that the various military posts would have been numbered in a clockwise direction from the westernmost point of the northern sector, hour-glasses are clearly of no use in this instance. Perhaps this reasoning is wrong, but then since when has reason ruled human decisions, not an easy question to answer, but it's always better to have one oar than none, and, besides, it is written that a moored boat goes nowhere, and so the superintendent put a cross where it seemed to him post number six should be and set off. Since the traffic was light and there wasn't so much as the shadow of a policeman on the streets, he was sorely tempted to jump every red light he came to, a temptation he did not resist. He was not speeding, he was flying, he barely took his foot off the accelerator, and when he had to brake, he performed a controlled skid, as those acrobats of the steering-wheel do in car chases in the movies, making the more nervous spectators jump in their seats. The superintendent had never driven like this in his life and he never would again. It was already gone nine o'clock when he finally reached post six-north, and the soldier who came to find out what this agitated driver wanted told him that this was, in fact, five-north. The superintendent swore out loud and was about to turn round, but stopped this precipitate gesture just in time and asked in which direction he would find six-north. The soldier pointed east and, just in case there was any doubt, uttered two brief words, That way. Fortunately, there was a road running more or less parallel to the frontier, it was only a matter of three kilometers, the way is clear, there aren't even any traffic lights, the car started, accelerated, braked, took a bend at breathtaking speed and screeched to a halt, almost touching the yellow line painted across the street, there it is, post six-north. Next to the barrier, about thirty meters away, a middle-aged man was waiting, So he's quite a bit younger than me, thought the superintendent. He picked up the envelope and got out of the car. He couldn't see a single soldier, they must have had orders to keep out of sight or to look the other way while this ceremony of meeting and handing-over took place. The superintendent walked toward the man. He was holding the envelope in his hand and thinking, I mustn't make any excuses about being late, if I were to say Hello, good morning, sorry about the delay, I had a bit of trouble finding the place, and, do you know what, albatross forgot to tell me where post six-north was, you didn't have to be a genius to realize that this long, rambling sentence could be understood by the other man as a false password, and then one of two things would happen, the man would either summon the soldiers to arrest this liar and provocateur, or he would take out his gun and with a cry of Down with blank ballot papers, down with sedition, death to all traitors, would carry out a summary execution. The superintendent had reached the barrier. The man did not move, he just looked at him. He had his left thumb hooked in his belt, his right hand in his raincoat pocket, all far too natural to be real. He's armed, he's carrying a gun, thought the superintendent, and said, There's always plenty of time. The man did not smile or even blink, he said, No, there's never enough, and then the superintendent gave him the envelope, perhaps now they could say good morning to each other, perhaps chat for a few moments about what a pleasant Monday morning it was, but the other man merely said, Fine, you can leave now, I'll make sure this finds its way to the right person. The superintendent got into his car, reversed and drove back to the city. Feeling embittered and utterly frustrated, he tried to console himself by imagining what a good joke it would have been to hand the man an empty envelope and then wait to see what happened. The minister, ablaze with anger and incandescent with rage, would immediately phone him to demand an explanation and he, the superintendent, would then swear by all the saints in the court of heaven, including those on earth still awaiting canonization, that the envelope had contained the photograph and the list of names and addresses, just as he had ordered, My responsibility, albatross, ended the moment that your messenger, having put down the gun he was holding, yes, I could see he was carrying a gun, took his right hand out of his raincoat pocket to receive the envelope, But the envelope was empty, I opened it myself, the minister would scream, That's nothing to do with me, albatross, he would reply with the serenity of someone at perfect peace with his conscience, Oh, I know what you're up to, the minister would bawl, you don't want me to touch so much as a hair on the head of your fancy woman, She's not my fancy woman, she's a person who is entirely innocent of the crime she's been accused of, albatross, Don't call me albatross, your father was an albatross, your mother was an albatross, but I'm the interior minister, If the interior minister has ceased to be an albatross, then the police superintendent will cease to be a puffin, At this precise moment, the puffin is very likely to cease being a superintendent, Well, anything's possible, Anyway, send me another copy of the photo today, do you hear, But I haven't got one, Oh, but you will have, more than one if necessary, How, Very easy, by going to where you'll find one, in your fancy woman's apartment or in the other two apartments, you don't expect me to believe that the photo that disappeared was the only copy, do you. The superintendent shook his head, The minister's no fool, there would be no point handing him an empty envelope. He was almost in the center of the city now, where things were, of course, livelier, although not in any exaggerated or noisy way. He could see that the people he passed had their worries, but, at the same time, they seemed quite calm. The superintendent ignored the obvious contradiction, the fact that he could not explain in words what he saw did not mean that he couldn't feel it, that he could not sense it with his feelings. The man and woman over there, for example, you can see that they like each other, that they're fond of each other, that they love each other, you can see that they're happy, look, they just smiled, and yet, not only are they worried, they are, if I may put it like this, calmly and clearly aware of that. You can see that the superintendent is worried too, perhaps, well, what does one more contradiction matter, perhaps that is why he has gone into this café to have a proper breakfast that will distract him and make him forget the warmed-up coffee and the stale biscuits of providential ltd, insurance and reinsurance, he has just ordered some freshly squeezed orange juice, some toast and a cup of real coffee with milk. God bless whoever invented you, he murmured piously to the toast when the waiter set it down before him, wrapped in a napkin in the old-fashioned way, so that it would not get cold. He asked for a newspaper, the front page carried only foreign news, there was nothing of local interest, apart from a statement from the minister of foreign affairs announcing that the government was preparing to consult various international bodies about the former capital's anomalous situation, starting with the united nations and ending with the court in the hague, passing through the european union, the organization for economic cooperation and development, the organization of petroleum-exporting countries, the north atlantic treaty organization, the world bank, the international monetary fund, the world trade organization, the world organization for atomic energy, the world organization for labor, the world meteorological organization, and a few other bodies, which were only secondary or still under discussion, and therefore not mentioned. Albatross will be most put out, it seems they're trying to steal his sweets, thought the superintendent. He looked up from the newspaper like someone who feels a sudden need to gaze into the distance and said to himself that perhaps this news was the reason behind that unexpected and urgent demand for the photograph, He never was one to allow people to get one over on him, he's obviously preparing his next trick, and it'll probably be a dirty trick, the dirtiest of the dirty, he murmured. Then it occurred to him that he had the whole day to himself, that he could do whatever he wanted. He had set the inspector and the sergeant their task, and a useless task it was, they would, at this moment, be lurking in some doorway or behind a tree, they would already be waiting to see who left the house first, the inspector doubtless hoping it would be the girl with dark glasses, while the sergeant, because there was no one else, would have to content himself with the ex-wife of the man who wrote the letter. The worst thing that could happen to the inspector would be for the old man with the black eye-patch to appear, not so much for the reason you are thinking, that following a pretty, young woman is obviously a more attractive prospect than trailing after an old man, but because people with only one eye see twice as much, they don't have their other eye to distract them or to insist on looking at something else, we've said as much before, but truths need to be repeated many times so that they don't, poor things, lapse into oblivion. And what shall I do, wondered the superintendent. He summoned the waiter, returned the newspaper, paid the bill and left. As he was sitting down behind the wheel again, he glanced at his watch, Half past ten, he thought, a good time, precisely the hour I set for the second interrogation. A good time, he had thought, but he would not have been able to say why or for what. He could, if he chose, go back to providential ltd and rest until lunchtime, perhaps even sleep a little and make up for the sleep he had lost during the wretched night he had had to endure, the painful conversation with the minister, the nightmare, the screams of the doctor's wife when the albatross stuck the pin through her eyes, but the idea of shutting himself up between those gloomy walls seemed repulsive to him, he had nothing to do there, he certainly didn't want to spend his time reviewing the store of arms and munitions, as he had thought he would do when he first arrived, and as was his duty as superintendent, as surely as if it had been set down in writing. The morning still retained some of the luminous quality of dawn, the air was cool, the ideal weather for a walk. He got out of the car and started walking. He went to the end of the street, turned left and found himself in a square, he crossed it, set off down another street and reached another square, he had a memory of having been here four years ago, one blind man amongst other blind men, listening to speakers who were also blind, the last echoes, if one could but hear them, would be from the most recent political meetings to have been held in those places, the p.o.t.r. in the first square, the p.i.t.m. in the second, and as for the p.o.t.l., as if this were its historical fate, it had had to make do with a bit of waste ground right on the edge of the city. The superintendent walked and walked, and suddenly, how he didn't know, found himself in the street where the doctor and his wife lived, he did not, however, think, This is the street where the doctor lives. He slackened his pace, continuing along on the other side, and he was perhaps twenty meters away when the door of the building opened and the doctor's wife appeared with the dog. The superintendent immediately swung round, went over to a shop window and stood there looking in and waiting, if she crossed over, she would see him reflected in the glass. She didn't. The superintendent stared studiously in the opposite direction, the doctor's wife was moving away from him, the dog, with no lead, was walking along beside her. Then it occurred to the superintendent that he should follow her, that it wouldn't go amiss if he were to do what the sergeant and the inspector were doing at that very moment, if they were trudging the streets behind the other suspects, then he had a duty to do the same even if he was a superintendent, now where's that woman going, the dog is probably just a cover, or perhaps she uses the dog's collar for transporting secret messages, ah, what happy times they were when St Bernard dogs used to carry little barrels of brandy around their neck and with that small amount how many lives feared lost in the snowy alps were saved. His pursuit of the suspect, if we want to continue calling her that, did not last long. In a secluded spot, rather like a village forgotten in the middle of the city, there was a slightly neglected park, with large shady trees, sandy walks and flower beds, rustic, green-painted benches, and, in the middle, a lake in which a statue, representing a female figure, bent over the water with her empty water jar. The doctor's wife sat down, opened the bag she had brought with her and took out a book. Until she had opened the book and started reading, the dog would not move from there. She looked up from the page and said, Off you go, and he ran off to do, as people used to say in more euphemistic days, what no one else could do for him. The superintendent watched from a distance and remembered his question to himself after breakfast, And what shall I do. For about five minutes he lurked behind the bushes, it was lucky the dog hadn't come this way, he might have recognized him and this time done more than just growl at him. The doctor's wife wasn't waiting for anyone, she had, as so many other people do, simply taken her dog for a walk. The superintendent went straight over to her, making the sand crunch underfoot, and stopped a few feet away. Slowly, as if she found it hard to tear herself away from her reading, the doctor's wife raised her head and looked at him. She did not appear to recognize him at first, probably because she wasn't expecting to see him there, then she said, We were waiting for you, but when you didn't come and the dog was getting impatient for his walk, I decided to bring him here, but my husband's at home, he'll look after you until I get back, unless, of course, you're in a hurry, No, I'm not in a hurry, You go ahead, then, I'll be right there, once the dog has had a bit of a run, after all, it's not his fault people decided to cast blank ballot papers, If you don't mind, and since chance seems to have arranged it this way, I'd prefer to talk to you here, without witnesses, And I assumed that this interrogation, to continue calling it by that name, would take place with my husband present, like the first one, It wouldn't be an interrogation, my notebook won't leave my pocket, and I haven't got a tape-recorder concealed about my person either, besides, I have to say that my memory isn't what it was, it forgets easily, especially when I don't tell it to record what it hears, Oh, I had no idea the memory could hear, It's our second set of ears, those on the outside only serve to carry the sound inside, What do you want then, Like I said, I want to talk to you, About what, About what's happening in this city, Superintendent, I'm very grateful to you for coming to my house yesterday evening and for telling us, and my friends too, that there are people in the government interested in the strange phenomenon of the doctor's wife who failed to go blind four years ago and who now, it seems, is the organizer of a conspiracy against the state, but, to be perfectly frank, unless you have something more to say to me on the subject, I really don't think there's much point in our talking about anything else, The interior minister made me hand over the group photograph of you, your husband and your friends, this very morning I went to a military post on the frontier to do so, So you did have something to tell me, but there really wasn't any need for you to follow me, you could have gone straight to my house, you know the way, But I didn't follow you, I wasn't hiding behind a tree or pretending to read a newspaper while I waited for you to leave your house so that I could follow you, as the inspector and the sergeant engaged with me on this investigation will be doing with your friends right now, although the only reason I ordered them to do so was to keep them occupied, that's all, Do you mean to tell me you're here by chance, Yes, I happened to be walking down the street and I saw you leaving your house, It's hard to believe that it was pure chance that brought you to the street where I live, Call it what you lik