Before long they appeared in the distance: two young male rats, talking animatedly. I recognized one of them straightaway — he was from the group that I had just visited. The other one was completely unfamiliar; maybe he’d been working at the time of my visit, maybe he belonged to another group. The discussion they were having was heated, but without overstepping the bounds of civility. Their arguments were incomprehensible, partly because they were still a way off (though, splashing through the shallow water on their little paws, they were heading straight for my refuge), and partly because they were using words that belonged to another language, a language that rang false, that was alien to me, and instantly revolting: words like pictograms or ciphers, words that crawl on the underside of the word freedom, as fire is said to crawl into the tunnels, turning them into ovens.
I would have liked to scurry away discreetly. But my police instincts were telling me that unless I intervened, another murder was about to be committed. I jumped off the pile of cardboard. The two rats froze. Good evening, I said. I asked them if they belonged to the same group. They shook their heads.
You, I said, pointing to the rat I didn’t know with my paw, out of here. The young rat seemed to have a reputation to defend; he hesitated. Out of here, I’m a police officer, I said. I’m Pepe the Cop, I shouted. Then he glanced at his friend, turned and left. Watch out for predators, I said to him before he disappeared behind a mound of trash, there’s no one to help you if you get attacked by a predator in the dead sewers.
The other rat didn’t even bother to say goodbye to his friend. He stayed there with me, quietly, waiting until we were alone, with his thoughtful little eyes fixed on me, as I guess mine were studying him. I’ve got you, finally, I said when we were alone. He didn’t answer. What’s your name? I asked. Hector, he said. Now that he was speaking to me, his voice was no different from thousands I had heard. Why did you kill the baby? I asked softly. He didn’t answer. For a moment I was scared. Hector was strong, and probably bigger than me, and younger too, but I was a police officer.
Now I’m going to tie your paws and your snout and take you to the police station, I said. I think he smiled, but I’m not sure. You’re more scared than I am, he said, and I’m pretty scared. I don’t think so, I replied, you’re not scared — you’re sick, you’re a disgusting predatory bastard. Hector laughed. You’re scared, though, aren’t you, he said, much more than your aunt Josephine was. You’ve heard of Josephine? I asked. I’ve heard of her, he said, Who hasn’t? My aunt wasn’t scared, I said, she might have been a poor crazy dreamer, but she wasn’t scared.
You’re wrong there; she was scared to death, he said, glancing sideways distractedly, as if we were surrounded by ghostly presences and he were discreetly seeking their approval. The members of her audience were scared to death as well, although they didn’t know it. But she didn’t die once and for alclass="underline" she died every day at the center of fear, and in fear she came back to life. Words, I spat. Now lie face down while I tie your snout, I said, taking out the cord I had brought for that purpose. Hector snorted.
You’ve got no idea, he said. Do you think the crimes will stop if you arrest me? Do you think your bosses will give me a fair trial? They’ll probably tear me to pieces in secret and dump my remains where predators will take them. You’re a damn predator, I said. I’m a free rat, he replied impudently. I’m at home in fear and I know perfectly well where our people are headed. His words were so presumptuous I chose not to dignify them with an answer. Instead I said, You’re young. Maybe there’s a way to cure you. We don’t kill our own kind. And who’s going to cure you, Pepe? he asked. And your bosses? Where are the doctors to cure them? Lie face down, I said. Hector stared at me; I dropped the cord. Our bodies locked in a fight to the death.
After ten eternal-seeming minutes, he lay beside me, lifeless, his neck crushed by a bite. As for me, my back was covered with wounds, my snout was torn open and I couldn’t see anything out of my left eye. I took his body back to the station. The few rats I encountered no doubt supposed that Hector had been the victim of a predator. I left his body in the morgue and went to find the coroner. It’s all solved now, were the first words I could articulate. Then I slumped to the ground and waited. The coroner examined my wounds and sewed up my snout and my eyelid. As he was attending to me, he asked how it had happened. I found the killer, I said. I stopped him; we fought. The coroner said he had to call the commissioner. He clicked his tongue and a thin, sleepy-looking adolescent emerged from the darkness. I assumed he was a medical student. The coroner told him to go the commissioner’s place and tell him that the coroner and Pepe the Cop were waiting for him at the station. The adolescent nodded and disappeared. Then the coroner and I went to the morgue.
Hector’s body was lying there and his coat was beginning to lose its gloss. It was just another body now, one among many. While the coroner was examining it, I took a nap in a corner. I was woken by the commissioner’s voice and a couple of shoves. Get up, Pepe, said the coroner. I followed them. The commissioner and the coroner scurried down tunnels that were unfamiliar to me. I followed them, half asleep, watching their tails, with an intense burning pain in my back. Soon we came to an empty burrow. There, on a kind of throne, or maybe it was a cradle, I saw a seething shadow. The commissioner and the coroner told me to go forward.
Tell me the story, said a voice that was many voices, emerging from the darkness. At first I was terrified and shrank away, but then I realized that it was a very old queen rat — several rats, that is, whose tails had become knotted in early childhood, which rendered them unfit for work, but endowed them, instead, with the requisite wisdom to advise our people in critical situations. So I told the story from beginning to end, and tried to make my words dispassionate and objective, as if I were writing a report. When I finished, the voice that was many voices emerging from the darkness asked me if I was the nephew of Josephine the Singer. That’s correct, I said. We were born when Josephine was still alive, said the queen rat, shifting herselves laboriously. I could just make out a huge dark ball dotted with little eyes dimmed by age. The queen rat, I conjectured, was fat, and a build-up of filth had immobilized her hind paws. An anomaly, she said. It took me a while to realize that she was referring to Hector. A poison that shall not spell the end of life for us, she said: a kind of lunatic, an individualist. There’s something I don’t understand, I said. The commissioner touched me on the shoulder with his paw, as if to stop me from speaking, but the queen rat asked me to explain what it was that I didn’t understand. Why did he let the baby die of hunger, instead of ripping his throat open, as he did with the other victims? For a few seconds all I could hear from the seething shadow was a sound of sighing.
Maybe, she said after a while, he wanted to witness the process of death from beginning to end, without intervening or intervening as little as possible. And, after another interminable silence, she added: We must remember that he was insane, that we are in the realm of the monstrous — rats do not kill rats.
I hung my head and stayed there, I don’t know for how long. I might even have fallen asleep. Suddenly I felt the commissioner’s paw on my shoulder again, and heard his voice ordering me to follow him. We went back the way we had come, in silence. Just as I had feared, Hector’s body had disappeared from the morgue. I asked where it was. In the belly of some predator, I hope, said the commissioner. Then I was told what I had already guessed. It was strictly forbidden to talk about Hector with anyone. The case was closed, and the best thing for me to do was to forget about him and get on with my life and my work.