The Policeman raised his head and looked at the Investigator again, still smiling. “Now, about those suicides. How many, exactly?”
“Twenty-three. But there’s some doubt about one of them. It’s not known whether the person took his own life or whether his death was an accident. Gas.”
“Gas? Radical! You die, and sometimes you take others with you. Was that the case?”
“No. He lived alone in a detached house.”
“Too bad …”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Nothing. Forget it.”
There was silence for a while. The Policeman, although he continued to smile, appeared to be weighing what the Investigator had just told him about the suicides. Then he made a little hand movement, as if banishing those thoughts and moving on to something else.
“I suppose you think you’ve landed in a most peculiar place, right?”
“Well, I mean, I must confess—”
A burst of loud laughter from the Policeman startled him. “Sh, sh,” the Policeman said. “You don’t have to confess anything. This is a conversation we’re having, not an interrogation. Relax!”
The Investigator didn’t know exactly why, but even though he’d done absolutely nothing he could reproach himself for, a great weight was abruptly lifted from him. He started laughing with the Policeman. It did him good. Oh yes, it really did him good to laugh with this man — a kindly fellow, when all was said and done, and as surprised as he was by the way things had gone.
“I can tell you the whole story,” the Investigator said, taking up the conversation again. “But please indulge me, I don’t understand it very well myself. I have the impression that I’ve been living a sort of nightmare ever since I set foot in this town, or, rather, that I’m the victim of a gigantic hoax. Everything seems arranged to prevent me from doing what I have to do.…”
“The Investigation into the suicides?”
“Exactly. It’s as if … What I’m about to say is going to sound absurd, but it’s as if everything here, in this town, including the layout of the streets, the absence of signs, the climate — it’s as if everything were conspiring to prevent me from carrying out my Investigation, or to delay it as long as possible. I’ve never known anything like it. And this Hotel! Has anyone ever seen such a hotel?”
The Policeman reflected intensely for a few moments. His round face kept its smile, but his eyes seemed to narrow in fierce concentration.
“When I arrived, I felt the same way you do,” he said. “I haven’t been here very long. We’re constantly being bounced from one post to another, and we obviously can’t complain, we don’t have the right to complain. I asked myself why I was here. I wondered who could have made the absurd decision to send me to this place, and for what purpose. Of course, I knew I was the Policeman, but I hadn’t been given any more precise information about what I was to do or what role I was desired to play. Very strange. Very, very strange. And besides — I’m not sure how to say this — I had an impression, a very distinct impression of a … of a presence.”
“As if someone were observing you?”
“Exactly. That’s just what I mean! But I’ve never been able to catch anybody at it.”
“It’s the same with me. I’ve had that very feeling since yesterday evening.”
“Well, in the end, one gets used to it. After all, it’s man’s nature to adapt, isn’t it? And these days, aren’t we all constantly under surveillance, wherever we are and whatever we’re doing?”
The two men became pensive. Silence reigned until a telephone started ringing. Without hesitation, they simultaneously began to reach into their pockets, which made them both laugh. Then the Investigator remembered that his phone battery was completely discharged. The Policeman pulled out his own device, a kind of mobile phone the Investigator had never seen before: oblong in shape, and equipped with a single button. The Policeman mimicked an apology and pressed the button.
“Yes?”
The Investigator felt relieved. The man across from him, who resembled him in many ways, was a source of comfort.
“Well, what do you know.… I see …” said the Policeman, taking a notebook and a pen from his pocket. The smile had vanished from his face.
“And what time was that, you said?”
He jotted down a few notes.
“Are you certain?”
The Investigator turned his eyes away so as not to bother his companion.
“Very well. Thank you for informing me.”
The Policeman pressed the single button on his telephone and slowly slipped it into one of his pockets. He reread the notes he’d just taken, scratching the back of his neck all the while, and then, with a sharp gesture, he snapped the notebook closed. His eyes were now a fox’s eyes, very thin, yellow-brown, and shining.
“Nothing serious, I hope?” asked the Investigator, keeping his tone light.
“That depends on for whom,” the Policeman coldly replied. He went on at once, speaking tersely in a metallic voice and stressing every word: “Can you explain to me why, at 7:21 a.m. today, you entered the women’s restroom and there willfully destroyed a cloth towel as well as the wood-and-metal structure supporting it, in an act of unjustifiable violence?”
The rusk the Investigator was holding between his fingers exploded into a thousand pieces, and at the same time, he had the sensation that he’d been seized by two strong hands, which were in the act of flinging him down into a bottomless abyss.
XI
BY THE TIME THE INVESTIGATOR WAS finally able to leave the Hope Hotel, the morning was well advanced.
The Policeman had detained him for more than two hours, compelling him to answer a barrage of brusque questions. Some of these the Policeman had repeated again and again, at intervals of a few minutes, in order to make sure the Investigator’s responses didn’t vary. He’d been required to explain, three times and in meticulous detail, his every action and reaction, no matter how insignificant, since the moment he’d awakened that morning. He’d had to describe the telephone call that had rousted him from his sleep, his discovery of the walled-up window (“I’ll verify that,” the Policeman had assured him, almost threateningly), the counting of the stairs, the massive presence of Tourists in the breakfast room (“Tourists? Really? First I’ve heard of them!” the Policeman had sneered), and, finally, the incident in the ladies’ room.
In addition, the Policeman had insisted on examining, with the most minute attention, the cut on the Investigator’s forehead. Having completed the examination — for which he’d pulled on a pair of surgical gloves — the Policeman had stood erect and ordered the Investigator to accompany him to the restroom for a re-enactment.
“A what?”
“You understood me perfectly well.”
“But you must be crazy! A re-enactment for a torn towel? What kind of world is this? I can’t waste my time on such childishness. I’ve got a job to do, an Investigation to conduct. People have died. Men and women have killed themselves. I don’t think you realize what suicide represents, but whether you do or not, it is my duty to understand why these acts have been committed. I need to know why, inside such a brief span of time, and within the same enterprise — within the Enterprise — so many people have fallen so deeply into despair that they’ve chosen to end it all rather than consult a Psychologist or seek help from an Occupational Physician or apply for an appointment with the Director of Human Resources or confide in a colleague or a family member or even to call up one of the many associations that offer assistance to suffering people! And you put obstacles in my path, you detain me for trivialities, you interrogate me for an hour about a mutilated towel, about damages that would never have taken place if this Hotel provided the minimal level of services that a guest has every right to expect, you waste my time with—”