THE LETTER ADDRESSED TO THE PRIME MINISTER, BECAUSE THERE WAS a letter, took two days to reach his hands. He realized at once that the clerk in charge of recording the letter had been less discreet than the president's clerk, how else explain the rumors that had been flying around for the last two days, rumors which, in turn, were either the result of a leak by mid-level civil servants eager to demonstrate that they were au courant or in the know, or else had been deliberately started by the ministry of the interior as a way of stopping in its tracks any attempt by the prime minister to oppose the police investigation or, however symbolically, obstruct it. There remained the possibility, which we will describe as the conspiracy theory, that the supposedly secret conversation between the prime minister and his interior minister that took place after the former had been summoned to the presidential palace, had been far less private than one might have thought, given the padded walls, which, who knows, may have concealed a few latest-generation microphones, of the kind that only an electronic gun-dog with the finest pedigree could sniff out and find. Whatever the truth of the matter, there was nothing to be done about it, it is a sad moment for state secrets, which have no one to defend them. The prime minister is so conscious of this deplorable certainty, so convinced of the pointlessness of secrets, especially when they have ceased to be so, that, with the look of someone observing the world from a very high vantage point, as if he were saying Don't say a word, I know everything, he slowly folded the letter up and put it in one of his inside jacket pockets, It came straight from the blindness of four years ago, I'll keep it with me, he said. The air of shocked surprise on his cabinet secretary's face made him smile, Don't worry, my friend, there are at least two other letters identical to this, not to mention the many photocopies that are doubtless already doing the rounds. His cabinet secretary's face suddenly assumed a look of feigned innocence or abstraction, as if he had not quite understood what he had heard, or as if his conscience had suddenly leapt out at him along the road, accusing him of some ancient, or else very recent, misdeed. You can go now, I'll call you if I need you, said the prime minister, getting up from his chair and going over to one of the windows. The noise he made in opening it concealed the sound of the door closing. From there, he could see little more than a succession of low roofs. He felt a nostalgia for the capital city, for the happy times when votes did as they were told, for the monotonous passing of the hours and days spent either at his petit-bourgeois official residence or at the national parliament, for the agitated and not infrequently jolly and amusing political crises, which were like sudden eruptions of foreseeable duration and controlled intensity, almost always put on, and through which one learned not only not to tell the truth, but, when necessary, to make it correspond, point by point, with the lie, just as the wrong side and the right side of things are, quite naturally, always found together. He wondered if the investigation would already have begun, he paused to speculate upon whether the agents taking part in the police action would be those who had fruitlessly remained behind in the capital charged with obtaining information and submitting reports, or if the interior minister would have preferred, for this new mission, people whom he knew and trusted, who were to hand and within easy reach, and, who knows, were seduced by the glamorous movie adventure element of a clandestine breaking of the blockade, crawling, with a knife tucked in their belt, underneath barbed-wire fences, outwitting the dreaded electronic sensors with magnetic desensitizers, and emerging on the other side in enemy territory, heading for their objective, like moles endowed with the agility of a cat and with night-vision glasses. Knowing the interior minister as he did, only slightly less bloodthirsty than dracula, and even more theatrical than rambo, this was sure to be the mode of action he would order them to adopt. He was absolutely right. Hidden in the small area of forest that almost borders the perimeter of the besieged city, three men are waiting for night to become early dawn. However, not everything that the prime minister imagined from his office window corresponds to the reality we see before us. For example, these men are dressed in plain clothes, there are no knives tucked into belts, and the weapon they have in their holster is the gun which is always so reassuringly described as regulation. As for the dreaded magnetic desensitizers, there is, amongst the various bits of apparatus the men are carrying, nothing that looks as if it fulfilled that function, which, when one thinks about it, could mean merely that magnetic desensitizers are quite simply and deliberately made not to look like magnetic desensitizers. We will soon learn, however, that, at a pre-arranged time, the electronic sensors in this section of the border will be turned off for five minutes, which was considered more than enough time for three men, one by one, without undue haste or hurry, to cross the barbed-wire barrier, part of which was cut today precisely for the purpose of avoiding torn trousers and lacerated skin. The army's sappers will be back to repair it before the rosy fingers of dawn return to reveal the threatening barbs rendered harmless only very briefly, as well as the enormous rolls of wire stretching out along both sides of the frontier. The three men are already through, in front goes the leader, who is the tallest, and they cross, in indian file, a field whose wet grass oozes and squeaks beneath their shoes. On a minor road on the outskirts of the city, about five hundred meters from there, a car is waiting to carry them through the silence of the night to their destination in the capital, a bogus insurance and reinsurance company which a complete dearth of clients, whether local or foreign, had not as yet managed to bankrupt. The orders that these men received directly from the lips of the interior minister are clear and categorical, Bring me results and I won't ask by what means you obtained them. They have no written instructions with them, no safe-conduct pass to cover them or which they could show as a defense or as a justification if things should turn out worse than they expect, and there is, of course, always the possibility that the ministry would simply abandon them to their fate if they committed some action that might prejudice the state's reputation and the immaculate purity of its objectives and processes. These three men are like a commando group entering enemy territory, there seems no reason to think that they will risk their lives there, but they are all aware of the delicate nature of a mission that demands a talent for interrogation, flexibility in drawing up strategy and swiftness in carrying it out. All to the maximum degree. I don't think you'll need to kill anyone, the interior minister had said, but if, in an extreme situation, you consider that there's no other option, then don't hesitate, I'll sort things out with the minister for justice, Whose post has just been taken over by the prime minister, remarked the leader of the group. The interior minister pretended not to hear, he merely glared at the importunate speaker, who had no alternative but to look away. The car drove into the city, stopped in a square so that they could change drivers, and finally, after going round various blocks thirty or so times in order to throw off any unlikely pursuer, deposited them at the door of the building where the insurance and reinsurance office has its base. The porter did not come out to see who was arriving at what was a most unusual hour for an office building, one assumes he had received a visit from someone the previous afternoon who had persuaded him gently to go to bed early and advised him not to slip out from between the sheets, even if insomnia kept him from closing his eyes. The three men took the lift up to the fourteenth floor, went down a corridor to the left, another to the right, a third to the left, and finally reached the office of providential ltd, insurance and reinsurance, as anyone can read on the notice on the door, in black letters on a tarnished, rectangular brass plate, affixed with nails that have brass heads in the shape of truncated pyramids. They went in, one of the subordinates turned on the light, the other closed the door and put the security chain on. Meanwhile the leader of the group walked through the various rooms, checked phone lines, plugged in machines, went into the kitchen, into the bedrooms and bathrooms, opened the door to what was intended to be the filing room and had a quick look at the various armaments stored in there, at the same time breathing in the familiar smell of metal and lubricant, he will inspect it all properly tomorrow, piece by piece, weapon by weapon. He summoned his assistants, sat down and told them to sit down too, Later this morning, at seven o'clock, he said, we will begin the work of following the suspect, notice that I call him the suspect, even though, as far as we know he has committed no crime, I do so not only to simplify communication between ourselves, but also because, for security reasons, it is best that his name is not mentioned, at least not during these first few days, I would add that with this operation, which I hope will last no longer than a week, our first objective is to get an idea of the suspect's movements around the city, where he works, where he goes, who he meets, the usual routine for a basic investigation, reconnoitring the terrain before making a direct approach, Should he be aware that he's being followed, asked the first assistant, Not for the first four days, but after that, yes, I want him to feel worried, uneasy, Having written that letter, he must surely be expecting someone to come looking for him, We'll do that when the moment comes, what I want, and it's up to you to achieve this effect, is to frighten him into thinking that he's being followed by the people he denounced, By the doctor's wife, No, not by her, but by her accomplices, the people who cast the blank votes, Aren't we taking things a bit fast, asked the second assistant, we haven't even started work yet, and here we are talking about accomplices, All we're doing is making a preliminary sketch, a simple sketch, that's all, I want to put myself in the shoes of the guy who wrote that letter and, from there, try to see what he sees, Well, a week spent tailing the guy seems far too long to me, said the first assistant, it should take us three days at most to bring him to boiling point. The leader frowned, he was going to say, Look, I said one week and it will be one week, but then he remembered the interior minister, he didn't recall him having expressly asked for rapid results, but since that is the demand most often heard from the lips of those in charge, and since there was no reason to think that the present case would be any exception, quite the contrary, he showed no more reluctance in agreeing to the period of three days than that considered normal between a superior and a subordinate, on the rare occasions when the person issuing the orders is forced to give in to the reasoning of the person receiving them. We have photographs of all the adults who live in the building, I mean, of course, those of the male sex, said the leader, adding unnecessarily, One of them is that of the man we are looking for, We can't start following him until we've identified him, said the first assistant, True, replied the leader, but nevertheless, at seven o'clock, I want you to be strategically positioned in the street where he lives and to follow the two men you think most closely resemble the kind of person who would have written that letter, that's where we'll start, intuition and a good police nose must have their uses, Can I say something, asked the second assistant, Of course, To judge by the tone of the letter, the guy must be a total bastard, Does that mean, asked the first assistant, that we should only follow the ones who look like bastards, then he added, Although in my experience, the worst bastards are precisely the ones who don't look like they're bastards, It would have made much more sense to have gone straight to the identity card people and asked for a copy of the guy's photograph, it would have saved time and work. Their leader decided to cut this discussion short, I presume you're not intending to teach the priest to say the our father or the mother superior the hail mary, if they didn't tell us to do that it must be because they didn't want to arouse any curiosity that could have caused the operation to be aborted, With respect, sir, I disagree, said the first assistant, everything indicates that the guy is dying to spill the beans, in fact, I think if he knew we were here, he'd be banging on our door right now, You may be right, said the group leader, struggling to control the irritation he felt at what had every appearance of being a devastating critique of his plan of action, but we want to know as much as we can about him before we make direct contact, How's this for an idea, piped up the second assistant, Not another one, said his chief sourly, This is a good one, I guarantee it, one of us disguises himself as an encyclopedia salesman, that way we'll be able to see who opens the door, That encyclopedia salesman trick went out with the ark, said the first assistant, besides, it's usually the wives who come to open the door, I mean, it would be a great idea if our man lived on his own, but, as I recall from what he says in the letter, he's married, Oh, rats, exclaimed the second assistant. They sat in silence, looking at each other, the two assistants knowing that the best thing now would be to wait for their superior to have an idea of his own. They would, in principle, be prepared to applaud it even if it was as leaky as an old boat. The leader of the group was weighing up everything that had been said, trying to fit the various suggestions together in the hope that two pieces of the puzzle might just slot into place and that something would emerge, something so holmesian, so poirotesque, that it would make these two men under orders from him open their mouths wide in amazement. And suddenly, as if the scales had fallen from his eyes, he saw the way forward, Most people, he said, unless, of course, they're physically incapacitated, don't spend all their time stuck at home, they go out to work, go shopping or for a walk, so my idea is that we should wait until there's no one in the apartment and then break in, the guy's address is on the letter, we've got plenty of skeleton keys, and there are bound to be photos around, it wouldn't be hard to identify him from the various photographs and that way we'd have no problem following him, and if we want to find out when the place is empty, we'll use the phone, we'll get his number tomorrow from directory inquiries, or we could look it up in the telephone book, one or the other, it doesn't really matter. As he uttered this rather lame conclusion, he realized that the pieces of the puzzle really didn't fit. Although, as explained before, the two assistants' attitude toward the results of their leader's cogitations was one of total benevolence, the first assistant, trying to find a tone of voice that would not wound his chief's susceptibilities, felt obliged to observe, Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't it be best, since we know the guy's address, just to go and knock on his door and ask whoever answers Does So-and-so live here, if it's him, he'll say Yes, that's me, if it's his wife, she'll probably say I'll just go and call my husband, that way we would have the bird in our hand without having to beat about the bush. The leader raised his clenched fist like someone about to give the desk an almighty thump, but, at the last moment, he checked the violence of that gesture, slowly lowered his arm and said in a voice that seemed to fade with every syllable, We'll examine that possibility tomorrow, I'm going to bed now, good night. He was just going over to the door of the bedroom he would occupy during the time the investigation lasted when he heard the second assistant ask, So do we still start the operation at seven o'clock as planned. Without turning round, the group leader replied, That plan of action is suspended until further orders, you will receive your instructions tomorrow, once I have read through any messages from the ministry, and, if necessary, so as to speed up the work, I will make any changes I see fit. He said good night again, Good night, sir, replied his two subordinates, and then he went into his room. As soon as the door had closed, the second assistant prepared to continue the conversation, but the other man quickly put a forefinger to his lips and shook his head, indicating to him not to speak. He was the first one to push back his chair and say, Right, I'm off to bed, if you're staying up, be careful not to wake me when you come in. Unlike their leader, these two men, as the subordinates they are, do not have the right to a room of their own, they are both going to sleep in a large room with three beds, a kind of small dormitory which is rarely fully occupied. The bed in the middle is always the one least used. When, as in this case, there were two agents, they invariably used the beds on either side, and if only one policeman was sleeping there, he was also sure to prefer to sleep in one of those, never in the middle bed, perhaps because sleeping there would make him feel as if he were under siege or a prisoner under arrest. Even the hardest, most thick-skinned of policemen, and these two have not yet had the opportunity to prove that they are, need to feel protected by the proximity of a wall. The second assistant, who had understood the message, got to his feet and said, No, no, I'm not sitting up, I'm going to bed too. According to rank, first one, then the other, made use of the bathroom which was, as it should be, equipped with everything necessary for their ablutions, for we have not at any point in this report mentioned that the three policemen each brought with them only a small suitcase or a simple rucksack with a change of clothing, a toothbrush and a razor. It would be surprising if an enterprise christened with the fortunate name of providential did not take care to provide those to whom it gave temporary shelter with the various articles and products essential for their comfort and for the successful fulfilment of the mission with which they had been charged. Half an hour later, the two assistants were in their respective beds, wearing their official pajamas, with the police emblem over their heart. So the plan from the ministry of the interior's planning department was useless, said the second assistant, It's always the same when they don't take the elementary precaution of consulting the people who've got the experience, replied the first assistant, Our leader's got plenty of experience, said the second assistant, if he hadn't, he wouldn't be where he is today, Sometimes, being too close to the centers of decision-making brings on myopia, makes you shortsighted, replied the first assistant sagely, Do you mean to say that if we ever get to a position of real power, like the chief, the same thing will happen to us, asked the second assistant, There's no reason why, in this particular case, the future should be any different from the present, replied the first assistant wisely. Fifteen minutes later, both were asleep. One was snoring, the other wasn't.
It was not yet eight o'clock in the morning, when the group leader, already washed, shaved and dressed, came into the room where the ministry's plan of action, or, to be more precise, the interior minister's plan of action that had been so rudely loaded onto the patient shoulders of the police authorities, had been torn to shreds by his two assistants, albeit with praiseworthy discretion and considerable respect, and even a slight touch of dialectical elegance. He had no problem in acknowledging this and bore them no rancor, on the contrary, he was clearly very relieved. With the same energetic strength of will with which he had overcome the incipient insomnia that had caused him to toss and turn for a while in bed, he took total control of operations, generously rendering unto caesar what could not be denied to caesar, but making it quite clear that, in the end, all benefits will sooner or later revert to god and to authority, god's other name. It was, therefore, a serene, confident man whom the two sleepy assistants found when, minutes later, they, in turn, shuffled into the living-room, still in their dressing-gowns, which were also adorned with the police emblem, and in their pajamas and bedroom slippers. Their chief had calculated as much, he had foreseen that the first point of the day would go to him, and he had already noted it on the blackboard. Good morning, boys, he said in a cordial tone, I hope you slept well. Yes, sir, said one. Yes, sir, said the other, Let's have breakfast, then get yourselves washed and dressed, who knows, we might catch him still in his bed, that would be fun, by the way, what day is it today, Saturday, today is Saturday, no one gets up early on Saturday, you wait, he'll open the door looking just the way you do now, in dressing-gown and pajamas, shuffling down the corridor in his slippers, and consequently with his defenses down, psychologically at a low ebb, come on, come on, who's the brave man who's going to volunteer to make breakfast, Me, said the second assistant, knowing full well that there was no third assistant to do the job. In a different situation, that is, if, instead of being thrown out, the ministry's plan had been accepted without further discussion, the first assistant would have stayed behind with his chief to agree and fine-tune, however unnecessarily, some detail of the investigation they were about to embark upon, but, in the circumstances, especially now that he, too, had been reduced to the inferiority of bedroom slippers, he decided to make a great gesture of camaraderie and say, I'll help you. Their leader agreed, it seemed a good idea, and he sat down to go over some notes he had made before going to sleep. Barely fifteen minutes had passed when the two assistants reappeared carrying a tray each, bearing the coffee pot, the milk jug, a packet of plain biscuits, orange juice, yoghurt and jam, no doubt about it, the catering corps of the political police had once again done honor to their hard-won reputation. Resigned to drinking their coffee with cold milk or having to reheat it, the assistants said that they were going to get washed and dressed and would be back in a moment, We'll be as quick as we can. In fact, it seemed to them a grave lack of respect, with their superior there in suit and tie, to join him in their disheveled state, unshaven, eyes blinking, and emanating the thick, nocturnal smell of unwashed bodies. There was no need for them to explain, what was left unspoken was, for once, more than eloquent. Naturally, given this new atmosphere of peace, and with his assistants put firmly back in their places, it cost their chief nothing to urge them to sit down and share bread and salt with him, We're colleagues, we're in the same boat, a fine boss I'd be if I had to keep flaunting my stripes in order to get people to obey me, anyone who knows me knows I'm not like that, sit down, sit down. Slightly embarrassed, the assistants sat down, conscious that, whatever anyone said, there was something improper about the situation, two down-and-outs having breakfast with a person who, in comparison, looked like a dandy, they were the ones who should have got their asses out of bed early, more than that, they should have had the table set and ready for when their chief came out of his room, in dressing-gown and pajamas if he so wished, but us, no, we should have been properly dressed and with our hair combed, it is these small cracks in the varnish of behavior, rather than noisy revolutions, which, slowly, through repetition and persistence, finally bring down the most solid of social edifices. It is a wise dictum that says, If you want to be respected, don't encourage familiarity, let us hope, for the good of the job, that this particular chief does not have reason to regret this moment. In the meantime, he seems confident of his authority, we have only to hear him, This operation has two objectives, a main one and a secondary one, the secondary objective, which I'll deal with now so as not to waste time, is to find out as much as possible, but without, in theory, too much outlay of energy, about the supposed murder committed by the woman who led the group of six blind people mentioned in the letter, the main objective, to which we will apply all our efforts and abilities and for which we will use all reasonable means, whatever they may be, is to establish whether or not there is any connection between this woman, who is said to have retained her sight while the rest of us were all staggering around blind, and this new epidemic of blank ballot papers, It won't be easy to find her, said the first assistant, That's why we're here, all attempts to unearth the roots of the boycott have failed up until now and it might well be that this guy's letter won't get us very far either, but it at least opens a new line of inquiry, It seems pretty unbelievable to me that this woman could be behind a movement that involves some hundreds of thousands of people and that, tomorrow, if we don't stamp the whole business out now, she might gather together millions and millions more, said the second assistant, Both things are equally impossible, but if one of them happened, so could the other one, replied the chief, and concluded, with the look of someone who knows more than he is authorized to say, never imagining how true his words will prove to be, Impossibilities never come singly. With this happy concluding phrase, the perfect close to a sonnet, breakfast also came to an end. The assistants cleared the table and carried the crockery and what remained of the food into the kitchen, We'll go and get washed and dressed now, we won't be a moment, they said, Wait, said the chief, then, addressing himself to the first assistant, You'd better use my bathroom, otherwise we'll never get out of here. The lucky assistant blushed with contentment, his career had just taken a great leap forward, he was going to pee in his chief's toilet.
In the underground garage a car was waiting for them, the keys of which had been deposited the day before on the chief's bedside table, along with a brief explanatory note indicating its make, color, registration number and the parking place where the vehicle had been left. Avoiding the foyer, they took the lift straight down to the garage and had no difficulty in finding the car. It was nearly ten o'clock. The chief said to the second assistant as the latter was opening the back door for him, You drive. The first assistant sat in the front, next to the driver. It was a pleasant, very sunny morning, which shows yet again that the punishments of which the sky was such a prodigal source in the past, have, with the passing of the centuries, lost their force, those were good and just times, when any failure to obey the divine diktat was enough for several biblical cities to be annihilated and razed to the ground with all their inhabitants inside. Yet here is a city that cast blank votes against the lord and not a single bolt of lightning has fallen upon it, reducing it to ashes, as happened, in response to far less exemplary vices, to sodom and gomorrah, as well as to admah and to zeboyim, burned down to their very foundations, although the last two cities are mentioned less often than the first, whose names, perhaps because of their irresistible musicality, have remained forever in people's ears. Nowadays, having abandoned their blind obedience to the lord's orders, lightning bolts fall only where they want to, and, as has become manifest, one can clearly not count on them to lead this sinful city and caster of blank votes back to the path of righteousness. In their place, the ministry of the interior has sent three of its archangels, these three policemen, chief and subalterns, who, from now on, we will designate by their corresponding ranks, which are, following the hierarchical scale, superintendent, inspector and sergeant. The first two sit watching the people walking along, none of them innocent, all of them guilty of something, and they wonder if that venerable-looking old gentleman, for example, is not perhaps the grand master of outer darkness, if that girl with her arms about her boyfriend is not the incarnation of the undying serpent of evil, if that man walking along, head down, is not going to some unknown cave where the potions that poisoned the spirit of the city are distilled. The sergeant, whose lowly condition means that he is under no obligation to think elevated thoughts or to harbor suspicions about what lies beneath the surface of things, has rather homelier concerns, like this one with which he is about to dare to interrupt his superiors' meditations, With weather like this, the man might have gone to spend the day in the country, What country, asked the inspector in an ironic tone, What do you mean what country, The real country is on the other side of the frontier, on this side, it's all city. It was true. The sergeant had missed a golden opportunity to remain silent, but he had learned a lesson, asking such questions would get him nowhere. He concentrated on his driving and swore to himself that he would only open his mouth if asked to. That was when the superintendent spoke, We will be hard and implacable, we won't resort to any of the classic tricks, like that old, outmoded hard cop, soft cop routine, we are a commando of operatives, feelings don't count here, we will imagine that we are machines made to perform a specific task and we will simply carry out that task without so much as a backward glance, Yes, sir, said the inspector, Yes, sir, said the sergeant, breaking his own oath. The car turned into the street where the man who wrote the letter lives, over in that building, on the third floor. They parked the car a little further on, the sergeant opened the door for the superintendent, the inspector got out the other side, the commando is complete, on the firing line, fists clenched, action.
Now we see them on the landing. The superintendent gestures to the sergeant, who rings the doorbell. Total silence inside. The sergeant thinks, You see, I was right, he has gone to spend the day in the country. Another gesture, another ring on the doorbell. A few seconds later, they hear someone, a man, ask from behind the door, Who is it. The superintendent looks at his immediate subordinate, who says in a loud voice, Police, One moment, please, said the man, I have to get dressed. Four minutes passed. The superintendent made the same gesture, the sergeant again rang the doorbell, this time keeping his finger pressed down. One moment, one moment, please, I'm coming, I've only just got up, these last words were spoken with the door open by a man wearing shirt and trousers and still in his slippers, Today is the day of the slipper, thought the sergeant. The man did not seem alarmed, he wore the look of someone finally seeing the arrival of the visitors he has been waiting for, any hint of surprise was probably due only to the fact that there were so many of them. The inspector asked him his name and he told them, adding, Do come in, and I apologize for the state the place is in, I never imagined you would come so early, besides, I thought you would call me in to make a statement, but you've come to me instead, it's about the letter, I assume, Yes, it's about the letter, said the inspector bluntly, Come in, come in. The sergeant went in first, sometimes the hierarchy works in reverse, followed by the inspector, with the superintendent bringing up the rear. The man shuffled down the corridor, Follow me, this way, he opened a door that gave onto a small sitting-room and said, Sit down, please, and if you don't mind, I'll just go and put some shoes on, this is no way to receive visitors, We're not exactly what you would call visitors, remarked the inspector, No, of course not, it was just a manner of speaking, Go and put some shoes on, then, and be quick about it, we're in a hurry, No, we're not, we're not in any hurry at all, said the superintendent, who had not until then said a word. The man looked at him, and this time he did so with an air of slight alarm, as if the tone in which the superintendent had spoken was not what had been agreed, and all he could think of to say was, You can, I assure you, count on my entire cooperation, sir, Superintendent, said the sergeant, Superintendent, repeated the man, and you, sir, Don't worry, I'm just a sergeant. The man turned to the third member of the group, replacing his question with an interrogative lift of the eyebrows, but the answer came from the superintendent, This gentleman is an inspector and my chief officer, then he added, Now go and put some shoes on, we'll wait for you. The man left the room. I can't hear anyone else in the apartment, it looks as if he lives alone, whispered the sergeant, His wife's probably gone to spend the day in the country, said the inspector with a smile. The superintendent signaled to them to be quiet, I'll ask the first questions, he said, lowering his voice. The man came back in and, as he sat down, said May I, as if he were not in his own house, and then, Here I am, now how can I help you. The superintendent nodded kindly, then began, Your letter, or, rather, your three letters, because there were three of them, Yes, I thought it was safer that way, because you never know, one of them might have got lost, the man began, Don't interrupt, just answer any questions I ask you, Yes, superintendent, Your letters, I repeat, were read with great interest by their recipients, especially as regards what you say about a certain unidentified woman who committed a murder four years ago. There was no question in these words, it was a simple reiteration of facts, and so the man said nothing. There was an expression of confusion and perplexity on his face, he could not understand why the superintendent did not get straight to the heart of the matter instead of wasting time on an episode which he had only mentioned in order to cast a still darker light on an already disquieting portrait. The superintendent pretended not to notice, Tell us what you know about that murder, he asked. The man suppressed an urge to remind the superintendent that this had not been the most important part of the letter, that, compared with the country's current situation, the murder was the least of it, but no, he wouldn't do that, prudence told him to follow the music they were asking him to dance to, later on, they were sure to change the record, I know that she killed a man, Did you see her do it, were you there, asked the superintendent, No, superintendent, but she herself confessed, To you, To me and to other people, You do know, I assume, the technical meaning of the word confession, More or less, superintendent, More or less isn't enough, either you do or you don't, In the sense that you mean, no, I don't, Confession means a declaration of one's own mistakes or faults, it can also mean an acknowledgement of guilt or of the truth of an accusation by the accused to someone in authority or in a court of law, now, can these definitions be applied rigorously to this case, No, not rigorously, superintendent, Fine, continue, My wife was there, my wife witnessed the man's death, What do you mean by there, There, in the old insane asylum where we were quarantined, Your wife, I assume, was also blind, As I said the only person who didn't go blind was her, Who's her, The woman who committed the murder, Ah, We were in a dormitory, And the murder was committed there, No, superintendent, in another dormitory, So none of the people from your dormitory were present when the murder was committed, Only the women, Why only the women, It's difficult to explain, superintendent, Don't worry, we've got plenty of time, There were some blind men who took over and started terrorizing us, Terrorizing, Yes, superintendent, terrorizing, How, They got hold of all the food and if we wanted to eat, we had to pay, And they demanded women as payment, Yes, superintendent, And that woman killed a man, Yes, superintendent, Killed him how, With a pair of scissors, Who was this man, The one who was in charge of the other blind men, She's obviously a brave woman, Yes, superintendent, Now tell us why you reported her, But I didn't, I only mentioned it because it seemed relevant, Sorry, I don't understand, What I meant to say in the letter was that someone who was capable of doing that was capable of doing the other thing. The superintendent did not ask what other thing this was, he merely looked at the person whom he had, using navy language, called his chief officer, inviting him to continue the interrogation. The inspector paused for a few seconds, Would you mind asking your wife to join us, he asked, we'd like to talk to her, My wife isn't here, When will she be back, She won't, we're divorced, When did that happen, Three years ago, Would you object to telling us why you got divorced, For personal reasons, Naturally they would be personal, For private reasons then, As with all divorces. The man looked at the inscrutable faces before him and realized that they would not leave him in peace until he had told them what they wanted to know. He cleared his throat, crossed and uncrossed his legs, I'm a man of principle, he began, Oh, we know that, said the sergeant, unable to contain himself, I mean, I know that, I had the privilege of reading your letter. The superintendent and the inspector smiled, it was a justifiable blow. The man looked at the sergeant, bewildered, as if he had not expected an attack from that quarter, and, lowering his eyes, he went on, It was to do with those blind men, I couldn't bear the fact that my wife had done it with those vile men, for a whole year I put up with the shame of it, but, in the end, it became unbearable, and so I left her, got a divorce, How odd, I thought you said that these other blind men gave you food in exchange for your women, said the inspector, That's right, And your principles, I assume, did not allow you to touch the food that your wife brought to you after she had, to use your expression, done it with those vile men. The man hung his head and did not reply. I understand your discretion, said the inspector, it really is too private a matter to be bandied about amongst strangers, oh, sorry, I didn't mean to wound your sensibilities. The man looked at the superintendent as if pleading for help, or at least asking him to replace the pincers with a spell on the rack. The superintendent obliged and applied the garrotte, In your letter, you referred to a group of seven people, Yes, superintendent, Who were they, Apart from the woman and her husband, Which woman, The one who didn't go blind, The one who acted as your guide, Yes, superintendent, The one who, in order to avenge her fellow women, stabbed the leader of the bandits with a pair of scissors, Yes, superintendent, Go on, Her husband was an ophthalmologist, We know that, There was a prostitute too, Did she tell you she was a prostitute, Not that I remember, no, superintendent, So how did you know she was a prostitute, By her manner, it was clear from her manner, And, of course, manners never deceive, go on, And there was an old man who was blind in one eye and wore a black eye-patch, and he and she lived together afterward, Who's she, The prostitute, Were they happy, I've no idea, You must have some idea, During the year that we still saw each other, yes, they seemed happy. The superintendent counted on his fingers, There's still one missing, he said, Yes, there was a boy with a squint who had lost his parents in all the confusion, Do you mean that you all met in the dormitory, No, superintendent, we had all met before, Where, At the ophthalmologist's where my then wife took me when I went blind, in fact, I think I was the first person to go blind, And you infected the others, the whole city, including your visitors today, It wasn't my fault, superintendent, Do you know the names of these people, Yes, superintendent, Of all of them, Apart from the boy, if I knew his name then, I've forgotten it now, But you remember the others, Yes, superintendent, And their addresses, Yes, unless they've moved in the last three years, Of course, unless they've moved in the last three years. The superintendent glanced round the small room, and his gaze lingered on the television as if he were hoping for some inspiration from it, then he said, Sergeant, pass your notebook to this gentleman and lend him your pen so that he can write down the names and the addresses of the people of whom he has spoken so warmly, apart from the boy with the squint, who wouldn't be of any use to us anyway. The man's hands trembled when he took the pen and the notebook, they continued to tremble as he wrote, he was telling himself that there was no reason to feel afraid, that the police were there because he had, in some way, summoned them himself, what he didn't understand was why they didn't talk about the blank ballot papers, the insurrection, the conspiracy against the state, about the only real reason he had written his letter. His hands were trembling so much that his writing was almost illegible, May I use another sheet, he asked, Use as many as you like, replied the sergeant. His writing began to grow steadier, it was no longer a motive for embarrassment. While the sergeant retrieved the pen and handed the notebook to the superintendent, the man was wondering what gesture, what word could win him, even if only belatedly, the sympathy of these policemen, their benevolence, their complicity. Suddenly, he remembered, I've got a photograph, he exclaimed, yes, I think I've still got it, What photograph, asked the inspector, Of the group, it was taken shortly after we had recovered our sight, my wife didn't want it, she said she'd get a copy, she said I should keep it so that I wouldn't forget, Were those her words, asked the inspector, but the man did not reply, he had stood up and was about to leave the room, when the superintendent ordered, Sergeant, go with this gentleman, if he has any trouble finding the photograph, help him, don't come back without it. They were absent for only a few minutes. Here it is, said the man. The superintendent went over to the window to be able to see better. In a line, side by side, the six adults stood in pairs, couple by couple. On the right, alongside his wife, stood the man himself, plainly recognizable, to the left there stood, without a shadow of a doubt, the old man with the black eye-patch and the prostitute, and in the middle, by a process of elimination, two people who could only be the doctor's wife and her husband. In front, kneeling down like a football player, was the boy with the squint. Next to the doctor's wife was a large dog looking straight at the camera. The superintendent beckoned to the man to join him, Is that her, he asked, pointing, Yes, superintendent, that's her, And the dog, If you like, I can tell you the story, superintendent, No, don't bother, she'll tell me. The superintendent left first, followed by the inspector and then the sergeant. The man who had written the letter watched them go down the stairs. The building has no lift and there is little hope that it ever will.