The Assignment

by Per Wahlöö

  “Thank you. What’s more, it’ll save us quite a bit of trouble in the future.”

  “And how are things here in town?”

  “Calm, or near enough. That was what I was calling about, actually. The northern native district is reported to be in somewhat of a state of unrest. It seems that some kind of delegation from there is trying to get permission to see you. At the moment I gather they’re on sitdown strike at the police barrier.”

  “Do you know what they want?”

  “They maintain that the water in their wells has been poisoned.”

  “Can that be true?”

  “I don’t know. It sounds unlikely. Poisoning wells is a method which I can scarcely imagine an organization like the Citizens’ Guard using. But one of my lieutenants who is in charge in the northern sector says that the water does seem mysterious. Yes—that’s his own word—mysterious.”

  “Send a sample of water to the hospital for analysis. Dr. Alvarado’s laboratory staff should be able to settle the matter quickly.”

  “Yes, that’s an idea. I’ll get it done immediately.”

  “And I’ll receive the delegation, of course.”

  “Ye-es. How many shall we let through?”

  “Can’t they decide that for themselves?”

  “If you don’t give them definite instructions you’ll have about two thousand people in your room within half an hour.”

  “Oh yes. Well, three should be enough.”

  “Three then. All right. And what time?”

  “Let’s say eleven o’clock. Perhaps the analysis of the water will be done by then.”

  There was a moment of silence during which Behounek seemed to be making notes. Then Manuel said: “One more thing. Someone has asked me to put a question to you.”

  “What about?”

  “The question is: What was the Peace Force doing in a village called Santa Rosa last night?”

  Behounek didn’t answer right away. Finally he said: “Who asked that highly remarkable question?”

  Manuel almost answered truthfully but collected himself at the last moment. “I don’t know. It was an unidentified voice on the phone—a man as far as I could make out.”

  “Hmmm. Oh yes, on the phone …”

  “Yes.”

  “You see, whoever asked seems to be suspiciously well informed. Santa Rosa is the name of the place near where our patrols succeeded in surprising the Communist saboteurs last night.”

  “And the village itself?”

  “It’s abandoned. No one lives there.”

  Manuel Ortega went in to the woman in the next room and, standing by her desk, said: “The Communist terrorist group who blew up the waterworks was wiped out near Santa Rosa last night. The village itself is abandoned. No one lives there.”

  “No,” she said, without looking up. “That’s quite true. There is no one living there.”

  He stayed for a while, looking at her black hair, which was short and untidy. She nervously bit on a nail and did not raise her head. Suddenly she said: “You made a mistake when you said it was an anonymous telephone call. He can immediately check on it at the listening-in post.”

  Manuel Ortega started.

  “Listening in,” he said acidly. “And you …”

  Then she raised her head and looked at him, calmly and seriously.

  “Yes, I’ve told you that I listen in.”

  Manuel Ortega did something completely unpremeditated. He raised his right hand and slapped her across the face. Her head jerked sideways, but otherwise she did not react at all. Then she looked at him again, with the same look as before, and said: “You must understand one thing—I’m on your side, now, to some extent anyway.”

  “I’m sorry …”

  He said this confusedly, and made a movement which as far as he could make out was not intentional. He raised his hand again and stroked her gently across her cheek. She did not move and her eyes were firm and positive.

  He left the room, got the cable from his desk, went back, and put it down in front of her.

  She took her time reading it. Then she said in a low voice: “This implies very great possibilities.”

  She lightly brushed the backs of her fingers over his hand.

  They said no more and soon afterward he went back into his room.

  He was on the telephone for the next two hours, talking to men like Dalgren and the man in charge of the waterworks, mostly about transportation and water rationing. He also thought of sending the twenty idle surveyors up to the pumping station and immediately put the idea into action.

  Promptly at eleven o’clock the three-man delegation of workers arrived. They were escorted by a policeman in a white uniform who demonstratively stood on guard at the door. Manuel’s first thought was to tell him to leave, but then he changed his mind after a glance at the sharp, resigned, rancorous faces of the three men. The delegates glared darkly from the policeman at the door to Fernández, who had unbuttoned his jacket and swiftly eased his way over to an unoccupied spot by the wall. Fernández’s gait was reminiscent of Danica Rodríguez’s, but only on certain occasions. This was one of them.

  The three men stood in a row in the middle of the floor. All three held their hats in their hands and were wearing the usual floppy white clothes. Two of them were older than the third and were obviously Indians. These two bowed deeply and humbly. The third gave no sign of greeting. He looked fairly young, somewhere between twenty-five and thirty, and appeared to be a half-breed of indeterminate origin. It was he who spoke for them.

  “We’ve come here because our wells have been poisoned,” he said. “The people have asked me to convey this to you.”

  His voice was shrill and aggressive.

  “When was this supposed to have happened?”

  “Last night all the lights were turned out for more than half an hour. Men came into our district in the dark and poisoned our wells.”

  “Are you certain the water is poisoned?”

  “It smells bad and is red in three wells. In the fourth it is blue. No one dares drink it. Perhaps we cannot wash in it. They say a dog which drank some died in terrible torment.”

  “And who would be guilty of this?”

  “Those so-called citizens. Those who live on the hill in the big houses.”

  “The men with the yellow armbands,” said one of the others.

  “If the water has really been poisoned, we shall, of course, help you in every way. As you know, even we here in town are without water after the Communist sabotage yesterday.”

  “I’ve also been asked to say that it is unjust that the people in our parts of town should be punished too. Most of them are not Communists. All the same, they were punished yesterday for something which not they, but white men, did. Forty-two people were killed by the citizens and the white policemen. They were buried early this morning. Now, however, we want water.”

  “Let us first find out what is wrong with your wells. We have sent the water for analysis—for examination. Wait a moment.”

  Without waiting for instructions Danica Rodríguez, who had been leaning against the doorpost smoking, went into her room, telephoned Dr. Alvarado, and put the call through to the other room.

  “Aha—good morning. We met on Dalgren’s terrace, didn’t we?”

  “Yes, and today I’ve had some samples of water sent to you.…”

  “Yes, we’ve looked at them. The water is contaminated with one or a number of chemicals, God knows which, but it is not exactly poisoned. In one case we can say that something as simple as methylene blue was used—seems almost like a boy’s prank. I remember from my own schooldays, putting it into chocolate and then getting some poor sucker to eat it. He’d be scared out of his wits when he both spat and pissed blue for a couple of days afterward.”

  “The water is drinkable then?”

  “My dear chap, that water has never been drinkable. Before this muck got in, it was deficient in iron and contained every possibl
e impurity. I was just about to say every impurity one could think of, but that of course would have been an exaggeration.”

  “But everyone seems to drink it all the same.”

  “Yes, and the infant mortality rate is sixty per cent. Well, that isn’t only due to the water—but it means that those who manage to survive the first five years are really tough. They tolerate most things. Almost anything except certain nickel and lead alloys.”

  “I have a delegation from the mineworkers here at the moment. They say that no one dares use the water. What do you think I ought to say to them?”

  “I think you should say this: The water is no more poisonous than it was before. They can use it for baking and washing and they can boil things in it too. They can even drink it, though I would spew up my whole stomach if I tried. But the best thing would be if you could arrange to provide them with drinking water from the town’s reservoirs. That seems just, I think, and it can’t be a question of exorbitant quantities.”

  He repeated word for word what the doctor had said, apart from his personal comments. The three men looked at him suspiciously.

  “Will we really get water to drink?” asked one of the older ones, as if refusing to believe what he had heard.

  “Yes, from tankers.”

  “When?”

  “We should be able to arrange it today.”

  “The citizens water their trees and flowers with fine water,” said the one of the trio who had hitherto not spoken.

  “That has nothing to do with the matter,” said the young spokesman loftily.

  The other one looked crushed.

  Manuel Ortega asked them one question, directed at the spokesman: “What’s your name?”

  “Crox.”

  The delegation trooped out.

  Two minutes later Behounek rang. His voice was hard and rough. “Have you time to come with me for an hour?”

  “What’s it about?”

  “I want to show you something. You’ll meet a few people.”

  “Yes, of course, if it’s important.”

  “I consider it very important. I’ll come for you at twelve sharp.”

  The Chief of Police was undoubtedly very tired. His eyelids were sore and red, his eyes bloodshot, and his white uniform wrinkled and grubby. He had several bits of plaster on his right hand, which seemed swollen and hurt. But his voice was cold and his movements precise and resolute. He brought to mind an exhausted boxer who goes into the last round firmly determined to knock his adversary unconscious.

  “This house belongs to a young real estate agent from the town, Alfonso Pérez,” he said.

  They were standing outside a house set somewhat apart, below the artificially irrigated area, half in the country and about as far from the workers’ quarter as from the upper-class villas. It was a low house, of white roughcast with blue shutters, and was surrounded by low yellowish gray stone walls. Outside the entrance stood one of the white police jeeps.

  “I want you to meet Pérez and his family,” said Behounek. “They’ve something important to tell you.”

  They opened the gate and walked up the flagged path through the garden. A couple of yards behind came López, who had relieved Fernández twenty minutes earlier. The house was neat and well cared for. In front of it stood a swing and a little farther away a child’s bicycle.

  “What a humid day,” said Behounek, looking up at the sky, which was hidden in a woolly white mist.

  Manuel took a step toward the door.

  “No! Wait a moment! Don’t go in yet. As you’ve evidently not understood the situation, I must warn you that what you’re going to see is very unpleasant. Let me go in first.”

  Despite this, Manuel Ortega was almost totally unprepared when he went into the house only a step behind the Chief of Police.

  Behind his back he heard someone draw in his breath sharply and he realized it must be López.

  They were standing in a large room with cane furniture and whitewashed walls.

  In the middle of the stone floor lay a dead man in striped pajamas. He was lying on his side and his throat had been cut with such force that his head was thrown back almost perpendicular to his torso. His tongue had been driven out through the gaping slash. His pajama top and the floor all around him were covered with congealed blood.

  “This is just the beginning,” said Behounek, taking the other man’s arm.

  On a sofa in the room lay the corpse of a woman. She was naked and had a towel bound around the lower part of her face. It was knotted behind her head and pulled very tight. Her stomach and thighs were covered with blood and her legs lay at such an angle that they seemed to have been broken off from her body. It was impossible to imagine what she had once looked like.

  “She was twenty-three,” said Behounek. “The man was twenty-six.”

  He was still holding Manuel’s arm, as if to keep him upright.

  “That’s not the end yet. They had a child too.”

  “I can’t stand any more.”

  “No, I understand. Neither can I.”

  They stopped on the steps, outside. Behounek lowered his eyes and looked to one side, beyond the stone wall.

  “Sometimes,” he said, “even I need to explain what I mean.”

  López was standing immobile beside the steps. He had gone out before the others.

  “Well, Mr. Bodyguard,” said Behounek, slapping him on the shoulder. “What d’you think? Not bad, eh? Or d’you just like nice corpses in suits, with three bullets in their bodies?”

  A moment later he added: “I’m sorry. I’m very tired. Come on, let’s go.”

  A long while later, he said: “Well, what did you think of Crox? A charming young man, isn’t he? … if it weren’t so hard to differentiate, I’d say he is one of the worst rogues I’ve ever met. He can read and write and isn’t badly off for money. He’s paid for everything. His role as lawyer today certainly cost them a pretty penny.… He’s also my most reliable informer from that part of town. But unfortunately the Liberation Front people spotted him early. Strange that he’s still alive.”

  Manuel Ortega was sitting in the back. He said nothing.

  When they had left the Chief of Police and were going up the white marble stairs, López said: “It’s odd, but I’ve been a policeman all my life and there are still certain things I can’t get used to.”

  “Yes,” said Danica Rodríguez, “I understand. It’s horrible. Almost everything that happens here is horrible. It’s the same in many places.”

  “So brutal, so animal … and meaningless.”

  “That’s true. That was meaningless.”

  “To destroy the water mains yesterday morning was also meaningless. And it was even worse, of course, to shoot forty-two innocent people afterward.”

  “No, on that point you’re wrong. Both those events were horrible, but not quite so meaningless as the murder of the Pérez family. One side demonstrated that they still had resources and the will to fight, and the other demonstrated that they know how to take revenge. In all this there is a kind of calculation. Blowing up the pumping station was a show of strength on the part of the Liberation Front, and the Citizens’ Guard retaliated with the only kind of show of strength they are capable of.”

  “But it is the innocent who suffer.”

  “Of course. But when the Liberation Front blew up the water mains, that contained a threat too: If you go on murdering our people, we shall blow up your power stations, your hospitals, your barracks, your roads. And when the police and the Citizens’ Guard immediately afterward kill forty people, that too is a threat: If you go on sabotaging, we shall arrange for more and even worse massacres.”

  “But this is madness.”

  “Of course. It’s a sort of balance of terror, which is vile but which is inevitable in a situation like this. It’s also very unstable. In some cases it can lead to neither side doing anything at all. It’d be a kind of cold war, in other words, on a well-known pattern. But it can
just as easily lead to all barriers of reason being broken down and everything being turned into a chaos of terrified people who kill one another blindly and mindlessly.”

  “This is what we must avoid. If I only …”

  She looked searchingly at him and said: “Your friend, Captain Behounek, who undoubtedly has a great deal of experience in this district, could have given you some good advice. He evidently failed to do so. He should have said: This is a horror scene and you’ll never forget it. But for you yourself to survive, you must realize that these people are no business of yours except from a technical point of view. Therefore, you mustn’t involve yourself with them except to try to create a state of affairs in which they can stay alive in a tolerable and not too degrading way. When they, in spite of this, slip out of your hands, then you must forget them, not think about how they might still be living, and working, and loving, and sleeping, and cooking breakfast, and—yes, anything.”

  “Your cynicism is astounding.”

  “Cynicism is astounding in itself. In a sane society it lacks authority, but for people like you and me, in our time, it enables us to exist. Have another glass of cazal. It won’t hurt you.”

  It was half past two. They were sitting in a deserted bar on the far side of the square drinking black coffee. They had already been there for an hour. Manuel Ortega was still pale and his eyes uncertain and flickering. López was standing not far away from them with his back to the bar.

  “We should take the siesta,” she said. “It’s crazy to try to work or even to be up at this time of day.”

  “The state of emergency applies to us too. Behounek certainly doesn’t take a siesta either.”

  She looked thoughtfully at him.

  “Apropos of that,” she said. “I think I must tell you about several things which I happen to know of, so that you won’t imagine that you understand the psychology of people like Captain Behounek.”

  She stopped speaking.

  “Yes?” he said questioningly.

  “Well, as I was saying. The latest outrages,—that is, the ones that have occurred since we came here,—are part of a long chain of events that goes back too far to be traced. The day before yesterday a so-called blasting detail from the Citizens’ Guard, presumably schoolboys, got into the workers’ sector. How they got past the police barriers we can leave for the moment. This is something that has been repeated two or three times a week for a long time and Captain Behounek is quite right when he says that plastic bombs in general have not done much damage. But this time they blew up two metal boxes which were evidently crammed with scrap iron and dynamite. Eleven people were killed or badly hurt. Among others a three-year-old child who had one leg torn off above the knee. The Federal Police did nothing whatsoever, according to reports, because they didn’t want to provoke either side. On the other hand, the barrier guards, possibly out of stupidity, held up several people who wanted to take the child to a doctor. They were delayed so long that the child bled to death, but perhaps it would have died anyway. That the pumping station was destroyed the next night can partly be seen as a result of this incident, as can the rioting the next morning.”