The Investigation

by Philippe Claudel

  IV

  THE SITUATION WAS GROWING ABSURD. He’d never had such a strange misadventure. He went so far as to rub his eyes and bite his lips in an effort to persuade himself that the events of the past few hours had not been just a nightmare.

  But, no, there he was, all right, standing in front of that entrance that didn’t look a thing like an entrance, before the wall surrounding the Enterprise, which didn’t look like any other enterprise, next to a Guardhouse completely different from an ordinary guardhouse, standing there with chattering teeth, drenched to the bone, at ten o’clock in the evening—no, later—while the rain, no doubt with a view to increasing his amazement, routed the snow again and started hammering on his skull.

  He hauled rather than carried his suitcase, which no longer contained only his clothes and other personal items; now there were stones in it, steel beams, chunks of cast iron, blocks of granite. Each of his steps was accompanied by a squelching sound, like the sound a sponge makes when you squeeze it. The sidewalks were turning into great swamps. He wouldn’t have been all that surprised if he’d suddenly been seized and dragged down by the deep current of some bottomless puddle. But all at once, a memory crossed his mind and rekindled his hope. He recalled a moment, during the course of his wandering, when he’d looked down the length of a street and spotted—on the right, he remembered it had been on the right, but what good was that piece of information going to do him?—in any case, he’d spotted an illuminated sign, and he believed (but here he abandoned the realm of certainty; this wasn’t a belief he’d stake his life on) that the sign was a hotel sign. He was sure there would be plenty of hotels on the periphery of the City, on its noisy edges, where freeway interchanges performed their function, purging the fast lanes of excessive traffic, bleeding arteries clogged with vehicles, separating destinies and lives. But at this hour, there was no question of his attempting to reach those conjectural hotels on foot, and in such weather. To begin with, what would be the right way for him to go? He hadn’t the least idea.

  And to think, a very simple act could have saved him all this trouble: Had he thought to recharge his cell phone before leaving his apartment that morning, he’d already be asleep in a nice, warm bed, listening to the rain drumming on the roof of the hotel, which he would have found with no problem, simply by dialing for information. But the small, inert, useless object in his raincoat pocket—he could feel it now and then, when he passed his suitcase from one hand to the other—reminded him of his negligence and his stupidity.

  What time could it be? He didn’t dare consult his watch again. He was exhausted and chilled through and through. He sneezed every three yards, and fluid ran from his nose like tepid water from a treacherous and badly closed faucet. He wasn’t going to be forced to sleep in the train station or on a bench, like a homeless person, was he? In any case, that was a moot point, because he remembered that train stations all over the country now chained up their doors at night, precisely to avoid being turned into dormitories; moreover, public benches installed during the last several years were designed in such a way that you couldn’t lie on them anymore.

  He walked on at random; by now, nothing looked familiar. He crossed intersections, tramped past buildings, traversed neighborhoods of low-rise, detached houses with no light on in any window. Could it be that not a soul was awake in the entire City? The streets were empty of vehicles: no cars, no motorcycles, no bicycles. Nothing. It was as if a curfew were in force, and it forbade traffic of any kind.

  The Waiter had told him the truth: The Enterprise was always with him. He could distinguish, near and far, the somber conglomeration of its facilities; seen through the streaks of freezing rain, the structures formed ramparts and high walls, sometimes crenellated, always thick and oppressive. And then there was the sound the Enterprise made, audible in spite of the raindrops striking the pavement: a noticeable, continuous, low whirring, like the sound a refrigerator makes when its door has been left open.

  The Investigator felt old and discouraged, even though his Investigation hadn’t begun yet, even though nothing had actually begun. The rain doubled its force, as did the wind, which swept the streets methodically, exhaling a kind of earthy, fetid, glacial breath that just about finished him off. He’d been walking for … for how long, really? He didn’t have any idea, and now he was in a part of the City where there were no buildings. The sidewalks were lined by a concrete fence about ten feet high, on the top of which glittered innumerable pieces of broken glass set in cement. The narrow streets, which forked repeatedly, reinforced his unpleasant sensation that he’d become a kind of rodent, caught in an outsized trap. The monotonous and restrictive landscape completed his disorientation, but he kept moving. He had the curious impression that he was being observed by an invisible creature located somewhere very high above him and laughing heartily at the wretchedness of his state.

  V

  AT FIRST, HE TOLD HIMSELF that exhaustion was causing him to see mirages. And then the name on the unlit sign—HOPE HOTEL—comforted him with the thought that someone—a kind of game-master—was playing a little trick on him and observing his reaction with a subtle smile. He nearly wept for joy, but instead he burst out laughing, loudly and at some length. True, the sign was off—was this the one he thought he’d seen lit up a few hours earlier?—but the place was indeed a hotel, a real hotel, modest-looking, probably a little creaky, judging from its decrepit façade and the flaking paint on its shutters, some of which were hanging from only one hinge, but nonetheless an active hotel, with a plaque indicating the category of the establishment—four stars! Its façade merited only one, if that—and a notice displaying the prohibitive prices of the rooms. Through the glass doors he could see the apparently tidy lobby, as well as the tiny lamp whose tiny light faintly illuminated a sort of counter, to the left of which he could make out several dozen keys of various sizes hanging from butcher’s hooks.

  The Investigator, who had practically run across the street when he saw the Hotel, searched a little breathlessly for the night bell, but after several minutes came to the conclusion that there wasn’t any. Still, he was now certain that his ordeal was almost over, and he didn’t care how much he had to pay. He was prepared to disburse a fortune in exchange for a warm, dry room and a bed to lie on. There would be time tomorrow to look around for a hotel better suited to his means.

  He knocked on the door—gently, discreetly—and waited. Nothing happened. He knocked again, a bit harder this time. It crossed his mind that the Night Clerk wasn’t doing very much in the way of clerking. The Investigator imagined him plunged into a deep, comalike slumber. Was it possible that there was no one on duty? He shivered and began to yell, pounding on the door in a sudden burst of energy. The Hope Hotel remained hopelessly closed and mute. The Investigator let himself slide down the door like a heavy sandbag. He collapsed onto his suitcase, which he clutched as though it were a loved one or a life preserver—a strange life preserver indeed, as wet as the waves it was supposed to save him from.

  “What do you want?”

  He jerked his head up. The door of the Hotel was open, and a woman was standing close beside him, a very tall, very fat woman. To the Investigator, who was lying in a heap on the ground, for all the world like an insect or a reptile, she seemed a veritable giantess, a giantess in the act of tying a belt around her pink, fraying terry-cloth bathrobe. She looked at him in amazement. He mumbled some words of apology, managed to rise to his feet, smoothed his raincoat and trousers, wiped his tears and his nose with the back of his hand, sniffled, and then, at last, instinctively coming to attention, almost like a soldier, he introduced himself: “I’m the Investigator.”

  “So?” the Giantess replied, not giving him time to go on. Her large body gave off a slight scent of perspiration as well as a tepid warmth, the warmth of the bed from which she’d been roused by his racket. Since she hadn’t drawn her robe all the way around her, the Investigator could see the lighter fabric of her nightgown and it
s washed-out pattern of daisies and daffodils. Her features were blurry with sleep, and the thick coils of her bright-red hair were skewered on a long, haphazardly inserted hairpin.

  “Would you by chance have an available room?” the Investigator asked, not without some difficulty. He didn’t yet dare to think that his grotesque ordeal might be coming to an end.

  “A room!” the Giantess said, speaking distinctly and opening her eyes wide, as if his request were absurd, inappropriate, possibly even obscene. The Investigator once again felt his legs buckling under him. She looked shocked and outraged.

  “Yes, a room,” he replied, and it was almost a supplication.

  “Do you know what time it is?”

  He dared to shrug his shoulders a little. “Yes …” he murmured, though he hadn’t the least idea how late it was or the nerve to look at his watch. He lacked even the strength to apologize, and he shrank from launching into an explication that wouldn’t have been very convincing in any case and might possibly have aroused yet more suspicion.

  The Giantess thought for a few seconds, grumbling. In the end she said, “Follow me!”

  VI

  THE GIANTESS HAD HIM FILL OUT an incalculable number of forms. As soon as he finished each one, she tried to put the information on the hard drive of an old computer, but she looked uncomfortable at the keyboard, typing with two fingers, often hitting the wrong key, and closing the program inadvertently no fewer than five times before she was able to save the data; she had to start over from scratch every time.

  At last, she handed him a copy of the Hotel Rules—a single sheet, printed on both sides, sealed in plastic, and covered with fingerprints that made the text illegible in places—and required him to read them aloud, carefully, in front of her. Because he wished to be agreeable, he didn’t balk at her request.

  Afterward, she took the trouble to verify that he’d retained and digested what he’d read by quizzing him about it: “Is smoking allowed in the rooms?” “From when to when is breakfast served?” “Where?” “Are Guests allowed to receive visitors from outside the Hotel in their rooms?” “What is it strictly forbidden to throw into the toilets?” and so on.

  When he gave the wrong answer to her fourteenth question—“Are Guests permitted to iron their personal belongings in their rooms without first informing the Management?”—the Giantess requested that he reread the Rules in their entirety, all thirty-four paragraphs. The thought of being shown to the door and forced to finish the night in the street convinced the Investigator that he should do as she said. In the end, he managed to pass the test, and the Giantess allowed him to choose one of the keys on the board, having first asked him for a piece of identification and his credit card, which she’d then proceeded to shut up, before he had time to protest, in a little box situated below the board with the keys, all in accordance with paragraph 18, line C of the Rules, which stated that in cases of nocturnal arrival, the Management of the Hope Hotel reserved the right to keep the Guest’s identification papers and credit card or other means of payment as a security deposit until the forenoon of the following day.

  “Pick one fast. I’m in no mood to wait much longer. It’s 3:16 a.m., my nights are short, and I can’t wait to get back in bed!”

  He settled on number 14. The Giantess took the key off its hook and without a word began to climb the stairs. The Investigator followed her.

  He tripped and nearly fell on the very first stair, because its unusually tall riser contradicted his unconscious muscle memory, and he didn’t step high enough. By contrast, the next stair was very low, too low, which likewise disoriented him and nearly led to a fall. The result was that he began to pay strict attention, despite his fatigue, to every step, telling himself that in any case there weren’t going to be fifty of them; room number 14, the room he’d chosen, must be on the second floor, so there couldn’t be many more stairs to go.

  His concentration paid off, and he climbed on without stumbling. Given that no two risers were the same height, he was pleased with his performance, but he thought that only a lunatic could have constructed such a stairway. Long after he and his escort had passed the second floor, they kept climbing, climbing, climbing. On the point of collapse, the Investigator gritted his teeth and toiled upward behind the Giantess. He lugged his suitcase along as best he could, ascending floor after floor, one step at a time. The Hotel seemed like an infinite tower whose apparent purpose was to pierce the sky, as a hand drill’s reason for being is to put holes in wood.

  Then, with brutal abruptness, a thought came to him, a luminous, self-evident, indubitable thought: He was dead. He’d died without noticing it. This struck him as the obvious explanation; what other could there be? Maybe it had happened a few hours before, right after he got off the train. Maybe he’d inadvertently walked across some tracks. Maybe a freight train had struck him, crushed him, reduced him to nothing. Or maybe the event—a catastrophic collapse, a heart attack, a massive stroke—had taken place earlier, as he was leaving the Director’s office with his new orders and just after he said hello to the Accountant, who was standing by the vending machine, fixing her hair and makeup while waiting for a cup of coffee. Or maybe he’d died at home. In the morning, when he first woke up, even before shutting off the vibrating alarm clock with its hands pointing to 6:15. An instantaneous, painless death. A long slide. And after that, nothing. Or, rather, yes, something: namely, this nightmare, which must be a kind of stress test, an initiation ordeal, an upgraded purgatory. Somewhere, someone was observing him, he was more and more sure of it. Someone was studying him. Someone was going to determine his lot.

  “Here it is,” the Giantess said. “And there’s your key.” She handed him the object in question—he found it quite heavy—adjusted the front of her robe, lightly passed her right hand over her forehead, which was speckled with fine beads of sweat, and went back down the stairs without so much as wishing him a good night, carrying off with her her somnolent, animal smell. The Investigator inserted the key into the lock and turned it, expecting it not to work.

  He was, however, wrong. He entered the room quickly, put down his suitcase, didn’t even look for the light switch, felt around until he came to a piece of furniture shaped like a bed, dropped onto it fully dressed, and—after breathing heavily for several minutes, like a man saved from drowning by big, ruddy, clumsy hands—fell asleep.

  VII

  A SOUND LIKE AN OCEAN LINER’S SIREN—an enormous sound that shrieked for three or four seconds, stopped, and then began again—flung him out of his sleep. He sat up in the bed, searched in vain for a light switch, and struck his forehead against an object attached to the wall. The object fell with a great crash, the whooping of the siren immediately ceased, and then he heard a voice, a voice that was at once near and far.

  “Hello! Hello? Hello, can you hear me …? Hello?”

  The Investigator groped around in the dark and took hold of the telephone receiver, which was hanging at the end of its cord. “Yes, I can hear you.”

  “Hello! Can you hear me?” the voice repeated anxiously.

  “I can hear you,” the Investigator said again, a little louder this time. “Who are you?”

  “Hello!!” the voice yelled. “Hello!!!”

  “Go ahead! I can hear you! I can hear you perfectly!”

  “Goddamn it! Is someone there or not? Answer me, please! I beg you, answer me! I’m locked in! I’ve been locked in!!! I can’t get out of this room!” The voice had taken on the accents of great despair.

  “I’m here! I’m here,” the Investigator said. “I can hear you perfectly!”

  At the other end of the line, the voice yelled one more time, there was a crackling sound, and then nothing more, except for an intermittent and unpleasant dial tone.

  The Investigator ran both hands over the wall above the bed until he finally found the light switch. After a few hesitant blinks, the ceiling light came on. It was a circular neon tube that filled the room with a green g
low and revealed it to be much bigger than the Investigator had thought. The bed he lay on seemed lost in the vast space, which measured at least thirty feet by twenty. He was stunned for a few seconds. Aside from the bed, the furniture consisted of a very small wardrobe wedged into one corner and a chair placed in the middle of the room, directly under the ceiling light. There was nothing else. No night table. No desk. The old parquet floor was covered here and there by faded Oriental rugs that had lost their colors and their patterns. On the back wall was a photograph, a picture of an old man with a mustache. The Investigator had the feeling he’d seen that face before, but he wasn’t certain. He looked around. This place certainly didn’t provide the décor and comfort of a four-star hotel!

  The Investigator glanced at his watch: 6:45. That mistaken telephone call had been a good thing, after all. Without it, God only knew when he would have waked up! But the crazy person who’d called him—who could he have been?

  He got out of bed. He’d slept for only a few hours. His head hurt, and his nose, which was swollen, hot, and bruised, wouldn’t stop running. He shivered as he realized that he hadn’t even taken off his raincoat, which was somewhat drier, though far from dry, and totally wrinkled. His crumpled suit gave off a strange odor of wild mushrooms, his shirt looked like a rag, and his tie had coiled itself three times around his throat. His shoes—he’d kept them on, too—were still soaked.

  He undressed rapidly, placed his clothes, including undershirt and -pants, on the bed, and headed for a door that he supposed led to the bathroom. The proportions of this latter space left him dumbfounded: It was a narrow closet. As the Hotel room itself was uselessly large, so the bathroom was amazingly small, cramped, low-ceilinged, and of dubious cleanliness to boot. Hairs short and long in the washbasin bore witness to a previous guest whose traces no one had taken the trouble to erase. The Investigator bent forward slightly and entered the bathroom. Fear of never being able to open the door again kept him from closing it behind him. Moving sideways and with a great deal of effort, he managed to penetrate what served as a shower. Since he was unable to turn around, he slipped his left hand behind his back and turned on the faucet; a jet of icy water struck him between the shoulder blades. He couldn’t stop himself from crying out. Groping blindly behind him, he located the lever that adjusted the water temperature; the result of his manipulations was a barrage of scalding water, which turned icy again when he moved the lever in the opposite direction. The Investigator opted for cold, forcing himself to bear the torture for nearly thirty seconds before turning off the faucet and wriggling out of the shower.