The two men were approaching a cone-shaped glass building. The Investigator noticed that the yellow, green, and blue lines turned right, but the red line ended at the conical building’s entrance.
“Kindly step in.” The Guide held the door open for him, and they both went inside. A circular stairway turned round upon itself as it rose to the upper floors; it was a little like the staircase in the Hope Hotel, but here the risers all appeared to be of equal height. Behind frosted-glass doors, the visitor could make out unmoving silhouettes, persons of indeterminate sex who seemed to be seated at desks in front of parallelepiped shapes that might have been computers. The atmosphere was very silent, almost reverential.
“Would you mind waiting a few moments while I inform the Manager that you’re here? In the meantime, please have a seat.” The Guide indicated three chairs arranged around a low table on which lay a certain number of what looked like brochures. “I’ve asked a Colleague to put together a collection of documents for your perusal. They’ll give you an idea of the Enterprise’s social policy, of how the Enterprise works, and of the Enterprise’s unwavering concern for its employees’ well-being.”
The Investigator thanked the Guide, who then began to climb the stairs. His footfalls resounded as though he were treading on the stone floor of a cathedral. As he progressed, his body dwindled but remained visible, thanks to the transparent steps of azure-hued glass that mounted skyward up the giant spiral.
The chair the Investigator had chosen quickly proved uncomfortable. Because the seat was inclined slightly forward, he couldn’t stop sliding on it. He started to change chairs but ascertained that the other two presented the same defect. Tightening his thigh muscles, he tried to forget his discomfort by plunging into the leaflets and booklets that lay on the table.
They formed a veritable miscellany: Some press clippings about the Enterprise mingled with the menus offered at the cafeteria during the last two months of the preceding year; an organizational chart rendered absolutely illegible by the low quality of the photocopy was paired with a report on a visit to an Asian industrialist specializing in the manufacture of soy sauce. A smallish bound volume purported to set out, according to its title, a complete list of the personnel active in the Enterprise as of January 1 of the current year, but this book contained nothing but two or three hundred blank pages. The Investigator also came upon some application forms for a tango evening organized by the Region 3 Transport Service Technical Executives’ Association, a circular informing the warehousemen in the International Packaging Sector about the opening of a rest home located in the Balkans, a user’s manual in ten languages for a dictating machine with a German brand name, an invoice for the purchase of thirty liters of liquid soap, and some twenty photographs of a place under construction whose location and purpose weren’t specified.
The Investigator perused each of these documents conscientiously, telling himself he might thus come to understand by what logic they had been assembled, but that mystery remained completely opaque. Nonetheless, he needed half an hour to read all the words and contemplate all the images presented in the collection, and when he was finished, the Guide had still not come back downstairs.
The Investigator suddenly clapped his hand to his stomach. A long, gurgling rumble had just shaken his innards. Not surprising. Nothing had gone down his throat since the two heinous rusks he’d consumed that morning, and the previous evening, he hadn’t eaten anything at all. Some distance away, behind the first curve of the stairway, he saw what looked like a vending machine. He had two coins left. Could he perhaps find something over there to calm his hunger? He stood up and discovered that because of those blasted chairs, his muscles were totally cramped.
Hobbling, bent in half, his thighs hard and tense, he headed for the vending machine. The skirts of his coat trailed the floor, and he tripped on them twice, almost falling both times, but the sight of the display behind the machine’s glass front sufficed to make him forget his pains. There was a large selection of cold and hot drinks, but, more important—and this he hadn’t expected at all—there were dozens of sandwiches, chicken, ham, sausage, tuna, all garnished with green lettuce leaves, sliced tomatoes, and mayonnaise, all magnificently fresh in appearance, each neatly wrapped in cellophane and waiting in the refrigerated interior.
XVII
HE SELECTED A CUP OF HOT CHOCOLATE and a “Peasant” sandwich, whose descriptive label proposed “a generous helping of ham, cured in traditional style and carved off the bone, served between two slices of whole-grain bread dressed with lightly salted butter, mixed lettuce leaves, pickled gherkins, and thinly sliced tomatoes.”
Number 7 for the chocolate and number 32 for the Peasant. The Investigator inserted his coins, punched in the numbers, and pressed the “Order” key, which began to blink. The machine spoke to him: “Your order is being processed. Number 7. Hot chocolate. If you want more sugar, press ‘Sugar.’ ”
It was a synthetic voice, mechanical, vaguely feminine, agreeable to the ear in spite of a strong foreign accent of indefinable origin. The machine made various sounds—of liquid being drawn up, of valves opening and closing, of suction and expulsion—and then, on the right, a little door slid open, revealing the spout of a kind of percolator. Steam came out of this spout, soon followed by a smooth jet of scalding hot, deliciously fragrant, rich, creamy chocolate, which streamed down before the Investigator’s eyes as he stared at it in dismay, for no plastic cup had appeared to catch the liquid. When the stream came to an end, the artificial voice expressed the wish that the Investigator would enjoy his beverage, and it was only after the machine fell silent again that the plastic cup, with a distinct, ironic “plop,” dropped into position to receive the lost drink. The Investigator, however, had no time for either irritation or despair; sandwich number 32 was on its way.
“You ordered a Peasant sandwich. Please collect it from the delivery box at the bottom front of the dispenser. We hope you enjoy your meal.”
The rotating display rack that held the sandwiches went into motion. It pivoted three times in such a way as to place number 32 in front of a remote-controlled arm, which seized it, removed it from its compartment, and carried it about twelve inches through the air. Then the four pincers at the end of the arm opened and released the Peasant. It fell toward the delivery box, but about eight inches before reaching its goal, it got caught on the tray that featured the number 65 sandwich, the “Ocean”: “A thick, tasty slice of red tuna on a round roll, enhanced with sesame seeds, olive oil, curly endive, onions, and capers.”
The Investigator struck the glass front of the vending machine a few sharp blows with the flat of his hand, but to no avail; the Peasant would not leave the Oceans. He struck the machine harder and harder, took hold of it with both hands, and shook it in every direction, but the only result he obtained was to make the synthetic voice repeat its message, congratulating him on his choice, reminding him that he was about to savor a meal prepared according to the strictest sanitary and dietary norms and in conformity with international Conventions, and wishing him an enjoyable dining experience.
He threw himself to his knees, thrust his arm into the delivery box, twisted his body, shoved his hard hat, which was hindering his movements, high up on his head, and stretched out his hand and his fingers as far as he could, but, alas, despite all his efforts, his impotent middle finger remained a good four inches from the sandwich.
“You should have asked me!”
The Investigator hurriedly yanked his arm out of the machine, like a thief surprised by the police with his hand in an old lady’s purse.
The Guide looked at him and shook his head. “I would have told you it doesn’t work. We’ve called the manufacturer I don’t know how many times, but we can’t make ourselves understood. They’ve outsourced their production unit to Bangladesh, and we don’t yet have anyone on the staff who speaks Bengali. It’s not a problem to reach them by telephone, but then communication turns out to be impossible
. Don’t look at me like that—you’re not the first victim, we’ve all been had by this machine. Such a shame, because when it works it’s really a very good thing. Shall we go? The Manager’s expecting you.”
The Guide was already walking toward the stairway. The Investigator got to his feet as quickly as he could, pulled his coat straight, repositioned his hard hat, which was on the point of falling, and followed him. The gurgling in his belly was getting louder. He absolutely had to eat something; if he didn’t, he was sincerely afraid he might faint. The beginning of the climb up the stairs was quite difficult, because his feet kept getting tangled up in his coat. He was forced to grab its skirts with both hands and raise them about eight inches or so, like a bride lifting the tulle cascades of her long-trained gown. He felt totally ridiculous.
“Did you have time to take a look at the informational materials?” the Guide asked.
With a gesture, the Investigator indicated that he had.
“Very instructive, don’t you think? I’m not the person who prepared the dossier for you—I merely supervised the project. I’ve been assigned a Colleague from our Temporary Processing branch, which has undergone a reduction in personnel. He was the one who did the job. It’s too bad he can’t stay with me, but he’s being sent to the Conceptualization Department. A peerless Co-Worker, brilliant, subtle, involved, with a remarkable capacity for synthesizing data; a man utterly representative of the culture of the Enterprise. We need more like him.”
The Investigator thought the best course would be not to reply. Reply to what? In all probability, he and the Guide hadn’t read the same documents; the ones the Guide was talking about must have been switched with those he’d been given, which must previously have been destined for the rubbish bin or the paper shredder.
The helicoid formed by the stairway was excessively harmonious. Though probably useless in terms of efficiency, it gave the person mounting the stairs a rare sensation of light, unencumbered ascent into a space where breaks, angles, and whatever might be pointed, aggressive, or wounding were unknown. The higher he climbed, the closer he got to the central axis, because the distance between it and the stairs steadily diminished, so that in the end the Investigator had the impression that he was turning round and round upon himself without rising any higher, which reinforced his vertigo and made him, for a time, forget his hunger.
“Here we are,” said the Guide.
The two of them were standing in front of a large door made of precious wood. No handle or doorknob was visible.
“Go ahead and knock, the Manager knows you’re coming. As for me, my mission ends here. I don’t think we’ll see each other again, so please accept my best wishes for the rest of your day. I won’t shake your hand.”
The Guide made a bow to the Investigator, who felt obliged to return the bow, lest he seem impolite. The Guide walked away down a narrow corridor and, after a few seconds, disappeared around a bend.
The Investigator checked to make sure his coat was correctly buttoned and his badge properly straight. He readjusted his hard hat, which still had a tendency to slip, and then he knocked on the door: three quick raps. As if by magic, in the most perfect silence, the portal opened. He was greeted by a violently bright light, perhaps a projector, focused on him and blinding him. He blinked and shielded his eyes with his right hand, and then he heard a powerful voice call out, “Come in! Come on in! Enter! Come right in, please! Don’t be afraid!”
XVIII
ONCE AGAIN, ONE MORE TIME, the Investigator thought about death. Hadn’t he read—he couldn’t remember where—some stories about experiences on the outer limits, about certain people who’d returned from the frontiers of the hereafter? And didn’t they describe an intense, irradiant light and a sort of large tunnel they’d moved through before turning back? The glass cone he’d entered, the strange staircase winding around upon itself, the bright sun pouring each of its dazzling particles of light into his eyes and drowning them, weren’t all those things variations of the big tunnel?
“Please don’t stop so far away! Please, I beg you! Come closer! Do come closer!”
The voice was strong and a little wry. The Investigator reflected that God, if He existed, surely didn’t have a voice like that; it sounded more like a used-car salesman’s voice, or a politician’s.
“What are you doing with that hard hat on your head? My poor friend! Who told you to wear that grotesque thing? You’re not in a shipyard! Come closer to me! Come on!”
No, decidedly, this couldn’t be God. God wouldn’t have made that remark about hard hats in a shipyard. And if this wasn’t God, then he, the Investigator, wasn’t dead, and furthermore, the light was nothing but a very bright light with nothing divine about it. But why in the world was it still aimed straight at him? He said, “The problem is, I can’t see anything.…”
“What do you mean, you can’t see anything? I can see you perfectly well! Perfectly!”
“It’s blinding me,” the Investigator groaned.
“Blinding you? Good heavens!” the voice replied. “Of course, of course! Who the devil installed this bloody … Wait a moment!”
The Investigator heard a small, sharp sound, and then he was plunged in total darkness.
“Is that better?” asked the voice.
“I can’t see anything now, not a thing,” the Investigator complained.
“It’s not possible! I can still see you! This is crazy! Shut your eyes for a few seconds, then reopen them slowly, and I’m convinced you’ll see me! Go on! Trust me! Shut your eyes, I tell you!”
The Investigator resigned himself to obeying. He didn’t have much to lose. After all, if he was dead, he couldn’t be deader, he thought, since death is a state that does not admit gradations. You can’t be very dead or exceptionally dead. You’re just dead, period.
He reopened his eyes and discovered the room he’d just entered. It put him in mind of a film producer’s office. He’d never seen one in his life, but he had an idea of such a room that was at once quite accurate and entirely imaginary: the scent of essential oils, shelves displaying trophies and awards, a bar cart, a humidor, a plush carpet, leather armchairs, a desk with a broad rosewood top; on it a paper cutter, a luxury pen, a desk blotter, a pencil cup, a letter box. On the wall there was an immense portrait of an old man who looked to the Investigator like the man on the key ring.
“All right, can you see me now?”
The Investigator nodded, but in fact he could make out only a thick, blurry form half seated on the left side of the desk.
“But, good Lord, will you please take off that hard hat! Who decked you out in a hard hat?”
“They told me it was obligatory.”
“Obligatory! Who’s ‘they’? There’s no ‘they’ here. I want a name. Who was it? And this coat? I have to admire your docility!”
“I’d prefer to keep the coat on, if you don’t mind,” the Investigator said quickly. He didn’t want to get the Guide in trouble about the hard hat, and he was mindful of the deplorable condition of the clothes he was wearing under the coat.
“As you wish! Come closer and have a seat.”
The Investigator took off the hard hat and approached the desk. The blurred form rose and became clearer, revealing a man of less than average height and well-advanced baldness. His roundish features were barely illuminated by a light that came from the ceiling, like a rain of golden particles.
“Sit down, sit down.…”
The man indicated one of the two armchairs, and the Investigator sat down. He felt so utterly lost in the chair, which was of an unusual size, that he had the sensation of having shrunk. He arranged the bottom of the coat in such a way as to hide his trousers and placed the hard hat in his lap.
“Before we start,” said the man, who the Investigator thought must be the Manager the Guide had mentioned, “what I want is for you to make yourself perfectly comfortable. I want you to feel at home. I want you to feel exactly as if you were at home. Is e
verything all right?”
“Everything’s fine.”
“Did you say something just now about being blinded?”
“That was because of your light, I couldn’t see anything. It was a figure of speech. An image.”
The Manager clapped his hands together and stood up. “Watch out, you’re talking to me about images, and I don’t want images, I want facts, I want clear-sightedness. I’m counting on you a great deal, and when I say ‘I,’ I mean ‘we.’ You understand?”
“Of course,” replied the Investigator, who didn’t understand very much, and who moreover had the impression that he was slowly being digested by the armchair.
“Very good, then! Are you feeling well? You look pretty pale.…”
The Investigator hesitated, but then, since he was feeling weaker by the minute, he went against his true nature and took the plunge: “To tell you the truth, I’m just about starving. If it might be possible to eat something …”
“Possible? You must be jesting! Of course it’s possible! Must I remind you who you are? Aren’t you …” The Manager hesitated, rummaged in his pockets, and pulled out a pack of index cards, which he rapidly consulted. “Aren’t you … let’s see … you’re … you are … Ah, my goodness, where have I put your card?!”
“I’m the Investigator.”
“There you go. Exactly! You’re the Investigator! Are you really the Investigator?”
“Yes.”
“Can you possibly think that, in an enterprise such as ours, we’re not going to do all we can to make sure your Investigation is conducted under the most favorable conditions?”
“Indeed, that would be very kind of you.…”
“Well, then!” And he started laughing as he picked up his telephone. “This is the Manager speaking. Bring us something for the Investigator to eat. As soon as possible.”
He fell silent, seemed to be listening attentively to what was being said at the other end of the line, shook his head several times, covered the mouthpiece with his hand, and addressed the Investigator: “Chicken-liver salad, roast beef, green beans, goat cheese, chocolate fondant. It’s nothing much, and I apologize, but would that be all right?”
The Investigation Page 6
