The Collected Novels of José Saramago (384 page)

THEY DID NOT HAVE LUNCH TOGETHER. STICKING TO HIS TACTIC OF
controlled dispersal, the superintendent reminded the inspector and the sergeant, when they went their separate ways, that they should not go to the same restaurants they had gone to yesterday, and, just as he would have done had he been his own subordinate, he himself scrupulously carried out the orders he had given. He did so in a spirit of self-sacrifice too, for he ended up choosing a restaurant which, despite the three stars promised on the menu, only put one on his plate. This time, there was not one meeting-point, but two, the sergeant was waiting at the first, and the inspector at the second. They both saw at once that their superior was not in the mood for conversation, the encounter with the ophthalmologist and his wife had clearly not gone well. And since they, in turn, had gleaned no useful results from their investigations, the planned exchange and study of information back at providential ltd, insurance and reinsurance, did not promise to be the smoothest of rides. This professional tension was only heightened by the unexpected and troubling question put to them by the garage attendant when they arrived in their car, Where are you gentlemen from. It is true that the superintendent, all honor to him and to his experience in the job, did not lose his cool, We’re from providential ltd, he replied sharply, and then, even more sharply, We’re going to park where we always park, in the company’s designated space, so your question is not just impertinent, it’s rude, It may well be impertinent and rude, but I really don’t remember seeing you here before, That, said
the superintendent, is because not only are you rude, you also have a very poor memory, my colleagues here are new to the company and this is their first visit, but I’ve certainly been here before, now get out of our way will you, the driver’s a little nervous and he might accidentally run you over. They parked the car and got into the lift. Not even considering that it might be a rash thing to say, the sergeant was eager to explain that he wasn’t in the least nervous, that in the aptitude tests he’d done before joining the police, he had been described as very calm, but the superintendent silenced him with a brusque gesture. And now, protected by the reinforced walls and soundproof floor and ceiling of providential ltd, he launched a pitiless attack, Did it not even occur to you, you idiot, that there might be microphones installed in the lift, I’m sorry, sir, really I am, I wasn’t thinking, spluttered the poor man, Tomorrow, you can stay here and keep watch over the place and use the time to write out five hundred times I am an idiot, Sir, please, Oh, leave it, take no notice, I know I’m exaggerating, but that man annoyed me, we’ve been carefully avoiding using the front door so as not to draw attention to ourselves and then that creep shows up, Perhaps we should get our people to write him a note, the way they did with the porter before we arrived, suggested the inspector, That would be counter-productive, we don’t want anyone to notice us at all, It may be too late for that, sir, perhaps if the service has another place in the city, it would be best if we moved in there, Oh, they have, they have, but as far as I know, none of them is currently in operation, We could try, No, there’s no time, and, besides, the ministry wouldn’t like the idea, this business has got to be sorted out quickly, urgently, May I speak frankly, sir, asked the inspector, Go ahead, Well, it seems to me we’re up a blind alley or, worse still, trapped inside a poisoned wasps’ nest, What makes you think that, It’s hard to explain really, but the fact is that I feel as if we were sitting on a barrel of gunpowder with the fuse lit, and that it’s going to blow up at any moment. The superintendent could have been listening to his own thoughts, but his position and the responsibility he bore to the mission he had been charged with allowed for no swerving from the straight road of duty, I disagree, he said, and with those two words brought the matter to a close.

Now they were sitting round the table where they had eaten breakfast that morning, with their notebooks open, ready for a brainstorming session. You start, the superintendent told the sergeant, As soon as I went into the apartment, he said, I could tell no one had tipped the woman off, Of course they hadn’t, we had agreed that we would all arrive at half past ten, Yes, but I was a bit late, it was actually ten thirty-seven when I knocked on the door, confessed the sergeant, That doesn’t matter now, carry on, let’s not waste any more time, She told me to come in and asked if I would like a coffee, and I said I would, well, I didn’t see why not, I felt almost like a visitor, then I told her that I was investigating what happened four years ago in the insane asylum, but then I thought it would be best not to broach the subject of the blind murder victim immediately, which is why I decided to ask instead about the cause of the fire, she found it odd that after four years we should want to revisit the very thing that everyone had been trying to forget, and I said that the idea now was to record as many facts as possible because the weeks when those events took place could no longer remain a blank in the nation’s history, but she was no fool, she immediately pointed out the incongruity, that was the word she used, of us being in the situation in which we now find ourselves, with the city isolated and under a state of siege because of the blank votes, and someone having the idea of investigating what had happened during the plague of blindness, I have to admit, sir, that, at first, I was completely thrown and didn’t know what to say in response, but I managed to come up with an explanation, which was that the investigation had been decided upon before the blank votes
business, but that it had got delayed by bureaucratic red tape and that it had only been possible to implement it now, then she said that she had no idea what had caused the fire, it must have been mere coincidence, something that could easily have happened at any time, then I asked her how she had managed to get out, and she started telling me about the doctor’s wife and praising her to the skies, saying what a remarkable person she was, completely unlike anyone she had met in her entire life, utterly remarkable, I’m sure, she said, that if it hadn’t been for her, I wouldn’t be here talking to you today, she saved us all, and it isn’t just that she saved us, she did more than that, she protected us, fed us, looked after us, then I asked her who she meant when she used the personal pronoun us, and she listed, one by one, the people we already know about, and finally, she said that her then husband had also been part of the group, but that she didn’t want to talk about him because they’d been divorced for three years, and that was all I learned from the conversation, sir, the impression I came away with was that the doctor’s wife must be some kind of heroine, a truly noble soul. The superintendent pretended not to have heard those last few words. By doing so, he would not have to reprehend the sergeant for describing as a heroine and a truly noble soul a woman who was currently under suspicion of being involved in the worst crime that could, in the present circumstances, be committed against the nation. He felt tired. And in a quiet, flat voice, he asked the inspector to report on what he had learned at the house of the prostitute and the old man with the black eye-patch, Well, if she was a prostitute, I don’t think she is any more, Why, asked the superintendent, Because she doesn’t have the manners or gestures or words or style of a prostitute, You seem to know a lot about prostitutes, Not really sir, only the usual things, plus a bit of personal experience, but mainly preconceived ideas, Go on, They received me politely enough, but they didn’t offer me any coffee, Are they married, Well, they
were both wearing wedding rings, And what did you make of the old man, He’s old, and that’s about all there is to be said about him, There you’re wrong, there is everything to be said about the old, it’s just that no one asks them anything, and so they keep quiet, Well, he didn’t, Good for him, carry on, Anyway, I started talking about the fire, as my colleague here did, but then realized that I wouldn’t get anywhere doing that, and so I decided to make a head-on attack, I mentioned a letter that the police had received and which described certain criminal acts committed in the asylum before the fire, amongst them a murder, and I asked them if they knew anything about it, and she said that she did, that no one could possibly know more, since she herself was the murderer, And did she say what the murder weapon was, asked the superintendent, Yes, a pair of scissors, And did she stab the man in the heart, No, sir, in the throat, And what else, To be honest, I was completely taken aback, Yes, I can imagine, Suddenly we had two perpetrators for the same crime, Go on, What comes next is pure horror, The fire, you mean, No, sir, she started describing in shocking, almost brutal detail what happened to the women who were raped in the dormitory occupied by the blind men, And what did he do while his wife was describing all this, He just looked straight at me, with his one eye, as if he could see inside me, That’s just your imagination, No, sir, I learned then that one eye can see better than two, because, not having the other eye to help it, it has to do all the work itself, Perhaps that’s why they say that in the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king, Perhaps it is, sir, Go on, continue, When she had stopped talking, he began by saying that he didn’t believe that the motive for my visit, that was the expression he used, had anything to do with ascertaining the causes of a fire of which nothing now remained or of clearing up the circumstances surrounding a murder that could never be proved, and that, if I had nothing more of any value to add, would I please leave, And what did
you say, I invoked my authority as a policeman, said that I’d gone there with a mission to carry out and that I’d take whatever steps were necessary to do so, And what did he say, He replied that, in that case, I must be the only policeman on duty in the entire capital, since the police force had disappeared weeks ago, and that he therefore thanked me for my concern for their safety and, he hoped, my concern for the safety of a few other people too, since he couldn’t quite believe that a policeman had been sent solely for the benefit of the two people in that room, And then, The situation had become difficult and I couldn’t really do much more, the only way I could find of covering my retreat was by saying that they should prepare themselves for a confrontation in court because, according to the information we had, which was absolutely reliable, it was not she who had killed the leader of the blind criminals, but another person, a woman who had already been identified, And how did they react, At first, I thought I had frightened them, but the old man recovered at once and said that, there in their home, or wherever it might be, they would be accompanied by a lawyer who knew more about the law than the police, Do you think you really did frighten them, asked the superintendent, Yes, I think so, but obviously I can’t be sure, They might have been afraid, but certainly not for themselves, Who for, then, sir, For the real murderer, the doctor’s wife, But the prostitute, Look, I don’t know that we have the right to continue calling her that, inspector, All right, the wife of the man with the black eye-patch said that she was the killer, even though it’s true that the man doesn’t accuse her in his letter, but the doctor’s wife, Who was, in fact, the real perpetrator of the crime, she herself confessed and confirmed as much to me. At this point, it was logical for the inspector and the sergeant to assume that their superior, now that he had touched on the subject of his own investigations, would give them a more or less complete report of what he had found out from his visit, but the superintendent
merely said that he would be going back to the suspects’ apartment the next day to interrogate them further and only then would he decide what to do next, And what about us, what should we do tomorrow, asked the inspector, Surveillance operations, nothing more, you take care of the ex-wife of the man who wrote the letter, she doesn’t know you, so you shouldn’t have any problem, Which means, automatically and by a process of elimination, said the sergeant, that I’ll be taking care of the old man and the prostitute, Unless you can prove that she really is a prostitute, or continues to be one if she ever was, the use of the word prostitute is henceforth banned from our conversations, Yes, sir, And even if she is, find some other way of referring to her, Yes, sir, I’ll use her name, The names were all transcribed into my notebook, they are no longer in yours, If you’d just tell me what her name is, sir, then there’d be no more of this prostitute business, Sorry, I can’t, I consider that information to be, for the moment, confidential, Her name, or all the names, asked the sergeant, All of them, Well, then, I don’t know what to call her, You can call her, for example, the girl with the dark glasses, But she wasn’t wearing dark glasses, I can swear to that, Everyone has worn dark glasses at least once in their life, replied the superintendent, getting up. Shoulders hunched, he made his way over to the part of the office where he had his bedroom and closed the door behind him. I bet you he’s going to get in touch with the ministry, said the inspector, What’s up with him, asked the sergeant, He feels as bewildered as we do, It’s as if he doesn’t believe in what he’s doing, Do you, No, but I’m just following orders, he’s in charge, he shouldn’t be giving off these confusing signals, because we’ll be the ones to suffer the consequences, when the wave hits the rock, it’s always the mussels that pay, Hm, I’m not sure how accurate a comparison that is, Why, Because it’s always seems to me that the mussels are really glad when the water rushes over them, Search me, but I’ve certainly never heard mussels laugh, Oh, they not only laugh, they positively chuckle, it’s just that the sound of the waves drowns them out, and you have to put your ear really close, That’s not true, you’re having fun now at the expense of a lowly sergeant, Don’t get annoyed with me, it’s simply a harmless way of passing the time, There’s a better way than that, What, Sleep, I’m tired, I’m going to bed, The superintendent might need you, What, to go and bang my head against a brick wall again, I don’t think so, You’re probably right, said the inspector, I’ll follow your example and go and have a lie-down too, but I’ll leave a note here to tell him to call us if he needs us, Good idea.