would act as housekeeper, cook and chambermaid. The superintendent gave the sheet and bedspread a quick tug, punched the pillow a couple of times, rolled up the shirt and the socks and stuffed them in a drawer, and the desolate appearance of the room improved a little, although, naturally, any female hand would have done it better. He looked at the clock, it was a good time, although he would soon find out whether the result would be equally good. He sat down, switched on the desk lamp and dialed the number. On the fourth ring, a voice answered, Hello, It's puffin here, Albatross speaking, Just calling in to report on the day's operations, albatross, Well, I hope you have some satisfactory results to give me, puffin, That depends on what you call satisfactory, albatross, Look, I have neither the time nor the patience for the finer shades of meaning, puffin, get to the point, May I ask you first, albatross, if the package reached its destination, What package, The nine o'clock package, at post six-north, Oh, yes, it arrived perfectly, it's going to be very useful, you'll find out just how useful in due course, puffin, but now tell me what you and your men have been up to today, There's really not much to tell, albatross, a couple of surveillance operations and an interrogation, Let's take things one at a time, puffin, what was the result of the surveillance operations, Practically nil, albatross, Why, Throughout the time they were being followed, the people we would term the number two suspects behaved absolutely normally, albatross, And what about the interrogation of the number one suspects, which, I seem to recall, was your responsibility, puffin, To be perfectly honest, What did you say, To be perfectly honest, albatross, What's all this about honesty, puffin, It's just a way of beginning a sentence, albatross, Then will you please stop being perfectly honest and tell me, simply, whether or not you are in a position to confirm, without beating about the bush and without any further circumlocutions, that the doctor's wife, whose photo I have before me, is guilty, She admitted she was guilty of a murder, albatross, You know that for many reasons, amongst them the lack of a corpus delicti, this is not what interests us, Yes, albatross, So get straight to the point and tell me whether or not you can confirm that the doctor's wife is part of the movement behind the blank votes and that she may even be the head of the whole organization, No, albatross, I can't confirm that, Why, puffin, Because no policeman in the world, albatross, and I consider myself to be the last of them, would find a scrap of evidence to support such an accusation, You appear to have forgotten, puffin, that we had agreed that you would provide the necessary proof, And what proof would that be in a case like this, albatross, if you don't mind my asking, That neither was nor is my affair, I left that to your judgement, puffin, when I was still confident that you would be capable of bringing your mission to a successful conclusion, With respect, albatross, deciding that a suspect is innocent of the crime he or she is accused of seems to me the most successful of conclusions, Let's drop this code-name comedy, you're a police superintendent and I'm the interior minister, Yes, minister, Now, in order to see if we can finally come to some understanding, I'm going to put the question I asked you just now in a different way, Yes, minister, Setting aside your personal beliefs, are you prepared to confirm that the doctor's wife is guilty, yes or no, No, minister, And you have weighed the consequences of what you have just said, Yes, minister, Very well, then, take a note of the decisions I have just taken, I'm listening, minister, You will tell the inspector and the sergeant that they have orders to return tomorrow morning, that at nine o'clock they must be at post six-north on the frontier where they will be met by the person who will bring them here, a man more or less your age and wearing a blue tie with white spots, tell them to bring the car you've been using and which will, of course, no longer be necessary, Yes, minister, And as for you, As for me, minister, You will remain in the capital until you receive further orders, which will doubtless not be long in coming, And the investigation, You yourself said that there is nothing to investigate, that the suspect is innocent, That is my sincere belief, minister, Then you certainly can't complain, your case is solved, But what shall I do while I'm here, Nothing, do nothing, go for walks, enjoy yourself, go to the cinema, the theater, visit the museums, and, if you like, invite your new friends out to supper, charge it to the ministry, Minister, I don't understand, The five days I gave you for the investigation are still not yet up, perhaps in the time that remains a different light will go on in your head, I doubt it, minister, Nevertheless, five days are five days, and I'm a man of my word, Yes, minister, Good night, sleep well, superintendent, Good night, minister.
The superintendent put down the phone. He got up from the chair and went to the bathroom. He needed to see the face of the man who had just been summarily dismissed. The actual words had not been spoken, but could be clearly seen, letter by letter, in all the other words, even those wishing him a good night's sleep. He wasn't surprised, he knew exactly what his interior minister was like and knew that he would be made to pay for not having obeyed the instructions he had received, the explicit and, above all, the implied instructions, the latter had, after all, been as clear as the former, but he was surprised by the serenity of the face he saw in the mirror, a face from which the lines seemed to have vanished, a face in which the eyes had become limpid and luminous, the face of a man of fifty-seven, a police superintendent by profession, who had just been through the fire and had emerged from it as if from a purifying bath. Yes, a bath would be a good idea. He got undressed and stepped into the shower. He allowed the water to flow freely, after all, what did he care, the ministry would foot the bill, he slowly soaped himself and again the water washed away any remaining dirt from his body, then his memory carried him on its back to a time four years ago, when they were all blind and wandering, filthy and starving, about the city, ready to do anything for a crust of stale, mouldy bread, for anything that could be eaten, or at least chewed, as a way of staving off hunger with their own juices, he imagined the doctor's wife guiding through the streets, beneath the rain, her little flock of unfortunates, her six lost sheep, her six fledglings fallen from the nest, her six newborn blind kittens, perhaps one day, in some street or other, he had bumped into them, perhaps they, out of fear, had repelled him, perhaps, out of fear, he had repelled them, it was every man for himself at the time, steal before they steal from you, hit out before they hit you, your worst enemy, according to the law of the blind, is always the person nearest you, But it's not only when we have no eyes that we don't know where we're going, he thought. The hot water fell clamorously upon his head and shoulders, it coursed over his body and disappeared, clean and gurgling, down the drain. He got out of the shower, dried himself on the bath towel bearing the police emblem, picked up the clothes he had left hanging on the hook and went into the bedroom. He put on clean underwear, his last, and it would have to be his last, for he hadn't thought of packing any more for a mission lasting only five days. He looked at his watch, it was nearly nine o'clock. He went into the kitchen, boiled some water for tea, dunked one sad teabag in the water and waited for the recommended number of minutes. The biscuits were like sugary granite. He bit into them hard, reduced them to smaller pieces that were easier to chew, then slowly crumbled them up. He sipped his tea, he preferred the green variety, but had to content himself with this black stuff, so old it hardly tasted of anything, providential ltd, insurance and reinsurance, really should stop lavishing such luxuries on its temporary guests. The minister's words echoed sarcastically in his ears, The five days I gave you for the investigation are still not yet up, until they are, go for walks, enjoy yourself, go to the cinema, charge it to the ministry, and he wondered what would happen then, would they send him back to headquarters, alleging that he was incapable of active service, would they sit him down at a desk to shuffle papers, a superintendent demoted to the lowly condition of pen-pusher, that would be his future, unless they made him take early retirement and forgot about him and only mentioned his name again when he died and they could strike him from the staff records. He finished eating, he threw the cold, damp teabag into the rubbish bin, washed the cup and scooped the crumbs off the table with the edge of his hand. He did all this with great concentration in order to keep his thoughts at bay, in order to let them in only one at a time, having first asked them what they contained, because you can't be too careful with thoughts, some present themselves to us with a cloying air of false innocence and then, when it's too late, reveal their true wicked selves. He again looked at his watch, a quarter to ten, how time passes. He left the kitchen and went into the living-room, sat down on a sofa and waited. He woke to the sound of the key in the door. The inspector and the sergeant came in, they had clearly had plenty to eat and drink, not, however, to any reprehensible extent. They said their good evenings, then the inspector, on behalf of them both, apologized for coming in a little late. The superintendent looked at his watch, it was past eleven, It's not that late, he said, but I'm afraid you're going to have to get up rather earlier than you perhaps expected, Another mission, asked the inspector, placing a package on the table, Yes, if you can call it that. The superintendent paused, glanced again at his watch and went on, At nine o'clock tomorrow morning you are to be at military post six-north with all your belongings, Why, asked the sergeant, You've been taken off the investigation that brought you here, Was that your decision, sir, asked the inspector, grave-faced, No, it was the minister's decision, But why, He didn't tell me, but don't worry, I'm sure he's got nothing against you personally, he'll ask you a lot of questions, but you'll know what to say, Does that mean you're not coming with us, sir, asked the sergeant, No, I'm staying here, Are you going to continue the investigation on your own, The investigation is over, With no concrete results, Neither concrete nor abstract, Then I don't understand why you're not coming with us, said the inspector, Orders from the minister, I'll stay here until the end of the five-day period he originally set, which means until Thursday, And what then, Perhaps he'll tell you when he questions you, Questions us about what, About how
