The Inspector and Silence

12

She finally found the body long after the sun had set. Darkness had begun to spread through the pine trees, and for one confused moment she wondered if it wasn’t just an illusion after all. A bizarre mirage, this sudden sight of a girl’s white skin gleaming at her through the brushwood – perhaps it would disappear the moment it occurred to her to close her eyes.

But she didn’t close her eyes. The inner voice that had led her here would not allow her to close her eyes. She would have to act, to undertake the incomprehensible task it had given her.

There was no arguing, she must do it.

Where did it come from, this voice that drove her? She didn’t know, but presumably it was the only source of strength available to her in the nightmare she was experiencing. The only thing that kept her going, and made her take these measures and steps – it must be something based inside herself nevertheless; a side of her that she had never in her life needed to make use of, but it had now kicked in and made sure that whatever had to be done really was in fact done. A sort of reserve, she thought, an unknown well from which she could scoop out water, but over which – at some point in the distant future, may God please ensure that she soon got there! – she must place a heavy lid of forgetfulness. Plant the grass of time upon it: I am the grass; I cover all, as the poet said – why on earth should she think of poetry now? – so that neither she herself nor any other person could suspect what she had used its water for. Or even that it had been there.

In the distant future.

The well. Her strength. The inner voice.

It was very dark now. She must have been standing there, staring at the incomprehensible, for an incredibly long time, even if she hadn’t been aware of it. She switched on her torch for a moment, but realized that light would do her no favours in these circumstances, and switched it off again. Pushed some twigs aside and pulled out the whole of the thin, naked body. Bowed down on one knee and took hold of it under its back and under its knees; was briefly surprised by the stiffness in the muscles and joints, and was reminded fleetingly of the body of a little foal when she had been present at a failed birth many years ago.

The body was not heavy, below forty kilograms for sure, and she was able to carry it with little difficulty. She hesitated for a moment, wondering about various alternatives, but eventually came to a place where she could hear that inner voice once more. Carefully – as if displaying some kind of perverted respect no matter what the circumstances – she placed the body in a half-sitting position against the trunk of an aspen tree: an enormous aspen with a whole sky of whispering leaves – and began to cover it over with what she could find in the way of branches and twigs and last year’s husks.

Not to hide it, of course. Merely to shield it a little in the name of dignity and propriety.

When she had finished it was so dark that she couldn’t see the result of her work, but for the sake of respect and reverence, she stood there for a while, head bowed and hands clasped.

Perhaps she said a prayer. Perhaps it was merely a jumble of words passing through her mind.

Then she suddenly felt a white-hot flash of terror. She retraced her steps rapidly and collected the spade from where she had left it. Continued on to the road, and hurried away as fast as her legs would carry her.