The Investigation

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 everything 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?”

“But that’s … that’s wonderful,” the Investigator managed to stammer, barely able to believe his ears.

“And to drink? Red wine, white wine, beer, raki, ouzo, grappa, pisco, Tokay, cognac, aquavit, bourbon; mineral water: sparkling or still, and from where? Fiji? Iceland? Italy? Guatemala?”

“Perhaps something warm,” the Investigator ventured to say, since he was shivering from cold. “Some tea, preferably …”

“Tea? Japanese, Taiwanese, Russian, Ceylon, Darjeeling, white, black, green, red, blue?”

“I’ll have, uh … regular tea,” the Investigator ventured.

“Regular? No problem!” replied the Manager, repeated the order, and hung up. “And there we are!” he said. “You see, you were right to speak up! The Enterprise’s kitchens, like the Enterprise itself, never stop. They work at all hours of the day and night, every day of the year.”

“But … is it still day?” the Investigator asked doubtfully.

“Of course it’s still day! Look at that light,” the Manager said, pointing at the big bay windows. “Now, for the sake of honesty, I must tell you that the beef comes from the Southern Hemisphere. Do you have any objection to that?”

“What beef?”

“The beef for the roast, the dish I just ordered for you!”

The Investigator smiled slightly.

“Good,” the Manager declared. “Now all we have to do is wait.”

He folded his arms across his abdomen and gave the Investigator a kindly look. The Investigator replied with a rather forced smile and sank a bit more deeply into his armchair. His head was now only a little higher than the armrests. The Manager sighed, and the two of them waited.