The Collected Novels of José Saramago (382 page)

THE THREE POLICEMEN DROVE AROUND THE CITY FOR A WHILE, FILLING
in time until lunch, although they would not eat together. The plan was to park the car near an area where there were plenty of restaurants and then to go their separate ways, each to a different place, and meet exactly ninety minutes later in a square some way off, where the superintendent, this time at the wheel, would pick his subordinates up. Obviously, no one here knows who they are, besides, none of them has a capital P branded on his forehead, but common sense and prudence tell them not to wander around as a group through the center of a city which is, for many reasons, hostile to them. True, there are three men over there, and another three ahead of them, but a quick glance is enough to see that they are normal people, belonging to the common species of passer-by, ordinary folk, free of all suspicion of being representatives of the law or pursued by it. During the drive, the superintendent wanted to hear his two subordinates’ impressions of the man who had written the letter, making it clear, however, that he was not interested in any moral judgements, We know he’s a bastard of the first order, so there’s no point wasting time coming up with other descriptions. The inspector was the first to speak, saying that he had particularly admired the way in which the superintendent had directed the interrogation, skilfully omitting any reference to the malicious suggestion contained in the letter, that the doctor’s wife, given her exceptional personal circumstances during the plague of blindness four years ago, could be the cause of or in some way implicated in the
conspiracy that led to the capital’s population casting blank votes. The guy was obviously completely thrown, he said, he was expecting that to be the main and possibly the only subject the police would be interested in, but how wrong he was. I almost felt sorry for him, he added. The sergeant agreed with what the inspector had said, noting, too, how, by alternating the role of interrogator between himself and the inspector, he had succeeded brilliantly in breaking down the interrogatee’s defenses. He paused and, in a low voice, said, Superintendent, it is my duty to inform you that when you told me to leave the room with him I used my pistol on him, Used it, how, asked the superintendent, I stuck it in his ribs, he’s probably still got the mark, But why, Well, I thought it would take a while to find the photo and that the guy would take advantage of the interruption to come up with some trick to hinder the investigation, something that would force you, sir, to change the line of inquiry in the direction that best suited him, And now what do you want me to do, pin a medal on your chest, said the superintendent mockingly, We gained time, sir, the photo appeared in an instant, And I’m sorely tempted to make you disappear, Forgive me, sir, Oh, don’t worry, I’ll tell you when you’re forgiven, always assuming I remember, Yes, sir, One question, Yes, sir, Was the safety catch on, Yes, sir, Why, because you’d forgotten to take it off, No, sir, I really just wanted to frighten the guy, And you managed to do that, Yes, sir, Well, it looks like I’ll have to give you that medal after all, but, please, don’t get too excited, and mind you don’t run over that old lady or jump a red light, the last thing I want is to have to explain myself to a policeman, But there are no police in the city, sir, they were withdrawn when the state of siege was declared, said the inspector, Ah, now I understand, I was wondering why it was so quiet. They drove past a park where children were playing. The superintendent looked at them with an air that seemed distracted, absent, but the sigh that suddenly emerged from his breast
showed that he must have been thinking about other times and other places. After we’ve had lunch, he said, I’ll be going back to base, Yes, sir, said the sergeant, Do you have any orders for us, sir, asked the inspector, Go for a walk, stroll around the city, go into the cafés and shops, keep your eyes and ears open, and come back in time for supper, we won’t be going out tonight, there’s bound to be some canned stuff in the kitchen, Yes, sir, said the sergeant, And tomorrow we’ll be working on our own, our bold driver, the policeman with the gun, will go and talk to the ex-wife of the man who wrote the letter, the inspector here, sitting in the dead man’s seat, will visit the old man with the black eye-patch and his prostitute, and I’ll reserve the doctor’s wife and the doctor for myself, as for tactics, we’ll stick strictly to those we used today, no mention of blank votes, no getting involved in political debates, restrict your questions to the circumstances surrounding the murder, to the personality of the presumed murderer, get them to talk about the group, how it was formed, if they had met before, what their relationship is like today, they’re probably friends and will want to protect each other, but they’re bound to make mistakes if they haven’t reached some prior agreement about what they should say and what it would be best to stay quiet about, our job is to help them make those mistakes, and, to cut this rather long speech short, remember the most important fact of all, tomorrow morning, we must arrive at the houses of these people at exactly half past ten, I’m not telling you to synchronize watches, because that only happens in action movies, but we mustn’t give any of the suspects the chance to pass on the message, to warn the others, but now let’s go and have lunch, ah, yes, and when you come back, come in through the garage, on Monday, I’ll have to find out whether or not the porter can be trusted. Rather more than the stipulated ninety minutes later, the superintendent picked up his assistants, who were waiting for him in the square, then dropped them off in turn, first the
sergeant, then the inspector, in different parts of the city, where they would carry out the orders they had been given, to walk about, go into cafés and shops, keep their eyes and ears open, in short, to sniff out any crime. They will return to base for the promised canned supper and to sleep, and when the superintendent asks them if they have anything to report, they will confess that they have absolutely nothing to tell him, that while the inhabitants of this city aren’t any less talkative than those in any other, they certainly don’t talk about the subject of most interest. That’s a good sign, he will say, the proof that there is a conspiracy lies precisely in the fact that no one talks about it, silence, in this case, does not contradict, it confirms. The phrase was not his, it had been spoken by the interior minister, with whom, when he got back to providential ltd, he’d had a brief phone conversation, which, even though the line was extremely safe, complied with all the precepts of the law of basic official secrecy. Here is a summary of their conversation, Hello, puffin speaking, Hello, puffin, replied albatross, First contact made with local bird life, friendly reception, useful interrogation with the participation of hawk and gull, good results, Substantial, puffin, Very substantial, albatross, we got an excellent photograph of the whole flock, tomorrow we’ll start identifying the different species, Well done, puffin, Thank you, albatross, Listen, puffin, I’m listening, albatross, Don’t be fooled by occasional silences, puffin, when birds are quiet, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re on their nests, it’s the calm that conceals the storm, not the other way round, the same thing happens with human conspiracies, the fact that no one mentions them doesn’t mean they don’t exist, do you understand, puffin, Yes, albatross, I understand perfectly, What are you going to do tomorrow, puffin, I’m going to go for the osprey, Who is the osprey, puffin, explain yourself, It’s the only one on the whole coast, albatross, indeed, as far as we know, there has never been another, Ah, now I understand, Do you have any orders for me, albatross, Just carry out rigorously those I gave you before you left, puffin, They will be rigorously carried out, albatross, Keep me posted, puffin, I will, albatross. Once he had checked that all microphones were switched off, the superintendent gave muttered vent to his feelings, Ye gods of the police and of espionage, what a farce, I’m puffin and he’s albatross, the next thing you know we’ll be communicating by squawks and screeches, there’d be a storm then, no fear. When his subordinates finally arrived back, tired from pounding the city streets, he asked them if they had any news, and they said no, they had strained eyes and ears watching and listening, but, alas, with no result. These people talk as if they had nothing to hide, they said. It was then that the superintendent, without giving his source, uttered the interior minister’s words about conspiracies and the ways in which they disguise themselves.

The following day, after breakfast, they looked at the map and in the city guide for the streets they were interested in. The nearest one to the building where providential ltd is based is the street where the ex-wife of the man who wrote the letter, formerly known as the first blind man, has her apartment, the doctor’s wife and her husband are a little further off, and furthest away are the old man with the black eye-patch and the prostitute. Let’s just hope they’re in. As on the previous day, they took the lift down to the garage, in fact, for those leading clandestine lives, this is not the best way of proceeding, because while it is true that, up until now, they have escaped the porter’s busybodying, I wonder who those spooks are, I’ve never seen them around here before, he would think to himself, but they will not escape the curiosity of the garage attendant, and we will soon find out with what consequences. This time, the inspector will drive, since he has the longest journey. The sergeant asked the superintendent if he had any special instructions to give him and was told that he had no special instructions, only general ones, I just hope you don’t do anything stupid and that you keep your
gun firmly in its holster, But I would never threaten a woman with a gun, sir, Oh, yeah, anyway, don’t forget, you are forbidden to knock on her door before half past ten, Yes, sir, Go for a walk, have a coffee if you can find somewhere, buy a newspaper, look in the shop windows, you can’t have forgotten everything you were taught at police college, No, sir, Good, this is your street, out you get, Where will we meet when we’ve finished, asked the sergeant, we need to arrange a meeting place, that’s the trouble with only having one key to the office, I mean, if I, for example, was to finish my interrogation first, I wouldn’t be able to go back to base, Nor would I, said the inspector, That’s what comes of them not providing us with mobile phones, insisted the sergeant, sure of his reasoning and trusting that the beauty of the morning would dispose his superior to be kind. The superintendent agreed, Meanwhile, we’ll have to make do with what we’ve got, but if the investigation calls for it, then I’ll requisition more equipment, as for keys, if the ministry authorizes the expense, tomorrow, you’ll each have a key of your own, And what if they refuse, Then I’ll sort something out, But what are we going to do about fixing a meeting place, asked the inspector, From what we know of this story already, everything indicates that my investigation is going to take the longest, so why don’t you meet me there, make a note of the address, we’ll see then how the people being interrogated react to the arrival of two more police officers, An excellent idea, sir, said the inspector. The sergeant merely nodded, since he could not say out loud what he was thinking, that any praise for the idea belonged to him, even if only indirectly and by a very tortuous route. He made a note of the address in his investigator’s notebook and got out of the car. The inspector drove off and, as he did so, said, To be fair, he really tries, poor boy, I can remember being just like him when I was starting out, so eager to do something right that I made nothing but blunders, in fact, I sometimes ask myself how I ever came to be promoted to
inspector, Or how I came to be what I am today, You too, sir, Me too, me too, my friend, all policemen start out much the same, everything else is just a question of luck, Luck and knowledge, Knowledge on its own isn’t always enough, whereas with luck and time you can achieve almost anything, but don’t ask me what luck is because I wouldn’t be able to tell you, all I can say is that often you can get what you want just by having friends in the right places or some favor to call in, Not everyone was born to be a superintendent, True, Besides, a police force made up entirely of superintendents wouldn’t work, Nor would an army made up entirely of generals. They turned into the street where the ophthalmologist lives. Drop me here, said the superintendent, I’ll walk the rest of the way, Good luck, sir, And to you, Let’s hope we can resolve this matter quickly, to be perfectly honest I feel as if I was lost in the middle of a minefield, Calm down, man, there’s no reason to be worried, look at these streets, see how peaceful and quiet the city is, That’s exactly what worries me, sir, a city like this, with no one in charge, with no government, no security, no police, and no one seems to care, there’s something very mysterious going on here which I can’t quite understand, That’s what we were sent here to do, to understand, we have the knowledge and I just hope the rest comes with it, Luck, you mean, Yes, luck, Well, good luck, then, sir, Good luck, inspector, and if the woman who’s supposed to be a prostitute shoots you a seductive look or gives you a glimpse of thigh, just pretend you haven’t noticed, concentrate on the interests of the investigation, think of the eminent dignity of the organization that we serve, The old man with the black eye-patch is sure to be there too, and old men, I’m reliably informed, are real terrors, said the inspector. The superintendent smiled, Old age is catching up with me as well, I wonder if I’ll live long enough to turn into a real terror. Then he glanced at his watch, It’s a quarter past ten already, I hope you manage to get there on time, As long as you and
the sergeant keep to the timetable, it doesn’t really matter if I’m a bit late, said the inspector. The superintendent said goodbye, See you later, and got out of the car and, as soon as he set foot on the pavement, as if he had made an appointment to meet his own flawed reasoning right there, he realized that it made no sense to have been so rigorous about the time when they should knock on the suspects’ respective doors, since, with a policeman in their home, they would have neither the sangfroid nor the opportunity to phone their friends to warn them of the imagined danger, always assuming they were that astute, astute enough for them to work out that if they were the object of police attention, then their friends would be too, Besides, thought the superintendent, irritated with himself, they obviously won’t be their only friends, and in that case, how many of their friends would each of them have to ring, how many. He was not just thinking these thoughts to himself now, he was muttering accusations, abuse, insults, How did such an imbecile ever manage to become superintendent, how could the government have given an imbecile like me full responsibility for an investigation on which the fate of the whole country might hang, and how did this imbecile come up with that stupid order to his subordinates, I just hope they’re not both laughing at me at this very moment, I shouldn’t think the sergeant is, but the inspector is bright, too bright really, even though, at first sight, he doesn’t seem to be, or perhaps he’s just good at hiding it, which, of course, makes him doubly dangerous, no, I’d better be very careful with him, treat him with caution, I wouldn’t want this to get out, others have found themselves in similar situations and with catastrophic results, someone once said, I can’t remember who, that a moment’s folly can ruin a whole career. This implacable bout of self-flagellation did the superintendent good. Seeing him crushed and ground into the mud, it was the turn of cool reflection to speak and to show him that the order had not been foolish at all, Imagine what would have happened if you hadn’t given those instructions and the inspector and the sergeant had turned up at whatever time they fancied, one of them in the morning, the other in the afternoon, then you really would have been an imbecile, an out-and-out imbecile, not to see what would inevitably happen, the people who had been interrogated in the morning would rush to warn those who were to be interrogated in the afternoon, and when, that afternoon, the investigator knocked on the door of the suspects he’d been allocated he would find himself confronted by a line of defense he might not be able to break down, that’s why you’re a superintendent and will continue to be, not just because you know your job, but also because you’re lucky enough to have me here, cool reflection, to put things in perspective, starting with the inspector, whom you won’t now have to start treating with kid gloves, as was your intention, a rather cowardly one if you don’t mind my saying. The superintendent didn’t mind. With all this coming and going, thinking and rethinking, he was late in carrying out his own order, and it was already a quarter to eleven when he raised his hand to press the doorbell. The lift had carried him up to the fourth floor, this is the door.