“… just say a word, please, I know you’re still there.… I know it.…”
There was but one side left. Only one. The Investigator increased his pace. The man in the container could hear him, so there was no longer any point in walking so cautiously. Anyway, why should he be scared? The man didn’t seem to be aggressive, and besides, he was shut up inside a box. The Investigator was about to turn the last corner, but he slowed down. Or, rather, his body slowed down, even before his mind gave the order. Why was he so fearful? What exactly was he afraid of? What discovery was he anticipating, and why did the thought of it paralyze him to such a degree? He knew the answer but dared not admit it to himself. He’d inspected three of the container’s four sides, and there was no door, no opening at all, in any of the walls. That meant, therefore, that the door was located on the fourth side. To make sure of that, all he had to do was to go around the final corner and take a look. However, he didn’t do it. He dared not do it. He dared not because, deep down inside, he was convinced there was no door and no window on the fourth side, either, even though that didn’t make any sense.
The Investigator let himself slide down to the ground and sat with his back against the container. He preferred not to verify. He preferred to cling to doubt. Only doubt, he told himself, would allow him to hold on a little while longer. For there were only two possibilities: Either there was a door on the fourth side of the container, or there was not. If his eyes saw the door, then all would be well. But if his eyes verified the absence of a door, then there would be nothing left for him but to sink all the way into madness or just let himself get baked by that bloody sun, which was still there, still in the same place, sending its heat streaming out over the naked land. The Investigator preferred not to know about the door and clung to the possibility, the meager possibility, that he was still in a world where enclosed structures couldn’t contain anything, no object, no person, no plant, discolored or not, unless there was an opening in the structure through which the contents had passed.
“You’re still there, aren’t you?”
The container’s voice was very close. It echoed in the Investigator’s back — the man must have spoken with his mouth against the wall. His words entered the Investigator’s body, causing a kind of tickling.
“Answer me.…”
“Who are you?” the Investigator asked again.
“I already told you, I’m the Investigator.”
“But I’m the Investigator!”
There was a silence, and then he thought he heard a sigh.
“If you say so … In any case, we all are, more or less …”
“I don’t understand.”
“Think what you wish. I’m not going to fight, I don’t have any more strength.… It’s ruined me, all this. Please, can you help me get out of here?”
“I’m afraid not. Your box looks like it’s hermetically sealed.”
“Box? But I was asked to take a seat in the Waiting Room.…”
The Investigator moved a little away from the wall of the container and looked at it again. Then he said, “I said ‘box’ for brevity’s sake. In fact, you’re imprisoned in a sort of prefabricated building located in the middle of nowhere.”
“Nowhere …”
The voice fell silent. The Investigator didn’t know what to do. He felt that there was, on the other side of the wall, a man who — except perhaps for a few differences — had experienced events similar to those he himself had been confronted with.
“It’s cold, it’s so cold …” the voice murmured.
“How can you say that?” the Investigator asked in surprise. His body was visibly liquefying, dissolving in fluids, in water, in sweat. “I have practically no clothes on, and I’m still too hot. The sun looks like it’s suspended in the sky. It doesn’t move an inch. There’s not a scrap of cloud, and when a little wind comes up, all it does is blow streams of burning dust into the heat!”
“How lucky for you … No matter how I wrap myself up in my clothes, I’m still chilled to the bone. There are ice crystals everywhere, in my beard, on my hands, on the wall, on the low table, and even on the green plant, which is all white anyway. I can’t feel my hands or my feet anymore, they seem to be frozen, I think they’re already dead.…”
The container didn’t appear to be a walk-in cooler, and its outer walls, plywood covered with a coat of beige paint, felt hot to the touch. Couldn’t the voice be lying to him? Wasn’t this just another of the numerous tests he’d had to undergo?
“What was the subject of your Investigation?” the Investigator asked.
“I was supposed … I was supposed to … Oh, what’s the use of explaining.…”
The voice had lost all its strength. The Investigator had to press his ear against the container wall as hard as he could in order to make out the words.
“Were you investigating the Suicides within the Enterprise?” the Investigator persisted.
“The Enterprise? Suicides? No … no … My job was to … I mean, I was supposed to try to … explain … the decrease of motivation within the Group.… So cold … cold … My lips are freezing, too, and my eyes, I can’t see anymore.…”
“Which Group? What are you talking about?”
“The Group … the Group …”
“Does the Group belong to the Enterprise?”
“The Enterprise …?”
“Make an effort, damn it!” cried the Investigator, losing patience. “If you’re where you are, there’s bound to be a reason, for God’s sake! One doesn’t wind up where you are without a good reason! The Group you’re talking about must be part of the Enterprise. Answer me!”
“Group … motivation … tongue … frozen … Enterprise … can’t anymore … can’t anymore …”
“Answer me!!!”
“… anymore …”
The Investigator began to shout, beating the walls of the box with both hands, abandoning the relatively hushed tones he’d been using up to that point. And thereupon, dozens, hundreds, thousands (or were there more? who could know?) of walled-up voices were raised once again, in an outburst of cries, yells, death rattles, tragic appeals, complaints, prayers, and supplications that made the Investigator feel as though he were being clawed at from every side, clung to like some wretched boat that shipwreck victims cling to, even though they know it won’t be able to save them all, continuing to hold on to it all the same, with the sole, selfish intention of sinking it so that it won’t save anyone, unconsciously preferring the deaths of all to the survival of even one.
The Investigator could find but one escape from all that: He clapped his hands over his ears and closed his eyes.
XLI
QUITE OFTEN, WE TRY TO GRASP what escapes our understanding by using terms and concepts peculiar to ourselves. Ever since man attained distinction among the other species, he hasn’t stopped measuring the universe and the laws governing it by the scale of his thought and its products, without always noticing the inadequacy of such an approach. Nonetheless, he knows very well, for example, that a sieve is not a proper tool for carrying water. Why, then, does he constantly fool himself into thinking his mind can grasp everything and comprehend everything? Why not, rather, recognize that his mind is an ordinary, everyday sieve, a tool that renders undeniable service in certain circumstances, performing specific actions in given situations, but is completely useless in many others, because it’s not made for them, because it’s got holes in it, because a great many things pass through it before it can hold them back and consider them, even if only for a few seconds?
Was it because of the unrelenting heat? Was it because he couldn’t stop sweating, seeping, disappearing into his fluids? Was it because he was thirsty without even being completely aware of it that the Investigator was starting to think about human imperfection, about liquids and a sieve?