interruption of the role I was deliberately playing. It was the chief. Another tedious lecture. Why did he always have to start all over again from lesson one? Because an investigator was no more than a drain cleaner, that was why. He crawls around in the midst of filth, unexposed to light.—“I want you detectives to be far more careful about cleanliness and pay attention to your health.” I realized, without being told, the chief’s perplexity when without contacting him I broke my promise to put in an appearance at the office after noon. Although he was most considerate and thoughtful of others he demanded the strictness of an ascetic in matters of self-defense and the cash register, but only in these areas. My thoughts about a chief like this were never unhappy ones. I rather admired his professional conscientiousness when I reflected that many people put up a pretense of evil and hypocrisy as temporary painkillers.—“You had better watch out. As far as your client’s brother’s concerned, it’s a case of murder. It’s preposterous. May I remind you again, if you get involved in a police case without consulting first with me, from that instant on you’re going to have nothing more to do with this office. It sounds unfeeling, but I can’t do anything about it. It’s company policy. You get in trouble if you force a man to stay here who doesn’t really fit in.” I did not usually find this tone unpleasant. On the contrary, it usually made a favorable impression on me. But today for some reason it was without effect. My client came back at just the right point in the conversation. Moreover, she had, in the meantime, changed from her mourning clothes into an ordinary dress—extremely rapidly, I thought. Apparently I no longer had to fear being plagued by the stench of death. It was a dress of black crepe that loosely molded her body. I wondered if she remembered that I had said black became her. She tilted her head to one side. I shook my own from left to right, indicating with my free hand that the call was for me. She circled the table and sat down immediately in front of me. At the closest point we were about eight inches apart. Her hair was long, the peculiar waves equally divided between shallow and full ones. The curve of her shoulders would fit in the hollow of my hand, were I to place it on them. Without realizing it, I laughed, interrupting the chief’s words.—“Thanks for the enjoyable scolding. These days I’ve been doing nothing but walking around and looking for someone. It’s not at all unpleasant to have someone looking for me.” No, it was not a lie. But after saying that, I realized rather sentimentally that my words were those I might have used to my own wife rather than to my chief. Any number of times I had visited my wife and had got in touch with her, but when I thought about it she had not once contacted me. Perhaps it wasn’t right. The fact that I didn’t have the courage to wait in silence until she sought me out may have eroded our relationship.
I returned to my seat, appropriately leaving on the other end of the line the ceaselessly scolding chief. Her beer and her pathetic smile were not the slightest bit unnatural now. I too put my fingers on the corner of the table in the same way she had done and resumed the rather irritable conversation we had been having. I had that lazy Sunday-afternoon feeling that comes after the pleasure of an unaccustomed late morning in bed.
“But let’s forget about the business of expenses. There are still about four days to go. I’ll do the best I can in that time. We can think about expenses when the time comes.”
“When it comes to that point, I’ll try and get a job somewhere. My brother’s not here to scold any longer. I realize the world isn’t all he claimed.”
“Things are discouraging now, but the investigation has made some progress.”
“You said before you had to be suspicious about the child I aborted. What did you mean by that?”
The tone was casual, quite as if she were discussing the weather, but her innocent expression was not to be trusted. I had had enough of this strain.