The File on H. Read Online Free PDF Page A

found a more plausible excuse for coming? But even on that score they didn’t seem to have made much of an effort. Provincial they must have thought peasants living in a backwater…. Ha! We shall see who has the last laugh! You two may have seen all sorts of things., the governor continued to himself while maintaining his unwavering smile, you may have looked at skyscrapers and things of that kind, but what you’ve never met before is Dull Baxhaja. When he gets on your tail he’ll stick there like a leech, no matter where you are — on top of a skyscraper or in the ninth circle of hell!
    The thought of Dull calmed him down for a moment. Then his mind went back to the note from the Minister of the Interior, or rather to the phrase about their being "caught in flagrante,” after which, the minister said, "your mission will be terminated, the remainder being my concern.“ To tell the truth, the governor had no clear idea of what would constitute being "caught in flagrante.“ On this point the minister’s epistle seemed to have been written hurriedly, even impatiently: he had gone so far as to give the bizarre advice to treat the foreigners well “even after they’ve been nabbed,” “Treat them as before, but get them to understand that they’ve been caught in the act and that there’s no point trying to get off the hook."
    Now that he thought about it, the minister’s letter seemed even odder than it had at first sight. It all might have seemed part of a game, if the minister hadn’t repeated how important the whole matter was, much more important that a provincial official could imagine.
    Taking pains not to be noticed, the governor looked at his watch. At the present moment, Pjeter Prenushi should surely have managed to open the suitcases and to photograph the piles of notes and documents that the customs report said they contained. And then, following the orders he had been given, he would have what looked like the most interesting texts translated, so as to get them on his boss’s desk by dawn.
    Feeling content, the governor was able now to smile without effort at everyone, including those who in his view did not deserve his attention. Pjeter Prenushi would definitely be running over to the ridiculous shack above whose front door a signboard announced in blue hand lettering,
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, while the owner of the premises, bent double by his painful piles, would be waiting inside in a state of terror. He would stop trembling only when he saw that he had to deal with texts written in English. Shots of corpses, of stolen bracelets, and especially of naked women, gave him the shakes.
    The governor was now visibly at ease. The thought of his two best sleuths in action outside in the dark, the cold, and the wet gave him special satisfaction. Others, he knew, were jealous of the perfect duo that afforded him his “ears” and his “eyes,” but as for himself, he had a distinct preference for Dull. And whenever rivalry between them was at issue, either because of some spat or on a question of pay, though he always tried to appear fair, he generally took Dull’s side.
    We are not a very developed country, he liked to philosophize from time to time, and as in any country of this kind, the eye does not play a preponderant role as far as intelligence is concerned. Most people here are illiterate, and even those who do know how to read and write do not like to do so often. Very few write their memoirs, keep a diary, or have a regular correspondence. Even wills, which are hard to imagine as not written down, signed, and sealed, are still frequently oral And do you know what stands in lieu of initials and the duty stamp? Curses! “May you never know a single day of happiness in this world or the next if you do not carry out my wish!” “May you turn into a tree!” “May the earth never accept your corpse!” And so on and so