The Missing Bureaucrat

By Hans Scherfig

WHEN THE MIDDAY NEWSPAPER was delivered to Section 14 of the War Ministry at 11:00, it was first opened and read (without any protest from the others in the office) by young Deputy Clerk Hougaard, whose father was a former Secretary of the Royal Privy Council.
    When he had finished reading he passed the newspaper along to Miss Lilienfeldt; her father being a colonel, she was accordingly next in line after Mr. Hougaard. In this way the newspaper made its rounds and was read by everyone in the office in a sequential order corresponding to each individual´s origin and rank.
    The mail that arrived in Section 14 of the War Ministry was handled in accordance with immutable rules established by long routine. Letters of every conceivable class and category arrived. The letters were opened, sorted, recorded, initialed, stamped, and read according to an exacting system and in a strictly prescribed sequence.
    Some letters concerned national defense. Some letters were of vital importance for national security. And some letters were of secondary importance. Such as a bill from a glazier regarding a newly installed windowpane: due to a lack of circumspection on the part of the office personnel in the positioning of a window latch, an accident occurred entailing the fracturing of one of the Ministry´s windowpanes, the wind having induced the aforesaid window to slam.
    There were letters, applications, suggestions, and projects that were supposed to be routed to the Department Head or to the Defense Minister. There were letters that were supposed to be answered by the Section Chief. There were letters that weren´t supposed to be answered at all, but returned after they were provided with an appropriate marginal notation and after their serial number and file designation had been recorded.
The Ministry had its own special alphabet - a system of specific marks and hieroglyphics - which the Section Chief inscribed on the correspondence in red or blue pencil and which indicated to the initiated what further action was to be accorded to the document in question.
    It is understandable then that a letter addressed to Section 14 of the War Ministry must of necessity lie dormant for a period of time and go through a certain set procedure before it can be read, and before it can be answered.
    The morning after Head Clerk Amsted disappeared, a letter arrived at the office in the mail, addressed to the Section Chief personally. This circumstance resulted in its reaching him significantly faster than other letters that had arrived at the same time. But because of the peculiar and rigid system of mail sorting, the better part of a week would inevitably pass before it was read by the Section Chief.
    It was obvious that the contents of the letter made an unusual impression on him. His voice was completely hoarse when he called Head Clerk Degerstrom into his private office and told him to be seated.
    "Something has happened. Something unprecedented and unseemly. Something that concerns the honor of the office - in fact, of the Ministry itself. "
    Head Clerk Degerstrom listened attentively.
    "I consider it my duty to inform you of it. All the more so since I am convinced it cannot in the long run remain unknown to the public at large. Head Clerk Amsted is dead."
    "He´s dead?" Head Clerk Degerstrom´s first thought inevitably had to be that he would therefore be next in line for advancement when the Section Chief some day reached an appropriate age. In this office everybody waited patiently for time to pass. Only with the aid of time could a person advance to a higher rank.
    "He died in a disgraceful manner. He took his own life. I´m sitting here with a letter which he addressed to me personally and in which he considered it of vital urgency to communicate his motives for the step he has undertaken.
    "First of all he states that under these circumstances we cannot expect to see him at the office again. The key to his cabinet and desk drawer is to be found at his home on Herluf Trollesgade. The reason he found it imperative to communicate his suicide to us is because of the unusual method he employed, inasmuch as he assumed it would not leave any possibility of identifying his remains: he has blown himself up by filling not only his pockets with dynamite but also his hat and his mouth."
    "So he was the one - the one on Amager Common."
    "Yes, he was the one. He was the one the newspapers wrote all those things about. And now the office will also be mentioned in connection with this scandal."
"Oh my God!"


From Hans Scherfig: The Missing Bureaucrat
Fjord Press, 1991

Translated by Frank Hugus