Roberto Bolaño - The Third Reich

Before I got in bed I did two things, namely:

1. Set up the armored corps for the lightning attack on France.

2. Went out on the balcony and searched for some light on the beach that might indicate the presence of El Quemado, but all was dark.

I’m following Ingeborg’s instructions. Today I spent more time than usual at the beach. The result is that my shoulders are red from the sun and this afternoon I had to go buy a cream to take away the sting. Of course we were next to the pedal boats and since there was nothing else to do I spent the time talking to El Quemado. The day brought a few bits of news. The first is that yesterday Charly got outrageously drunk with the Wolf and the Lamb. Hanna, weepy, told Ingeborg that she didn’t know what to do: leave him or not? She can’t stop thinking about going back to Germany alone. She misses her son; she’s fed up and tired. Her only consolation is her perfect tan. Ingeborg says that it all depends on whether she really loves Charly or not. Hanna doesn’t know what to answer. The other news is that the manager of the Costa Brava has asked them to leave the hotel. It seems that last night Charly and the Spaniards tried to beat up the night watchman. Ingeborg, despite the signs I was making to her, suggested that they move to the Del Mar. Luckily Hanna is determined that the manager change his mind or at least return their deposit. I expect that everything will be resolved with a few explanations and apologies. In response to Ingeborg’s question about where she was when all this took place, Hanna answers that she was in their room, sleeping. Charly didn’t show up on the beach until noon, looking the worse for wear and dragging his board. Hanna, when she saw him, whispered in Ingeborg’s ear:

“He’s killing himself.”

Charly’s version is completely different. He couldn’t care less about the manager and his threats. He says, with his eyes half closed and looking as sleepy as if he’d just stepped out of bed:

“We can move to the Wolf’s house. Cheaper and more authentic. That way you’ll get to know the real Spain.” And he winks at me.

He’s only half joking. The Wolf’s mother rents rooms in the summer, with board or without, at modest prices. For a moment it seems that Hanna is about to cry. Ingeborg steps in and calms her down. In the same joking tone she asks Charly whether the Wolf and the Lamb aren’t falling in love with him. But the question is serious. Charly laughs and says no. Then, recovered, Hanna says that she’s the one the Wolf and the Lamb want to get into bed.

“The other night they kept touching me,” she says, at once mortified and coquettish.

“Because you’re pretty,” explains Charly, unperturbed. “I’d try it too if I didn’t already know you, wouldn’t I?”

The conversation swings all of a sudden to places as far-flung as Oberhausen’s Discotheque 33 and the Telephone Company. Hanna and Charly begin to wax sentimental and remember all of the places with romantic significance for them. But after a while, Hanna insists:

“You’re killing yourself.”

Charly puts an end to the reproaches by grabbing his board and heading into the water.

At first my conversation with El Quemado centered on topics like whether anyone had ever stolen a pedal boat from him, whether the work was hard, whether he didn’t get bored spending so many hours on the beach under that merciless sun, whether he had time to eat, whether he could say who among the foreigners were his best customers, etc. His answers, invariably succinct, were as follows: twice someone had stolen a pedal boat, or rather, left it abandoned at the other end of the beach; the work wasn’t hard; sometimes he got bored but not often; he ate sandwiches, as I suspected; he had no idea which country’s natives rented the most pedal boats. I contented myself with his answers, and I endured the intervals of silence that followed. Clearly he wasn’t used to conversation, and, as I noted by his evasive gaze, he was rather mistrustful. A few steps away, the bodies of Ingeborg and Hanna shone, soaking in the sun’s rays. Then, suddenly, I said that I’d rather be back at the hotel. He glanced at me without curiosity and continued to watch the horizon, where his pedal boats were nearly indistinguishable from the pedal boats belonging to other stands. Far away I spotted a windsurfer who kept falling again and again. From the color of the sail I realized it wasn’t Charly. I said that mountains were my thing, not the sea. I liked the sea, but I liked mountains better. El Quemado made no comment.

We were silent for a while again. The sun was scorching my shoulders but I didn’t move or do anything to protect myself. In profile, El Quemado looked like a different person. I don’t mean that he was less disfigured (actually, the side facing me was the more disfigured) but simply that he looked like someone else. More remote. Like a bust of pumice stone fringed with coarse, dark hairs.

I can’t remember what made me confess that I wanted to be a writer. El Quemado turned around and, after hesitating, said that it was an interesting profession. I made him repeat what he’d said because at first I thought I’d misheard him.

“But not of novels or plays,” I explained.

El Quemado’s lips parted and he said something I couldn’t hear.

“What?”

“Poet?”

Under his scars I seemed to glimpse a kind of monstrous smile. I thought the sun must be addling me.

“No, no, definitely not a poet.”

I explained, now that I had paved the way for it, that I in no way scorned poetry; I could have recited from memory lines by Klopstock or Schiller. But to write poetry in this day and age, unless it was for the love object, was a bit pointless, didn’t he agree?

“Or grotesque,” said the poor wretch, nodding.

How can someone so deformed say that something is grotesque without taking it personally? Strange. In any case, my sense that El Quemado was secretly smiling grew stronger. Maybe it was his eyes that conveyed the hint of a smile. He hardly ever looked at me, but when he did I caught in his gaze a spark of jubilation and strength.

“Specialized writer,” I said. “Creative essayist.”

On the spot, I sketched in broad strokes a picture of the world of war games, with all its magazines, competitions, local clubs, etc. In Barcelona, I explained, there were a few associations in operation, for example, and although as far as I knew no federation existed, Spanish players were beginning to be quite active in the field of European competitions. In Paris I had met a few.

“It’s a sport on the rise,” I said.

El Quemado mulled over my words, then he got up to retrieve a pedal boat that was coming in to shore; with no sign of effort he pulled it back into the roped-offarea.

“I did read something about people who play with little lead soldiers,” he said. “It wasn’t too long ago, I think, at the beginning of the summer…”

“Yes, it’s essentially the same thing. Like rugby and American football. But I’m not very interested in lead soldiers, although they’re all right… they look a little bit fussy.” I laughed. “I prefer board games.”

“What do you write about?”

“Anything. Give me any war or campaign and I’ll tell you how it can be won or lost, the flaws of the game, where the designer got it right or wrong, the correct scale, the original order of battle…”

El Quemado watches the horizon. With his big toe he digs a little hole in the sand. Behind us Hanna has fallen asleep and Ingeborg is reading the last few pages of the Florian Linden novel; when our eyes meet she smiles and blows me a kiss.

For a moment I wonder whether El Quemado has a girlfriend. Or whether he’s ever had one.