Roberto Bolaño - The Third Reich

“Then let’s talk about the movies. Do you like the movies?” I shrugged. “Tonight there’s a Judy Garland film on TV. I love Judy Garland. Do you like her?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never seen her in anything.”

“You haven’t seen The Wizard of Oz ?”

“Yes, but it was a cartoon, the way I remember it.”

She gave me a disappointed look. From some corner of the restaurant came very soft music. We were both perspiring.

“No, that’s something else entirely,” said Frau Else. “Although I suppose that at night you and your girlfriend must have better things to do than come down to the hotel lobby to watch TV.”

“Not much better. We go out to clubs. It’s mostly boring.”

“Are you a good dancer? Yes, I think you must be. One of those serious dancers, the kind who never gets tired.”

“No, that’s not me.”

“What’s your style, then?”

“I have two left feet.”

Frau Else nodded in an enigmatic way that indicated she understood. The restaurant was filling up with people coming back from the beach; we hadn’t noticed. In the next room guests were already seated, ready to eat. I thought Ingeborg would be in soon.

“These days I don’t do it as often; when I first came to Spain I went out dancing with my husband almost every night. Always at the same place, because back then there weren’t as many clubs and also because this one was the best, the newest. No, it wasn’t here, it was in X… It was the only club my husband liked. Maybe precisely because it was out of town. It doesn’t exist anymore. It closed years ago.”

I seized the opportunity to tell her what had happened on our last visit to a club. Frau Else listened unperturbed as I gave a detailed account of the dispute between the waiter and the man with the stick that had ended in a general brawl. She seemed more interested in the part of the story involving our Spanish companions, the Wolf and the Lamb. I thought she must know them, or know who they were, and I said so. No, she didn’t know them, but they couldn’t be the most appropriate company for a young couple on their first trip together, practically a honeymoon. But what harm could they do? A worried look crossed Frau Else’s face. Did she perhaps know something that I didn’t? I told her that the Wolf and the Lamb were more friends of Charly and Hanna’s than mine, and that in Stuttgart I was acquainted with much shadier characters. I was lying, of course. Finally I promised that the Spaniards interested me only as conversation partners with whom I could practice my Spanish.

“You should think about your girlfriend,” she said. “You should be considerate of her.”

On her face was an expression akin to disgust.

“Don’t worry, we’ll be fine. I’m cautious by nature and I know how to keep my distance, depending on the person. Anyway, Ingeborg likes spending time with them. I guess she’s not used to that kind of people. Of course, neither of us takes them seriously.”

“But they are real.”

I was about to tell her that everything seemed unreal to me just then: the Wolf and the Lamb, the hotel and the summer, El Quemado (whom I hadn’t mentioned) and the tourists, everyone except for Frau Else herself, lonely and alluring; but luckily I kept my mouth shut.

We sat there for a while longer without speaking, although in the midst of our silence I felt closer to her than ever. Then, with a visible effort, she got up, shook my hand , and left.

As I was on my way up to the room, in the elevator, a stranger remarked in English that the boss was sick. “Too bad the boss is sick, Lucy,” were his words. I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that he was referring to Frau Else’s husband.

When I got to the room, I surprised myself by repeating: He’s sick, he’s sick, he’s sick… So it was true. On the map, the game pieces seemed to melt. The light fell at a slant on the table, and the counters that represented German armored units sparkled as if they were alive.

For lunch today we had chicken and french fries and salad, chocolate ice cream and coffee. A rather sad meal. (Yesterday it was cutlets and salad, chocolate ice cream and coffee.) Ingeborg told me that she’d been with Hanna at the Municipal Garden behind the port, between two cliffs that plunge straight into the sea. They took lots of pictures, bought postcards, and decided to walk back to town. A full morning. I hardly said a thing. The noise of the dining room gave me a slight but nagging headache. Just after we finished eating, Hanna came in, wearing only a bikini and a yellow T-shirt. When she sat down she looked at me with a somewhat forced smile, as if she were apologizing for something, or as if she felt ashamed. Of what, I have no idea. The truth is that I wasn’t at all happy to see her, although I was careful not to show it. Finally the three of us went up to the room, where Ingeborg put on her bathing suit and then the two of them went to the beach.

Hanna asked: “Why does Udo spend so much time up here?” And after a pause: “What is that game board with all those counters there on the table?” Ingeborg was slow to find an answer. At a loss, she looked at me as if I were the one responsible for her friend’s stupid curiosity. Hanna stood there waiting. In a calm and cold voice that disconcerted even me, I explained that since my shoulders were so burned I’d rather sit in the shade and read on the balcony. It’s relaxing, I said, you should try it. It helps you think. Hanna laughed, not sure what I meant. Then I added:

“That game board, as you can see, is a map of Europe. It’s a game. It’s also a challenge. And it’s part of my work.”

Flustered, Hanna stammered that she’d heard that I worked for the electric company in Stuttgart, so I had to explain that even though nearly all of my income came from the electric company, neither my true passion nor much of my time was devoted to it. What’s more, games like the one on the table brought in an extra bit of money. I don’t know whether it was the mention of money or the gleam of the board and the counters, but Hanna came over and began to question me in earnest about the map. It was the ideal moment to introduce her to the gaming world… Just then Ingeborg said they should go. From the balcony I watched them cross the Paseo Marítimo and spread their towels a few yards from El Quemado’s pedal boats. The way they moved, so delicately and in such an intensely feminine way, was strangely painful to me. For a few moments I felt sick, unable to do anything but lie on the bed, facedown, sweating. Absurd, agonizing images passed through my head. I thought about suggesting to Ingeborg that we head south, to Andalusia, or that we travel to Portugal, or that we lose ourselves on the back roads of Spain, or cross over to Morocco… Then I remembered that she had to be back at work on September 3 and that my own holiday ended on September 5, and that we didn’t actually have the time… Finally I got up, showered, and found myself in the game.

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(General aspects of the spring turn, 1940. France defends the classic front along the line of Hex 24s, and a second line of defense along the hex 23s. Of the fourteen infantry corps that by this point should be present in the European theater, at least twelve should cover hexes Q24, P24, O24, N24, M24, L24, Q23, O23, and M23. The two remaining corps should be placed in hexes O22 and P22. Of the three armored corps, one should probably be in Hex O22, another in Hex T20, and the last in Hex O23. The replacement units will be in hexes Q22, T21, U20, and V20; the air units in hexes P21 and Q20, on air bases. The British Expeditionary Force, which in the best of cases will consist of three infantry corps and an armored corps— of course, if the En glish attacked France in greater force, the variant to use would be the direct strike against Great Britain and to that end the German airborne corps should be in Hex K28—would be deployed in Hex N23 [two infantry corps] and Hex P23 [one infantry corps and one armored corps]. As a possible defensive variant, the English forces could be moved from Hex P23 to Hex O23, and the French forces [an armored corps and an infantry corps] from O23 to P23. In any deployment the strongest hex will be the one where the English armored corps is located, whether P23 or O23, and it will determine the focus of the German attack. This attack will be carried out with very few units. If the English armored corps is in P23, the German attack will be launched from O24; if, on the contrary, the English armored corps is in O23, the attack must be launched from N24, through the south of Belgium. To assure a breakthrough, the airborne corps must be launched from Hex O23 if the English armored corps is in P23, or from N23 if it’s in O23. The initial strike will be made by two armored corps and the follow-through will be carried out by two or three different armored corps that must arrive at Hex O23 or N22, depending on the location of the English armored corps, and proceed to an immediate exploitation of Hex O22 [Paris]. To prevent a counterattack at a ratio greater than 1:2, some air factors must be left in reserve, etc.).