Roberto Bolaño - The Third Reich

I tried to spend the rest of the day being productive, but it was impossible. I was incapable of putting on my bathing suit and going down to the beach, so I settled at the hotel bar to write postcards. I planned to send one to my parents, but in the end I wrote only to Conrad. I spent a long time sitting there just watching the tourists and the waiters making the rounds carrying trays loaded with drinks. I don’t know why, but I had the thought that this would be one of the last hot days. Who cared? For the sake of doing something, I had a salad and tomato juice. I think the food made me sick, because I started to sweat and feel queasy, so I went up to the room and took a cold shower. Then I went out again, this time without the car, heading toward Navy Headquarters, but when I got there I decided it wasn’t worth enduring another string of excuses and I walked on.

The town was sunk in a kind of crystal ball; everyone seemed to be asleep (transcendentally asleep!) no matter if they were walking or sitting outside. Around five the sky clouded over and at six it began to rain. The streets cleared all at once. I had the thought that it was as if autumn had unsheathed a claw and scratched: everything was coming apart. The tourists running on the sidewalks in search of shelter, the shopkeepers pulling tarps over the merchandise displayed in the street, the increasing number of shop windows closed until next summer. Whether I felt pity or scorn when I saw this, I don’t know. Detached from any external stimulus, the only thing I could see or feel with any clarity was myself. Everything else had been bombarded by something dark; movie sets consigned to dust and oblivion, as if for good.

The question, then, was what I was doing in the middle of such gloom.

The rest of the afternoon I spent lying in bed waiting for El Quemado to return to the hotel.

On my way up to the room I asked whether I had received any calls from Germany. The answer was no; there were no messages for me.

From the balcony I watched as El Quemado left the beach and crossed the Paseo Marítimo toward the hotel. I hurried downstairs so that when he arrived I would be at the door, waiting for him; I suppose I was afraid that they wouldn’t let him in if he wasn’t with me. As I was passing the reception desk, Frau Else’s voice brought me up short. It was hardly louder than a whisper, but it took me by surprise, echoing in my head like a trumpet blast.

“Udo, you’re still here,” she said as if she hadn’t known.

I stood there in the main hall, in an embarrassing position, to say the least. At the other end of the hall, behind the glass doors, El Quemado was waiting. For a moment I saw him as part of a film projected on the door: El Quemado and the deep blue horizon punctuated by a car parked across the street, the heads of people walking by, and the fuzzy images of the tables on the terrace. Only Frau Else was completely real, beautiful and solitary behind the counter.

“Yes, of course… As you well know.” When I addressed her with the informal du , Frau Else blushed. I think I had seen her like that only once, with her defenses down. I wasn’t sure whether I liked it or not.

“I hadn’t… seen you. That’s all. I don’t keep track of all your movements,” she said in a low voice.

“I’ll be here until the body of my friend turns up. I hope you don’t have any problem with that.”

With a scowl of distaste she looked away. I was afraid she would see El Quemado and use him as a pretext for changing the subject.

“My husband is sick and he needs me. These last few days I’ve spent with him, unable to do anything else. You wouldn’t understand that, would you?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Well, that’s enough. I didn’t mean to bother you. Good-bye.”

But neither she nor I moved.

El Quemado was watching me from the other side of the door. And I have to imagine that he was being watched by the hotel guests sitting on the terrace or by the people walking by on the sidewalk. At any minute someone would come up to him and ask him to leave; then El Quemado would strangle him, using only his right arm, and all would be lost.

“Is your… husband better? I sincerely hope so. I’m afraid I’ve been an idiot. Forgive me.”

Frau Else bowed her head and said:

“Yes… Thank you…”

“I’d like to talk to you tonight… to see you alone… But I don’t want to force you to do something that might cause trouble for you later…”

Frau Else’s lips took an eternity to move into a smile. I don’t know why, but I was shaking.

“Someone’s waiting for you now, yes?”

Yes, a comrade in arms, I thought, but I didn’t say anything and I nodded in a way that expressed the inevitability of the engagement. A comrade in arms? An enemy in arms!

“Remember that even though you’re a friend of the owner, you should respect the hotel rules.”

“What rules?”

“Among many others, the rule that prohibits certain visitors in the guest rooms.” Her voice was back to normal, sounding part ironic and part authoritarian. Clearly, this was Frau Else’s realm.

I tried to protest, but her raised hand commanded silence.

“This is not to suggest anything, or say anything. I’m not making any accusations. I feel sorry for that poor boy too.” She meant El Quemado. “But I have to look out for the Del Mar and its guests. And I have to look out for you. I don’t want anything bad to happen to you.”

“What could possibly happen to me? We’re just playing.”

“What?”

“You know very well what.”

“Ah, the game at which you’re champion.” When she smiled her teeth gleamed dangerously. “A winter sport; at this time of year you’d do better to swim or play tennis.”

“If you want to laugh at me, go ahead. I deserve it.”

“All right, we’ll meet tonight, at one, at the church on the square. Do you know how to get there?”

“Yes.”

Frau Else’s smile vanished. I tried to come closer but I realized it wasn’t the right moment. We said good-bye and I went out. On the terrace everything was normal; two steps down from El Quemado a couple of girls were discussing the weather as they waited for their dates. Just as on every other night, people laughed and made plans.

I exchanged a few words with El Quemado and we went back in.

As we passed the reception desk I didn’t see anyone behind the counter, although it occurred to me that Frau Else could be hiding. With an effort I repressed the urge to go over and look.

I think I didn’t do it because I would have had to explain everything to El Quemado.

Our match continued along predictable lines: in the spring of ’40 I launched an Offensive Option in the Mediterranean and conquered Tunis and Algeria; on the Western front I spent twentyfive BRP, which bought me the conquest of France; during the SR I placed four armored corps with infantry and air support on the Spanish border (!). On the Eastern front I consolidated my forces.

El Quemado’s response was purely defensive. He made the fewest moves he could; he strengthened some defenses; most of all, he asked questions. His plays still reveal what a novice he is. He doesn’t know how to stack the counters, he plays sloppily, he has either no grand strategy or the one he has is too schematic, he trusts in luck, he makes mistakes in his calculations of BRP, he confuses the Creation of Units phase with the SR.

Still, he tries and it seems that he’s beginning to get into the spirit of the game. I can tell by the way he keeps his eyes glued to the board and by the way the charred planes of his face twist in an effort to calculate retreats and costs.

It inspires sympathy and pity. A dense kind of pity, I should note, leached of color, cuadriculated.