Roberto Bolaño - The Third Reich

“It’s been a long time since I had the pleasure,” said Mr. Pere.

“It seems he’s sick.”

“So it seems,” said Mr. Pere, his face darkened by an expression that could have meant anything.

After that, the dream advanced (or so I remember it) in leaps. I had a breakfast of fried eggs and tomato juice on the terrace. I went upstairs; some English children were coming downstairs and we almost collided. From the balcony I watched El Quemado, out in front of his pedal boats, musing on his poverty and the end of summer. I wrote letters with intentional and studied slowness. Finally I got in bed and fell asleep. Another phone call, this time real, dragged me from sleep. I checked my watch: it was two in the afternoon. It was Conrad, and his voice repeated my name as if he thought I would never answer.

Despite what I might have expected, maybe because Conrad was shy and I was still half-asleep, the conversation proceeded coldly, in a way that horrifies me now. The questions, the answers, the inflections of voice, the poorly hidden desire to get offthe phone and save a few cents, the familiar expressions of irony all seemed cloaked in a supreme lack of interest. No confidences were shared, except one stupid one at the end; instead, fixed images of the town, the hotel, and my room superimposed themselves tenaciously on the scene sketched by my friend as if they were trying to warn me of the new order in which I was immersed and within which the coordinates transmitted to me over the phone line had little value. What are you doing? Why don’t you come back? What’s keeping you? At your office they don’t know what to think, Mr. X asks about you every day and it’s no use when everyone assures him that you’ll soon be back among us, he’s filled with foreboding and predicts disaster. What kind of disaster? What do I care? All of this followed by information about the club, work, games, magazines, recounted ceaselessly and relentlessly.

“Have you seen Ingeborg?” I asked.

“No, of course not.”

We were silent for a brief instant, after which there came a new avalanche of questions and appeals: at my office they were more than a little upset; the group wondered whether I still planned to go to Paris to meet Rex Douglas in December. Would I be fired? Would I get into trouble with the police? Everyone wanted to know what mysterious and inexplicable thing was keeping me in Spain. A woman? Loyalty to a dead man? To what dead man? And incidentally, how was my article going, the one that was going to lay the foundations for a new strategy? It was as if Conrad were mocking me. For a second I imagined him taping the conversation, his lips curved in a wicked smile. The champion in exile! Out of circulation!

“Listen, Conrad, I’m going to give you Ingeborg’s address. I want you to go see her and then call me.”

“Yes, all right, whatever you say.”

“Perfect. Do it today. And then call me.”

“Fine, fine, but I have no idea what’s going on and I’d like to be as useful as I can. Do you follow me, Udo? Can you hear me?”

“Yes. Tell me you’ll do as I say.”

“Yes, of course.”

“Good. Did you get a letter from me? I think I explained everything in it. You probably haven’t gotten it yet.”

“All I’ve gotten are two postcards, Udo. One of hotels on the beach and another of a mountain.”

“A mountain?”

“Yes.”

“A mountain by the sea?”

“I don’t know! All you can see is the mountain and a kind of monastery in ruins.”

“Anyway, you’ll get it. The postal system is terrible here.”

Suddenly I realized that I hadn’t written any letter to Conrad. I didn’t really care.

“Are you having good weather there, at least? It’s raining here.”

Instead of answering his question, as if taking dictation, I said:

“I’m playing…”

Maybe I thought it was important for Conrad to know. In the future it could be useful to me. From the other end of the line I heard a kind of amplified sigh.

“ Third Reich ?”

“Yes…”

“Really? Tell me how it’s going. You’re incredible, Udo, only you would think to play at a time like this.”

“Of course, I know what you mean, with Ingeborg far away and everything hanging by a thread,” I said, yawning.

“That’s not what I meant. I was talking about the risks. About that strange drive of yours. You’re one of a kind, kid, the king of fandom!”

“It’s not such a big deal, don’t shout, you’re hurting my ears.”

“So who are you playing? A German? Do I know him?”

Poor Conrad. He took it for granted that in a small town on the Costa Brava it was possible to run into another war games player who also happened to be German. It was clear he never went on vacation and God only knows what his idea of a summer on the Mediterranean, or wherever, was.

“Well, my opponent is a little strange,” I said, and I went on to give him a general description of El Quemado.

After a silence, Conrad said:

“I don’t like the sound of that. It doesn’t make sense. How do you communicate?”

“In Spanish.”

“And how did he read the rules?”

“He didn’t. I explained them to him. In a single afternoon. You’d be amazed how sharp he is. You don’t need to tell him anything twice.”

“How is he as a player?”

“His defense of England is acceptable. He couldn’t prevent the fall of France, but who can? He’s not bad. You’re better, of course, and so is Franz, but he’s a decent sparring partner.”

“The way you describe him… it makes my hair stand on end. I’ve never played with someone like that, the kind of person who might scare me if he showed up all of a sudden… In a multi-player match, all right, but alone… And you say he lives on the beach?”

“That’s right.”

“What if he’s the devil?”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes. The devil, Satan, Belial, Mephistopheles, Beelzebub, Lucifer, the Prince of Darkness…”

“The Prince of Darkness… No, he’s more like an ox… Strong and brooding, the typical ruminant. Melancholic. Oh, and he’s not Spanish.”

“How do you know that?”

“Some Spanish guys told me. At first, of course, I thought he was Spanish, but he isn’t.”

“Where is he from?”

“I don’t know.”

From Stuttgart Conrad protested weakly:

“You should find out. It’s crucial, for your own safety…”

I thought he was exaggerating, but I promised that I would ask. Soon afterward we hung up, and after I showered I went out for a walk before returning to the hotel to eat. I felt good, as if the passage of time had no effect on me, and my body was wholly surrendered to the pleasure of being precisely where I was, and nowhere else.

Autumn 1940. I play the Offensive Option on the Eastern front. My armored corps break through the flank of the central Russian sector, advancing deep into Russian territory and sealing offa vast swath one hex west of Smolensk. Behind me, between Brest Litovsk and Riga, ten Russian armies are trapped. My losses are minimal. On the Mediterranean front I spend BRP for another Offensive Option and I invade Spain. El Quemado is taken completely by surprise. His eyebrows shoot up, he sits up straighter, his scars vibrate. It’s as if he hears my armored divisions advancing along the Paseo Marítimo, and his confusion doesn’t help him to mount a good defense (he chooses—unconsciously, of course—a variant of David Hablanian’s Border Defense, undoubtedly the worst possible response to an attack from the Pyrenees). And so with only two armored corps and four infantry corps plus air support I conquer Madrid, and Spain surrenders. During the Strategic Redeployment phase I place three infantry corps in Seville, Cádiz, and Granada, and an armored corps in Córdoba. In Madrid I station two German air fleets and one Italian fleet. Now El Quemado can see what I’m up to… and he smiles. He congratulates me! He says: “That never would have occurred to me.” He’s such a good loser it’s hard to even comprehend Conrad’s suspicions and fears. Bent over the map during his turn, El Quemado talks and tries to repair the irreparable. In the USSR he moves troops from the south—where there’s been almost no fighting—to the north and center, but his capacity for movement is minimal. In the Mediterranean he keeps his hold on Egypt and he reinforces Gibraltar, though not very convincingly, as if he didn’t believe in his own efforts. Muscular and charred, his torso looms over Europe like a nightmare. And he talks—without looking at me—about his work, the scarcity of tourists, the fickle weather, the retirees who flock en masse to certain hotels. Prying while feigning a lack of interest—I’m actually writing as I ask him questions—I learn that he knows Frau Else, who’s called “the German lady” around the neighborhood. Forced to give his opinion, he concedes that she’s pretty. Then I inquire about her husband. El Quemado answers: he’s sick.