Roberto Bolaño - The Third Reich

Conrad choked back a groan, or at least that’s what I thought I heard.

“It’s not true,” he parried, very sure of himself.

“What do you want? Honestly, Conrad, sometimes you’re a fucking pain in the ass.”

“I want you to come back to your senses.”

Frau Else brushed my cheek with her lips and said: It’s late, I have to go. I felt her warm breath on my ears and neck, a spider’s embrace, light and disturbing. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the watchman at the end of the hallway, docile, waiting.

“I have to hang up,” I said.

“Should I call you tomorrow?”

“No, don’t waste your money.”

“My husband is waiting for me,” said Frau Else.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Yes, it does.”

“He can’t fall sleep until I’m there,” said Frau Else.

“How is the match going? Did you say it’s autumn of ’40? Have you invaded the USSR?”

“Yes! Blitzkrieg on all fronts! He’s no match for me! For Christ’s sake, am I the champ or aren’t I?”

“Of course, of course… And I hope with all my heart that you win… How are the English doing?”

“Let go of my hand,” said Frau Else.

“I have to go, Conrad. The English are in trouble, as always.”

“And your article? Going well, I suppose. Remember that it would be ideal if it’s published before Rex Douglas gets here.”

“If nothing else, it’ll be written. Rex is going to love it.”

Frau Else tried to pull her hand away.

“Don’t be childish, Udo. What if my husband comes in?”

I covered the receiver so that Conrad couldn’t hear and I said:

“Your husband is in bed. I suspect that’s his favorite place. And if he isn’t in bed he’s probably at the beach. That’s another one of his favorite places, especially after dark. Not to mention the guest rooms. In fact, your husband manages to be everywhere at once. I wouldn’t be surprised if he were spying on us right now, hiding behind the watchman. The watchman’s shoulders aren’t broad, but your husband, I believe, is thin.”

Frau Else’s gaze turned instantly toward the end of the corridor. The watchman was waiting, leaning against the wall. In Frau Else’s eyes I caught a glimmer of hope.

“You’re crazy,” she said when she had determined that no one was watching, before I pulled her to me and kissed her.

I don’t know how long we kissed, first urgently and then lazily. I know that we could have gone on forever but I remembered that Conrad was on the phone and that time was ticking away and eating a hole in his pocket. When I lifted the receiver to my ear I heard the chattering of thousands of crossed lines and then emptiness. Conrad had hung up.

“He’s gone,” I said, and I tried to drag Frau Else with me toward the elevator.

“No, Udo, good night,” she said, rejecting me with a forced smile.

I insisted that she come with me, though frankly without much conviction. With a motion of her hand that at the time I didn’t understand, a dry, authoritarian gesture, Frau Else had the watchman step between us. Then, in a new tone of voice, she said good night to me again and disappeared… toward the kitchen!

“What a woman,” said the night watchman.

The watchman went behind the desk and searched for his magazine in the drawers. I watched him in silence until he had it in his hands and had gone to sit on the leather armchair in the reception area. I sighed, with my elbows on the desk, and asked whether there were many tourists left at the Del Mar. Lots, he answered without looking at me. Above the shelf of keys there was a big, long mirror in a heavy golden frame that looked like something out of an antiques shop. Reflected in it were the lights of the corridor and, lower down, the back of the watchman’s head. I felt a kind of queasiness upon realizing, however, that my own reflection wasn’t visible. Slowly and somewhat fearfully, I slid to the left along the desk. The watchman looked at me, and after a moment of hesitation he asked why I had said “those things” to Frau Else.

“None of your business,” I said.

“You’re right,” he said with a smile, “but I don’t like to see her suffer, she’s so good to us.”

“What makes you think she’s suffering?” I said, still sliding toward the left. My palms were sweating.

“I don’t know… The way you treat her…”

“I care for her deeply and have the greatest respect for her,” I assured him, as gradually my image began to appear in the mirror, and although what I saw was rather unpleasant (wrinkled clothes, flushed cheeks, tousled hair), it was still me, alive and tangible. A stupid fear, I realize.

The watchman shrugged and turned as if he were about to go back to his magazine. I felt relief and a deep weariness.

“This thing… is it a trick mirror?”

“What do you mean?”

“The mirror. A minute ago I was directly in front of it and I couldn’t see myself. It’s only now, off to the side, that I’m reflected. And you’re sitting beneath it but I can see you in it.”

The watchman turned his head without getting up and looked at himself in the mirror. He made a face: he could see himself and he didn’t like his looks and that struck him as funny.

“It’s a little bit tilted, but it’s not a trick mirror; look, there’s a wall here, see?” Smiling, he lifted the mirror and touched the wall as if he were stroking a body.

For a while I reflected on the matter in silence. Then, after vacillating, I said:

“Let’s see. Stand here.” I pointed to the exact place where I hadn’t been reflected before.

The watchman got up and stood where I told him to.

“I can’t see myself,” he acknowledged, “but that’s because I’m not in front of the mirror.”

“Yes you are, damn it,” I said, getting behind him and turning him to face the mirror.

Over his shoulder I had a vision that made my pulse quicken: I heard our voices but I couldn’t see our bodies. The objects in the corridor—an armchair, a big jar, the spotlights that shone from the juncture of the ceiling and the walls—looked brighter in the mirror than they did in the real corridor behind me. The watchman let out a compulsive giggle.

“Let go of me, let go, I’ll prove it to you.”

Without intending to, I had him immobilized in a kind of wrestling hold. He looked feeble and afraid. I let him go. In a leap the watchman was behind the counter and he pointed at the wall where the mirror hung.

“It’s slanted. Slanted. It’s not straight. Come over here and see for yourself.”

When I stepped through the gap in the counter my equanimity and caution spun like the blades of a crazed windmill; I think I was ready to wring the poor watchman’s neck. Then, as if I were suddenly waking up to a new reality, Frau Else’s scent enveloped me. Everything was different back there—outside the laws of nature, I’d venture to say—and it smelled like her even though the rectangle behind the reception desk wasn’t physically separated from the broad and—by day—heavily trafficked hall. The mark of Frau Else’s serene passage lingered and that was enough to calm me.

After a cursory examination I could see that the watchman was right. The wall on which the mirror hung didn’t run parallel to the counter.

I sighed and let myself fall into the leather armchair.

“So white,” said the watchman, surely referring to my pallor, and he began to fan me calmly with the pornography magazine.

“Thanks,” I said.

After a few interminable minutes I rose and went up to the room.

I was cold, so I put on a sweater and then I opened the windows. From the balcony I could see the lights of the port. A soothing spectacle. The port and I tremble in unison. There are no stars. The beach looks like a black hole. I’m tired and I don’t know how I’ll get to sleep.