Roberto Bolaño - The Third Reich

Today, at ten in the morning, I was woken by a phone call giving me the news. They had found Charly’s body and wanted me to come to the police station to identify it. Shortly afterward, as I was having breakfast, the manager of the Costa Brava appeared, exuberant and brimming with excitement.

“At last! We have to go as soon as possible; the body leaves today for Germany. I just talked to the German consulate. They’re efficient people, I must say.”

At twelve we were at a building on the edge of town—nothing like the one in the dream I’d had a few days ago—where a young man from the Red Cross was waiting for us with the representative from Navy Headquarters, whom I already knew. Inside, in a dirty, smelly waiting room, the German official was reading the Spanish papers.

“Udo Berger, friend of the deceased,” the manager of the Costa Brava introduced me.

The official got up, shook my hand, and asked me if we could proceed to the identification.

“We have to wait for the police,” explained Mr. Pere.

“But aren’t we at the police station?” asked the official.

Mr. Pere nodded and shrugged. The official sat down again. Soon afterward the rest of us—talking all at once and in whispers—followed his lead.

Half an hour later, the policemen arrived. There were three of them and they didn’t seem to have any idea why we were waiting. Again, it was the manager of the Costa Brava who took it upon himself to explain, after which they had us follow them up and down corridors and stairs until we came to a rectangular white room—underground, or so I thought—where Charly’s body lay.

“Is this him?”

“Yes, it’s him,” I said, Mr. Pere said, everyone said.

With Frau Else on the roof:

“Is this your hideaway? The view is nice. You can pretend you’re queen of the town.”

“I don’t play pretend.”

“Actually it’s nicer now than in August. Less stark. If the place were mine, I think I’d bring up some potted plants, a touch of green. It would be cozier that way.”

“I don’t want to be cozy. I like it the way it is. Anyway, it’s not my hideaway.”

“Oh, I know, it’s the only place where you can be alone.”

“Not even that.”

“Well, I followed you because I need to talk to you.”

“But I don’t want to talk to you, Udo. Not now. Later, if you like, I’ll come down to your room.”

“And will we make love?”

“Who knows?”

“You and I have never done it, you realize. We kiss and kiss and we still can’t make up our minds to go to bed together. We’re behaving like children!”

“Don’t worry. It’ll happen when the conditions are right.”

“What conditions do you mean?”

“Attraction, friendship, the urge to escape the unescapable. Everything has to be spontaneous.”

“I’d do it this minute. Time flies, don’t you know?”

“I want to be alone now, Udo. Also, I’m a little afraid of becoming emotionally dependent on a person like you. Sometimes I think you have no sense at all and other times I think the opposite. I see you as a tragic soul. Deep down you must be quite unbalanced.”

“You think I’m still a child…”

“You idiot, I don’t even remember you as a boy. Were you ever one?”

“You really don’t remember?”

“Of course not. I have a vague recollection of your parents and that’s all. The way you remember tourists is different from the way you remember normal people. It’s like snippets of film, no, not film, photographs, snapshots, thousands of snapshots, and all of them blank.”

“I don’t know whether the silly things you say make me feel better or terrify me… Last night, as I was playing with El Quemado, I saw you. You were with the Wolf and the Lamb. Would you say that they’re normal people, the kind you’ll remember in the normal way, not as blanks?”

“They were asking about you. I told them to leave.”

“I’m glad to hear it. Why did it take you so long?”

“We were talking about other things.”

“What things? About me? About what I was doing?”

“We talked about things that are none of your business. Nothing to do with you.”

“I don’t know whether to believe you or not, but thanks anyway. I wouldn’t have liked it if they’d come up to bother me.”

“What are you? Just a war games player?”

“Of course not. I’m a young person who’s trying to have a good time… a healthy good time. And I’m a German.”

“And what does it mean to be a German?”

“I don’t know exactly. Something difficult, that’s for sure. Something that we’ve gradually forgotten.”

“Me too?”

“All of us. Though in your case, maybe a little less so.”

“I should take that as a compliment, I suppose.”

I spent the afternoon at the Andalusia Lodge. Now that the tourists are gone the bar is gradually returning to its true sinister self. The floor is dirty, sticky, covered with cigarette butts and napkins, and there are plates, cups, bottles, and the remains of sandwiches stacked on the bar, everything jumbled together in a strangely desolate and peaceful tableau. The Spanish kids are still glued to the VCR, and sitting at a table near them the owner reads the sports page. Of course everyone knows that Charly’s body has been found, and although for the first few minutes they keep a certain respectful distance, soon the owner comes over to offer me his condolences: “Life is short,” he says without further ado as he serves me my coffee and sits down next to me. Surprised, I muttered something vague. “Now you’ll go home and everything will start over again.” I nodded. Everyone else began to pretend they were watching the movie but they were really listening to what I had to say. Leaning up against the other side of the bar, with her forehead in her hand, an older woman was staring at me. “Your girlfriend must be waiting for you. Life goes on and you have to live it as best you can.” I asked who the woman was. The owner smiled. “That’s my mother. The poor thing is lost. She doesn’t like it when the summer ends.” I pointed out that she was quite young. “Yes, she had me when she was fifteen. I’m the oldest of ten. The poor thing is worn-out.” I said she didn’t look her age. “She works in the kitchen. All day she makes sandwiches, beans with sausage, paella, fried eggs and potatoes, pizza.” I’ll have to come and try the paella, I said. The owner blinked. His eyes were wet. Next summer, I added. “It isn’t what it used to be,” he said gloomily. “Not half as good as it was before.” Before what? “Back in the old days.” Oh, I said, that’s normal, maybe you’ve had it too often and you can’t appreciate it anymore. “Maybe.” The woman, still in the same position, pouted in a way that might have been for my sake but might just as easily have been a commentary on life and time. Behind her sad and wrinkled smile I thought I glimpsed a kind of fierce excitement. The owner seemed to meditate for an instant and then, with obvious effort, he got up and offered me a drink, “on the house,” which I turned down since I hadn’t finished my coffee yet. As he passed the bar he turned and, with his eyes on me, kissed his mother on the forehead. He came back with a cognac in his hand, looking noticeably more animated. I asked what had happened to the Wolf and the Lamb. They were looking for jobs. Doing what, he didn’t know, anything, construction or whatever. The subject wasn’t to his liking. I hope they find something they like, I said. He doubted they would. He had hired the Wolf a few seasons ago and he couldn’t remember a worse waiter. He lasted only a month. “Anyway, it’s better to be out looking for work, even if no one has any intention of giving it to you, than to bore yourself like a pig.” It was better, I agreed. At least it showed a more positive attitude. “Now that you’re leaving, the one who’ll be bored as a dog is El Quemado.” (Why “dog” and not “pig”? The owner knew how to call things by their names.) We’re good friends, I said, but I doubt it’ll matter that much to him. “I didn’t mean that,” said the owner, his eyes glinting. “I meant the game.” I looked at him without saying anything, the bastard had his hands under the table and was making motions like someone masturbating. Whatever he was talking about, it amused him. “Your game, El Quemado is excited about it. I’ve never seen him so interested in anything.” I cleared my throat and said yes. The truth is that I was surprised that El Quemado had gone around talking about our match. The movie-watching kids were giving us sidelong glances, hardly bothering to hide it anymore. I had the feeling that they were waiting, menacingly, for something to happen. “El Quemado is a smart kid, though he keeps to himself, because of the burns, of course.” The owner’s voice had dropped to a barely audible murmur. At the other end of the bar, his mother or whoever she was me gave me a fierce smile. It’s only natural, I said. “Your game is a kind of chess, a sport, isn’t it?” Something like that. “And it has to do with war, with World War II, doesn’t it?” Yes, that’s right. “And El Quemado is losing, or at least that’s what you think, isn’t it? Because it’s all very confusing.” Yes, in fact. “Well, the match will never be finished, which is all for the best.” I asked why he thought it was better for the match to remain unfinished. “For the sake of humanity!” The owner gave a start and then smiled reassuringly. “If I were you I wouldn’t get him upset.” I chose to sit expectantly, in silence. “I don’t think he likes Germans.” Charly liked El Quemado, I remembered, and he claimed it was mutual. Or maybe it was Hanna who said that. Suddenly I was depressed and I felt like going back to the Del Mar, packing my bags, and leaving immediately. “The burns, you know, were inflicted on purpose, it was no accident.” Had it been Germans? Was that why he didn’t like Germans? The owner, hunched over so that his chin almost grazed the red plastic surface of the table, said, “The German side,” and I realized that he was talking about the game, Third Reich . El Quemado must be crazy, I exclaimed. In response I felt myself pierced by the resentful gazes of the movie watchers. It was just a game, that’s all, and the man was talking as if Gestapo counters (ha-ha) were about to stomp on the face of the Allied player. “I don’t like to see him suffer.” He’s not suffering, I said, he’s having fun. And he’s using his brain! “That’s the worst of it, the kid thinks too much.” The woman behind the bar shook her head and then dug in her ear. I thought about Ingeborg. Had we really had drinks here and talked about our love in this dirty, smelly place? It’s no surprise that she got tired of me. My poor, faraway Ingeborg. Every corner of the bar was steeped in misfortune, the inescapable. The owner screwed up the left side of his face: he drew his cheek up until it hid his eye. I didn’t remark at his dexterity. The owner didn’t seem offended; beneath it all, he was in a good mood. “The Nazis,” he said. “The real Nazi soldiers on the loose around the world.” Uh-huh, I said. I lit a cigarette. Little by little, this was all beginning to seem otherworldly. Then was it Nazis who were responsible for his burns, was that the story? And where had this happened, and when and why? The owner gave me a superior look before replying that El Quemado, in some hazy distant past, had been a soldier, “the kind of soldier who has to fight tooth and nail.” Infantry, I deduced. Immediately, with a smile on my lips, I asked whether El Quemado was Jewish or Russian, but such subtleties were beyond the owner. He said: “No one crosses him, the very thought of it petrifies them” (he must be talking about the louts at the Andalusia Lodge). “You, for example, have you ever felt his arms?” No, not me. “I have,” said the owner in a sepulchral voice. And then he added: “He spent last summer working here, in the kitchen, it was his own idea, so I wouldn’t lose customers, you know, tourists don’t want to see a face like that, especially when they’re drinking.” I said that it wasn’t that simple; tastes differ, as everyone knows. The owner shook his head. His eyes shone with a malicious light. I’ll never set foot in this dive again, I thought. “I would have liked him to stay on here, I have a lot of respect for him, that’s why I’m happy that the game will end in a draw, I’d hate to see him get in trouble.” What kind of trouble was he talking about? I asked. The owner, as if admiring the scenery, stared for a long time at his mother, the bar, the shelves of dusty bottles, the soccer club posters. “The real problem is when a person can’t keep a promise,” he said thoughtfully. What kind of promise? The light in the owner’s eyes suddenly dimmed. I admit that for an instant I was afraid he would cry. I was wrong. The stubborn bastard laughed and waited, like an old cat, fat and evil. Is this something to do with my dead friend? I ventured carefully. With my dead friend’s girlfriend? With one hand on his stomach, the owner exclaimed: “Oh, I don’t know, I really don’t know, but it’s cracking me up.” I didn’t understand what he meant and I was quiet. Soon I would have to meet El Quemado at the entrance to the hotel, and for the first time the prospect made me somewhat uneasy. The counter, dimly lit by some yellow hanging lamps, was empty; the woman had gone. You know El Quemado, tell me something about him. “Impossible, impossible,” murmured the owner. Through the partially closed windows, the night and the damp began to creep in. Outside, on the terrace, only shadowy figures remained, swept occasionally by the headlights of cars turning offthe Paseo toward the center of town. Glumly, I imagined myself searching for the well-hidden road to France, far from this town and vacation days. “Impossible, impossible,” he again murmured sadly, hunching in on himself as if he were suddenly very cold. At least tell me where El Quemado is from, for Christ’s sake. One of the moviewatching kids glanced over his shoulder at our table and said he’s a ghost. The owner gazed at the boy with pity. “Now he’ll feel empty, but he’ll be in peace.” Where is he from? I asked again. The movie-watching kid stared at me with an obscene smile. From here.