Roberto Bolaño: The Third Reich

I faced Mathias Müller in the semifinals and eliminated him. In the finals, I was pitted against Franz Grabowski, of the Model Kit Club, a good friend of Conrad’s and mine. That was how I won the right to represent Stuttgart. Then I went on to Cologne, where I competed against players of the caliber of Paul Huchel or Heimito Gerhardt, the latter of whom, at sixty-five, is the oldest of Germany’s gamers, a real role model for the sport. Conrad, who came with me, amused himself by giving nicknames to everyone gathered in Cologne, but when it came to Heimito Gerhardt he was at a loss, no longer so clever or boisterous. When he talked about him he called him the Old Man or Mr. Gerhardt; in front of Heimito he scarcely opened his mouth. Clearly he was afraid of saying something stupid.

One day I asked him why he had such respect for Heimito. He answered that Heimito was a man of steel. That’s all he said. Rusty steel, he added with a smile, but steel even so. I thought he was referring to Heimito’s military past, and said so. No, said Conrad, I’m talking about the courage it takes for him to play. Nowadays, old men usually spend their time in front of the television or going for strolls with their wives. Heimito, however, was brave enough to walk into a room full of kids, brave enough to sit at a table in front of a complicated game, and brave enough to ignore the mocking looks that many of those kids gave him. Old men with that kind of character, with that kind of purity, according to Conrad, were a uniquely German phenomenon. And their numbers were dwindling. Maybe. And maybe not. In any case, as I later saw for myself, Heimito was an excellent player. We faced each other just before the championship finals, in an especially brutal round of a poorly calibrated game in which I was assigned the weaker force. It was Fortress Europa and I was playing the Wehrmacht. To the surprise of nearly everyone at the table, I won.

After the match, Heimito invited a few people back to his house. His wife served sandwiches and beer, and the party, which lasted late into the night, was a delight, full of colorful tales. Heimito had served in the 352nd Infantry Division, 915th Regiment, 2nd Battalion, but according to him, his general was no match for me in maneuvering the troops—or, in my case, the counters— under his command. Though flattered, I felt obliged to point out that it was the way I had positioned my mobile divisions that had decided the match. We toasted General Marcks and General Eberbach and the Fifth Panzer Army. As the evening was drawing to a close, Heimito swore that I would be the next champion of Germany. I think that was when the Cologne group started to hate me. As for me, I felt happy, mostly because I knew that I had made a friend.

And I did win the championship. The semifinals and the final were fought with the tournament version of Blitzkrieg , a fairly wellcalibrated game in which the map as well as the opposing powers (Great Blue and Big Red) are imaginary, which, if both players are good, makes for very long games that tend toward stalemate. Not so this time. I dispatched Paul Huchel in six hours, and in the last game, timed by Conrad, it was only three and a half hours before my opponent claimed second place and gracefully conceded.

We spent one more day in Cologne; the magazine people suggested that I write an article, and Conrad spent the time wandering around taking pictures of streets and churches. I hadn’t met Ingeborg yet and already life was beautiful, or so I thought, unaware that true beauty had yet to manifest itself. But back then I saw beauty all around me. The federation of war games players might be the smallest sports federation in Germany, but I was the champion and no one could claim otherwise. The sun shone for me alone.

One more thing happened that last day in Cologne that would later have important consequences. Heimito Gerhardt, a fan of gaming by mail, presented Conrad and me with our own play-by-mail kits as he accompanied us to the bus station. It so happened that Heimito corresponded with Rex Douglas (one of Conrad’s idols), the great American gamer and star writer for one of the most prestigious of the specialized journals, The General . After confessing that he had never been able to beat Douglas (in six years they had played three long-distance matches), Heimito suggested that I write to Rex and get a game started with him. I have to confess that at first the idea held little interest. If I had to play by mail, I’d rather do it with people like Heimito or other members of my circle; nevertheless, before the bus reached Stuttgart, Conrad had convinced me of the importance of writing to Rex Douglas and challenging him to a game.

Ingeborg is asleep now. Before she fell asleep, she asked me not to get out of bed, to hold her in my arms all night. I asked whether she was scared. It came out naturally, unthinkingly. I just said: Are you scared? And she answered yes. Why? Of what? She didn’t know. I’m right beside you, I said, there’s no need to be scared.

Then she fell asleep and I got up. All the lights in the room were offexcept for the lamp that I’d placed on the table, next to the game. This afternoon I hardly worked. In town, Ingeborg bought a necklace of yellowish stones that they call filipino , which the kids here wear on the beach and at the clubs. We had dinner with Hanna and Charly at a Chinese restaurant in the tourist district. When Charly started to get drunk, we left. Really, a pointless evening. The restaurant, of course, was jam-packed and it was hot; the waiter was sweating; the food was good but nothing out of this world; the conversation centered on Hanna’s and Charly’s favorite subjects, in other words love and sex, respectively. Hanna is a woman made for love, as she puts it, although when she talks about love one gets the strange feeling that she’s talking about security, or even specific brands of cars and appliances. Charly, meanwhile, talked about legs, asses, breasts, pubic hair, necks, navels, sphincters, etc., to the great delight of Hanna and Ingeborg, who constantly burst out laughing. Frankly, I can’t see what they find so funny. Maybe it’s nervous laughter. As for me, I can say that I ate in silence, with my mind elsewhere.

When we got back to the hotel we spotted Frau Else. She was in the dining room, at the end that becomes a dance floor at night, next to the stage, talking to two men dressed in white. Ingeborg felt slightly unwell, maybe it was the Chinese food, so we ordered a chamomile tea at the bar. That was when we saw Frau Else. She was gesticulating like a Spaniard and shaking her head. The men in white stood as still as statues. It’s the musicians, said Ingeborg, she’s scolding them. I didn’t care who they were, although I knew they weren’t the musicians, whom I’d happened to see the night before, and who were younger. When we left, Frau Else was still there: a perfect figure in a green skirt and black blouse. The men in white, impassive, had only bowed their heads.

A relatively uneventful day. In the morning, after breakfast, Ingeborg left for the beach and I went up to the room ready to start work in earnest. A little while later, it was so hot that I put on my bathing suit and went out onto the balcony, where there were a couple of comfortable lounge chairs. Though it was early, the beach was already crowded. When I came back inside I found the bed freshly made, and sounds from the bathroom informed me that the maid was still here. It was the same girl from whom I’d requested the table. This time I didn’t think she looked so young. Her face shone with exhaustion, and her sleepy eyes were like those of an animal unaccustomed to the light of day. Evidently she didn’t expect to see me. For a moment she seemed about to run away. Before she did I asked what her name was. She said it was Clarita and she smiled in a way that was disturbing, to say the least. I think it was the first time I’d seen anyone smile like that.