Roberto Bolaño - The Third Reich

That was all. In fact, it was a nightmare, not a dream. If it meant anything, I can’t say what. I don’t usually have nightmares. During my adolescence, I did, plenty of them, and all different, but nothing that would have given my parents or the school psychologist cause to worry. Really, I’ve always been a well-balanced person.

It would be interesting to remember the dreams I had here, at the Del Mar, more than ten years ago. I probably dreamed about girls and punishment, the way all boys that age do. A few times my brother described a dream to me. I don’t know whether we were alone or whether our parents were there too. I never did anything like that. When Ingeborg was little she often woke up crying and needed to be consoled. In other words, she woke up afraid, and with a terrible sense of loneliness. That’s never happened to me, or it’s happened so few times that I’ve forgotten.

For a few years now I’ve dreamed about games. I go to bed, close my eyes, and a board lights up full of incomprehensible counters, and thus, little by little, I lull myself to sleep. But my real dreams must be different because I don’t remember them.

I’ve dreamed only a few times about Ingeborg, though she’s the central figure in one of my most vivid dreams. It’s a dream that doesn’t take long to tell, and this may be its greatest virtue. She’s sitting on a stone bench brushing her hair with a glass hairbrush; her hair, of the purest gold, falls to her waist. It’s getting dark. In the background, still very far away, is a dust cloud. Suddenly I realize that next to her is a huge wooden dog—and I wake up. I think I dreamed this just after we met. When I described it to her she said that the dust cloud meant the dawning of love. I told her I’d had the same thought. We both were happy. All of this happened at a club in Stuttgart, the Detroit, and it’s possible that I still remember that dream because I told it to her and she understood it.

Sometimes Ingeborg calls me late at night. She confesses that this is one of the reasons she loves me. Some of her ex-boyfriends couldn’t handle the phone calls. A guy called Erich broke up with her after she woke him up at three in the morning. A week later he wanted to get back together, but Ingeborg said no. None of them understood that she needed someone to talk to after she woke up from a nightmare, especially if she was alone and the nightmare was particularly horrible. In these cases I’m the ideal person: I’m a light sleeper; in a second I can talk as if the call were at five in the afternoon (an unlikely circumstance, since I’m still at work then); I don’t mind getting calls at night; finally, when the phone rings sometimes I’m not even asleep.

It goes without saying that her calls fill me with happiness. A serene happiness that doesn’t keep me from falling back to sleep as quickly as I woke up. And with Ingeborg’s words of farewell echoing in my ears: “Sweet dreams, dear Udo.”

Dear Ingeborg. I’ve never loved anyone so much. Why, then, these glances of mutual distrust? Why can’t we just love each other as children do, accepting each other fully?

When she gets back I’ll tell her that I love her, that I’ve missed her, ask her to forgive me.

This is the first time that we’ve traveled together, gone away together, and naturally it’s hard for us to mold ourselves to each other. I should avoid talking about games, especially war games, and try to be more attentive. If I have time, as soon as I’m done writing this, I’ll go down to the hotel souvenir shop and buy her something, a little thing that will make her smile and forgive me. I can’t stand to think I might lose her. I can’t stand to think I might hurt her.

I bought a silver necklace inlaid with ebony. Four thousand pesetas. I hope she likes it. I also picked up a tiny clay figurine of a peasant in a red hat, kneeling, in the act of defecating; according to the salesgirl it’s typical of the region, or something. I’m sure Ingeborg will think it’s funny.

At the reception desk I spotted Frau Else. I approached cautiously, and before I said hello I caught a glimpse over her shoulder of an accounting book full of zeros. Something must be bothering her because when she realized I was there she seemed annoyed. I tried to show her the necklace but she wouldn’t let me. Leaning on the reception desk, her hair illuminated by the late afternoon sun coming in through the big window in the hall, she asked about Ingeborg and “your friends.” I lied, saying I had no idea what friends she was talking about. That young German couple, said Frau Else. I answered that they were summer acquaintances, not friends, and they’re guests of the competition, I added. Frau Else didn’t seem to appreciate my irony. Since it was clear that she didn’t plan to continue the conversation and I didn’t want to go up to my room yet, I quickly pulled out the clay figurine and showed it to her. Frau Else smiled and said:

“You’re a child, Udo.”

I don’t know why, but that simple sentence, spoken in Frau Else’s melodious voice, was enough to make me blush. Then she made it clear that she was busy and I should leave her alone. Before I left I asked her what time it usually got dark. At ten, said Frau Else.

From the balcony I can see the little boats that ply the tourist route; they leave every hour from the old fishing port, head east, then turn north and vanish behind a big outcropping that they call the Punta de la Virgen. It’s nine o’clock and only now is the night beginning to creep in, slow and bright.

The beach is almost empty. Only children and dogs cross the golden sand. Singly first, and then in a pack, the dogs race toward the pine forest and the campgrounds, then they return and little by little the pack breaks apart. The children play in one spot. In the distance, near the old town and the cliffs, a little white boat appears. Ingeborg is on board, I’m sure. But the boat hardly seems to move. On the beach, between the Del Mar and the Costa Brava, the pedal boat guy begins to pull the boats up away from the shore. Although it must be heavy work, no one helps him. But seeing the ease with which he drags the huge things, leaving deep tracks in the sand, it’s clear that he can handle it himself. From here no one would guess that most of his body is horribly burned. He’s wearing only a pair of shorts and the wind tosses his too-long hair. He’s a character, all right. And I don’t say that because of the burns but because of his singular way of arranging the pedal boats. What I had already discovered the night that Charly ran offdown the beach I see again, but this time I watch the operation from the beginning, and, as I imagined, it’s slow, complicated, serving no practical purpose, absurd. The pedal boats face in different directions, assembled not in a traditional row or double row but in a circle, or rather a blunt-pointed star. An arduous task, as evidenced by the fact that by the time he’s half finished, all the other pedal boat guys are done. And yet he doesn’t seem to care. He must like working at this time of day, in the cool evening breeze, the beach empty except for a few children playing in the sand far from the pedal boats. Well, if I were a kid I don’t think I’d get close either.

It’s strange: for a second it looked to me as if he was building a fortress with the pedal boats. A fortress like the ones that children build, in fact. The difference is that the poor brute isn’t a child. So why build a fortress? It’s obvious, I think: to have a place to spend the night.

Ingeborg’s little boat has docked. She must be heading for the hotel now. I imagine her smooth skin, her cool, sweet-smelling hair, her confident steps crossing the old town. Soon it will be completely dark.

The rental guy still hasn’t finished building his star. I wonder why no one has complained; like a tumbledown shack, the pedal boats spoil the charm of the beach. Though I suppose it isn’t the poor guy’s fault, and maybe the unpleasant effect, the strong resemblance to a hut or den, is clear only from up here. From the Paseo Marítimo does no one notice what a mess is being made of the beach?