The Third Reich

by Roberto Bolaño

  We left at four in the morning. One of the Spaniards was driving because Charly, in the backseat, puked the whole way, his head out the window. Frankly, he was in terrible shape. When we got to the hotel he took me aside and started to cry. Ingeborg, Hanna, and the two Spaniards watched curiously, though I motioned for them to go away. Between hiccups, Charly confessed that he was afraid of dying; it was almost impossible to understand what he was saying, though it was clear that his fears were unjustified. Then, without transition, he was laughing and boxing with the Lamb. The Lamb, who was quite a bit shorter and thinner, just dodged him, but Charly was too drunk and he lost his balance or fell on purpose. As we were picking him up one of the Spaniards suggested that we get coffee at the Andalusia Lodge.

  The terrace of the bar, seen from the Paseo Marítimo, had the aura of a den of thieves, the hazy air of a bar asleep in the morning damp and fog. The Wolf explained that although it looked closed, the owner was usually inside watching movies on his new video player until dawn. We decided to give it a try. After a moment a man with a flushed face and a week’s growth of beard opened the door.

  It was the Wolf himself who made our coffee. At the tables, with their backs to us, were just two people watching TV, the owner and another man, sitting separately. It took me a moment to recognize the other man. I might have been a little drunk myself. Anyway, I took my coffee and sat down at his table. I had just enough time to exchange a few commonplaces (suddenly I felt awkward and nervous) before the others joined us. The Wolf and the Lamb knew him, of course. They introduced us formally.

  “Ingeborg, Hanna, Charly, and Udo here, friends from Germany.”

  “And this is our mate El Quemado.”

  I translated for Hanna. The Burn Victim.

  “How can they call him El Quemado?” she asked.

  “Because that’s what he is. And anyway, that’s not the only thing they call him. You can call him Muscles; either name suits him.”

  “I think it’s very bad manners,” said Ingeborg.

  Charly, who was slurring his words, said:

  “Or an excess of honesty. They simply face the truth head-on. That’s how it was in wartime, soldiers called things by their names, without frills, and it wasn’t disrespect, or bad manners, though, of course—”

  “It’s horrible,” Ingeborg interrupted, giving me a disgusted look.

  The Wolf and the Lamb hardly noticed our exchange, busy as they were explaining to Hanna that a glass of cognac could hardly make Charly any drunker. Hanna, sitting between them, seemed extremely animated one moment and despairing the next, ready to go running out, though I don’t think she really felt much like going back to the hotel. At least not with Charly, who had reached the point at which all he could do was mumble incoherently. Only El Quemado was sober, and he looked at us as if he understood German. Ingeborg noticed it too and got nervous, which is typical. She can’t stand it when people’s feelings are hurt. But really, how could he have been hurt by what we said?

  Later I asked him whether he spoke German and he said no.

  At seven in the morning, with the sun already high in the sky, we got in bed. The room was cold and we made love. Then we fell asleep with the windows open and the curtains drawn. But first . . . first we had to haul Charly to the Costa Brava. He was determined to sing songs that the Wolf and the Lamb whispered in his ear (the two of them were laughing like maniacs and clapping); later, on the way to the hotel, he insisted on swimming for a while. Hanna and I were against it, but the Spaniards backed him up and all three of them went in the water. Poor Hanna hesitated briefly between going in herself or waiting on the shore with us; finally she decided on the latter course.

  We hadn’t noticed when El Quemado left the bar, but now we spotted him walking on the beach. He stopped about fifty yards from us, and there he stayed, squatting, looking out to sea.

  Hanna explained that she was afraid that something bad would happen to Charly. She was an excellent swimmer and therefore felt that it was her duty to go in with him, but—she said with a crooked smile—she didn’t want to get undressed in front of our new friends.

  The sea was as smooth as a rug. The three swimmers kept getting farther away. Soon we couldn’t tell who was who; Charly’s blond head and the dark heads of the Spaniards became indistinguishable.

  “Charly is the one who’s farthest out,” said Hanna.

  Two of the heads turned back toward the beach. The third kept heading out to sea.

  “That’s Charly,” said Hanna.

  We had to stop her from undressing and going in after him. Ingeborg looked at me as if I should volunteer, but she didn’t say so. I’m not a strong swimmer, and he was already too far out for me to catch up. The returning swimmers were moving extremely slowly. One of them turned around every few strokes as if to see whether Charly was following. For an instant I thought about what Charly had said to me: that he was afraid of dying. It was ridiculous. Just then I looked over toward where El Quemado had been, and he was gone. To the left of us, halfway between the sea and the Paseo Marítimo, the pedal boats loomed, bathed in a faintly bluish light, and I realized that he was there now, inside his fortress, sleeping or perhaps watching us, and the very idea that he was hidden there was more exciting to me than the swimming display to which we’d been subjected by that idiot Charly.

  At last the Wolf and the Lamb reached the shore, where they dropped, exhausted, one next to the other, unable to get up. Hanna, unconcerned by their nakedness, ran to them and began to fire questions at them in German. The Spaniards laughed and said they couldn’t understand a thing. The Wolf tried to tackle her and then splashed water on her. Hanna gave a leap backward (an electric leap) and covered her face with her hands. I thought she would start to cry or hit them, but she didn’t do anything. She came back over to us and sat on the sand, next to the little pile of clothes that Charly had left scattered and that she had gathered and carefully folded.

  “Son of a bitch,” she whispered.

  Then, with a deep sigh, she got up and began to scan the horizon. Charly was nowhere to be seen. Ingeborg suggested that we call the police. I went over to the Spaniards and asked them how we could get in touch with the police or with some rescue team from the port.

  “Not the police,” said the Lamb.

  “The kid’s a joker. He’ll be back, no sweat. He’s just messing with us.”

  “But don’t call the police,” insisted the Lamb.

  I informed Ingeborg and Hanna that we couldn’t count on the Spaniards if we needed to ask for help, which probably wouldn’t be necessary anyway. Really, Charly could show up at any moment.

  The Spaniards dressed quickly and joined us. The color of the beach was shifting from blue to reddish and some early-bird tourists were jogging along the Paseo Marítimo. We were all standing except for Hanna, who’d dropped down again next to Charly’s clothes and was squinting, as if the growing light hurt her eyes.

  It was the Lamb who spotted him first. Cutting smoothly through the water with perfect, measured strokes, Charly came in to shore some hundred yards from where we stood. With shouts of jubilation, the Spaniards ran to welcome him, not caring that their trousers were getting wet. Meanwhile Hanna burst into tears, clutching Ingeborg, and said that she felt sick. Charly was almost sober when he emerged from the water. He kissed Hanna and Ingeborg and shook hands with the rest of us. There was something unreal about the scene.

  We parted in front of the Costa Brava. As Ingeborg and I walked toward our hotel, I spied El Quemado as he came out from under the pedal boats and then began to disassemble them, getting ready for another workday.

  It was after three when we woke up. We showered and had a light meal at the hotel restaurant. From the bar we watched the scene on the Paseo Marítimo through the tinted windows. It was like a postcard: old men perched on the wall along the sidewalk, half of them wearing little white hats, and old women with their skirts pulled up over their knees so the sun could lick at t
heir thighs. That was all. We had a soda and went up to the room to put on our bathing suits. Charly and Hanna were in the usual spot near the pedal boats. That morning’s incident was the subject of conversation for a while: Hanna said that when she was twelve her best friend had died of a heart attack while she was swimming; Charly, completely recovered now, told how he and some guy called Hans Krebs used to be the champions of the Oberhausen town pool. They had learned to swim in the river and they believed that anyone who learned to swim in rivers could never drown in the sea. In rivers, he said, you have to swim as hard as you can and keep your mouth closed, especially if the river is radioactive. He was glad he’d shown the Spaniards how far he could go. He said that at a certain point they’d begged him to swim back, or so he thought, at least. Anyway, even if that wasn’t what they’d said, he could tell by the tone of their voices that they were scared. You weren’t scared because you were drunk, said Hanna, kissing him. Charly smiled, showing two rows of big white teeth. No, he said, I wasn’t scared because I know how to swim.

  Inevitably we saw El Quemado. He was moving slowly and wore only cutoff jeans. Ingeborg and Hanna waved. He didn’t come over.

  “Since when are you friends with that guy?” asked Charly.

  El Quemado waved back and headed toward the shore dragging a pedal boat. Hanna asked whether it was true that they called him El Quemado. I said it was. Charly said he hardly remembered him. Why didn’t he come in the water with me? For the same reason that Udo didn’t, said Ingeborg, because he isn’t stupid. Charly shrugged. (I think he loves it when women scold him.) He’s probably a better swimmer than you, said Hanna. I doubt it, said Charly, I’d bet anything he isn’t. Hanna then observed that El Quemado had bigger muscles than either of us, and in fact than anyone on the beach just now. A bodybuilder? Ingeborg and Hanna started to laugh. Then Charly confessed that he didn’t remember a thing about the night before. The trip back from the club, the vomiting, the tears—all had been erased from his memory. And yet he knew more about the Wolf and the Lamb than any of us. One of them worked in a supermarket next to the campground and the other waited tables at a café in the old town. Great guys.

  At seven we left the beach and stopped for beers on the terrace of the Andalusia Lodge. The owner was behind the bar talking to a couple of locals, both tiny old men, almost dwarves. He greeted us with a nod. It was nice there. The breeze was soft and cool, and although the tables were full, the patrons hadn’t quite yet devoted themselves entirely to making noise. Like us, they were people on their way back from the beach and they were worn-out from swimming and lying in the sun.

  We separated without making plans for that night.

  When we got back to the hotel, we took a shower and then Ingeborg decided to go lie on the balcony to write postcards and finish reading the Florian Linden novel. I spent a moment scanning my game and then went down to the restaurant to have a beer. After a while I came up for my notebook and I found Ingeborg asleep, wrapped in her black robe, the postcards clutched against her hip. I gave her a kiss and suggested that she get into bed, but she didn’t want to. I think she had a bit of a fever. I decided to go back down to the bar. On the beach, El Quemado repeated his evening ritual. One by one the pedal boats were returned to their places and the hut began to take shape, to rise, if a hut can be said to rise. (A hut can’t; but a fortress can.) Without thinking I raised a hand and waved. He didn’t see me.

  Frau Else was at the bar. She asked what I was writing. Nothing important, I said, just the first draft of an essay. Ah, you’re a writer, she said. No, no, I said, my face flushing. To change the subject I asked about her husband, whom I hadn’t had the pleasure of seeing.

  “He’s sick.”

  She said it with a gentle smile, her eyes on me and at the same time glancing around as if she didn’t want to miss anything that was going on in the bar.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “It isn’t anything serious.”

  I made some remark about summer illnesses, idiotic, I’m sure. Then I got up and asked if she would let me buy her a drink.

  “No, thank you, I’m fine, and I’ve got work to do too. Always busy!”

  But she made no move to leave.

  “Has it been a long time since you were last in Germany?” I

  asked, to say something.

  “No, my dear, I was there for a few weeks in January.”

  “And how did you find it?” As I said it I realized that it was a stupid thing to say and I blushed again.

  “The same as always.”

  “Yes, of course,” I murmured.

  Frau Else looked at me in a friendly way for the first time and then she left. I watched a waiter stop her, and then a guest, and then a couple of old men, until she disappeared behind the stairs.

  AUGUST 25

  Our friendship with Charly and Hanna is beginning to be a burden. Yesterday, after I’d finished writing in my journal and when I thought I would spend a quiet evening alone with Ingeborg, they appeared. It was ten o’clock; Ingeborg had just woken up. I told her I’d rather stay at the hotel, but after talking on the phone with Hanna (Charly and Hanna were at the reception desk), she decided that we should go out. As she changed clothes, we argued. When we came downstairs I was astounded to see the Wolf and the Lamb. The Lamb, leaning on the counter, was whispering something in the receptionist’s ear that made her dissolve in helpless laughter. I was extremely put off. I assumed it was the same girl who had tattled to Frau Else about the misunderstanding with the table, though considering the hour and the possibility that the receptionists worked in two shifts, it could have been someone else. In any case she was very young and silly: when she saw us she gave us a knowing smirk, as if we shared a secret. Everyone else applauded. It was the last straw.

  We left town in Charly’s car, with the Wolf sitting up front next to Hanna to show Charly the way. On the drive to the club, if a dump like that deserves the name, I saw huge pottery shops erected in rudimentary fashion alongside the highway. Actually, they were probably warehouses or wholesale showrooms. All night they were lit up by spotlights, and anyone who drove by got a view of endless junk, urns, pots of all sizes, and a few random pieces of statuary behind the fences. Coarse Greek imitations covered in dust. Fake Mediterranean crafts frozen in an in-between moment, neither day nor night. The yards were empty, save for the occasional guard dog.

  Almost everything about the night was the same as the night before. The club had no name, though the Lamb said people called it the Crap Club. Like the other club, it was intended more for workers from the surrounding area than for tourists. The music and lighting were terrible; Charly drank and Hanna and Ingeborg danced with the Spaniards. Everything would have ended the same way if it hadn’t been for an incident, the kind of thing that often happened at the club, according to the Wolf, who advised us to leave right away. I’ll try to reconstruct the story. It starts with a guy who was pretending to dance between the tables and along the edge of the dance floor. Apparently he hadn’t paid for his drinks and he was high. This last point, however, is pure supposition. The most distinctive thing about him, which I noticed long before the scuffle began, was a thick rod that he brandished in one hand, though later the Wolf said it was a cane made of pig’s intestines, the blow of which left a scar for life. In any case, the bogus dancer’s behavior was threatening, and soon he was approached by two waiters who didn’t happen to be in uniform and who were indistinguishable from the rest of the clientele, though they were given away by their manner and faces: they were goons. Words were exchanged between them and the man with the rod, and the discussion grew more and more heated.

  I could hear the man with the rod say:

  “My rapier comes everywhere with me,” referring in that peculiar way to his stick, in response to being forbidden to carry it in the club.

  The waiter replied:

  “I have something much harder than your rapier.” Straightaway there came a deluge of curses that I
didn’t understand, and finally the waiter said: “Do you want to see it?”

  The guy with the stick was silent; I’d venture to say that he grew suddenly pale.

  Then the waiter raised his forearm, muscular and hairy as a gorilla’s, and said:

  “See? This is harder.”

  The guy with the stick laughed, not insolently but in relief, though I doubt the waiters registered the difference, and raised his cane, flexing it like a bow. He had a stupid laugh, the laugh of a drunk and a loser. At that moment, as if triggered by a spring, the waiter’s arm shot out and grabbed the stick. It all happened very quickly. Immediately, turning red with the effort, he broke it in two. Applause came from one of the tables.

  Just as swiftly, the guy with the stick hurled himself on the waiter, bent his arm behind his back before anyone could stop him, and, in the blink of an eye, broke it. Despite the music, which had continued to play during the whole altercation, I think I heard the sound of bone snapping.

  People started to scream. First it was the howls of the waiter whose arm had just been broken, then the shouts of those flinging themselves into a brawl in which, at least from my table, it was impossible to tell who was on which side, and finally the general clamor of all those present, including the ones who didn’t even know what was going on.

  We decided to beat a retreat.

  On the way back we passed two police cars. The Wolf wasn’t with us. It had been impossible to find him in the crush on the way out, and the Lamb, who had followed us without protest, now felt bad about having left his friend behind and urged us to go back for him. On this point Charly was adamant: if he wanted to go back, he could hitchhike. We agreed to wait for the Wolf at the Andalusia Lodge.

  The bar was still open when we got there. I mean open to everyone, the lights on outside, with a big crowd despite the late hour. The kitchen was closed, but at the Lamb’s request the owner brought us a couple of chickens that we accompanied with a bottle of red wine; then, since we were still hungry, we polished off a platter of spicy sausage and cured ham and bread with tomato and olive oil. When the terrace was closed and we were the only ones left inside, along with the owner, who at that time of night devoted himself to his favorite pursuit, which was watching cowboy movies and having a leisurely dinner, the Wolf came in.