The Third Reich

by Roberto Bolaño

  At the hotel, the receptionist and later the manager explained to Hanna that windsurfing accidents were frequent around this time of year but that everything usually turned out all right. In the worst of cases the windsurfer might spend forty-eight hours adrift, but he was always rescued, etc. Upon hearing this Hanna stopped crying and seemed a little calmer. The manager offered to drive us to Navy Headquarters. There they took a statement from Hanna, got in touch with the port authority, and again with the Red Cross of the Sea. Shortly afterward two policemen arrived. They needed a detailed description of the board; a helicopter search was about to be launched. When asked whether the board was equipped with survival gear, we all declared ourselves absolutely ignorant of the existence of such a thing. One of the policemen said: “That’s because it’s a Spanish invention.” The other policeman added: “Then everything will depend on how tired he is; if he falls asleep he’ll be in trouble.” It bothered me that they would talk like that in front of us, especially when they knew I could understand Spanish. Naturally, I didn’t translate everything they said for Hanna. The manager, meanwhile, didn’t seem worried at all, and on our way back to the hotel he actually joked about what was happening. “Are you enjoying this?” I asked. “Sure, everything’s fine,” he said. “Your friend will turn up soon enough. We’re all working together on this. There’s no way things can go wrong.”

  We had dinner at the Costa Brava. As might be expected, it wasn’t a lively meal. Chicken with mashed potatoes and fried eggs, salad, coffee, and ice cream, which the waiters, who were aware of what was going on (in fact every eye was upon us), served with unusual friendliness. Our appetites hadn’t suffered. As it happens, we were eating dessert when I saw the Wolf’s face pressed to the glass wall between the dining room and the terrace. He was signaling to me. When I said that he was outside, Hanna turned red and lowered her eyes. In a tiny voice she asked me to get rid of them, let them come tomorrow, whatever I thought best. I shrugged and went out. The Wolf and the Lamb were waiting on the terrace. Briefly I explained what had happened; both were affected by the news (I think I saw tears in the Wolf’s eyes, but I couldn’t swear to it). Then I explained that Hanna was very upset and that we were waiting for news from the police. I couldn’t think of any reason to object when they proposed coming back in an hour. I waited on the terrace until they left. One of them smelled like cologne, and within the bounds of their slovenly style they were dressed with care. When they got to the sidewalk they began to argue; when they turned the corner they were still gesticulating.

  What happened next must, I presume, be standard routine in cases like this, though it was also annoying and unnecessary. First, one policeman arrived, then another one in a different uniform, accompanied by a civilian who spoke German and a navy seaman (in full garb!). Luckily they weren’t here long (the sailor, according to the manager, was about to join the search in a speedboat equipped with spotlights). When they left they promised to let us know what they discovered, no matter the hour. In their faces I could see that the likelihood of finding Charly was growing increasingly slim. The last person to appear was a member—the secretary, I think— of the town’s Windsurfing Club, who had come to promise us the material and moral support of the club’s members. They had also sent out a rescue boat in cooperation with Navy Headquarters and Civil Protection the moment they heard news of the shipwreck. That’s what the club secretary called it: a shipwreck. Upon this latest show of solidarity, Hanna, who during dinner had put on a brave face, once more fell into tears that soon turned into an attack of hysteria.

  With the assistance of a waiter, we brought her up to her room and put her to bed. Ingeborg asked whether she had any sedatives. Sobbing, Hanna said no, the doctor had forbidden them. Finally we decided that it would be best if Ingeborg spent the night there.

  Before returning to the Del Mar, I looked in at the Andalusia Lodge. I hoped to find the Wolf and the Lamb, or El Quemado, but I didn’t see anybody. The owner, sitting at the table closest to the television, was watching a Western, as usual. I left immediately. He didn’t even turn around. From the Del Mar I called Ingeborg. No news. They were in bed although neither of them could sleep. Stupidly I said, “Try to console her.” Ingeborg didn’t answer. For a moment I thought the connection had been lost.

  “I’m here,” said Ingeborg. “I’m thinking.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I’m thinking too.”

  Then we said good night and hung up.

  For a while I lay on the bed with the lights off, wondering what could have happened to Charly. In my head I could come up with only random images: the new mat with the price tag still attached, the midday meal impregnated with repulsive scents, the water, the clouds, Charly’s voice . . . I thought it was strange that no one had asked Hanna about her bruised cheek; I thought about what drowned people looked like; I thought that our vacation was essentially shot. This final thought made me jump up and get to work with uncommon energy.

  At four in the morning I finished the Spring ’41 turn. My eyes were closing with exhaustion but I was satisfied.

  AUGUST 31

  At ten in the morning Ingeborg called me to say that we had an appointment at Navy Headquarters. I waited for Ingeborg and Hanna in the car in front of the Costa Brava and we set off. Hanna was more animated than the night before. Her eyes and lips were made up, and when she saw me she smiled. Ingeborg’s face, meanwhile, presaged nothing good. The Navy Headquarters is a few yards from the marina, on a narrow street in the old town. To get to the offices you have to cross an inner courtyard paved in dirty tiles, with a dry fountain in the middle. There, propped on the fountain, we discovered Charly’s board. We knew that was what it was before anyone told us, and for an instant we were unable to speak or to keep walking. “Come on up, please, come on up,” said a young man (I later recognized him as being from the Red Cross) from a second-story window. After the initial shock we went up; waiting on the landing were the head of Civil Protection and the secretary of the Windsurfing Club, who greeted us with warmth and sympathy. They asked us to come in: in the office were two other civilians, the kid from the Red Cross, and two policemen. One of the civilians asked us whether we recognized the board in the courtyard. Hanna, her tanned skin paling, shrugged. They asked me. I said I couldn’t be sure; Ingeborg said the same thing. The secretary of the Windsurfing Club looked out the window. The policemen seemed fed up. I got the impression that no one dared to speak. It was hot. It was Hanna who broke the silence. “Have you found him?” she asked in such a shrill voice that we all jumped. The German speaker rushed to answer no, we’ve only found the board and boom, which as you’ll realize is quite significant . . . Hanna shrugged again. “Probably he knew he would fall asleep and he decided to tie himself on” . . . “Or he guessed that his strength wouldn’t hold, the sea, the fear, the darkness, you know” . . . “In any case, he did the right thing: he let the sail go and tied himself to the board” . . . “These are guesses, of course” . . . “No effort has been spared: the search has been lengthy and we’ve taken every risk” . . . “This morning a boat belonging to the Fishermen’s Guild found the board and the boom” . . . “Now we’ll have to get in touch with the German consulate” . . . “Naturally we’ll keep combing the area” . . . Hanna had her eyes closed. Then I realized that she was crying. We all exchanged somber glances. The kid from the Red Cross bragged: “I’ve been up all night.” He seemed excited. His next move was to pull out some papers for Hanna to sign; I don’t know what they were. We went to have sodas at a bar in town. We talked about the weather and the Spanish officials, well-intentioned people with few resources. The place was jammed with a dirty sort of day-tripper and it smelled strongly of sweat and tobacco. It was past twelve when we left. Ingeborg decided to stay with Hanna and I went up to the room. I could hardly keep my eyes open, and soon I was asleep.

  I dreamed that someone was knocking at the door. It was nighttime, and when I opened the door I saw someone slipping down the h
all. I followed. Unexpectedly we came to a huge dark room filled with the outlines of heavy old furniture. The smell of mildew and dampness was strong. On a bed a shadowy figure was twisting and turning. At first I thought it was an animal. Then I recognized Frau Else’s husband. At last!

  When Ingeborg woke me, the room was full of light and I was sweating. The first thing I noticed was her face, which was definitely changed: irritation was etched on her forehead and eyelids, and for a few instants we stared at each other blankly, as if we had both just woken up. Then she turned her back on me and gazed at the closets and the ceiling. She’d wasted half an hour trying to call me from the Costa Brava, she said, and there had been no answer. In her voice I heard anger and sadness; my attempt at conciliation only disgusted her. Finally, after a long silence during which I took a shower, she admitted: “You were asleep but I thought you’d left.”

  “Why didn’t you come upstairs to see for yourself?”

  Ingeborg reddened.

  “There was no need . . . Anyway, this hotel scares me. The whole town scares me.”

  For some obscure reason I thought that she was right, but I didn’t say so.

  “That’s silly . . .”

  “Hanna loaned me some clothes, they fit just right, we’re almost the same size.” Ingeborg is talking quickly and for the first time she looks me in the eye.

  In fact, the clothes she’s wearing aren’t hers. All of a sudden I’m aware of Hanna’s taste, Hanna’s aspirations, Hanna’s steely determination to enjoy her vacation, and it’s disconcerting.

  “Any word of Charly?”

  “Nothing. Some reporters were at the hotel.”

  “Then he’s dead.”

  “Maybe. Better not to say anything to Hanna.”

  “No, of course not, that would be absurd.”

  When I got out of the shower, Ingeborg, who was sitting next to my game lost in thought, struck me as the image of perfection. I suggested that we make love. Without turning, she rejected me with a slight shake of the head.

  “I don’t know what appeals to you about this,” she said, gesturing at the map.

  “The clarity of it,” I answered as I dressed.

  “I think I hate it.”

  “Because you don’t know how to play. If you knew how, you’d like it.”

  “Are women interested in this kind of game? Have you ever played with one?”

  “I haven’t. But they do exist. Not many of them, true; it isn’t a game that particularly attracts girls.”

  Ingeborg gave me a bleak look.

  “Everyone in the world has handled Hanna,” she said suddenly.

  “What?”

  “Everyone’s handled her.” She made a terrible face. “Just because. I don’t understand it, Udo.”

  “What do you mean? That everyone has slept with her? And who is everyone? The Wolf and the Lamb?” How or why I can’t say, but I started to shake. First my knees and then my hands. It was impossible to hide.

  After hesitating for a moment, Ingeborg jumped up, put her bikini and a towel in a straw bag, and literally fled the room. From the door, which she didn’t bother to close, she said:

  “Everyone’s touched her and here you were in this room with your war.”

  “So what?” I shouted. “Does that have anything to do with it? Is it my fault?”

  I spent the rest of the afternoon writing postcards and drinking beer. Charly’s disappearance hadn’t affected me the way one might expect it should. Every time I thought about him—which was often, I admit—I felt a kind of emptiness, and nothing more. At seven I went over to the Costa Brava to check things out. I found Ingeborg and Hanna in the TV room, a long narrow room with green walls and a window that looked out onto an inner courtyard full of dying plants. The place was depressing, and I said so. Poor Hanna gave me a sympathetic look. She had put on dark glasses and she smiled when she said that this meant no one ever came in, the guests usually watched TV in the hotel bar; the manager had promised that this was a quiet place. And are the two of you all right here? I asked stupidly, even stuttering. Yes, we’re all right, answered Hanna for both of them. Ingeborg didn’t even look at me: she kept her eyes glued to the screen, faking interest in an American series dubbed in Spanish of which obviously she didn’t understand a word. Near them, in a kind of toy armchair, an old woman was dozing. I nodded toward her inquiringly. Someone’s mother, said Hanna, and she laughed. They made no objection when I offered to buy them a drink, but they refused to leave the hotel; according to Hanna, news could come when we least expected it. So we were there until eleven, talking among ourselves and to the waiters. Hanna has evidently become the hotel celebrity; everyone knows about her misfortune and at least superficially she’s the object of admiration. Her bruised cheek contributes to people’s vague sense of a tragic tale. It’s as if she herself has escaped from some shipwreck.

  Life in Oberhausen, of course, was evoked. In an uninterrupted murmur, Hanna recalled the basic traits of a man and a girl, a woman and an old woman, two old women, a boy and a woman— all disastrous pairs whose ties to Charly were scarcely explained. The truth is that Hanna had met only half of them. Alongside all of these masks, Charly’s face shone with virtue: he had a heart of gold, he was always seeking adventure and the truth (what truth and what adventure I chose not to inquire), he knew how to make a woman laugh, he didn’t have stupid prejudices, he was reasonably brave, and he loved children. When I asked what she meant when she said that he didn’t have stupid prejudices, Hanna answered: “He knew how to ask for forgiveness.”

  “Do you realize that you’ve started to talk about him in the past tense?”

  For an instant Hanna seemed to ponder my words. Then, with her head bowed, she started to cry. Fortunately this time there were no hysterics.

  “I don’t think Charly is dead,” she said at last, “though I’m sure I’ll never see him again.”

  Seeing that we were incredulous, Hanna said she believed it was all one of Charly’s jokes. She couldn’t imagine that he’d died for the simple reason that he was such a good swimmer. Then why hadn’t he turned up? What reason did he have to hide? Hanna believed it had something to do with madness and the loss of love. An American novel told a similar story, except that in it the motive was hatred. Charly didn’t hate anyone. Charly was crazy. Also: he had stopped loving her (this final certainty seemed to give Hanna strength).

  After dinner we went out to talk on the terrace of the Costa Brava. Actually, it was Hanna who talked and we who followed the erratic twists of her conversation as if we were taking turns caring for an invalid. Hanna has a soft voice, and despite the silly things she rattled offit was soothing to listen to her. She described the telephone conversation she’d had with an official at the German consulate as if it were a romantic encounter; she pontificated on the “voice of the heart” and the “voice of nature”; she told stories about her son and wondered whom he would look like when he grew up: at present he looked just like her. In short, she had grown resigned to the horror or, perhaps more astutely, she had exchanged the horror for rupture. When we said our good nights there was no one left on the terrace and the hotel restaurant was dark.

  According to Ingeborg, Hanna hardly knows anything about Charly:

  “When she talked to the official from the consulate she couldn’t give a single address of near or distant relatives to contact about his disappearance. She could only give the name of the company where they both worked. The truth is, she knows nothing about Charly’s past life. On the bedside table in her room she had Charly’s ID booklet open, with his picture surveying everything. Next to the booklet there was a little pile of money and Hanna was very explicit: it’s his money.”

  Ingeborg was afraid to look at the suitcase where Hanna had put Charly’s things.

  Departure date: the hotel is paid up through September 1, that is, tomorrow noon. She’ll have to decide whether to go or stay. I suppose she’ll stay, although she starts work on Sept
ember 3. Charly would’ve started work on September 3 too. Which reminds me that Ingeborg and I have to be back on the 5th.

  SEPTEMBER 1

  At noon Hanna left for Germany in Charly’s car. As soon as the manager of the Costa Brava heard the news, he said it was a grave mistake. The only reason Hanna gave was that she couldn’t stand the stress anymore. Now, in a dark and inescapable way, we’re alone, which until recently was something that I desired, though certainly not in the way it came about. Everything seems the same as yesterday, although sadness has already begun to roll over the landscape. Before leaving, Hanna begged me to take care of Ingeborg. Of course I will, I reassured her, but who will take care of me? You’re stronger than she is, she said from inside the car. This surprised me, since most people who know both of us think Ingeborg is stronger. Behind Hanna’s dark glasses there was a troubled look in her eyes. Nothing bad will happen to Ingeborg, I promised. Beside us, Ingeborg snorted sarcastically. I believe you, said Hanna, squeezing my hand. Later the manager of the Costa Brava began to pester us by phone, as if he blamed us for Hanna’s departure. The first call arrived while we were eating. A waiter came to get me at the table and I thought, against all logic, that it was Hanna calling from Oberhausen to let us know that she had arrived safely. It was the manager; he was so upset that he couldn’t speak clearly. He had called to confirm that Hanna had just left. I said yes and then he told me that by “fleeing” Hanna had just flouted every principle of Spanish law. Her situation now was very precarious. I ventured to suggest that Hanna might not have known she was breaking a law. Not one law, said the manager, several! And ignorance, young man, is never an excuse. No, the hotel bill was paid. The problem was Charly, because when his body appeared, which no doubt it would, someone had to be present to identify it. Of course, the Spanish police could wire the German police the information that Charly had given when he registered at the hotel; the Germans would do the rest with their computers. It’s utterly irresponsible of her, he said before he hung up. The second call, a few minutes later, was to inform us in astonishment that Hanna had taken Charly’s car, which could be considered a criminal act. This time it was Ingeborg who talked to him, saying that Hanna was no thief and that she needed the car to get back to Germany. Why else would she want it? What she did afterward with the damn car was her business and nobody else’s. The manager insisted that it was a theft and the conversation ended a bit abruptly. The third call, conciliatory, was to ask us whether, as friends, we could represent the “party in question” (by this I suppose he meant poor Charly) in the search efforts. We accepted. Despite the sound of it, representing the affected party didn’t mean much. True, the rescue efforts continued, though no one had any hopes now of finding Charly alive. All of a sudden we understood Hanna’s decision. The situation was unbearable.