The Third Reich

AUGUST 29

At dawn the beach is full of seagulls. Along with the seagulls, there are pigeons. The seagulls and pigeons stand at the water’s edge, staring out to sea, motionless except for the occasional short flight. There are two kinds of seagulls: big and small. From the distance the pigeons look like seagulls too. Seagulls of a third kind, only smaller. From the mouth of the port, boats set out, leaving behind them a dark wake on the smooth surface of the sea. Last night I didn’t sleep at all. The sky is a pale and liquid blue. The edge of the horizon is white; the sand of the beach is brown, dotted with little mounds of debris. From the terrace—the waiters haven’t arrived yet to set the tables—it promises to be a clear and calm day. One could say that the seagulls lined up along the beach watch imperturbably as the boats dwindle until they’re nearly lost from sight. At this time of day the hotel corridors are warm and deserted. At the restaurant, a half-asleep waiter brusquely pulls back the curtains, but the light that bathes everything is pleasant and cold, a faint, contained light. The coffee machine has yet to be turned on. From the waiter’s attitude I surmise that it will be a while. In the room Ingeborg is asleep with the Florian Linden novel tangled in the sheets. Softly I set it on the night table, though not before a sentence catches my eye. Florian Linden (I imagine) says: “You say you’ve committed the same crime several times. No, you’re not crazy. That happens to be the very nature of evil.” Carefully I replaced the bookmark and closed the book. On the way out I was struck by the strange notion that no one in the Del Mar planned to get up. But the streets weren’t completely empty anymore. In front of the newsstand, on the border between the old town and the tourist quarter, at the bus stop, bundles of magazines and newspapers were being unloaded from a truck. I bought two German papers before heading down narrow streets toward the port, in search of an open bar.

In the doorway, silhouetted, stood Charly and the Wolf. Neither of them looked surprised to see me. Charly came straight over to my table while the Wolf ordered breakfast for two at the bar. I was afraid to say a word; outwardly, Charly and the Spaniard seemed calm, but behind their apparent calm they were on their guard.

“We followed you,” said Charly. “We saw you leaving the hotel… You seemed very tired so we decided to let you walk for a while.”

I realized that my left hand was trembling, just a little—they didn’t notice—but I immediately hid it under the table. I began to prepare myself for the worst.

“You haven’t slept either, have you?” said Charly.

I shrugged.

“I couldn’t sleep,” said Charly. “I suppose you’ll have heard the whole story by now. I don’t care; I mean, one day of sleep more or less doesn’t matter to me. I feel a little bit bad about having woken up the Wolf. It’s my fault he hasn’t slept either, isn’t that right, Wolf?”

The Wolf smiled uncomprehendingly. For an instant I had the crazy idea of translating what Charly had just said, but I didn’t. Something obscure warned me that I’d better not.

“Friends are there to help in times of need,” said Charly. “At least that’s how I see it. Did you know that the Wolf is a true friend, Udo? For him, friendship is sacred. For example, right now he should be on his way to work, but I know he won’t go until he leaves me at the hotel or some other safe place. He might lose his job, but he doesn’t care. And why is that? It’s because he understands that friendship is sacred. You don’t mess around with friendship!”

Charly’s eyes were bright; I thought he was about to cry. He gave his croissant a scowl of disgust and pushed it away. The Wolf made a motion as if to say that if Charly didn’t want it he would eat it. Yes, take it, said Charly.

“I stopped by his house at four in the morning. Do you think I could do that with a stranger? Everyone is a stranger, of course, in the end we’re all scum, and yet the Wolf’s mother, who was the one who let me in, thought I’d been in an accident, and the first thing she did was offer me some cognac, which of course I accepted even though I was blotto. What a wonderful person. When the Wolf got up he found me sitting in one of his armchairs drinking cognac. What else could I do!”

“Nothing you say is making any sense to me,” I said. “I think you’re still drunk.”

“No, I swear… It’s simple: I knocked at the Wolf’s door at four in the morning; his mother welcomed me like a prince; the Wolf and I tried to talk; we went out for a drive; we stopped at a few bars; we bought two bottles; then we went to the beach, to drink with El Quemado…”

“With El Quemado? On the beach?”

“The guy sleeps on the beach sometimes so that no one steals his disgusting pedal boats. So we decided to share our booze with him. Listen, Udo, here’s something strange: from the beach we could see your balcony and I swear you had the light on all night. Yes or no? Oh, I know I’m right, it was your balcony and your windows and your goddamn light. What were you doing? Were you playing your war games or were you doing the nasty with Ingeborg? Ah ah! Don’t look at me like that, it’s a joke, what do I care. It really was your room, I realized that right away, and El Quemado realized it too. Anyway, busy night, seems like none of us got much sleep, did we?”

Beyond the embarrassment and rage I felt at learning that Charly was well aware of my love of games and that it must have been Ingeborg who informed him or malinformed him of it—I could even imagine the three of them on the beach laughing at their own clever riffs on the subject: “Udo may be the champ, but what a loser”; “This is how the General Staff spend their vacations, shut up indoors”; “Udo is convinced he’s the reincarnation of von Manstein”; “What will you give him for his birthday, a water pistol?”)—beyond, as I say, my embarrassment and rage at Charly, at Ingeborg, and at Hanna, I was visited by a quiet, creeping feeling of terror upon hearing that El Quemado too knew which was my balcony.

“Don’t you think you’d better ask me about Hanna?” I said, trying to sound as normal as possible.

“What for? I’m sure she’s fine. Hanna’s always fine.”

“What are you going to do now?”

“About Hanna? I don’t know. Pretty soon I think I’ll drop the Wolf offat work and then I’ll head for the hotel. I hope Hanna will be at the beach by then because I want to get some serious sleep… It was a happening night, Udo. Even on the beach! Believe it or not, nobody here stops for a second, Udo, nobody. From the pedal boats, we heard a noise. That’s something you don’t expect, hearing noises on the beach at that time of night. The Wolf and I went to see what was going on and what do you think we found? A couple screwing. Two Germans, of course, because when I told them to have fun they answered in German. I didn’t get a good look at the guy, but the girl was pretty, dressed in a white party dress like Inge’s, lying there on the beach with her dress wrinkled and all that poetic crap.”

“Inge? Are you talking about Ingeborg?” My hand started to shake again; I could literally smell the violence surrounding us.

“Not her, man, her white dress; she has a white dress, doesn’t she? That’s all I’m talking about. Do you know what the Wolf said then? That we should get in line. That we should get in line so we could take our turns when the guy was done. My God, I laughed so hard! He thought we could fuck her after that poor jerk! A bona fide rape! So funny. All I felt like was drinking and staring up at the stars. Yesterday it rained, remember? Anyway, there were a couple of stars in the sky, maybe three. And I was feeling good. If things had been different, Udo, maybe I would have gone along with the Wolf. Maybe the girl would have liked it. Maybe not. When we got back to the pedal boats I think the Wolf tried to convince El Quemado to go with him. El Quemado didn’t want to go either. But I’m not sure, you know my Spanish isn’t so good.”

“Your Spanish is nonexistent,” I said.

Charly laughed without much conviction.

“Do you want me to ask him and then you’ll know for sure?” I added.

“No. It’s none of my business… Anyway, believe me, I can communicate with my friends and the Wolf is my friend and we communicate just fine.”

“I’m sure you do.”

“That’s right… It was a gorgeous night, Udo… A quiet night, full of dangerous ideas but no bad behavior… A quiet night, let me try to explain, quiet and yet without a still moment, a single still moment… Even when the sun came up and it seemed as if everything might be over, you came out of the hotel… At first I thought you’d seen me from the balcony and were coming to join the party. When you went offtoward the port I woke up the Wolf and we followed you… Taking our time, as you saw. Like we were just out for a stroll.”

“Hanna’s not all right. You should go see her.”

“Inge’s not all right either, Udo. Neither am I. Neither is my pal the Wolf. Neither are you, if you don’t mind me saying so. Only the Wolf’s mother is all right. And Hanna’s little boy, in Oberhausen. They’re the only one’s who’re… well, not exactly all right, but compared to everybody else, more or less all right. Yes: all right.”

There was something obscene about hearing him call Ingeborg Inge. Unfortunately, her friends, a few work colleagues, called her that too. It was no big deal and yet I’d never thought of this: I didn’t know any of Ingeborg’s friends. A shiver ran through me.

I ordered another coffee. The Wolf had one with a shot of rum (if he had to go to work, he didn’t seem very worried about it). Charly didn’t want anything. He only felt like smoking, which he did without stopping, one cigarette after another. But he promised he would pick up the bill.

“What happened in Barcelona?” I was about to say “You’ve changed,” but it seemed ridiculous: I hardly knew him.

“Nothing. We walked around. We shopped for souvenirs. It’s a pretty town. Too crowded, though. For a while I was a fan of FC Barcelona, when Lattek was coach and Schuster and Simonsen were playing. Not anymore. I’ve lost interest in the club but I still like the city. Have you been to the Sagrada Família? Did you like it? Yeah, it’s pretty. And we went out drinking at some really old bar, full of posters of bullfighters and Gypsies. Hanna and Ingeborg thought it was cool. And it was cheap, much cheaper than the bars here.”

“If you’d seen Hanna’s face you wouldn’t be sitting here like this. Ingeborg thought about reporting you to the police. If it had happened in Germany, I’m sure she would have.”

“You’re exaggerating… In Germany, in Germany…” He made a face, as if to say there was nothing to be done. “I don’t know, maybe things there don’t stand still for a second either. Shit. I don’t care. Anyway, I don’t believe you, I don’t think it ever crossed Ingeborg’s mind to call the police.”

I shrugged, offended. Maybe Charly was right, maybe he knew Ingeborg’s heart better than I did.

“What would you have done?” There was an evil gleam in Charly’s eye.

“In your place?”

“No, in Inge’s.”

“I don’t know. Beaten you up. Knocked you around.”

Charly closed his eyes. To my surprise, my answer hurt him.

“Not me.” He grasped in the air as if something very important were escaping him. “In Inge’s place, I wouldn’t have done that.”

“Of course not.”

“And I didn’t want to rape the German girl on the beach, either. I could have done it, but I didn’t. See what I mean? I could have wrecked Hanna’s face, really wrecked it, and I didn’t. I could have thrown a stone and broken your window or kicked your ass after you bought those filthy newspapers. I didn’t do any of it. All I do is talk and smoke.”

“Why would you want to break my window or hit me? That’s idiotic.”

“I don’t know. It was just an idea. Fast, quick, with a stone the size of a fist.” His voice broke as if suddenly he were remembering a nightmare. “It was El Quemado. When he looked up at the light in your window, just a way to get attention, I guess…”

“It was El Quemado’s idea to break my window?”

“No, Udo, no. You don’t understand anything, man. El Quemado was drinking with us, none of us saying a word, just listening to the sea, that’s all, and drinking, but wide-awake, you know? and El Quemado and I were looking up at your window. I mean, when I spotted your window El Quemado was already staring up at it, and I realized it, and he realized that I had him. But he didn’t say anything about throwing stones. That was my idea. I planned to warn you… Do you know what I mean?”

“No.”

Charly gave me a look of disgust. He picked up the newspapers and flipped through them at incredible speed, as if before he was a mechanic he’d been a bank teller; I’m sure he didn’t read a single full sentence. Then, with a sigh, he put them aside; by this he seemed to say that the news was for me, not for him. For a few seconds we were both silent. Outside, the street slowly resumed its daily rhythm; we were no longer alone in the bar.

“Deep down, I love Hanna.”

“You should go see her right now.”

“She’s a good girl, she really is. And there’s been a lot of good in her life even though she doesn’t think so.”

“You should go back to the hotel, Charly…”

“First let’s drop the Wolf offat work, all right?”

“Fine, let’s go right now.”

When he got up from the table he was white, as if there was no blood left in his body. Without stumbling once, by which I deduced that he wasn’t as drunk as I’d thought he was, he went up to the bar and paid, and we left. Charly’s car was parked near the water. On the roof rack I saw the windsurfing board. Had he taken it with him to Barcelona? No, he must have put it there when he came back, which meant that he’d already been to the hotel. Slowly we covered the distance that separated us from the supermarket where the Wolf worked. Before the Wolf got out Charly told him that if he got fired he should come see him at the hotel, that he’d find some way to fix things. I translated. The Wolf smiled and said they wouldn’t dare. Charly nodded gravely, and when we’d left the supermarket behind he said it was true, that with the Wolf any altercation could get complicated, not to say dangerous. Then he talked about dogs. In the summer it was common to see abandoned dogs starving in the streets. “Especially here,” he said.

“Yesterday, on my way to the Wolf’s house, I hit one.”

He waited for me to say something, and he continued:

“A little black dog, one I’d seen on the Paseo Marítimo… Looking for his rotten owners or scraps of food… I don’t know… Do you know the story of the dog who died of hunger next to his owner’s body?”

“Yes.”

“I thought about that. At first the poor animals don’t know where to go, all they do is wait. That’s loyalty, isn’t it, Udo? If they make it through that stage they go roaming around and looking for food in trash cans. Yesterday, I got the feeling that the little black dog was still waiting. What does that say to you, Udo?”

“How are you so sure that you’d seen it before or that it was a stray dog?”

“Because I got out of the car and took a good look at it. It was the same one.”

The light inside the car was beginning to put me to sleep.

For an instant I thought I saw tears in Charly’s eyes.

“We’re both tired,” I said to myself.

At the door to his hotel I advised him to take a shower, go to bed, and wait to talk to Hanna until after he got up. Some guests were beginning to file toward the beach. Charly smiled and vanished down the corridor. I went back to the Del Mar, feeling uneasy.

I found Frau Else on the roof, after blithely ignoring the signs that indicated which areas were for guests and which were reserved for the hotel staff. And yet I must confess that I wasn’t looking for her. It just so happened that Ingeborg was still asleep, the bar made me feel claustrophobic, I didn’t feel like going out again, and I wasn’t sleepy. Frau Else was reading, lying on a sky-blue lounge chair with a glass of juice beside her. She wasn’t surprised to see me. In fact, in her usual calm voice she congratulated me on discovering the entrance to the roof. “The advantages of sleepwalking,” I answered, cocking my head to get a look at the book she was holding. It was a guide to the south of Spain. Then she asked me whether I wanted something to drink. At my inquiring gaze she explained that even on the roof she had a bell to call the staff. Out of curiosity, I accepted. After a while I asked what she’d been up to the day before. I added that I’d been searching for her all over the hotel, to no avail. “You vanish with the rain,” I said.

Frau Else’s face darkened. In a gesture that seemed studied (but I know this is just the way she is, just another part of her spontaneity and verve), she took offher sunglasses and fixed her eyes on me before answering: yesterday she spent all day in her husband’s room. Was he ill, perhaps? The bad weather, the clouds charged with electricity, bothered him; he had terrible headaches that affected his sight and his nerves; a few times he’d been afflicted with temporary blindness. Brain fever, said Frau Else’s perfect lips. (As far as I know, there is no such illness.) Immediately, with the hint of a smile, she made me promise that I wouldn’t come looking for her anymore. We’ll see each other only when fate ordains. And if I refuse? I’ll have to make you promise, whispered Frau Else. At that moment a maid appeared with a glass of juice just like the one in Frau Else’s hand. For a few seconds, dazzled by the sun, the poor girl blinked and didn’t know where to turn, then she set the glass on the table and left.

“I promise,” I said, walking away toward the edge of the roof.

The day was yellow and from everywhere there came a glow of human flesh that made me sick.

I turned toward her and confessed that I hadn’t slept all night. “No need to swear to it,” she answered without lifting her gaze from the book again in her hands. I told her that Charly had hit Hanna. “Some men do that,” was her reply. I laughed. “Clearly you’re no feminist!” Frau Else turned the page without answering me. I told her then what Charly had explained to me about dogs, the dogs that people abandon before or during their vacations. I noticed that Frau Else was listening with interest. When I finished my story I saw a look of alarm in her eye; I was afraid that she was about to get up and come over to me. I was afraid that she would speak the words that at that moment I least wanted to hear. But she made no comment, and shortly afterward I considered it most prudent to retire.

Tonight everything was back to normal. At a club near the campgrounds, Hanna, Charly, Ingeborg, the Wolf, the Lamb, and I all raised our glasses to friendship, wine, beer, Spain, Germany, Real Madrid (the Wolf and the Lamb aren’t Barcelona fans, as Charly assumed, but Real Madrid fans), pretty women, vacations, etc. Peace restored. Hanna and Charly, of course, had made up. Charly was back to being more or less the same ordinary boor we met on August 21, and Hanna had put on her flashiest and lowest-cut dress to celebrate it. Even her bruised cheek gave her a kind of erotic and roguish charm. (While she was sober she hid it under sunglasses, but in the clamor of the club she flaunted it cheerfully, as if she’d rediscovered herself and her raison d’être.) Ingeborg officially forgave Charly, who, in everyone’s presence, kneeled at her feet and praised her virtues, to the delight of all those who could hear and understand German. The Wolf and the Lamb were no laggards in this show of goodwill; we owe to them the discovery of the most authentically Spanish restaurant we’ve been to thus far. A restaurant where, in addition to eating well and cheaply and to drinking even more abundantly and more cheaply, we got to hear a flamenco singer (that is, a singer of typical songs) who turned out to be a transvestite called Andromeda, a close acquaintance of our Spanish friends. After dinner, we spent a long time telling stories, singing, and dancing. Andromeda, sitting with us, showed the women how to clap their hands and then danced a dance called a sevillana with Charly; soon everybody was getting up to join them, even people from other tables, except for me; I refused categorically and a bit brusquely. I would have made a fool of myself. My brusqueness, however, seemed to please the transvestite, who read my palm once the dance was over. I’ll have money, power, love; a full life; a gay son (or grandson)… Andromeda read the future and interpreted it. At first her voice was almost inaudible, a whisper, then gradually it rose, and by the end she was speaking so loudly that everyone could hear and laugh at her witty remarks. Anyone who volunteers for these games becomes the butt of the other patrons’ jokes, but she had nothing unpleasant to say and before we left she gave us each a carnation and invited us to return. Charly left a thousand-peseta tip and swore in the name of his parents that he would. We all agreed that it was a place “worth seeing”; praise was showered on the Wolf and the Lamb. At the club the atmosphere was different, there were more young people and the setting was artificial, but it didn’t take us long to get into the groove. Resignation. There I did dance and I kissed Ingeborg and Hanna and I went looking for the bathroom and I vomited and combed my hair and returned to the dance floor. At one point I grabbed Charly by the lapels and asked: Everything all right? Everything’s amazing, he answered. From behind, Hanna threw her arms around him and pulled him away from me. Charly was trying to tell me something but all I could see were his lips moving and finally just his smile. Ingeborg had also gone back to being the Ingeborg of the night of August 21, the same old Ingeborg. She kissed me, hugged me, begged me to make love to her. So when we got back to our room, at five in the morning, we made love. Ingeborg came quickly; I held out and possessed her for many long minutes afterward. We were both tired. Naked on the sheets, Ingeborg said everything was simple. “Even your miniatures.” She insisted on this term before falling asleep. “Miniatures.” “Everything is simple.” For a long time I lay staring at my game and thinking.