The Third Reich

SEPTEMBER 5

After breakfast I headed to the Costa Brava. The manager was at the reception desk. When he saw me he finished up a few things and motioned for me to follow him into his office. I don’t know how he knew that Ingeborg had left, but he did. With a few rather inappropriate insinuations, he made it clear that he understood my situation. Then, without giving me a chance to respond, he proceeded to sum up the current state of the search: no progress, many of the searchers had given up, and the operations, if one could dignify with such a name the efforts of one or two police Zodiacs, seemed headed for bureaucratic deadlock. I told him I planned to demand a personal report from Navy Headquarters and if necessary I was prepared to twist the requisite arms. Mr. Pere shook his head paternally. Not necessary; there was no need to get all worked up. As far as the paperwork was concerned, the German consulate had taken care of everything. Really, I was free to leave whenever I liked. Of course, they understood that Charly was my friend, the bonds of friendship, it goes without saying, but… Even the Spanish police, usually so skeptical, were about to close the case. All that remained was for the body to appear. Mr. Pere seemed much more relaxed than he had during our previous encounter. Now, somehow, he saw the case as if he and I were the sole, dutiful mourners of an inexplicable but natural death. (So is death always natural? Is it always a part of the essential order of things? Even if it involves windsurfing?) I’m sure it was an accident, he said, the kind we see every summer. I hinted at the possibility of suicide, but Mr. Pere shook his head and smiled. He’d been in the hotel business all his life and he thought he knew the souls of tourists; Charly, poor bastard, wasn’t the suicidal type. In any case, when you really thought about it, it was always a bitter paradox to die on vacation. Mr. Pere had been witness to many similar cases in his long career: old women who suffered heart attacks in August, children who drowned in the pool under everyone’s eyes, families wiped out on the highway (in the middle of their holidays!)… Such is life, he concluded, I’m sure your friend never imagined that he would die far from his homeland. Death and Homeland, he whispered, two tragedies. At eleven in the morning, there was something crepuscular about Mr. Pere. Here’s a happy man, I said to myself. It was pleasant to be there, talking to him, while at the reception desk tourists argued with the receptionist, and their voices, inoffensive and remote from matters of real concern, filtered into the office. As we talked I saw myself sitting comfortably there at the hotel, and I saw Mr. Pere and the people in the corridors and rooms, faces that were attracted to each other or pretended to be attracted to each other in the midst of empty or tense exchanges, couples sunbathing with linked hands, single men who worked alone, and friendly men who worked with others, all happy, or if not, at least at peace with themselves. Unfulfilled! But still convinced they were at the center of the universe. What did it matter whether Charly was alive or not, whether I was alive or not? Everything would roll on, downhill, toward each individual death. Everyone was the center of the universe! The bunch of morons! Nothing was beyond their sway! Even in their sleep they controlled everything! With their indifference! Then I thought about El Quemado. He was outside. I saw him as if from underwater: the enemy.

I tried to spend the rest of the day being productive, but it was impossible. I was incapable of putting on my bathing suit and going down to the beach, so I settled at the hotel bar to write postcards. I planned to send one to my parents, but in the end I wrote only to Conrad. I spent a long time sitting there just watching the tourists and the waiters making the rounds carrying trays loaded with drinks. I don’t know why, but I had the thought that this would be one of the last hot days. Who cared? For the sake of doing something, I had a salad and tomato juice. I think the food made me sick, because I started to sweat and feel queasy, so I went up to the room and took a cold shower. Then I went out again, this time without the car, heading toward Navy Headquarters, but when I got there I decided it wasn’t worth enduring another string of excuses and I walked on.

The town was sunk in a kind of crystal ball; everyone seemed to be asleep (transcendentally asleep!) no matter if they were walking or sitting outside. Around five the sky clouded over and at six it began to rain. The streets cleared all at once. I had the thought that it was as if autumn had unsheathed a claw and scratched: everything was coming apart. The tourists running on the sidewalks in search of shelter, the shopkeepers pulling tarps over the merchandise displayed in the street, the increasing number of shop windows closed until next summer. Whether I felt pity or scorn when I saw this, I don’t know. Detached from any external stimulus, the only thing I could see or feel with any clarity was myself. Everything else had been bombarded by something dark; movie sets consigned to dust and oblivion, as if for good.

The question, then, was what I was doing in the middle of such gloom.

The rest of the afternoon I spent lying in bed waiting for El Quemado to return to the hotel.

On my way up to the room I asked whether I had received any calls from Germany. The answer was no; there were no messages for me.

From the balcony I watched as El Quemado left the beach and crossed the Paseo Marítimo toward the hotel. I hurried downstairs so that when he arrived I would be at the door, waiting for him; I suppose I was afraid that they wouldn’t let him in if he wasn’t with me. As I was passing the reception desk, Frau Else’s voice brought me up short. It was hardly louder than a whisper, but it took me by surprise, echoing in my head like a trumpet blast.

“Udo, you’re still here,” she said as if she hadn’t known.

I stood there in the main hall, in an embarrassing position, to say the least. At the other end of the hall, behind the glass doors, El Quemado was waiting. For a moment I saw him as part of a film projected on the door: El Quemado and the deep blue horizon punctuated by a car parked across the street, the heads of people walking by, and the fuzzy images of the tables on the terrace. Only Frau Else was completely real, beautiful and solitary behind the counter.

“Yes, of course… As you well know.” When I addressed her with the informal du, Frau Else blushed. I think I had seen her like that only once, with her defenses down. I wasn’t sure whether I liked it or not.

“I hadn’t… seen you. That’s all. I don’t keep track of all your movements,” she said in a low voice.

“I’ll be here until the body of my friend turns up. I hope you don’t have any problem with that.”

With a scowl of distaste she looked away. I was afraid she would see El Quemado and use him as a pretext for changing the subject.

“My husband is sick and he needs me. These last few days I’ve spent with him, unable to do anything else. You wouldn’t understand that, would you?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Well, that’s enough. I didn’t mean to bother you. Good-bye.”

But neither she nor I moved.

El Quemado was watching me from the other side of the door. And I have to imagine that he was being watched by the hotel guests sitting on the terrace or by the people walking by on the sidewalk. At any minute someone would come up to him and ask him to leave; then El Quemado would strangle him, using only his right arm, and all would be lost.

“Is your… husband better? I sincerely hope so. I’m afraid I’ve been an idiot. Forgive me.”

Frau Else bowed her head and said:

“Yes… Thank you…”

“I’d like to talk to you tonight… to see you alone… But I don’t want to force you to do something that might cause trouble for you later…”

Frau Else’s lips took an eternity to move into a smile. I don’t know why, but I was shaking.

“Someone’s waiting for you now, yes?”

Yes, a comrade in arms, I thought, but I didn’t say anything and I nodded in a way that expressed the inevitability of the engagement. A comrade in arms? An enemy in arms!

“Remember that even though you’re a friend of the owner, you should respect the hotel rules.”

“What rules?”

“Among many others, the rule that prohibits certain visitors in the guest rooms.” Her voice was back to normal, sounding part ironic and part authoritarian. Clearly, this was Frau Else’s realm.

I tried to protest, but her raised hand commanded silence.

“This is not to suggest anything, or say anything. I’m not making any accusations. I feel sorry for that poor boy too.” She meant El Quemado. “But I have to look out for the Del Mar and its guests. And I have to look out for you. I don’t want anything bad to happen to you.”

“What could possibly happen to me? We’re just playing.”

“What?”

“You know very well what.”

“Ah, the game at which you’re champion.” When she smiled her teeth gleamed dangerously. “A winter sport; at this time of year you’d do better to swim or play tennis.”

“If you want to laugh at me, go ahead. I deserve it.”

“All right, we’ll meet tonight, at one, at the church on the square. Do you know how to get there?”

“Yes.”

Frau Else’s smile vanished. I tried to come closer but I realized it wasn’t the right moment. We said good-bye and I went out. On the terrace everything was normal; two steps down from El Quemado a couple of girls were discussing the weather as they waited for their dates. Just as on every other night, people laughed and made plans.

I exchanged a few words with El Quemado and we went back in.

As we passed the reception desk I didn’t see anyone behind the counter, although it occurred to me that Frau Else could be hiding. With an effort I repressed the urge to go over and look.

I think I didn’t do it because I would have had to explain everything to El Quemado.

Our match continued along predictable lines: in the spring of ’40 I launched an Offensive Option in the Mediterranean and conquered Tunis and Algeria; on the Western front I spent twentyfive BRP, which bought me the conquest of France; during the SR I placed four armored corps with infantry and air support on the Spanish border (!). On the Eastern front I consolidated my forces.

El Quemado’s response was purely defensive. He made the fewest moves he could; he strengthened some defenses; most of all, he asked questions. His plays still reveal what a novice he is. He doesn’t know how to stack the counters, he plays sloppily, he has either no grand strategy or the one he has is too schematic, he trusts in luck, he makes mistakes in his calculations of BRP, he confuses the Creation of Units phase with the SR.

Still, he tries and it seems that he’s beginning to get into the spirit of the game. I can tell by the way he keeps his eyes glued to the board and by the way the charred planes of his face twist in an effort to calculate retreats and costs.

It inspires sympathy and pity. A dense kind of pity, I should note, leached of color, cuadriculated.

The church square was lonely and poorly lit. I parked the car on a side street and settled down to wait on a stone bench. I felt good, although when Frau Else appeared—she literally materialized from the formless mass of shadows under the only tree in the plaza—I couldn’t help jumping in surprise and alarm.

I suggested leaving town, maybe parking the car in the woods or somewhere with a view of the sea, but she refused.

She talked. She talked freely and without pause, as if she’d been silent for days. In conclusion, she gave a vague, allusive explanation of her husband’s illness. Only after that did she allow me to kiss her. And yet from the very start our hands had met, our fingers naturally interlacing.

There we stayed, holding hands, until two thirty in the morning. When we got tired of sitting, we took a walk around the square; then we returned to the bench and kept talking.

I talked a lot too, I suppose.

The silence of the square was interrupted only by a brief series of distant cries (of happiness or desperation?) and then the roar of motorcycles.

I think we kissed five times.

On our way back I suggested parking the car far from the hotel; I had her reputation in mind. Laughing, she refused; she isn’t afraid of gossip. (The truth is she isn’t afraid of anything.)

The church square is rather sad, small and dark and silent. In the center rises a medieval stone fountain with two jets of water. Before we left we drank from it.

“When you die, Udo, you’ll be able to say, ‘I’m returning to where I came from: Nothingness.’ ”

“When a person’s dying, he’ll say anything,” I answered.

After this exchange, Frau Else’s face shone as if I’d just kissed her. And that was exactly what I did then—I kissed her. But when I tried to slip my tongue between her lips she pulled away.