The Third Reich

SUMMER 1942

El Quemado arrives earlier than usual today. And he comes up alone, without waiting for me to meet him. When I open the door, he looks like a figure rubbed out with an eraser. (Like a suitor who, instead of flowers, carries photocopies clutched to his chest.) Soon I realize what’s behind this transformation. The initiative is now his. The offensive mounted by the Soviet Army unfolds in the zone between Lake Onega and Yaroslavl; his armored units breach my front in Hex E48 and move north, toward Karelia, leaving four German infantry corps and a German armored corps cut off at the gates of Vologda. With this move, the eastern flank of the armies pressing toward Kuibyshev and Kazan is left totally exposed. The only immediate solution is to bring in units during the Strategic Redeployment phase, units from Army Group South deployed on the Volga and Caucasus lines, thereby lessening the pressure on Batum and Astrakhan. El Quemado knows this and seizes his advantage. Though his face remains unchanged, sunk in God knows what hells, I can still sense—in the creases of his cheeks!—the relish with which he executes his ever more agile movements. The offensive, calculated down to the last detail, has been set up a turn in advance. (For example, the only usable air base within the zone of the offensive is in the city of Vologda; Kirov, the next closest, is too far; to solve the problem, and since a greater concentration of air support was required, in the Winter ’41 turn he moved an air base counter to Hex C51… ) He’s not improvising, not at all. In the West the only substantial change is the entry into the war of the United States; a soft entry due to the limitations of Initial Deployment, which means that the British Army must wait to act until it has achieved the necessary conditions for a war of matériel (the BRP expenditures of the Western allies are mostly earmarked for the support of the USSR). Ultimately, the situation of the American Army in Great Britain is as follows: Fifth and Tenth Infantry in Rosyth, five air factors in Liverpool, and nine naval factors in Belfast. The option that he chooses for the West is Attrition, and he has no luck with the dice. My option is also Attrition and I manage to occupy a hex in the southwest of England, vital for my plans in the next turn. In the summer of ’42 I’ll take London, defeat the British, and the Americans will have their Dunkirk. Meanwhile I amuse myself with El Quemado’s photocopies, copies that only eventually does he acknowledge are for me. A gift. They make for surprising reading. But I’d rather not show too much vulnerability, so I choose to see the funny side and ask where he got them. El Quemado’s answers—and my questions gradually begin to adjust themselves to the same rhythm—are slow, bristling, as if they’ve just learned to stand upright and walk. They’re for you, he says. I got them from a book. A book of his, a book he keeps under the pedal boats? No. A book borrowed from the Catalonia Pension Fund Library. He shows me his membership card. Incredible. He goes rummaging around in the library of a bank and finds this shit to fling in my face, no less. Now El Quemado gives me a sidelong glance, waiting for the fear to blossom in the room; his shadow falls on the wall near the door, indefinable and quivering. I refuse to give him satisfaction. Coolly and carefully, I set the copies on the night table. Later, when I walk him to the door of the hotel, I ask him to stop with me for a moment at the reception desk. The watchman is reading a magazine. Our intrusion into his domain irritates him, but fear prevails. I ask for pushpins. Pushpins? His wary gaze flits from El Quemado to me as if he expects a bad joke and doesn’t want to be caught offguard. Yes, you idiot, check the drawers and get me a few, I shout. (I’ve discovered that the watchman is the cowardly, shrinking type who requires a firm hand.) As he rummages through the desk drawers, I catch a glimpse of a few porn magazines. Finally, wavering between triumph and hesitance, he holds up a little clear plastic jar of pushpins. Do you want all of them? he whispers, as if he’s about to put an end to this nightmare. Shrugging, I ask El Quemado how many photocopies there are. Four, he says, uncomfortable and staring at the floor. He doesn’t like my lessons in the use of force. Four pushpins, I repeat, and hold out my hand, into which the clerk carefully deposits two green and two red pins. Then, without a backward glance, I walk El Quemado to the door and we say our good-byes. The Paseo Marítimo is deserted and poorly lit (someone has smashed one of the streetlights), but I stand behind the glass until I’m satisfied that El Quemado has hopped down to the beach and vanished in the direction of the pedal boats; only then do I go back to my room. There I calmly choose a wall (the one against which my bed stands) and tack up the photocopies. Then I wash my hands and carefully pore over the game. El Quemado is a quick study, but the next turn will be mine.