The Third Reich

AUGUST 24

I have so much to write. I met the Burn Victim. I’ll try to sum up what’s happened in the last few hours.

Ingeborg was radiant and happy when she got home last night. The excursion was a success and nothing needed to be said in order for us to proceed to a reconciliation that was all the lovelier for being completely natural. We had dinner at the hotel and then we met Hanna and Charly at a bar on the Paseo Marítimo called the Andalusia Lodge. Deep down I would rather have spent the rest of the night alone with Ingeborg, but I couldn’t refuse to go out at the risk of disturbing our newfound peace.

Charly was excited and on edge, and it wasn’t long before I learned why: that night the soccer match between the German and Spanish selections was on TV and he wanted the four of us to watch it at the bar, along with the many Spaniards who were waiting for the match to begin. When I pointed out that we would be more comfortable at the hotel, he argued that it wasn’t the same. The audience at the hotel would almost certainly be German, whereas at the bar we would be surrounded by “enemies,” which made the match twice as much fun. Surprisingly Hanna and Ingeborg took his side.

Although I disagreed, I didn’t insist, and soon afterward we gave up our seats on the terrace and went inside to sit near the TV.

That was how we met the Wolf and the Lamb.

I won’t describe the inside of the Andalusia Lodge; let me just say that it was big, it stank, and a single glance was enough to confirm my fears: we were the only foreigners.

The audience, scattered in a rough half circle in front of the television, was more or less all young men with the look of laborers who had just finished work for the day and who hadn’t yet had time to shower. In winter it would probably be an ordinary scene; in summer it was unsettling.

To heighten the difference between them and us, the patrons all seemed to be old friends and they showed it by slapping each other on the back, yelling back and forth, making jokes that were increasingly off-color. The noise was deafening. The tables were overflowing with beer bottles. One group was playing a loud game of foosball, and the sound of clanging metal rose above the general din like the rifle shots of a sharpshooter in the middle of a battle waged with swords and knives. It was clear that our presence had raised expectations that had little or nothing to do with the match. The glances, some more discreet than others, converged on Ingeborg and Hanna, who, in contrast to those around them, looked like two storybook princesses, Ingeborg especially.

Charly was in heaven. This was clearly his kind of place. He liked the shouting, the vulgar jokes, the air filled with smoke and nauseating smells; and if he could watch our selection play, all the better. But nothing is perfect. Just as we were being served sangria for four, we discovered that the team was East German. Charly took it hard, and from that moment on his mood grew unpredictable. To begin with, he wanted to leave right away. Later I would find out how exaggerated and absurd his fears really were. Among them was the following: that the Spaniards would mistake us for East Germans.

In the end we decided to leave as soon as we were done with the sangria. Naturally, we paid no attention to the match, busy as we were drinking and laughing. It was at this point that the Wolf and the Lamb sat down at our table.

How it happened, I can’t say. With no explanation, they simply sat down with us and started to talk. They knew a few words of English, insufficient by any measure, though they made up for any language deficiencies with their great skills as mimes. At first the conversation covered all the usual topics (work, the weather, wages, etc.) and I acted as interpreter. They were, I gathered, amateur local tour guides, but that was surely a joke. Then, as the night wore on and everyone felt more at ease, my expertise was required only at difficult moments. Alcohol works miracles, it’s true.

We all left the Andalusia Lodge in Charly’s car, heading for a club on the edge of town, near the Barcelona highway. The prices were quite a bit lower than in the tourist zone, the clubgoers were almost all people like our new friends, and the atmosphere was festive, lending itself to camaraderie, though with a hint of something dark and murky, a quality particular to Spain that, paradoxically, inspires no misgivings. As always, Charly was quick to get drunk. How, I don’t know, but at some point during the night we learned that the East German selection had lost two to zero. I remember it as something strange, because I have no interest in soccer and yet I experienced the announcement of the results as a turning point, as if from that moment on all the clamor of the club might turn into something else entirely, a horror show.

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 their 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.