The Third Reich

AUGUST 25

Our friendship with Charly and Hanna is beginning to be a burden. Yesterday, after I’d finished writing in my journal and when I thought I would spend a quiet evening alone with Ingeborg, they appeared. It was ten o’clock; Ingeborg had just woken up. I told her I’d rather stay at the hotel, but after talking on the phone with Hanna (Charly and Hanna were at the reception desk), she decided that we should go out. As she changed clothes, we argued. When we came downstairs I was astounded to see the Wolf and the Lamb. The Lamb, leaning on the counter, was whispering something in the receptionist’s ear that made her dissolve in helpless laughter. I was extremely put off. I assumed it was the same girl who had tattled to Frau Else about the misunderstanding with the table, though considering the hour and the possibility that the receptionists worked in two shifts, it could have been someone else. In any case she was very young and silly: when she saw us she gave us a knowing smirk, as if we shared a secret. Everyone else applauded. It was the last straw.

We left town in Charly’s car, with the Wolf sitting up front next to Hanna to show Charly the way. On the drive to the club, if a dump like that deserves the name, I saw huge pottery shops erected in rudimentary fashion alongside the highway. Actually, they were probably warehouses or wholesale showrooms. All night they were lit up by spotlights, and anyone who drove by got a view of endless junk, urns, pots of all sizes, and a few random pieces of statuary behind the fences. Coarse Greek imitations covered in dust. Fake Mediterranean crafts frozen in an in-between moment, neither day nor night. The yards were empty, save for the occasional guard dog.

Almost everything about the night was the same as the night before. The club had no name, though the Lamb said people called it the Crap Club. Like the other club, it was intended more for workers from the surrounding area than for tourists. The music and lighting were terrible; Charly drank and Hanna and Ingeborg danced with the Spaniards. Everything would have ended the same way if it hadn’t been for an incident, the kind of thing that often happened at the club, according to the Wolf, who advised us to leave right away. I’ll try to reconstruct the story. It starts with a guy who was pretending to dance between the tables and along the edge of the dance floor. Apparently he hadn’t paid for his drinks and he was high. This last point, however, is pure supposition. The most distinctive thing about him, which I noticed long before the scuffle began, was a thick rod that he brandished in one hand, though later the Wolf said it was a cane made of pig’s intestines, the blow of which left a scar for life. In any case, the bogus dancer’s behavior was threatening, and soon he was approached by two waiters who didn’t happen to be in uniform and who were indistinguishable from the rest of the clientele, though they were given away by their manner and faces: they were goons. Words were exchanged between them and the man with the rod, and the discussion grew more and more heated.

I could hear the man with the rod say:

“My rapier comes everywhere with me,” referring in that peculiar way to his stick, in response to being forbidden to carry it in the club.

The waiter replied:

“I have something much harder than your rapier.” Straightaway there came a deluge of curses that I didn’t understand, and finally the waiter said: “Do you want to see it?”

The guy with the stick was silent; I’d venture to say that he grew suddenly pale.

Then the waiter raised his forearm, muscular and hairy as a gorilla’s, and said:

“See? This is harder.”

The guy with the stick laughed, not insolently but in relief, though I doubt the waiters registered the difference, and raised his cane, flexing it like a bow. He had a stupid laugh, the laugh of a drunk and a loser. At that moment, as if triggered by a spring, the waiter’s arm shot out and grabbed the stick. It all happened very quickly. Immediately, turning red with the effort, he broke it in two. Applause came from one of the tables.

Just as swiftly, the guy with the stick hurled himself on the waiter, bent his arm behind his back before anyone could stop him, and, in the blink of an eye, broke it. Despite the music, which had continued to play during the whole altercation, I think I heard the sound of bone snapping.

People started to scream. First it was the howls of the waiter whose arm had just been broken, then the shouts of those flinging themselves into a brawl in which, at least from my table, it was impossible to tell who was on which side, and finally the general clamor of all those present, including the ones who didn’t even know what was going on.

We decided to beat a retreat.

On the way back we passed two police cars. The Wolf wasn’t with us. It had been impossible to find him in the crush on the way out, and the Lamb, who had followed us without protest, now felt bad about having left his friend behind and urged us to go back for him. On this point Charly was adamant: if he wanted to go back, he could hitchhike. We agreed to wait for the Wolf at the Andalusia Lodge.

The bar was still open when we got there. I mean open to everyone, the lights on outside, with a big crowd despite the late hour. The kitchen was closed, but at the Lamb’s request the owner brought us a couple of chickens that we accompanied with a bottle of red wine; then, since we were still hungry, we polished off a platter of spicy sausage and cured ham and bread with tomato and olive oil. When the terrace was closed and we were the only ones left inside, along with the owner, who at that time of night devoted himself to his favorite pursuit, which was watching cowboy movies and having a leisurely dinner, the Wolf came in.

When he saw us he was furious, and surprisingly, his recriminations—“You left me,” “You forgot me,” “A person can’t trust his own friends,” etc.— were directed at Charly. The Lamb, who, frankly speaking, was his only real friend present, responded to his words by cowering in shame and mute submission. And Charly, even more surprisingly, nodded and said he was sorry, treating the whole thing as a joke but making it understood that he felt honored by the hurt that the Wolf was expressing so vehemently and in such poor taste. Charly was loving it, he really was! Maybe he saw it as an expression of true friendship! Absurd! I should clarify that the Wolf didn’t say a thing to me, and that his treatment of the girls was the same as always, somewhere between gallant and crude.

I think I was ready to leave when El Quemado came in. He nodded at us and took a seat at the bar, with his back to us. I left the Wolf to finish explaining what had happened at the Crap Club, probably with further accounts of bloodletting and arrests, and I went to sit next to El Quemado. Half of his upper lip was one big scar, but after a while a person got used to it. I asked if he suffered from insomnia and he smiled. No, he wasn’t an insomniac; he could do his work, which was enjoyable and not too taxing, on just a few hours of sleep. He wasn’t much of a talker, though he was much less silent than I had imagined. His teeth were small, as if they’d been filed down, and they were in terrible shape, which in my ignorance I didn’t know whether to attribute to the fire or simply to deficiencies in oral hygiene. I suppose that someone whose face is covered in burns doesn’t worry too much about the state of his teeth.

He asked where I was from. He spoke in a deep, clear voice, certain of being understood. I answered that I was from Stuttgart and he nodded as if he knew the city, although I can’t imagine that he’d ever been there. He was dressed the same as during the day, in shorts, T-shirt, and rope-soled shoes. He has a notable physique—broad chest and bulging biceps—though sitting at the bar (drinking tea!) he seemed thinner than me. Or shyer. Certainly, despite his limited wardrobe, it was evident that he took at least basic care of himself: his hair was clean and he didn’t stink. This last point could be considered a minor feat, because living on the beach, the only bathroom to which he had access was the sea. (If one sharpened one’s sense of smell, he smelled like salt water.) For a moment I imagined him, day after day or night after night, washing his clothes (those shorts, a few T-shirts) in the sea, scrubbing himself in the sea, doing his business in the sea or on the beach, the same beach where hundreds of tourists lay, among them Ingeborg… Overcome by a wave of disgust, I imagined reporting his shameful behavior to the police, but that would be out of character, of course. And yet, how to explain that a person with a paying job isn’t capable of finding a decent place to sleep? Can all the rentals in town be out of his reach? Aren’t there any cheap boardinghouses or campgrounds, if not on the seafront? Or by not paying rent does our friend El Quemado intend to save a few pesetas for summer’s end?

There’s something of the Noble Savage about him; but I can also see the Noble Savage in the Wolf and the Lamb, and they manage things differently. Maybe living rent-free means living alone, far from people and curious stares. If so, in a way I understand it. And then there are the benefits of life in the open air, although his life, as I imagine it, doesn’t exactly qualify if “open air” is understood as “healthy living,” since the latter is diametrically opposed to damp beach air and the sandwiches that I’m sure are his daily fare. How does El Quemado live? All I know is that during the day he’s like a zombie dragging pedal boats from the shore to his small roped-offarea and back again to the shore. That’s all. Though he must take time to eat and he must meet with his boss at some point to hand over his earnings. Does this boss I’ve never seen know that El Quemado sleeps on the beach? Does the owner of the Andalusia Lodge know it? Are the Lamb and the Wolf in on the secret, or am I the only one who has discovered his refuge? I don’t dare ask.

At night El Quemado does whatever he wants, or at least he tries to. But what does he do exactly besides sleep? He sits until late at the Andalusia Lodge, he goes for walks on the beach, maybe he has friends he talks to, he drinks tea, he buries himself under his great hulks… Yes, sometimes I see the fortress of pedal boats as a kind of mausoleum. As long as it’s light out, the impression of a hut lingers; at night, by the light of the moon, a romantic soul might mistake it for a barbarian burial mound.

Nothing else worthy of mention happened the night of the 24th. We left the Andalusia Lodge relatively sober. El Quemado and the owner were still there, the former sitting across from his empty cup of tea and the latter watching another cowboy movie.

Today, as was to be expected, I saw him on the beach. Ingeborg and Hanna were lying out next to the pedal boats, and El Quemado, on the other side, was leaning against a plastic floater, gazing at the horizon where some of his boats were barely visible. At no point did he turn around to look at Ingeborg, who, I think it’s fair to say, was a feast for the eyes. Both girls were wearing new orange thongs, a bright, happy color. But El Quemado avoided looking at them.

I wasn’t at the beach. I stayed in the room going over my abandoned game, though every so often I went out on the balcony or looked out the window. Love, as everyone knows, is an exclusive passion, although in my case I hope to be able to reconcile my passion for Ingeborg with my dedication to gaming. According to the plans I had made in Stuttgart, by now I should have half of the strategic variant plotted out and written down, and at least a first draft of the lecture to be given in Paris. But I have yet to write a single word. If Conrad could see me I’m sure he’d have some scathing comment to make. But Conrad has to understand that on my very first vacation with Ingeborg, I can’t ignore her and devote myself body and soul to the variant. Despite everything, I haven’t given up hope of having it finished by the time we return to Germany.

In the afternoon something odd happened. I was sitting in the room when suddenly I heard the sound of a horn. I can’t be one hundred percent certain, but then again, I know the difference between the sound of a horn and other sounds. The odd thing is that I was thinking (though in a vague way, I must admit) about Sepp Dietrich, who from time to time made mention of the horn call of peril. Anyway, I’m sure I didn’t imagine it. Sepp claimed to have heard it twice, and both times the mysterious notes helped him to overcome tremendous physical exhaustion, first in Russia and then in Normandy. The horn, according to Sepp, who rose to the command of an army after starting out as a messenger boy and driver, is the warning cry of the ancestors, the call of the blood that alerts one to danger. As I say, I was sitting lost in thought when suddenly I seemed to hear it. I got up and went out on the balcony. Outside all that could be heard was the usual afternoon din; even the sound of the sea was drowned out. In the hallway, on the other hand, there reigned a pregnant silence. Did the horn sound in my head then? Did it sound because I was thinking about Sepp Dietrich or in order to warn me of a threat? If I look back on it, I was also thinking about Hausser and Bittrich and Meindl… Then did it sound for me? And if so, what threat did it mean to warn me of?

When I told Ingeborg about it, she suggested that I spend less time in the room. According to her we should sign up for some jogging sessions or exercise classes run by the hotel. Poor Ingeborg, she just doesn’t get it. I promised I would talk to Frau Else. Ten years ago the hotel offered no classes of any kind. Ingeborg said that she would sign us up, that I didn’t need to speak to Frau Else about something that could be taken care of with the receptionist. I said all right, she should do what she thought best.

Before I got in bed I did two things, namely:

1. Set up the armored corps for the lightning attack on France.

2. Went out on the balcony and searched for some light on the beach that might indicate the presence of El Quemado, but all was dark.