The Third Reich (12 page)

“I’d like to know how you decided to set up house here, how it occurred to you to arrange the pedal boats like this for shelter. It’s a good idea, but why? Was it so you wouldn’t have to pay rent? Is it really so expensive to rent a place? I apologize if it’s none of my business. I’m just curious, you know? Shall we go get coffee?”

El Quemado picked up the bottle, and after raising it to his lips he handed it to me.

“It’s cheap. It’s free,” he murmured when I set the bottle back down between us.

“But is it legal? Besides me, does anyone know you sleep here? Say, the owner of the pedal boats, does he know you spend the nights here?”

“I’m the owner,” said El Quemado.

A strip of light fell directly on his forehead: the charred flesh, in the light, seemed to grow paler, stir.

“They’re not worth much,” he added. “Any pedal boat in town is newer than mine. But they still float and people like them.”

“I think they’re wonderful,” I said in a burst of enthusiasm. “I would never get on a pedal boat built to look like a swan or a Viking ship. They’re hideous.
Yours
, on the other hand, seem . . . I don’t know, more classic. More trustworthy.”

I felt stupid.

“That’s where you’re wrong. The new pedal boats are faster.”

In a scattered way, he explained that with all the speedboat, ferry, and windsurfing traffic, the beach could sometimes be as busy as a highway. So the speed that the pedal boats were able to attain in order to avoid other craft became an important consideration. He had no accidents to complain of yet, just a few bumps to swimmers’ heads, but even in this regard the new pedal boats were better: a collision with the floater of one of his old pedal boats could crack someone’s head open.

“They’re heavy,” he said.

“Yes, like tanks.”

El Quemado smiled for the first time that afternoon.

“You’ve got a single-track mind,” he said.

“True.”

Still smiling, he traced a picture in the sand that he immediately erased. Even his infrequent gestures were enigmatic.

“How is your game going?”

“Perfect. Full sail ahead. I’ll destroy all the schemes.”

“All the schemes?”

“That’s right. All the old ways of playing. Under my system, the game will have to be reinvented.”

When we emerged, the sky was a metallic gray, auguring new showers. I told El Quemado that a few hours ago I had spotted a red cloud in the east; I thought that was a sign of good weather. At the bar, reading the sports news at the same table where I’d left him, was the Lamb. When he saw us he beckoned us over to sit with him. The conversation then proceeded into territory that Charly would have loved but that frankly bored me. Bayern Münich, Schuster, Hamburg, Rummenigge, were the subjects. Naturally, the Lamb knew more about the teams and personalities than I did. To my surprise, El Quemado took part in the conversation (which was in my honor, since there was no talk about Spanish sports stars, only German ones, which I did fully appreciate and which at the same time made me uncomfortable) and he revealed an acceptable knowledge of German soccer. For example, the Lamb asked: Who’s your favorite player? and after my response (Schumacher, for the sake of saying something) and the Lamb’s (Klaus Allofs), El Quemado said “Uwe Seeler,” whom neither the Lamb nor I had heard of. Seeler and Tilkowski are the names El Quemado holds in highest esteem. The Lamb and I didn’t know what he was talking about. When we asked him to tell us more, he said that as a boy he saw both of them on the soccer field. Just as I thought that El Quemado was about to reflect on his childhood, he suddenly fell silent. The hours passed and despite the grayness of the day, night was long in coming. At eight I said good-bye and returned to the hotel. Sitting in an armchair on the first floor, next to a window through which I could see the Paseo Marítimo and a slice of the parking lot, I settled down to read Conrad’s letter. This is what it said:

Dear Udo:

I got your postcard. I hope swimming and Ingeborg are leaving you enough time to finish the article as planned. Yesterday we finished a round of
Third Reich
at Wolfgang’s house. Walter and Wolfgang (Axis) against Franz (Allies) and me (Russia). It was a three-way game,
and the final result was: W & W, 4 Objective hexes; Franz, 18; me, 19, including Berlin and Stockholm (you can imagine the condition in which W & W left the Kriegsmarine!). Surprises in the diplomatic module: in autumn of ’41 Spain goes over to the Axis. Turkey wooed away from the Allies thanks to the DP that Franz and I spent prodigally. Alexandria and Suez, untouchable; Malta pounded but still standing. W & W did their
best
to test parts of your Mediterranean Strategy. And Rex Douglas’s Mediterranean Strategy. But it was too much for them. Down they went. David Hablanian’s Spanish Gambit might work one time out of twenty. Franz lost France in the summer of ’40 and weathered an invasion of England in spring ’41! Almost all of his army corps were in the Mediterranean and W & W couldn’t resist the temptation. We applied the Beyma variant. In ’41 I was saved by the
snow
and by W & W’s insistence on
opening fronts
, at a huge cost of BRP; they were always bankrupt by the last turn of the year. Regarding your strategy: Franz says it isn’t much different from Anchors’s. I told him that
you
were
corresponding
with Anchors and that his strategy had nothing to do with yours. W & W are ready to mount a giant TR as soon as you get back. First they suggested the GDW Europe series, but I convinced them otherwise. I
doubt
you’d want to play for more than a
month
straight. We’ve agreed that W & W and Franz and Otto Wolf will take the Allies and the Russians, respectively, and that you and I will take Germany, what do you say? We also talked about the Paris conference, December 23–28. It’s confirmed that Rex Douglas will be there in person. I know he’d like to meet you. A picture of you came out in
Waterloo
: it’s the one where you’re playing Randy Wilson, and there’s an article about our Stuttgart group. I got a letter from
Mars
, do you remember
them
? They want an article from you (there’ll be another by Mathias Müller, can you believe it?) for a special issue about players who specialize in WWII. Most of the
participants are French and Swiss. And there’s more news, which I’d rather wait to give you when you get back from vacation. So what do you think the Objective hexes were that stymied W & W? Leipzig, Oslo,
Genoa
, and
Milan
. Franz wanted to
hit
me. In fact, he
chased
me around the table. We’ve set up a Case White. We’ll get started tomorrow night. The kids at
Fire and Steel
have discovered
Boots & Saddles
and
Bundeswehr
, from the Assault Series. Now they plan to sell their old
Squad Leaders
and they’re talking about putting out a fanzine and calling it
Assault
or
Radioactive Combat
or something like that. They make me
laugh
. Get lots of sun. Say hello to Ingeborg.

Fondly,

Conrad

After the rain, evening at the Del Mar is tinted a dark blue shot through with gold. For a long time all I do is sit in the restaurant watching people come back to the hotel looking tired and hungry. Frau Else is nowhere to be seen. I discover that I’m cold: I’m in shirtsleeves. Also, Conrad’s letter leaves me with a trace of sadness. Wolfgang is an idiot: I can picture his slowness, his hesitation at each move, his lack of imagination. If you can’t control Turkey with DP, invade it, you moron. Nicky Palmer has said so a thousand times. I’ve said so a thousand times. Suddenly, for no apparent reason, I felt alone. Conrad and Rex Douglas (whom I know solely through letters) are my only friends. The rest is emptiness and darkness. Unanswered calls. Snubs. “Alone in a ravaged land,” I remembered. In an amnesiac Europe, with no sense of the epic or heroic. (It doesn’t surprise me that adolescents spend their time playing Dungeons & Dragons and other role-playing games.)

How did El Quemado buy his pedal boats? Yes, he told me how. With what he had saved from picking grapes. But how could he buy the whole lot, six or seven at once, with the money from just one harvest season? That was the down payment. The rest he paid little by little. The former owner was old and tired. It’s hard enough
to make money in the summer, and if on top of that you have to pay an employee salary . . . so he decided to sell them and El Quemado bought them. Did he have any experience renting out pedal boats? No. It isn’t hard to learn, said the Lamb, mockingly. Could I do it? (Silly question.) Of course, said the Lamb and El Quemado in unison. Anyone could. Really, it was a job that required nothing but patience and a sharp eye for runaway pedal boats. You didn’t even have to know how to swim.

El Quemado came to the hotel. We went upstairs without being seen by anyone. I showed him the game. The questions he asked were intelligent. Suddenly the street filled with the noise of sirens. El Quemado went out on the balcony and said the accident was in the tourist district. How stupid to die on vacation, I remarked. El Quemado shrugged. He was wearing a clean white T-shirt. From where he stood he could keep an eye on the shapeless mass of his pedal boats. I came over and asked what he was looking at. The beach, he said. I think he’d be a quick study.

The hours go by and there’s no sign of Ingeborg. I waited until nine in the room, jotting down moves.

Dinner at the hotel restaurant: cream of asparagus soup, cannelloni, coffee, and ice cream. Lingering at the table after dinner, I once more failed to spot Frau Else. (She certainly is nowhere to be found today.) I shared the table with a Dutch couple in their fifties. The subject of conversation at my table and across the restaurant was the bad weather. The diners expressed a number of different views on the subject, which the waiters— invested with a presumed meteorological wisdom, and locals, after all—took it upon themselves to arbitrate. In the end the faction that forecast good weather for the following day won.

At eleven I took a stroll through the various rooms on the main floor. There was no sign of Frau Else and I headed on foot to the Andalusia Lodge. The Lamb wasn’t there but half an hour later he
showed up. I asked him where the Wolf was. The Lamb hadn’t seen him all day.

“I don’t suppose he’s in Barcelona,” I said.

The Lamb gave me a horrified look. Of course he wasn’t, today he worked late, the idea. How could I imagine the poor Wolf had gone to Barcelona? We drank cognac and for a while we watched a game show on TV. The Lamb was stuttering, by which I deduced that he was nervous. I can’t remember why the subject came up, but at some point, unprompted, he told me that El Quemado wasn’t from Spain. We might have been talking about hardship and life and accidents. (The game show featured hundreds of small accidents, apparently simulated and bloodless.) I might have been saying something about the Spanish character. After that we may have gone on to talk about fire and burns. I don’t know. The point is that the Lamb said that El Quemado wasn’t Spanish. Where was he from, then? South America; which country specifically, he didn’t know.

The Lamb’s revelation struck me like a blow. El Quemado wasn’t Spanish. And he hadn’t told me. This fact, in itself trivial, struck me as particularly disturbing and significant. What motives could El Quemado have for hiding his true nationality from me? I didn’t feel deceived. I felt observed. (Not by El Quemado; actually, by nobody in particular: observed by a void, an absence.) After a while I paid for our drinks and left. I expected to find Ingeborg back at the hotel.

There was no one in the room. I went downstairs again: ghostlike on the terrace I made out some shadowy figures scarcely speaking a word. At the bar a single old man drank in silence. At the reception desk the night watchman told me that there hadn’t been any calls for me.

“Do you know where I can find Frau Else?”

He doesn’t know. At first he doesn’t even understand who I’m talking about. Frau Else, I shout, the owner of this hotel. The watchman’s eyes widen and he shakes his head again. He hasn’t seen her.

I thank him and get a cognac at the bar. At one in the morning
I decide that I might as well head upstairs and go to bed. There’s no one on the terrace anymore, although a few recently arrived guests have come into the bar and are joking with the waiters.

I can’t sleep; I’m not tired.

At last, at four in the morning, Ingeborg appears. A phone call from the watchman informs me that a young lady wants to see me. I hurry downstairs. At the reception desk I find Ingeborg, Hanna, and the watchman embroiled in something that, from the stairs, resembles a secret council. When I come up to them the first thing I notice is Hanna’s face: a violet and pinkish bruise covers her left cheek and part of her eye; there are bruises on her right cheek and upper lip too, though not as bad. Also, she can’t stop crying. When I inquire how she came to be in such a state, Ingeborg abruptly shuts me up. Her nerves are frayed; she keeps repeating that something like this could happen only in Spain. Wearily, the watchman suggests calling an ambulance. Ingeborg and I discuss it, but it’s Hanna who categorically refuses. (She says things like: “It’s my body,” “I’m the one who’s hurt,” etc.) The discussion continues and Hanna cries harder. Up until now I had forgotten about Charly. Where is he? When I mention him, Ingeborg, unable to contain herself, spits out a string of curses. For an instant I have the sense that Charly has been
lost forever
. Unexpectedly I feel we share a common bond. It’s something I can’t define, something that painfully unites us. As the clerk goes in search of a first aid kit—a compromise solution that we’ve reached with Hanna—Ingeborg fills me in on the latest developments, which, as it happens, I’ve already guessed.

The excursion couldn’t have gone worse. After an apparently normal and quiet day— even too quiet— during which they walked around the Barri Gòtic and La Rambla, taking pictures and buying souvenirs, the calm was shattered. According to Ingeborg, everything began after dessert. Charly, without any provocation whatsoever, underwent a notable change, as if something in the food had poisoned him. At first it all took the form of hostility toward Hanna and jokes in poor taste. Words were exchanged, but
that was all. The explosion—the first warning—came later, after Hanna and Ingeborg reluctantly agreed to stop at a bar near the port; they were going to have a last beer before they left the city. According to Ingeborg, Charly was nervous and irritable, but not belligerent. The incident might not have occurred if in the course of the conversation Hanna hadn’t reproached Charly for something that had happened in Oberhausen, something that Ingeborg knew nothing about. Hanna’s words were vague and cryptic. At first, Charly listened to her recriminations in silence. “He was as white as a sheet and he looked scared,” said Ingeborg. Then he got up, took Hanna by the arm, and disappeared with her into the bathroom. After a few minutes, worried, Ingeborg decided to knock on the door, not sure what was going on. The two of them were locked in the women’s bathroom but they made no protest when they heard Ingeborg’s voice. When they came out, both were crying. Hanna didn’t say a word. Charly paid the bill and they left Barcelona. After half an hour’s drive they stopped on the outskirts of one of the many towns along the coastal highway. The bar they went into was called Mar Salada. This time Charly didn’t even try to talk them into it. He just ignored them and started to drink. After five or six beers he burst into tears. Then Ingeborg, who had planned to have dinner with me, asked for a menu and persuaded Charly to eat something. For a moment everything seemed to return to normal. The three of them had dinner and—with some difficulty—maintained the simulacrum of a civilized conversation. When it was time to leave, the trouble started up again. Charly was determined to stay and Ingeborg and Hanna were determined to get the keys so they could drive home. According to Ingeborg, the argument was pointless, and Charly was enjoying it. Finally he got up and pretended to be about to give them the keys or drive them back. Ingeborg and Hanna followed him. Once they were through the door Charly turned around abruptly and hit Hanna in the face. Hanna’s response was to run toward the beach. Charly sprinted after her and in a few seconds Ingeborg heard Hanna’s cries, muffled and plaintive as those of a child. When she reached them, Charly wasn’t hitting Hanna anymore, although every so often he kicked her or spat on her. Ingeborg’s first impulse was to get between them, but when she saw her friend on the ground with blood on her face she lost the little composure she had left and began to shout for help. Of course, no one came. The drama ended with Charly leaving in the car, Hanna bloodied and with only enough strength to refuse to call the police or an ambulance, and Ingeborg alone in a strange place and responsible for getting her friend home. Luckily the owner of the bar came to their aid, helped clean Hanna up without asking questions, and then called a taxi that brought them back. Now the problem was what Hanna should do. Where would she sleep? At her hotel or ours? If she slept at her hotel, what were the chances that Charly would hit her again? Should she go to the hospital? Was it possible that she had been more seriously injured than we thought? The watchman settled both questions: according to him there was no damage to the cheek-bone; the wound looked worse than it was. Regarding sleeping at the hotel, tomorrow there would surely be vacancies, but tonight, unfortunately, there were none. Hanna looked relieved when she realized she had no options. “It’s my fault,” she whispered. “Charly is on edge and I pushed him too far, that’s just the way he is, the bastard, and he’s not about to change.” I think Ingeborg and I felt better when we heard this; it was for the best. We thanked the clerk for his help and went to leave Hanna at her hotel. It was a beautiful night. Not only the buildings but also the air had been rinsed clean by the rain. There was a cool breeze and everything was absolutely still. We walked her to the door of the Costa Brava and waited in the middle of the street. In a moment Hanna came out on the balcony to tell us that Charly hadn’t returned. “Go to sleep and try not to think about anything,” shouted Ingeborg before we headed back to the Del Mar. Back in our room, we talked about Charly and Hanna (critically, I would say) and we made love. Then Ingeborg picked up her Florian Linden novel and soon she was asleep. I went out on the balcony to smoke a cigarette and see if I could spot Charly’s car.