The Third Reich (33 page)

Fall 1943 and a new offensive for El Quemado. I lose Warsaw and Bessarabia. The west and the south of France fall to the Anglo-Americans. It’s possible it’s exhaustion that’s impairing my ability to respond.

“You’re going to win, Quemado,” I say in a low voice.

“Yes, that’s how it looks.”

“And what will we do then?” But fear made me elaborate on the question in order to avoid a concrete response. “Where will we celebrate your initiation as a war games player? I’ll be getting money soon from Germany and we can have a night out on the town, at a club, with girls, champagne, that kind of thing.”

El Quemado, removed from anything but the progress of his two huge steamrollers, answered with a remark to which I later ascribed symbolic meaning: “Keep watch over what you’ve got in Spain.”

Did he mean the three German infantry corps and the one Italian infantry corps that appear to be stranded in Spain and Portugal now that the Allies control the south of France? The truth is that if I
wanted
to I could evacuate them from the Mediterranean ports during the Strategic Redeployment phase, but I won’t. In fact, maybe I’ll bring in reinforcements to create a threat or a diversion on the enemy’s flank; at least that will slow the Anglo-American march toward the Rhine. This is a strategic possibility that El Quemado must be aware of, if it’s as good as it seems. Or did he mean something else? Something personal? What have I got in Spain? Myself!

SEPTEMBER 21

“You’re falling asleep, Udo.”

“The sea breeze does me good.”

“You drink too much and you hardly sleep. That’s not good.”

“But you’ve never seen me drunk.”

“Even worse: that means you drink alone. You’re constantly eating and coughing up your own demons.”

“Don’t worry, I have a big big big stomach.”

“There are terrible circles under your eyes and you just keep getting paler, as if you were gradually turning into the Invisible Man.”

“It’s my natural complexion.”

“You look sickly. You don’t listen to what anyone says, you don’t see anyone, you seem resigned to staying here forever.”

“Every day I stay costs me money. No one is making me a gift of anything.”

“This isn’t about money, it’s about your health. If you gave me your parents’ phone number, I would call them to come and get you.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“It doesn’t seem that way. One minute you’re in a state of rage, and the next you lapse into passivity. Yesterday you yelled at me and today you just smile like a moron, sitting at the same table all morning.”

“I can’t tell the mornings and the afternoons apart. I can breathe better here. The weather has changed; it’s humid and oppressive now. This is the only comfortable spot.”

“You should be in bed.”

“If I doze off, don’t worry. It’s because of the sun. It comes and goes. Inside, my resolve is still strong.”

“But you’re talking in your sleep!”

“I’m not asleep, I only look it.”

“I think I’ll have to get a doctor to come and give you a checkup.”

“A friend?”

“A fine German doctor.”

“I don’t want anyone to come. The truth is, I was sitting quietly, enjoying the sea breeze, and you come along to lecture me unintuited, out of the blue, just for kicks.”

“You’re not well, Udo.”

“And you’re a cock tease, all this kissing, all this fooling around, and no more. Half here and half somewhere else.”

“Don’t raise your voice.”

“Now that I’m raising my voice, at least you can see I’m not asleep.”

“We could try to talk like good friends.”

“Go ahead, you know my patience and curiosity are boundless.

Like my love.”

“Do you want to know what the waiters call you? The freak. And you can see why: someone who spends all day on the terrace, huddled under a blanket like an old cripple, nodding off, and who at night turns into a lord of war and welcomes the lowest of the low—disfigured, to make it even more grotesque; it’s not what you’d call ordinary. There are those who think you’re a homosexual and others who say you’re just eccentric.”

“Eccentric! What idiocy. All freaks are eccentric. Did you hear that, or did you make it up just now? The waiters only make fun of things they don’t understand.”

“The waiters hate you. They think you bring bad luck to the hotel. When I hear them talk I think they wouldn’t mind if you drowned like your friend Charly.”

“Fortunately, I don’t do a lot of swimming. The weather is getting worse and worse. In any case, lovely sentiments.”

“It happens every summer. There’s always a guest who rubs everyone the wrong way. But why you?”

“Because I’m losing the match and no one likes a loser.”

“Maybe you haven’t been polite to the staff. Don’t fall asleep, Udo.”

“My armies in the East are collapsing,” I said to El Quemado. “Just the way it really happened, the Romanian flank is crumbling and there are no reserves to contain the wave of Russian tokens advancing on the Carpathians, the Balkans, the Hungarian plain, Austria. This is the end of the Seventeenth Army, the First Panzer Army, the Sixth Army, the Eighth Army.”

“Next turn,” whispers El Quemado, burning like a torch swollen with veins.

“Will I lose in the next turn?”

“Deep down, very deep down, I love you,” says Frau Else. “This is the coldest winter of the war and nothing could possibly go worse. I’m in a deep hole that I may not be able to dig myself out of. Confidence is a poor counselor,” I hear myself say in a neutral voice.

“Where are the photocopies?” asks El Quemado.

“Frau Else gave them to your coach,” I answer, knowing that El Quemado has no coach or anything of the kind. The closest thing might be me, since I taught him to play! But not even.

“I don’t have a coach,” says El Quemado, predictably.

In the afternoon, before the match, I lay down in bed, exhausted, and dreamed that I was a detective (Florian Linden?) who, following a clue, made my way into a temple like the one in
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
. What was I doing there? I don’t know. All I know is that I went up and down corridors and through halls with no sense of foreboding, almost with pleasure, and that the coldness inside reminded me of the cold weather of childhood and an imaginary winter when everything, though only for an instant, was white and infinitely still. In the middle of the temple, which must
have been built into the hill that looms over the town, I found a man, lit by a cone of light, who was playing chess. Though no one told me who it was, I knew it was Atahualpa. When I approached, peering over the player’s shoulder, I saw that the black pieces were charred. What had happened? The Indian chief turned to study me without much interest and said that someone had thrown the black pieces into the fire. Why? For spite? Instead of answering, Atahualpa moved the white queen to a square within reach of the black pieces. She’ll be taken! I thought. Then I told myself that it didn’t matter since Atahualpa was playing himself. In the next move the white queen was eliminated by a bishop. What’s the point of playing yourself if you’re going to cheat? I asked. This time the Indian didn’t even turn around. Extending his arm, he pointed toward the back of the temple, a dark space suspended between the vaulted ceiling and the granite floor. I took a few steps, more or less in the direction he was pointing, and I saw a huge redbrick fireplace with cast-iron guards that still contained the embers of a fire that must have consumed hundreds of logs. Poking out here and there among the ashes were the twisted tips of different chess pieces. What was the meaning of this? My face burning with indignation and rage, I turned and challenged Atahualpa to play me. He didn’t bother to look up from the game board. When I examined him more carefully, I realized that he wasn’t as old as I had mistakenly thought at first; his gnarled fingers and the long dirty hair that fell over his face were misleading. Play me if you’re a man, I shouted, wanting to escape from the dream. Behind me I felt the presence of the fireplace as a living organism: cold-hot, alien to me and alien to the Indian lost in thought. Why destroy a beautiful work of craftsmanship? I asked. The Indian laughed, but the laugh caught in his throat. When the game was over, he got up and went over to the fireplace, carrying the board and pieces on a tray. I realized that he was going to feed the fire, and I decided that it would be wisest to watch and wait. From the embers, flames sprang up again, swift tongues of fire that soon vanished, scarcely sated by such a meager offering. Atahualpa’s eyes were now fixed on the temple vault. Who are you? he asked. From my mouth came an outlandish answer: I’m
Florian Linden and I’m looking for the murderer of Karl Schneider, otherwise known as Charly, a tourist here. The Indian gave me a scornful look and returned to the central circle of light, where, as if by magic, another board and more pieces were waiting for him. He grunted something unintelligible; I begged him to repeat it: That man was killed by the sea, by his own kindness and stupidity, the curt words in Spanish echoing offthe walls of the cave. I understood that the dream wasn’t making sense anymore or that it was coming to an end, and I hurried to ask a last few questions. Were the chess pieces offerings to a god? Why was he playing alone? When would it all be over? (I still don’t know what I meant by this.) Who else knew of the existence of the temple and how to get out of it? The Indian made his first play and sighed. Where do you think we are? he asked in turn. I confessed that I didn’t know for sure but I suspected that we were under the hill on which the town was built. You’re wrong, he said. Where are we? My voice was growing more and more hysterical. I was scared, I admit, and I wanted out. Atahualpa’s bright eyes observed me through the hair that fell over his face like a cascade of stagnant water. Haven’t you realized? How did you get here? I don’t know, I said, I was walking along the beach . . . Atahualpa laughed: we’re under the pedal boats, he said. With luck El Quemado will gradually rent them out—though, considering the weather, it’s hard to say for sure—and you’ll be able to leave. My last memory is of me hurling myself at the Indian, yelling . . . I woke up just in time to go down to let in El Quemado but not in time to shower. My groin and inner thighs burned. In Poland and on the Western front I made two grave mistakes. In the Mediterranean, El Quemado has wiped out the few army corps left behind as a diversion in western Libya and Tunisia. In the next turn I’ll lose Italy. And by the summer of ’44 I’ll probably have lost the game. Then what will happen?

SEPTEMBER 22

This afternoon—or this morning, I can’t say for sure, whenever it was that I got up for breakfast!—I ran into Frau Else, her husband, and a man I had never seen before sitting at a table offto one side in the restaurant, having tea and cakes. The stranger, tall, with blond hair and a deep tan, was the one leading the conversation, and every so often Frau Else and her husband laughed at his jokes or witticisms, leaning in toward each other until their heads touched and waving their hands as if in a plea to stop the avalanche of stories. After considering whether it was a good idea to join the group, I perched on a stool at the bar and ordered coffee. For once, the waiter hurried to bring it, which only backfired: the coffee spilled, the milk was too hot. As I was waiting I buried my face in my hands and tried to escape the nightmare. It didn’t work, so as soon as I had paid I hurried back up to my room.

I slept for a while, and when I woke up I felt dizzy and sick to my stomach. I asked to have a call put through to Stuttgart. I needed to talk to someone, and who better than Conrad? Little by little I felt calmer, but no one picked up the phone at Conrad’s house. I ended the call and paced around the room, glancing at the German line of defense every time I passed the table, going out on the balcony, pounding or rather slapping at the walls and the doors, fighting the octopus of nerves that squirmed in my stomach.

A little while later the phone rang. It was a call from downstairs, announcing a visitor. I said I didn’t want to see anyone, but
the clerk insisted. My visitor refused to leave without seeing me. It was Alfons. Alfons who? I was given a last name that meant nothing to me. I could hear voices arguing. The designer I had gotten drunk with! I gave strict instructions that I didn’t want to see him, that they shouldn’t let him up. Through the receiver I could now hear with utter clarity the voice of my visitor protesting the rudeness, the lack of manners, the inhospitality, etc. I hung up.

A minute or two later some agonized howls in the street drew me out onto the balcony. In the middle of the Paseo the designer was yelling up at the front of the hotel, shouting himself hoarse. The poor kid, I decided, was shortsighted and couldn’t see me. It took me a while to realize that he was just saying “asshole,” over and over. His hair was matted and he was wearing a mustardcolored blazer with huge shoulder pads. For an instant I was afraid he would be hit by a car, but luckily the Paseo Marítimo was almost deserted at that hour.

Unnerved, I went back to bed, but I couldn’t sleep anymore. The insults had ceased a while ago, but the mysterious and hurtful words still echoed in my head. I asked myself who the long-winded stranger spotted with Frau Else could be. Her lover? A friend of the family? The doctor? No, doctors are quieter, more reserved. I asked myself whether Conrad had seen Ingeborg again. I imagined them holding hands and strolling down an autumn street. If only Conrad were less shy! The scene, full of possibilities as I saw it, brought tears of pain and happiness to my eyes. How I loved both of them, in my innermost being.

As I lay there thinking, I suddenly realized that the hotel was sunk in a wintry silence. I got nervous and began to pace the room again. With no hope of getting things straight, I studied the strategic situation: at best I could hold out for three turns or, with great luck, four. I coughed, I talked out loud, I searched through my notebooks for a postcard that I then wrote while listening to the sound of the pen as it moved across the stiffsurface. I recited these lines by Goethe:

And until you have possessed