The Third Reich (11 page)

Next to the girl by the fireplace was another girl, and a boy who might have been thirteen or eighteen. Both of them watched her cry and from time to time patted her on the back. The boy had a pimply face. He whispered into the girl’s ear, more as if he were trying to convince her of something than as if he were consoling her, and out of the corner of his eye he made sure not to miss any of the most violent scenes in the movie, which, as it happened, followed constantly one after the other. In fact, the faces of all the kids (except the one who was crying) lifted automatically toward the TV at the sound of fighting or at the music that preceded the climactic moments of the fights. Either the rest of the movie didn’t interest them or they’d seen it already.

Outside the rain was still coming down.

I thought about El Quemado. Where was he? Could he possibly be spending the day on the beach, buried under the pedal boats? For a second, as if I were gasping for air, I felt like running out to check.

Little by little the idea of visiting him began to take shape. What attracted me most was seeing for myself what I’d already imagined: part child’s hideout, part third-world shack. But what did I really expect to find under the pedal boats? In my mind’s eye I could see El Quemado sitting like a caveman beside a kerosene lantern; when I come in, he looks up and we gaze at each other. But how do I get in? Down a hole, like a rabbit burrow? Maybe. And there, at the end of the tunnel, is El Quemado, reading the paper and looking like a rabbit. A giant rabbit, scared to death. Of course, I didn’t want to frighten him. I should announce myself first. Hello, it’s me, Udo, are you there, the way I imagined? . . . And if no one answered, what to do? I imagined myself pacing around the pedal boats searching for the way in. A tiny crack. Sliding on my belly, creeping in with great difficulty . . . Inside everything is dark. Why?

“Do you want me to tell you how the movie ends?” asked the Lamb.

The girl by the fireplace wasn’t crying anymore. On the TV a kind of executioner was digging a hole big enough to bury the body of a man and his bike. When it was over, the kids laughed, though there was something indefinable about the scene, something more tragic than comic.

I nodded. How did it end?

“So the good guy escapes the radioactive zone with the treasure. I can’t remember whether it’s a formula to make synthetic gasoline or water or what. Anyway, it’s just another movie, right?”

“Right,” I said.

I wanted to pay but the Lamb refused to let me. “You can pay tonight,” he said, smiling. The idea was completely unappealing to me. But no one could make me go out with them, after all, though I was afraid that idiot Charly had already made plans. And
if Charly went out, Hanna would go; and if Hanna did, Ingeborg probably would too. As I got up, I asked casually where El Quemado might be.

“No idea,” said the Lamb. “That guy’s kind of a nut job. Do you want to see him? Are you looking for him? I’ll go with you, if you want. He might be at Pepe’s bar. I doubt he’ll be working in this rain.”

I thanked him; I said it wasn’t necessary. I wasn’t looking for him.

“He’s a weird guy,” said the Lamb.

“Why? Because of his burns? Do you know how he got them?”

“No, that’s not why, I don’t know anything about that. He just seems strange to me. Or not strange, exactly, but a little off, you know what I mean.”

“No, what do you mean?”

“He’s got his hang-ups, like everybody. Maybe he’s a little bitter. I don’t know. We all have something, don’t we? Take Charly, for example, all he cares about is the bottle and his fucking board.”

“Come on, man, there are other things he likes too.”

“Chicks?” said the Lamb with a malicious smile. “You have to admit Hanna’s hot, right?”

“Yes,” I said. “She’s not bad.”

“And she has a son, doesn’t she?”

“I think so,” I said.

“She showed me a picture. He’s a good-looking kid, blond and everything, he looks like her.”

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen any pictures.”

Before I could explain that he knew Hanna practically as well as I did, I left. In some ways he probably knew her better, but there was no point saying so.

Outside it was still raining, though not as hard. On the wide sidewalks of the Paseo Marítimo a few tourists walked by in brightly colored windbreakers. I got in the car and lit a cigarette. From where I was I could see the fortress of pedal boats and the curtain of mist and foam raised by the wind. Through one of the bar’s big windows the fireplace girl was also staring out at the beach. I
started the car and drove off. For half an hour I circled around town. In the old part of the city the traffic was impossible. Water bubbled out of the drains and a warm and putrid scent crept into the car along with exhaust fumes, the blare of horns, children’s shouts. At last I managed to escape. I was hungry, ravenously hungry, but rather than look for a place to eat, I left town.

I drove aimlessly, not knowing where I was going. From time to time I passed the cars and campers of tourists; the weather signaled the end of summer. The fields to each side of the highway were covered in plastic and dark grooves; against the horizon stood small, bare hills toward which the clouds sped. In a grove, under the trees, I saw a group of black workers sheltering from the rain.

Suddenly I came upon a pottery shop. So this was the road that led to the nameless club. I parked the car in the lot and got out. From a hut an old man stared at me in silence. Everything was different: there were no spotlights or dogs, no otherworldly glow emanating from the plaster statues on which the rain pattered.

I picked out a few pots and went over to the old man’s lair.

“Eight hundred pesetas,” he said without emerging.

I felt for the money and handed it to him.

“Bad weather,” I said as I waited for the change and the rain fell on my face.

“Yes,” said the old man.

I put the pots in the trunk and left.

I ate at a chapel on top of a mountain with a view of the whole bay. Centuries ago a stone fortress stood here as a defense against pirates. Maybe the town didn’t exist yet when the fortress was built. I don’t know. In any case, all that’s left of the fortress are a few stones scrawled with names, hearts, obscene drawings. Next to the ruins rises the chapel, of more recent construction. The view is incredible: the port, the yacht club, the old town, the new town, the campgrounds, the beachfront hotels. In good weather it’s possible to make out some of the other towns along the coast and, peeking over the skeleton of the fortress, a web of back roads and an infinity of small towns and hamlets inland. In a building adjoining the chapel there’s a kind of restaurant. I don’t know whether the people
who run it belong to a religious order or whether they got the license in the usual way. They’re good cooks, which is what matters. The locals, especially couples, are in the habit of driving up to the chapel, though not exactly to admire the landscape. When I got here I found several cars parked under the trees. Some drivers remained inside their vehicles. Others were sitting at tables in the restaurant. The silence was almost total. I took a stroll around a kind of lookout point with a guardrail; at both ends there were telescopes, the coin-operated kind. I went up to one and put in fifty pesetas. I couldn’t see anything. Utter darkness. I whacked it a few times and then gave up. At the restaurant I ordered rabbit and a bottle of wine.

What else did I see?

1.  A tree dangling over the precipice. Its crazed-looking roots were snarled around the stones and in the air. (But this isn’t a sight unique to Spain; I’ve seen trees like it in Germany.)

2.  An adolescent vomiting by the side of the road. His parents, in a car with British license plates, waited with the radio turned all the way up.

3.  A dark-eyed girl in the kitchen at the chapel restaurant. We made eye contact for only a second but something about me made her smile.

4.  The bronze bust of a bald man in a small, out-of-the-way square. On the pedestal, a poem written in Spanish of which I could make out only the words: “land,” “man,” “death.”

5.  A group of young people shrimping on the rocks north of town. For no apparent reason, they erupted every so often in cheers and vivas. Their shouts echoed off the rocks like the clamor of drums.

6.  A dark red cloud—the color of dirty blood—taking shape in the east, which, among the dark clouds that covered the sky, was like the promise of an end to the rain.

After eating, I went back to the hotel. I showered, changed clothes, and went out again. There was a letter for me at the reception desk. It was from Conrad. For a moment I vacillated between reading it immediately or putting offthe pleasure for later. I decided that I’d save it until after I saw El Quemado. So I put the letter in my pocket and headed for the pedal boats.

The sand was wet though it wasn’t raining anymore; here and there on the beach one could make out the vague shapes of people walking along the shore, gazing down as if they were searching for bottles with messages inside or jewels washed up by the sea. Twice I almost went back to the hotel. And yet the sense that I was making a fool of myself was less powerful than my curiosity.

Long before I reached the pedal boats I heard the sound made by the tarp as it slapped against the floaters. Some rope must have come undone. With cautious steps I circled the pedal boats. In fact, there was a loose rope, and the tarp flapped ever more violently in the wind. I remember that the rope seethed like a snake. A river snake. The tarp was wet and heavy from the rain. Without thinking, I grabbed the rope and tied it as best I could.

“What are you doing?” asked El Quemado from the pedal boats.

I jumped backward. As I did, the knot came undone and the tarp made a sound like a plant ripped out by the roots, like something wet and alive.

“Nothing,” I said.

Immediately it occurred to me that I should have added: “Where are you?” Now El Quemado would be able to deduce that I knew his secret, since I wasn’t surprised to hear his voice, which clearly came from within. Too late.

“What do you mean, nothing?”

“Nothing,” I shouted. “I was taking a walk and I saw that the wind was about to rip the tarp off. Didn’t you notice?”

Silence.

I took a step forward and decisively retied the confounded rope.

“There you go,” I said. “The pedal boats are protected. Now you just need the sun to come out!”

An unintelligible grunt came from inside.

“Can I come in?”

El Quemado didn’t answer. For an instant I was afraid that he would come out and curse at me in the middle of the beach, demanding to know what the hell I wanted. I wouldn’t have known what to say. (Was I killing time? Confirming a suspicion? Conducting a small behavioral study?)

“Can you hear me?” I shouted. “Can I come in or not?”

“Yes.” El Quemado’s voice was barely audible.

Politely, I sought the entrance; of course there was no hole dug in the sand. The pedal boats, propped against each other in an unlikely fashion, seemed to leave no gap through which a person could fit. I looked up: between the tarp and a floater there was a space through which a body could slip. I climbed up carefully.

“Through here?” I asked.

El Quemado grunted something that I took as a yes. From up above, the hole looked bigger. I closed my eyes and let myself drop.

A smell of rotting wood and salt assaulted my senses. At last I was inside the fortress.

El Quemado was sitting on a tarp like the one that covered the pedal boats. Next to him was a bag almost as big as a suitcase. On a sheet of newspaper he had some bread and a can of tuna. Despite what I had expected, there was enough light to see by, especially considering that it was a cloudy day. Along with the light, air came in through any number of openings. The sand was dry, or so it seemed, but it was cold in there. I said: It’s cold. El Quemado took a bottle out of a bag and handed it to me. I took a swig. It was wine.

“Thanks,” I said.

El Quemado took the bottle and drank in turn; then he cut a chunk of bread, split it open, stuffed it with some shreds of tuna, drenched it in olive oil, and proceeded to eat it. The space under the pedal boats was six feet long and just over three feet high. Soon I discovered other objects: a towel of indeterminate color, the ropesoled shoes (El Quemado was barefoot), another can of tuna (empty), a plastic bag printed with a supermarket logo . . . In general, order reigned in the fortress.

“Aren’t you surprised that I knew where you were?”

“No,” said El Quemado.

“Sometimes I help Ingeborg solve mysteries . . . When she reads crime novels . . . I can figure out who the killers are before Florian Linden . . .” My voice had dwindled to almost a whisper.

After gulping down the bread, he scrupulously deposited both cans in the plastic bag. His huge hands moved swiftly and silently. The hands of a criminal, I thought. In a second there was no trace of food left, only the bottle of wine between us.

“The rain . . . Did it bother you? . . . But you’re fine in here, I see . . . You must be happy to see it rain every once in a while: today you’re just another tourist, like everybody else.”

El Quemado stared at me in silence. In the jumble of his features I thought I detected a sarcastic expression. Are you taking time offtoo? he asked. I’m alone today, I explained, Ingeborg, Hanna, and Charly went to Barcelona. What was he trying to insinuate by asking me whether I was taking time offtoo? That I would never finish my article? That I wasn’t hunkered down at the hotel?

“How did you decide on the idea of living out here?”

El Quemado shrugged his shoulders and sighed.

“I can understand that it must be beautiful to sleep under the stars, out in the open, though from here I doubt you see many stars.” I smiled and slapped myself on the forehead, an unusual gesture for me. “No matter what, you sleep closer to the water than any tourist. Some people would pay to be in your place!”

El Quemado dug for something in the sand. His toes burrowed slowly up and down; they were disproportionately large and surprisingly (though there was no reason to expect otherwise) unmarred by a single burn, smooth, the skin intact, without even a callus, which daily contact with the sea must have endeavored to smooth away.