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.
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.