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.