As we got ready for bed, Ingeborg remarked how well Charly looked. We’d been at a club called Adam’s until three in the morning. Now Ingeborg is asleep and I’m writing and chain-smoking with the balcony door open. Hanna looked good too. She even danced a couple of slow songs with me. Our conversation: trivial as always. What can Hanna and Ingeborg have to talk about? Is it possible that they’re truly becoming friends? Charly treated us to dinner at the restaurant at the Costa Brava. Paella, salad, wine, ice cream, and coffee. Then we left in my car for the club. Charly didn’t feel like driving, nor did he feel like walking; maybe I’m exaggerating but I got the impression that he didn’t even feel like being seen in public. Hanna kept leaning over and kissing him. I imagine she kisses her son in Oberhausen the same way. As we were on our way back I spotted El Quemado on the terrace of the Andalusia Lodge. The terrace was empty and the waiters were clearing the tables. A group of local kids were leaning on the railing, talking. El Quemado, a few yards away, seemed to be listening to them. When I remarked to Charly, half jokingly, that his friend was there, his reply was irritable: what do I care, keep going. I think he thought I was talking about the Wolf or the Lamb. In the darkness it’s hard to tell people apart. Keep going, keep going, said Ingeborg and Hanna.
AUGUST 28
Today, for the first time, we woke up to gray skies. From our window, the beach looked majestic and empty. A few children were playing in the sand but soon it began to rain and one by one they disappeared. At the restaurant, during breakfast, the atmosphere was different; banished from the terrace because of the rain, people gathered at the indoor tables and the breakfast hour stretched on, encouraging the quick formation of new friendships. Everyone talked. The men started to drink early. The women were constantly going back up to their rooms in search of warmer clothes that most of the time they were unable to find. Jokes were made. A general air of frustration soon manifested itself. But since there was no point spending the whole day at the hotel, expeditions were orga-nized; groups of five or six, huddled under a couple of umbrellas, went out to visit the shops and then a café or some video arcade. The rainswept streets seemed removed from the daily bustle, immersed in a different kind of ordinariness.
Charly and Hanna arrived partway through breakfast. They had decided to go to Barcelona and Ingeborg was going with them. I said I wouldn’t go. Today will be all mine. After they left I sat watching people come and go. Despite what I expected, there was no sign of Frau Else. But at least it was a quiet and comfortable spot. I put my brain to work reviewing the beginnings of matches, opening moves and exploratory moves… A general lethargy had fallen over everything. Suddenly the only truly happy people were the waiters. They had twice as much work as on an ordinary day but they were kidding around and laughing. An old man sitting near me said that they were laughing at us.
“You’re wrong,” I said. “They’re laughing because they can feel summer coming to an end, and work too.”
“So they should be sad. They’ll be out of a job, the lazy bastards!”
I left the hotel at noon.
I got in the car and drove slowly to the Andalusia Lodge. I would’ve gotten there faster by walking but I didn’t feel like walking.
From the outside it looked like all the other bars with terraces: chairs upended and water dripping from the fringes of the umbrellas. The fun was inside. As if the rain had broken the ice, tourists and locals— mingling in a way somehow tinged with catastrophe— were enmeshed in an endless and unintelligible exchange of gestures. In the back, near the TV, I spotted the Lamb. He waved me over. I waited until I’d been served a coffee, and then I went to sit at his table. At first we just made small talk. The Lamb was sorry it was raining, though not on his account but on mine, because I had come in search of sunny days and beach, etc. I didn’t bother to tell him that actually I was delighted it was raining. After a while he asked about Charly. I told him he was in Barcelona. With who? he wanted to know. The question took me by surprise; I would have liked to say that it was none of his business. After hesitating, I decided that it wasn’t worth the trouble.
“With Ingeborg and Hanna, of course. Who did you think he was with?”
The poor guy seemed taken aback. Nobody, he said, smiling. On the fogged-up window someone had drawn a heart bisected by a hypodermic needle. Out the window, the Paseo Marítimo and some gray planks could be glimpsed. The few tables at the back of the bar were occupied by young people and they were the only ones who kept a certain distance from the tourists. The bar was tacitly divided between the people up front (families and older men) and those in the back. Suddenly the Lamb began to tell me a strange and meaningless story. He spoke rapidly, confidentially, leaning over the table. I hardly understood him. The story was about Charly and the Wolf, but the way he told it was like something out of a dream: an argument, a blonde (Hanna?), knives, the all-conquering power of friendship… “The Wolf is a good person, I know him, he’s got a heart of gold. Charly too. But when they get drunk they’d drive anybody crazy.” I nodded. I couldn’t care less. Near us a girl stared into the empty fireplace, now a giant ashtray. Outside the rain came down harder. The Lamb bought me a cognac. Just then the owner came in and put on a video. To do so he had to get up on a chair. From his perch he announced: “I’m putting on a video for you kids.” No one paid any attention. “You’re a bunch of bums,” he said on his way out. The movie was about postnuclear bikers. “I’ve seen it,” said the Lamb when he returned with two drinks. It was good cognac. The girl near the fireplace started to cry. I don’t know how to explain it but she was the only one in the whole bar who didn’t seem to be there. I asked the Lamb why she was crying. I can hardly see her face, he replied, how do you know she’s crying? I shrugged. On the TV a couple of bikers were riding through the desert; one of them was missing an eye; on the horizon sprawled the remains of a city: a gas station in ruins, a supermarket, a bank, a movie theater, a hotel… “Mutants,” said the Lamb, turning sideways so he could see better.
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?