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Goethe?”
    â€œIn Weimar?”
    â€œYes, Weimar. But have you heard the story of what passed between them?”
    â€œTell it, if you like.”
    â€œWell, Hölderlin was only a young poet at the time,” Dr. Ludtz begins, “and of course Goethe was the old master. As you might imagine, Hölderlin had dreamed of this visit for quite some time. He expected an exalted conversation to pass between them. Such was not the case, however. In fact, the interview was very disappointing. For you see, Hölderlin found that all he could talk about in Goethe’s presence was the superiority of the plums he had eaten on the train between Jena and Weimar.” He laughs loudly. “The absurdity! Can you imagine?”
    â€œHow is your tomb progressing, Dr. Ludtz?” I ask.
    â€œWhat’s that? My tomb? Oh, yes. Very well, of course I don’t really think of it as a tomb.”
    â€œThe liana vines seem determined to obscure it.”
    Dr. Ludtz does not hear me. He has turned back toward the river. “So calm,” he says to himself, “wonderful for rowing.”
    â€œYes, quite wonderful.”
    He turns to face me. “If I may be excused, Dr. Langhof, I think that I might take advantage of this fine day.”
    â€œBy all means, Doctor.”
    â€œAre you sure you would not wish to join me?”
    â€œYes, I’m sure. I must make these preparations.”
    â€œI understand, believe me,” Dr. Ludtz says. “El Presidente must have everything as he likes it.”
    â€œIf we are to continue to have everything as we like it,” I add.
    â€œYes. Absolutely,” Dr. Ludtz says quickly. “Absolutely correct in that.”
    â€œGood day, Dr. Ludtz.”
    Dr. Ludtz rises. “Good day to you. And please, not so much time in this office.”
    â€œThank you for your concern.”
    He vanishes behind the door of my study, the little bulge of the automatic pistol clearly visible in the large back pocket of his flannel trousers. He sleeps with it on his nightstand, the barrel toward his coiled rosary. In all his life he has spoken one memorable sentence. As we stood watching the smoke billow up from one of the great brick funnels of the Camp, he turned to me and said in a voice of almost wistful repudiation, “One cannot imagine waltzing after this.”
    He is outside now. I can see him through the window, his body neatly dissected by the blades of a large green fern. He is calling Alberto and Tomás, Juan’s teenage sons. For a moment they do not see him, caught up as they often are in a kind of manic play, an endless, banal chase from which no clear victor ever emerges.
    He has caught their attention, and I see him motioning toward the small boat that bobs lightly on the river, a length of braided rope holding it to the bank. He is right. The river is very calm, a perfect day for rowing. And I can see him years before, sailing in a sleek white skiff, a blue European river rolling beneath him and crashing up against the sides of the boat, covering his face with spray.
    Alberto and Tomás secure the boat. They smile at each other mockingly as they watch Dr. Ludtz lumber toward the boat and then heave himself awkwardly into it, causing it to groan and sway. To them this Teutonic Falstaff is no more than a mound of blubber who by some incomprehensible twist of circumstance employs and therefore commands them. Their bodies are tawny and sleek; his, ruddy and gelatinous. They are the trim young bulls; he, the imprisoned Minotaur. They cavort mindlessly in the humid forest, far beyond history’s mortmain; he is history’s dilapidated product.
    With Dr. Ludtz securely seated, Alberto and Tomás leap agilely into the boat and take up positions fore and aft. Then they paddle slowly from the bank, the boat sliding across the surface of the river as effortlessly as a knife through air. Dr. Ludtz grabs each side of the boat and steadies