The Second Son

The streets began to grow more peopled. Men and women-all with the red neckerchief-walked in small groups, bags with food, newspapers. They were inside stores or leaning from balconies, conversations and laughter, caps and hats arrayed in the various emblems of their new-won power. It was a city on a Sunday, like any other, except here there had been no prayers to God or hopes of salvation. They had left those behind. And of course the guns-a rifle over a shoulder or a pistol at the waist. They carried them with the same easy certainty one wears a new pair of shoes: moments here and there to recall the novelty, but always that sense of purpose and pride. That these had been used to kill other Spaniards ten days ago hardly seemed to matter. Or perhaps that was what mattered most of all.

Mueller smiled at a girl in a doorway. She smiled back, and Mueller continued to walk. “One day to take the city, and now it’s boys playing at soldier.”

Hoffner was thinking about the chocolate; he could have used another bite. “So you’re telling me that wasn’t a checkpoint back there?”

Mueller laughed quietly. “With a boy standing guard? They may be arrogant, Nikolai, but they’re not stupid.” He spat something to the ground. “Ten days ago-maybe that was the genuine article. Now it’s for a boy to run out when his friends dare him to stop the two foreigners and see if he can get a bit of chocolate. He’s a hero today. When we find a checkpoint, you’ll know. Trust me.”

They had come to the far end of the Conde del Asalto, a narrow strip of road identical to the rest except it marked the edge of Poble Sec, a workers’ district. The Paralelo-a wide avenue that had seen its fair share of the fighting-was a stone’s throw away, and Mueller found a nice big tree to rest the bicycles against.

“You thirsty, Nikolai?” he said, as he pulled the valise out of the rack.

Hoffner leaned his bicycle up as well. “You won’t get the chain around this, you know.”

“I wasn’t pla

“So the painted letters manage it again?”

Mueller handed the valise to Hoffner. “No one takes a bicycle, Nikolai. It’s not the way they do things here.”

“But a fifteen-year-old car-”

“A banker or a judge or some old marques used to drive one of those. Have you ever seen a banker on a bicycle? The letters, they’re just-” Mueller smiled and shrugged.

“They make sure the girls know who you’re fighting for?”

Mueller kept his smile as he led them across the street. “You’ll like this place. Quiet, serene. Tranquilidad.”

On the far corner was a cafe, tables outside, with just enough tree cover to make sitting out worth the heat. A few were occupied, though it was too early for food. Glasses and bottles with something a deep yellow stood on most of them. Two men-one with a nice full mustache, the other trying desperately to grow one-were at one of the back tables, and Mueller headed toward them.

Hoffner said under his breath, “You know them?”

“Everyone knows everyone in Barcelona these days.” Mueller raised a hand and said, “Gabriel,” loudly enough to draw the mustached man’s attention. The man smiled at once and raised his hand as he stood.

“Toby!” he said, as he stepped around the table toward Mueller.

Gabriel was barrel-chested, though not tall, with the thick arms of a man who had spent his life doing someone else’s heavy work. The cheeks were round, the nose pug, and the thick, thick mustache-on closer inspection-had a ruff of tobacco-dyed hair at its center. His lips curled around a cigarette even as he spoke.

“Finally some German reinforcements. You’ve brought-what? — thirty planes, twenty tanks, ten thousand rifles?” He didn’t wait for Mueller to answer before pulling him in for a full embrace. “You smell of sweat and beets.” Gabriel let go. Somehow the cigarette remained fixed on his lip. “You came down from Montjuic, didn’t you? Idiot.” Before Mueller could answer, Gabriel turned back to the table. He motioned for the younger man to come over. “You know him, I’m sure,” he said under his breath. “The mustache is a mistake, but you can’t say anything.”

The younger man was strangely small and with unusually pale features for a Spaniard-light eyes, ginger hair. The hands were also soft and slender. If not for the long narrow nose it would have been hard to place him in this part of the world. There was age in the face that made the patchy stubble above the lip even more of a curiosity. He was called Aurelio, and he shook hands with the kind of firmness of a man one was meant to trust.

“They came down Montjuic,” Gabriel said to him. “On bicycles. In this heat.”

“Good tough Germans,” said the little man, “but not terribly bright.” He smiled and led them back to the table. “We’ll need a drink.”

Hoffner had tried Coca-Cola-once. It had been enough. Gabriel drank nothing else. Cafe Tranquilidad had somehow kept a healthy stash of it. Anarchists, it turned out, liked their American fizzy drinks. Luckily, Aurelio preferred wine.

The little man refilled the empties and set the wine bottle back on the table. “You don’t sound like a socialist, Nikolai, let alone an anarchist.”

They had been through the antifascist arguments-intricate explanations of the cause and its meaning and its essentialness-an animated tour de force that had brought Gabriel’s cigarette out of his mouth for a single moment as he had stabbed at the air with it. Queipo de Llano. Son of a bitch.

Hoffner said, “It’s hard not to be one these days, isn’t it?”

Aurelio’s smile became a quiet laugh, and he brought his glass to his mouth. “Sitting with two anarchists in the middle of Barcelona,” he said. “Each with a pistol on his belt. Yes, I’d say you’re right.” He took a sip. “Did he tell you it was Jew Mountain?”

Hoffner was holding his glass on the table, staring at it. It took him a moment to answer. “Pardon?”

“Montjuic,” said Aurelio. “Did Toby tell you it was called Jew Mountain?” Hoffner had no reason not to nod, and Aurelio said, “Are you a Jew?”

The question caught Hoffner off guard. He waited, then picked up his glass. “Odd question from a godless Spaniard. Or are you trying to make me feel more at home?” He took a drink.

“Don’t worry. It’s not Berlin. No, I was just wondering if he told you because he thought it would make you feel more-I don’t know-co

Mueller was finishing off his second glass of wine. He shook his head and swallowed. “The Spaniard accusing the German of sentimentality. That’s rich.”

Hoffner said, “Half-Jew-my mother-so, yes-in Berlin. I didn’t think it mattered here.”

“It doesn’t,” Aurelio said. “But if it did-matter to you, that is-I’d hate to be the one to disappoint. It’s Jupiter Mountain, not Jew. Common mistake. Toby knows it, I think.”

Hoffner looked across at Mueller, who shrugged, and Hoffner said, “Then he’d know it wouldn’t make any difference to me, one way or the other.”

Aurelio glanced at Gabriel and tossed back the rest of his drink. He stared into the empty and said, “Then why are you here?” It was another few moments before he looked directly at Hoffner. The gaze was hard, and Hoffner suddenly felt very much aware of the pistol that was hanging somewhere off the little man’s belt.

Hoffner finished his drink. He placed the glass by the bottle and nodded as if in agreement. “I see. No anarchist, no socialist, no angry Jew. So what am I doing in Barcelona?”

Gabriel said, “It’s a curious place to be these days otherwise.” He looked over at Mueller. “Not that we don’t trust you, Toby, but-” The Spanish shrug had so much more to do with the chin and the tilt of the head than the German.

There was a heaviness in the silence that followed. It lent a truth to what Hoffner said. “I’m looking for someone.”