The Second Son

Somehow, staring out, Hoffner felt a sudden rush of calm. It might have been the air of a Mediterranean night or the silence all around him. Or maybe it was just the genius of Gaudi. Whatever it was, Hoffner let himself take it in.

A couple stopped next to him. They stared out for a few moments and then moved on. Somewhere, a lute began to play.

The sun spread across the few clouds, and Hoffner bent over and began to film. It would make a nice opening shot, Montjuic in the distance, the sky the rust of early sunset, and the first lights begi

“Hello, Georg.”

Hoffner stopped the crank and slowly stood upright. He turned.

A tall man with a shock of white hair stood staring at him. The man let out a long spear of smoke and offered Hoffner a cigarette.

“Thanks, no,” said Hoffner.

The man nodded once. The hair might have been white, but he was no more than fifty, and his arms in shirtsleeves showed lithe, taut muscle.

His name was Karl Vollman, and he was an Olympic chess player. A German. The two had shared a bottle of whiskey a few nights back. Vollman slid the pack into his shirt pocket and took another long pull.

“It’s a beautiful view,” Vollman said.

“Yes.”

“Just right for your sort of thing.” Vollman deepened his voice. “City of lights, city of dreams-Olimpiada Popular, and Pathe Gazette is there.” He smiled to himself and took another pull.

“No chess tonight?”

“There’s chess every night. Later. Down in the Raval. Seedy and smoky. Just right.”

“I met a Bulgarian who finds it rather silly-chess as sport.”

“I find Bulgarians rather silly, so I suspect we’re even.”

Vollman had spent the better part of the past ten years in Moscow, teaching something, playing chess. He said he liked the cold.

“You just happened to find yourself in Park Guell tonight?” Hoffner said.

“They say you can’t leave the city without seeing it. Here I am. Seeing it.” Vollman looked past Hoffner to Barcelona. “Peaceful, isn’t it? Sad how we both know it won’t be that way much longer.”

Hoffner measured the stare. Whatever else Vollman had been doing in Moscow, he had learned to show nothing in his face.

Hoffner said, “I’m sure they’ll have a wild time of it when the Olimpiada starts up.”

Vollman’s stare gave way to a half smile. “Oh, is that what I was talking about? The Olimpiada.” He finished his cigarette, dropped it to the ground, and watched his foot crush it out. Thinking out loud, he said, “I suppose it’s what you’re here to film, what I’m here to do. Much simpler seeing it that way.”

Hoffner had felt a mild unease with Vollman the other night. This was something more.

Vollman said, “I don’t imagine either of us will be in Barcelona much longer, do you?” He looked directly at Hoffner. “All those fascist rumblings in the south-Seville, Morocco. Only a matter of time.”

Again, Hoffner said nothing.

Vollman pulled out the pack and tapped out a second cigarette. He lit it and spat a piece of tobacco to the ground.

“Fascist rumblings?” Hoffner said blandly. “I hadn’t heard.”

Vollman’s smile returned. “Really? A German, working for the English, in socialist Spain just at the moment the fascists are thinking of turning the world on its head, and he hasn’t heard. How remarkable.” He gave Hoffner no time to answer. “What are you, Georg, twenty-nine, thirty?”

Hoffner was twenty-five, but why give Vollman more ammunition?

“Something like that,” Hoffner said.

“Then you’re still young enough to take some advice.” Vollman spat again. “We both know why you’re in Barcelona. Which means the Spanish know why you’re here. And if the Spanish know-well, wouldn’t you think the Nazis would know as well?”

Hoffner didn’t like the shift in tone. “And do the Nazis know why you’re here?”

Despite himself, Vollman liked the answer. Again he smiled.

“English, Russians,” he said, “Italians, Germans. Aren’t we all just waiting for the Spaniards to figure it out for themselves? And when they do”-Vollman shook his head with as much pathos as a man like him could muster-“that’s when we take sides. And that’s when the real games begin.” He took a last pull. He was oddly quick with a cigarette.

Hoffner said, “You mean when they start killing each other.”

Vollman hesitated even as he showed nothing. He tossed his cigarette to the ground and then bobbed a nod out at the city. “You keep on getting whatever it was you were getting. When you need more, you know where to find me.”

Vollman started off.

“It’s Paris,” Hoffner said.

Vollman stopped. He turned.

“The city of lights,” Hoffner said. “Not good to be confusing Paris and Barcelona these days.”

Vollman waited. There was no telling what he was thinking. He said nothing and moved off. Hoffner watched as Vollman stopped for a few moments by the lute player, dropped a coin in the man’s hat, and headed for the stairs.

Back at his room, Hoffner was finishing his third glass of whiskey when he placed an empty sheet of paper on the desk. His head was spi

He began to write.

A ladder?

Brilliant, Papi. Make sure the gardener doesn’t take a shovel to your head the next time.

It’s past eleven. They’re all heading off for di

I can’t promise coherence. Then again, there isn’t a lot about Spain these days that inspires it, so I think I won’t worry. Oh, and there’s nothing else to tell about the police, except that their hats are ludicrous. I’d try to draw you one, but it would come off looking like a dying bat or a headless peacock. Wonderfully appropriate but not terribly accurate.

So that leaves the politics. Yes, the politics. At last. Just for you. I can hear you laughing. I had a strangely u

You’d feel right at home. It’s like Berlin after the Kaiser, except here the Lefties manage it without a di

I’ve met anarchists and socialists. I’ve eaten with Communists and anarcho-syndicalists and Marxist-nihilists, and something simply referred to as a non-Stalinist Soviet. I thought the person introducing me was talking about a kind of napkin until a very earnest young woman began to spew in a much-too-quick Spanish for me to follow. Best recourse is just to nod.

The bizarre thing is that they all seem to think they’re the ones ru