The Second Son

She steadied herself against a wall, brought her foot up to adjust the strap of her shoe, and broadened her smile for Piera. The little man offered a surprisingly robust nod that seemed to catch even the woman off guard. Piera continued to walk.

“That’s why the anarchists are idiots,” he said. “You think they’ll get a girl like that off the streets?”

Hoffner looked back as they walked. The woman was still watching them, a handkerchief dabbing at the moist folds of skin on her neck. She seemed so much more impressive than a German whore, as if she had expectations of her own: not enough just to hand her the money; there had to be something in it worth her time.

Piera said, “You see.”

He was pointing his stick at a poster plastered across one of the storefront gates. It showed an intoxicated woman in a classic red dress drawn in hard angles, a cigarette dripping from her fat gray lips, her hand roaming into the jacket pocket of some faceless man. Across her chest was written the warning, THE WHORE IS A PARASITE! A THIEF! LET’S GET RID OF HER!

Someone less troubled by the apparent threat had more recently drawn her other hand: it was reaching a bit lower down on the man’s leg, with the words PLEASE! ROB ME! ROB ME! ROB ME! scrawled across the logo for the CNT.

Piera said, “The anarchists promised to close down the brothels.”

“That’s a sad sort of promise.”

“Not to worry. It’s their boys who fill the places every night.”

Hoffner followed him down a few steps and into an open courtyard. Two young boys and a man were kicking around what passed for a ball. The man had set his rifle against a wall.

Piera said, “It’s not so much that they’re hypocrites.” The smell of the garlic had soured. “They are, but that just makes them anarchists. The question is, Why bother with morality at all? She harms no one-”

“Except perhaps herself.”

Piera dismissed the idea. “A man in a coal mine harms himself. A man who breathes fumes in some factory all day long harms himself. Work is harmful. What shattering news. It’s still necessary. As is what she does.”

“From each according to her ability-”

“Laugh all you want, but if you need a morality beyond that, find a priest. To go looking for it with an anarchist”-Piera shook his head-“that makes you a fool.”

It was heartening to hear this kind of mutual support among the newly victorious.

They moved through to another narrow street and Piera raised his cane and pointed to an archway. Chinese symbols were printed in thick black ink above the door, along with a more Spanish rendering of the name: HAN SHEN. Below it the cobblestones ran with the remains of some recent spillage; tiny yellow bubbles clung to the stone and gave off the distinct smell of onions and chicken fat. Hoffner was careful to step around them.

Inside, two old Chinese sat silently at one of four tables in the dim light, peeling little stalks of something and tossing the beans into a barrel on the floor. The air was damp, cooler than on the street, and smelled of day-old flowers.

A woman was standing in a long black smock by the stairs that led up to the back room. She had what Hoffner imagined to be the widest face he had ever seen. It was as if someone had taken the skin and bones and hammered them flat until the nose had all but disappeared; likewise the eyes and mouth seemed to crease to the very edges of the flesh. To make matters worse, her skin was a kind of mottled gray, and her hair looked as if it had been planted on the scalp in tiny clumps of baled black hay. Hoffner might have taken her for one of those sideshow curiosities one sees for a few coins at a country tent, but there was too much of the familiar in the way she stared across at them to make that mistake.

He said to Piera, “Cafe’s a kind way of putting it, isn’t it?”

Hoffner had seen enough of these faces back in Prenzlauer Berg not to appreciate the stamp of opium. On a German complexion, the needles and pipe left a kind of sticky residue; yellow and smooth, it sank the cheeks and narrowed the pupils to blackened pinpoints. With a Chinese, the face flattened and grew pale. It might have been bloating or bone disintegration, but whatever the reason, the addict was no less recognizable. This, however, was the most pronounced case Hoffner had ever seen.

He said, “You’re sure it’s only chess they play here?”

“The chess is upstairs,” said Piera. “What they do in the basement is someone else’s business.”

The woman was now walking toward them. Her head teetered from side to side but thus far remained planted on her neck. Piera reached into his pocket and pulled out a coin. He placed it in her hand, and they stepped past her to the stairs.

It was a long narrow room above, bare wooden floors and the kind of stone walls that seemed to undulate from too many coats of white paint. A row of small windows were open at the topmost edge of the far wall; they made the air breathable. Fifteen or so tables filled the space, each with a hanging bulb above, along with a small colored shade in deep reds and oranges. There was probably something Chinese to the design, but Hoffner didn’t recognize it. Much to his relief, the place smelled of tobacco and sweat.

Only four of the tables were occupied, a pair of men at each, except for the nearest, where a young man sat by himself, staring at his board. Every few seconds he glanced up at the chair across from him with a look of mild confusion; he seemed genuinely surprised to find it empty.

Piera said, “They used to bring the addicts up here when the asaltos came to arrest them. Those long coats and perfect buttons, with their little truncheons in their hands-and staring in here with no idea who was on the drugs and who was simply crazy.”

“Until someone vomited or passed out,” said Hoffner.

“You’ve never played tournament chess, have you?”

The young man stood and moved over to the empty chair. He looked at it for several seconds before muttering something to himself and sitting. Again he began to examine the board.

“Does he ever win?” Hoffner said.

“Every time, I imagine.”

One of the men a few tables down looked up, not quite so young, rail thin, but with dark slicked-back hair. There were bruises on his face, along with some scabbing on the forehead. Evidently not everyone in the streets had fought with bayonets and guns. The man recognized Piera. He nodded and went back to his game.

Piera said, “He once drew three games with Capablanca. Rome, 1921. Remarkable player.”

Hoffner had given up following chess a long time ago, but even he recalled the great Cuban player.

Piera said, “He can tell you every move of every game, show you how Capablanca held the pieces before he moved them-forefinger and thumb, middle finger and thumb, entire palm-and how much time he took with each piece in the air. It’s like watching a film.”

“And he’s one of the sane ones?”

“He runs the place.”

The other two tables were deep into games. Hoffner said, “Do you recognize everyone in here?”

“No.”

“Good. Stay here.”

Hoffner made his way over to Piera’s friend and stood hovering above the table. Neither of the men playing bothered to acknowledge him. Finally Hoffner cleared his throat.

Piera’s friend reached for one of his rooks-there was more bruising on the knuckles-and said, “Yes, we know you’re there.” It was Spanish, but the accent was from elsewhere. “The idea was we didn’t care.” He placed the rook along the last rank and went back to studying the board.

Hoffner said, “You run this place, a room over an opium den?”

The man showed no reaction as he continued to scan the pieces. “You’re not Spanish, so I’m thinking I don’t have to care what concerns you.”

Apparently even the chess club boys were getting to play it tough these days, although there was something too comfortable in the way this one doled out his aggression. Hoffner wondered how much time the man was splitting between his upstairs clientele and those in the basement.