The Second Son

Aurelio was still studying him. He slid a glass to the center of the table and watched as Hoffner filled it. “His place,” Aurelio said. “Not what you’d expect. Down by the docks. Too nice for the neighborhood and much too nice for a drug addict.”

“But no Bernhardt.”

“No.” Aurelio took the glass.

“And nothing else?”

Aurelio drank.

Hoffner said, “So now they come looking for you and Gabriel?”

Aurelio finished the glass and held it out for another. Hoffner refilled it.

“They’ve made their point,” Aurelio said, “but who knows? The CNT will take credit. This is what they were going to do anyway. They like statements like this-a man tossed in a car, beaten, a bullet to the neck, no trial, no discussion. It keeps the socialists and Communists thinking we anarchists can be trusted. That we can take care of our own loose ca

Hoffner appreciated how easily Aurelio got to it. He recapped the bottle. “He’s trying to.”

“And your son is helping?”

Hoffner felt Mila’s eyes on him. He ignored them. “No. That’s not why he’s here.”

“A great many people will be coming to Spain for one reason and leaving for another. You know your son that well?”

Hoffner pulled out a cigarette and set the pack on the table. “I need to go south.” He lit up.

“That requires papers.”

“Then it’s lucky I’m sharing a drink with you.”

Aurelio leaned forward, took one of the cigarettes, and waited for a light. He sat back through a stream of smoke. “You know the terrain?”

“No.”

“Then it’s suicide.”

Mila said, “That’s why he’ll be needing two sets of papers.”

The table was suddenly quiet. Even the man with the scar stopped crying. Piera let out an audible breath and Hoffner turned to her. She was staring across at Aurelio.

The little man returned her gaze and then looked at Hoffner. “What is she saying?”

Hoffner was still fixed on her. “I have no idea.”

She turned to Hoffner. “Do you know the terrain?”

There was something so familiar in the gaze. “Stop it,” he said.

“Stop what?”

“This. Whatever you think you’re doing.”

Piera let out another long breath, and Mila turned her head to him. “You knew it would be this the moment he walked in the house,” she said. “The moment you heard him speak.”

Piera was reluctant to answer. “No,” he said. “That’s not true.”

“Then with the boy,” she said. “When I told you about the boy. You knew then.”

Again Piera tried to hold himself. “Yes,” he said at last. “It doesn’t mean a thing. You kill yourself if you do this.”

“I kill myself if I don’t.”

Hoffner was done catching up. He had been there for everything they were talking about, and yet he hadn’t the slightest idea what any of it meant.

“Knew what?” he said. Mila continued to look at her father and Hoffner repeated, “Knew what?”

She turned. The eyes were now completely unknowable.

“You love your son,” she said. “I love my brother. Gardenyes could get you a pass out of Barcelona, and you’d need someone to show you the way. That would get me to Zaragoza.”

Aurelio said, “Zaragoza isn’t the way you get to Teruel.”

“It is now,” she said, as she continued to stare at Hoffner.

He was expecting a look of victory, the conceit a woman holds in reserve for those moments beyond a man’s control, but there was nothing so cu

“Who’s to say I’ll take you?” he said.

“Who’s to say there are any other volunteers?”

Hoffner wanted more-stifled hope, desperation-but she gave him none. He would have given none either, and it was why he said to Aurelio, “You can get us two sets?”

Aurelio was weighing something behind the eyes. “Yes.”

“Two sets to get us through,” Hoffner said, “and another two to square us with the Nationalists. You can do that?”

Aurelio said, “I think you’ll want to avoid the Nationalists.”

“Can you do it?”

Again Aurelio stared at Hoffner. It seemed a very long time before he slowly nodded.

“Good,” said Hoffner. He looked at Mila. “I’m assuming you have a gun.”

The details proved surprisingly simple. It was just a matter of finding space on a truck, stuffing a canvas bag with the necessities-Hoffner’s empty satchel and suitcase remained at Piera’s-and then meeting up with Aurelio.

The choice of meeting spot, however, was another matter. At a little before six, the message came through from one of Gardenyes’s-now Aurelio’s-minions that he wanted them out in the Plaza d’Espana within half an hour. And not just on the plaza. He wanted them at the far side, along the westernmost gate of the Arenas bullring. To Hoffner this seemed slightly bizarre; to Mila it made perfect sense. The man had a car waiting downstairs.

They drove in dead silence, probably a good thing, since Hoffner was forced to keep his palm planted firmly on the ceiling to make sure he remained inside the car: Why speak and tempt even a moment’s break in the man’s concentration? Mila sat between them in the front seat, her shoulders bouncing back and forth, her expression devoid of concern. Evidently this was the way one drove through Barcelona-corners taken to the sound of screeching wheels, pedestrians nimble and happy to skip out of the way no matter how narrow the streets. That the sun was perched on the horizon so as to blind them made the prospect of hitting someone-or being hit-slightly less problematic: there might be a thud or a bump, but at least it would come as a complete surprise.

In the rare moments of manageable speed, Mila tried to point out some of the more interesting spots along the way: a palace with some exotic ironwork that looked like a fat scorpion climbing between the two front archways; a music hall with scars still dug into the stone from a decades-old anarchist bomb; a movie house with a Spanish-print poster for Hop-a-long Cassidy-extended through July 24-although Hoffner was guessing that the “yarn with a kick like a loco steer” might be waiting quite some time for its next showing. After that it was a straight shot up the Paralelo, across the plaza, and over to the arena.

The place had the look of any number of killing pits, two vast coliseum tiers behind countless arches, although these were more Moorish than Roman. The red brick was another distinguishing mark, as was the strange little dome atop the main entrance tower, a red cupola more fitting for a mosque than a bullring. Large posters from the most recent combats were still plastered to the front walls. The most daring was of a torero, Marcial Lalanda, painfully suave and a far cry from the six-shooting Senor Hop-a-long. Lalanda was staring down the back of a bull, his haunches raised high-Lalanda’s, not the bull’s-in a pose of ultimate courage: the motionless pase de la firma. According to the lettering, the fight had been to benefit the city’s newspapers in a “sumptuous manifestation of artistry.” If Lalanda’s hindquarters were any indication, the crowd had not gone home disappointed.

Hoffner slammed the car door shut, and the man sped off in a grinding of tires on gravel. Mila was already heading across to the entrance gate, where a long tu

“Did you sleep?” he said.

“No,” said Hoffner, as he drew up.

“That was stupid.”

Aurelio led them down the tu