The Second Son

Two of the men kept their rifles raised as the third now walked over. He was wearing the green and tan uniform of a requete, with the dual leather straps that cut across his shoulders and chest. The belt buckle was well polished, although the three leather bags that clung to the belt-ammunition, cigarettes, papers-looked as if they had seen better days. A silver crucifix was pi

There was no mistaking these for soldiers. The one approaching pulled his pistol from its holster and cocked the barrel. He held it at his side.

“Out of the car,” he said, when he had positioned himself just beyond the grille.

Hoffner opened the door slowly, stepped out, and put his hand back for Mila as she slid across. He took her hand. The two stood and waited.

The man said, “This road is closed.”

“I have papers,” Hoffner said calmly. His Spanish was now simple, halting, and with a distinct German accent.

The man stared. “This road is closed.”

“I have papers.”

The man looked at Mila for the first time. Hoffner wanted to turn to her, but he kept his eyes on the man, who looked back and said, “How do you come to be on this road?”

“I am not a Spaniard,” said Hoffner. “I do not know these roads. I have come down from the north. My driving instructions were poor. I am going to Zaragoza.”

The man glanced again at Mila, then at Hoffner. He held out his hand. “Show me these papers.”

Hoffner slowly reached into his jacket pocket. He retrieved them and held them out. The man took them and, with the pistol still in hand, unfolded them. He read.

“Where did you get these papers?” he said.

“Berlin,” said Hoffner.

The man quickly looked up. Despite himself, he showed a moment’s uncertainty. “This is a Safe Conduct.”

“Yes.”

“Signed by Nicholas Franco.”

“Yes,” said Hoffner. “The General’s brother sent it by dispatch eight days ago.”

“To Berlin.”

“Yes.”

The man was finding himself well beyond his capacity, but still he held his ground. Durruti had been wise to be so precise with the story.

“Your passport,” said the man.

Again Hoffner reached into his jacket. He handed the papers to the man and chanced a look at Mila. Her face was moist from the heat, but she stood without the least sign of discomfort. It was a remarkable pose of submissive indifference.

The man looked up from the papers. “And the woman?”

Before Hoffner could answer, Mila said, “My papers are in my purse.” She turned to the car, but the man stepped over and raised his pistol.

“No, Senora,” he said. “Where is the purse?”

Mila looked at the man. Hoffner couldn’t be sure if this was genuine fear in her eyes or not. She said, “I was only trying to get them.”

“Yes, Senora. Where is the purse?”

Mila pointed to the seat and the man called over to one of the others. The second man quickly walked up, leaned his rifle against the car, and reached in through the passenger window for the small purse. He held it up, took his rifle, and brought it around.

The first man opened it. He looked through and brought out a small crucifix on a chain of prayer beads. He looked up at Mila.

“This is yours, Senora?”

She nodded and he held it out to her. She took it and kissed it.

“There are no papers, Senora.”

Mila’s look of panic was only momentary before she quickly turned to Hoffner. “You have them,” she said. “Remember? The man gave them both to you when we left the last post. You put them in the other pocket.”

Durruti had been very specific on this. A woman-a good Catholic woman-in distress was almost irresistible to a soldier of God. And the man able to save her-His obvious emissary.

Hoffner nodded, relieved, as if he had just remembered. He reached into his pocket. “Yes, of course. I’d forgotten. I’m sorry to have caused any trouble.”

He handed the papers to the man, who quickly glanced through them.

“Another Safe Conduct.”

“Yes,” said Hoffner.

The man continued to look through them. “How did you get on this road?”

Hoffner waited for the man to look up. “There was gunfire,” Hoffner said. “I was stopped and told to drive around. The soldier said it would meet up with the first road. He was mistaken.”

The man held the papers out to Hoffner. “And why do you go to Zaragoza?”

Hoffner took them, placed them in his pocket, and said, “That I ca

This, more than anything, seemed to convince the young requete. He said, “We’ll need to check the car.”

Three minutes later, Hoffner drove them past the barricade and into Nationalist Spain.

Augustus Caesar, born Gaius Octavius Thurinus, son of the she-wolf Atia Balba Caesonia, adopted nephew of the tyrant Gaius Julius Caesar, husband of the harridan Livia Drusilla, and first Emperor of Rome, hated Spain. He had fought there against Pompey as a boy, at the side of his uncle, and had developed a “horrible burning” in his meatus urinarius after an evening spent with two young women from the Tarraconensis province. The burning eventually subsided (a doctor familiar with the women suggested a combination of herbs and minerals), but young Octavian never forgot his days of agony in the city of Salduba. In later years he even went so far as to blame his inability to produce an heir on the peoples of Hispania. That Rome would have to suffer through the likes of Tiberius, Caligula, and Nero was hardly the fault of two welcoming young virgins (or so they described themselves), but who was really to say? In an act of contrition, and with the hope that Spain might seem more than a cauldron of filth and whores to the people of Rome, the men of Salduba renamed their city after the young Octavian when he ascended the throne. They called it Caesaraugusta, which, over time-and due to dialect and the influence of the conquering Moors-became Zaragoza. It seemed highly unlikely that now, under the watchful gaze of the requetes, the city might offer a glimpse into that distant past. Then again, Zaragoza was filled with soldiers. Even the holiest of men needed something for which to repent.

Hoffner brought the car to a stop. A barricade stretched along the entrance to an ancient-looking bridge, with the thick brown water of the Ebro swirling below it. Wide enough for perhaps two trucks to pass, the bridge was six stanchions in limestone brick-a pristine nod to Rome in the vaulted archways in between-and looked untouched by the recent fighting. Not that there had been much to speak of. Zaragoza had followed the Seville approach to self-defense: Let the soldiers take what they will and never-never-hand a rifle to a worker. It had saved the city from any real scarring, though not so much the workers. Those who had fought with their shouts of ?Viva la Libertad! had been rounded up, shot, or worse. It was a terrible blow to Zaragoza, as the city had always been known as a hotbed of CNT activities. Passion without guns, though, has a tendency to end badly. It had in Zaragoza, and it was why the Puente de Piedra-after five hundred years surviving Moors and floods and the occasional rumble from the French-stood whole. Perhaps it had been saving itself for this unit of requetes now standing atop it.

Watching them from the car, Hoffner suspected that the young soldiers making their way over were thinking much the same thing.

“Senor,” one of them said. “Papers, please.”

Things were more relaxed here. They were twenty kilometers inside Nationalist territory, with fifteen hundred armed men just the other side of the bridge. A cordial “Senor” was the least one of them could offer.