The Second Son

He said, “Next go-round you’ll drink again.”

“Yes,” said Mila.

The one who stirred talked and talked-about the age of his mules, the men in Jabaga who had refused to let him enter the town-“But you know me…” “We know no one”-and the rifles he had seen stacked along the walls and ready to be fired, if only they could find a way to scrub thirty years of rust from a barrel. The other chewed and swallowed, swallowed and chewed, and glanced at Mila each time his friend mentioned guns or dying. They had seen their share of it, men left for dead in cars, propped up behind a wheel at the side of the road and still gasping for breath. Rich men, with wide neckties and fat cheeks and mouths dried with blood where the butt of a rifle had taken out the teeth. And when Mila finally shivered from the cold, he stopped and told her to drink and sent his friend to the cart for a wrap to sleep in.

“Franco is dead,” the man said again. A car passed in the distance. “That’s what I tell them. It makes the men think twice about what they do.”

The wrap folded over on itself and had a zip fastener. Inside was fla

“We have only one,” the one who stirred said. “It can fit two.” His friend was already by the carts. They had slung hammocks between the wheels, and the other now dropped himself into one.

The stirrer built the rocks higher around the flame and then, in a way Hoffner had never seen, brought the flame low, though not completely out. It was suddenly much darker, but he could still feel the heat. The man stood and weaved his way to his hammock. Hoffner thought, All men should speak so well this drunk.

Hoffner pulled off his boots and slid in next to Mila. He reached down and pulled the fastener up and felt her body press close against his. He lay back, and they stared up at a sky infinite with night.

She said, “If the sun comes again, you’ll forget it can look like this. The ground will forget as well.”

“The sun will come.”

“It seems a shame, though, doesn’t it?”

Maybe it was the wine, but the stars momentarily shuddered, and Mila turned on her side to him and pressed her lips to his cheek. Her hand moved across his chest, then her arm, her torso until she was slowly above him.

She saw it in his eyes and said, “They’re already sleeping.”

Her lips found his again, the warmth of them and the coolness of the air, and beyond a cradling of stars, and Hoffner let his hands glide across the smoothness of her back, her legs, the clothes unloosed and his own body freed, and he felt her chilled skin across his own like the pale breath of absolute need.

He would love her. He knew this. He would find this life and he would love her.

They arrived in Tarancon by mid-morning. Hoffner learned to play a game with a stick, something with the words dedo and pelota, although even the men and boys who played with him seemed to have any number of opinions as to what it was called. They sweated under the sun in the courtyard of a small clinic-little more than the front room of a house-while a woman and a girl lay dying inside of burns from a house fire. It had been a terrible thing, quick, and nothing to do with the fighting. In fact, Tarancon had seen almost none of the fighting. The Guardia had quickly pledged themselves to the Republic and had even stepped in to make sure the killing was kept to a minimum. Tragedy remained a thing of fires and falling trees and a boy drowned in early spring-as it had been for as long as anyone could remember. It was so much easier to understand than the news of the horrors sprouting up everywhere around them. The two inside were dying. Infection had set in. And the comfort of a woman doctor-so strange and yet perhaps a miracle (although no one would have called it such a thing)-gave them peace as they slipped quietly away through the morphine.

It was hours before Mila emerged from the house, walking with a man a good deal older. He had come the night before from Cuenca. He was a doctor as well, but the woman and the girl had already been fighting the burns for five days-why had it taken so long to send a boy on the two-day ride for him? — and there was nothing he could do. He hadn’t slept and was grateful that Mila had been there to take the two to the end.

Hoffner tossed the ball to one of the boys, then ran his handkerchief over his neck as he walked toward her.

“They’re both gone,” she said.

“I’m sorry,” said Hoffner.

“No, it’s better. It should have happened three days ago.” She introduced the doctor. He said he was tired of watching peasants die this way. He needed to sleep and get back to Cuenca. He left them to each other.

She said. “He was a good doctor, but he would have tried to keep them alive.” They sat on a bench. Hoffner’s hat was lying on it.

He said, “You need to eat something.” She said nothing, and he added, “Some of the men remembered Georg. ‘The man with the camera’ they called him. They said he was here for a few hours. The day before the house burned. They don’t remember anyone else.”

She stared across the courtyard. She nodded distantly.

He said, “I didn’t mention any names.”

Again she nodded. Finally she said, “The name from the contact list, here in Tarancon.” Hoffner had shown her everything from Captain Doval and Major Sanz. She had memorized the names as well. “He was called Gutierrez,” she said. “What was the first name?”

He knew she knew it, but he answered anyway. “Ramon,” said Hoffner. “Why?”

It took her another moment to answer. “Because he was in the room with me the entire time. Because the woman was his wife, and the girl was his daughter.”

Hoffner had trouble looking at the man, not because Gutierrez hadn’t bathed or shaved in five days, or that his face was bloated from the crying, or even that his left arm to the shoulder was an oozing scar of blisters and flaked skin beneath a thin wrapping of gauze. It was because he sat there, unaware that he damned Georg with every breath he took.

Hoffner imagined the crates, the guns, the fire set to destroy them all. Had Georg really been capable of this? Had he been so callous, so cowardly, as to slink off in the night knowing that this was to come? Hoffner wore his son’s shame as if it were his own.

Gutierrez continued to stare across at the sheeted bodies, his good elbow on his knee, his body leaning forward, hand pressed against his brow. Hoffner had no idea if the man was even aware they had stepped inside the room.

Mila knelt down next to Gutierrez. She ran her hand across his back and spoke softly. Slowly, Gutierrez began to nod. He looked at her. His eyes moved to Hoffner, then the sheets. With her hand still on his back, Mila helped him past the curtain and down the hall. She led him to a chair by the door to the courtyard, and Gutierrez said, “I want the air. We’ll go outside.”

“No,” she said. “Outside isn’t good until they dress your burns again. You should sit here.”

Gutierrez seemed aware of his arm only now. He looked at it as if someone had just handed it to him, a thing to be studied: an arm had been burned, flesh, but whose was it and how? Gutierrez sat and asked for water.

There was a table across from him with a pitcher and two glasses. Mila filled one and handed it to him. Gutierrez held it but did not drink.

Hoffner was a few paces down the hall, breathing air heavy with the smell of rotting limes and soap. So this was the scent of burned flesh, he thought. He stepped over and filled the other glass. He drank.

Hoffner said, “You should drink as well.”

Gutierrez’s gaze was fixed on the wall, mindlessly searching for something. “Should I?”

Hoffner was glad to hear the anger. It colored Gutierrez’s despair and gave it purpose. The man would find his way back.