The Second Son

He felt Mila’s arms on him, her head against his chest, but there was no weight to her.

Wilson finally met Hoffner’s gaze. “Yes.”

Hoffner felt the blood drain from him. “You have the body?”

“Yes.”

“I need to see him.”

It was a room filled with ice, boarded-up windows, boxes and shelves. Wilson had said something about a church, the smell, this the only place to keep him. Hoffner had listened and walked and heard nothing. It was a room with breath in the air, and a boy laid out on a bier of planks and crates.

Hoffner stood over his son and looked at the chalk-white face. He placed a hand on Georg’s shirt and felt the scrape of frozen cloth, rigid and sharp. There was a single deep hole at the temple, the knuckles ripped and raw, the neck swollen and red. The blood on the face and shirt had gone black, with little ridges and mounds where it had caked from the freezing.

Hoffner leaned closer in, let his hand glide across the cheek-the skin was so cold and soft-and stared at the untouched face. Hoffner tried to hear words, recall the sound of his son’s voice, but it was already gone. How cruel, he thought. How cruel to stand so perfectly alone without even the comfort of memory. He imagined this was God’s great purpose, to hold off the solitude at moments like these. Perhaps Georg had died with that? Hoffner heard nothing.

His legs tightened, and his knees ached from the pain, but still he stared and knew there would never be anything beyond this room.

He saw a piece of grit at Georg’s ear and gently swept it away. He pressed his hand to the cheek again, held it, and then brought the cloth up and covered him.

Upstairs, Wilson and Vollman were standing and smoking in what passed for a kitchen. Mila sat at the table and drank from a chipped cup. It was coffee, and the sun was just coming up.

Hoffner took the last of the steps and moved through the doorway. All three looked over.

He pulled back a chair from the table and sat.

“I’ll take a cigarette,” he said.

Mila held his hand, and Vollman shook one from the pack. Hoffner reached for it and waited for a light. He barely tasted the smoke in his throat.

“When?” he said.

Wilson was leaning against a wooden counter. He finished his cigarette and dropped it to the floor. “Two days ago,” he said, crushing it under his boot. “He was left on the church steps.”

Hoffner stared.

Two days, he thought. Georg had been alive two days ago. The idea of it-sitting in his cell, the stupidity of having let himself get tossed away while the boy had been here-Hoffner had to push that torture from his mind. It was another few moments before he realized the strangeness of what Wilson had said.

“The church steps?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Why what?” said Wilson.

“Why would the Spaniards have put him there?”

Vollman said, “It wasn’t the fascists.” He took a pull.

Hoffner turned to him. “What do you mean, it wasn’t the fascists?”

“He means,” said Wilson, “they would have told us.”

Hoffner hadn’t the strength for this. “And you would have believed them?”

“Yes,” said Wilson, “I would.” He was trying his best at compassion. “They knew we were pulling him out. They knew we were playing along. What could they possibly have to gain by lying to us? We had more reason to kill him than they did.”

The carelessness of Wilson’s cruelty might have been impressive if not for the short pants and the knees. Hoffner tried to keep his focus. “And did you?” he said.

Wilson’s tone was cold when he spoke. “No. We’re the ones trying to preserve the body so you can bury him.” Wilson pushed himself up and began to open cabinets, peer inside, close them. It was restlessness, nothing more. “We thought at first it might have been someone from the fire in Tarancon, someone who had followed him, but Georg wasn’t the one who set it, so that didn’t make much sense.” He moved to the drawers, and his frustration spilled out. “We have absolutely no idea why Georg has a bullet in his skull.”

“Not that the bullet killed him,” Vollman said. He was dropping a cigarette to the ground. He crushed it out under his foot. “He was strangled,” he added, no less casually. “Then shot. That’s not the way the SS does it.”

Hoffner sat one floor above his dead son and knew there had never been any hope of saving him. That was agony itself, but to hear he would never know why the boy had died-that was even more unbearable.

Wilson tried sympathy. “I can’t imagine how this must be for you, but you have to understand it’s no less maddening for us.”

Hoffner stared at the table. He tried to find his voice. “So you have nothing.”

“We have the camera,” Wilson said, “and we have the film. There’s nothing in either of them.”

Hoffner continued to stare. The table was chipped wood, and there were burn marks across it. He set his thumb on one. It was strangely smooth.

“You’re sure of that?” he said.

Wilson watched as Hoffner rubbed deep into the wood. “I am,” he said. “But you’re welcome to take a look.”

* * *

Ten minutes later Hoffner sat with three film canisters in front of him. Wilson had set the first of the reels on a device with a crank that ran the film past a lens and a light. It was crude but effective.

“This is the only one with anything on it,” Wilson said, as he stepped back.

Hoffner had watched aimlessly-the wires for the battery, the threading of the film, anything to keep his mind distracted.

The first sequences came quickly, images of Barcelona, the games, the little street where Han Shen stood. There were workers with guns down by the docks, militiamen in marching lines of disarray, trucks filled with anarchists shouting their way out of the city. Hoffner saw fields, a single aeroplane along the horizon, and the long drive up into the hills of Teruel-the same priest, the same glasses, the same fountain.

There were other towns, other priests, and in Toledo Hoffner recognized the soldier who had stood sentry at the gate. The man marched with great seriousness, back and forth, back and forth, before he broke into sudden laughter and aimed his rifle up into the trees. He did a strange, wild dance, laughed again, and then walked quickly to the camera and disappeared.

The next pictures were from a different hand, and Hoffner slowed the reel. The motion of the film jerked, and Hoffner then saw Georg standing at the gate. The boy was wearing the soldier’s hat. He held the rifle on his shoulder. He marched and turned, marched and turned, before glancing over and smiling for the camera.

Hoffner stopped. He stared at the ragged clothes, the misheld rifle, and the quiet smile of a boy he would never know again. The picture began to lose focus, and Hoffner rubbed his eyes. His hand was wet when he took hold of the crank.

More trucks passed, more soldiers, until Hoffner recognized the town of Coria. This time it was the church, the shops, a few houses, and finally the prison fortress. The camera continued to pan across the square until it came to a sudden stop on an image. Hoffner’s hand tightened on the crank. It was by the well. Hoffner couldn’t be sure he had seen it correctly, and he began to move the crank slowly as the camera drew closer. He was almost to it when the film went black. Hoffner reversed and saw the image again.

Standing by the well and staring at the camera was Sascha.

His son. Sascha.

Nine years since Hoffner had seen him, yet he couldn’t deny it. The hair was all but gone, and the body too thin, but it was the same face, the same look of empty defiance. Sascha gave an awkward wave and the film cut out.

Hoffner closed his eyes, even as the boy remained in front of him.

My God, he thought. The two of them together.

The throbbing returned to his head, and Hoffner felt his head lighten and his body go limp.