The Second Son

Hoffner had found a little alcove behind one of the beams. Mercifully it was out of the sunlight. He sat in a chair with a glass of water-two or three days old-but the heat was too intense not to drink. There was no door, just the stairs, climbing up through a breach in the floorboards. Two pictures hung in simple frames behind the bed, the Mado

Hoffner listened from his perch. The sound of gunfire crackled like oil in a hot pan. Had he been able to block out the screams and the shouts, he might have imagined himself on a summer night in Wa

He heard him first on the floor below, then on the stairs. Hoffner sat very still and turned his head. He remained obscured behind the beam as he stared across the room.

Sascha emerged through the opening. He had shaved, and what hair there was lay slick across his scalp in stray lines of black and gray. He was bone thin in a peasant shirt and pants, and his face was red with blotches from the heat. He carried a bag. He set it down before walking toward the window. He leaned out and peered across the city.

Hoffner found it oddly peaceful watching his son. He tried to see something he knew of the boy, in the posture or the gaze, but there was nothing. Hoffner set down his glass and said, “Hello, Sascha.”

Sascha turned, a quick movement though not sharp, and his eyes settled on his father. Whatever surprise he felt he kept to himself. He continued to stare.

Hoffner said, “You look well.”

Sascha said nothing.

“Did you kill him?”

Sascha’s eyes narrowed. It was the only hint of recognition. He saw the pistol on his father’s lap. “Are you intending to use that?”

Hoffner waited. He shook his head.

“I didn’t kill him.”

“You’re lying.”

There was something so broken-down in the way Sascha stared. It was as if all his strength lived in the tightness of his jaw, his narrow shoulders taut and high against the neck. Were he to release, he might have collapsed or wept, although Hoffner couldn’t recall even a moment’s tears from the boy.

Hoffner said, “You left the film. In Coria.”

“Yes.”

“So I would see it.”

“When it went back to Berlin. Not here.”

“What a stu

“And yet you’re here.”

Hoffner tried not to see the hatred in the eyes. “Do you ever ask yourself what you’ve become, Sascha?”

Hoffner expected anger or accusation, but Sascha showed neither. Instead, he turned slowly to the window and stared out.

Sascha said easily, “They’ll be breaching the wall soon. You can hear the grenades. They’re actually close enough to be throwing grenades. They’ll have to climb over their own dead to get to it, but they’ll take the wall.” He stared and listened and said, “You think I killed my brother.”

“I know you did.”

Sascha breathed out as he stared. He shook his head. “How could I kill him when he’d already killed me?” He continued to gaze out. “You still think you won’t be using that pistol?”

Hoffner felt suddenly rooted to his chair. It was all he could do to say, “Killed you?”

“This”-Sascha turned and glanced around the attic-“this is what I’m forced to be because of Georg. He took my life. I took his.”

Hoffner heard the words but refused to admit what they meant. His head began to compress.

“How?” he said.

“ ‘How?’ ” Sascha repeated lazily. “And that makes a difference to you?”

“Yes.”

“With my hands around his throat, and his around mine.” The voice conveyed nothing.

Hoffner heard himself say, “And the bullet?”

Sascha’s stare was equally empty. Something registered for a moment and then was gone. “I don’t know why that. Maybe it just seemed right.” He turned back to the window.

There was a long silence, and Sascha said, “Not enough for him to be the Jew. Not enough for me to tell him it was a mistake, too dangerous.”

Hoffner hadn’t been listening. “You killed him-”

“Because he was a Jew?” The bitterness poured out. “Don’t be so stupid. You think that meant anything to me? You think that could mean anything to me? He made his choice. It was his to live with. He knew it had nothing to do with me.”

Hoffner heard the unintended anguish in Sascha’s voice, the eyes searching through the memories. It was a mind now tearing itself apart. Hoffner felt no less undone. “And for that he’s dead?”

Sascha regained his focus. He looked again at Hoffner, the loathing directed at both himself and his father.

“No,” he said. “Not for that.”

Sascha reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. It looked as if it had been balled up, then flattened and folded into a neat square. The wrinkles across the front showed dirt and fingerprints. Hoffner stared at it and felt the blood drain from his face.

“This is what he did,” Sascha said. He held the paper out to his father. Somehow Hoffner found the paper in his hand. “This is what he was too much of a coward to admit.”

Hoffner felt the creases on his fingers, the moistness of the paper. He forced himself to open it and, in an instant more unbearable than any he had ever known, Hoffner saw the words he knew would be there:

To the Ministry Secretary in the Matter of Alexander Kurtzman:

Hoffner closed his eyes, and the air drew out of him. There was no reason to read any further. No reason when he knew the letter by heart.

“At least he led me to the guns,” Sascha said, now staring out. “At least here they’ll show me some respect.”

Hoffner heard the desperate certainty in the boy’s voice, the invented logic of a mind no longer in control. Sascha had convinced himself the Spaniards would take him for a Hisma envoy, a man sent from Berlin. He had convinced himself he could be Alexander Kurtzman again.

Sascha said, “They’ll probably have to be taught how to use them. Still-”

Hoffner felt his hand begin to shake, his throat tighten. It was barely a whisper when he spoke.

“Georg didn’t write this.”

Hoffner saw the paper scrolling through the typewriter, the keys planting themselves on each line, and the words:

Alexander Kurtzman, born Alexander Hoffner, is the son of Nikolai Hoffner, the son of Rokel Hoffner, a Jew. By the Nuremberg Statutes of 1935, Kurtzman is a Jew. He must be expelled from the party.

Hoffner had left his signature off the page when he had sent it-a month ago, maybe more-and here it was in his hands again. Such letters always came with anonymity. It gave them substance. Even the fool at the Ministry-Steiner or Stiegman or Steckler-had said it.

Hoffner opened his eyes and saw Sascha staring at him.

Hoffner said, “I was the one to tell them you’re a Jew.”

Sascha’s stare became almost hypnotic.

Hoffner continued. “It didn’t matter what happened to me. But you-you had to be given a way out.”

Sascha’s brow lowered and his face began to contort. “A way out?”

“I wrote it to save you, Sascha. To get you away from these people, once and for all.” Hoffner struggled to find the words. “I did it to save you, and you killed him.”

Sascha began to shake his head, slowly at first, then more forcefully. He turned to the window and tried to stifle his breath, but each came with greater force.

“You’re lying,” he said. It was as if he were pleading with himself. “You were in the letter. You were mentioned in the letter. He wanted to destroy us both. Don’t you see that?”

Hoffner felt the weight of Georg’s death like a vise pressing down on his head. There was no escaping it now. He had killed his son, just as if he had wrapped his fingers around the boy’s throat himself.