The Second Son

Hoffner said nothing.

“We have orders not to touch you. We have your woman.”

Hoffner handed the reins to the first man. “Leave the body as it is,” he said. “He’s not to be moved.” Hoffner looked at the other. “Take me to the woman.”

The man led him across the plaza to a building where the doors had been blown off. The front wall was pockmarked from machine-gun fire, the windows above all but gone.

The man took him inside. “You wish to meet General Yague?”

Hoffner felt the darkness of the place; he smelled the stench of cigars. “No,” he said. “I don’t wish to meet him.”

The man looked momentarily confused and led Hoffner down the hall.

Mila was sitting on a stool in a small room lit by a lamp. There was an alleyway through the window. She was leaning against the wall, staring out, her hands limp in her lap.

The soldier left them, and Hoffner heard heavy footsteps on the floor above, the sound of men’s voices. Mila continued to stare out.

She said, “They had use for a doctor.” It was a false strength that masked her pain. “They had use, until the wall fell.”

Hoffner watched as she stared out. She began to rub her thumb across her open palm.

She said, “They knew who I was. They shot the rest.” He saw her thumb dig deeper in. “Did you find him?”

It took Hoffner a moment to answer. “Yes.”

“Is he dead?”

Again Hoffner waited. “Yes.”

She nodded quietly. She released her hand and turned her head to him. There were black streaks of gunpowder residue across her cheeks and neck, and her eyes were red from the crying. She showed no feeling behind them.

Whatever comfort they had hoped to find in each other was no longer possible here. Hoffner waited and stepped over. She seemed incapable of helping herself, and he cupped his hand under her elbow. He brought her up. He started to move them to the door and she stopped.

“I don’t want to see any of them,” she said. “I don’t want to see their uniforms, their faces.”

Hoffner looked into her eyes. He thought he saw the unimaginable.

“No,” she said. “It wasn’t me they touched.” There was no relief even in that.

He brought his arm around her. She laid her cheek against his chest and closed her eyes, and he took her out into the square.

The sound of gunfire echoed from somewhere up on a hill, and Hoffner moved them across to the men. Sascha was still on the horse. A small car was waiting with them.

One of the men said, “The road to Coria is secure. The guard posts have been informed.”

The man nodded to two of the others, and they stepped over to Sascha.

“Don’t touch him!” Hoffner shouted.

The men stopped and stared. Hoffner stared back, filled with rage at his own helplessness. His throat was suddenly raw. He moved Mila to the car and placed her inside. He opened the rumble seat and went to Sascha. As he pulled him down and onto his shoulder, he stumbled momentarily. One of the men moved to help him, and again Hoffner shouted, “Don’t you touch him!” The man stepped back, and Hoffner carried Sascha to the car and placed him in the seat.

The man from behind him said, “Follow the truck out.” There was an open-back truck with bodies laid across it. “It goes as far as the river.”

Hoffner nodded without turning. He got in behind the wheel, fixed his eyes on the tires in front of him, and drove.

* * *

Beyond the river the road climbed through scrubland and brush, the sounds of Badajoz faded, and the moon kept itself hidden behind the clouds.

The night’s darkness brought pockets of scampering figures, men and women with frantic stares, darting in front of the headlights and vanishing into the blackness. Trucks appeared from every direction, their lights blinding, with the stench of men still fresh from battle. Echoes of gunfire drew closer, then drifted. Hoffner stopped again and again at makeshift barricades, showed his papers, and drove on.

All the while, Sascha sat perfectly straight in his seat. A guard at one of the posts asked him for a light, then saw he was dead and stepped away.

Mila woke just before daybreak. She said nothing and took Hoffner’s hand. It was resting on the seat, and she laid it on her lap and unwound the gauze that had grown tight around his palm. He felt the air across the wound, as she dabbed at it with his handkerchief. She stared along the lines of the cut. It seemed a very long time before she rewrapped it, set it on the seat, and placed her hand on his.

Hoffner said, “It’s not so far from here.”

She nodded as she stared out.

He said, “It feels better.”

“Good.”

They found the priest in Coria, and a man with a spade. He brought his brother, and they dug a good grave by the side of Georg’s. Hoffner watched as the spades moved through the dirt. He saw the pile rise higher and the men grow wet under the first light of the sun. He let them take Sascha from the car and watched as they lowered him on a white sheet and then pulled the sheet up and rolled it into a ball. The priest read and spoke. It was simple and without time, and when the priest had finished, he walked away, and Hoffner and Mila watched as the men covered Sascha with earth. Hoffner gave them money and they nodded their thanks before moving off.

Hoffner let Mila take his hand. He stared at his sons’ graves.

“I cried for the wrong one,” he said. There was nothing in his voice. “He was so small, so thin. How does a man become like that?”

He felt her draw his hand up. She kissed it. It was strange to feel so much life standing here.

The door to a house at the edge of the field opened, and a woman stepped out. She didn’t notice them. She continued around to the other side and was gone.

Hoffner looked back at the graves. “I brought them to this.” He felt almost nothing, saying it. “I brought my sons to this, and there’s no coming back from it, is there?”

Mila waited. “It depends on what you come back to.” She let go of his hand and started to walk. “You come when you want.” She continued toward the houses.

Hoffner closed his eyes and let the sun settle on his face. He crouched down and placed a hand on the earth. If there were words he was meant to say, he didn’t know them. Instead, he clutched at the earth and felt it squeeze through his fingers. He had no rage, no despair, no need to ask forgiveness. It was an emptiness without end. He turned and saw Mila moving slowly past the houses.

Hoffner opened his hand and let the earth fall away. He then stood and followed behind her.

Vollman had waited. The aeroplane was fitted with enough gasoline to get them to Barcelona. He would refuel, then go on to Berlin.

They slept for the three hours of the flight, and when Vollman brought the plane low they both woke and looked out to see Barcelona as they had left it. The stories of Badajoz had yet to reach this far east; news that the armies of the north and the south had joined hands would wait another few hours. For now, the city stretched out contentedly under the sun.

Mila and Hoffner stood in the short grass of the runway and watched from a distance as Vollman tipped canister after canister of gasoline into the fuel tank. A car would come for her. They had telephoned her father.

“The wife and the little boy,” she said. Her arms were across her chest as she stared out at the plane. “You have to go. To Berlin. You have to tell them, make arrangements. I understand.”

Hoffner nodded. He hadn’t asked her to come. He knew she wouldn’t. Anywhere else, he would have given himself over to this kind of will. He would have acquiesced or backed away or fallen silent in her presence. But that’s not what this was.

“And what is it you understand?” he said, as he turned to her. He forced her to look at him. “You think there’s something for me to find in Berlin? What Berlin? There is no Berlin, at least nothing in it I know. So I go for the wife and the boy. I go to destroy what life they have left. What is there to understand in that?”