The Second Son: A Novel

by Jonathan Rabb

  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.

  6

  SASCHA

  In the winter of 1919, at the age of sixteen, Sascha Hoffner took his mother’s maiden name and left Berlin as the newly minted Alexander Kurtzman. It was an act of unrepentant hatred and was meant to make certain that he would never have to see his father again.

  Four years later, Kurtzman beat a man to death.

  The killing was of no real consequence, except to the man himself, who had arrived in Munich the day before from somewhere in the Congo. The man was on his way back to Stockholm, and while he had already been traveling for several weeks, he decided to take a few days to wait for a more direct train heading north. November in Munich had always held a certain charm for him, and the man—a radical, and a great believer in the Congolese and their future—was not averse to conveying his political and social views to anyone willing to listen. Not of Africa himself, he nonetheless claimed to understand the soul of the black man. Sadly, he was not quite so savvy when it came to the men of Munich’s streets and her beer halls. The great putsch erupted on November 8, and the man—like any good radical—found himself incapable of stepping to the side. The man’s words were his weapons and, while the young Kurtzman was by no means an imposing figure, he had been fighting in the streets with the Freikorps for two years and knew well enough how to crack a skull against a brick wall. Hitler ranted from a table, General Ludendorff—war hero, and Hitler’s great supporter—turned a pale green, and Kurtzman took the man into a back alley and finished him. It was Kurtzman’s good fortune to come out relatively unscathed, so much so that he was able to make it back inside by the time Ludendorff stepped up to speak. A day later, Kurtzman watched with unimagined anguish as his heroes were sent off to prison.

  Those were hard days indeed, the party disbanded, the best of them locked away. For a time Kurtzman followed his commander, the elusive and homosexual Ernst Röhm, to Bolivia—a useless place for useless men—but by then such men, such beautiful men, had become a way of life for Kurtzman. Even so, things tended to end badly on that front, and by 1926 he was back in Munich, eager to make up for lost time. He rejoined the party, redoubled his efforts with the Freikorps, and made the lucky acquaintance of a young writer and journalist. When, a few months later, the journalist was asked to take the party’s message to Berlin, Kurtzman found himself invited along as the man’s chief assistant. Overwhelmed and overjoyed, Kurtzman agreed at once and followed his new mentor, Joseph Goebbels, north to the promised land.

  It was a period of unparalleled happiness and, save for one very brief episode in the winter of 1927, Kurtzman learned to love Berlin again. He lived his poverty with pride, and when the tide began to turn, he found himself a girl—on Goebbels’s insistence—and even managed to get her pregnant. He married her first, of course, and while he showed the face of a devastated husband when both she and the baby died during childbirth, Kurtzman knew that Berlin had stepped in to save him. He had accommodated respectability. He was now free.

  Goebbels moved up, and Kurtzman moved with him. When Hitler finally took the chancellorship in 1933, Kurtzman celebrated with the rest, watched the Reichstag burn, and accepted his post at the Ministry with a sense of quiet destiny.

  It was all as it was meant to be, until the day he was told that the whole thing had come crashing down. He was no longer a member of the party. He could never be a member of the party. He was filth: a Jew. A dirty Jew. They had discovered his secret. In a matter of hours, the once untouchable Alexander Kurtzman was forced to resume his role as the reviled and pathetic Sascha Hoffner. His life, as he had made it, was no longer his. The humiliation and despair might have killed a weaker man. Not so with Sascha. His own death was only of minor concern.

  * * *

  An image of that sixteen-year-old boy—before Goebbels, before the Freikorps—sat with Nikolai Hoffner as he cradled an empty glass in his hands.

  Mila was next to him. Wilson leaned against the counter. Vollman stood by the door. They had finished the bottle of whiskey. They had let him drink in silence.

  Hoffner set his glass down. He looked over and saw the canisters of film and the viewing machine in a crate by the door. He couldn’t recall when any of that had happened.

  Mila was drinking water. She pushed her glass toward him, and Hoffner took it. He drank. It tasted of rust and sand, and he saw a few pieces of grit swirling at the bottom. They were the same color as the one he had brushed from Georg’s ear. Why that? he wondered.

  Wilson said, “You saw something?”

  The sound of the voice startled Mila. She looked up, and Hoffner set the glass on the table. He tapped at it, sending it across in little bursts of movement. He might have sent it over the edge had Mila not grabbed it and pulled it back.

  Hoffner’s head remained unnervingly light as he stared at the table. “I saw what you saw,” he said. “Spain, guns—a well.”

  “And that last image?” Wilson missed nothing.

  “It went by quickly.”

  “Not too quickly.”

  “No,” said Hoffner, “not too quickly.” Wilson waited. Finally Hoffner turned to him. “It was my son,” he said. “My older son. Sascha. I hadn’t seen him in a long time.” Hoffner felt Mila’s eyes bore through him.

  Wilson said, “You’re telling me that was Kurtzman?”

  The word jarred. “How do you know his name?”

  “We’re not likely to take a man on and not know everything about his family.” Wilson reached for the jug of water and poured himself a glass. He drank. “Kurtzman is in the Propaganda Ministry. Why would he be in Spain?”

  The numbing at the back of Hoffner’s head returned; he welcomed it. “You saw his face,” he said, “the way he was dressed.” His eyes drifted back to the table. “You think this has anything to do with the Ministry?”

  Wilson needed a moment. “So he’s here for the guns?”

  Hoffner felt the first taste of acid in his throat. He took hold of Mila’s glass and held it. “No,” he said. “He’s not here for the guns.”

  “How do you know that?”

  Hoffner drank. He felt the water course through his chest.

  “He’s no longer in the party,” he said. “He’s no longer a Nazi. They found his Jewish blood—from his grandmother—three weeks ago. And they threw him out.” Hoffner set the glass down but continued to hold it. His mind was emptying. “He’s not here for the guns or the Ministry.”

  Wilson wasn’t convinced. “I thought you hadn’t seen him in quite some time.”

  “I wouldn’t need to see him to know such things.”

  Wilson looked as if he might press it. Instead he said, “Then why is he here?”

  Hoffner heard the voices from Teruel, from Tarancón, from a part of himself he refused to listen to—An unusual German … he had death in the eyes—and said, “You say it’s not the way the SS kills a man.” There was nothing in his voice. “Perhaps you’re right.”

  Wilson’s
uncertainty turned to quiet disbelief. “What?”

  Hoffner said nothing, and Wilson continued, “You can’t believe that.” He waited for an answer. When none came, he said, “You understand what you’re saying?”

  Hoffner stared at the glass. He had nothing else. “You’re asking if I understand how my son could have killed his brother. Tell me. How could I possibly understand that?”

  Wilson refused to hear it. “Even if it’s remotely true, he could have killed him in Berlin. Why follow him here?”

  Hoffner had no answer, nothing but the face of Sascha staring back at him through the lens of a camera. “My son is dead. My other one is here.” He felt his throat constrict, his eyes grow heavy. “If only the world were made of such coincidence…”

  Wilson looked across at Vollman. He saw his own disbelief staring back. He looked again at Hoffner. “You’re talking about your own son.”

  Hoffner felt his own rage and despair like wet rope coiling around his throat. “Yes,” he said quietly, “my own son,” and the glass shattered in his hand.

  It was nearly half a minute before he realized he was bleeding.

  Mila was already pressing down on his wrist, pulling pieces of glass from his skin, as Hoffner stared down at the hand and saw one long cut. A single thick shard rocked easily on the table, while tiny grains of glass shimmered across his palm. Mila picked and brushed, and Hoffner felt nothing. It was a hand, not his own, until she finally took a cloth from Vollman and pressed it into the flesh. Instantly, Hoffner felt the pain shoot up through his arm like the twisting of raw muscle. He heard himself groan, and realized it was the burning of alcohol coursing into his skin. His throat constricted and he coughed.

  “Bring over that bucket,” Mila said, and Hoffner angled his head as she continued to work on him. Only once did he come close to vomiting, but the acid stayed in his throat, and his hand began to throb with its own isolated pain.

  Hoffner’s head cleared. He swallowed and looked over to see his hand encased in thick gauze. Wilson had produced a second bottle. He filled a glass with whiskey and held it out to Hoffner.

  “He’s had enough,” Mila said.

  Hoffner took the glass and drank. Wilson set the bottle on the table and retreated to the counter. Vollman was back by the door as Mila sat silently.

  Finally Wilson said, “You’re saying this has nothing to do with the guns or Franco?”

  Hoffner kept his eyes on the glass. He flexed his fingers. He could still move them. “Not everything shatters the world as a whole, Herr Wilson. This one shatters just mine.”

  Wilson started to answer, and Hoffner said, “He left the film. He wanted it found. He wanted me to know.”

  Wilson was still struggling. “But why?”

  Hoffner heard the question in his own voice. “Because I’m his father.”

  It answered nothing and brought a silence to the room.

  Finally Wilson said, “I could help you.”

  “No,” said Hoffner. “You couldn’t.” He felt the need to stand. He pushed back his chair and steadied himself against the table. “Thank you, Herr Wilson. Thank you for Doval, the doctor”—the word caught in his throat—“Georg. I imagine you’ll be leaving Spain now.”

  Wilson showed a genuine sympathy even if he understood nothing. He nodded slowly.

  Hoffner extended his good hand. Wilson hesitated, then took it. Vollman followed suit. It was a bizarre moment of protocol, until Vollman said, “You’re going to try and find him.”

  Hoffner said nothing.

  Vollman added, “I have a plane—for another two days. It has room for four.”

  Mila stood, and Wilson said, “He’d be heading west. Portugal would be my guess.”

  “He’ll be in Badajoz,” Hoffner said, his voice empty, his eyes distant: it was as if he were speaking to himself. “He found enough about Hisma to track Georg. He’ll know Badajoz is where the last of the guns are going. And he’ll think it’s where he can find his way back.”

  Wilson hesitated. “His way back?”

  Hoffner looked directly at him. It seemed as if he might answer. Instead, he took Mila’s arm and moved them to the door.

  * * *

  They buried Georg in the first light, in a field just beyond the last of the houses. Wilson had offered to take the boy to Berlin—he, too, had a plane—but Hoffner said no. He thought of Mendy and Lotte, standing through the taunts—those roving packs of boys who waited outside the cemetery gates, jeering while a Jew was laid in the ground. Why put them through that? It was quiet here, and simple. Whichever way things went in Spain, it would be better than in Germany.

  The priest stood off to the side while Hoffner mouthed ancient words whose meaning he had never learned. He had no idea if this was the place or the time for them, but they were all he knew. His mother had insisted he say them for her. He said them now for his son.

  When he finished, Hoffner took a clump of earth and tossed it onto the sheeted body. Mila did the same, then Wilson and Vollman. She held his arm.

  * * *

  The sun had climbed to the horizon as they stood and waited for Wilson in the square. He had gone to see Doval. Mila hadn’t let go of his arm. Vollman smoked through the silence.

  Wilson appeared from the prison gate, and Hoffner said to Mila, “He’ll fly you to Barcelona. It’s the least he can do.”

  Mila said nothing, and Wilson drew up.

  “I told him it’s a direct request from the Admiralty,” Wilson said. His shirt was damp through at the back. “He’s promised no interference. You have two days. After that—”

  “After that,” said Hoffner, “Doval gets to finish what he started.”

  Wilson said nothing, and Vollman tossed his cigarette to the ground. “I can wait. I can fly on the fifteenth. That gives you enough time.”

  There was no reason to answer.

  Wilson said, “We’ll go get the car, then. Vollman and I.” It was a moment of unexpected chivalry: he was giving Hoffner a last few moments with Mila. It took Vollman another few seconds to catch on.

  “Right. Yes.” Vollman gave an awkward nod, and followed Wilson off. Mila and Hoffner watched them go.

  “They hid you in the church?” Hoffner said. It was first time he could ask.

  “I’m not going to Barcelona.”

  “There are good priests everywhere. All this must make them shudder. It’ll be the same in Germany one day—”

  “I’m not going.” She waited until he was looking directly at her. “You don’t have to do this, Nikolai. If he was capable of killing Georg, what is there possibly to gain?”

  Hoffner saw the vulnerability in her eyes. “And what if he wasn’t capable?”

  “You don’t believe that.”

  Hoffner waited. “No. I don’t.”

  “So you go for—what? To let him finish this, to let him free you from whatever you think you deserve?”

  “He killed his brother.”

  “It makes you a coward.”

  He hadn’t thought her capable of causing this kind of pain. Or maybe it was only now that he let himself feel it.

  His voice remained low and calm. “He doesn’t get to walk away. If that makes me a coward, so be it.”

  “No,” she said. “You’re a coward because you go alone.” It was an anger he had never imagined, raw and bitter, and doing nothing to hide its fear. “You’re going to stop thinking there’s something noble to be done, or that you could possibly know what it would look like. You don’t. All you do is hurt me with this and show how weak you are. I know how weak you are, and I know what terrifies you. Your boy is dead, but not because of you. And your Sascha—” She stopped. The words were tight in her throat. “You don’t get to throw yourself away because you want to believe that. There’s more to it now. You don’t get to do this alone.”

  “I do it to protect you.”

  “You do it to protect yourself.”

  She stared across at him, her strength
like shattered glass. It hung from them both and fell aimlessly to the ground. Hoffner’s hands ached, and still he gathered up the shards. He knew what it was he deserved, knew with every breath he took. It was the weight of this love—brutal and free and untethered from a lifetime of self-damning—and yet meaningless if he chose to run from his past now.

  “Then you come,” he said.

  The little Ford from Toledo appeared from a side street. Hoffner and Mila waited while Wilson and Vollman drove up.

  The two men got out. There were a few awkward exchanges, a moment of surprise. Someone might have mentioned luck.

  * * *

  The car had been stripped down and searched, the rear cushioning all knife tears and disgorged stuffing. The front bench was much the same. Mila laid a blanket across it so they could sit. Even so, they felt the springs in every jolt and bump. Hoffner let Mila drive. He slept. And he dreamed.

  He was sitting in a cool meadow, with the sound of flapping wings overhead. He saw a baby lying in the grass, its tiny feet kicking at the sky. Hoffner tried to stand but his legs were too heavy. He pulled at his thighs, and his hands were filled with a thick, wet tar, the smell of it like camphor oil, and he was suddenly holding flames in his hands. Mila pulled him back from the fire, and Hoffner saw her against the night sky. She was older and her body had been burned, her arms peeling in thin flakes of flesh. He reached for her, but she stepped back. He reached for her again and his eyes opened.

  They were at an outpost. Twenty Republican soldiers stood off in the distance, each with a rifle and a cap. Mila was talking with a man who was holding their papers. Hoffner heard the sound of mortar fire somewhere in the distance, and he watched as each of the men ducked his head. The sound was too far off to pose any danger, but these were men not yet tested by battle. They flinched and gripped their rifles.

  Hoffner pushed himself up and opened the door. His hand had stiffened, and his eye felt as if it had been squeezed shut. He could barely swallow. He forced his legs out, and he stood.