The Second Son: A Novel

by Jonathan Rabb

  “No,” said Hoffner. “Where is the German?”

  The man continued to stare. “You have the wrong house.”

  “No.” Hoffner spoke in German. “I have the right house. I don’t care about the guns. I want only the German.”

  The man waited and then said, “I don’t understand this language.”

  “I can find a few militiamen at the gate to translate for you. Shall I go get them?”

  It was clear why the men of Hisma had picked this Spaniard. He remained unflappable. He waited another few moments and then pulled the door fully open and motioned Hoffner in.

  The hall was narrow and dimly lit, with stairs at the side leading up into the shadows. The man led Hoffner beyond them, into a room at the back. It held a few wooden chairs, a low table, and something that had once been a rug. The place had the smell of wet towels left too many days moldering in a corner.

  Hoffner looked over and saw the man holding a small pistol in his good hand. It was aimed at Hoffner’s chest.

  Hoffner said, “Is the German here?” The man remained absolutely still. Hoffner said, “I’ve told you I don’t care about the guns.”

  “Take your pistol out and place it on the table.”

  Hoffner removed his pistol and set it down. “The German—is he here?”

  “I don’t know about any guns.”

  Hoffner stared back. What else was the man going to say?

  “He’s told you he comes from Berlin,” said Hoffner. “That he’s part of Hisma, Hispano-Marroquí. He isn’t. He lied.”

  The man continued to stare, and Hoffner looked around for a chair. He found the least uncomfortable one and sat.

  They waited like this for perhaps a minute before Hoffner said, “I’m not sure what the sound of a bullet would do right now, but I’m thinking you’re not that eager to find out.”

  He located the source of the smell. It was a rope mop propped against the wall, standing in a pool of oily water.

  Hoffner said, “Yagüe will be here in the next few hours. He’ll take the city. He’ll thank you for the guns, and you’ll march around with him and point to the people who’ve done you and your little arm the most cruelty. Then you’ll watch him shoot them, all for your Spain. I don’t care one way or the other. I want the German. I want my son.”

  The man’s eyes widened for just a moment as gunfire erupted in the distance. It was pistols and rifles. The man turned his head and listened intently. The fighting continued to build as mortars began to explode. He looked at Hoffner. “The sound of one bullet wouldn’t make much of a difference now, would it?”

  Hoffner tried not to think of Mila. He shook his head easily.

  “You say he’s your son.” Hoffner said nothing, and the man continued. “He told me he was forced to burn his papers. It was too dangerous to keep them in the Republican zone.”

  “He never had any papers. You should clean that mop.”

  “He knew important names.”

  “Sanz in Teruel, Doval in Zaragoza.”

  The man hesitated.

  Hoffner said, “Obviously I know them as well. He isn’t here to help you. You need to believe me. When does he come back to the house?”

  The man kept the gun raised.

  Hoffner said, “Does he know where the crates with the guns are hidden?”

  This seemed to snap some life into the face. The man waited and then shook his head.

  “Good,” said Hoffner. “Then he’ll need to come back. You shouldn’t be here when he does.”

  It was clear the man was running through the last few minutes, making sure he hadn’t missed anything. Yagüe might be at the gates, but he wasn’t inside them just yet. Slowly the man brought the pistol down and slid it into his belt.

  “If you try and follow me,” he said, “I’ll shoot you. If you try and leave, I have someone who watches the house who will also shoot you. You understand?”

  “Which room?” Hoffner said.

  The man showed a last moment of indecision before saying, “Top floor. The attic room.”

  Hoffner stood. He picked up his pistol and moved to the door.

  * * *

  It was hours of waiting under a row of slanted beams. There was room enough for a bed, a bureau, and an open window that peered out to the south and brought the sounds of killing up through the streets.

  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 Madonna gazing out and a saint pensive at his desk. There had been no attempt to hide them. Such was the faith in Yagüe and his troops.

  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 Wannsee, the sky wild with lights and a warm explosion of fireworks from above. But the screams and the shouts continued. It was a time without feeling, without memory. All Hoffner had was the image of Sascha standing by that well. It waited with him.

  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 stunning act of kindness.”

  “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 lif
e. 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.

  “No,” Hoffner said, his voice hollow. “Georg would never have done anything to you. He loved you.”

  Sascha’s hands clenched at the sill.

  “I did it to save you,” Hoffner said. His eyes filled. “I did it because—”

  Sascha turned. There was no seeing beyond the hatred in the eyes now. He came at Hoffner, hands stretching out. He grabbed his father’s chest and pulled him from the chair. The force brought them into the beam, and Hoffner felt the wood slap across his face. A moment later, Sascha was throwing him against the wall; Hoffner tripped back, down onto his knees. He tried to bring himself forward, but Sascha began to kick his feet into Hoffner’s gut, the face pure madness. It was a face beyond redemption.

  “You stupid, selfish man!”

  Hoffner reached for Sascha’s legs. He pulled them out from under the boy, and Sascha toppled back, his head smacking against a beam. Sascha began to stumble toward the floor, and Hoffner pulled himself up. He began to speak, but Sascha’s foot caught him across the cheek as the boy fell. Hoffner felt the room begin to spin, and he saw Sascha on his back. Hoffner lunged.

  The body was so thin, the chest and arms little more than bones and flesh; Hoffner felt his own weight clamp down onto the boy. Sascha’s fingers dug into Hoffner’s chest, but Hoffner leaned his arm farther into the throat. He heard him choke—he heard his son gasping for breath—and he stared into Sascha’s face, the cheeks red, the lips full with blood.

  “You killed him.” Hoffner heard his own voice, small and desperate. “You killed your brother.” Sascha struggled, and Hoffner brought his other hand to the neck. “You let me kill my own son.”

  Sascha broke his arm free. Hoffner braced for the nails against his cheek, but he saw Sascha’s fingers begin to claw against the floor. The pistol lay just out of reach. Hoffner watched as Sascha’s hand drew closer to it. He saw the fingers on the barrel, the sound of the pistol scraping against the wood, and he felt his own weight press down, his own hand tighten around the throat. There was no voice, no pleading, no miracle to save this boy from himself.

  Hoffner stared at the pistol. He heard Sascha cough for breath and felt his own life drain out of him.

  I did it to save you, he thought.

  Hoffner saw the gun in the boy’s grip, and he closed his eyes.

  A silence came, filling Hoffner whole. He lay there, pressing down on the boy’s throat and begging to feel the metal of the pistol against his own skin. If this was prayer, it was the only one he had ever spoken. He heard the snap and he called out, but it was his own chest, his own gasping for air that he felt. The stillness was suffocating, and Hoffner opened his eyes.

  “Oh God.”

  He stared down and saw Sascha perfectly still, eyes frozen on the gun, arm outstretched. The boy’s neck had broken.

  Hoffner staggered back. He pushed himself up and sat with his head against the bed. There was no thought. There was nothing but to stare at this lifeless boy. Hoffner cried out to a God he had never known and damned Him for His silence.

  Outside, the guns breached the wall, the dying began, and Hoffner grabbed for Sascha’s chest. He pulled him in and wept—for the boy who had been his and who now lay in his arms.

  Hoffner cradled his son to his chest and wept for the life he had never known.

  * * *

  It was nearing sunset when he heard the grenade. Hoffner opened his eyes. He was still sitting, his back
to the bed. The gunfire had drawn closer. Sascha’s body was heavier, his face paler. A second grenade exploded, and Hoffner turned toward it. His neck was stiff. He wondered if he had slept.

  Hoffner’s hand was still under the boy’s head. He moved it to the shoulder and tried to lift. Down in the street a man talked about the smell of pigs. Hoffner heard laughter. He got to his knees and hoisted the body up. He stood and brought the boy up onto the bed.

  Hoffner looked at the face, the way the hair had matted against the ear. He smoothed it back. There was no texture, no heat in his hand.

  He turned from the boy and saw the pistol on the floor. He leaned over and picked it up. He held it in his hand and heard more of the shouting, a single shot from a rifle, laughter. He felt the weight of the gun and slid it slowly into his belt.

  Hoffner turned to the bureau. Inside, he found a brush and a razor, worn-through clothing, and a collection of pins. They were small, each with the swastika or SS insignia. Hoffner closed the drawers. He looked around the room and saw the bag Sascha had brought. He stepped over and placed it on the bed.

  It was a tunic and pants, and when Hoffner laid them out, he recognized the uniform of a Waffen-SS Oberleutnant. The shoulder boards held one gold pip each, the collar the usual dark blue-green felt, with sewn-in boards of its own. They were a deep Bordeaux red, and the white braiding was frayed at the edges. The breast eagle showed bleach on the left wing. Hoffner smelled the lye and realized the wool had recently been washed. There were signs of repair in the lower pockets and on the French cuffs, and the third button down was a slightly darker gray than the rest.

  Hoffner began to undress the boy.

  * * *

  It was rough bringing him down the steps. Hoffner held Sascha over one shoulder, the boy now in full uniform. He leaned him against the wall when they reached the bottom floor, and then carried him to the door. Hoffner listened. The gunfire was more sporadic now, and deeper into the heart of the city. Yagüe’s men were going street to street, house to house. Hoffner waited and pulled open the door.