The Second Son: A Novel (43 page)

“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.

At once the smell of gunpowder and blood filled his nose. There was a smoky residue in the air, and the windows along the street were smashed in jagged lines of glass. By some miracle, the horses were still tethered to the post. One of them was on its side, dead, its eye shot through. The other was bucking from exhaustion, pulling at its reins. Hoffner placed his hand on the animal’s nose and waited until it began to calm. He then hoisted Sascha onto its back, took the reins, and began to walk.

Bodies lay in pools of blood in the doorways and along the street. There were screams and shouts and the sound of glass shattering in the distance behind him. Hoffner continued to walk toward the plaza and the southern gate. He kept his pistol in his belt. If this was how he was to die, so be it.

He saw a pair of legs, stretched out and moving in a doorway. They were sliding back and forth. He heard a woman’s stifled moan and a man’s laughter and drew closer.

The man was on top of the woman, her legs pulled high, her face bloodied. The man continued to drive himself into her. Hoffner kicked at the man’s feet, and the man turned. Hoffner pulled out his pistol and shot the man in the face. He then pulled the body off the woman, turned away, and continued to lead the horse.

If there were other such moments, Hoffner never remembered them. All he knew was that he found himself at the southern plaza, where the wall had been blown to rubble, and where bodies lay stretched across the stone and earth like packed rolls of soiled newspaper. The sun had gone, and there were long poles with white lights perched at the top of them. There was no gunfire here. Yagüe had taken the square.

Hoffner saw a group of uniforms standing by a door. He moved toward them.

One of the soldiers turned, and Hoffner said in German, “I have the body of a lieutenant. Waffen-SS. He was protecting the guns sent in from Morocco. He’s dead. I was sent by Captain Doval from Coria.”

The man stared at Hoffner. Hoffner repeated what he had said, this time in Spanish, and the man continued to stare. The man called another soldier over. Hoffner spoke the same words a third time, and the new man said, “You’re the German.”

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 Yagüe?”

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.