Jonathan Rabb - The Second Son

She was still asleep when his eyes opened. There was the sound of plates or cups being stacked on a shelf somewhere beyond the door and down the stairs, but Hoffner lay quietly. She had pulled the sheet to just above her waist, her bare back to him, curved to the pillow, and her hair loose against her neck. The shoulder rose almost to her cheek, and he saw the two long scars he had traced with his fingers through the darkness last night. She had said nothing, his thumb gliding along the small of her back and across the spine, the raised skin like jagged lines of wire against the pale smoothness of the rest. He brought his face toward her neck, and she said, “You hardly move when you sleep.”

She turned and looked up at him. It would have been so easy to show the expectation of a kiss, that dizzying and ageless hope of a first morning together, but instead they simply stared. It was effortless, and Hoffner nearly mistook it for the hollow comfort of a shared loneliness. That at least would have been familiar. But this was other. It brought a softening to his face, and she smiled, and he felt its warmth like the distant pull of an unknown faith.

“I thought you were dead,” she said. “I had to listen to make sure you were breathing.”

“I’ll remember to make more noise.” He gave her a kiss on the forehead and brought his legs over the side. He sat.

“Coward,” she said.

He looked back and was thankful for the smile. “Yes. Petrified.” He stood and pulled on his shorts, then reached for his cigarettes. He tapped out two and lit them. “Do you think they’ll have eggs? For some reason I’m wanting eggs.”

She pulled back the sheet and propped her head on an elbowed hand as she rolled on her side. He imagined he had never seen this kind of perfect beauty, not for the litheness of her shape or the delicacy of her face, but for the absolute peace she felt in her own uncovered body. It brought him back to the bed, and he sat, and she took a cigarette.

“Thank you,” she said.

“For what?”

“The cigarette.”

“Oh-yes.”

“What else did you think I was saying?” This was payment for the kiss on the forehead. “Was the young captain helpful?”

Hoffner took hold of the water jug and poured out a glass. He handed it to her. “Yes.”

“You must be very good at what you do.”

“You don’t need to be so good.”

She took a drink. “You should stop saying that. It’s not the truth, and it’s not all that endearing. He would have shot you.” She finished the glass and held it out to him. He poured a second, and he drank.

She said, “I’ll need to find a place to wash some clothes.” She sat and moved to the edge of the bed. She picked up her chemise and dress from the floor. “I can do it in Teruel while you”-she had to think a moment-“do whatever it is you’ll be doing there.”

Hoffner watched her slip the clothes over her shoulders. She reached back to button the collar of the dress, and he said, “You don’t have to come, you know. It’s probably safer if you head back to Barcelona.” At least he was trying to sound noble.

She reached for her hose and began to slide them on. “So it’s this you’re not terribly good at.” She finished and looked back at him. “I don’t want to go back to Barcelona, Nikolai. And I don’t think you want me to, either. Do you?”

He waited and then shook his head.

“You see? That wasn’t so hard.” She stood.

Hoffner was suddenly aware he was sitting in nothing but his shorts. He stood, found his shirt, and began to button the buttons with a newfound resolve.

She reached over and picked up his pants. She held them there and waited. “There’s no rush, Nikolai. The pants aren’t going anywhere.”

He nodded absently, took them, and slid them on.

She said, “You’re not going to tell me you don’t do this sort of thing, or that you haven’t for a very long time, or ever-are you?”

He looked across at her and, not wanting to betray himself, again shook his head.

“Good.” She moved closer and brought his suspenders up and over his shoulders. She smoothed them against his chest. “Even if it’s true, what would be the point in saying it? Love isn’t meant to stand back and stare at its past.”

She gazed up at him and then stepped over to her shoes. She slid her feet in and bent over to buckle them, and Hoffner-aware of a sudden and deep numbing at the back of his head-stared across at her and let himself believe in all things possible.

Teruel was in a state of mild panic. Sitting a thousand meters above sea level-and now with no telephone lines to the north-it had become an island of misinformation at the southern tip of Nationalist Aragon. The Civil Guards who had secured the city for the rebels strode about in their capes and tricorn hats as if the future of Europe lay in the balance. They coughed out orders, looked out through field glasses onto an endless horizon, and smoked cigarettes that gave off the smell of soured bark. All this was understandable. They had spent the better part of the last week staring off in the other direction toward Valencia-another pointless exercise-where rumor had it that anarchists were opening up the prisons and filling their ranks with rapists, murderers, and thieves. It might not have been the truth-most of the inmates were of the political variety-but always good to parade out the apocalypse when trying to stir up a bit of vigilance. Now, with Teruel’s imagination well beyond reason, the Guardia had positioned fifty of their own and one hundred of the town’s bravest caballeros inside buildings, along the old aqueduct, and atop the red ceramic roofs. Three hundred eyes, give or take, stared out silently at the Zaragoza road.

Remarkably, Hoffner and Mila drove up the slope without a single shot being fired. It was either a miraculous show of self-restraint or a level of cowardice as yet unknown in Spain. Hoffner was undecided as he sat behind the wheel and spoke with the sergeant in charge.

“Yes,” Hoffner said, “the road was completely empty.” For some reason Teruel was a good ten degrees hotter than anywhere else in Spain. “The telephone lines were untouched.”

“And you left Zaragoza this morning?”

It was the third time the man had asked, although this attempt came off more as a hope than a question; the Safe Conduct papers and the mention of Captain Doval had placed Hoffner on something of a pedestal. Hoffner was a man with connections, prestige, which meant he had answers. For a sergeant in the Guardia it was simply a matter of asking enough times before he heard what he wanted to hear.

“No,” said Hoffner, a bit more forcefully. “Not this morning. Last night. We were at a tavern this morning.”

“In Albarracin.”

“Yes,” said Hoffner. “That’s right. In Albarracin. You can telephone-” He caught himself. “Obviously you can’t telephone. We left there an hour ago. No one was on the road. I need to see your commanding officer.”

“So you think sending out a group would be all right? To check the lines?” The man’s hope had become faith in this German.

Hoffner knew it would take them two hours to find the downed poles, another two to remount them-if, in fact, they were clever enough to take shovels, wire splicers, and whatever else one needed to resurrect the dead. That would give him until early afternoon to find Georg in a town filled with anxious Spaniards. Then again, Captain Doval might already have sent out a crew to fix the wiring, but what was the point in worrying about that?

“Good, yes,” Hoffner said. “Send out a group. Absolutely. Now, where do I find someone in charge?”

The man shouted over to one of the other guards. “The colonel here says the road is clear.”