“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. Yague 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 Yague 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 life. 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: