The Second Son: A Novel (13 page)

Hoffner was lighting a cigarette as he gazed up the hill.

“Smells like sugared beets,” he said.

“Does it?” Mueller found a small jar of something and placed it on the fender. He went back to his rummaging.

Hoffner said, “At least the sun’s not making it through here.”

“At least.” Mueller reappeared with a small paintbrush and limped around to the side of the car.

“The path’s still good,” said Hoffner. “We could take it up a bit farther.”

“We could.” Mueller knelt down. “If you like cracked axles and blown tires. We’d also hit the cliff. At least that would make it easier coming down.”

Mueller unscrewed the top of the jar. Mixing the paint with the brush, he began to slather the doors in some sort of design. Hoffner tried to decipher it upside down, but the dripping made that impossible. He got out on the driver’s side and stepped around the car.

It was letters: CNT-FAI.

“Anarchist trade union,” Mueller said, admiring his work. “Leave it to the Spanish to unionize the one group bent on tearing the whole works down. ‘Don’t like anything that smacks of organization? Come, join our organization…’ ” He took some water from the canteen and washed off the brush. “Must have a hell of a time collecting dues.”

When he had everything back in the boot, Mueller closed it and started up the hill. Hoffner had no choice but to grab the rucksack and follow.

“So you just leave it there?” Hoffner said, doing what he could to adjust the ropes on his shoulders. “No one touches it?”

Mueller nodded without turning. Even with the limp he was putting distance between them.

Hoffner said, “A few letters on the side and everything’s fine?”

Again Muller nodded.

When Hoffner began to feel it in his legs, he said, “So why didn’t we paint it in the first place, avoid the hill altogether, and just drive into town?”

Mueller continued to walk. “Right foot giving you a little trouble, Nikolai? Tough going on the rocks and roots?”

“I was just asking.”

Mueller slowed, then stopped. He looked up as if he were thinking something through. Hoffner took the opportunity to stop as well. “Why didn’t we drive into town?” Mueller said. “What a good question.” He looked back at Hoffner. “You’d think a cripple would be smarter than that.”

Hoffner started walking again. “Fine. There’s a reason. Just walk.”

Mueller let Hoffner pass him before saying, “You don’t want to be driving a car into Barcelona these days, Nikolai. They’ll either take it and burn it or pull you out so they can beat you before they take it and burn it.”

“And they do this to people who have those mysterious pieces of paper?”

“A car requires a different piece of paper,” Mueller said, as he started up the hill again. “So we walk.”

*   *   *

A small falcon hovered high on the wind ahead of them, its head pressed down, before it banked and sped toward the ground.

They were beyond the trees now, almost to the top, where the grade of the hill grew steeper. Off to the right Montjuïc was sheer cliff, two hundred meters of rock face to the sea. Hoffner wondered if the bird might somehow misjudge the sudden rise—fail to pull itself up in time—but that would have required a different kind of instinct, a daring built on fear. It was the bird’s effortlessness that saved it from anything human. The wings came within a half meter of the ground and swept up again, with something small and wriggling caught in its talons.

“They like the rocks and the fortress,” Mueller said, as he brought them to the summit. “Kestrels. Don’t know what it is in Spanish.”

“
Cernícalo
,” Hoffner said. He had no idea how he remembered it.

Mueller was only mildly impressed. “Smart little birds. Rats never see them coming.”

The fortress spread out along the summit like two cocked arms, with a long stone tower rising from one of the elbows. The surrounding walls were all angles and points, little diamonds poking out to make any kind of frontal assault an impossibility. Hoffner had expected to see more by way of recent damage—bullet holes, walls breached—but for the most part the fortress was perfectly intact. It was also a product of the eighteenth century, with an enormous cannon on a rotating wheel peering out from one of the turrets. Oddly enough, from the look of things, it was completely abandoned. Hoffner had expected at least one rifle-toting caballero to make an appearance, another silent nod at the crumpled paper. Even the bird was eating quietly.

“You’re an idiot, Toby.” Hoffner unloosed the rucksack. He let it fall and followed it to the grass. It was years since he had felt this kind of ache in his legs. “The only Romans who’ve seen this place have come on holiday to take photographs. The big gun might have been the giveaway.”

Mueller snapped his two pincer fingers together: he needed a cigarette. Hoffner tossed over the pack, then the matchbox. Remarkably, Mueller caught them both. “Ancient Romans didn’t have rotating cannons?” said Mueller. He lit up and tossed back the pack. “Really? I’ll have to make a note.” He pocketed the matches. “It’s no tourists these days. Rumor has it they had some Nationalists locked up inside, but then who’d want to make the trek up here to feed them?”

“You’re assuming they were getting fed.”

Mueller took another quick pull on the cigarette and said, “We need to be down the mountain before it gets too hot.”

He stepped over and picked up the rucksack. He spun it onto his back and started to walk. “We need to go.” He then limped off across the grass—sloped trees to one side, fortress to the other—and Hoffner found a moment’s relief in the absurdity of it.

Hoffner forced himself to his feet. “Not sure how much more walking I’ve got in me, Toby.”

Mueller tossed the cigarette to the grass. “Then this is your lucky day.”

*   *   *

They were bicycles, black, at least ten years old, but with enough leather on the saddles to make them workable. Mueller had them chained to a tree on the far side where the rutted paths, such as they were, led down into the city.

Hoffner stood a few meters behind and above as Mueller pulled open the lock.

“You’re joking,” Hoffner said.

Mueller double-looped the chain under the seat and pulled up the taller of the two bicycles. He stood waiting for Hoffner to take it before pulling up the other. Both had the letters CNT-FAI painted across the handlebars. Hoffner also noticed how the right-hand pedals on both were fitted with a block of some sort to compensate for Mueller’s limp.

“I always keep a spare,” said Mueller. “Told you it was your lucky day.”

Mueller slotted the valise-cum-satchel into the rack and began to limp with the bicycle over to what passed for a path. He was surprisingly agile as he jumped onto the seat and let the slope take him. Hoffner watched as Mueller’s head bobbled with increasing speed—down, around a turn, and gone. Hoffner shouted after him, “You’re a son of a bitch, Toby!” then stepped up, climbed on, and found some speed of his own.

Hoffner had no reason to worry about the oversized pedal. He was simply holding on as best he could, his grip firmly planted on the hand brakes as the wheels seemed to take every root and rock with miraculous finesse. There was a strange familiarity to it, a thousand years of cigarettes and brandy tossed aside by something almost impatient. Hoffner began to smell the rubber on the tires, and gently released the brakes until he found himself letting go completely. He was actually managing the thing: more than managing it, he was gaining on Mueller. Somehow the bumps were a help as well, relieving the strain from the valise in his lower back. Hoffner might even have heard himself laugh.

“Enjoying yourself?” Mueller shouted over his shoulder.

Hoffner hadn’t the courage to answer as the turns came more quickly. It was nearly fifteen minutes of catching his breath until the taste of sugared beets began to recede, the canopy of trees was thinner—then gone—and the path became smooth. The glare from the sun took several seconds to adjust to as Hoffner looked down: to his amazement he was staring at pavement. He looked up again and saw a massive building farther down the slope—domes and steeples tinted by the sun—and, beyond it, the city and its harbor.

Mueller slowed, and Hoffner gently squeezed the brakes. The two were now side by side as they rode.

“Palau Nacional,” Mueller said. “No guns inside so they left it alone. It’ll be the People’s something-or-other by next week. Could be now.”

Hoffner might have been drawn to the sight of its wide fountain, or its endless steps, or its twin pillar gates planted at the far end of the plaza—these, in their perfect symmetry, were meant to hold the eye—but instead he saw only the city stretching out beyond them. It was a sea of white stone and tiled roofs.

“Bring your knees in, Nikolai,” said Mueller. “You’re beginning to look like an old priest.”

JOSEP GARDENYES

It was another twenty minutes before they came to even ground. Hoffner was grateful for the cramped feel of the side streets. The smells coming from the open doorways might have left the taste of boiling wool in the mouth, but at least the buildings were packed tightly enough together to make direct sunlight rare: six stories on either side, with balconies draped in red and black. His head was throbbing from the heat or thirst or lack of booze—or maybe just the thought of continued exertion—but whatever it was he knew he needed to get off this horrible machine and find something without wheels to sit on.

It didn’t help that at almost every intersection it was a test to see how well he and Mueller could wend their way around the barricades that littered the streets. Most of the sandbag and brick obstructions were unmanned, although there had been one a few blocks back where they were forced to bring out Mueller’s magical piece of paper. Their interrogator had been without a gun, only a sack on a rope over his shoulder and an airman’s cap stitched with the letters FAI along one side. He stood atop a bullet-strafed sandbag in a white shirt—sleeves rolled high and neat to the upper arm—and an elegant pair of pleated dress trousers, his shoes fine if slightly worn. He would have looked the perfect part—cigarette dangling from his lips, a few days’ growth of beard—had he not been, at best, ten years old. Even so, he spoke with an authority that made the boys back on the coast road look like amateurs.

“You know why we must destroy the fascists?” the boy said, as he glanced across the paper. It was unclear whether he knew how to read.

Mueller nodded vigorously and Hoffner did the same.

The boy said, “So that Spain can be free.”

Mueller pulled a wrapped bar of chocolate from his pocket—Hoffner wondered what else might be inside should he go looking for himself—and handed it to the boy.

“
Salud
, friend,” Mueller said.
“¡Viva la Libertad!”

The boy pocketed the chocolate and nodded them along. Half a block later, Mueller pulled a second bar from his pocket and handed it to Hoffner. “You weren’t thinking that was real, were you, Nikolai?”

Hoffner peeled back the wrapping and took a bite. It was good Swiss chocolate. “I’m glad he didn’t have a rifle.”

“He’s got one somewhere. It doesn’t work, but he’s got one.”

“That’s encouraging.” Hoffner handed the bar back and Mueller pocketed it.

“They’re all so damned sure of themselves,” Mueller said, with a tinge of bitterness.

The streets began to grow more peopled. Men and women—all with the red neckerchief—walked in small groups, bags with food, newspapers. They were inside stores or leaning from balconies, conversations and laughter, caps and hats arrayed in the various emblems of their new-won power. It was a city on a Sunday, like any other, except here there had been no prayers to God or hopes of salvation. They had left those behind. And of course the guns—a rifle over a shoulder or a pistol at the waist. They carried them with the same easy certainty one wears a new pair of shoes: moments here and there to recall the novelty, but always that sense of purpose and pride. That these had been used to kill other Spaniards ten days ago hardly seemed to matter. Or perhaps that was what mattered most of all.

Mueller smiled at a girl in a doorway. She smiled back, and Mueller continued to walk. “One day to take the city, and now it’s boys playing at soldier.”

Hoffner was thinking about the chocolate; he could have used another bite. “So you’re telling me that wasn’t a checkpoint back there?”

Mueller laughed quietly. “With a boy standing guard? They may be arrogant, Nikolai, but they’re not stupid.” He spat something to the ground. “Ten days ago—maybe that was the genuine article. Now it’s for a boy to run out when his friends dare him to stop the two foreigners and see if he can get a bit of chocolate. He’s a hero today. When we find a checkpoint, you’ll know. Trust me.”

They had come to the far end of the Conde del Asalto, a narrow strip of road identical to the rest except it marked the edge of Poble Sec, a workers’ district. The Paralelo—a wide avenue that had seen its fair share of the fighting—was a stone’s throw away, and Mueller found a nice big tree to rest the bicycles against.

“You thirsty, Nikolai?” he said, as he pulled the valise out of the rack.