Текст книги "The Second Son"

Автор книги: Jonathan Rabb

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Текущая страница: 14 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

Hoffner said, “Yes, Senor,” and the woman went back to her harangue.

Hoffner and Mila stepped over, and the man introduced himself as Rolando Alfassi, a timber merchant whose time was now spent as chief member of the recently established Committee of Three for Public Honor. It was why the sergeant had sent them to him. Hoffner suspected that the honor in question might have more to do with the purging of Teruel’s remaining leftists, but why argue semantics with a man who had just ordered them a plate of jamonand two more glasses of lemon water? The pulp was thick enough to chew when the glasses arrived.

“From Zaragoza?” Alfassi said, as he cut slowly through a thin slice of the ham. He ate with great precision. “You know, we lost all telephone contact with Zaragoza last night.” He sniffed at the meat and ate it.

“Yes,” said Hoffner. “The sergeant at the gate mentioned it once or twice.”

Alfassi smiled. It was a simple straightforward smile. “And you’ve heard nothing about the south?”

The telephones were clearly not a concern for Alfassi. He was reading a week-old newspaper: Whatever information was meant to find him would find him.

“No, Senor,” said Hoffner. “We’ve been only in the north.”

Alfassi nodded as he worked through a second piece of the ham. “Then you’ve seen the atrocities, the nuns and the desecration. They say it was terrible before the soldiers stepped in.” He ate.

It was an odd place to begin a conversation: the quality of the road, the weather, the number of burned carcasses strewn across the church steps. Hoffner could have told Alfassi that, only yesterday, he had refused a tour of Zaragoza’s bodies still awaiting burial-the slaughtered workers with their union cards pinned to their shirts-but that might not have gotten Hoffner a second plate of the ham, which was really quite delicious.

“No,” said Hoffner. “I was traveling with the senora.”

“Of course.” Alfassi seemed genuinely remorseful. “Forgive me, Senora.”

Mila said blankly, “Have you buried your own?”

Alfassi stared for a moment, and it was only then that Hoffner realized Zaragoza had been very different for her. She had thought only of her brother: the truth of the war had been set aside for an afternoon. Here, she had no such luxury. He was inclined to remind her of the washing she had promised to do, but instead he said, “The senora is a doctor. She’s been attending to the wounded. She worries about disease.”

“A doctor finds all killing horrific,” said Alfassi. It was surprising to hear the compassion in his voice. “It must be difficult.”

“Yes,” she said, “it is.”

Alfassi leaned in and said quietly, “I find it all quite horrible myself.” It was as if he knew he wasn’t meant to admit it. “We have many, many bodies. Soon we’ll have more. It’s a terrible time.” He sat back and took another piece of the ham on his fork. “It’s never really a question of knowing God’s will, is it? But at least He’s there. To say He isn’t, or never has been, or shouldn’t be-” He slipped the fork into his mouth and shook his head. “Some choose to act impetuously, I know-every war has its excesses-but surely God has a right to protect Himself. What is Spain without God? What is God without Spain?” Alfassi swallowed and said, “Have they buried the bodies in Zaragoza?”

To call wholesale murder impetuous was unforgivable. Even so, it was clear that Alfassi’s fight was not about control or power. It was about fear-the simple fear of losing his God. And, as with all men who live through fear, he was looking for guidance. Holy vengeance was something new, at least in this century. Cleaning up after it was still open to debate.

Hoffner said, “I wouldn’t know.”

Alfassi nodded and cut another piece. “It’s a good point-disease. There’s enough to think about without that.”

“And these bodies,” Mila said. “How many exactly?”

Hoffner tipped over his glass-an accident-and water spilled to the lip of the table. Instinctively Mila pulled back, and Hoffner quickly apologized. He tried to stop it with his napkin.

“You’re all right?” he said. She said nothing and Hoffner looked at Alfassi. “It’s very good. The lemons are fresh.”

“Yes,” said Alfassi. “Don’t worry. Someone will clean it.”

A man appeared with a rag and quickly mopped up what remained. He poured Hoffner another glass and moved off.

Hoffner said, “I’m not a Spaniard, Senor.”

“Yes, I know. A thousand years ago, neither was I. The name: it means ‘from Fez.’ ” He enjoyed this little nugget. “You’re a German.”

“Yes.”

“We’ve had quite a few of you through here in the last week.”

“None causing any trouble, I hope.”

There was a roll on his plate. Alfassi took it and ripped it open. “Am I to be expecting more of you?”

“I’m interested in just one, Senor, a journalist with the Pathe Gazette Company. He would have been carrying a moving film camera. He was sent to bring back newsreels.”

Alfassi buttered the roll and took a bite. He nodded. “Also called Hoffner. I don’t think that’s a coincidence, is it?”

Hoffner tried not to show a reaction.

Alfassi had known all along, and he had taken his time. It was now unclear whether this had all been for show-a bit of pious propaganda for a visitor-or something more sinister. Hoffner wondered if the Guardia with the rifle was always just a few tables down.

Hoffner said, “No coincidence, Senor. You met him?”

Alfassi continued to chew. “Briefly. I don’t trust foreign journalists. It’s always so easy to pass judgment from a distance.” He swallowed. “At least with our own, we know if they’re right or wrong before we read them.”

“My son isn’t the kind to judge.”

Alfassi reached for his glass. “That would depend on what he chooses to film, wouldn’t it?” He drank, and Hoffner waited for the conversation to take its unpleasant turn. Instead, Alfassi added, “I don’t think he was in Teruel long enough to have made many choices. Three or four hours. He didn’t eat the ham.”

Hoffner had the strangest sensation, an image of Georg sitting across from Alfassi, probably at this very table. That Georg was already gone was only a momentary disappointment. The boy was alive. That was enough for now. Georg would be heading west, along the route outlined in Doval’s wires. Hoffner was less clear on where Alfassi might be leading them.

“His loss,” said Hoffner.

“Tell me, Senor.” There was something caught in Alfassi’s tooth. He ran his thumbnail through it. “Why is it that all these Germans are interested in your journalist son, and why do they all come to Teruel to find him? Surely Zaragoza, Barcelona, or Madrid are far more interesting these days.”

Alfassi’s tone was almost impenetrable. The words seemed to threaten, then not. Hoffner couldn’t decide if this was charm or guile or simply the residue of an unflappable faith. What he did know was that the SS was tracking Georg-“all these Germans.”

Hoffner said, “I’m not a journalist, Senor. I wouldn’t know. How many Germans exactly?”

Alfassi took the last of the ham on his fork. “You’re both so interested in numbers.” He sniffed and ate.

“Yes,” said Hoffner.

“I have a son,” said Alfassi. “Not much younger than yours.” The faint echo of compassion returned. “I suppose I would ask the same questions, follow the same course.”

“I suppose you would.”

“And when you find your son, Senor, you’ll take him out of Spain? Immediately?”

Hoffner was trying to understand the last few moments. This was more than compassion, and while he had no idea how much Alfassi knew, or wanted to know, it was clear that the man was struggling with this. Whatever the reason, Hoffner nodded.

“Good.” Alfassi also nodded. “There were two Germans. One four days ago, the other yesterday-an unusual German, that one. And now you.”

“And you told them-”

“Neither was his father. I told them nothing.” Alfassi’s eyes grew more focused; when he spoke again, he made clear why every Guardia and every visitor to Teruel knew exactly where to find him. “We won’t win this war without the Germans. We know it. That doesn’t mean we become like them.” Again he picked up his glass. “You ask about bodies, Doctor. How many more do you think we’d have if we’d listened to these Germans? Not that any of us needs encouragement these days, anywhere in Spain. We can kill each other quite well on our own. But we know why we do it, and why it will stop, one way or the other.” He drank and set the glass down. “These Germans see it differently. For them it’s terror, not truth; power, not faith. And while I’d be foolish to say that terror and power don’t serve other ends, they can’t be the only reasons we do this. At least not in my Spain.” He looked again at Hoffner. “I don’t believe this is your war, Senor, nor the senora’s-at least not here. More important, I don’t believe I want your son getting in the way of it. We understand each other?”

Alfassi knew exactly who they were and why they had come. He was also a man of conscience, limited as it might be. That he was choosing to find his penance in Georg was all that stood between Hoffner, Mila, and the rifle two tables down.

Alfassi said, “He was looking for a Major Sanz, a new man. I don’t know him. He’s at the Guardia Station. I’m sure you can find him there.”

There had been no mention of a Sanz in the contact list from Captain Doval’s wires. In fact there had been no one to contact in Teruel. Maybe, thought Hoffner, that was because Teruel was already fully under fascist control.

Hoffner nodded and said, “Thank you.”

Alfassi picked up his newspaper. “Get out of Spain, Senor. Quickly.” He was already reading, and Hoffner pushed back his chair and followed Mila to the door.

She pulled her arm from his hand the instant they were outside. He knew to keep his eyes ahead of him as they walked.

“You treated him with such respect,” she said, the disdain stifled but raw. “The great man who finds killing impetuous. You have no idea what this war is about, do you?”

“He knew who we were.”

“He knew nothing.”

They walked along a cobblestone ramp, smooth and yellow like an old man’s teeth. Above, iron flakes peeled like dead skin from the rusting balconies, while washing hung loose in the courtyard below. It laced the air with the taste of vinegar. Somewhere, the muffled pitch of a mass was being sung.

“It was my mistake,” Hoffner said. “A woman doctor. He knew that could mean only one thing.”

“You think he did this out of compassion? One father to another? Are you really that blind?”

Hoffner stopped and took her arm. He held her there, afraid to see the hatred-or, worse, the betrayal-and all he could think to say was, “Yes. I am. What would you have me do? He’s letting me find my son. If that doesn’t earn him a little something-” Hoffner hadn’t thought this through. Her eyes were growing unbearably distant. How long had it been since he had felt this need? “Don’t do this,” he said. It was the ache in his own pleading that took the breath from his voice. “Don’t make me defend what I do to find him.”

Hoffner stared into her eyes, not knowing if in this infinite moment he had condemned himself to a life he already despaired of. To have it this close-

She said, “Do you think that’s what I’m asking? Do you think I don’t see that?”

Hoffner had no bearings for this. His head was suddenly light, the sound of voices behind him-somewhere-beginning to vibrate unrelentingly. He felt his arm go weak, then his legs. He let go of her and reached for the wall, the scarred stone scraping into his hand, the pain a momentary relief. He heard his own breath-deep and heavy-saw himself crouching, then sitting on the stone. He had an instant of nausea and then great thirst. His eyes tried to find their focus, movement somewhere in front of him, when he saw her, on her knees. She was doing something with his neck or throat or tie. It was the tie. And then the cold tin of the canteen on his lips, and water, the stream of it flowing down to the pit of his stomach. He looked at her as she doused his handkerchief with water and set it at the back of his neck. His head throbbed.

She turned to the courtyard below and said, “The heat. He’s not used to it.” Hoffner noticed people behind her. They were staring, nodding. She said, “I’m a doctor. It’s fine.”

They moved off, and Hoffner felt his arms again. “It’s not the heat,” he said.

She moved the handkerchief to his brow and squeezed it, and the water ran down his face. “I know,” she said. “But maybe it is just a little.”

He took her hand and felt the dampness of it.

With her other, she placed two fingers under his jaw and felt for his pulse. Hoffner looked into her face, the color gone, the beads of sweat creasing her cheeks and lips. He said, “I won’t choose-”

“You should stop talking.”

“You don’t understand.” He needed her to know this. “I won’t have this be a choice.”

“I’m not asking you to.”

“No. You have to see what I’m saying, what I need from you.”

She stopped and stared into his eyes. “What you need from me you have. What you need from me isn’t a question. There are no choices.”

“I have to find him.”

Her gaze softened. “You really don’t understand this, do you?” Hoffner tried to answer, and she said, “Of course we find him. What did you think-just because I tell you you’re an idiot when it comes to a man like Alfassi it means more than that? You arean idiot when it comes to Alfassi, and you have no idea what this war is about, but why would that change anything? Wouldn’t it have been worse if I hadn’t screamed a little after that?”

Hoffner felt a relief he had no hope of understanding. “I thought-”

“Yes. I know. But I’m allowed to tell you how sad and desperate this war makes me, Nikolai. And I need to know you won’t collapse every time I do.” She handed him the canteen again. “But I’m glad you thought it was a choice. Now drink.”

Hoffner drank and felt his strength returning. He waited another half minute and drank again.

She said, “You’re all right?”

He took a last drink and handed her the canteen. He nodded and got to his feet.

He said, “It’s nice to know I’m an idiot.” His legs felt heavy but at least they were there.

“He’s a Spaniard with a conscience. It’s easy to be fooled.” She took a drink and saw something down in the courtyard. She slipped her arm through his. “We should get you something with salt. I could use some myself.” They began to walk.

He said, “So when did conscience become such a terrible thing?”

“You’ve been living in Germany too long. The fascists there don’t bother with it.”

“And here?”

She slipped her hand farther down his arm and took his hand. “Here Alfassi has God and truth and what he takes for compassion. His is a fascism that breeds inspiration.” Her fingers curled through his, and Hoffner gripped at them. “If he manages to win this war, you can be sure he and his friends will be here long after your thousand-year Reich is dust. Alfassi knows it-brutality as brutality runs its course-but a man of conscience, gentility, kindness? He can breathe life into brutality again and again and make it seem almost humane. It’s a particularly Spanish cruelty and we’ve had centuries to become very, very good at it.”

They came to a little awning, two tables and three chairs. A curtain, made of strings of bamboo beads, hung across the open door to keep out the flies. They sat, and Mila said into the curtain, “Two beers and an order of migas, please.”

A voice grunted acknowledgment. Hoffner didn’t know migas.

“Bread crumbs,” she said. “Like porridge, with bacon or chorizo or whatever they have lying around. It’ll be good for you.”

He nodded and pulled out his cigarettes.

“I wouldn’t,” she said. “Not until you get something in your stomach.”

Hoffner set the pack on the table. He kept his eyes on it as he placed his hand on hers. The knuckles were wonderfully smooth.

He said, “You don’t expect this, do you?”

He waited for her to answer. When she didn’t, he looked up. She was staring across at him. Hoffner felt his head go light again, until he saw the smile curl her lips.

She said, “And what is it you didn’t expect?”

For some reason he had no idea what he had been meaning to say. None. He shook his head quietly, and watched as her smile grew.

“It must be terrible,” she said easily, “to feel something and not have the courage to admit it, even to yourself. I’m not asking you to. I have no such cares about love. It doesn’t make me weak or sad or hopeful or carefree. I’ll leave that to the young. All I know is when it comes. And how rare it is. And that makes it even more certain.”

Hoffner felt her hand under his, and he found his voice. “Yes,” he said. “That’s right. I think … that’s right.”

The bamboo beads swayed, the plates arrived, and they ate.

Major Sanz proved to be a man of little conscience. He was cut from the same cloth as Captain Doval and kept his interviews brief.

And so, knowing that the telephone lines might reengage at any moment-and perhaps still a little lightheaded-Hoffner barreled on. He showed Sanz the Safe Conduct papers, he mentioned Alfassi and Doval, and he explained his role with the contact names in each of the cities to the west.

Naively, Sanz said he thought Georg had been a journalist. Hoffner quickly disabused him of this: Georg was a member of German Intelligence-why not? The SS had lost track of him. He had been heading into Republican territory to secure the routes and the contacts.

Major Sanz was only too happy to confirm them.

More remarkable, though, was Sanz’s request for thinner crates. Naturally, Hoffner had no idea what the man was talking about.

“For the rifles,” Sanz said, as if speaking to a child. “You’re getting twelve-not even that-into each one.” Hoffner’s expression prompted further details. “The wood is too thick. Use a thinner wood and you get maybe eighteen, even twenty inside. It’s not so important here in Teruel. We can leave the crates out in the open, have as many as we like. Who’s going to care? But you go west-Cuenca or, my God, think of Toledo-and the more crates you have, the more difficult it will be to keep them hidden. You see what I’m saying?”

Hoffner did not, until Sanz showed him the printed packing slip that had accompanied the crate.

At the top, in an official script, was the crate’s origin: Tetuan, Morocco. Just below, in the same script, was the name of the company that had shipped it: Hispano-Marroqui de Transportes, Sociedad Limitada. Elsewhere on the slip, the company was simply referred to as Hisma.

Hoffner stared at the word. It was the final name from Georg’s wire, the name connected to Bernhardt and Langenheim.

Hoffner said, “You have other papers from the company, Major?”

The man hesitated.

“In your files,” said Hoffner. “I need to make sure you have the proper paperwork, should anyone come asking for it.” What could be more convincing? thought Hoffner. A German asking for paperwork. He looked directly at Sanz. “You see what I’m saying?”

Again Sanz hesitated before he began to nod. “Yes-yes, of course. I have it all here.”

Sanz retrieved various sheets from the bottom drawer of his desk and handed them to Hoffner.

“I believe that’s everything.”

Hoffner quickly peeled through the stack until he came to the fourth page. It was there he read the announcement of incorporation for the Spanish Moroccan Transport Company, a company intending to ship medical supplies and engine parts and farming equipment-the list went on and on. It was a general partnership, with a Johann Bernhardt as its chief officer. The funding, though vague, had come from Berlin. How or when this had happened was, of course, not made clear on the pages in front of Hoffner. Perhaps that was where Langenheim had played his role.

That said, it was Bernhardt who had created a legitimate private company as a front for supplying weapons. Along with the shipments from Germany to the primary base in Morocco, Bernhardt and his cohorts were planning on sending rifles and ammunition directly to recently formed Hisma outposts throughout Spain. Teruel had been the testing ground. So far, three shipments had passed through unimpeded. The weapons were coming encased in old turbine and piping crates, some even in medical supply boxes. Thus far it was only enough for two or three squads, but expand it to the other cities on Doval’s list-that straight line across Spain-and Hoffner could only imagine what a few thousand stockpiled rifles could do for a conquering army. Franco would simply need to get to the city gates, and the guns would be waiting for him-or, better yet, turned on the men still inside.

“Thinner crates,” Hoffner said. “Of course. I’ll put it in my next report.”

A Long, Long Swim

There is a kind of madness that lives on the plains of La Mancha. It settles on the mind in the last of the afternoon, when the sun perches between the passing sails of the windmills and seems to wink with every turn of the blade. It isn’t the billowing itself that sparks the delusion-that, they say, requires a nobler kind of madness-but the sudden and unrelenting sense that this might be the last time the sun will make such an effort. La Mancha begs for indifference, or at least a disregard from anything still clinging to life. Even the trees know it. Hobbled by their own weight and bent toward senility, they peer out across the burned earth and laugh through parched bark at anyone foolish enough to remain out under this sky. It is, if He would admit it, the only place where God gazes down and wonders if even He has something still to learn. Maybe, then, the madness is His, for what else could God possibly have to learn, especially from a strip of land ready to shred itself on the truth.

Driving through the heat, Hoffner gazed into the bleached red of the sky, the color of blood mixed with water, although here it was clouds sifting through a dying sun. He had lost track of time, more so of which Spain he was in. This far east, La Mancha gave no aid in defining lines of defense or offense. It was simply men in the distance, a signal to pull over, rifles and pistols raised, and a determined effort to produce the right papers. Neckerchiefed soldiers became uniformed ones became neckerchiefed ones again, even if the stares and faces all looked the same. A wrong turn and it might have been another platoon of young requetes-a few more hours lost to the fitful infancy of war-but at some point Mila convinced him that they had seen the last of the Nationalists. They changed their clothes. Hoffner scratched a large CNT-FAI across the car door. And Mila found a well and filled the canteens. They were back in Republican Spain, although Hoffner had a sense that there was little hope of finding Barcelona’s arrogance anywhere in here.

In those timeless stretches of road, Hoffner began to see where Georg had been leading him. Han Shen had given him Vollman. Vollman had sent him to Teruel. Teruel had given him Major Sanz and the names and the cities where Hisma would be setting up shop. Hoffner ran through those names in his head, over and over, until a single image began to form: Cuenca, Tarancon, Toledo, Coria-a straight line of some six hundred kilometers to the Portuguese border. Add Badajoz to the list and the shape took on the form of an inverted skillet, with Badajoz at the base of its handle, and Madrid perched just above at the center of the pan. Madrid. The key to Spain. Arm these hidden pockets of rebellion with rifles and ammunition and they would crackle like tinder to light the flames and swallow Madrid whole.

Somewhere in those six hundred kilometers was Georg. It was now a race to Badajoz.

Oddly enough, Hoffner and Mila seemed to be the only ones moving with any urgency. Where the coast road to Barcelona had seen fish and fruit baskets carried in twos, here it was mule trains, three or four in a line, with carts in tow painted all manner of bright colors. They overflowed with charcoal and firewood, wineskins and gossip, and, while the wheels were as tall as a man, they never seemed to move more than a few kilometers an hour. They had known Spain well before Hannibal, well before God, and looked none the worse for it: men with flat Siberian faces, heavy coats even in this heat, and never so much as a glance for the Mercedes as it raced by. Why show wonder at something as momentary as an elephant warrior or a suit of steel? “This too shall pass” seemed to echo in the plodding groan of the wheels.

Two hours in, Cuenca came and went. To Hoffner, it was a city unlike any he had seen before, a modern Babel perched high on a slab of rock between two narrow ravines. Where reason would have told it to build bridges so as to step beyond the rock, Cuenca had chosen to climb ever higher, its buildings spiraling up to hang like wireless birdhouses over the water below. Unsteady as they looked, they gave a perfect view of the bodies now lying across the bottom of the ravine-Guardia, landowners, priests. There was always a priest.

Hoffner and Mila had sat in one such place, a tavern of sorts, and listened to the story of a man called Guzman, a good honest tradesman, who had treated his workers with justice and had thus survived the first days of the fighting. Somehow, though, poor Guzman had been found hiding holy objects taken from the cathedral. Clutching at these little crucifixes and chalices, he had said it was a simple misunderstanding. He was planning on melting them down. He was a businessman, after all, not a fascist. So, taking him out into the square, the militiamen had insisted he do so-now, at this very moment. Guzman had nodded several times, looked at his wife, and broken down and prayed. He cursed the rabble, told them they would burn for their heresy, and refused to give up even one of his treasures until he was beaten senseless. He was then shot and tossed over the wall.

This was only one of a handful of stories making the rounds, but luckily it was the first Hoffner and Mila heard. Guzman was the contact name on Captain Doval’s list, the name confirmed by Major Sanz back in Teruel. Guzman was the Hisma liaison. Had Hoffner gone asking for this man, he and Mila might now be resting alongside him on the rocks.

There had been no point in looking for Georg. Guzman had been dead days before Georg could have gotten there. With no Hisma liaison to question, Georg would have moved on.

Surprisingly, Georg’s absence was not the reason they were now back on the road. Mila had refused to stay in the city for the night. Hoffner thought it an odd reaction, especially given her outburst about Alfassi, but he kept it to himself. He knew she would be finding fewer and fewer places to sleep if stories like these continued to trouble her.

The first stars came quickly through the dusk. It was only minutes before they filled a sky the color of charred cork, with a moon so low on the horizon it looked as if it might loose itself and roll across the plains and hillocks. The air was cooler, and the smell sweet like pressed grass.

It was pointless to think they would find beds tonight. Tarancon was still another sixty kilometers on. Arriving in the middle of the night in a Mercedes driven by a German, no matter how pure his Spanish, would only complicate things. And the villages along the way wanted nothing to do with anything or anyone unknown. It left the backseat of the car as the only choice until Mila said, “There,” and pointed out into the middle of the darkness.

Some fifty meters off, a small fire was burning at the center of some rocks. In the shadows stood three mule carts, the mules tethered to the side.

“You won’t get a word in,” she said, “but they’ll let us sleep. You’ll also drink the strangest wine you’ve ever tasted. Flick the lights and stop the car.”

Hoffner did what she asked and then followed her across the brush grass toward the flame. The coolness in the air had turned to chill. He draped his jacket across her shoulders.

Two men sat around the fire. They were interchangeable save for the misshapen hands, fingers broken at odd angles, badges of honor from the hoof of a mule or a wheel rolling backward in the mud. How they managed to keep a grip on anything remained a mystery. They were drinking from a porron, a glass bottle with a pointed spout. Tipped up, it remained just beyond the lips-much to Hoffner’s relief-and sent a thin jet of wine spurting into the mouth. They passed it back and forth while a tin pannikin sat over the fire and cooked something smelling of meat.

“ Salud, friends,” Mila said, as she and Hoffner drew closer.

Neither man looked over. One drank while the other stirred. The one stirring said, “Tonight it’s ‘ Salud.’ Last night we had ‘Most gracious senors.’ I think I liked last night better.”

Mila said, “You ate with soldiers last night?”

“We drank with soldiers last night. And you?”

“A bed in a tavern.”

“Very nice. Nicer than this.”

The other stopped drinking and handed the porronup to Mila. She took it, drank, and handed it to Hoffner. He drank and handed it back. The taste was like oranges left too long in the sun, with a burning at the base of the throat. Hoffner knew this was more than wine.

Mila said, “May we sit, friends?”

The one stirring said, “What do you bring?”

She drew her arms closer across her chest and said, “Warm bodies and conversation.”

The one stirring smiled and said, “Not so warm.” He nodded over to the other. “Get them blankets.”

The other stood and walked slowly back to the carts. Mila and Hoffner stood close by the fire. When the man returned, the blankets were a soft wool-softer than Hoffner expected-and smelled of camphor oil. Mila and Hoffner both sat on the same one and pulled the other over their legs.

The one stirring said, “A man who lets a woman do all the talking.” The smile remained. “I’m not sure I like this kind of man.”

Hoffner said, “It saves time.”

Only now did either of the men show a reaction. They both turned and looked at Hoffner. The stirring stopped, then slowly started again. The one stirring said, “You speak a Spanish not of Spain.”

“Not of Spain, no,” said Hoffner.

“Hers has a Catalan,” said the man, “but she’s sat like this before. Not you. She knew to drink first, then sit. You’re lucky to be with a woman who knows these things.”