Текст книги "The Second Son"

Автор книги: Jonathan Rabb

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Текущая страница: 15 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

The hands might have been battered, but the ears were remarkably fine-tuned. Hoffner nodded. “Yes.”

“Have you come to fight these soldiers? They’re very eager to fight.”

“No,” said Hoffner.

“They tell me they have only a few more weeks of this, and then the fighting will stop. They’ll have taken what they want.”

“They’re soldiers,” said Hoffner. “They have to believe that.”

“Yes,” said the man. He stopped stirring and gingerly pulled the tin from the flame. “The others say Franco is dead, so it’s hard to know who to believe.”

The name of Franco was the last thing Hoffner had expected to hear. Evidently the war was not so young if it had reached this place.

Mila said, “Franco is dead?”

The man tipped the meat onto another dish and passed it to the other. “Drowned trying to come across from Africa. It’s a long, long swim.” He set the pannikin over the flame and pulled something from a leather bag. “Goat. Tough but fresh.”

“Good,” said Mila.

The other passed Hoffner the porronand began to gnaw at his meat. Hoffner drank. It was already finding his head. He handed it to Mila and she passed it to the one stirring.

He said, “Next go-round you’ll drink again.”

“Yes,” said Mila.

The one who stirred talked and talked-about the age of his mules, the men in Jabaga who had refused to let him enter the town-“But you knowme…” “We know no one”-and the rifles he had seen stacked along the walls and ready to be fired, if only they could find a way to scrub thirty years of rust from a barrel. The other chewed and swallowed, swallowed and chewed, and glanced at Mila each time his friend mentioned guns or dying. They had seen their share of it, men left for dead in cars, propped up behind a wheel at the side of the road and still gasping for breath. Rich men, with wide neckties and fat cheeks and mouths dried with blood where the butt of a rifle had taken out the teeth. And when Mila finally shivered from the cold, he stopped and told her to drink and sent his friend to the cart for a wrap to sleep in.

“Franco is dead,” the man said again. A car passed in the distance. “That’s what I tell them. It makes the men think twice about what they do.”

The wrap folded over on itself and had a zip fastener. Inside was flannel.

“We have only one,” the one who stirred said. “It can fit two.” His friend was already by the carts. They had slung hammocks between the wheels, and the other now dropped himself into one.

The stirrer built the rocks higher around the flame and then, in a way Hoffner had never seen, brought the flame low, though not completely out. It was suddenly much darker, but he could still feel the heat. The man stood and weaved his way to his hammock. Hoffner thought, All men should speak so well this drunk.

Hoffner pulled off his boots and slid in next to Mila. He reached down and pulled the fastener up and felt her body press close against his. He lay back, and they stared up at a sky infinite with night.

She said, “If the sun comes again, you’ll forget it can look like this. The ground will forget as well.”

“The sun will come.”

“It seems a shame, though, doesn’t it?”

Maybe it was the wine, but the stars momentarily shuddered, and Mila turned on her side to him and pressed her lips to his cheek. Her hand moved across his chest, then her arm, her torso until she was slowly above him.

She saw it in his eyes and said, “They’re already sleeping.”

Her lips found his again, the warmth of them and the coolness of the air, and beyond a cradling of stars, and Hoffner let his hands glide across the smoothness of her back, her legs, the clothes unloosed and his own body freed, and he felt her chilled skin across his own like the pale breath of absolute need.

He would love her. He knew this. He would find this life and he would love her.

They arrived in Tarancon by mid-morning. Hoffner learned to play a game with a stick, something with the words dedoand pelota, although even the men and boys who played with him seemed to have any number of opinions as to what it was called. They sweated under the sun in the courtyard of a small clinic-little more than the front room of a house-while a woman and a girl lay dying inside of burns from a house fire. It had been a terrible thing, quick, and nothing to do with the fighting. In fact, Tarancon had seen almost none of the fighting. The Guardia had quickly pledged themselves to the Republic and had even stepped in to make sure the killing was kept to a minimum. Tragedy remained a thing of fires and falling trees and a boy drowned in early spring-as it had been for as long as anyone could remember. It was so much easier to understand than the news of the horrors sprouting up everywhere around them. The two inside were dying. Infection had set in. And the comfort of a woman doctor-so strange and yet perhaps a miracle (although no one would have called it such a thing)-gave them peace as they slipped quietly away through the morphine.

It was hours before Mila emerged from the house, walking with a man a good deal older. He had come the night before from Cuenca. He was a doctor as well, but the woman and the girl had already been fighting the burns for five days-why had it taken so long to send a boy on the two-day ride for him? – and there was nothing he could do. He hadn’t slept and was grateful that Mila had been there to take the two to the end.

Hoffner tossed the ball to one of the boys, then ran his handkerchief over his neck as he walked toward her.

“They’re both gone,” she said.

“I’m sorry,” said Hoffner.

“No, it’s better. It should have happened three days ago.” She introduced the doctor. He said he was tired of watching peasants die this way. He needed to sleep and get back to Cuenca. He left them to each other.

She said. “He was a good doctor, but he would have tried to keep them alive.” They sat on a bench. Hoffner’s hat was lying on it.

He said, “You need to eat something.” She said nothing, and he added, “Some of the men remembered Georg. ‘The man with the camera’ they called him. They said he was here for a few hours. The day before the house burned. They don’t remember anyone else.”

She stared across the courtyard. She nodded distantly.

He said, “I didn’t mention any names.”

Again she nodded. Finally she said, “The name from the contact list, here in Tarancon.” Hoffner had shown her everything from Captain Doval and Major Sanz. She had memorized the names as well. “He was called Gutierrez,” she said. “What was the first name?”

He knew she knew it, but he answered anyway. “Ramon,” said Hoffner. “Why?”

It took her another moment to answer. “Because he was in the room with me the entire time. Because the woman was his wife, and the girl was his daughter.”

Hoffner had trouble looking at the man, not because Gutierrez hadn’t bathed or shaved in five days, or that his face was bloated from the crying, or even that his left arm to the shoulder was an oozing scar of blisters and flaked skin beneath a thin wrapping of gauze. It was because he sat there, unaware that he damned Georg with every breath he took.

Hoffner imagined the crates, the guns, the fire set to destroy them all. Had Georg really been capable of this? Had he been so callous, so cowardly, as to slink off in the night knowing that this was to come? Hoffner wore his son’s shame as if it were his own.

Gutierrez continued to stare across at the sheeted bodies, his good elbow on his knee, his body leaning forward, hand pressed against his brow. Hoffner had no idea if the man was even aware they had stepped inside the room.

Mila knelt down next to Gutierrez. She ran her hand across his back and spoke softly. Slowly, Gutierrez began to nod. He looked at her. His eyes moved to Hoffner, then the sheets. With her hand still on his back, Mila helped him past the curtain and down the hall. She led him to a chair by the door to the courtyard, and Gutierrez said, “I want the air. We’ll go outside.”

“No,” she said. “Outside isn’t good until they dress your burns again. You should sit here.”

Gutierrez seemed aware of his arm only now. He looked at it as if someone had just handed it to him, a thing to be studied: an arm had been burned, flesh, but whose was it and how? Gutierrez sat and asked for water.

There was a table across from him with a pitcher and two glasses. Mila filled one and handed it to him. Gutierrez held it but did not drink.

Hoffner was a few paces down the hall, breathing air heavy with the smell of rotting limes and soap. So this was the scent of burned flesh, he thought. He stepped over and filled the other glass. He drank.

Hoffner said, “You should drink as well.”

Gutierrez’s gaze was fixed on the wall, mindlessly searching for something. “Should I?”

Hoffner was glad to hear the anger. It colored Gutierrez’s despair and gave it purpose. The man would find his way back.

Hoffner said, “I’m sorry for your loss.”

Gutierrez barely moved.

“There was a man with a camera,” Hoffner said. “A German. A few days ago.”

Gutierrez showed nothing.

Hoffner repeated, “There was a man with a camera-”

“Why are you asking me this?”

“You know why I ask.”

Gutierrez continued to stare at the wall. Finally he said, “Yes.” He was unrepentant. “I know why.”

“He came about the crates, about Hisma.”

“Yes.”

Hoffner waited and then said, “Did he set the fire?”

The question came so effortlessly-questions like these always did-even if every moment beyond them lay in their grasp.

Gutierrez’s stare hardened. “You mean did he murder my wife and daughter?”

And there it was. Why not call it what it was. A low humming began to fill Hoffner’s ears, but he refused to look at Mila. “Yes.”

Gutierrez said, “You ask only about the one with the camera. Why not the other?”

“The other is not my concern.”

“No? He also wanted the one with the camera.”

There was a pounding now in Hoffner’s chest, the urge to grab Gutierrez by the arm, scream in his face-Was this Georg? Was this what my son has become? – but instead he asked again, “Did he set the fire?”

Gutierrez waited, his cruelty unintended.

“No,” he finally said. “That is my misfortune. Are you here to rid me of my burden?”

Hoffner felt his breath again. He said, “Then the fire was an accident?”

“There are no such things.”

“And the guns?”

“Guns,” Gutierrez said, with quiet disbelief. “What guns? We have no guns. There will be no guns.” Self-damning made such easy work of the truth. He refused to look at Hoffner. “You need something more from me, you tell Sanz to come and get it himself. He does me a favor. Otherwise no more messengers, no more visitors, no more questions from this German, that German, talk of those crates”-his voice trailed off-“make room for those fucking crates.”

Gutierrez shut his eyes, trying not to see it.

“A can of oil”-it was little more than a whisper, the creases of his eyes wet from the memory-“a tiny can of oil and all that heat.” The tears ran and he forced his eyes open. He looked at Hoffner. “God has sent His message, and I damn Him for it.” Gutierrez looked upward. “Viva la Republica,”he said. “ Viva la Libertad. Do you hear?” He looked again at Hoffner. “My cause is no longer yours. No longer Sanz’s. No longer His. Either shoot me or get out of my town.”

Gutierrez stood. He moved past Hoffner to the curtain. He was about to step through when Hoffner said, “The other German. When was he here?”

Again Gutierrez’s gaze hardened. He peered into the room. This time, though, he hadn’t the strength for it. He was suddenly aware of the tears, and he wiped them. “I don’t know,” he said. “Two days ago, three.”

“He came to ask about the one with the camera?”

“Yes.”

“In this place?”

Gutierrez nodded.

There was no point; the man had nothing more to give.

Hoffner nodded and turned to Mila, and Gutierrez said, “He was strange, that German.” Hoffner looked back and saw Gutierrez staring at him. “Not like the others,” said Gutierrez. “Not like the one with the camera. He had death in the eyes.”

“There are Germans like that now.”

“No.” Gutierrez shook his head. “Not SS. Not soldiers. Something else with this one.” It was as if he were seeing the man in front of him. He stared a moment longer and then pushed through the curtain, and Hoffner watched as the cloth puckered and grew still.

That night they stayed in Tarancon.

The days were slipping by, but Hoffner let them go. He might have convinced himself it was to keep them safe: they had been lucky last night; driving after dark seemed beyond even a Spaniard’s arrogance. Or he might have said it was for the time he could take with Mila, hours to sit or walk or stare up from a rusted bed and wait for the breeze to find its way into a room so small that the ledge of the window served as table for both pitcher and glass.

But the truth was easier than that. Hoffner simply believed Georg was alive. He had no idea why he believed this, or why he knew Georg would still be alive when he found him, but time was no longer a concern. There was nothing he could point to in the last days to make this sudden certainty real, and yet here it was.

Hoffner had felt it only once before, this kind of ease, in the same heat, the same silence, the same taste of soured milk in the air. It sat deep in his past and yet lay quietly by his side, and Hoffner chose not to ask why.

He sat up and took a sip of the water, brown with silt. He stared out through the window and saw the hills under the moon.

Mila said, “He’s out there.”

He had thought her asleep. He nodded and lit a cigarette.

She said, “You thought he’d set that fire.”

Hoffner felt the heat of the room on his face. He let the smoke spear through his nose. He said nothing.

She said, “And what if he had?”

Hoffner took another pull as he stared out. “But he didn’t.”

“No-he didn’t. So you don’t have to save him from himself.”

He looked at her. “What does that mean?”

“The way you do with the other boy. Sascha. That’s the one you think you need to save. Georg didn’t set the fire, so it wasn’t your fault.”

He continued to stare at her. “That’s a stupid thing to say.”

“Is it?”

“You don’t understand.”

“You’re right, I don’t.” She reached out and took his cigarette. “So I’m left to bring out the trite and the obvious.” She took a pull. “I’m thirsty.”

Hoffner handed her the glass and watched as she drank.

He said, “I made him what he is.”

“No one makes anyone else into anything.”

“He was sixteen. A boy. I had a girl on the side.”

“A boy with a cheating father. What a remarkable story.”

“I threw it in his face.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“Then you’d be wrong.”

She held the glass up to him and he took it. He turned and set it on the ledge. And he stared out and knew that somewhere people were sleeping.

“It was at a railway station,” he said. “This girl. Sascha was there. He saw us together. There were words. I didn’t see him for eight years after that. It’s been another nine since.”

“Because he saw you with a girl?”

“You don’t see it. It sounds … different now. Small. It wasn’t. It’s what I was. It’s what he knew I was.”

“And what you were makes him what he is now? That must be so much easier to believe than anything else.” She reached across him and tapped her ash out the window. Her hair played against his chest, and she lay back.

He said, “So you want me to be blameless?”

“No. You’ll never have that. I loved my husband, even when he had a woman in Moscow. He stopped it, and we went on.”

It took Hoffner a moment to answer. “It’s different.”

“Why? Because you think a woman needs to forgive? Because your wife forgave you every time she knew you had another one?”

“He was a boy.”

“My husband wrote me at the end. He said he deserved to be dying. Freezing to death, and he needed to tell me it was because of what he had done to me. How much he regretted it. Can you think of anything more stupid than that?”

Hoffner hadn’t the strength for this. “No. I suppose not.”

She sat straight up and forced him to look at her. “Don’t do that. Don’t ask to be forgiven because you can’t forgive yourself. You’re here for Georg. You risk everything for Georg. But it doesn’t make you a better man that you do. You do it, and it’s enough.”

Hoffner stared at her. “And it’s enough for you?”

She looked at him. Hoffner thought to hold her but she lay down. He lay beside her and brought her back into his chest.

“Yes,” she said. “It is.”

And he slept.

Viva Espana

“He let him die.”

The man behind the bar set the glasses down in front of Hoffner and began to pour. “His own son,” he said, a tinge of respect to mask the shock. “That’s who sits up in the Alcazar now.”

It was eleven in the morning, and the hundred kilometers to Toledo had been dry. They required a drink, something with a bit more bite than wine. This was brandy from the south, Jerez, the last bottles Toledo would be seeing for quite some time. It felt good to have this kind of burning at the back of the throat. Hoffner told the man to refill his glass. He then joined Mila outside. She was on a bench, staring up through the tiled roofs along the narrow street. She took her glass and drank, and Hoffner peered up.

There was no escaping the gaze of the massive fortress on the hill, stone and towers and windows in perfect line. The Alcazar had watched over Toledo for nearly five hundred years. Now it was Toledo that stared up and wondered how soon the stones would fall.

The talk in the bar had been of the fascist rebels inside. There were a thousand of them: cadets, Guardia, their wives and children, and all those fat ones who had scampered up to the gate, pounded on the doors, and begged to be let in the moment it had all turned sour for them. The Republican forces had taken the city, and the fascists were now holed up with no hope of surviving. The Alcazar had become a little city unto itself, with thick walls and iron gates to keep the fascists safe inside, while outside the Republican militias plotted and tossed grenades and waited for the end.

And how had this all come to pass? Because the man keeping the fascists calm inside was a colonel by the name of Jose Moscardo. Moscardo hadn’t been part of the July 18 conspiracy; he hadn’t known of Franco and Mola and Queipo de Llano. But he did know which Spain was his. And so, seizing the moment, he dispatched the entire contents of the Toledo arms factory up the hill and into the fortress before the Republican militias could stop him. It was an unexpected coup.

Save for one small point. While Moscardo might have shown remarkable savvy in ferreting away men and soldiers and guns and children, he was less astute at protecting his own. Somehow, in all the mayhem, he forgot his sixteen-year-old son Luis outside the fortress walls. Within hours, the boy was taken hostage by the militias, who promised to shoot him if his father refused to surrender. It was a brief conversation on the telephone, at which point Moscardo asked to speak to his son.

“They have me, Father,” said Luis. “What shall I do?”

Moscardo thought a moment. “If this is true, commend your soul to God, shout ‘?Viva Espana!’and die like a hero.”

“That,” said the boy, “I can do.”

It was an act of uncommon bravery. Word of it had spread to the south and the far north, where Moscardo and the Alcazar were already things of legend for the rebel fascist soldiers: the new Abraham, they called him, although this time God had failed to reach out to save his Isaac. This time, faith had truly been tested.

The fascist soldiers chanted their names, and the great fortress became the bastion of all that was good and true in Spain.

Hoffner said, “The barman said we’d do best with a group headquartered near the cathedral.” He tossed back the last of his drink. “Republican army. Slightly more organized than the Communists.”

“That’s no great surprise,” said Mila.

“The man said ‘slightly.’ I don’t think this is going to be files in triplicate.”

“Is he sending someone to take us?”

“Why?”

“Because it’s Toledo. He could draw us a map and we’d never find it.” She finished her glass and stood. “And I’m all out of bread crumbs.”

Mila was right. It would have been impossible to maneuver through the city without a guide. The boy was no more than ten years old, his canvas rope-soled shoes worn through with a few toes sticking out, but he moved them along at a nice clip. The streets were narrow and dark and slipped from one to the next, turning, then rising up a hill, before seeming to double back on themselves. Hoffner expected the bar to reappear each time they turned a corner-a sheepish look from the boy, a recalculation-but the streets poured on in endless variation: smooth stone against jagged rock, box windows of iron or wood. And always the balconies-barely enough room for a man to stand, rails only tall enough to a keep a child from falling.

The trio arrived at a large building on one of the more sunlit squares-crucifixes and shields emblazoned in the stone-and the boy motioned to the door. He offered a quick nod, shouted the requisite “?Viva la Libertad!”and raced back to the bar. Three weeks ago he would have been beaten or paid for his services, depending on the client. This seemed better all around. Hoffner led Mila in.

There was a strange similarity to Zaragoza in the look of the large receiving hall and stairs along the walls to the upper floors, but the smells and sounds here were completely different. Barked conversations, along with the crackle of a radio, swirled above, while men sat in half-back wooden chairs, leaning against whitewashed walls and playing at games of cards or pennies. Some were in uniform, most not. Hoffner could almost taste the oregano in the air and something sweet, like the oil of pressed almonds. Odder still was the sound of laughter in the distance, husky laughs with tobacco and age grinding on the throat. Things were getting done. What that might be, though, was anyone’s guess.

A uniformed soldier walked over. He wore the brown-on-brown of the Republican army, with a thick black belt and buckle at the waist, both in need of repair. The belt holstered a pistol and a small leather satchel behind. He was at most thirty, and his hair hung loose to the brow.

“ Salud, friends,” he said. “What is it you need here?”

Before Hoffner could reach for the papers, Mila said, “We have a car filled with explosives. We bring them from Buenaventura Durruti. Viva la Republica.”

Bombs were more persuasive than papers. They gave any and all questions about Georg the army’s full attention. The car was brought around, lieutenants sent off to uncover the whereabouts of a German and his movie camera, and Hoffner and Mila were invited to eat. The stories of Captain Doval and Major Sanz made for lively conversation.

“Christ, I like hearing that.”

A large captain sat at the end of an oak table and laughed through a mouthful of stew. It was potatoes and leeks and something with the taste of cinnamon, although there was too much heat on the tongue for that. Hoffner watched as the large captain dipped a fat wedge of seeded bread into the broth, waited for the crust to turn a nice oily orange, and then shoved it in. The man laughed again, and a chunk of venison popped from his mouth and back into his bowl. He apologized even as he continued to laugh.

“Gentlemen soldiers,” he said. “All idiots. You say he put gasoline in the car?” Hoffner chewed and nodded, and the large captain laughed again. “And with the explosives right under his nose? That’s marvelous.”

Four others sat with them-younger, trimmer-but it was clear they deferred to the large one. He had the thickest mustache, the fattest cheeks, and a jaw that reached out beyond the ears before turning in for the chin. It was a massive face, with warm, thoughtful eyes. He shoveled another spoonful of meat and carrots into his mouth.

One of the others, quiet to this point, said, “And you do all this just to find your son?”

Hoffner took a taste of the wine and again nodded.

The large captain said, “Just to find?” His face was more serious despite the chewing. “Is there anything more heroic? This is what a father does if he’s a man.” He scooped up another spoonful.

The other said, “And Moscardo? He makes half the country call him a hero.”

“Moscardo is a traitor,” said the captain, “and a coward. He hides himself away and lets his son pay for his cowardice. A true caballero would have offered his own life.”

“And we would have taken it?”

“For a boy of sixteen? Of course.” The large captain looked at Hoffner. “The son is alive, by the way. Unlike Moscardo, we don’t kill a boy for his father’s failings. But of course we can’t say it, otherwise Franco or Queipo de Llano would think we’re weak. They’d want to see if they can come and try and finish us. Or they might come to avenge the boy anyway, so however it goes, this business with Moscardo is bad for us. Nothing we can do about it now, though.”

Franco, as it turned out, had proved to be a fine swimmer. He was already moving up to Seville, according to the large captain, although the reports were still a bit vague. Meanwhile, Toledo’s fate was being tossed around like so many mouthfuls of venison boiled too long in a pot. Maybe Barcelona’s arrogance did extend this far. Maybe it had to.

The younger one was not done with Hoffner. “And Durruti,” he said. “He gave you these explosives so you could find your son? Why would he do that?”

Arrogance and mistrust-the only way to win a war. Hoffner said, “He wanted me to use them in Zaragoza.”

“But you didn’t.”

“No.”

“And if you had, you’d be dead.”

“More than likely, yes.”

“So he expected you to die.” This was where the young one had been leading them.

Hoffner said, “I imagine he did.”

“And the senora?”

“I imagine her, as well.”

Which left only one logical answer: “So the explosives weren’t really to help you find your son, were they?”

Hoffner said evenly, “Durruti told me my son was dead. I knew he was wrong. I chose to make fools of the requetesinstead.”

The young one refused to back down. “Fools can still shoot rifles and drive tanks. Maybe better to have used the explosives.” He finished his glass and stood. “Good luck finding your German son who takes pictures. I’m sure it will be a tender reunion.” He pushed his chair back, nodded once to Mila, and headed off.

Watching him go, the large captain said, “He has a brother and two sisters in the Alcazar. Our hero Moscardo keeps hostages of his own. It makes it difficult. My lieutenant doesn’t have the same choices you have in how he tries to save his family.”

Hoffner refused to feel the guilt. “I didn’t know.”

“Of course not. But you bring explosives, so maybe we give Moscardo something to think about.”

By early afternoon there was still no word on Georg, although two of the soldiers had yet to report in. Talk of the explosives and the Alcazar continued. What better way to spend the time? With a few more glasses of wine, the large captain suggested it was time to drive up to the fortress and make good on the deposit.

“No, no, no-don’t worry,” he said. “It’s completely safe. They only shoot when they’re shot at. They need to save their ammunition.”

Naturally, Mila and Hoffner were given no choice but to join him. Nonetheless, the large captain decided they would all three ride up in an old Bilbao armored car just behind the Mercedes, its 7mm gun aimed backward. Why provoke anything?

Inside, the grind of the engine was deafening and the seats smelled of piss.

The large captain shouted, “We make a pass three times a day in this. They’ll look a little funny at the Mercedes, but they won’t do anything.”

Hoffner peered out through the slits and saw the mounting destruction as they climbed. Entire walls lay in rubble, while gnarled iron railings stretched across the stone and looked like claws trying to work their way through. Sandbag barricades remained planted in the middle of the streets, with bullet holes strafing across them and stray caps and canteens lying at odd angles. Evidently the retreat to the Alcazar had not been a quiet one.

Where the cobblestone had given way, the driver slowed and weaved his way around the newly formed ditches and mounds. All this had been on view in Barcelona, except total victory there had made the wreckage distant, an artifact of daring and pride, easy enough for a boy to stand atop and declare his absolute mastery. Here desolation and death still lived in the rock and waited on a final reckoning. It forced Hoffner to pull back even as the streets passed in empty silence.

The car lurched and heaved and finally pulled to a stop. The engine cut out, and the large captain, reaching for the handle, said, “You come too if you want. They won’t be able to see us down here.”

He pushed open the door and the sun streamed in, along with a spray of air that was breathable. Mila and Hoffner followed him.

They were perhaps thirty meters from the wall, safely behind the bombed remains of a house, an outpost of sorts, with enough of a view to see the spire of one of the fortress towers high above. Part of the fortress roof had been torn away-a few well-tossed grenades from an aeroplane-but for the time being, the Alcazar remained sufficiently intact. A man sat with a machine gun, while the driver of the Mercedes stood a few meters higher up the incline, pulling the explosives from the car and laying them on the grass. Another two remained behind the car, their rifles aimed up at the wall, the barrels moving slowly back and forth along the line of windows and ledges. For men who were convinced the rebels would be taking no notice, they were showing remarkable caution.

The man finished unloading the explosives and began to dart up to the base of the tower, keeping low, a brick in each hand. Five trips in, a man at the car shouted for him to stop. Something had caught his eye. Hoffner inched out and tried to see where he was looking.

Twenty meters above, a group of four women were being forced out onto a ledge, terror in their faces as they clutched at the stone. The barrel of a rifle appeared among them, followed by the shout of a man’s high-pitched voice: “These are your socialist whores! Move off or they join you down there!”