girl-on Goebbels’s insistence-and even managed to get her pregnant. He married her first, of course, and while he showed the face of a devastated husband when both she and the baby died during childbirth, Kurtzman knew that Berlin had stepped in to save him. He had accommodated respectability. He was now free.
Goebbels moved up, and Kurtzman moved with him. When Hitler finally took the chancellorship in 1933, Kurtzman celebrated with the rest, watched the Reichstag burn, and accepted his post at the Ministry with a sense of quiet destiny.
It was all as it was meant to be, until the day he was told that the whole thing had come crashing down. He was no longer a member of the party. He could never be a member of the party. He was filth: a Jew. A dirty Jew. They had discovered his secret. In a matter of hours, the once untouchable Alexander Kurtzman was forced to resume his role as the reviled and pathetic Sascha Hoffner. His life, as he had made it, was no longer his. The humiliation and despair might have killed a weaker man. Not so with Sascha. His own death was only of minor concern.
An image of that sixteen-year-old boy-before Goebbels, before the Freikorps-sat with Nikolai Hoffner as he cradled an empty glass in his hands.
Mila was next to him. Wilson leaned against the counter. Vollman stood by the door. They had finished the bottle of whiskey. They had let him drink in silence.
Hoffner set his glass down. He looked over and saw the canisters of film and the viewing machine in a crate by the door. He couldn’t recall when any of that had happened.
Mila was drinking water. She pushed her glass toward him, and Hoffner took it. He drank. It tasted of rust and sand, and he saw a few pieces of grit swirling at the bottom. They were the same color as the one he had brushed from Georg’s ear. Why that? he wondered.
Wilson said, “You saw something?”
The sound of the voice startled Mila. She looked up, and Hoffner set the glass on the table. He tapped at it, sending it across in little bursts of movement. He might have sent it over the edge had Mila not grabbed it and pulled it back.
Hoffner’s head remained unnervingly light as he stared at the table. “I saw what you saw,” he said. “Spain, guns-a well.”
“And that last image?” Wilson missed nothing.
“It went by quickly.”
“Not too quickly.”
“No,” said Hoffner, “not too quickly.” Wilson waited. Finally Hoffner turned to him. “It was my son,” he said. “My older son. Sascha. I hadn’t seen him in a long time.” Hoffner felt Mila’s eyes bore through him.
Wilson said, “You’re telling me that was Kurtzman?”
The word jarred. “How do you know his name?”
“We’re not likely to take a man on and not know everything about his family.” Wilson reached for the jug of water and poured himself a glass. He drank. “Kurtzman is in the Propaganda Ministry. Why would he be in Spain?”
The numbing at the back of Hoffner’s head returned; he welcomed it. “You saw his face,” he said, “the way he was dressed.” His eyes drifted back to the table. “You think this has anything to do with the Ministry?”
Wilson needed a moment. “So he’s here for the guns?”
Hoffner felt the first taste of acid in his throat. He took hold of Mila’s glass and held it. “No,” he said. “He’s not here for the guns.”
“How do you know that?”
Hoffner drank. He felt the water course through his chest.
“He’s no longer in the party,” he said. “He’s no longer a Nazi. They found his Jewish blood-from his grandmother-three weeks ago. And they threw him out.” Hoffner set the glass down but continued to hold it. His mind was emptying. “He’s not here for the guns or the Ministry.”
Wilson wasn’t convinced. “I thought you hadn’t seen him in quite some time.”
“I wouldn’t need to see him to know such things.”
Wilson looked as if he might press it. Instead he said, “Then why is he here?”
Hoffner heard the voices from Teruel, from Tarancon, from a part of himself he refused to listen to-
Wilson’s uncertainty turned to quiet disbelief. “What?”
Hoffner said nothing, and Wilson continued, “You can’t believe that.” He waited for an answer. When none came, he said, “You understand what you’re saying?”
Hoffner stared at the glass. He had nothing else. “You’re asking if I understand how my son could have killed his brother. Tell me. How could I possibly understand that?”
Wilson refused to hear it. “Even if it’s remotely true, he could have killed him in Berlin. Why follow him here?”
Hoffner had no answer, nothing but the face of Sascha staring back at him through the lens of a camera. “My son is dead. My other one is here.” He felt his throat constrict, his eyes grow heavy. “If only the world were made of such coincidence…”
Wilson looked across at Vollman. He saw his own disbelief staring back. He looked again at Hoffner. “You’re talking about your own son.”
Hoffner felt his own rage and despair like wet rope coiling around his throat. “Yes,” he said quietly, “my own son,” and the glass shattered in his hand.
It was nearly half a minute before he realized he was bleeding.
Mila was already pressing down on his wrist, pulling pieces of glass from his skin, as Hoffner stared down at the hand and saw one long cut. A single thick shard rocked easily on the table, while tiny grains of glass shimmered across his palm. Mila picked and brushed, and Hoffner felt nothing. It was a hand, not his own, until she finally took a cloth from Vollman and pressed it into the flesh. Instantly, Hoffner felt the pain shoot up through his arm like the twisting of raw muscle. He heard himself groan, and realized it was the burning of alcohol coursing into his skin. His throat constricted and he coughed.
“Bring over that bucket,” Mila said, and Hoffner angled his head as she continued to work on him. Only once did he come close to vomiting, but the acid stayed in his throat, and his hand began to throb with its own isolated pain.
Hoffner’s head cleared. He swallowed and looked over to see his hand encased in thick gauze. Wilson had produced a second bottle. He filled a glass with whiskey and held it out to Hoffner.
“He’s had enough,” Mila said.
Hoffner took the glass and drank. Wilson set the bottle on the table and retreated to the counter. Vollman was back by the door as Mila sat silently.
Finally Wilson said, “You’re saying this has nothing to do with the guns or Franco?”
Hoffner kept his eyes on the glass. He flexed his fingers. He could still move them. “Not everything shatters the world as a whole, Herr Wilson. This one shatters just mine.”
Wilson started to answer, and Hoffner said, “He left the film. He wanted it found. He wanted me to know.”
Wilson was still struggling. “But why?”
Hoffner heard the question in his own voice. “Because I’m his father.”
It answered nothing and brought a silence to the room.
Finally Wilson said, “I could help you.”
“No,” said Hoffner. “You couldn’t.” He felt the need to stand. He pushed back his chair and steadied himself against the table. “Thank you, Herr Wilson. Thank you for Doval, the doctor”-the word caught in his throat-“Georg. I imagine you’ll be leaving Spain now.”
Wilson showed a genuine sympathy even if he understood nothing. He nodded slowly.
Hoffner extended his good hand. Wilson hesitated, then took it. Vollman followed suit. It was a bizarre moment of protocol, until Vollman said, “You’re going to try and find him.”
Hoffner said nothing.
