The Second Son: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page A

Luxemburg had been dead almost twenty years and yet the streets bled—red with black, of course (who could miss the black at the center), but it was the red that flapped in the air: flags, pennants, flowers. The scarves that hung around the children’s necks were particularly fetching, as if even their little throats were soaked in it. It might have been the rain—this had been a particularly wet, cold July—but why reduce it to weather?
    Irony, though, was for those on the outside, those with something still to gain, although surely this bunch had been on the fringes long enough to appreciate it just a bit. Wasn’t there an irony in their having been elected at all, in their claims to victimization by the Bolsheviks, Versailles, the Jews? Fascinating to see earnestness wash away even the most stubborn traces of the truth.
    The tram stopped, and Hoffner stepped off to a nice dowsing of his trousers from a passing truck. The lettering on its side had it heading west to Döberitz. Everything was heading west these days—food, horses, prostitutes—all of it to keep the Olympic athletes happy. Most were already settled in; the last few stragglers would be setting up digs in the next day or so, with their sauna and chefs and shooting ranges and private showers. Hoffner tried to picture the genius who had seen fit to call such lush accommodations a village.
    But for those who had invaded to cheer the athletes on, Berlin was determined to quell any lingering doubts. Thoughts of Olympic boycotts might be long forgotten: everyone who had threatened not to come was already here. Even so, the Jew-baiting signs that had so troubled the French and the English and, of course, the Americans (would they be bringing their Negroes?) had been pulled from shop windows, stripped from the Litfassäulen , and replaced with odes to sport and camaraderie and international friendship. Not that the Greeks had been much on mutual friendships or protecting their weak—mountainsides and babies came to mind—but they had come up with the ideal, and wasn’t that what the new Germany was all about?
    It was a cloud of gentle denial—ataraxia for the modern world—that had brought this cleansing rain, and Hoffner wondered if he was the only one to feel the damp in his legs.
    He turned onto Alexanderplatz and saw the giant swastika draped across the front of police headquarters. It billowed momentarily. He imagined it was waving to him, a gesture of farewell, good luck, “It was swell, Isabel, swell.” The telephone call from the ministry had no doubt preceded him. The paperwork would follow, but he was out. There was no need for the flag to be anything but gracious in victory.
    The look on the sergeant’s face at the security desk confirmed it. The usual nod of deference was now an officious bob of courtesy.
    “Ah, Herr Kriminal-Oberkommissar,” he said. At least the man continued to refer to him by his title. Hoffner had been one of the very few to insist on his old rank after the SS had absorbed the Kripo and the Gestapo into what was now known as the Sipo. He had never considered himself a major or a captain, or whatever rank they had tried to foist on him. Inside the Alex, “detective” would have suited him just fine, but even the Kripo had its standards. So “chief inspector” it remained, if only for a few more days.
    “Herr Scharführer,” Hoffner answered.
    “Will you be needing help with any more boxes, Herr Kriminal-Oberkommissar?”
    Hoffner had anticipated the ministry’s response. He knew the letter he had sent them a few weeks back would bring his file into play. He knew it would mark the beginning of the end—of everything. The rest was academic. Most of his office was already packed up and gone, thirty-five years neatly stacked in boxes across town in his rooms on Droysenstrasse.
    “I think I can manage it, Herr Scharführer,” Hoffner said. He nodded, then pushed through the oak doors and stepped out into the