Free Rosa by Jonathan Rabb Page B

she said, still with the potato. “Glad to see you didn’t feel it.”
    Hoffner looked at the back of his hand. Two thin scratch marks ran across the veins, undeniably a woman’s nails. They had begun to scab. He laughed quietly. “Fichte’s got a girl,” he said as he dabbed at them with a bit of saliva. “We went for a drink. He wanted to get a friend for me.” Hoffner went back to the soup. “I wasn’t inclined—this time.” Over the bowl, he saw the hint of a smile in her eyes.
    “Pretty?” said Martha.
    “Not the one with the nails.” When he saw the full smile, he added, “She’s all right. Too thin.”
    “Do you want them for dinner sometime?”
    “Not if we can help it.” He continued with the soup. “Where’s Sascha?”
    Martha looked up from her food and peered over at the door.
    Hoffner turned to see his older boy standing there. Sascha was in his school uniform—short pants and tie—his jet-black hair combed crisply, his expression quietly defiant. Had he been wearing the jacket, Hoffner might have mistaken him for an adolescent Kriminal-Oberkommissar Braun—a slightly rounder face, but an equally dismissive stare. As for the jacket, it had already been hung up in the bathroom. Martha was convinced that the steam-pipe air was keeping it somehow fresher. It had become a nightly ritual.
    “Hello, Father.” The boy addressed him as if he were one of his school instructors. Probably Herr Zessner, thought Hoffner. He taught physics. Sascha hated physics.
    “Hello there, Sascha.” Hoffner had given up trying to diffuse these first few moments, terrifying as they were. He turned back to his near-empty bowl and did his best to find a last few drops with his spoon. “We’re off to Johannisthal two weeks from Sunday,” he said. “You’re welcome to join us, if you like.” When Sascha failed to answer, Hoffner pulled off a wedge of the bread. The boy continued to stand in silence.
    “You know he doesn’t like that anymore,” said Martha, her voice with the hint of a reprimand. Hoffner knew it was for Sascha’s benefit.
    “Doesn’t like what?” said Hoffner, knowing exactly what she was referring to. “Air shows?”
    It had been a slow process, this, the losing of a son. Hoffner would have loved to point to the most obvious moment for its origin—Martha on the ground, Sascha staring at him in disbelief—but, if he was being honest, he knew he needed to go back further than that. The choice to remain faithful to his wife had sapped Hoffner of something vital. Rather than simply narrowing the focus, it had eliminated the beam entirely: he had shut it all down. In an odd way, that moment of infinite regret had been the final dousing of the flame. Sascha had even forgiven him for it, but by then Hoffner had become unreachable. He might have convinced himself that it was to keep the temptations at bay. He did, for a while, but even Hoffner knew better than that. It had only been a matter of time before the boy had given up trying. Recent events had simply taken Sascha over the edge.
    “He wants to be called Alexander,” said Martha. “He’s asked you several times.”
    “That’s right,” said Hoffner, nodding as if he only now remembered. “I must be losing track with all these name changes around here. Georg, Alexander.” He turned to Sascha. “But yours has nothing to do with age. You’re simply ashamed of your Russian past.”
    The boy held his ground. “I’m surprised you’re not, Father.” His voice sounded more like his mother’s than he had wanted; the sharpness in his tone, however, more than made up for the pitch.
    Hoffner almost let himself get drawn in. Instead he turned back, took the wedge of bread, and dunked it in the tiny puddle of soup. “No, that’s true. We Bolsheviks do like to stay together.” He took a bite.
    “Don’t make fun of him, Nikolai,” said Martha. “You don’t have to go to that school every day.”
    Hoffner looked across at her,