“I’m sure,” Sarah said. “Come again, though.” He bobbed his head and rode away. Surely it was only her imagination that the bicycle tires floated several centimeters above the sidewalk.
CHAIM WEINBERG LOOKED AROUND the battered streets of Madrid. “You know what’s missing here?” he asked.
Mike Carroll also considered the vista. “Damn near everything,” he answered after due contemplation. “What have you got in mind?”
They were both speaking English. Madrileños walking by grinned at them. Even more than their ragged uniforms, the foreign language showed they were Internationals. Internationals were still heroes in Madrid—at least to the majority that didn’t secretly favor the Fascists. And most of the locals didn’t speak English, which gave at least the hope of privacy.
“I’ll tell you what’s missing here,” Chaim said. “A shul’s missing, that’s what.”
“In case you didn’t notice, it’s a Catholic country,” Mike said, as if to an idiot child. “And, in case you hadn’t noticed, the Republic isn’t proreligion. It’s not supposed to be, either.”
By that, he meant The Republic does things the same way as the Soviet Union. And so it did. Both had broken the priesthood’s long-entrenched power in their respective countries. Even so, Chaim said, “There’s a difference between Spain and Russia.”
“Oh, yeah? Like what?” Carroll didn’t quite say Tell me another one, but he might as well have.
Even so, Chaim had an answer for him. Two answers, in fact: “For one thing, the opposition in Russian’s been broken. You can’t very well say that here.” His wave swept over the ruins, all created by the ever-so-Catholic Nationalists. “And for another, Spain discriminates against Jews. You can’t say the Soviet Union does, not when so many of the Old Bolsheviks are Yehudim.”
“Yeah, well …” This time, Mike paused in faint embarrassment. And, after a couple of seconds, Chaim understood why. A whole great swarm of the Old Bolsheviks convicted in Moscow’s show trials were Jews, too.
“It’s still discrimination. Discrimination’s still wrong,” Chaim said stubbornly. “Before the Republic, it was fucking illegal to be a Jew in Spain. It still is, in Nationalist country. If that’s not why we’re fighting, what are we doing here?”
“Stopping Hitler and Mussolini and Sanjurjo?” Mike suggested.
“Stopping them from doing what? Screwing over people they don’t happen to like, that’s what!” Weinberg answered his own question.
Mike Carroll looked at him. “When was the last time you were in a—what did you call it?—a shul?”
“It’s been a while,” Chaim admitted. His folks had made him get barmitzvahed. He’d quit going right after that. As far as he was concerned, action counted for more than prayer. But the right to prayer was a different story. He stuck out his chin as far as it would go (which wasn’t as far as he would have wished). “All the more reason to have one now.”
“How do you figure that?”
“Because it’s been a hell of a lot longer since any of the Spaniards have been. Because the ones who’re still Jews have to pretend they’re Catholics when anybody’s looking. Because that’s wrong, dammit,” Chaim said.
“Let me buy you a drink or two, okay?” Mike said. “You need something to wind you down—that’s for goddamn sure.”
Chaim looked around. He blinked in surprise. “Trust you to go on about buying drinks when there’s not a cantina in sight for miles.”
“We’ll find one. Come on.” Carroll turned to a Madrileño. “¿Donde está una cantina?”
He got elaborate, voluble directions, complete with gestures. The Spanish was much too fast to follow, though. The local soon saw as much. He grabbed Mike with one hand and Chaim with the other and took them where they needed to go. Yes, Spaniards would give you the shirt off their back. The problem was, not enough of them had shirts to give.
And were they proud! Mike tried to buy this fellow a drink, but the local wouldn’t let him. He hadn’t brought them here for a reward, but because he was grateful to the International Brigades. That was what Chaim thought he was saying, anyhow. The Madrileño saluted and bowed and left.
Mike did buy Chaim a drink, and then another one. Chaim bought a couple of rounds, too; Jews had their own kind of pride. After four shots of rotgut, Chaim wobbled when he walked. He was no less determined than he had been sober, though. If anything, he was more so.
“You’ll get in trouble,” Matt said blearily.
Chaim’s laugh was raucous enough to make heads swing his way. “Yeah? What’ll they do to me? Send me back to the front?”
“They’ll throw you in a Spanish jail, that’s what they’ll do,” Carroll answered. “Those joints are worse than the front, you ask me.”
He had a point. Chaim was too stubborn and too plastered to acknowledge it. “I’m going to talk to Brigadier Kossuth,” he declared.
“On your head be it,” Mike said. “And it will be.”
Kossuth wasn’t the brigadier’s real name. Chaim had heard that once, but couldn’t come within miles of pronouncing it; it sounded like a horse sneezing. But the real Kossuth had also been a Hungarian rebel against the status quo. The modern one had glassy black eyes and a tongue he flicked in and out like a lizard. He spoke several languages, and sounded like Bela Lugosi doing Dracula in every damn one of them.
English, though, wasn’t one of those several. He understood Chaim’s Yiddish, and Chaim could mostly follow his throaty German. “A shul?” Kossuth said. One of his elegantly combed eyebrows climbed. “Well, there’s something out of the ordinary, anyhow.”
Plainly, he didn’t mean that as a compliment. “Why not?” Chaim said. “It’s part of the freedom we’re fighting for, right?”
Flick. Flick. Chaim wondered whether Kossuth caught flies with that tongue. “More likely, Comrade, it’s part of the trouble you enjoy causing.”
“Me?” If Weinberg were as innocent as he sounded, he never would have heard of the facts of life, let alone practiced them as assiduously as he could.
Brigadier Kossuth ignored the melodramatics. “You.” His voice was hard and flat. “Americans are an undisciplined lot—and you, Weinberg, are undisciplined for an American. Your reputation precedes you.”
“So I’m not a Prussian. So sue me,” Chaim said. That made Kossuth show his yellow teeth. Prussian discipline was anathema in the International Brigades. They had their own kind, which was at least as harsh but which they—mostly—accepted of their own free will. “I am a Jew. Can’t I act like one once in a while?”
“You want to offend the Spaniards.” Kossuth probably didn’t catch flies with his tongue—there sure weren’t any on him.
But Chaim had an answer for him. And when did Chaim not have an answer? “The ones who favor the Republic’s ideals won’t be offended.”
“Oh, of course they will. They don’t like Jews any better than anyone else here does. Do you know what a narigón is?” Kossuth said.
Literally, the Spanish word meant somebody with a big nose. But that wasn’t what Kossuth had in mind. “A kike,” Chaim said.
He wasn’t surprised when the Magyar did know that bit of English. Kossuth nodded. “Just so,” the brigadier said. “And you want to draw extra attention to yourself here?”
“It’s not about extra attention,” Chaim said, which held … some truth. “It’s about rights and freedoms. Why am I in Spain, if not for those?”
“I don’t know. Why are you in Spain? Because you can raise more hell here than back home, I suspect.” Kossuth drummed his fingers on the tabletop in front of him. His nails, Chaim noticed, were elegantly manicured. “Even if you do found this shul, how much would you care to wager that you will not attend services for longer than a month—six weeks at the outside?”
That might well have held more than some truth. “All the same,” Chaim said.
To his surprise, Brigadier Kossuth’s chuckle didn’t emit puffs of dust. “Well, go on, th
en,” Kossuth said. “I doubt you can lose our struggle against the forces of reaction all by yourself—though not, I am sure, for lack of effort. Now get out.” Thus encouraged, if that was the word, Chaim got.
LUC HARCOURT EYED THE THREE REPLACEMENTS who’d just joined his squad with a distinctly jaundiced eye. “Look, boys, try to keep your heads down till you start figuring things out, eh?” he said. “You don’t keep them down, the Boches’ll blow ’em off—and you won’t learn much after that, by God. Right?”
“Right, Corporal,” they chorused. One was Louis, one was Marc, and the other, poor devil, was Napoléon. At least he didn’t stick his hand between two of the buttons on his tunic. He wasn’t especially short, either. Or especially bright—he said, “But we want to kill Germans, Corporal.”
“You’ll get your chance,” Luc promised. “Don’t forget, though—they have a chance at you, too. That’s not so much fun. Bet your ass it’s not.”
He stood back from himself, as it were, listening to what came out of his mouth. Damned if he didn’t sound like a slightly smoother copy of Sergeant Demange. He hadn’t been sanding his throat with Gitanes as long or as enthusiastically as Demange had, but the attitude was there. He didn’t like Demange—he didn’t think anyone could like Demange, or that the sergeant would acknowledge it if anyone did. But he’d learned how to take charge of other men from him. The method wasn’t pretty, but it worked.
Off in the distance—far off in the distance: a couple of kilometers away, at least—a machine gun stuttered. Louis and Marc and even the bellicose Napoléon suddenly looked apprehensive. Yes, things could go wrong up here. This wasn’t basic training any more.
Luc grinned at them: a sneering, acrid grin, also modeled on Sergeant Demange’s. “That was one of ours, my dears,” he said. “That won’t kill you … except by accident, of course.” The grin got nastier yet. He cocked his head to one side, listening and waiting. Sure as hell, the Germans didn’t let the French burst go unanswered. An MG-34 fired back. Luc raised an index finger. “There! That’s one of theirs!”
“But they both sound the same,” Marc protested.
“You’d better learn the difference pretty goddamn quick, that’s all I’ve got to tell you,” Luc said. “Make a mistake there and you won’t get a chance to make a whole lot more.”
“What is the difference?” Louis asked—he couldn’t hear it, either.
“Theirs fires faster,” Luc answered. “They can change belts faster than we can change strips, too.”
“It sounds like you’re saying their guns are better than ours.” Napoléon sounded as scandalized as a society matron at an indecent proposal.
“Damn straight they are,” Luc said. “Look, the Boche is a bastard. He does all kinds of horrible shit, and he does it in France. But you’ll only get killed for nothing if you think he’s a stupid bastard. He knows what he’s doing in the field, and his engineers know their business just as well.”
The new fish gaped at him as if they’d caught an archbishop celebrating a Black Mass. “But—they’re the enemy!” Louis sputtered.
“Very good. Nothing gets by you, does it?” Luc sure did sound like Sergeant Demange, and he didn’t have to step away from himself to hear it now. “But they’re not the stupid buffoons the papers make them out to be. They wouldn’t be so fucking dangerous if they were. You get that, sonny?”
“I … think so, Corporal,” the raw private answered.
“You’d better. All of you had better. Otherwise, somebody in the Ministry of War will send your family a wire no one wants to get. And you, you’ll be a black-bordered photo gathering dust on the mantel, and you’ll never suck on your girlfriend’s titties any more or try to talk her into jerking you off. Do you get that?”
Louis nodded. So did Marc and Napoléon. Their eyes were big and round as gumdrops. They looked as if he’d hit them where they lived. He hoped he had. He wanted them to live. He also wanted them to learn the ropes as fast as they could. Troops new to the front did stupid things. That could get them killed in a hurry, and it could bring trouble down on the more experienced men who had to keep company with them. Luc didn’t want to get killed for no better reason than that Marc, say, was an idiot.
Come to that, he didn’t want to get killed at all.
He gave the new men a last once-over, as withering as he could make it. Louis flinched, so he didn’t do too bad. Sergeant Demange would have had every one of them trembling in his clodhoppers. Well, they’d meet the sergeant soon enough—too soon to suit them, Luc was sure. “Let’s go, you lugs,” he said. “Keep your heads down. Don’t let the Germans see you moving. They’ve got mortars and artillery zeroed in about every ten meters. If they start shooting at you, they can hit you. They can hit me, too.”
He wished he could have the last handful of words back. He didn’t want them to realize he could get jumpy himself. They heard the words, but they didn’t hear the tone that informed them. They probably thought he’d give them all a kick in the slats if he got wounded. They didn’t know a wounded man just lay there and thrashed and screamed and bled. Well, they’d find out.
Luc led them through trenches to the ruins of a village. Digging like moles, damming like beavers, the Frenchmen had done a lot to improve the ruins. Unless you were very tall, you could move around freely without worrying about sniper fire. There were underground galleries where you could eat and sleep and shelter from artillery fire. It wasn’t the Maginot Line, but Luc had been in plenty of worse places.
Half a kilometer to the east, the German lines boasted about as many comforts. If you weren’t advancing or retreating, you settled down and made yourself at home.
The new fish exclaimed at what the soldiers dug in here had done. Luc enjoyed eating well and sleeping soft, too. Unlike Napoléon and Louis and Marc, he knew too well that these good times wouldn’t last. The Nazis had almost knocked France out of the war with their winter onslaught. They’d grabbed more of the country this time than they did in 1914, and made it harder for England to send help across the Channel. And, unlike Germany, France hadn’t had its heart in the war from the beginning.
It did now. Getting your whole northeast occupied would do that to you. And the Germans were fighting Russia now. A lot of Frenchmen with Red leanings had seen the whole war as a struggle between two sets of oppressive imperialists: as none of their business, in other words. But if Hitler threatened the Soviet Union, the font of world revolution, obviously he was a monster who needed suppressing. The Communists were singing the Popular Front song again, as loud as they could.
So, eventually, there would be big pushes forward. They’d leave this place behind. The people who lived here would come back and try to put the pieces together again. None of the offensives yet had been the real thing. But it was coming. And all the horrors that went with a war of movement would come with it.
“Sweet suffering Jesus, Harcourt, why didn’t you wipe your ass before you came back here? Look at the dingleberries you brought with you.” Sergeant Demange eyed the replacements as if he’d never seen anything so disgusting in his life. The twitching Gitane in the corner of his mouth only amplified his scorn.
“This is Sergeant Demange, men,” Luc said. “He commands the section. You’d better listen to him, or—”
“Or I’ll fucking well whale the shit out of you,” Demange broke in. “Well, you syphilitic scuts, what do they call you?” One by one, the new men hesitantly named themselves. Demange clapped a hand to his forehead. “Napoléon? Merde alors! Well, I won’t forget that—unless you get killed quick. Go round up canteens and fill ’em at the well. Go on—move! You never want me to have to tell you something more than once. Believe it, punk. You don’t.”
Thus encouraged, Napoléon moved. Marc and Louis gaped till Demange found fatigues for them, too. Luc smiled. He’d been on the other end of those growls not so long ago. This was better. Oh, yes. Much, much better.
Chapter 15
Pete McGill h
ad never figured he would walk into a shop that sold carved jade and other jewels. Then again, he’d never figured he would fall in love with a White Russian taxi dancer. Life was full of surprises. He was enjoying this one a hell of a lot more than, say, getting stomped by half a dozen Japanese soldiers with hobnailed boots.
All the same, he’d come to the Jade Tree Maker out on Yates Road by himself. If he’d had any of his buddies along, they would have told him he was pussy-whipped. They might even have been right. But that would have made him more likely to try to punch them out, not less.
A Eurasian man in a sharp silk suit stood behind the counter. “Good day,” he said in smooth English. The way he dipped his head was almost a bow. “How may I help you today, sir?”
“Right now I’m only looking,” Pete said.
“Of course.” The proprietor or clerk or whatever he was pretended the American Marine didn’t exist. He was good at it. A white man would have kept sneaking glances Pete’s way. This fellow didn’t. He had the Oriental knack for not seeing what lay right under his nose. You needed that knack if you were going to live in the crowded warrens of Peking or Shanghai without going nuts.
If Pete tried to heist something, now … The man in the suit would turn out to have been watching all along. Understanding as much, Pete kept his hands to himself as he examined the merchandise.
Jade trees, sure enough. They came in all sizes from three inches to three feet tall, all qualities of jade—jadeite was a much more brilliant green than the cheaper nephrite—and all degrees of elaboration in the carving. Prices started at a few dollars Mex and went straight up like a mortar bomb.
He thought—he hoped—Vera would like a jade tree. He had cash in his pocket. A corporal’s pay was nothing back in the States; in Shanghai, it made him well-off. He had nothing to spend his money on but cigarettes and booze—both cheap—and his lady love. Spend he would.
The War That Came Early: West and East Page 26
