The War That Came Early: West and East (34 page)

That a bomb might land on top of the house never crossed her mind. She’d been in plenty of raids before, and no bombs had hit here yet. That had to mean none could. The logic was perfect … at least till she met a counterexample.

Her parents joined her under there a moment later. Her mother was grumbling because she’d stubbed a toe on the stairs. “Miserable air pirates,” Father said. He’d lifted the phrase straight from the Nazi papers. Sarah wondered if he realized what had just come out of his mouth.

Before she could ask him, bombs began whistling down. Even when you knew—or thought you knew—one wouldn’t hit here, the sound was scary. Then the bombs started going off. The noise was horrendous. Feeling the ground shake under you was worse. Sarah had never been in an earthquake, but now she had a notion of what they were like.

Antiaircraft guns added their own crashes to the racket. Through it all, Father said, “I think those must be French planes. The engines sound different from the ones the RAF uses.”

Sarah hadn’t noticed. Even when it was pointed out to her, she couldn’t hear any difference. She wouldn’t have cared if she could. She just wanted this to be over.

Then several bombs burst much closer than any had before. She screamed. She couldn’t help herself. The house shook like a rat in a terrier’s jaws. For a second, she thought everything would come down on
top of the table. Windows blew in with a tinkle of glass. All of a sudden, she could smell cool, moist outside air—and the smoke it carried.

The raid seemed to last forever. They often felt that way while they were going on. At last, the enemy planes flew off to England or France or wherever they’d come from. Not long afterwards, the all-clear sounded. Father said, “I’d better see if the neighbors are all right.”

“Would they do the same for us?” Sarah asked sourly.

“Some of them would,” he answered, and she supposed that was so. He went on, “Even my bathrobe has a yellow star, so I won’t get into trouble on account of that.”

“Oh, joy,” Sarah and her mother said at the same time. They both started to laugh. Why not? What other choice did you have but pounding your head against a table leg?

Father’s voice joined the shouting outside. Sarah didn’t hear anyone screaming. That had to be good. The Nazi government was tormenting Jews. She should have hoped the RAF or the French would knock it flat. But bombs didn’t fall on a government. Bombs fell on people. And, even though a lot of those people must have voted for the Nazis back before elections turned into farces, most of them were just … people. They weren’t so bad.

After a while, Father came back in. His slippers scraped on broken glass. (What would they do about that? Worry about it after dawn, that was what.) “All right here,” he reported. “Those big ones came down a couple of blocks away, thank God.” Bells and sirens told of fire engines and ambulances rushing where they were needed most.

“You may as well go back to bed,” Mother said. “Nothing else to do now.”

After the first couple of air strikes against Münster, Sarah would have laughed at that. Now she nodded. As life since the Nazis took over showed, you could get used to anything. If you were still tired after the bombs stopped falling, you grabbed some more sleep. She heard Father yawn. He’d need every minute he could get. Come morning, he’d be even more overworked than usual.

He’d just trudged out the door when someone started pounding on it. Sarah and her mother exchanged looks of alarm. That sounded like the
SS. What could the blackshirts want so early? All sorts of evil possibilities crossed her mind. Would they claim the Goldmans were showing lights to guide the enemy bombers? That was ridiculous—or would be if the SS weren’t saying it.

Feet dragging, Sarah went to the door and reluctantly opened it. Her jaw dropped. “Isidor!” she blurted. “What are you doing here?”

“I rode over to make sure you folks were safe,” Isidor Bruck answered. Sure enough, a beat-up bicycle stood behind the baker’s son. He managed a shy smile. “I’m glad you are.”

“Yes, we’re fine,” Sarah managed. She didn’t know what else to say. Obviously, Isidor hadn’t ridden across town to check on her mother and father. What were they to him but customers? She’d thought she was something more. Till this moment, she hadn’t realized she might be a lot more. She took a deep breath and, without thinking about it, ran a hand through her hair. “Are your kin all right?”

He nodded. “Nothing came down real close to us. But I heard this part of town got hit hard, so I thought I’d better check.”

“Thanks … Thanks very much. That was sweet of you,” Sarah said, which made Isidor turn red. She added, “It’s nice to know somebody—anybody—cares.”

Isidor nodded again. “I know what you mean,” he said. “We have to take care of ourselves these days. Nobody else will do it for us—that’s for sure. To us, maybe, but not for us.” As his mouth tightened, he suddenly looked fifteen years older. He touched the brim of his cloth cap. “Well, I’d better get back. The work doesn’t go away.”

“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, then,” 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.