"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 Madrileno. "?Donde esta 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 Madrileno 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 narigon 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 Napoleon. 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 Napoleon 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." Napoleon 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."