"Not everything," her father said. "We're all still here, and three of us are together. And if Saul isn't, he isn't anywhere the Nazis are likely to look for him, either. I'll tell you something else, too."
"What?"
"The Fuhrer isn't the first ruler who hardened his heart against the Jews. Pharaoh did the same thing in Egypt more than three thousand years ago, and look what it got him. Pesach isn't far away, you know."
Sarah eyed him in something not far from astonishment. She didn't think she'd ever heard him call the holiday Pesach before; when he said anything, he said Passover. And it wasn't as if they were a religious or an observant family. They ate pork. They'd never bothered with matzoh during Passover. They didn't go to the synagogue even on the High Holy Days.
Her surprise must have shown. Samuel Goldman laughed softly. "You're right," he said. "I never cared much about being a Jew before. So I was Jewish and Friedrich Lauterbach was Lutheran. So what? We were both Germans, weren't we?"
"As a matter of fact, no," Sarah said.
"As a matter of fact, yes. As a matter of policy, no." Even now, Father was relentlessly precise. "But if, as a matter of policy, the Nazis won't let me be a German, what else can I be? Only a Jew. And do you know what else?"
"What?" Sarah whispered again, fascinated and intrigued.
Her father smiled a sad, crooked smile. "I find I rather like it, that's what. I wish I'd been more of a Jew when I had more of a choice. I wish we'd raised you and Saul more in the faith. Hitler made me less assimilated than I thought I was, and part of me wants to thank him for it. Isn't that funny?"
Sarah bent down and kissed him on the cheek. He needed a shave; his beard was rough under her lips. "Oh, good!" she exclaimed.
"Good?" He looked at her over the tops of his spectacles. "Why?"
"Because that means I'm not the only one who feels the same way," she said.
"Very often, you don't understand what something is worth till you run into someone who tries to tell you it isn't worth anything," Samuel Goldman said. "And, very often, that turns out to be too late. I can only hope it won't here. If I thought it would do any good, I would pray, but"-he spread his hands in apology to her, or perhaps to God-"I still can't make myself imagine it helps."
"Make yourself believe it helps," Sarah corrected.
He smiled again, more broadly this time. "Make myself believe it helps," he agreed. "That's what I meant to say. I believe I am a Jew, all right. Whether I can believe I am a believing Jew…I am the kind of Jew who enjoys making paradoxes like that, which is probably not the kind of Jew God had in mind when He made us."
"Well, why did He make us the way we are, then? Why did He make so many of us like that?"
"Stubborn and cross-grained, you mean?" Now Father was grinning from ear to ear, something he hardly ever did. "He made us in His own image, didn't He? No wonder we're this way."
"You're having more fun playing with this than you ever did with the Greeks and Romans." Sarah made it half an accusation.
And her father, to her astonishment, went from grinning to blushing like a schoolgirl. "I sure am," he said. "I didn't know it showed so much. I've even started brushing up my Hebrew, and I haven't cared a pfennig for it since my father and mother made me get bar-mitzvahed. Know what I'm thinking of trying next?"
"Tell me," Sarah urged. She was fascinated in spite of herself, and had the feeling her father felt the same way.
"Aramaic," Samuel Goldman said in a low voice. He might have been someone who dabbled in drugs confessing that he planned to start shooting morphine into his veins.
All Sarah knew about Aramaic was that it was an ancient language. Growing up in a family that prided itself on its secularism, on its Germanness, she hadn't learned much more about Hebrew. Maybe that was why she blurted, "Teach me!"
"Teach…you?" her father echoed. The idea might never have occurred to him before. No, no might about it: plainly, the idea never had occurred to him before.
But she nodded. "I'm not a blockhead, you know. I could learn it. And you taught from the end of the last war till the Nazis wouldn't let you do it any more. You liked doing it, too, and everybody always said you were good at it."
"What on earth would you do with Aramaic, dear?" Samuel Goldman asked. "Or even Hebrew, come to that?"
"Beats me," Sarah said cheerfully. "What'll you do with them?"
Father blinked. Then he started to laugh. "To tell you the truth, I don't know, either. I just thought learning something new would help me pass the time. Of course, pick-and-shovel work is liable to take care of that."
Sarah nodded. "If you're able to go on with it yourself. If you're not too tired."
"A bargain." Her father held out one abused hand. She solemnly clasped it. He hesitated, then went on, "I have found one possible use for all this."
"Oh?" Sarah couldn't see any, not at first. Then she thought she did: "You mean going to Palestine, if we ever got the chance?"
"Mm, that, too, for Hebrew-if we ever got the chance." By the way Father sounded, he didn't think they would. "But that isn't what I meant. I was thinking that, if I asked God in one of His own languages why He was doing this to us, I might possibly get an answer." With a sigh of regret-or exhaustion-he shook his head. "Too much to hope for, isn't it?"
She wished she could tell him no. But, almost of its own accord, her head bobbed up and down. "I'm sorry, but I'm afraid it is." PETE MCGILL LISTENED TO MAX WEINSTEIN spit out singsong syllables at Wang. Wang answered; damned if he didn't. McGill stared at Max. Like most of the Marines at the American Legation in Peking, he'd picked up a few Chinese words and phrases himself, most of them foul. But he'd never imagined he'd be able to sling the lingo the way Max did. He'd never imagined he would want to, either.
"What are you going back and forth with him about?" he asked. "Has he got a nice, clean sister?"
"Shit, McGill, drag your mind out of the gutter, why doncha?" Max said. "Me and Wang, we were talking about Mao Tse-tung."
"About who? About what?" For a second, the name was just another singsong noise in Pete's ears. Then it rang a bell. He looked disgusted. He sounded that way, too, as he went on, "Jesus Christ on a fuckin' pogo stick! You go to all the trouble of learning that dumb language, and what do you want to talk about? A lousy Red! My aching back, man! Worry about the important stuff first." As far as he was a concerned, women and food topped the list, with weapons running a strong third. He was a Marine's Marine.
Nobody ever said Max couldn't hold his own in brawling and drinking. He wasn't big, but he didn't back away from anybody. "Mao's no lousy Red," he said. "Mao's the straight goods. If anybody in this crappy country can give the Japs grief, Mao's the guy."
"Chiang Kai-shek-" Pete McGill began.
"My ass," Weinstein said, and then, "'Scuse me. My ass, Corporal. See, the difference is, Chiang's all about Chiang, first, last, and always. Mao's about China instead. Ain't that right, Wang?"
"What you say?" Wang wasn't about to admit he understood enough English to make sense of that. But Max started spouting Chinese and waving his arms. Even in his own language, Wang answered cautiously. Pete knew why: if Wang sounded like a Red, he'd lose his cushy post at the Legation. He'd have to try to make an honest living instead, if there was any such thing in China these days.
"He's not telling me everything he's thinking," Max complained.
"He's smarter'n you are, that's why," Pete said, and explained his own reasoning.
"Oh." Max grunted. "Yeah, I bet you're right. That's just how the reactionaries who run the Corps would respond to constructive, class-centered criticism."
"Give it a rest, willya?" Pete said, rolling his eyes. "I bet you even sound like a Communist recruiting pamphlet when you're getting laid." He did his best to imitate a pompous Red proselytizer: "The triumph of the waddayacallit, the proletariat, cannot be denied-and wiggle your tongue a little over to the left, sweetheart."