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."
He laughed himself silly. He thought that was funny whether Max did or not. After a second, the Jewish Marine laughed, too. "Ah, fuck you, McGill," he said between chuckles. Then he got serious again. "You ever hear of a hooker in the States or here who wasn't from the proletariat? Gals who can find any other way to make a living…well, they do."
"You get an extra charge out of feeling guilty when you screw 'em?" McGill asked. Max couldn't claim he didn't lay Chinese whores. If he tried, Pete would call him a liar to his face, even if that started a fight. Weinstein was one of the horniest Marines in Peking, and that was saying something.
He gave Pete the finger. Aside from that, he didn't try to answer. Wang said something in Chinese. Max replied in the same language. Pete didn't know just what he said, but it sounded like a phrase that was definitely raunchy. Whatever it was, Wang giggled. Then he said something that set Max snickering.
"C'mon, man-give," Pete urged.
"He says Mao's the really horny son of a bitch," Max answered. "Mao's gotta be up near fifty, but he likes his broads young-eighteen, twenty, twenty-two, like that. Wang says he likes a bunch of 'em in bed with him all at the same time, too."
"What a dirty old man!" Pete said. It wasn't that that didn't sound like fun, and it wasn't that he didn't like young women, either. But he was young himself. Imagining a Chinaman old enough to be his father in the middle of an orgy made him want to puke, or at least to trade places. After a few seconds, he asked, "Does Captain Horner know about this shit?" Then he started laughing again, this time on account of the captain's name.
"Well, I never told him-I know that," Max got out between snickers of his own. He went back and forth with Wang in Chinese again. "Wang says he never talked about it with any other round-eye. I believe him. He doesn't know enough English to do it, and how many leathernecks speak Chinese?"
"You make one, and everybody knows you're a queer duck," McGill said. Max flipped him off again. Ignoring that, Pete went on, "You really ought to pass this stuff to the captain. He picks up as much intelligence as he can on the Chinese and the Japs."
"Yeah, yeah," Max said.
Pete knew what that meant, or thought he did. "Listen, I don't care if you don't feel like telling 'cause it'll make one of your precious Red heroes look bad. But I don't give a shit about that, so if you don't pass it on, I damn well will."
"All right, already. Shut up," Weinstein said.