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. Madrilenos 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 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.