Last Orders: The War That Came Early (25 page)

No, by then Jack Scholes would be a top sergeant, if he lived and if he stayed in. An East End street rat made as good a career soldier as a Welshman who chose the trade in place of going down into the mines till something caved in and smashed him flat. Both of them understood their other choices were worse. Why else would you want to soldier?

To kill things, people who weren’t soldiers thought. But not even the Germans killed for the fun of it most of the time. It was part of the job, that was all. Only not right now, thank God.

The President of the Spanish Republic had breath like … Vaclav Jezek didn’t know what he had breath like. He’d never smelled anything like that coming from a human being’s mouth before. Coffee and harsh Spanish tobacco and brandy and rotten teeth and God only knew what all else. If you were digging a trench and you dug through a corpse that had been in the ground for only a couple of weeks, the stench from it would come pretty close to this.

If something like that happened, though, you could shovel dirt
over the thing and go on about your business. Here, Vaclav had to stand next to the dignitary and take it.
Señor
Azaña was making a speech about what a wonderful chap he was, after all.

So Benjamin Halévy insisted, anyhow. The number of people reasonably good in both Spanish and Czech was severely limited. Halévy had come to Barcelona with Vaclav so he could explain what the President and the rest of the big shots were saying, and so he could also translate Vaclav’s replies.

Photographers snapped pictures of the Czech and the Jew—not that the papers would say what Halévy was—standing next to the President as Azaña went on and on. “You did not despair of the Republic,” Azaña declared, smacking one fist into the other palm. “After Rome was invaded from North Africa, that was the highest praise she could give her soldiers. After we too were invaded from North Africa, so it is with us as well.”

Polite applause rose from the crowd as Halévy murmured in familiar, throaty Czech. Without the translation, Vaclav wouldn’t have been sure his Excellency wasn’t complaining about the paella he’d eaten the night before.

“And we have more than praise,” the President went on. “We promote the grand hero Vaclav Jezek”—he made a horrible mess of Vaclav’s name, as any Spaniard was bound to do—“to the rank of captain in the Army of the Republic. We pay him the reward promised for the death of the arch-criminal and traitor, the so-called Marshal Sanjurjo. And we grant him the citizenship of the Republic in addition to that which he enjoys in his own land. May Czechoslovakia soon be free again, as he has helped ensure the Republic’s freedom!
¡Viva
Vaclav Jezek
!
”

“¡Viva!”
the people shouted.

Then Azaña stepped away from the microphone. Benjamin Halévy gave Vaclav a little shove toward it. He would rather have been out in no-man’s-land facing a platoon of pissed-off Nationalists. All they would have done was kill him. Here, he was going to have to kill himself, and his death certificate would read
Perished of embarrassment
. He’d never talked in front of more than a classroom’s worth of people, and thousands had to be staring at him here in this enormous plaza.

“Muchas gracias, Señor Presidente de la República de España,”
he said, in the process using up most of his Spanish. He went on in his own language: “Not many people have been fighting for freedom longer than us Czechs. But you have, here in the Republic. The President called me a hero. I’m only a soldier, doing my job. You folks, you’re the heroes.”

Halévy translated his words into Spanish. Then, showing himself a man of parts indeed, the Jew said them again, this time in Catalan. To Vaclav, it sounded like two parts Spanish and one part French. He could tell when Halévy switched languages, but still didn’t know for sure what he was saying.

“Gracias otra vez,”
Vaclav added, and drew back. Yes, he would rather have stood next to a puff adder than a microphone.

“Good job,” Halévy whispered to him as more stuffed shirts from the Republic came up to pump his hand and press their smooth cheeks against his. The crowd cheered and cheered, partly because he
was
the hero who’d killed Marshal Sanjurjo and partly, no doubt, because he’d kept it short. There were advantages to not being fond of public speaking.

One of the Spaniards handed him a glass of red wine and said something incomprehensible.
“No entiendo,”
Vaclav said.
I don’t understand
was a handy phrase to learn in a language where you knew only a few handy phrases.

The Spaniard aimed his words at Halévy this time. The Jew obligingly translated: “He says the Nationalists are going after each other like half a dozen cats in a sack when you kick it.”

“Well, good!” Vaclav exclaimed in Czech. He could have said that in Spanish, but as long as Halévy was here to do the heavy lifting, he’d let him. That thought sparked another one. Still in Czech, he went on, “Hey, guess what! Since they went and promoted me, I outrank you. How about that?”

Halévy came to stiff attention. He clicked his heels with a thump that would have gladdened the heart of a Hungarian colonel in Emperor Franz Joseph’s extinct army.
“Zu Befehl!”
he exclaimed, as if he belonged to that army. Vaclav’s father had. Maybe Halévy’s father had, too, before he’d left Austria-Hungary for France. They’d used a
smashed-down soldiers’ German to let officers talk with their polyglot troops. It had worked, too, after a fashion.

The Spanish dignitary watched the two of them with no idea of what was going on. Benjamin Halévy said something to him in Catalan. Then the fellow laughed. Since Halévy had used Catalan, he did, too. If Vaclav knew only a little Spanish, he had next to none of the related language.

“He says anyone can tell we’re old friends,” Halévy explained.

“Are we?” Jezek considered that. He drained the glass of wine. “Well, hell, I guess we are. And which one of us is that a judgment on?”

“On both of us, I’d say,” Halévy answered.

“I’d say you’re right,” Vaclav agreed.

They whisked him off to another banquet. Vaclav hadn’t eaten so much since he got conscripted. The feast was in the Spanish style, with little plates of peppery this and garlicky that and pickled the other thing. Vaclav missed sauerkraut and creamed potatoes and dill and big slabs of boiled beef and all the other good things he’d grown up with. But he had plenty, and it beat the hell out of the crumbly sausage that came up to the trenches all the time and was an even-money bet to give you the runs.

After he’d had some more wine, and some more wine, and some more wine after that, he plucked up enough courage to say to Halévy, “Ask them if they think the Nationalists really will come to pieces without their big boss.”

Halévy put the question into Spanish. He got back several impassioned responses—so impassioned, a couple of the men who made them almost came to blows. In due course, the French Jew reported, “They all hope so, but some think it’s more likely than others do.”

“Is that so? I never would’ve guessed.” Vaclav laughed. He’d had enough wine to think almost anything was funny.

In due course, the President of the Republic got to his feet and raised his goblet. “Confusion to all Fascists everywhere!” he said. Everyone drank.

Then he looked to Vaclav. The sniper got to his feet, too. It took some effort; yes, he was feeling the wine. “Freedom for Czechoslovakia!” he said, first in his own tongue, and then, after more effort, in
Spanish as well. Again, everybody drank the toast. He knew he would have a head like a drop-forging plant tomorrow morning. Red wine would hurt you if you gave it the chance. But that would be tomorrow.
Mañana
. The next thing to never.

And in the meantime … He turned to Halévy. “They’ve given me this stack of pesetas and the medal and the promotion and this trip to Barcelona and everything. Now where do I go to get laid?”

“Ah! That’s an important question!” The Jew conferred with the dignitaries. Then he gave Vaclav the word: “Go back to your hotel room after we finish here and they’ll have someone for you. They’re gentlemen—they said they’d get me a girl, too. On the house, courtesy of the Republic.”

“They
are
gentlemen!” Vaclav said. Nice that Halévy would get some, too. Even nicer that he wouldn’t have to pay for it.
I should kill Fascist marshals more often
, he thought, and reached for the closest wine bottle.

No English or French bombers had dropped their loads on Münster for a while now. They’d hit other towns not far away. The Nazis made propaganda out of that. They said the enemy planes stayed away because the people in Münster were also enemies of the
Reich
.

For all Sarah Bruck knew, the hacks who wrote for the Party papers were right. “Aren’t they taking a chance, though?” she asked her father after a chilly night’s sad supper. “If people think rising up against Hitler will keep the bombers away, they’ll do it all over Germany.”

“It could be.” Samuel Goldman rolled one of his cigarettes built from scavenged butts. Maybe the latest propaganda piece was on the newsprint he used for cigarette paper. He lit the cigarette and blew out smoke. Then he went on, “But it may not work like that. Too many people remember all the noise about the stab in the back last time.”

“It wasn’t true,” Sarah said.

Father nodded. “No, it wasn’t. But what people think happened is just as much a part of history as what really did happen.”

“That’s too complicated for me,” Sarah said. Off in the distance, a
rifle barked. Unrest still simmered here, no matter what the rest of Germany was doing. A machine pistol snarled back at the rifle.

“Either he didn’t get the one he was aiming at or the fellow had a buddy with him,” Father said.

“Who was doing the shooting?” she asked.

“Somebody. Anybody.” Samuel Goldman shrugged. “They didn’t even want me back as an ordinary soldier, let alone for the General Staff.” Another shrug. “Ah, well. I’ve never worn trousers with red
Lampassen
, and I guess I’m too old to start now.” The strip of scarlet cloth along the outer seam of the trouser legs marked a General Staff officer’s uniform.

“Too bad. I bet you’d do a better job than some of the fools who are wearing them,” Sarah said.

“For one thing, you’re wrong. To get on the General Staff, you have to know what you’re doing,” Father answered. “For another, even if you were right, what would I accomplish? I’d win victories for the
Führer
, that’s all.”

He didn’t say anything like
And every Jew in Germany needs that like a hole in the head
. He didn’t have to. Sarah could fill in the blanks for herself. “Well, you’re right,” she admitted. “You know what worries me?”

“No, but since you’re going to tell me that doesn’t matter so much, either,” he said.

She made a face at him. Then she did tell him: “If they can’t make people here feel like traitors, they’re liable to try to make them feel like anti-Semites. If they’re shouting ‘The Jews are our misfortune!’, they won’t worry so much about shouting ‘Down with the Nazis!’ ”

“It could be. The Nazis always play that card, or they do when they think of it,” Father said. “And you want to remember that Cardinal von Galen complained about what Himmler’s flunkies were doing to the feebleminded. He didn’t say a word—not one single, solitary word—about what they were doing to us.”

“Us?” Sarah said in some surprise. He never rejected his Jewishness, but he rarely made a point of it like that. He wanted to be a German, even though the Nazis didn’t want to let him.

But he nodded now. “Us,” he said again. “I’m not going to deny it. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t very well deny it.” He touched the Star of David sewn onto the lapel of his threadbare tweed jacket.

There were more gunshots, these closer. Someone sprinted down the blacked-out street in front of the house. A minute later, several more people ran past after him. By the clump of their footfalls, they were wearing boots. That made them either soldiers or SS men.

I hope he gets away
, Sarah thought. She didn’t say that out loud. Except for the odd gunshot or odd fugitive sprinting by, it was eerily quiet. No telling how far a voice might carry.

“Never a dull moment,” Father said dryly.

“I guess not,” Sarah said.

Mother came in from the kitchen, where she’d been pickling cabbage. Sauerkraut would keep for a long time. It wasn’t exciting, but it put food in your belly. Hanna Goldman clucked. “If anyone had told me a year ago I’d keep working while people were shooting off guns, I would have said he was crazy.”

“You get used to anything. You get used to everything,” Father said. “If people didn’t get used to dreadful things, they couldn’t have wars. You step on one mangled body, it’s the most horrible thing that happened in your whole life. You step on three or four mangled bodies while you’re walking to the field kitchen, you turn to your friend and go ‘That last shelling smacked us pretty good, didn’t it?’ ”

“That’s—terrible,” Mother said, which was exactly what Sarah was thinking.

“It is. I know it is. But you have to, or you do go crazy,” Father replied. “A few men couldn’t, and they did go
meshuggeh
.” He smiled at the Yiddish word, but quickly sobered again. “The first time you shoot at somebody and the first time you know you hit somebody—those are bad, too. After you do it for a while, though, you just think
Well, all right, I got that one. Now he won’t get me or any of my buddies
.”

“No wonder you never talk much about what you did in the war,” Sarah said.

“No wonder at all,” Father agreed. “Back before the Nazis took over, I’d go the the
Bierstube
with some of the other
Frontschweine
. We’d talk about things amongst ourselves. Why not? We understood—we
were the only ones who did. But they got nervous about drinking with a Jew, and who could blame them? Besides, a lot of them are back in
Feldgrau
these days.”

“You would have gone. You tried to go, only the fools who run things wouldn’t let you. I was thinking about that a little while ago,” Sarah said. “Why would anybody want to do that twice?”