wheel drove with a cheerful disregard for life and limb: his own, his handful of passengers’, and those of anyone else unfortunate enough to come anywhere near him.
Heading north and west was getting a picture of how the war had gone. The Nationalists came within a whisker of taking Madrid. They pushed into the northwestern suburbs, and onto the campus of the university. Little by little, the Republican forces had driven them back, till now the front lay well out of artillery range. As the bus clatteredalong, craters in the ground—sometimes craters in the road—got fresher and deeper. Less grass grew in them. The rusting hulks of burnt-out armored vehicles from both sides grew more modern and dangerous-looking.
After a while, brakes screeching, the bus shuddered to a stop. “The sector of the Internationals!” the driver shouted. He undid the wire around the handle that held the door closed. Chaim got out.
A lot of so-called Internationals nowadays were Spaniards. Casualties and time had thinned the foreign Marxists’ ranks, and the bigger European war meant few new volunteers came here. But the ones who were left, Europeans and Americans, were uncommonly hard to kill.
“What do you need?” asked a man who spoke Spanish with some kind of guttural Central European accent.
Chaim held up his much-scarred, much-repaired left hand. “I’m just over a wound,” he answered. If the other fellow had trouble with his crappy Spanish, he figured Yiddish would be the next thing to try. If you knew German, you could cope with it. “Where do I find the Abe Lincolns these days?”
The Central European followed him. The guy pointed up and to the left. “They’re over there. So you’re back for more fun, are you?”
“Fun? Oh, of course.” Chaim flexed the fingers that still worked. “Any more fun and I’d be dead. Round that got me killed one of my friends.”
“I’m sorry,” the other man said. “We all have stories like that by now. Well, go on.
Buena suerte
.” Chaim nodded as he headed up toward the line. Good luck was as much as you could hope for, and more than you usually got.
A groundcrew sergeant regretfully spread his hands. Anastas Mouradian eyed the callused palms with the dirt ground into the ridges of leathery flesh. “I’m very sorry, Comrade Lieutenant, but the hydraulics on your bomber are totally shot to shit,” the noncom said.
“How long will you need to fix things?” Mouradian demanded. “We’ll be flying again tomorrow as long as the weather stays good.”
Before answering, the groundcrew man used a strip torn from
Pravda
and some
makhorka
he took out of a pouch on his belt to roll himself a cigarette. After he scraped a match on the sole of his boot and lit the smoke, he courteously offered Mouradian the makings. When the pilot shook his head, the mechanic blew out a stream of smoke and said, “We’ll do the best we can. I don’t know what else to tell you right now.”
“Khorosho,”
Stas replied, although it wasn’t good or even close to good. The longer he served in the Red Air Force, the more time he spent among Russians, the better he understood why they’d raised profanity to an art form practiced by virtuosos. The reason was simple: they had to deal with other Russians practically all the time. And if dealing with Russians all the time didn’t make you want to swear, nothing ever would.
He went back to the officers’ tent and gave Isa Mogamedov the news. Armenians and Azeris had been rivals, usually enemies, since time out of mind. All the same, Stas understood his copilot in ways he would never understand a Russian. The two peoples had lived in—and picked—each other’s pockets for so long, they’d rubbed off on each other.
Mogamedov’s tiny shrug meant
Well, what can you hope for when Russians are working on something?
Aloud, the Azeri said, “Maybe someone will come down sick and we’ll fly even if the plane can’t go.”
“You never can tell,”
Heading north and west was getting a picture of how the war had gone. The Nationalists came within a whisker of taking Madrid. They pushed into the northwestern suburbs, and onto the campus of the university. Little by little, the Republican forces had driven them back, till now the front lay well out of artillery range. As the bus clatteredalong, craters in the ground—sometimes craters in the road—got fresher and deeper. Less grass grew in them. The rusting hulks of burnt-out armored vehicles from both sides grew more modern and dangerous-looking.
After a while, brakes screeching, the bus shuddered to a stop. “The sector of the Internationals!” the driver shouted. He undid the wire around the handle that held the door closed. Chaim got out.
A lot of so-called Internationals nowadays were Spaniards. Casualties and time had thinned the foreign Marxists’ ranks, and the bigger European war meant few new volunteers came here. But the ones who were left, Europeans and Americans, were uncommonly hard to kill.
“What do you need?” asked a man who spoke Spanish with some kind of guttural Central European accent.
Chaim held up his much-scarred, much-repaired left hand. “I’m just over a wound,” he answered. If the other fellow had trouble with his crappy Spanish, he figured Yiddish would be the next thing to try. If you knew German, you could cope with it. “Where do I find the Abe Lincolns these days?”
The Central European followed him. The guy pointed up and to the left. “They’re over there. So you’re back for more fun, are you?”
“Fun? Oh, of course.” Chaim flexed the fingers that still worked. “Any more fun and I’d be dead. Round that got me killed one of my friends.”
“I’m sorry,” the other man said. “We all have stories like that by now. Well, go on.
Buena suerte
.” Chaim nodded as he headed up toward the line. Good luck was as much as you could hope for, and more than you usually got.
A groundcrew sergeant regretfully spread his hands. Anastas Mouradian eyed the callused palms with the dirt ground into the ridges of leathery flesh. “I’m very sorry, Comrade Lieutenant, but the hydraulics on your bomber are totally shot to shit,” the noncom said.
“How long will you need to fix things?” Mouradian demanded. “We’ll be flying again tomorrow as long as the weather stays good.”
Before answering, the groundcrew man used a strip torn from
Pravda
and some
makhorka
he took out of a pouch on his belt to roll himself a cigarette. After he scraped a match on the sole of his boot and lit the smoke, he courteously offered Mouradian the makings. When the pilot shook his head, the mechanic blew out a stream of smoke and said, “We’ll do the best we can. I don’t know what else to tell you right now.”
“Khorosho,”
Stas replied, although it wasn’t good or even close to good. The longer he served in the Red Air Force, the more time he spent among Russians, the better he understood why they’d raised profanity to an art form practiced by virtuosos. The reason was simple: they had to deal with other Russians practically all the time. And if dealing with Russians all the time didn’t make you want to swear, nothing ever would.
He went back to the officers’ tent and gave Isa Mogamedov the news. Armenians and Azeris had been rivals, usually enemies, since time out of mind. All the same, Stas understood his copilot in ways he would never understand a Russian. The two peoples had lived in—and picked—each other’s pockets for so long, they’d rubbed off on each other.
Mogamedov’s tiny shrug meant
Well, what can you hope for when Russians are working on something?
Aloud, the Azeri said, “Maybe someone will come down sick and we’ll fly even if the plane can’t go.”
“You never can tell,”
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