The War That Came Early: Coup d'Etat (46 page)

MARRIED
.
When Sarah Goldman (no, she was Sarah Bruck now; she had to keep reminding herself she was Sarah Bruck) had thought about being married before she actually
was, she hadn’t thought much about what came after she went through the ceremony. Oh, she’d thought about some of it, but you couldn’t do that all the time even when you were newlyweds and very young. She hadn’t thought about what her
life
would be like after the wedding.

She had expected she would eat better, and she did. The Brucks were bakers, after all. Even if they were Jews, even if the
Nazis watched them three times as hard as the Aryan bakers in Münster, they found ways of making flour silently vanish from the official allocation. Some they baked into stuff they ate themselves. They traded the rest with other people who dealt in food. Nobody—nobody below the rank of
General-major
, anyhow—ate well in the Third
Reich
. But the Brucks did very well for Jews, and better than some
Aryans.

Sarah hadn’t expected she would work so much harder. Isidor might have got himself a wife. His mother and father had got themselves a brand-new employee they didn’t have to pay. They made the most of it. She knew next to nothing about baking when she started sharing Isidor’s little room. They set about giving her a crash course.

To be fair, they started her on simple things, as if she
were a child. She could tell time, obviously. They could trust her to open the ovens
and take out the loaves after half an hour (they could also smear ointment on her hands when she burned herself doing it—it wasn’t as if they’d never got burned).

They could let her mix the various flours that went into war bread. “No, none of them is sawdust,” David Bruck assured her, amusement in his voice.

“Was there any in the last war?” she asked. “People always say there was.”

“There were things nobody talked about. The government issued them to us, and we used them. It was use them or not bake anything.” Isidor’s father no longer sounded or looked amused. “That was … a very hard time.”

“This isn’t?” Sarah’s flour-covered hand reached for but didn’t touch the six-pointed yellow star on her blouse.

David Bruck wore a star, too. He considered. “We were hungrier then, but we were happier, too. People weren’t banging on the tea kettle at us all the time because we were Jews.”

Sarah smiled. Her mother would use that homely phrase for raising a ruckus every now and then. Her father always looked pained when Mother did. It wasn’t the kind of thing
Herr Doktor Professor
Goldman was used to hearing,
his expression said.
Herr Doktor Professor
Goldman was doing all kinds of things these days that he hadn’t been used to.

And so was Sarah. Besides the burns, unfamiliar work made her arms and shoulders ache. Her feet hurt because she was on them so much. She was tired all the time. She sometimes wondered if this was what she’d signed up for.

It would have been worse if she hadn’t seen that all
the Brucks, Isidor included, drove themselves harder than they drove her. That made her feel silly about complaining. But she slept as if someone hit her over the head with a boulder as soon as she lay down.

When she slept. As the hours of darkness got longer, RAF bombers started showing up over Münster more often. There weren’t many of them, and they didn’t drop a lot of bombs, but they wrecked
the nights when they appeared.

She and Isidor and his parents would go downstairs and huddle under the counters. It was no better than hiding under the dining-room table had been at her parents’. If a bomb knocked the building down on top of you, you’d get squashed. If one blew out a side wall, it would blow you up, too. The Aryans in the neighborhood, like the Aryans in her old neighborhood,
had proper bomb shelters.
Verboten
for Jews, of course. Jews took their chances.

Isidor took his chances in the blackout darkness. She’d never got felt up during an air raid before. She wanted to laugh and she wanted to belt him, both at the same time. She couldn’t do either, not without giving away what he was up to.

Every couple of weeks, she and Isidor would walk over and see her folks. She
enjoyed that more than she wanted to show. The Brucks talked about bakery business and neighborhood gossip and the music on the radio, and that was about it. At her own house, talk ranged all over the world and across thousands of years. She’d thought it would be the same for everybody—till she discovered it wasn’t.

Coming back to such talk felt wonderful. She said so once, while Isidor was using
the toilet. Her father’s smile twisted a little. “The Brucks are nice people. They are—don’t get me wrong. But they’re not very curious, so they might not seem very exciting, either.”

“Not very curious!” she echoed, nodding. That was it, all right. That was exactly it. The Brucks knew what they knew, and they didn’t worry about anything else.

Socrates talked about people like that in the
Apology
. If she tried to tell Isidor so, he would look at her as if she’d suddenly started speaking ancient Greek herself. It wasn’t that knowing all the strange things she knew ever did her much practical good. But it gave her things to think about she wouldn’t have had otherwise. When she was with other people who had the same strange set of mental baggage, it also gave her things to talk about that
she wouldn’t have had otherwise.

When she was with the Brucks … A flush from the bathroom said Isidor would be coming out. She put that one on the back burner.

Was this what marriage was about? Giving up part of yourself you hadn’t even been aware you had in exchange for love? She had no doubt
that Isidor loved her. She loved him, too. It wasn’t that he made her abandon that part. But he didn’t
have its match, so showing it to him seemed pointless.

But he had points of his own. As he sat down beside her, he said, “I heard this one from an Aryan the other day, if you can believe it. Hitler, Goebbels, and Göring are on a plane that crashes. Everybody aboard gets killed. Who is saved?”

Something in the way her father’s mouth twitched told her he already knew the joke. But all he said
was, “
Nu?
Who?” She was glad, because she hadn’t heard it, and she didn’t think her mother had, either.

“The German people,” Isidor answered, and exploded into laughter.

If there were microphones in the house, they were all in trouble. Sarah knew as much. She laughed anyway. So did Mother. “An Aryan told you that?” Father asked Isidor. He was also laughing, even as he went on, “Was he an SS
man, seeing if he could land you in trouble because you thought it was funny?”

“No, no.” Isidor shook his head. “Not like that. It was one old guy talking to another one on the street. I heard it walking by.”

“Ach, so.”
Samuel Goldman relaxed. “That should be all right, then. Nobody seems happy with the way things are going.”

“ ‘We continue the advance on the important Soviet citadel of Smolensk.’
 ” Isidor amazed Sarah. She hadn’t dreamt he could imitate a self-important newsreader so well.

He surprised Sarah’s father, too. Samuel Goldman let out a sudden bray of laughter, then looked at Isidor as if he’d never really seen him before. Maybe he hadn’t. And maybe now he saw some little piece of what Sarah saw in the baker’s son.

Walking back to their little room after the visit, Isidor
said, “I like talking with your mother and father. They’re … interesting.”

“Peculiar but fun?” Sarah’s voice was dry.

Isidor kicked a pebble down the sidewalk. “You said that. I didn’t.”

You sure meant it, though
, Sarah thought. She cocked her head to one side—a gesture her father might have used—and asked, “Do you think I’m … interesting, too?”

This time, Isidor didn’t hesitate for a second.
“Darn right I do!” He was undressing her with his eyes.

“Not like that,
Dummkopf
,” she said, though the eager stare warmed her. “Like my folks, I mean.”

“Oh.” To him, that seemed less important. But he nodded after a moment. “Yeah, I guess so. You … kind of think lefthanded, if you know what I mean.”

If Sarah hadn’t thought that way, she wouldn’t have. As things were, she batted her eyes at
him and murmured, “You say the sweetest things.” If you couldn’t always leave them happy, sometimes confused worked almost as well.

THE IVAN STRUGGLED
out of his hole. Blood from a small wound to his ear dripped onto his baggy khaki tunic. He left his rifle behind and kept his hands over his head.
“Freund!”
he said hopefully.
“Kamerad!”

Luc Harcourt’s lip curled in scorn. “You stupid sack of
shit, I’m no fucking German,” he answered in his own language.

“Mon Dieu! C’est vrai! Vous-êtes français!”
To Luc’s amazement, the Russian—corporal, if he was reading the rank badges the right way—spoke a French as near perfect as made no difference. The fellow went on, “The
Boches
were in this sector yesterday, and I did not even think to look at your uniform. A thousand apologies,
Monsieur
. Ten thousand!”

Sure as hell, German tanks had passed through here the day before. The French infantry was helping to clean up the pocket the armor had carved out. “If I was a
Boche
, odds are you’d be dead right now,” Luc said.

“Vous-avez raison,”
the Russian agreed. “Once more, I thank you for your mercy.”

Luc didn’t know how long he’d stay merciful. Prisoners were a pain in the ass. But a
prisoner who spoke French as if he were educated at the Sorbonne might be worth something. Intelligence sure wouldn’t have any trouble interrogating him. Luc gestured with his rifle. “Well, c’mon. Get moving.”

“But of course.” The Russian put a hand to the side of his head. Naturally, it came away bloody. “How badly am I hurt?”

“Just an ear. Those always bleed like mad bastards, but it’s only
a
little wound,” Luc answered with rough sympathy. Then he said, “Hang on. Take off your belt—nice and slow. Don’t do anything stupid. You can hold up your pants with one hand afterwards.”

“Oui, Monsieur.”
The Ivan obeyed. The belt had several grenades on it. Only after it lay on the ground and the prisoner had straightened up again did Luc relax—a few millimeters’ worth, anyhow.

“
Now
get moving,”
he told the guy, and the Russian did. After a few steps, he asked, “How come you speak such good French?”

“It is the language of culture—and I am, or I was, a student of French history. Yevgeni Borisovich Novikov, at your service.” The POW made as if to bow, but didn’t follow through.

Culture. Right
, Luc thought. The so-called student of French history looked like any other captured Russian:
dirty, whiskery, in a baggy tunic and breeches. The splatters of blood from his ear were just accents. (But for the blood and the cut of his uniform, Luc didn’t look much different himself.)

After a few steps, he did ask what was on his mind: “If you’re so educated and everything, how come you’re only a crappy corporal and not an officer?” Why should he worry about offending a prisoner he’d never
see again?

“Only a corporal?” Novikov barked bitter laughter. “For me, getting promoted was a miracle. I come from a kulak family. Do you know what kulaks are? Were, I should say—not many of us are left alive.”

“Kulaks are rich farmers, right?” Luc hoped he wasn’t confusing the Russian word with something else altogether.

But the captured, cultured corporal nodded. “Rich enough to have a few
cows, anyhow. Richer than the ordinary
muzhik
. Richer because they worked harder than the ordinary
muzhik
and didn’t drink as much. Rich enough that they didn’t want to get herded into collective farms and give up more than they got. Rich enough to get called enemies of the state and go to the wall.” He grimaced. “I’m lucky to be alive, let alone a corporal.”

He might have thought that would
impress Luc. And it did—but only up to a point. “Happy day, buddy,” Luc said. “Doesn’t mean you wouldn’t’ve shot me if you got the chance. I’ve been in this shit since ’38. Tell me about lucky to be alive.”

“It could be, though, that you were allowed to be a human being before the war began,” Novikov replied.

Allowed to be a human being
. Luc chewed on that till he spotted Lieutenant Demange.
If anyone ever stood foursquare against the notion of letting people be human beings, Demange was the man. He waved to Luc. “What the hell you got there?” he called, as if Luc had brought in some exotic animal instead of an ever so mundane POW.

“Russian who speaks French better’n you do, Lieutenant,” Luc answered sweetly.

Demange said something about Luc’s mother that he was unlikely to know
from personal experience. Luc grinned; he’d got under Demange’s skin, which he didn’t manage to do every day. The lieutenant glowered at Yevgeni Novikov. “So what the fuck you got to say for yourself, prickface?”

“I am glad your sergeant here did not kill me when he could have,” Novikov told him. “I hope you will not, either.”

He knew what could happen to captured soldiers, then. Well, who didn’t?
And Demange looked comically amazed. “You con!” he said to Luc. “The asshole
does
speak better French’n me. Better than you, too.”

“I’m not arguing,” Luc said. “The guys who question him won’t have to fuck around with German.” There were French interrogators who spoke Russian, but only a very few. But lots of Frenchmen could get along in German, and so could lots of Russians. Conducting an interrogation
in French would be a luxury.

Lieutenant Demange nodded. “You’re right. I bet he speaks better French than the clowns who squeeze him, too.” He chuckled unpleasantly. “And a whole bunch of good that’ll do him. Go on and take him back, Harcourt.”

“Will do.” Luc would have taken Novikov back any which way. Any excuse to move away from the front line where people were liable to shoot at you was
a good one.
Now I only have to worry about shells and bombs
, Luc thought with perfectly genuine relief. Had he tried to imagine that before the war, he would have decided he was nuts.