He hunted up a French International he knew. Denis was older than he was: a Great War veteran. The Frenchman drank too much, but he was a good fellow to have around when things got tough. He also shared Chaim’s relentless itch to know. And, since he was a Frenchman, Chaim hoped he’d got word of which way the wind blew in his native land.
Chaim spoke no French. Denis knew no English; his German was limited to obscenities and the kinds of commands you might give to prisoners. He and Chaim stumbled along in Spanish. Neither was perfectly fluent, and each had an accent that sometimes puzzled the other, but they managed.
“How much do you want to bet even the War Ministry doesn’t know what’s going on with the ammo?” Denis said. “Maybe the Spaniards spread some money around and loosened things up-unofficially, of course.”
“Oh, of course.” Chaim fought dry with dry. “But the Republic is always broke. Where did it get the money?”
Denis spread his hands. They looked a lot like Chaim’s: the nails were short and ragged, and the callused palms had dirt ground into them. “I don’t know mierda like that. Maybe they got their gold back from the Russians.”
“Sure. Maybe they did.” Chaim exchanged a knowing look with Denis. Now that Stalin had the Republic’s gold reserves-to protect them and to pay for war supplies-how likely was he to send them back? No matter how good a Marxist-Leninist Chaim was, he didn’t believe it for a minute.
The cynical glint in Denis’ eye said he didn’t, either. But he didn’t come out with anything like that, not out loud. Talking too much could land you in more trouble than you ever wanted to see.
In musing tones, Denis said, “I wonder how happy the fucking Nazis would be if they knew France was juicing their little friends’ worst enemies here.”
“They’d be enchanted,” Chaim answered with a sly grin. “Just enchanted.” Encantar — the verb to enchant — bore an obvious resemblance in Spanish to cantar, to sing. After a beat, Chaim realized the relationship to a singing word was there in English, too, but it wasn’t so plain in his native tongue.
“Fuck ’em all, enchanted or not,” Denis said. “If Daladier’d ever spit Hitler’s cock out of his mouth…” He shook his head. “Too much to hope for.”
“Any which way, we’ve still got these cartridges,” Chaim said. No matter who, at whatever level in the French chain of command, had turned a blind eye, the crates were here. They wouldn’t go to waste, either.
As Peggy Druce crisscrossed Pennsylvania and made forays into other states to promote the war effort, she found herself facing an odd fact: the fight might be on, but it didn’t seem to make much difference.
For one thing, it was so far away. Two thousand miles from Pennsylvania to the Pacific. Another two thousand from the Pacific to Hawaii. And another two or three thousand miles after that to where the guns were actually going off. Hitler’s fight against Stalin was closer than FDR’s battle with Tojo and Hirohito.
And, for another, it hadn’t affected the country much. Grocery stores were still full of unrationed food. Most gasoline went to the military, and you couldn’t get new tires for love or money. That turned the Sunday-afternoon drive into a thing of the past, but it was about as far as restrictions went. It was more than enough to make people piss and moan as if complaining were going out of style.
Peggy thought they were nuts. Of course, she’d seen Germany. One look at what went on there would have been plenty to make the grumblers turn up their toes. No gas at all for any civilians but doctors. No tires, either-in fact, the Germans took tires and batteries from civilian vehicles so the Wehrmacht could use them. Rationed clothing. All the new stuff was shoddy, or else made of cheap synthetic fibers. And the food… Next to no fruit. Precious little meat. Milk for kids and expectant mothers only. Lots of potatoes and turnips and cabbage and black bread. Awful cigarettes, and even worse ersatz coffee.
The Germans bitched about it. Not even the SS could stop that. But bitching was all they did. They let off steam, and then they went back to the serious business of conquering their neighbors.
By the way a lot of Americans carried on, they wanted to string Roosevelt up from the nearest lamppost. “He said he wouldn’t get us into a war, and then he went and did!” If Peggy’d heard that once, she’d heard it a thousand times. It was commonly followed by, “Who the devil cares what goes on way the devil over there across the ocean?”
“You’d be singing a different tune if the Japs had hit Pearl Harbor as hard as they wanted to,” she would answer.
“If, if, if,” the naysayers said. “Who gives a darn about might-have-beens? It didn’t happen, so what are you jumping up and down about it for?”
What would really have got Pennsylania’s attention was a war closer to home. Had Hitler declared war on the USA… But he hadn’t. He had warned that German U-boats would go after American ships in the Atlantic now that England was fighting him again, but that was as far as he’d gone. He seemed to be telling Roosevelt, If you want to declare war on me, go right ahead. Be my guest.
Peggy had a picture of FDR doing that. Right next to it, she had a picture of Congress refusing to ratify the declaration. The Japs had started shooting at the same time as they declared war on America. That didn’t leave anybody much choice. Hitler, for once, seemed content to let his opponents make the first move.
And, because he did, he confused American politics. (That plenty of people wanted to see Stalin, roasted, on a platter with an apple in his mouth sure didn’t hurt.) “Why are folks so blind?” Peggy asked when she got back to Philadelphia after one of her politicking swings.
Herb looked at her. “ ‘No one in this world, so far as I know, has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people,’ ” he quoted with obvious relish.
“Is that Barnum?” Peggy asked.
“Nope.” Herb paused to light a cigarette. “Old Phineas Taylor said ‘There’s a sucker born every minute.’ Same sentiment, different words. The other one’s from Henry Louis instead.”
“Oh. Mencken,” Peggy said with faint-or maybe not so faint-distaste. “Back in the day, I used to think he was the cleverest man alive.”
“That’s okay, sweetie. So did he,” her husband said.
Peggy snorted and went on, “But he started wearing thin when he went after Roosevelt like a stray dog chasing a car. And he’s one of the jerks who stand up and whinny when they play Deutschland uber Alles.” She shuddered. Whenever the Nazis announced a victory on the radio, they preceded it with the German national anthem and the Horst Wessel Lied, the Party’s song.
“He always has been. He left the Baltimore Sun for a while during the last war because he liked the Kaiser too well,” Herb said.
“Did he? I didn’t remember that,” Peggy confessed. “The other funny thing is, how come two of the snottiest so-and-sos the country’s ever seen both went by initials instead of their names?”
“Well, I kind of sympathize with Barnum,” Herb said. “If I got stuck with Phineas, I wouldn’t want the world to know about it, either. But there’s nothing wrong with Mencken’s monicker. Maybe he just needed a short waddayacallit.”
“Byline,” Peggy said.
“Yeah. One of them.” Herb nodded. “You’re right, though. It’s funny.”
“Looking back at things, the Kaiser wasn’t such a bad guy,” Peggy said. She watched Herb bristle, as she’d known he would. After all, he’d put on khaki and gone Over There to settle Wilhelm’s hash a generation earlier. All the same, she stuck out her chin and went on, “Well, he wasn’t, darn it. Compared to Hitler, he was a regular Rotarian, honest to God.”
“Compared to Hitler, Stalin’s a Rotarian, for crying out loud,” Herb said. “Unless you’re a Rotarian yourself, I mean.”
“Or unless you’re Mencken,” Peggy put in.
“Or unless you’re Mencken,” her husband agreed. “Of course, he doesn’t like Jews much, either. One more reason for him to root for the Nazis against the Reds.”
“I know Mencken doesn’t like Jews, but I don’t think he has any idea how much Hitler hates them,” Peggy said slowly. “You know who the luckiest people in the world are? All the Jews in Poland.”
Herb blinked. “How do you figure that?”
“Poland’s on Hitler’s side. If it weren’t, he’d be murdering the Jews there. I mean murdering, no two ways about it. The Poles don’t love Jews, either, but they don’t want to see them dead. Not like that, anyhow.”
