On came the toasted Ivan. Wherever he’d found his schnapps, he’d got himself a royal snootful. I’ll warn him if he gets too close, Rolf thought. By too close, he meant close enough so that if he blows himself up, some of the fragments may bite me, too.
Bismarck had said something about God loving children, drunks, and the United States. Children made sense to Rolf; children were the future. He couldn’t see why God would love the Jew-and-nigger-ridden USA. But God plainly did. The Americans couldn’t have succeeded on the scale they had without something that sure looked like divine help.
Drunks, though…No, that wasn’t nearly so obvious. Rolf had been drunk lots of times. All he’d ever got for it were some horrible hangovers and, once, a dose of the clap.
That damned Russian was singing some fierce-sounding song. It made the hair rise on the back of Rolf’s neck. He’d heard Red Army men singing that song in the Ukraine and Romania and Hungary. They used it to nerve themselves to attack. Most of the time, they came in drunk, roaring like animals and spraying bullets in front of them. They died like flies, of course, but, however many the Germans killed, there were always more. The Ivans bred like flies, too.
The bastard was getting close. God had kept him from stepping on anything so far. If God happened to change His mind, he might endanger Rolf was well as the Russian. “Hey, Ivan!” Rolf bawled. “Achtung! Minen!” He didn’t care whether the Russian knew much German or not. If he understood any at all, he’d get that.
And he did. He recoiled in a panic that would have been funny on the stage, but wasn’t what you wanted to do when you were staggering around in the middle of a minefield. His right foot came down all right. His left foot came down, too—and then he wasn’t there any more.
Rolf had heard that exact explosion too many times, in the last war and this one. Fire and smoke and dirt flew up and out. So did chunks of the Ivan God had suddenly stopped loving. He didn’t even last long enough for a final shriek. In an odd way, Rolf almost envied him. The poor, luckless so-and-so went out without ever knowing what hit him. In wartime, most soldiers who got killed weren’t so lucky.
There’s one mine I won’t have to hope the detector finds, Rolf thought. Had he had any comrades along, he would have said it out loud. Somebody like Max could be relied upon to cluck about what a callous SS Arschloch he was. Annoying Germans of Max’s stripe was almost as much fun as watching drunk Russians blow themselves to smithereens.
Somebody came to see what had made the boom: a farmer in overalls. “Watch yourself! There are mines!” Rolf called to him. “That damnfool Russian just stepped on one.”
“Oh. A Russian,” the farmer said. “Too many of those fuckers anyway.” Rolf snickered. Evidently he wasn’t the only callous Arschloch running around loose.
MYRON GELLER NODDED to Istvan Szolovits. “Well, kid, that’s about it. Looks like we’ve got everything out of you we’re going to get.”
“All right,” said Istvan, who seriously doubted it was. “But what happens to me now?” What did you do with an apple core once you’d eaten the apple? You tossed it in the trash, that was what.
“Now? Now you get your graduation present, of course. You’re at UCLA, so that fits.” Geller reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of thin green cardboard. “This is what they call a green card. It shows you’re an alien legally in the United States. You’ll have to register at a post office once a year in January, but that’s a formality as long as you don’t get in trouble for forgetting.” He held out the card.
Istvan took it. It had his name and date of birth, a couple of official stamps, and some English text he couldn’t make much sense of. He was learning the language, but he wasn’t anywhere near fluent yet.
“Thank you,” he said. “Will this let me look for work?”
“Yes. It’s legal for people to hire you. But wait. I’m not finished yet. Here’s this.” He took a small, folded piece of paper from that same pocket. Istvan unfolded it. It bore a neatly printed name—HERSCHEL WEISSMAN—and a telephone number. “Call him. He knows Yiddish—and he knows about this program. He’ll help you with a job.”
“Thank you very much!” Istvan exclaimed. Captain Kovacs had said they’d treat him all right, but Captain Kovacs was a continent and an ocean away from Los Angeles. He’d known what he was talking about, though.
“Hang on. We’re still not done.” Myron Geller reached into that pocket once more. This time, he pulled out a roll of American paper money. Istvan found it boring: all the bills were the same size and the same darkish green. Geller tossed him the roll. “This is five hundred bucks, courtesy of Uncle Sam. It’ll keep you housed and fed for a couple of months. You won’t have to sweat till Weissman starts paying you.”
Istvan wondered how many forints went into five hundred dollars. A pretty thick stack of them; he was sure of that. Of course, after the last war Hungary had gone through a hyperinflation balloonish enough to put Weimar Germany’s more famous one to shame. That hadn’t hurt the Communists’ rise to power, though with the Red Army sitting on the whole country that likely would have happened anyhow.
He felt he had to say, “I don’t think anything I’ve given you is worth this much money.”
“Uncle Sam didn’t ask what you thought. He asked what you knew. You told him, and the stuff you told him checked out. He decided what it was worth.” Geller lit one of the little plastic-tipped cigars he affected. After blowing out smoke, he went on, “A little bird happened to tell me that one of the fellows you named as knowing things is part of this operation, too. You had it straight, all right—he does know things.”
That could only mean one man. Istvan started to laugh. “My God!” he exclaimed. “If Sergeant Gergely slipped on shit, he’d still manage to fall into a vat of cream. Is he in Los Angeles, too?”
“That I can’t tell you.” Did Geller mean that he didn’t know or that he wasn’t allowed to answer? It hardly mattered. Sergeant Gergely had served in the Hungarian Army when it fought side by side with the Nazis against the USSR. He’d served in the Hungarian People’s Army after Hungary had to change alignment. And now he was serving the Americans? Istvan laughed some more. That sounded like Gergely, damned if it didn’t.
“I’ll tell you something about him, then. A friend of mine—Tibor’s dead now, dammit—said a German called guys like the sergeant sock people, because they’d fit on either foot.”
“Not bad, not bad. I’ll pass that on, in fact,” Geller said. “Now I’ll let you make your phone call. Whether you know it or not, you’re on your way to turning into an American, same as I was not so long ago. Luck to you.”
He spoke Yiddish better than English, though his English was way better than Istvan’s. He might think of himself as an American. Did people for whom English was a native language, not one learned in adulthood, feel the same way about him? It was a far less mocking question than it would have been in Hungary. Americans really did let other people join their ranks.
Istvan didn’t need to go far to find a telephone booth. They were all over the place in the USA. The country seemed awash in phones, as it did in automobiles. In Hungary, only fancy shops and rich people—or, in the brave new Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist world, well-connected people—had them.
He put in a dime. American coins impressed him far more than U.S. paper money. All but the two least valuable had silver in them. No brass or aluminum or stainless steel or zinc or pot metal here. American coins really were worth something. When he got a dial tone (also not guaranteed in Hungary), he called the number Geller had given him.
The pay phone spat out the dime. “Please deposit twenty-five cents for three minutes,” an operator said primly. “Please deposit—” He followed well enough to feed the phone a quarter. “Thank you,” the operator said. Clicks and pops told him the call was going through. One ring, two rings…
“Blue Front Appliances. How may I help you?” another woman’s voice said.
“Herschel Weissm
an, please.” Istvan knew his bad English made the last word sound like pliz. Nothing he could do about it but try to get better.
“Who shall I say is calling?”
“My name Szolovits Istvan.” He was so rattled, he gave it Hungarian style, with his family name ahead of his own.
“One moment, please.”
More clicks and pops. Then a man said, “This is Herschel Weissman”—in English.
“Mr. Weissman, this is Istvan Szolovits,” Istvan said in a mix of Yiddish and German. “Myron Geller gave me your name and number. He said you might possibly have work for me.” He didn’t want to make it sound any more certain than that. If Weissman told him no, he’d go looking elsewhere. He had some money in his pocket now to cushion him, thanks to Geller.
But Weissman switched to Yiddish himself: “Oh, sure! You’re that guy! I’ve been waiting to hear from you. Can you be here at half past seven tomorrow morning? I have a man here who’ll break you in. He knows the mamaloshen, too—that won’t be a problem.”
“Thank you! I will be there. Where do I need to be?”
“We’re in Glendale. You have a pencil? I’ll give you the address.”
Istvan did have a pencil. He wrote the address on the paper that already held Weissman’s name and number. “Thank you. I’ll be there,” Istvan repeated. He said his goodbyes and hung up before the operator could hound him for more money. Then he went to the UCLA library to find out where Glendale was. Los Angeles and its suburbs sprawled across what would have been a Hungarian county. Glendale was about fifteen miles away. When he translated that to twenty-five kilometers, it made more sense to him.
If you didn’t have a car, getting around here wasn’t so easy. Buses and trams didn’t run all the time or go everywhere, the way they would have in Budapest. He’d have to leave his digs very early if he wanted to get there on time. Very early it would be—he didn’t dare not get there on time.
He made it. He got there early, in fact, and had a cup of coffee at a diner around the corner. American coffee seemed like bathwater to him, but it was caffeinated bathwater. Thus fortified, he walked back to the Blue Front warehouse.
A stocky man in his early sixties stood in the parking lot. “Are you Mr. Weissman?” Istvan asked.
“That’s me. Only call me Herschel.” Weissman stuck out his hand. Istvan shook it. The older man had a grip like a pliers. He went on, “Welcome to Blue Front. Work hard and we’ll both be happy. Let me call Aaron. He’ll show you what’s what.” He raised his voice and switched to English: “Hey, Aaron! C’mere a second, will you?”
—
Aaron Finch had just poured himself a cup of coffee. This early, the joe in the big percolator wouldn’t have had time to turn to battery acid. He didn’t have a delivery till half past eight. He was going to catch up on some paperwork till he had to take that washer and dryer over to Van Nuys.
But then Herschel Weissman called from out front: “Hey, Aaron! C’mere a second, will you?”
“On my way.” Aaron gulped as much coffee as he could and tossed the half-filled paper cup into the trash can. The boss didn’t exactly mind when people drank coffee on the job, but he didn’t like to see them doing it. He thought it made them look as if they were goofing off even when they weren’t.
Weissman stood in the parking lot with a young guy Aaron had never seen before: right around six feet, sandy-brown hair cut short, pale skin, alert hazel eyes. Something about his mouth and chin made Aaron tag him for a member of the tribe. That let him make a pretty fair guess about who the kid was.
He wasn’t startled, then, when Weissman spoke in Yiddish: “Aaron, this is Istvan Szolovits, the fellow I’ve been telling you about. Istvan, this is Aaron Finch. Work the way he does and I’ll never have a bad word to say about you.”
That was nice. How come you never tell me that straight out? Aaron wondered. Weissman was probably afraid he’d get a swelled head and slack off, which only proved his boss didn’t know him as well as he thought he did.
But such worries could wait. Aaron held out his hand. “Good to meet you,” he said to Szolovits.
“Good to meet you, too. Good to be here,” the kid said. His Yiddish had an odd intonation, at least to Aaron’s ear. His own family came from Romania, Ruth’s from the Ukraine, and Herschel Weissman’s from Poland.
“You’ll show him what needs doing, right?” Weissman said.
“Sure. Whatever you want,” Aaron answered. What else would he say? “It’s not complicated. You’ve just got to do it.” He turned to the youngster. “Do you drive a truck, uh, Istvan?” He tried to pronounce the name the way Weissman had, and guessed the boss was trying to imitate the newcomer.
Looking worried, Istvan shook his head. “I am sorry, but no. In Hungary, only rich people had motorcars, and only rich people and chauffeurs and truck drivers learned how.”
Hungary? That explained the funny accent. “Don’t worry,” Aaron said. “Are you learning English, too?” He asked the question in the language he used more often than not.
“Oh, yes,” Istvan said. Aaron worked hard to keep his face straight. Istvan’s Yiddish accent sounded strange to him. In English, the kid was a ringer for Bela Lugosi in Dracula.
Aaron’s father had come to America at about Istvan’s age. Here sixty years later, he still spoke English with a strong accent. But he had a large vocabulary and wrote his adopted language well enough to have had several long letters published in Portland papers.
“Good,” Aaron said, still in English. Dropping back into Yiddish, he went on, “Come with me. You can help load the truck in a little bit.” By the way Istvan’s eyebrow twitched, he suspected that meant he’d do all the hard work. With Jim Summers, he would have. Aaron meant the words as he’d said them.
“Do you want me to tell Jim you’ll be showing the new guy what’s up?” Weissman asked. Summers was on his mind, too.
“I’ll owe you a favor if you do,” Aaron said gratefully. The boss nodded and went off to tend to it.
Aaron led Istvan into the warehouse. He showed him the Maytag washer and dryer they’d be taking over to the San Fernando Valley. He covered the washer with a padded moving blanket and secured the blanket with masking tape so the machine’s enamel finish wouldn’t get dinged on the way.
That done, he tossed Istvan another blanket and the roll of tape. He expected the kid to be clumsy the first time, but Istvan made perfect mitered corners with the blanket and taped it into place on the dryer. “You were in the Army—somebody’s army,” Aaron said.
“Hungary’s,” Istvan agreed. “I am—how do you say it?—a paroled prisoner of war. You also served?”
“Not in the Army. My eyes were too bad. They wouldn’t take me.” Aaron tapped the frames of his thick glasses. “I was a merchant seaman on the Murmansk run, in the Mediterranean, and in the Pacific.”
“The Murmansk run?” By the way Istvan said it, he understood what it meant. “Yes, you went into danger. But you could have stayed at home?”
Aaron shrugged. “I wanted to do my bit. I needed to do my bit. I didn’t want Hitler winning. We didn’t know everything the Nazis were doing, but we knew they were pretty horrible.”
“Yes.” Istvan said that in English, and then not another word. What had he gone through in Hungary when it was a German puppet? He’d lived, anyway, when so many hadn’t. And then he’d watched his country go from aping the Nazis to aping the Reds. Talk about the school of hard knocks!
Aaron set a hand on the new arrival’s shoulder. “That kind of shit doesn’t happen here,” he said. Not when Joe McCarthy’s dead, it doesn’t, he thought. But Istvan might never have heard of Tail-Gunner Joe. He was lucky if he hadn’t.
“I hope you’re right,” Istvan said. “This country is too big for others to push it around. Hungary isn’t.”
“I guess not.” Aaron changed the subject. “Let me show you something else.” He slid a dolly under the washing machine and leaned it back so the washer
’s weight came onto the wheels. “This is how you move ’em so you don’t bust your kishkes so hard. Try it with the dryer, why don’t you?”
He spoke as if that were a question. Istvan took it as an order, which Aaron was glad to see. Well, if the kid had been a soldier, he’d have had people telling him what to do in a pleasant tone of voice.
Aaron also showed Istvan how to lower the steel ramp at the back of the truck’s cargo bay. He didn’t want the kid to mash his fingers because he didn’t know what he was doing. Before they loaded the appliance, Aaron stuck yet another Chesterfield in his mouth. He held out the pack to Istvan. “Want one?”
“Yes, thank you.” Istvan used what English he had.
They got the washer and dryer into the truck. Aaron secured the washer with ropes; he had Istvan do the dryer. The Hungarian Jew might never have gone to sea, but he knew how to tie knots.
Then it was off to Van Nuys Boulevard. Aaron knew where he was going. He told Istvan to navigate with the Thomas Brothers street atlas just the same. That seemed a good way for the youngster to start learning how to get around in L.A. Istvan had no trouble. He might not be able to drive yet, but he could read a map and give accurate directions.
Mrs. Rubin’s house stood in a new tract sandwiched between groves of oranges and figs. She spoke English with a heavy accent. “Would you sooner talk Yiddish?” Aaron asked. She nodded eagerly, which also let Istvan join the conversation.
Aaron showed him how to hook up the washer to the pipes and the dryer to the gas lines. Istvan wouldn’t need long before he knew as much about it as Jim Summers, not that that was saying anything special.
Mrs. Rubin fed them both cheese blintzes she’d just fried up. She cried when she found out Istvan had gone through the war in Budapest. “So many cousins in Europe I lost!” she said. “We tried to get them to come, my Benny and me, but they said everything was fine. Some fine! Vey iz mir!” She gave Istvan five bucks and Aaron only two. Aaron thought that was funny.
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