“So. You’re a nosher, my friend.”
“Nosher?”
“Nibbler. An eater of small meals. The meal is a nosh, so is the verb, the act of eating it. And the eater a nosher, get it?”
Luke nodded as he finished off the empanada. “At home, we nosh, too. The women keep the stew pot going all day. We eat when we’re hungry. Until we feel full. Except at feast times.”
Sergeant Morgenstern smiled. “And what happens then?”
“We do too much of everything. We dance, play games and gamble, and eat and eat and eat.”
“Ah, until you plats!”
“Plats?”
“Burst! From plotz, which means to burst. You think yours are the only people who know how to have a good time?”
“No. I did not mean to say that. I’m sorry.”
Isaiah Morgenstern swatted the air of their cell. “Nishtkefelecht! It’s you should be complaining of my company, my quiet friend. I’m a New York Jew used to yelling over traffic. I'm not angry or offended, just loud. You got some luck in roommates, bunkie.”
“Yes,” Luke agreed. “Good luck. I am too serious. The women tell me that all the time.”
“You pay close attention to your women, do you?”
Luke smiled. “Well. They are good with knives.”
Isaiah Morgenstern laughed out of his mouth and nose together. Luke liked that laugh, it signaled that he was both surprised and amused.
“I should stop thinking of your females as shiksas,” he said. “My considered opinion: the Lost Tribes? From one boat landed in Arizona, maybe?”
“We have no shoreline. And it is said we came from underground,” Luke countered.
“Mole people, yours? You don’t look like any subway straphanger I ever saw, yingel.”
Yingel. Pupik. Boyhik. bubaleh. Tateleh. Shepseleh. Isaiah had so many names for him! All endearments, given to treasured children, he assured Luke. But if he’d been called so many names as a child, he doubted he’d ever learn his real one.
Isaiah Morgenstern was as crafty as the hump-backed flute player. How long had he been listening to his Kokopeli, who was full of questions, who answered questions with questions in verbal dances like those of his own people? Luke looked at the marks he’d scratched on the cell wall beside his bed. Four days.
“Just digesting, shepseleh?”
“Digesting?”
Morgenstern shook his head. “No, no. Listen. Just repeating the same question is not so good as: ‘And which fellow skeleton wants to know?’ or ‘I can help the workings of my own digestive tract, you’re thinking?’ Get it?”
“What? You think I am stupid?”
“Good! That’s good! It will help. Believe me, when these mamzers try to get anything out of you, see? Keep playing ignorant, full of the questions, like we do now, for fun. Now, about that quiet percolating going on behind your bedroom eyes — are you hatching an escape plan?”
Luke shrugged. “Who wouldn’t be?”
“Ha! Good, tateleh! And I’ll help you to get the lay of this labyrinth that is Hell Hole inside the revered Porta Coeli. Then, when your friends come back for you, you’ll lead the rest of us republicans and Basque nationals out of here.”
“I doubt they will be sending anyone.”
“Why not?”
“Nantai and I — we are not regular army,” Luke said slowly, considering his words, careful not to admit to Isaiah Morgenstern that he and his clan brother were in a branch of the service that was itself a secret, that was about spying. They killed spies, right away. He and Nantai’s only hope was to keep up their cover as shepherds testing a new enterprise in their mountains. Would the small man tell their captors Luke had given away his rank, and that he was a Navajo?
Footsteps. More than the usual patrol. And alarm in his cellmate’s eyes.
“Lie down, bunkie. Eyes closed. Let me do the talking.”
Luke obeyed, as he had several times before. But there was something different about the precise sound of these boots.
The room crowded with colliding scents of leather, wool, and anger. Sergeant Morgenstern began his rapid-fire Spanish, explaining Luke was sleeping, that they both needed better food, some time outside.
Luke felt a shake at his shoulders.
He looked into the hard black eyes of an officer. “You will come with us.”
Isaiah Morgenstern stepped forward. “I’m telling you, this is a sick man! Let it be on your heads if —”
The officer landed a punch that sent Kokopelli reeling against the wall.
Before he could advance further, Luke bolted up and stood between them, his arms braced.
Two guards quickly pinned him against the wall.
The officer smiled. “So, you are not so bad off. The Jew has proven himself useful.”
* * *
Luke counted the steps up the stairway until he and the guards were above ground.
Once the thick wooden door to the courtyard was unbolted, the guards moved him too fast, dragging while he blinked in the unfamiliar, intense sunlight. He tried to memorize the yard’s dimensions, the number and positions of guards on the wall.
The monastic infirmary was in the building to the west, Isaiah had said. Regain your stride, keep up, Luke told himself. Perhaps Nantai was watching, from a window. Don’t give him more to worry about.
They passed twisted stone columns shaped like snaking vines around the trunk of a tree. Isaiah told him they had been holding up the tiled roof for centuries. The oldest part of the monastery-turned-prison, was in the style named for the ancient people, the Romans, with its arches and pillars.
* * *
An automobile stood before the building they were heading toward, a long, black automobile, its uniformed chauffeur standing beside it.
Luke remembered Isaiah's map of the complex, which he had drawn in the dirt floor of their cell. They were entering what had once been a small chapel, but was now the office of the commander. Embedded deep in the massive stone, two round stained glass windows let some sunlight into the room. Light shone on a man in a beautifully tailored dark suit and polished nails, holding soft leather gloves, and a fedora hat; a man so different, so out of place in this world.
“You are better, Señor Kayenta?” he asked in proper, Castilian Spanish.
“Yes, thank you.”
“I arrived from Madrid as soon as I could. Please,” he indicated the lone straight backed wooden chair, “sit.”
When Luke hesitated, a guard shoved him down. The polished Spaniard frowned slightly, waved him back and concentrated again on Luke. “I am a diplomatic envoy. Your employer is very concerned about you. Your comrade, Señor Riggs—“
“Where is he?”
A rifle butt hit the stone floor. “No questions! Only answers!”
A man in a double breasted wool uniform coat entered the room, filling it with his presence. His head of closely cropped greying hair was bare and his military hat tucked under his arm.
“I was reviewing the guards advanced training outside our walls, Consul,” he said bowing stiffly. “Or else I would have been here to welcome you.” He cast a furious look toward Luke “The prisoner is not bound or chained!” he shouted at the guards.
“Yes. At my request, sir,” the diplomat said with a steely softness.
A twitch in the uniformed man's cheek made the deep creases beside it even deeper. This is a person who has been displeased most of his life, Luke thought. “You should not have begun without me, Consul.”
The smaller man nodded. “Thank you for your concern, El Director. But I assure you, I believe myself in no danger from this simple shepherd.”
The prison's director was not able to hide his anger over the consul commanding action in his absence. But the polished gentleman gave no indication that he was aware of the director’s fury. His voice stayed steady and cordial. “I am learning that Señor Kayenta is only concerned about his wounded friend. Perhaps we could grant the two a reunion?”
“Impossible! They are both classed as incommunicado and dangerous, sir.”
This was the prison director, who had slept through the entire escape, Luke realized. He had no first-hand knowledge of the operation of Captain Lomax and his men, and the reports from the night's prison guards might have been muddled. Nantai drove the truck. But it had all happened so fast, perhaps Nantai’s face was lost in the crowd. Was there a way out of this for them?
The tailored man lifted three fingers, as a priest does in blessing.
The director retreated from the room, a move that had the guards staring at each other in wonder.
The consul turned his attention back to Luke. “I’m afraid I do not meet with everyone’s approval here, just as you do not, yes? They are used to the most hardened of criminals, traitors, anarchists, you see. Kindly allow me to resume the lead in our discussion. But be assured. We in Madrid have cordial relations with Señor Spenser and his companies. Your friend Señor Riggs is being looked after.”
Luke nodded, grateful.
The diplomat began to walk a slow circle around Luke’s chair. The colored glass threw rainbows over his beautiful white suit of clothes.
“Now, your employer the esteemed Señor Spencer speaks of his high regard, and his wish to have you both back in the bosom of his care since your unfortunate experience here. He is sure all evidence will prove circumstantial, that you and Señor Riggs were… hostages on the night of the uprising.”
He stood still before Luke, one hand over the one holding his fine hat and gloves. Their clench deepened. “First, I must report on your condition. Have you been harmed in any way within these walls?”
“No, sir.”
“And has anyone taken clothes or possessions from you?”
“No.”
“Good. And they will not. You and the shepherd Señor Riggs are our guests. Now, let us work together so that this unpleasantness between Spain and the United States of America might cease. I will do my part. But you must do yours. And I’m afraid the authorities are insisting you have some time alone to consider your answers to questions they are formulating.”
“Might I see the other shepherd? He was hurt. I don't remember well, but he was bleeding, you see.”
Luke watched those polished, tapping fingers. They stopped.
“Ah, no. I fear not.”
Then the diplomat turned, and left.
The room was empty of everything but the faint scent of incense. And the echoing of centuries of holy chanting,. And screams.