Difference between revisions of "Log:Lamb and Wine"

25 April, 2017

Hospitality means feeding your guests, so Gisa does.

MT03 - Tamarack Falls Jewish Bookstore

As it happens, Alonso has proven a useful fellow to have about the store. He has a passing knowledge of Jewish custom and literature, and while he himself is not a pious man, he seems entirely too happy to point people in the right direction for this book or that. He knows more than a few words of Sephardic Hebrew. Conversationally, in any case. He sweeps up, changes light bulbs, dusts the tall things, arranges shelves, and makes his bed with hospital corners. If there's something around the place he HASN'T got at least a passing familiarity with, she's yet to find it. And now that the shop has closed up, Alonso can be found in the back room, his boots polished and lined up against the wall. His duffel is open, and an array of weapons are spread out on the table, being tended to and cleaned. Currently, he's sharpening and tending a basket hilt and quillioned main-gauche whose blade is-- hard to look at, frankly. It seems determined to shine the light of a rising sun right in Gisa's eyes the moment she appears, until Alonso coos at it and rubs it a little harder in reassurance. "There, there, little one. She's a comrade. No need for that, now."

It's a little confusing to have someone around that she doesn't have to explain everything she does to -- there's only one other person in the entire place that she's met who has at least a passing understanding of her many and varied little customs. It's almost impossible to tell where Gisa is looking, but more than once during the opens hours of the store, undoubtedly, it's been obvious that she's been caught off guard -- staring when she overhears the Hebrew, or briefly confused by the fact that he knows, say, what a tallit is or what a mezuzah is not. It's difficult to keep a golem off-balance, but he's managed it, at least this far.

It was a quiet day, almost somber, as Yom HaShoah isn't the most bright and happy of days, but at least there have been lots of partisan songs playing all day long. Gisa sings along with them. Poorly, but with heart.

She retreats at sundown to the upstairs, where, presumably, she lives, and then comes down an hour or so later, when she's had a chance to get her bearings, and make dinner. The latter means that she brings food down for him, too, because hospitality, man. If Abraham could roast a lamb after circumcizing himself, she can pan-sear some lamb after a day at a bookstore. So there it is: lamb and rice and greens. She nearly drops the plates she's carrying at the bright light -- defensive reflex, it could be some sort of Bright One attack, after all -- but Alonso's voice means she balances the bowls in her hands at the last second. She's faster than she looks. "Uh." Beat. "I made food."

"Forgive the little one," Alonso says contritely, spinning the blade about to catch it in his gloved hand and slide it back into its sheathe at his back, "she's only doing her job. Strange people approaching unexpectedly get the bright light to the eyes treatment, I am afraid. Effective, no? Razzle dazzle as the British would say." Alonso plucks up his saber and its baldric and begins to stuff it back into its duffel, followed by his unstrung bow shaft. Apparently he's putting his things away to clear the table, and sure enough the duffel is carried over and set down beside his boots. "If I had known you were coming with food I would have cleaned the table sooner, my apologies. You need not go to such trouble on my account in the future if you do not wish to do so. I am accustomed to making do." He promptly removes his hat and uses its brim to brush off the table, tossing it off to rest atop the rest of his gear. It leaves only the embroidered eagle-feather motif scarf wrapped around his head, its tassels hanging to about the middle of his back, longer than his dark hair. "Will you be joining me for dinner, then?"

"It makes sense," the golem assures him, then adding, "I was making dinner. So I made dinner. Hospitality is an important function. Though you can make your own food back here well enough if you prefer." That's how goylomim do, see. Gisa listens carefully to everything that Alonso says, her head tilted just slightly to the side, and then she carefully sets down the shallow bowls on the table. "Yes. It is the end of Yom HaShoah and I always eat well after sundown, because sorrow is over." Once the bowls are settled down, she goes to fetch forks, knives and napkins, and asks, "What do you prefer to drink? It is lamb, so." Apparently joining him for dinner is implicit, like the nights in a hotel stay. Silverware is set down on the table, napkins, and then she goes to get her own drink. It's lamb, so red wine for her, apparently, from one of the bottles in a small wine rack on the counter.

"No wine better than the local peasants can afford," Alonso answers with what could be humor but also could be complete honesty. Or possibly both at once. "Whatever you like is fine. Do not go out of your way on my account, please." Alonso quite literally stands upon ceremony, stubbornly not seating himself. "You know. I missed the Shoah, most of it. I was there to see the end of it all, however. Espana has never been kind to the Jew. Not in history, not then, not even today. I hold much sympathy for your people. Then as now. I wish we had defeated Franco. I wish we might have been your allies in the war that followed. I wish many things." Alonso lifts a hand to twirl the end of his moustache, twirling it into a perfect curl to match the other side. "But, if wishes were fishes, eh? In any case, it is hard to remember something I never bore witness to. Hard for many reasons. And I am glad your sadness is behind you, at least for another winding of the scroll."

"Local to where?" It's a serious question, it seems, but the wine that Gisa pours comes out of a bottle with Hebrew on the label. Of course she would buy imported Israeli wine -- it's what she's used to and knows is good, after all. Two half-glasses poured, and she balances them in one hand, the glass squeaking against her ceramic skin, and picks up the bottle, bringing it with her back to the table. All things settled down, and she sits down at one chair. "I missed most of it too," she admits, shaking her head slightly. "I was in British Palestine at the time, helping those who made it there. I should -- " and then she stops, rolls her shoulders. "It is never behind me, but the sentiment is appreciated. Here. The lamb will get cold. Sit, sit."

"Local to me. Never eat better than your comrades as an officer. If the peasant eats millet, eat millet. If they drink dregs, drink dregs. There is practicality to that rule." Alonso does not expound upon the practicality, but leaves it where it is for the moment. He instead draws out a chair for himself and relents to sit again, unbuttoning his vest a bit more for comfort. "Were you really? Ha! I joined up with a Spanish Machal unit formed from Republican refugees from the war. We were there when the clock ran out, fighting alongside our comrades near the west bank. I do not much believe in God, but it is clear to me he must believe in Israel. I thought for certain it was Madrid all over again for me." He reaches for his glass and lifts it in toast, "To freedom, then?"

She nods her head once. "Well, I do not know what a peasant can afford, but I can afford this. I do not think they use the word 'peasant' anymore anyway." Gisa settles into her chair, tilting her head slightly to the side, listening as he talks. Her shin glows more brightly, lighting up her face quite literally, when he talks about having been in Israel, and the flames in her eyepits sparkle and shimmer. "He does," she agrees, simply enough, and tilts her head slightly to the side when he mentions Madrid. But then there is a toast, so she picks up her glass again, the glass squeaking on her fingers. "To freedom." A rather profound toast for Lost. "L'chaim," she adds, or perhaps reiterates. Certainly she seems to think so. And then her glass clinks against his.

Clink. "There are always peasants. Call them by a different name, but there are always peasants." Alonso takes a gulp of his, then relaxes back into his seat in a bit of a slouch. Relaxing, in short. "Strange I never met you there. Were you in Jerusalem? We did not spend much time in Jerusalem, which might explain it." He takes another sip before leaning forward to set aside his wine and reach for the knife and fork so as to begin cutting and serving up the lamb. "I've grown weary of all the fighting, now. I'm very good at it, but it takes its toll on you."

"I was in Jerusalem," Gisa agrees, and she holds up a hand. Her eyeflames go out, and she quietly recites: Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu melech ha'olam, hamotzi lechem min ha'aretz. Her hand drops to the table again with a subtle thump, and she gestures for him to continue with cutting the lamb. "The Freehold where many from my Keeper end up being brought is centered in Jerusalem. The Desert is brutal, and with the wars one after another... there was much for a golem to do." Her shoulders rise and fall like a mountain range. Everything about her is patient and careful, if not exactly slow. "I have never liked fighting. I am good at it, of a necessity. It is how a golem is. But it wears. I have been walking the earth... a long time. A long time."

"Well, that would explain it, yes. Still, it was good to win a war for a change. Did wonders for my morale. Cuba, too. We had a good run, there, in the fifties and sixties." Alonso serves up a slice of the lamb for Gisa, then another for himself. He gets right to eating, not reall bothering to pretend his hunger isn't what it is. "War is hell. And familiar. Comfortable, after a fashion. Peace I often find is the illusion covering the eyes to the battle being waged all around them. When the struggle spills over into armed conflict, it is only because either the bourgeois has conflict with another bourgeois-- in which case the people suffer --or because the people have cleared their eyes and see the bourgeois for what they are. In which case the people prosper, if only for a time. There are few exceptions to this rule. Even Hitler, even Franco, were little more than puppet masters turning the proletariat against itself. What quarrel did I have with the Nationaista, save that he was a Nationalista? And then, often because he was conscripted? Nothing! Nothing. That is what." Another gulp of wine, "So I kill him?" It's a rhetorical question, but he poses it to her just the same.

She sits very still after she is served, listening to him speak. The brightness that her shin had gained a little bit ago dulls down, and her eyeflames as well. Her hands in her lap, and though she says "Thank you," when the lamb is served, she doesn't say anything else for a long time. "I do not forgive the Nazis, nor do I moralize about whether or not I had another quarrel with them, conscripted or not. It is not mine to forgive. The one who was wronged forgives." And a corpse can't grant forgiveness, that falls in the silence. "And if I ever did it, I do not do it on the sunset just after Yom HaShoah." Reaching to pick up her glass, she says instead, "Why did you come to Vermont? There is no revolution here."

"Oh, I do not mean to give any shade to the Nazi. And the Nationalistas did plenty wrong. Of course, so did we. War being what war is." Alonso draws a hand through his hair, drawing his scarf back over his shoulder. "In any case, I meant no disrespect. Not on this day or on any other. Please forgive me if I did so." He takes another bite of lamb, washes it down with a sip of his wine, and resumes his slouch in his seat. "Mmm. Your Bernie Sanders led me to believe otherwise." That is probably a joke. "In truth, I am uncertain. You misunderstand that I go where the revolution is. I go, and the revolution follows me. Or so it seems. Some say I am an ill omen. Me, I prefer to think that change follows in my wake, which is as it should be. Yes? Perhaps I am drawn to the entropy, perhaps the other way around. So I say I do not know, but I can only assume I will find out soon."

That seems to settle her stomach enough, and Gisa reaches to pick up her fork and knife, cutting off a piece of lamb and taking a bite. Gisa does one thing extraordinarily well: she listens. And on closer examination, her very still face does give away small hints of emotion: the corners of her eyes crinkle up in humor when he mentions Bernie Sanders -- she got the joke, or thinks she does. "Forgiven," she replies, and tucks away more lamb, salad, rice. When you grew up working in a kibbutz, hacking life out of a desert, you become good eat eating, well, efficiently. She doesn't bolt her food, but not far from it. "Mmm. There is enough ill occurring right now, even if there is not a revolution. Once you are sworn to the Freehold, there will be plenty to talk about. Provided that you stay." Her shoulders rise and fall again, like a mountain range. Everything about her is tectonic. "In any case, if you do." She pauses. "I cannot afford to pay you, possibly ever, but you will have a place to sleep, and food."

"I would do this work for free. It's light on the shoulders. Do not worry over money, money comes easily to us. And, in any case, it's the ammunition of the bourgeoisie. You give me company, a bed, food, a roof over my head. Conversation. What more than this does a man need?" Alonso lifts his wine glass in gesture, apparently indicating he might tack wine onto the list if pressed. "As to the Freehold? I am not averse to joining, but... well. I am very particular about those I serve and the oaths I swear. Having cut my teeth as an anarchist, socialist, and anti-fascist. I need to make certain... durations. The character of the leader. Things like that. You cannot overthrow a tyrant you're sworn to serve, after all." He waggles a fork with lamb on the end of it indicatively before popping it into his mouth and smiling a little too broadly. "Viva la revolucion."

The golem's shin glows more brightly at that. "Well, then you have a place to stay, for the work in trade. And yes, money can come easily, if you find someone you can trust to swear an oath to." She points to his glass with her fork. "But you forgot wine. And bread." But she isn't going to argue with him. "You would have a hard time serving any Freehold, I think, if that is what you think. The Crown is what it is. But I helped to found this Freehold, though I took some time to go to Israel at Rosh Hashanah and stayed away a while. I have not met the new monarch. But..." Gisa rolls her shoulders easily. "Unlike most Freeholds, this one actually has a purpose for Dawns, rather than barely acknowledging that we do exist."