"I’ll show you!" Zuzik is boiling with anger. "The first Arab we meet, I’ll lay him out with it."
"I’ll pay you five grush for every Arab you bump off with that toy." "I’ll pay ten!" Kebab raises the prize. Everybody laughs. Zuzik seems rather ridiculous. If the war had not broken out, he would probably be studying the history of the Lithuanian Jews in the nine-teenth century. Somehow the pistol didn’t suit him. It didn’t look natural on him, unlike Jamus or Tarzan. Zuzik was the only one who didn’t laugh. His expression was cold.
"Don’t get excited," Nachshe consoled him. "Come on, let’s get something to drink!"
"Cognac is the thing to drink in this brothel!"
"They must have some cognac here."
The waiter is sitting at the counter sorting through bills.
"Hey, you there!" Nachshe calls to him.
"What would you like?" The waiter graces our table with his pres-ence.
"Bring us a glass of cognac!" Nachshe demands.
"We have no cognac. Orders from HQ forbid alcohol in the camp. The beer we procure privately."
"Don’t lecture me. Here’s a lira!" Nachshe waves a note.
"Good. I’ll see what I can do." The waiter goes off and returns with the bottle.
"What a deal!" Sancho expostulated "One lira for a bottle of cognac!"
"What’s the use of money? Tomorrow you’ll be dead anyway." "Eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die," Zuzik declaimed.
"I don’t know," said Sancho pensively. "Maybe we will just lose a leg. Then we will need money."
"The motherland will look after you!"
"Don’t make me laugh! The motherland will give you a medal and a kick in the butt!"
"May you all soon be stinking corpses," Kebab wished us. "Who’ll give me a lira if I empty the bottle in one go?"
"That is daylight robbery! Twenty grush is enough." Sancho is a thrifty fellow. He never misses a chance to haggle.
"Go to hell! Only a dog would drink a whole bottle for less than half a lira."