In The Presence Of My Enemies

On the day the new school year started, she and everybody else who'd put up with Herr Kessler seemed happy enough even without a real New Year's celebration. At the bus stop, Emma Handrick said, "I feel like they just let me out of a camp. Whatever happens now, it can't be worse."

"He was awful, all right," Alicia agreed. She turned to Francesca, who stood close by. With a big-sisterly combination of concern and sadism, she said, "Maybeyou'll have him next year."

"You're mean!" Francesca said shrilly. "I've got Frau Koch this year. Isn't that bad enough?"

"Getting stuck with the Beast is pretty bad, all right." Alicia spoke with sincere but detached sympathy. She hadn't been unlucky enough to have Frau Koch herself.

Emma said, "I wonder what this Herr Peukert is like. He's new. Nobody knows anything about him yet." The noise of a motor made her look down the street. She nodded to herself-the bus was coming. "Whatever he's like, he can't be worse than Kessler." She spoke with the conviction of someone who'd been paddled more often than she thought she should have.

The schoolyard held more confusion than usual that morning, with students lining up in front of unfamiliar rooms-and with new kindergartners not sure they should line up at all. Their teachers came out early and shouted them into place. Alicia smiled at the little kids from the height of just-turned-eleven. It had, of course, been a million years ago whenshe had so little idea of what to do. Even Roxane was starting first grade now.

"Guten Morgen, Kinder."A man's voice close by made Alicia forget the kindergartners and her little sister, too.

"Guten Morgen, Herr Peukert," she said, along with the rest of the fifth-graders in her line. Somebody-she couldn't see who-said, "Guten Morgen, Herr Kessler," out of habit. That drew a few giggles from children close by, but the chorus must have drowned it out for the new teacher, since he didn't react.

Alicia sized him up. He was very tall-within a couple of centimeters of two meters. Was he taller than her father? She thought so. The resemblance ended with height.Herr Peukert was blond and bronzed and broad-shouldered. He held himself so straight, he might have had a ramrod in place of his spine.

Behind Alicia, Emma breathed, "Oh! Isn't he gorgeous?"

Under the new teacher's ice-blue stare, several of the boys in line tried to stand straighter themselves. Before taking the class inside, Peukert called off names from the roll book he carried. He looked at the students as they answered, matching faces to names. Alicia looked back steadily when he came to hers. She wasn't thinking of herself as a Jew just then, only as somebody wondering what the next year-a very long time for a fifth-grader-would be like.

"Here!" Emma said when Herr Peukert called her name next. Her voice held a funny catch Alicia had never heard in it before. She looked back over her shoulder. Emma was gazing at the new teacher with what could only be adoration. Alicia had never before found a recognizable thing to go with the word. Now she did.

When Herr Peukert finished calling the roll, he led the class into the room. The children sat down in the same alphabetical order they'd used to take their places in line. Then they rose to give the flag the Party salute and to call out, "Heil Buckliger!" Daily rituals accomplished, they sat down again.

Alicia didn't expect much to happen on the first day of the new school year, and she proved right.Herr Peukert talked a little about what he expected them to learn in the upcoming term. "Ask questions," he urged them. "Things are changing. What we used to think we were sure of isn't always so clear any more. Some people think this is exciting. It frightens others. However you feel, though, it won't go away any time soon. You'd better get used to it."

He passed out arithmetic books, grammar books, books of stories, and geography books to the students. Alicia filled out a white card and a blue card for each textbook, giving her name, her teacher's name, the title of the book, and the condition of the copy she had. The cards warned her that her parents would have to pay if she damaged the book.

"Question,Herr Peukert!" Trudi Krebs raised her hand.

"Go ahead, Trudi," the teacher said. Alicia nodded, impressed in spite of herself. One way students judged teachers was by how fast they learned the names of the children in their class. Peukert was doing well.

"Sir, where are our history books?" Trudi asked.

That flabbergasted Alicia. She'd been so busy filling out cards and sneaking glances at the books she had got, she hadn't noticed one was missing. She made a face-not quite what her parents annoyed her by calling her Angry Face, but close. She didn't like missing things, not one bit.