In The Presence Of My Enemies

"The Fuhrer came to see a friend of mine last week," Esther Stutzman told her boss with what she hoped was pardonable pride.

Dr. Dambach nodded. He never seemed to get very excited about anything. "Good for your friend," he answered now. "I also know some people who have met him, though I haven't myself."

"Neither have I." Esther had never imagined wanting to meet the ruler of the Greater German Reich and the Germanic Empire, either. But maybe Buckliger was different. Maybe. Even wondering felt not only strange but also more than a little unnatural.

"I've been doing something interesting," Dr. Dambach said.

"Oh? What's that?" Esther asked, as she was plainly meant to do. Whatever it was, it didn't involve the coffeemaker. What the pediatrician thought interesting there was liable to seem ghastly to anybody else. Some of the things he'd done trying to fix coffee merited the word. Lately, though, the coffeemaker had been fine.

When he spoke, Esther wished he'd spent his time messing with the machine, for he said, "Do you remember how the Kleins' genealogy charts had two different versions?" He made it a casual question, for he didn't know how important it was to Esther.

"Yes, I do," she answered.I'm not likely to forget, went through her head.You didn't know it, but you were trying to kill me, too.

And he still was, still in perfect ignorance. "Well, I've been going through some of the other patients' charts, to see if I can find more with the same problem."

"I certainly hope not!" Esther exclaimed. Dr. Dambach would reckon the horror in her voice a horror of disorder and illegality, the sort of horror he had himself. And, indeed, she was acquainted with that horror in her everyday life. But what made her voice go high and shrill now was old and deeper and less…less Germanic. It was raw fear, fear of disaster, fear of death. She had to fight to hold it in check as she asked, "Have-have you found any?"

Dr. Dambach paused to sip from the cup of coffee she'd made for him. That only gave her a few more seconds to worry and to try to remember whether Walther had had to change anybody else's pedigree. She didn't think so. No, she didn'tthink so, but doubt tore at her. Maybe she'd forgotten. Maybe he'd done it without bothering to tell her. It wouldn't have seemed that important at the time. Now it loomed as big as the world.

The pediatrician set down the foam cup. "As a matter of fact, yes," he said deliberately, and Esther wanted to sink down through the floor. But then he went on, "Not quite like the Klein baby's case, though."

Esther dared breathe again, if barely. "What's the difference?" she asked. The question was dangerous, but it had to come out. Dr. Dambach wouldn't read too much into it…would he? He'd all but invited it…hadn't he?

He took another sip of coffee. Was he trying to drive her crazy? If he was, he was doing a bang-up job. He set the cup on his desk again. "The Kleins' charts showed two different family trees, so it made me wonder whether they had more Jews in their ancestry than they were willing to admit," he said, and cocked his head to one side, waiting for her response.

She made herself nod. "I remember."I'm not likely to forget. I almost got them killed. I almost got more of my friends killed, and my family, and me. The nod showed only polite agreement. None of the nightmare underneath came out.

"I haven't found any more cases like that," Dambach repeated.

"I hope not!" Esther repeated herself, too. "You'd better not!" Her knees didn't want to hold her up. She felt giddy with relief. "But what have you found? You said you'd found something."

"I have found that people will lie even when there is no good reason for them to lie." The pediatrician looked as disgusted as if he'd discovered maggots on a dressing that was supposed to be sterile. "I have found people inventing inflated ancestries for themselves, people trying to connect themselves with noble families-one family even trying to connect itself to the Hitlers. All of the forgeries are inept. Many of them are pathetic. But they riddle the files. Why?" He looked at Esther as if he really believed she had an answer.

She did the best she could: "There are people who want to seem more important than they really are."

"It's so stupid!" Dr. Dambach said. "And it could be dangerous to them, too. If I think a child's ancestry is different from what it really is, I'm liable to make the wrong diagnosis. Don't people think ofthat?"

"Most of them probably don't," Esther said. Working for the pediatrician had gone a long way toward convincing her most people thought very little-certainly less than she'd believed when she took the job. Then, because she couldn't help herself, she asked, "What are you going to do about these fake pedigrees?"

She knew she probably should have left well enough alone. But her boss had reported the Kleins without a second thought. Would he prove as hard on people he didn't suspect of being Jews?