In The Presence Of My Enemies

She shook her head. "Thanks, but no. I was only joking-mostly."

When Irma Ritter came in for the afternoon shift, she said, "How are things?"

"Don't ask!" Esther said. "About the only good thing I can think of to tell you is that the office didn't catch on fire."

She thought of one more waiting for the bus that would take her home. Maximilian Ebert hadn't come out from the Reichs Genealogical Office to confer with Dr. Dambach-and to bother her. And that, she was convinced, was very good news indeed.

Wolf Priller walked up to Alicia on the playground. He looked at her as if he'd never seen her before. She looked at him with nothing but suspicion. He had no use for girls, and she had no use for him. Now, though, he wouldn't quit staring. "What do you want?" she demanded after half a minute or so.

"Is it true?" he asked.

"Is what true?"

"Did the Fuhrer really come and talk with your dad, the way people say?"

"Oh, that. Yes, it's true."

Wolf's blue eyes got wider yet. "Wow," he breathed, as if she'd become important on account of the news. She supposed she had-to him, anyway. Then he asked, "How comeyou aren't more excited about it?"

Alicia shrugged. "I don't know. I'm just not." That wasn't the whole truth, or even very much of it. Wolfgang Priller was the last person to whom she wanted to tell the whole truth. The truth was, she didn't know what to think about Heinz Buckliger's call on her father. Before she found out what she was, the visit would have thrilled her as much as it seemed to thrill everybody else.

Now that she knew she was a Jew, the whole structure of the Reich -the structure she had loved-disgusted her. (It disgusted her when she remembered, anyhow. Some of the time, she didn't. Then, for a little while, shewas the good little German she had been and still pretended to be.) But, from what she'd gathered, the new Fuhrer didn't seem to be of the same stripe as the ones who'd come before him. Maybe he wasn't quite so bad after all.

Where did that leave her? In confusion, that was where.

Wolf said, "When I told my dad about it yesterday, he said he'd give this finger"-he solemnly displayed the index finger on his right hand-"to be able to sit down with the Fuhrer and talk about things."

"They didn't talk aboutthings -not like that," Alicia said. "They talked about stuff that had to do with my father's work."

"Even so," Wolf said. "My dad wasso jealous. You have no idea how jealous he was. I am, too. I never thought I'd be jealous of a girl, but I am." And then, as if afraid he'd said too much, he rushed off and savagely booted a football.

Why is he jealous of me?Alicia wondered.I didn't meet the Fuhrer.My father did. She had never run into the phrasereflected glory, but she was groping her way toward the idea.

Wolf wasn't the only one who wouldn't let her alone. Emma sidled up to her, whispered, "Lucky," and then scooted off. She'd done that four different times since hearing the news two days earlier. Alicia counted herself lucky to be alive and safe. Past that, she didn't worry about anything.

Even Trudi Krebs eyed her in a different way. It wasn't approval halfway down the road to awe, the look she got from most of her classmates. She couldn't quite make out what it was. Disappointment? That would have been her first guess.

Why would Trudi be disappointed in her if her father had met the Fuhrer? Was Trudi a Jew? Could she be? Alicia knew she couldn't ask, in case the other girl said no.I'll ask my mom, she thought.She'll know, or be able to find out. Alicia thought Trudi just came from a family of political unreliables. That was almost as dangerous as being a Jew.

Herr Peukert knew about what had happened to Alicia's father, too, of course.Herr Kessler would have made a big fuss about it, till Alicia couldn't stand it any more.Herr Peukert didn't do that. He just seemed…interested. Alicia hardly knew what to make of that. It made her want to talk too much. Had her own secrets been less important, she might have.

When she went to wait for the bus that afternoon, she found Francesca there ahead of her, face thunderous with fury."Gott im Himmel!" Alicia exclaimed. "What's the matter?"

"I got a swat from the Beast," her younger sister answered, looking even angrier than she had already.

Alicia wouldn't have believed she could. "What did you do?" she asked. Francesca, to put it mildly, wasn't the sort who usually got paddled.

"I didn't do anything! Not a single thing!" she burst out now. "She called me up to the front of the class and gave me one anyway, just for the fun of it. I hate her! I'll always hate her!" When she got angry, she didn't fool around. "This isn't a camp with a bunch of Jews in it. It's supposed to be school!"

"You already knew Frau Koch was like that," Alicia said. "Everybody knows it. Why are you so mad now?"

"Because she did it tome!"