In The Presence Of My Enemies

Alicia started to laugh. She choked it down before it even began to show. Her sister's outrage was only part of the reason why, and a small part at that. Maybe, at last, she'd found some of the reason people hadn't complained about what the Party did to Jews. Who would complain, when something like that was happening to a small group of other people and not to themselves? That was doubly true because, if theydid complain, such thingswere all too likely to happen to them.

"It will be all right," she told her sister. "Remember, you're only stuck with the Beast for a year. It's not forever."

"It seems like forever!" Francesca often looked for the cloud, not the silver lining. She added, "And then next year I'll probably get Herr Kessler."

She probably would, too. Alicia didn't want to tell her so, especially since that was also when she would find out she was a Jew. How would she react to that? Like Alicia-maybe even more than Alicia-she believed everything she'd learned in school about Jews. She would have to change her mind.

The school bus turned the corner and rumbled toward the stop. Alicia pointed towards it. "Here. We're going home now," she said. Sometimes distracting Francesca worked better than actually answering her.

Heinrich Gimpel had never imagined he could be a celebrity. What occurred to him was a most un-Jewish thought:O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Celebrity meant visibility. Visibility, in his mind, was inextricably wed to danger.

He was stuck with it, though. Half the analysts in Oberkommando der Wehrmacht headquarters made a point of coming up to him and passing the time of day. Even crusty Wehrmacht officers-real soldiers, not just bureaucrats in uniform-unbent around him where they never had before. Some of them-not all, but a surprising number-proved to be pretty good fellows under the crust.

And all because someone stopped at my desk for fifteen or twenty minutes,he thought dazedly.People do that all the time. It shouldn't be so important.

He laughed at himself. Other analysts stopped at his desk all the time. Officers stopped there every now and again. the Fuhrer? The ruler of the Greater German Reich and the Germanic Empire? Well, no. The Fuhrer didn't pay a call on an ordinary analyst every day.

Some people didn't try to cozy up to Heinrich. Some people turned green with envy instead, and wanted nothing to do with him. He was glad Willi didn't. Willi, instead, made a joke of it. "Me? I'm going to get rich from knowing you. How much do you suppose I can charge for twenty minutes of your time? Fifty Reichsmarks? A hundred? A hundred and fifty?" He ran his tongue across his lips. "You could get a pretty fancy floozy for that kind of money, but plenty of people would sooner seeyou. What do you think of that?"

"I think they'd have more fun with a girl," Heinrich answered. Willi laughed till he turned red. Heinrich hadn't been kidding.

Willi didn't seem to have noticed the speculative look Ilse had given Heinrich after the Fuhrer 's visit. Since Heinrich had pretended not to notice it, too, Ilse's dallying with Willi hadn't paused. They were given to enough long lunches to make other analysts grin and nudge one another-but only when they weren't around.

What irked Heinrich about it at least as much as anything else was that he had to cover Willi's phone during those long lunches. He didn't mind dealing with business. That was what he was there for. Dealing with Erika Dorsch was a different story.

"Analysis section, Heinrich Gimpel speaking," he said after transferring a call from Willi's desk to his own.

"Hello, Heinrich," Erika said. "I was hoping for my husband. Too much to expect, I suppose."

If you really want to talk to Willi, why don't you call him when he's likelier to be here?Heinrich wondered, a little resentfully. He didn't say that out loud. It would only cause trouble. What he did say was as neutral as he could make it: "I'll take a message for you, if you like."

"In a bit," she answered. "Where is he?"

They'd gone around this barn before. "At lunch," Heinrich said.

"He should be back by now, shouldn't he?" Erika said. Heinrich didn't respond to that at all. She asked, "Where did he go?" and then said, "You're going to tell me you don't know. See? I read minds."

"Well, I don't," Heinrich said defensively. "I ate at the canteen today."

"I'm so sorry for you. Wherever he went, did he go there with Ilse?" Erika waited. Again, Heinrich didn't want to answer, either with the truth or with a lie. Her laugh had a bitter ring. "You're too damned honest for your own good, Heinrich."