In The Presence Of My Enemies

Willi said, "You're our fair-haired boy right now. Why don't you fix Erika up with Buckliger? That would make everybody happy."

"You really are out of your mind!" Heinrich exclaimed in horror.

"Thank you," Willi said, which only disconcerted him more. "I thought it was the-what do you call it?-the elegant solution, that's what I'm trying to say."

"Shall I tell you all the things that are wrong with it?" Heinrich asked. "How much time have you got? Have you got all day? Have you got all week?"

"What I've got is a report to write." Willi looked lugubrious. "The boss wants it this afternoon, too. I'm going to have to rush like hell to finish it on time."

"You wouldn't, if-" Heinrich broke off. Telling Willi he'd have less to do now if he hadn't spent a long, long lunchtime screwing his secretary was true. Some true things, though, just weren't helpful.

"Yes, Mommy," Willi said, which proved this was indeed one of those things.

"All right. All right." Nothing annoyed Heinrich like being condescended to. "But if you're going to complain about what you've got to do, you'd better have a look at what you've been doing."

"I did. A nice, close look, too." Willi's expression left no doubt what he meant.

Heinrich found nothing to say to that, which was no doubt exactly what Willi'd had in mind. Shaking his head, he went back to work. Over at the other desk, Willi looked as desperately busy as a man juggling knives and torches. He would type like a man possessed, then shift to the calculator, mutter at the results, and go back to the keyboard.

At five o'clock, Heinrich got up. He put on his coat and his cap. "I'm heading for the bus stop," he said. "Are you coming?"

"No, dammit." Willi shook his head, looking harassed. "I'm still busy."

"Too bad," Heinrich said, and left. Willi stared after him, then plunged back into the report.

IX

WHEN SUSANNA WEISS LISTENED TO THE RADIO IN HER OFFICE, she usually hunted for Mozart or Handel or Haydn or Beethoven or Bach. Verdi or Vivaldi would do in a pinch. The Italians were reckoned frivolous, but they were still allies; you couldn't get in trouble for listening to them.

She sometimes let Wagner blare out into the hallway, too. That was protective coloration, pure and simple, and not only because she despised him as an anti-Semite. No matter how the Nazis had slobbered over him for the past eighty years and more, she couldn't take him seriously.

A lone, lorn woman stands upon a stage trying to make herself heard,an Englishman had written at the start of the twentieth century.One hundred and forty men, all armed with powerful instruments, well-organised, and most of them looking well-fed, combine to make it impossible for a single note of that poor woman's voice to be heard above their din. She'd seen it that way long before she ran into Jerome K. Jerome. Now she couldn't even listen to Wagner without wanting to giggle.

These days, though, less classical music lilted from the radio. She tuned it to the news station more and more often. A lot of what she heard was the same wretched sort of propaganda she'd avoided for years.

A lot of it, but not all. Every so often, startling things came out of the speaker. She listened in the hope of hearing more of them.

Whenever the Fuhrer made a speech, she found herself urging him on, thinking,You can do it. I know you can. And sometimes Heinz Buckliger would, and sometimes he wouldn't. Sometimes he was flat and pedestrian, praising manufacture or agriculture or the Hitler Youth. Then, as she had with too many boyfriends, she decided she'd been fooling herself. She'd been right about the boyfriends. About Buckliger…

The trouble with Buckliger was, he could be astonishing. She was discussing a midterm with a student who had trouble understanding why he'd got only a 73. Susanna knew why-he wasn't too bright and he hadn't studied too hard. However much she wanted to, she couldn't come right out and say that. She had the radio on, not very loud, as she went over the exam with him point by point. It was one of those painful conferences. If the student worked harder, he might get a 76 next time, or even a 78. He would never blossom and get a 92.

Susanna hardly listened to herself as she explained all the myriad ways he'd misunderstood the Old English riddles he'd tried to interpret. More of her attention was on Heinz Buckliger, who was speaking to an audience of German female pharmacists. He'd been blathering on about how pharmacists were vital for the health of the Reich, and how the women's group to which he was speaking had a long history of devoted service. It didn't seem one of his more inspired efforts.

But then, with just a few words, everything changed. Buckliger went on, "We must examine the history of the Reich in the same way: that which is good, and also that which is not so good. We must not flinch from finding and noting our forefathers' failures."

"Fraulein Doktor Professor, I think you should raise my grade because-"