In The Presence Of My Enemies

"That's good," Alicia said. She wasn't sure she believed it. She was pretty sure shedidn't believe it, in fact. Emma would never be one of the smartest people in the class, which was putting it mildly. But hearing it salved Alicia's conscience.

She put the homework back in her folder and got off the bus. Francesca and Roxane waved as they hurried to the lines in front of their classrooms. Maybe they'd forgiven her sin. Maybe. She took her own place in line-right in front of Emma, in alphabetical order.

At precisely eight o'clock, the classroom door opened. "Come in, children," the teacher boomed.

"Jawohl, Herr Kessler," Alicia and the rest of the class chorused. All over the schoolyard, other classes were greeting their teachers the same way. They all marched into the classrooms in perfect step-well, not quite so perfect in the younger grades.

Again with the others, Alicia set her books and papers on her desk and stood at attention behind her chair. She faced the swastika flag that hung by the door, but her eyes were on Herr Kessler. He stood so stiff, he might have turned to stone. (Alicia thought of Perseus and the Gorgon.)

Suddenly, the teacher's right arm shot up and out."Heil!" he barked.

Alicia and her classmates also honored the flag with the German salute."Heil!" they said. Till this morning, she'd been proud to salute the flag. Why not? Till this morning, she'd been an Aryan among Aryans, one who deserved that privilege. Now? Now everything seemed different. No one else knew what she was, but she did, and the knowledge ate at her. Hadn't Hitler himself called Jews parasites on the nation? Alicia felt like an enormous cockroach. For a wild, frightening moment, she wondered if anyone else could see her metamorphosis.

Evidently not.Herr Kessler got to work on grammar: which prepositions took the dative, which the accusative, and which both and with what changes of meaning. Alicia had no trouble with any of that. But some people did-Emma, for instance. Alicia knew the Handricks had the televisor on all the time; she'd heard her mother talk about it. Even so, if you listened to how educated people talked, if you paid any attention at all, how could you make mistakes? Emma did, and she wasn't the only one.Herr Kessler made notations in the roll book in red ink. Emma's mother was liable to clobber her in spite of the arithmetic homework she'd got from Alicia.

History and geography came next. The teacher pulled down a big map of the world that hung above the blackboard. The Germanic Empire, shown in the blood-red of the flag, stretched from England deep into Siberia and India. Paler red showed lands occupied but not formally annexed: France, the United States, Canada. In the Empire's shadow were the little realms of the allied nations: Sweden's gold, Finland's pale blue, the greens of Hungary and Portugal, Romania's dark blue, purple for Spain and Bulgaria, and the yellow of the Italian Empire around the Mediterranean. Africa was mostly red, too, though Portugal, Spain, and Italy kept their colonies on the dark continent and the Aryan-dominated Union of South Africa was another ally, not a conquest.

Only the Empire of Japan, with Southeast Asia, China, the islands of the Pacific and Indian Oceans, and Australia all shown in yellow, came anywhere close to matching the Germanic Empire in size. The Japanese were strong enough to survive for the time being, not strong enough to make serious rivals for the Reich.

"And the Japanese, of course, are not Aryans,"Herr Kessler said. "Because of this, they have no true creativity of their own. Already they have fallen behind us in technology, and they will fall further behind with each passing year. Our triumph may not come soon, but it is sure." The children nodded solemnly. They knew how important being an Aryan was. Alicia did-all the more so now that she realized she wasn't one.

Math came next. They passed in their homework and did problems on the blackboard. Alicia got hers right. Emma botched hers.Herr Kessler frowned. He flipped through papers. "You were correct on your homework," he rumbled ominously. "Why do you fall down here?"

"I don't know,Herr Kessler," Emma said. "I'm sorry,Herr Kessler." She sounded sorry, too-sorry about what would happen to her when her mother found out she wasn't doing so well.

"Your paper from last night is as good as Alicia Gimpel's," the teacher said, and Alicia's heart leaped into her mouth. Had he realized Emma was copying? But he only set the homework down and went on, "Now you must learn to follow through, as Alicia has done."

"Jawohl, Herr Kessler!" Emma didn't seem worried about cheating. How many times had she copied work before, and from how many different students? Enough to take it for granted-that was plain.