In The Presence Of My Enemies

She told him. She told him in great detail. And she was quite obviously right. Then she said, "If you can't hit the target any better with Ilse, she's got an-"

Heinrich and Lise both said something, anything, to keep Erika from finishing that sentence. Afterwards, Heinrich never could remember what had burst from his lips, or from his wife's. Erikadidn't finish, either: a triumph of sorts. But only of sorts, for enough of the damage was already done. Willi went a hot crimson color; his skin might have belonged to a perfectly ripe apple.

"You've got a lot of damned nerve complaining about me," he said, his voice low and rough and furious. "You're the one who wants to-"

"Enough!" That wasn't Heinrich but Lise. She rarely raised her voice. When she did, as now, surprise made everyone pay attention to her. She went on, "There's a time and a place for everything, and this isn't the time and the place for that."

The Dorsches could easily have erupted. If they had, the friendship probably would have exploded right there at the bridge table. Heinrich waited. The shrapnel from that explosion would tear into him, not into his wife. But it didn't come. Erika and Willi kept on glaring at each other, but neither one of them said anything new and inflammatory.

After a long, long moment, Erika turned to Lise and said, "You make good sense. I see where Heinrich gets it."

"Oh,Quatsch, " Lise said. "Now I have to figure out which one of us you just insulted." She gathered up the cards. "In the meantime, can we play some bridge? Hitting each other over the head with rocks is a different game, and it shouldn't be a spectator sport."

"What do you know about it?" Willi asked, half blustering, half amused. "You and Heinrich never do it."

She and Heinrich both laughed raucously. Heinrich knew their marriage had its creaks and strains, as what marriage does not? He could put his finger on four or five without even thinking. No doubt Lise could do the same. And no doubt some of his wouldn't be the same as some of hers, which was in itself a strain. But none of that was anybody's business but his and Lise's.

That thought led him to the next one: "We just try not to do it when other people are watching."

"Oh, but having other people watch is half the fun," Willi said. Erika nodded. There, for once, she agreed with her husband.

Heinrich, on the other hand, did his best to hide a shudder. Little green men from Mars could have had no more alien an attitude. Put your life on display, as if you were characters on a daytime televisor drama? He couldn't imagine living like that. One of the reasons he and Lise got on so well was that she was as intensely private a person as he was.

"Whose deal is it, anyhow?" Willi asked, as easily as if he and Erika hadn't been shelling each other a couple of minutes before. "Let's see if I can butcher another one, eh?" Erika stirred. Suddenly, she jerked in surprise. Had Lise kicked her under the table? Heinrich had trouble imagining his wife doing such a thing. He also had trouble finding any other reason Erika would have jerked like that.

Willi did win the contract, at three diamonds. He made it. Heinrich hadn't been sure he would, but he did. If anything, that left Heinrich relieved. He wasn't used to rooting for the opposition. He didn't much like it. It took the competitive edge off the bridge.

The Dorsches won the rubber. Again, Heinrich wasn't sorry, and wished he were. Usually, they would have talked and drunk for a while after they set down the cards-or maybe they just would have played some more. Tonight, Willi and Erika got up and left with only the most perfunctory good-byes. Heinrich and Lise didn't ask them to stay longer, even in the most perfunctory way.

"Are we going to be able to have them over any more, or to go to their place?" Lise asked once they'd gone. "The bridge is all very well, but some things are more trouble than they're worth."

"Yes, I know," Heinrich said. He also feared he knew what Willi had been about to say when Lise forestalled him. After Erika jabbed him about Ilse, he would have jabbed her about making a play for Heinrich. If things had been bad, had been ugly, before then, how much worse and uglier would they have got afterwards?

Heinrich was a man who thought in quantitative terms. If he couldn't put numbers to something, it didn't feel real to him. He couldn't put numbers to this, but, for once, he didn't need to. It would have been about as bad as it could get.

Alicia Gimpel didn't like December. The sun rose late and set early, and clouds and fog were so thick you mostly couldn't see it when it did sneak into the sky. It rained a lot of the time. When it didn't rain, sometimes it snowed. Some people said they liked having seasons-it made them enjoy spring and summer more. Alicia couldn't fathom that. She wished she lived somewhere like Italy, where it was warm and nice almost all year round.