In The Presence Of My Enemies

"All right," Alicia said, though she wouldn't have minded sitting around and listening some more, either. The Stutzmans talked more openly than her own family did. Of course, they weren't keeping the secret around the house any more. They'd probably been a lot more careful before Anna knew.

It'll be years before we can tell Roxane,Alicia thought sadly. But Gottlieb had been thinking the same thing about Anna even longer.We have something in common. That was a pretty funny idea. It stayed in Alicia's mind for a little while. Then the vile deeds of the wicked SS bird made her forget all about it.

Susanna Weiss loathed faculty meetings. Nothing worthwhile ever got done in them, and they wasted inordinate amounts of time. But Herr Doktor Professor Oppenhoff loved them with a bureaucratic passion. Since he headed the Department of Germanic Languages, everyone else had to go along. Susanna eyed the conference room as if it were some especially nasty part of a concentration camp.

Part of her knew that was foolishness. The only poison gas in the room came from Oppenhoff's cigar. Two steam radiators kept the place comfortable, even toasty, despite the chill outside. Sweet rolls and coffee waited on a table next to the window; she didn't have to try to survive on camp swill. No SS guards prowled with guns and dogs. But she was stuck here when she didn't want to be, which gave the meeting the feel of imprisonment.

She listened with half an ear to a report congratulating the department for its impressive publication record. Three of the articles Professor Tennfelde mentioned were hers. She yawned even so. She'd learned to do it without opening her mouth, so it didn't show nearly so much. Tennfelde was dull, dull, dull. If he lectured this way, his students would be anesthetized.

The report finally ended. The spatter of applause the faculty gave seemed to signal relief that it was over. But Tennfelde knew who his primary audience was, and he'd pleased Franz Oppenhoff. "Very informative," the department chairman declared. "Very informative indeed."

Susanna drew a doodle of an alarm clock with a long white beard. And more reports were coming. None of them had anything to do with her. She could have gone her whole life long without knowing or caring what the interlibrary-loan committee had done lately, or whether discussions on merging the Flemish and Dutch subdepartments had progressed any further, especially since they hadn't.

She also yawned-open-mouthed this time-through a report on financial planning from a professor who specialized in the Nibelungenlied and dabbled in the stock market on the side. If he'd done well, he wouldn't have had to worry about his university salary. He plainly did worry about it, which meant he hadn't done well. Why anyone would want advice from a bungling amateur was beyond Susanna. She had a thoroughly professional accountant and broker, and no worries as far as money was concerned. Other things, yes. Money, no.

Again, though, Professor Oppenhoff seemed pleased. "I would like to thank Herr Doktor Professor Dahrendorf for that interesting and enlightening presentation. "He puffed on his Havana. Then he said, "And now Fraulein Doktor Professor Weiss will enlighten us on the current political situation and the changes we have seen in recent times."

Why, you miserable son of a bitch!Susanna thought. Oppenhoff hadn't warned her he was going to do any such thing. He sat there looking smug and pleased with himself. If she made an ass of herself, the rest of the department would assume she was incompetent, not that he'd set her up.

I'd better not make an ass of myself, then. "Thank you, Professor Oppenhoff," she said. She would sooner have substituted another verb forthank, but she gained a few seconds to gather herself even so. Some of these people couldn't get through a lecture even with the text on the lectern in front of them. She'd always prided herself on being able to think on her feet.Well, here we go.

First, the obvious. "Reform will continue. I believe it will intensify. the Fuhrer has seen that we cannot stay strong by living on booty forever. That saps the fiber of the Volk." If Heinz Buckliger could use what sounded like Party doctrine for purposes that would have horrified analter Kampfer, so could she. She went on, "He has also seen that it is in the interest of the Reich to allow more expression of national consciousness within the Empire, especially among Germanic peoples." Czechs weren't Germanic, Frenchmen only marginally so. Susanna shrugged. Thatespecially covered her.

"Also, the possibility of error in the past has been admitted," she said. "This appears to be a healthy development. If we know we have made mistakes, and we know which mistakes we have made, we are less likely to make similar ones in the future."We won't murder millions of Jews again, because there aren't that many left. We might have a hard time murdering thousands of them.