In The Presence Of My Enemies

He turned his back on her, the way a petulant second-grader might have. Unlike a petulant second-grader, he didn't get a swat for being rude. Alicia wished he would have. He deserved one. But nobody was paying any attention to what she wished. The officer with the mustache nodded to his men. "Take them away."

They had their orders. They carried them out. It was their duty.

Lise Gimpel had just got back from the drugstore when the telephone rang. She muttered to herself. She'd been about to make a fresh pot of coffee. The ringing phone didn't magically shut up, the way she wished it would. She went over and picked it up."Bitte?"

The first thing she heard was a car horn blaring. Was somebody playing a practical joke? Then, as traffic noises continued, she realized the call was from a pay phone on a busy street. "Lise, is that you?" a man asked.

"Ja. Willi?" she answered doubtfully.

"Dammit, I wish you hadn't said my name." Yes, that was Willi. But why was he calling from a pay phone and not from his desk? No sooner had the question formed in her mind than she found out, for he went on, "Listen, they've just arrested Heinrich for-for something completely ridiculous. I've got to go. 'Bye." He slammed the phone down in its cradle. The line went dead.

As if moving in a dream, Lise hung up, too. But it wasn't a dream. It was a nightmare, the worst nightmare she could have.Something completely ridiculous could mean only one thing, and it wasn't ridiculous, not to her. Like any Jew in Berlin, she'd rehearsed this disaster in her mind, hoping and hoping she would never have to use the plans she'd made. So much for that hope. She might not have long. They might be coming for her right now.

She reached for the telephone. It rang again before she could pick it up. She almost screamed. "Bitte?" she snapped. If it was some idiot salesman trying to get her to buy carpets…

"Frau Gimpel?" A woman's voice this, not a familiar one.

"Yes. What is it, please?"

"Frau Gimpel, this in Ingeborg Fasold, the principal at your daughters' school. I don't know how to tell you this, but…the Security Police have taken your daughters. They accuse them of being-forgive me for saying this-they accuse them of being part Jew… Are you there,Frau Gimpel?"

"I'm here." In her own ears, Lise's voice sounded far away, eerily calm. "They've arrested my husband, too. It's all a lie, a mistake, of course." She had to say that. She remembered she had to say that. Somebody might be-probably was-listening.

"Of course." To her amazement,Frau Fasold sounded as if she meant it. She added, "I think it's a shame and a disgrace that they should take children, no matter what. How can a child have done anything bad to anyone? Even if the childwere a Mischling, how could it? Nonsense. Pure Quatsch. Good luck to you."

"Thank you," Lise said in that same strange, calm voice. Her mind was racing a million kilometers a second.Mischlingen. They thought the girls were Mischlingen. She was pretty sure they'd arrested Heinrich as a Jew. That should mean they still believed she was an Aryan herself. If they kept on believing that, it might give her the chance to save everyone.

Or it might not help at all. She couldn't tell till she tried.

"If there's anything I can do,Frau Gimpel, please don't hesitate to ask,"Frau Fasold said.

She really did sound as if she meant that. Lise's eyes filled with tears. "Danke," she whispered. "This is a false accusation. We will beat it."

"I hope so," the principal said. "Again, good luck." She hung up.

So did Lise. Maybe people were more decent than she'd ever dared dream. Willi,Frau Fasold…Neither had had to say a word. Both had taken a chance in picking up the phone. But they'd done it.

Lise had her own ideas about how and why Heinrich had been arrested. But finding out if she was right would have to wait. It didn't make any difference, not when she had no time to lose. The blackshirts were liable to come here next, to see what evidence they could dig up against her husband. Or they might not worry about evidence, and simply act. If they did that, Heinrich and the girls were lost.

So they won't do that. You have to think they won't. And if they come looking for evidence, they'd better not find any. There wasn't much to find: nothing printed in Hebrew, no Sabbath candlesticks, nothing like that. She had pork ribs in the freezer right now.

But there were those pictures, the ones that had come down from Heinrich's father. Lise had never looked at them, but she knew what they were. They recorded the murder of a people, first on this side of the Atlantic and then, a generation later, on the other. They would have been illegal any time. Now they were worse than illegal-they were incriminating. Heinrich had kept them to show the girls if the time ever came, to remind them what the Nazis did to Jews who revealed themselves.

Well, the girls wouldn't need that kind of reminder any more. Now they had a better one.