In The Presence Of My Enemies

Lise Gimpel paused in cleaning up the house to take a pull from a glass of schnapps. The place was an astonishing mess. It might have suffered a visit from an earthquake or a hurricane, not the Security Police. They'd torn the place apart, looking for evidence that Heinrich was a Jew. If she hadn't flushed the photographs, they would have found it, too.

Her brain felt as badly disordered as the house. They'd roared questions at her while they were throwing everything on the floor. Why had she married a Jew? How long had she known he was a Jew? Why was she such a filthy whore? Did she think it was more fun sucking a circumcised cock?

Maybe they'd figured that one would horrify her into spilling secrets. All it did was make her furious. "You stupid fucking bastards!" she'd screamed. "You've got him! You know goddamn well he's not circumcised!"

They hadn't arrested her. They'd even been a little more polite after that-not much, but a little. They hadn't got anything out of her, or she didn't think they had. And they'd been in a rotten mood when they finally quit searching the house, so she didn't think they'd come up with anything there, either.

Now…Now all she could do was pick up the pieces. They hadn't smashed things on purpose, anyhow. All they'd done was toss them every which way. Getting them back where they belonged would take time, but she could do it. What else did she have to do, with Heinrich and the girls gone? Work helped hold worry at bay-again, not much, but a little.

The telephone rang. Lise jumped."Scheisse," she said crisply. The last thing she wanted to do was talk to anybody right now. But she knew she had to. It might be important. It might-literally-be life and death. Making her way through drifts of things on the floor, she went to the phone and picked it up. "Bitte?"

"Lise?" It was Willi. "How are you? Is there any news?"

"News? Well, yes. They've turned the house inside out. They've taken the children. Other than that, everything's jolly."

"Gott im Himmel!"Willi burst out. In the background, Erika asked what was wrong. He relayed what Lise had just told him.

"The children?" Erika said. "Du lieber Gott!I didn't even think about the children!"

"That's terrible," Willi said to Lise. "Is there anything I can do?"

"I've got Heinrich a lawyer. I hope it helps," Lise answered. "It should. He's innocent, so there's no way they can prove he's a Jew." She assumed more people than Willi Dorsch were listening to her telephone calls. She wouldn't have admitted what Heinrich was even to Willi alone. With the Security Police surely tapping the line, she wouldn't admit anything to anybody.

"There you go," Willi said. "Keep your chin up, and everything will turn out all right." He sounded like a man whistling past a graveyard.

Lise said, "Thanks," anyhow. Willi meant well. That probably wouldn't do Heinrich any good, but it was there. She went on, "I'm going to go. They left the house a hell of a mess."

"Oh. All right. Take care of yourself. We're thinking about you." Willi hung up.

So did Lise.Thinking about me? Thinking what about me? she wondered.Thinking I may be a Jew myself? But that wasn't fair. Willi had sounded the way a friend ought to sound. And Erika seemed genuinely horrified when he told her the Security Police had grabbed the girls, too.

They're good friends if they call, thinking Heinrich's not a Jew. They'd be better friends if they thought he was a Jew and called anyway. Maybe they did think so. But Lise would be a fool to ask them, and they would be fools to tell her.

Shaking her head, she got back to work.

"You! Gimpel!" a blackshirted jailer roared, and Heinrich sprang to his feet and stiffened to attention as if he were back in elementary school. Back then, he would have worried about a paddling. Now two more men from the Security Police leveled assault rifles at him. The jailer unlocked his cell and swung the door open. "Come with us."

"Jawohl!"Heinrich said. Another grilling? Another tentative thumping? Or were they really going to get down to business this time?

"Hands behind your back," the jailer told him when he'd stepped out into the corridor. Numbly, he obeyed. The man cuffed them behind him, then gave him a shove. "Get moving."

Feet light with fear, he obeyed. He couldn't do anything about his flopping trousers now. They didn't seem to care-they were hauling him along. They took him by a different route this time. He didn't know if that was good or bad. His heart thuttered. One way or the other, he'd find out.

They brought him to a room divided in half by a thick glass wall. A grill let someone on his side talk with someone on the other side. And someone did wait on the other side: a tall man, almost as tall as Heinrich, with an impressive mane of gray hair. The stranger wore a sharp pinstripe suit and carried a crocodile-leather attache case with fittings that looked like real gold.