In The Presence Of My Enemies

She lay down on her cot. Even if the blackshirts hadn't beaten her, she felt trampled and miserable. For Hans and Ulf and the others, this was all just a game, a game they'd played hundreds or thousands of times before. Alicia's life was on the line, and her father's, and her sisters', and she knew it. And she didn't see how she could win.

Paula came into their room. In a practically inaudible whisper, she said, "Here. When I saw they weren't going to let you go, I swiped these for you." Like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a top hat, she produced two hard rolls from under her dress and tossed them to Alicia.

Alicia blinked. "If they caught you, you'd get in big trouble."

"Well, then, you'd better destroy the evidence, eh?" Paula wasn't especially smart, not in the way that got you good grades at school. Alicia could tell. But the other girl had a feel for whatneeded doing, one that Alicia couldn't begin to match. She took Paula's advice. The rolls quickly disappeared. They tasted like sawdust. Empty as Alicia was, she didn't care. "Better?" Paula asked when she was done.

"Ja,"Alicia said. "Thank you!"

"For what?" Paula waved it away. "Those shitheads are giving you a hard time. Anybody can see that. If they were giving a vulture a hard time, I'd try and get him some dead, smelly meat."

Springs squeaked as Alicia shifted on the cot. One of them poked at her, too, so she shifted again. She stuck her head out and flapped her arms as if she were a vulture. Paula thought that was so funny, she buried her face in her pillow to muffle her laughter. Alicia watched her out of the corner of her eye. The other girl acted like somebody who hated the Reich and the Nazis and everything they stood for. But if it was an act and Alicia fell for it, she'd ruin herself and her whole family. And so she wouldn't fall for it.

If Paula really did hate the Reich and the Nazis…then she did, that was all. Alicia couldn't afford to let on that she did, too, except for arresting her when they had no business to. And that, maybe, was the hardest, the saddest, thing of all.

Heinrich Gimpel sat in his cell, waiting for whatever happened next. That was all he could do. Boredom mixed with occasional terror-that was what his life in prison had been. He could see how the blend was in and of itself part of what broke prisoners down. As he sat on the cot, he could practically feel his mind slowing down, slowing down, slowing…

And he was better equipped than most to fight boredom. He had a fine memory. He could call up books and plays and films in his mind, trying to squeeze out every last detail. He could set up complicated accounting problems and solve them in his head instead of with a calculator. He could remember the last time he'd made love with Lise, and the time before that, and the quickie they'd sneaked in, and…

He could worry. He spent a lot of time worrying. That was part of leaving him here by himself, too. He knew as much, and tried to fight against it. There, he didn't have much luck.

He was brooding and wishing he weren't when guards clumped up the hallway toward his cell. One opened the door while two others pointed assault rifles at him. He couldn't understand why they thought he was so dangerous. Under different circumstances, it might have been flattering.

"Come on, you," growled the guard with the key. "Your mouthpiece is waiting."

As Heinrich rose, he got a whiff of himself. His nostrils curled. He'd done his best to stay clean, but his best wasn't very good. And he was still wearing the uniform in which he'd been arrested. It was ranker than he was.

Down the hall he went, holding up his trousers with one hand. At least they hadn't cuffed him this time. Never mind the assault rifles at his back. He couldn't very well make a break when his pants would fall down if he tried. Without laces, his shoes flopped on his feet, too.

Klaus Menzel stood waiting in the room with the glass partition. The lawyer had on another suit that would have cost Heinrich a month's pay. He stepped up to the grill and said, "I have some good news and some bad news for you. Which do you want first?"

"Give me the good news," Heinrich said at once. "I haven't heard any in so long…"

"All right. Here it is." Menzel told him how the charges against him had come from Erika Dorsch, and how she'd tried to kill herself after she found out she'd got the girls seized along with Heinrich. Menzel added, "You should have just screwed the broad, Gimpel. No matter what your wife did to you afterwards, you wouldn't've landed in this kind of shit. And you'd've had the roll in the hay to remember."

"Heh," Heinrich said in a hollow voice. That had occurred to him, too. He went on, "You say Erika's going to be all right, and that's she's withdrawn these stupid charges." He needed to go on repeating that they were stupid, or the blackshirts were liable to think he believed them. "That's all wonderful! They have to let me out now, don't they?"