In The Presence Of My Enemies

"Is it?" she said. "Well, this is a surprise. What can I do for you, uh, Konrad?" She had almost as much trouble using his first name as he'd had with hers.

She really did wonder what he wanted, too. Something to do with her work? With his work? With department politics? She tried to steer as clear of those as she could. With national politics? If he thought she was going to talk about those on the telephone, he had to be a little bit crazy, too. She wasn't anywhere near sure that was safe.

But after a couple of hesitant coughs, he said, "I was, uh, wondering if you would, uh, like to go to dinner and the cinema with me on Saturday night. That new thriller is supposed to be very good."

Susanna's mouth fell open. After her unfortunate experience with the drunk, she'd largely sworn off the male half of the human race. Because she was what she was, eligible bachelors were few and far between for her, and she hadn't thought he was eligible enough once she found out how he poured it down. (He, meanwhile, had married and was the father of a baby boy. Some people weren't so fussy as she was. From everything she'd heard, he still drank like a fish.)

How long had the silence stretched? Long enough for Konrad Lutze to say, "Hello? Are you still there?"

"I'm here," she answered. "You…startled me, that's all."

"What do you say?" he asked. "We would have things to talk about, anyhow. That is not so bad-do you know what I mean? If I go out with someone I just happened to meet, and she says, 'So, what do you do?' and I answer, 'I am a professor of medieval English at Friedrich Wilhelm University,' where do I go from there? Her eyes glaze over. I have never yet met a nurse or a librarian or a salesgirl who gave a damn about Piers Plowman or Sir Gawain and the Green Knight."

"I believe that." Giggling would have been rude, no matter how much Susanna wanted to. Being a Jew made her feel so alone in the world, it had hardly occurred to her that being a professor of medieval English literature could do the same thing. She did believe Konrad Lutze. Not many ordinary people would care about Piers Plowman.

"Will you, then?" Now he seemed almost pathetically eager.

Will I, then?Susanna asked herself. Every so often, Jews did fall in love with gentiles. Most of them stopped being Jews almost as completely as if the blackshirts had carted them away. Dinner and a film weren't falling in love, not by themselves. But, by the way Lutze talked, he hoped that was how things would work out. And Susanna wasn't interested in anything that didn't have a good chance of turning serious.

So…would she, then? Could she even imagine being serious about a gentile? (Whether she could imagine being serious about Konrad Lutze seemed an altogether different, and much smaller, question.)

"I-I'm sorry, Konrad," she heard herself say. "I'm afraid I've got other plans that evening."

"I see," he said heavily. "Well, I'm sorry I've taken up your time. I hope I wasn't too much of a bother. Good night." He hung up.

So did Susanna. Part of her felt as if she'd passed a test, maybe the hardest one she'd ever face. The rest…She filled her glass with Glenfiddich and poured it down the hatch as if it were so much rotgut. Then, two or three minutes later, she did it again.

Her head started to spin. She didn't care. Tonight, she would have been good company for the drunk she'd dumped. She'd feel like hell tomorrow. That was all right. She felt like hell right now, too.

Admiral Yamamoto's again. A big plate of Berlin rolls, herring and onion and seaweed and rice. Wasabi to heat them up. Wheat beer to wash them down. Imperfectly Japanese. Perfectly good.

The place was jammed, as usual. Heinrich and Willi sat at a tiny table wedged up against the wall. Bureaucrats and soldiers. SS men and Party Bonzen. Businessmen and tourists. Secretaries and shopgirls. A radio going in the background. Nobody paying any attention to it. Nobody able to pay any attention to it, because you couldn't hear anything but the din of people chattering.

After a bite of his shrimp tempura, Willi said, "Beats the hell out of what they were feeding you a little while ago, doesn't it?"

Heinrich eyed him. Try as he would, he couldn't find any irony. Reluctantly, fighting hard not to believe it, he decided Willi meant that as a simple comment, not as any sort of jab or gibe. Anyone else would have, anyone else at all. Heinrich nodded. "I thought of that the last time we were here. You might say so. Yes, you just might."

An SSHauptsturmfuhrer a couple of tables over laughed uproariously at something one of his underlings had said. He waved a seidel in the air for a refill. Willi raised an eyebrow. "Noisy bastard. Even for this joint, he's a noisy bastard."