In The Presence Of My Enemies

And, for that matter, how could the Reich make amends to the handful of Jews who, in spite of everything, still survived? Lise knew an impossibility when she saw one. Come to that, she didn't want a parade of blackshirts and Party Bonzen clicking their heels and apologizing to her. That sort of spectacle might appeal to Susanna, but then Susanna reveled in opera. All Lise wanted was to be left alone, to get on with her life regardless of what she happened to be.

"We're asking questions we couldn't even have imagined a couple of years ago," Heinrich said. "Next to the questions, the answers don't seem quite so important."

"Says who?" Lise inquired sarcastically. "If the Security Police had come up with a different answer to their question a few months ago, you wouldn't be here trying to come up with answers to yours."And the girls wouldn't be here, either, she thought,and it wouldn't matter whether I was here or not because I'd be dead inside.

After a brief pause, her husband nodded. "Well, you're right," he said. One of the reasons they'd stayed pretty happily married the past fifteen years was that they were both able to say that when they needed to.

"Politics!" Lise turned the word into a curse. "I wish politics never had anything to do with us. I wish we could just go on about our business."

"Part of our business is making the Reich better. That's part of everybody's business right now, I think," Heinrich said. "If we don't make it better, what'll happen? We saw before the election-other people will make it worse, that's what."

Lise wanted to quarrel with him. But she remembered too well the horror that had coursed through her when Lothar Prutzmann's tame announcer started going on about the State Committee for the Salvation of the Greater German Reich. And, remembering, she too said those three little words almost as important as I love you: "Well, you're right."

Heinrich, Lise, and the girls closed their umbrellas when they came up onto the Stutzmans' front porch. The walk from the bus stop had been wet, but not too wet. Winter was thinking about making way for spring. It hadn't got around to doing it yet; still, the worst of the nasty weather was probably past. Heinrich dared hope so, anyway.

All three Gimpel girls raced for the doorbell. Francesca rang it a split second before Alicia or Roxane could. Heinrich and Lise smiled over the girls' heads. They would do that at elevators, too, which made their parents require that they take turns pressing those buttons.Anyone would think they're children or something, went through Heinrich's mind. He smiled again.

Esther Stutzman opened the door. "Come in! Come in! Welcome! Welcome!" she said, and stood aside. Delicious odors wafted out of the doorway: cooking meat, new-baked bread, and something else, something spicy, Heinrich couldn't quite place.

"Oh, good-you've got a mat out," Lise said. "We don't want to drip all over your front hall." She wagged a warning finger at the girls. "Don't you go running all over till you get out of your raincoats, do you hear me?" The warning came just in time. Alicia was trembling with eagerness to charge up to Anna's room.

"Is Susanna here?" Heinrich asked.

"She got here twenty minutes ago," Esther answered. Now she and Heinrich were the ones who smiled. Susanna always showed up early. Esther turned to Alicia, Francesca, and Roxane. "Why don't we hang those coats on the bar for the shower curtain in the downstairs bathroom here? That way, they won't get anything else wet." Heinrich and Lise followed so they could hang their coats in the bathroom, too.

Lise asked, "Did Gottlieb get leave from the Hitler Jugend?"

Esther shook her head. "I'm afraid not. He's stuck somewhere out in the provinces, communing with his shovel." Heinrich's laugh wasn't far from a giggle. He hadn't been ideal material for the Hitler Jugend; he was slow and ungainly and nearsighted and none too strong. But, by God, his spade had always gleamed, blade and handle both. He'd seen at once that survival lay in that direction, and he'd been right. He hadn't been an analyst yet, but he'd already thought like one.Communing with his shovel. He'd have to remember that. He could tell it at the office. Who hadn't gone through the Hitler Jugend?

"Come on," Anna said, appearing behind Esther as if by magic. The Gimpel girls were off like three brown-haired shots.

Esther nodded to Heinrich and Lise. "Here we are," she said.

"Yes." Heinrich nodded, too. "Here we are. There were times this past year when I wouldn't have given a pfennig for our chances, but here we are."

"What can I get you?" Esther asked.

"Beer will do," he answered.

"For me, too, please," Lise said.