In The Presence Of My Enemies

Lise hid a smile. Francesca wasn't wrong-Alicia did act like that. Another way Francesca was like her mother was that she noticed the way people behaved. Alicia was all too often blind to it. Now Lise did smile, a little sourly. That also came straight from Heinrich. Since Francesca did notice, Lise would have to answer her. She tried another question: "But not this time?"

"Not this time," Francesca agreed. "I asked her what it was, and she looked at me and she said, 'Nothing.'" Her mouth twisted. "I don't know what it is, but it's not nothing. I hope she's…I hope she's not in trouble at school and trying to hide it."

That was the worst thing she could think of. Lise's heart went out to her because it was the worst thing she could think of. "I'm pretty sure you don't need to worry about that," Lise said. "Herr Kessler would let me know if anything were wrong. He's very diligent." He reminded her at least as much of a policeman as of a teacher, but that was a different story.

She'd succeeded in distracting her daughter, anyhow. "What does diligent mean?"

"It means he takes care of everything that needs taking care of."

"Oh." Francesca spread her hands, a gesture of pure frustration. "Well, whatis wrong with Alicia, then?"

"I don't know. Whatever it is, she'll probably get over it pretty soon," Lise said.She'd better get over it pretty soon. If she doesn't, more people than Francesca will notice. No doubt her own parents had had the same worries, the same fears, over her. And no doubt they'd had good reason to.

Roxane bustled into the kitchen. She greeted Francesca: "Oh, there you are. What are you doing?"

"Talking with Mommy." Francesca looked down her nose at her little sister.

"What are you talking about?" Roxane wouldn't have recognized a snub if it bit her in the ankle.

"What a nuisance you are," Francesca said.

"We were not!" Lise said. "You apologize this instant."

"Sorry." Francesca sounded anything but.

"Well, whatwere you talking about, then?" Roxane persisted.

"About Alicia," Francesca said reluctantly.

"Oh." Roxane nodded. Her hair, even curlier than Alicia's, bounced up and down. "She's been peculiar lately, all right." She fixed Francesca with a baleful stare. "Aber naturlich,you're pretty peculiar yourself."

"Roxane, you stop that, too." Not for the first time, Lise Gimpel had the feeling of being in no-man's-land between forces that were going to keep sniping at each other no matter what she did. Sometimes the squabbles among her children were three-sided, which only made her feel completely surrounded. She did her best to sound severe: "Now you say you're sorry."

"Sorry." Roxane outdid Francesca in insincerity. Then, happily, she went back to talking about Alicia, who wasn't there to defend herself: "She's been reading those funny Jew books again, and just a little while ago she was talking about how they were still in her room even though they're too easy for her."

Those funny Jew books. Streicher's poison had a candy coating that had made it seem tasty to German children for almost eighty years. Lise remembered thinking the same thing about his books before finding out what she was. Carefully, she said, "Sometimes you most want to look back at something just when you're getting too big for it."

To her relief, Francesca nodded in agreement to that. "I think the kindergarten rooms are a lot cuter now than I did when I was in them."

"They aren't cute," said Roxane, who was in kindergarten now. "They're just…schoolrooms." She laced the word with scorn.

"But they have all those tiny little desks and chairs and things," Francesca said. "They're sosweet." She was the sentimental one in the family, another way she took after Lise. Roxane made a horrible face. Francesca made one back at her-she wasn't too sentimental for that.

"Cut it out, both of you," Lise said. "You're behaving like a couple of Hottentots." She had no idea how Hottentots behaved, or even if the Reich had left any of them alive, but she liked the sound of the name.

Instead of cutting it out, Francesca and Roxane egged each other on. That gave Lise the excuse to shoo them out of the kitchen. If they wanted to drive each other crazy somewhere else, she didn't mind. If they were driving each other crazy, they weren't wondering why Alicia was acting strange.

Lise hoped they weren't, anyway. She also hoped no one outside the family had noticed anything out of the ordinary. Alicia was a bright child and, more than either of her sisters, a solitary child. That ought to make any odd behavior from her stand out less and be more likely to get forgiven. It ought to. Lise hoped it would.

She wondered if there was any point to praying it would. Did God listen to a Jew's prayers these days? If He did, why had He let the Nazis do what they'd done?What did we do-what could we have done-to deserve that?The question had haunted Lise ever since she learned she was a Jew. She'd never come close to finding an answer that satisfied her.