In The Presence Of My Enemies

Heinrich took a bite of tongue sausage. Who would presume to argue with such an august personage? Willi looked smug as he came back with his refill. He must have heard the officer, too. He wagged a finger at Heinrich, as if to say,You see?

But two colonels sat at that table. The second one, a younger man, shook his head and said, "I'm not so sure, Dietrich. I've been a good Party man for more than twenty years now. If there's a way to stay in the rules and let me help choose the new Fuhrer, I'm for it."

"That's the leadership's job," the first colonel-Dietrich-said.

"Well, yes," the other colonel answered. "But how do leaders get to be leaders? If the people under them don't want to follow, what have you got? A mess, that's what. Look at France in 1940."

Dietrich snorted. "Oh, go on, Paul. If the Reich ever comes to that, we can all stick our heads in the showers, because we'll be done for anyway."

"I didn't say it would be that bad-we're not Frenchmen, after all," Paul replied. "But the principle is the same."

Another snort from the first colonel. "Principle? What's principle? Something losers talk about to explain why they've lost."

"Oh, really? Are you saying the Party has no principles?" Paul's voice was silky with danger.

But Dietrich wouldn't fall into that trap. "I'm saying victory is the first principle, and none of the others matters much." He had a fat cigar smoking in an ashtray. Now he picked it up and thrust it at his friend. "If I'm wrong, how come we shout,'Sieg heil!'? Explain that to me."

A captain who'd been siting at another table came over and said, "Excuse me, sir, but how does following the Party's original rules make victory any less likely?" He would never have had the nerve to do anything like that if Paul hadn't spoken up in favor of the first edition, not when Dietrich outranked him by three grades. As things were, he had a protector.

The table with the two colonels quickly became the day's focal point for that particular argument. Wehrmacht officers and civilian experts gathered around it. Things got more heated by the moment. Willi's face lit up. "Shall we join them?" he asked.

"Go ahead, if you want to," Heinrich answered. "But what we say won't matter a pfennig's worth either way."And that's been true everywhere in the Reichever since Hitler took over. One more good line he added to the long, long list of things he couldn't say no matter how true they were.

Sometimes a pounding on the door didn't make Lise Gimpel panic. When it came just after half past three, it made her smile. It meant the children were home from school. She hurried to the door and opened it. "Hello, girls," she said. "What did you learn today?"

"Klaus Frick eats bugs," Francesca announced.

Alicia and Roxane both made disgusted noises, but not big disgusted noises. From this, Lise concluded her middle daughter was going on with things she'd said on the school bus. The other two girls must have had the chance to start getting used to that lovely piece of news. "How do you know he eats bugs?" Lise asked, remembering how schoolyard rumors could claim anybody did anything.

But Francesca answered, "Because I saw him do it. He caught one and put it in his mouth, and it went crunch."

"And he's in your class, isn't he?" Lise said unhappily. Francesca nodded. Lise shuddered. "That's…pretty bad." Eight-year-old boys frequently were disgusting creatures, but this Klaus Frick went overboard.

Roxane giggled. "Tell her the rest!"

"The rest? There's more?" Lise said. "Do I want to know?"

"No," Alicia said quickly.

From that, Lise got a hint about whatmore might be. But Roxane was still snickering, and Francesca was laughing, too. At their age, what was disgusting was also funny. The potty jokes that had made the rounds when Lise was in the lower grades still circulated. Alicia also laughed at a lot of them; ten wasn't too old. Not today, though. Francesca said, "Klaus said-he said he was eating just like a Jew. He said Jews ate bugs all the time."

Hearing it again sent Roxane into gales of laughter. Francesca thought it was pretty funny, too. Alicia gave her verdict in one word: "Revolting."

"He's probably right, though. Jewswere revolting," Francesca said. "Everybody knows that." Her little sister nodded. Alicia started to say something, then very obviously didn't.

Lise Gimpel spoke up before her oldest daughter could slip: "Jews may have been revolting, but how does Klaus Frick know what they ate? How could he? Nobody your age has ever seen one-and I'm sure they don't teach you about bugs in school. I'm with Alicia here: Jews may have been revolting, but your classmate certainly is."

Alicia stuck out her tongue at Francesca. That was a good, healthy, normal reaction. But Roxane, always an agitator, pointed and exclaimed, "Eww! It's got a bug's leg on it!"