In The Presence Of My Enemies

"Not much. We're all waiting to see what sort of Fuhrer Heinz Buckliger makes, same as everybody else." Heinrich held up a hand. "Wait. I take it back. There is one other interesting thing. These past few days, Willi's been very friendly with Ilse, for whatever that may be worth."

"The secretary?" Lise asked. Heinrich nodded. Her next question was obvious: "Is she worth being friendly to?"

"Well, she doesn't do anything for me," he answered. "Of course, I'm not Willi, and I'm not squabbling with my wife. I hope I'm not, anyway." He leaned over and kissed her.

"You'd better not be," Lise said. "How does Ilse compare to Erika?"

"As far as looks go, she doesn't," Heinrich said. "But she's not telling Willi all the different kinds of fool he is every time he turns around, either. That's got to count for something, wouldn't you think?"

"It would with me," Lise agreed. "But with a man, who can say?" Heinrich made a face at that, but he didn't try to argue with her.

Walther Stutzman liked the Tiergarten. He enjoyed eating lunch there, regardless of whether he needed to talk with someone in something approaching privacy. If he brought a sandwich and some fruit and a vacuum flask of coffee to the large park west of the Brandenburg Gate, he could imagine himself in the country-if the country in which he imagined himself included plenty of other people eating, watching birds, strolling hand in hand, walking or running for exercise, or lying around in the sun in any clothing or next to none. The Berlin police did frown on complete public nudity, but more as a matter of excessive zeal than one of criminal intent. And what might go on under cover of the bushes…neither Walther nor the police were in the habit of investigating too closely.

Today he made a point of getting to the Tiergarten early, so he could stake out a bench before the noontime crowd made looking for one a hopeless chore. The grass was long and green. Come fall, a snorting harvester would mow it down and turn it into hay for animal fodder. In the meantime, it grew as it would.

He found a place to sit near the Hubertus fountain and the bronze fox-hunting group at the center of the park. He smiled, pleased with himself; he'd told Heinrich to start looking for him by the fountain. And here came his friend. Heinrich's gangly height and ungainly walk made him impossible to miss. Walther stood up and waved. A couple of beats slower than he should have, Heinrich waved back and came toward him.

"Hello," Walther said. "Nice day, isn't it?"

"Why, so it is," Heinrich said in mild surprise, as if he'd only just realized it. Maybe he had; there were times when Walther wondered how much that went on outside his own head his friend noticed. Heinrich sat down beside him."Was ist los?"

"You know about the Kleins?" Walther said.

"Oh, yes." Heinrich nodded, his long face set in unhappy lines. "I do know about that. What's up with them?"

"I changed their genealogy, to give them a couple of possibly Jewish ancestors," Walther said. Heinrich nodded again. With a sigh, Walther went on, "Their pediatrician is too damned efficient, though. He compared the revised chart with one he had from when their first son was born, and he noticed the changes. He not only noticed, he called in the genealogical authorities."

"Yes, I've heard all this," Heinrich said. "Esther told Lise, and Lise told me. It's a mess. One more thing for the Kleins-and for all of us-to worry about. Robert and Maria are still free, aren't they? That would be all we need, if they hauled them in for questioning-that on top of the poor baby."

"We're probably lucky we haven't seen more Tay-Sachs cases," Walther said. "So few of us left these days, and we marry among ourselves so much… But that's not what I wanted to talk about."

"What, then?" Heinrich asked.

"I made a mistake when I altered the Kleins' charts," Walther said. "Anything that gets us noticed for any reason at all is a mistake. The question is, how do I fix it?"

"Howcan you fix it? It's done," Heinrich said. A very pretty blond girl in a short sun dress walked by, leading a dachshund on a leash. Heinrich noticed her-and the ridiculous little dog.

Walther knew a certain amount of relief that some of the real world did impinge on his friend. He said, "Well, that's what I wanted to ask you about. I could go back into the Reichs database again, and change the Kleins' records back to the way they were before I meddled the first time. Or I could just leave them alone and hope the storm blows over. Which do you think is the better bet?"

Heinrich's eyes got a faraway expression. Walther wasn't the avid bridge player some of Heinrich's goyishe friends were, but he'd sat down at the card table with him a few times. He wore this look when he was figuring out whether to run a finesse. He said, "If you leave things alone, they may decide the system hiccuped, or they may bring in the Kleins to try to find out what they know."

"That's how I see it," Walther agreed.