In The Presence Of My Enemies

Esther didn't argue. She'd known Susanna long enough to know how impractical arguing with her could be. She just shrugged and said, "In that case, let's head back to your apartment."

"All right." Susanna was glad enough to turn around. She sighed. "I never thought I'd wish I were living in England."

"Why would you?" Esther asked. "Over there, they have their own people watching them, and they have us, too."

"But they have a party that's serious about turning over a new leaf," Susanna answered. "We don't. Oh, people say the new Fuhrer will be something different, but I'll believe it when I see it."

"I hope it's true," Esther said. "Maybe it'll mean easier times for…everybody." She chose the innocuous word because a man in a brown Party uniform came past them. He looked intent on his own business, but Susanna would have used an innocuous word anyplace where he could hear, too.

"Easier times," Susanna said wistfully. "I'll believe that when I see it, too, especially with what's going on now." She wished she hadn't said that as soon as she did; Esther looked on the point of tears. Susanna often talked first and worried about consequences later. When she was younger, she'd thought she would outgrow it. But it seemed to be a part of her. Sometimes that landed her in trouble. Sometimes it proved very valuable. Every so often, it managed both at once. She knew she had to repair the damage here, and did her best: "One way or another, everything will turn out all right."

"I hope so," Esther said, "but I'm sure I don't see how."

"As long as we act the way any other citizens of the Reich would if their rights were being violated, I think we'll do all right," Susanna said.

"If we were any other citizens of the Reich, our rights wouldn't be violated," Esther said. "Not like this, anyhow."

"Not like this, no," Susanna admitted. "But they still would be. That's what the Reich is all about: the government can do whatever it wants, and everybody else has to hold still for it. But people don't. Germans don't, anyway. If it bumps up against them, they bump back."

"Or they get bumped off," Esther said.

Susanna wished she hadn't put it like that, not because she was wrong but because she was right.Or they get bumped off. That had always been the Reich 's answer for everything-and, judging by the past seventy years, a very effective answer it was, too.

VI

HEINRICH GIMPEL KISSED LISE, GRABBED HIS ATTACHE case, and headed out the door. It was a fine, bright summer morning, the sun already high in the sky. The orbiting weather platforms predicted that this heat wave would last for the rest of the week. A heat wave in Berlin would have been nothing in Algiers, or even in Rome, but it was better than the week of rain and mist that could come even in the middle of July.

Volkswagens and the occasional Mercedes zoomed past Heinrich as he stood at the corner and waited for the commuter bus. He'd never seen much point to owning a motorcar. To him, they were just swank, and more expensive than they were worth. With the buses and trains, you could get anywhere you needed to go.

As if to prove as much, the commuter bus pulled up a minute later. He got on, fed his account card into the slot, reclaimed it, and found a seat. A few stops later, Willi Dorsch got on, too. He plopped himself down beside Heinrich with a grunted,"Guten Morgen."

"Guten Morgen,"Heinrich said."Wie geht's?"

"Well, I'll tell you, it could be better," Willi answered. "How's it going with you?"

"I'm doing all right." Heinrich couldn't tell Willi how worried he was about the Kleins. That would have required too much in the way of explanation. But he could sound sympathetic when he asked, "What now?"

Unlike him, Willi wasn't inclined to suffer in silence. When Willi felt wronged, the whole world heard about it. And so, all the way to the train station, Heinrich got a blow-by-blow account of his friend's latest tiff with his wife: who'd said what, who'd thrown what, and how Willi had had to sleep on the sofa in the front room. "Why is it," Willi asked, "that when you have a row with your woman, you're always the one who sleeps on the couch? She stays in bed and she stays comfortable. My back is killing me."

"I don't know. I never really thought about it," Heinrich said. Except when Lise was in the hospital after giving birth to one of their girls, the two of them had never slept apart.

"I never thought about it, either, not till this morning," Willi said. "Erika acts like it's a law of nature-she isn't happy, so I have to go somewhere else. You call that fair? Do you?"

The bus came up to Stahnsdorf's train station just then. Heinrich didn't need to answer, which was probably just as well. As far as he could remember, he'd never heard of a woman sleeping on the sofa while a man stayed in bed. It didn't seem fair. It wasn't anything he'd ever had to worry about himself, but it didn't.