In The Presence Of My Enemies

Who cares whether it was true?If that didn't sum up the way things had gone all through the history of the Reich, Heinrich couldn't imagine what would. He was in a better position to know than the vast majority of his countrymen. Another pause at the table in back of him. Then, slowly, the second officer said, "Doing things like going in the red when we're the strongest country in the world-that'sundignified, if you ask me. Telling the truth about lies we told and mistakes we made a long time ago…What's undignified about that? How do we get better if we don't even know where we were?"

"What has raking up all that old stuff got to do with whether the budget's balanced or not?" the first officer said.

"If my watch has run two hours slow for weeks, I won't get the right time when I look at it, will I?" the other man said.

"If your watch has run slow for weeks, you're a Dummkopf, " the first officer said. "You go out and buy a new battery-or else a new watch."

"That's what the truth is-a new battery. And we've needed one for a lot longer than weeks. It's just that nobody had the nerve to say so."

The first officer came back with something in broad Bavarian dialect. It sounded pungent, but Heinrich couldn't quite make out what it meant-to him, broad Bavarian was hardly German. And he couldn't sit there much longer without making people realize he was eavesdropping. He got to his feet, dumped the foam plate and plastic utensils in the trash, and headed back to his desk. Whathad Heinz Buckliger said down in Nuremberg? Whatever it was, he had a notion why the Beobachter hadn't printed it.

He wondered whether Willi had heard anything interesting at lunch. If rumors about whatever had happened in Nuremberg were starting to circulate here at Oberkommando der Wehrmacht headquarters, they were bound to be bubbling with SS men and Party officials, too. And people liked to blab.

But when Willi and Ilse got back, it was obvious they hadn't been paying attention to anything but each other. He didn't have lipstick on his collar, but his hair went every which way and his tie was yanked askew. Ilse's blouse was buttoned wrong. When she realized that and fixed it, she got a fit of the giggles.

Well, well-or maybe not so well,Heinrich thought.Bridge tonight is liable to be even more interesting than it has been lately.

Susanna Weiss got her first hint of something out of the ordinary that same afternoon, when the telephone in her office rang. She muttered an unpleasantry. She had neither classes nor students on Friday afternoons. If she couldn't do her research and writing then, when would she ever get the chance? Never, maybe. She picked up the phone. "Bitte?"

"Guten Tag,Susanna. This is Rosa,Herr Doktor Professor Oppenhoff's secretary. The Herr Doktor Professor would like to see you in his office immediately."

"Would he?" Susanna muttered. Rosa was a withered old crone; Susanna often thought of her as Grendel's mother, straight out of Beowulf. She was also studiedly rude to Susanna. She would never have presumed to call a male professor in the Department of Germanic Literature by his first name: he would have been Herr Doktor Professor So-and-So. Susanna, Rosa implied, was no better than hired help herself. But Rosa was Professor Oppenhoff's right hand and two or three fingers of his left. With a sigh, Susanna made herself say, "I'm coming."

Despite thatimmediately, when Susanna got to the department chairman's office, she had to cool her heels for almost fifteen minutes before Rosa ushered her into the exalted presence: another way of putting her in her place. It didn't work. She'd expected nothing else. She'd brought an article with her, and took notes while she waited. Rosa couldn't even complain about that.

At last, Rosa said, "Professor Oppenhoff will see you now."

How did she know? She hadn't gone in to ask. "Thank you so much-dear," Susanna said, and scribbled a last deliberate note before entering the chairman's malodorous sanctum.

Franz Oppenhoff wasn't actually smoking a cigar when she came in, but sour smoke and the stubbed-out corpses of several in the ashtray served as all-too-vivid reminders of his habit. Unlike his secretary, he was scrupulously polite, saying, "And how are you today,Fraulein Doktor Professor?"

"Well enough, thank you," Susanna answered. "What can I do for you today, sir?"

"Professor Lutze has had several…interesting things to say about the recent meeting of the Medieval English Association in London," Oppenhoff said.

"Oh, yes-the meeting you were reluctant to let me attend." Susanna didn't believe in letting anyone off the hook.