In The Presence Of My Enemies

Professor Oppenhoff coughed and scratched at the bottom edge of his left muttonchop. The gesture and the flamboyant whiskers made Susanna think of Emperor Franz Joseph and the dying days of Austria-Hungary. "Hmm…ah…hmm," Oppenhoff said. He needed to pause and gather himself before he could come out with actual words: "Be that as it may, were you not intimate with the British Union of Fascists during your stay in England?"

"Intimate? I should hope not!"

The department chairman went red. "With their deliberations, I should say."

"Oh, with their deliberations?" Susanna sounded as if that were occurring to her for the first time. Franz Oppenhoff turned redder. She grudged him a nod. "Yes, I suppose so."

"And they had something to do with…with matters pertaining to the first edition of Mein Kampf? " Professor Oppenhoff chose his words with uncommon care, which only made him more opaque than ever.

Susanna nodded again. "That's right, they did. Excuse me,Herr Doktor Professor, but what does this have to do with the Department of Germanic Languages?"

"Perhaps nothing. Perhaps very much indeed." Oppenhoff, who was usually fussy and precise, was fussy and imprecise today. He scratched at his side-whiskers again. "You are not familiar with the Fuhrer 's recent remarks in Nuremberg?"

"I'm sorry, Professor, but Herr Buckliger is not in the habit of confiding in me."

Oppenhoff stared at her. Irony was a weapon he seldom encountered, and he seemed to have no idea how to cope with it. "Er-yes," he managed.

"What did the Fuhrer say?" Susanna asked. "That's important for every German."And even more important for every Jew.

"Well…" The chairman hesitated.He doesn't know himself, or doesn't know much, Susanna realized. Isn't that interesting? Oppenhoff as much as confirmed her thought when he broke out of his hesitation: "I do not have this at first hand, but I am given to understand that he addressed the principles underlying National Socialist rule in the Reich and the Germanic Empire."

"Did he?" Susanna said-as neutral a remark as she could find. "I'm sorry, but I don't see what that's got to do with anything in the department."

"No?" Professor Oppenhoff looked at her in surprise. "If National Socialist doctrine changes, why then naturally our presentation must also change in accordance with it."

He worried more about what was ideologically appropriate than about what was true. Susanna had known that before, but hadn't had her nose rubbed in it like this up till now. She could add two and two, though. "Did the Fuhrer talk about the first edition of Mein Kampf? "

"I believe so, and about other matters related to that topic," Oppenhoff answered. "Since you saw developments in England, I thought you would be able to contribute some insight into what is likely to follow here in the Reich."

What couldcontribute some insight mean buttell me how to think? As far as Susanna could remember, the last original idea Franz Oppenhoff had had was to use staples rather than paper clips to hold multipage documents together. Such things were his province; he made a better bureaucrat than he did an academic. She would have pitied him more if he hadn't been proud of that. "I'm sorry,Herr Doktor Professor, but I really couldn't tell you," she said. "We'll have to wait and find out what the people think, won't we?"

"What…the people think." By the way the department chairman brought out the phrase, Susanna might have said it in Gothic-it plainly meant nothing to him.

She nodded. "Yes, sir. That's how the British fascists interpret that passage of the first edition, anyhow. Herr Lynton put considerable weight on it. What else could our new Fuhrer mean?"

"I don't know." Oppenhoff made a production of taking a Havana from his gold-plated cigar case, getting it going, and blowing noxious fumes in Susanna's direction. "Things seemed satisfactory as they were," he said plaintively. "This being so, what point to changing them?"

Had Susanna been only another German, she might have had more sympathy-perhaps even pity-for Franz Oppenhoff. Since she was what she was, though, she didn't think everything had been fine before. "Change comes,Herr Doktor Professor," she said, trying to sound gentle and not scornful. "It comes, and we have to be ready for it."

"This is true." But the department chairman still looked like a large, white-haired, wrinkled, cigar-smoking little boy on the edge of a tantrum. "No matter how true it is, I don't like it!" he burst out.

"I'm sorry," said, Susanna, who, if she'd ever prayed for anything in her life, prayed for change now.

The doorbell rang. "There they are," Heinrich Gimpel said.

"Well, let them in," Lise answered. "The house isn't as clean as it ought to be, but no house with children in it is ever as clean as it ought to be. They have two of their own. At least they'll understand."