In The Presence Of My Enemies

Heinrich opened the door. Willi Dorsch thrust a big jug of Rhine wine at him. "Here," Willi said. "If I get you drunk enough, maybe you won't remember to count the cards while we're playing."

"Thanks." Heinrich took the wine. "You seem to be forgetting something, though."

"What's that?"

"If we all get drunk-"

"If we all get drunk, who knows what will happen?" Erika Dorsch said from behind Willi. She looked at Heinrich.

Willi didn't see that. He laughed, saying, "If we all get drunk, we won't remember, so whatever happens, it won't count."

Is that how you explained things to Ilse at lunch?Heinrich wondered. One more question he couldn't ask. He hefted the jug, saying, "Come on in. We'll drink some of this, anyhow, and we'll see how bad the bridge gets."

"Not to worry." Willi laughed again. "We can play bad bridge drunk or sober."

"Some of us certainly can," Erika murmured. The smile fell off her husband's face. She pointed to Alicia, who was reading on the sofa. "My goodness, she's getting big, isn't she?"

"They do that," Heinrich said. "Maybe if we stopped feeding her, she wouldn't. We've talked about it, but we haven't done it yet."

Alicia looked up from her book. "I've heard that one before, Daddy." Jab delivered, she went back to reading.

Willi Dorsch winced again. "They get dangerous awfully early, don't they?" He wasn't looking at Alicia, though. He was looking at Erika. This time, luckily, she was the one who didn't notice.

Lise came out to the front room. "Hello, hello," she said, and then caught sight of the jug of wine. "Gott im Himmel!If we drink all that, we'll pass out under the table like a bunch of Russians."

"I think that's part of Willi's evil plot," Heinrich said, "except that he was going to pour all of the wine downmy throat."

"Oh, he was, was he?" Lise sent Willi a mock-ferocious glare. "He doesn't think he needs to get me drunk, too? I'm insulted."

Alicia closed her book. "I'm going upstairs," she announced. "How is a person supposed to hear herself think around here?" Except for the pronoun, she was quoting her father. The indignant flounce, however, was all her own.

"That one's going to be trouble." Erika Dorsch's voice held nothing but admiration.

"That one's already trouble," Heinrich replied. "Well, let's see how the cards go. And let's see what we've got here." He handed Lise the jug of Rhine wine. She made as if to stagger under the weight, but then took the wine back into the kitchen to use the corkscrew. When everybody was at the table with a glass of wine, Heinrich said, "I heard something interesting at lunch today," and told of what the officers had to say about Heinz Buckliger's speech.

The longer he went on, the unhappier Willi looked. Heinrich wondered why. Willi's politics weren't nearly so reactionary as, say, those of the SS men in Admiral Yamamoto's. But then Erika turned to Willi and said, "You didn't tell me anything about this. You said you had lunch with Heinrich today, didn't you?"

"Well, yes," Willi said.Well, no, Heinrich thought.If you tell your wife lies, you can't expect me to know about them. But Willi recovered brilliantly: "Old man Kallmeyer came over to the table and started bending my ear about depreciation. I couldn't pay any attention to the juicy stuff."

Erika didn't buy that, or not right away. "Why wasn't he bending Heinrich's ear, too?"

"Don't be silly," Willi said. "Heinrich already knows everything there is to know about depreciation."

That wasn't true, but it was plausible. Erika eyed her husband, eyed Heinrich, and slowly nodded. "Well, maybe," she admitted. "But I wish you'd been paying attention to what really matters."

"I was," Willi said. "If Kallmeyer gets mad at me, my job turns into hell on earth."

Erika hardly paid any attention to him. She was thinking about what Heinrich had said. "If the government is going to admit it made mistakes and told lies…it's like the end of the world. Who knows where it will end?"

"Not at the bridge table," Lise said. "Shall we play?" With some people, getting together to play bridge was just an excuse to sit around and talk and drink. For the Gimpels and the Dorsches, it was an excuse to sit around and talk and drink, but it wasn'tjust an excuse. They all took the cards seriously (Willi took them as seriously as he took anything, anyhow). The wine and the snacks and the chatter were all very well, but the evenings revolved around the bridge game.

As they cut the cards to see who would deal, Lise glanced at Heinrich for a split second. He answered just as quickly with an eyebrow raised and lowered. He'd already told her what he'd heard in the canteen, and he hadn't said a word about Willi's being there. The eyebrow said there were good reasons why he hadn't.