In The Presence Of My Enemies

Willi won the cut and dealt like a machine-a machine that desperately needed repair and oiling. He tossed out cards seemingly at random. He would do that every once in a while, for comic effect. Sometimes he would misdeal doing it, too. When everyone ended up with thirteen cards, Heinrich breathed a silent sigh of relief. He arranged his hand. It was nothing special, but he could open up at one heart and see what Lise had.

"Four diamonds," Willi announced, sounding proud of himself.

"Oh, dear," Heinrich said. He knew what a preempt like that meant-Willi had a diamond suit as long as his arm, and not much else. Seeing that he had a singleton six of diamonds himself, that didn't much surprise Heinrich.Do I want to jump in at the four level myself? He looked at his hand again. He knew he couldn't. "Pass."

Erika and Lise also passed. Willi went down two, but he had a hundred honors points in diamonds, so he broke even on the hand. And he'd kept Heinrich and Lise from finding out they could easily have made two hearts, which meant the preempt worked.

"If you'd made that hand, I would have figured you cooked the deal on purpose," Heinrich said as he shuffled for the next one.

"Who, me?" Willi looked innocent: one of his less convincing expressions. "I'm not smart enough to do anything like that."

"How right you are," Erika murmured.

Willi's smile seemed cheerful enough. "You can be replaced," he said. It might have been one of their usual gibes. It might have been…if Ilse hadn't come back from lunch with her buttons misaligned. Heinrich looked down at the table till he was sure his face wouldn't give anything away.

He and Lise got to five clubs. She'd bid them first, so she played the hand. She went down one when the trumps split badly against her. "Looks like everything's going to be above the line tonight," Heinrich said.

Nobody went down on the next hand, because nobody had cards good enough for an opening bid. They tossed that one in and tried again. When Erika Dorsch bid three diamonds on the hand after that and not only made the contract but added an overtrick, she got a round of applause.

Erika and Willi won the first rubber, a long, inartistic affair. After the clinching hand, Lise said, "Let's take a break. I'll get a little something to eat." She went into the kitchen.

Willi got up, too. "Rhine wine's revenge," he said, and headed in the other direction.

That left Heinrich alone at the table with Erika, exactly where he didn't want to be. "I'm going to give Lise a hand," he said, and started to rise.

But when Erika said, "Wait," he didn't see what else he could do. She asked, "Was Willi at lunch with you today?"

He didn't want to lie. He didn't want to tell the truth, either. In the end, he didn't say anything. That was also unlikely to help, as he knew only too well.

And it didn't. Erika's eyes narrowed. "Uh-huh," she said, packing a world of meaning into two wordless syllables. "Well, where was he, then?"

"I don't know." Heinrich could tell the literal truth there, and did, gladly.

By then, telling the truth didn't help, either. Erika asked the next question he dreaded: "Wherever he was, who was with him?"

"How am I supposed to know that if I don't know where he was?" Heinrich hoped he sounded reasonable, but feared he sounded desperate.

Erika sent him the sort of look he hadn't got since the last time he'd tried explaining to a teacher why he didn't have his homework. But before she could call him a liar to his face or ask another question he didn't want to answer, the toilet down the hall flushed. Out came Willi, whistling.Saved by-well, no, not the bell, Heinrich thought.

"That'sbetter," Willi said.

Lise brought in a tray of cold cuts and crackers and cheese. "Here," she said. "We don't have to think about this."

"I didn't have to think about what I was doing before," Willi said.

"Are you sure?" Erika asked, in tones that would have given him credit for any disgusting habit. Heinrich built himself a snack. That was probably the safest thing he could do. Even scratching his head struck him as dangerous.

Erika had come right out and propositioned him, or as near as made no difference, and she didn't see anything wrong with that. The only place where she saw anything wrong was with what Willi did. Willi had had some sort of interesting time with Ilse. But if he ever found out what Erika had said to Heinrich…

It sounded like one of the televisor dramas that ran on weekday afternoons. Unfortunately, it was real.If Willi finds out, will he try to knock Erika's block off, or mine? Heinrich got up and poured himself another glass of wine. That was a more interesting question than he really wanted to contemplate.

In the kitchen, Lise had missed the byplay. "We're all cheerful tonight, aren't we?" she remarked.