In The Presence Of My Enemies

"Because the Fuhrer says so." Again, all the children were sure they had it right. Again, Alicia was as sure as any of the others.

But the teacher shook his head once more. "No. You are wrong. What did the new Fuhrer say?"

"That not everything we did in days gone by was perfect, and-"

"Stop!"Herr Kessler held up his hand. "There is the answer. We must change because not everything we did in days gone by was perfect."

He paused to let that sink in. The children murmured among themselves.Herr Kessler didn't correct them, which was at least as astonishing as the lesson he was teaching. Alicia wanted to ask several questions. She didn't think she ought to ask any of them. But Wolfgang Priller's hand rose. "Question, Herr Kessler!"

"Go ahead, Priller." The teacher braced, as if expecting bad news.

Wolf stood up and came to attention. "Sir, if the Fuhrer is always right, the way we know he is, how is it that not everything we did in days gone by was perfect?"

Sure enough, that was one of the questions Alicia had wanted to ask. It had occurred to her because of the logical inconsistency. She suspected it had occurred to Wolf Priller because he remained convinced the Fuhrer was always right. He took to indoctrination the way a duck took to water.

Herr Kessler said, "Heinz Buckliger is the Fuhrer now. If he says not everything we did in days gone by was perfect, is he not right to say so?" Wolfgang Priller frowned as he tried to work that out. Alicia frowned, too. Again, she thought Herr Kessler's logic was that of a dog chasing its own tail. The teacher gestured. "Be seated, Priller." Wolf sat down. He looked as if a dog were chasing its tail inside his head, too.

"What did we do in days gone by that wasn't perfect,Herr Kessler?" another boy called without raising his hand.

Alicia didn't see who it was. Kessler didn't see who it was, either, which had to be lucky for whoever had spoken out of turn. The teacher growled, "I don't have to respond to questions not put in proper form. I don't have to, and I don't intend to. Let us continue with the lesson."

Does that mean you don't know the answer?Alicia wondered, which would have been unimaginable not so long before, when she thought her teachers knew everything.Or does it mean the new Fuhrerhasn't said what the answer is, so there isn't any answer yet? She could see Kessler was parroting what Heinz Buckliger had said, the same way students parroted what the teacher said.

At lunch, Wolf Priller declared, "I don't like these changes. I think they're stupid." Nobody disagreed with him, not out loud. He could beat up any of the other boys in the class.

Alicia wondered if anything would really change, if anything could really change, or if everything that was going on was just a lot of talk. Sometimes people said this or that without meaning a word of it. If the men who ran things wanted to do something like that, they could easily enough.

But there was Trudi Krebs, skipping rope with some other girls and as happy as any of them.Herr Kessler had taken down her name for speaking well of the first edition of Mein Kampf. Wolf Priller had gloated about how the knock on her door would come in the middle of the night. Everybody-including Alicia-had been sure it would happen. It hadn't.

If Kurt Haldweim were still Fuhrer, it would have. Alicia remembered the beaky, waxy face she'd seen in the Great Hall when Haldweim lay in state. No man with a face like that would have let anybody get away with anything. But Trudi and her parentshad got away with it. Therefore, thingshad changed, at least some.

There was logic that didn't chase its own tail. And if Wolf Priller didn't like it, so much the better. Alicia threw her orange peel in the trash and ran to join the girls with the jump rope.

Because of who he was, because of what he did, and because of what he was, Walther Stutzman had access to far more of the Reich 's computer records than anyone else knew about. The problem was being able to use the access codes he had. If anyone spotted strange things on his monitor, he would lose his access privileges in a hurry-and also, very likely, his freedom, and also, quite possibly, his life.

Lunch was a good time to poke around. Most people in Walther's office at the Zeiss works went out to eat. That helped. As usual, he kept his monitor turned so it wasn't easy to see unless you came right into his cubicle. That helped, too. All the same, especially after things had gone so badly wrong fixing the Kleins' genealogy, he got extra nervous whenever he went looking where he wasn't supposed to.

He had to keep doing it, even if it was dangerous. He knew that. Finding out more than he could through ordinary channels might help keep him and all the Jews left in the Reich safe. And he couldn't help being curious, either.

His boss said, "There's a gang of us going over to this new place that serves American hamburgers and hot dogs and fried chicken. Want to come along? Guaranteed heart-burn or your money back."