In The Presence Of My Enemies

"I'm fond of all of them, thank you very much," she said. "And now, if you'll excuse me…" She went back out to the receptionist's station, where she announced, "Dr. Dambach has a visitor. He'll be with you as soon as he can, I promise." She nodded to the woman who'd questioned her bill. "I'm sorry for the delay,Frau Mommsen. What were you saying?"

Frau Mommsen poured out a history of her troubles, most of which had little to do with the twenty-five Reichsmarks she owed Dr. Dambach. Esther listened with half an ear. Most of her attention was on the pediatrician's private office. She hoped Dambach would tell Maximilian Ebert where to go and how to get there. She knew it was a forlorn hope, but she cherished it just the same.

Dr. Dambach didn't even get in there for another ten minutes. Esther could hear the functionary from the Genealogical Office drumming his fingers on Dambach's desk. "About time," Ebert said when the doctor finally did appear.

"You're the one who's interrupting my work," Dambach replied, his voice chilly. "What do you want?"

Before she could find out what he wanted, someone new to the practice-a woman with a squalling toddler in her arms-came up and had to be guided through Dr. Dambach's paperwork. Because the little boy cried all through the process, Esther caught only brief snatches of conversation from the doctor's office: "…got a lot of nerve blaming me for…" "…put all of us in hot…" "…my fault, when I was only trying to…" "…but this is how it turned…"

Dr. Dambach said something else in response to that. A moment later, Maximilian Ebert stormed out of his office and out of the waiting room, fury on his face. He tried to slam the door that led to the hall, but the shock-absorbing arm at the top of the door thwarted him. The slowly closing door cut off his curses when at last it did swing shut.

"Goodness!" said the woman with the toddler. "What got underhis skin?"

"I don't know," Esther answered. "Whatever it is, I hope it's nothing trivial." The woman gave her a strange look, then decided she couldn't have meant what she said and forgot about it.

But Esther had meant every word. She stayed busy till noon dealing with mothers, children, and the occasional father. When the office closed for lunch, she went back to bring Dr. Dambach a fresh cup of coffee in the hopes that he might feel like talking. "Oh, thank you," he said around a mouthful of sandwich. "I was just going to get up and pour myself one."

When he said no more, Esther took the bull by the horns: "Why did that Ebert fellow storm out of here as though he had a Messerschmitt on his tail?"

"Him?" Dambach gave forth with a dismissive grunt. "I think we've seen the last of him, and I can't say I'm sorry, either. What he basically told me was that I had done my job too well. I'm sorry,Frau Stutzman, but the only way I know how to do it is as well as I can."

"Well, I should say so," Esther said, still wishing he'd been less conscientious. "What on earth was he talking about?"

"When the Kleins had the Tay-Sachs baby and the altered genealogical chart, they were suspected of being Jews," the pediatrician answered. "You know about that."

"Oh, yes." Esther nodded. "I know about that. What has it got to do with you doing your job too well?"

"Everyone in the Reichs Genealogical Office, and, for all I know, the Security Police, too, was all set to make an enormous hue and cry over it, and why not? It's been years since any Jews turned up in Berlin, for heaven's sake."

Esther nodded again. "That's true," she said casually, hiding her fear. "Why didn't they make their big hue and cry, then?"

"Because it turns out that Lothar Prutzmann's niece, poor woman, has a baby with Tay-Sachs who's three weeks older than Paul Klein," Dambach said. "If they accused the Kleins of being Jews on account of this, how could they keep from tarring the head of the SS with the same brush? They couldn't, and they knew it, and so they had to drop the charges against the Kleins."

"Good Lord!" Esther didn't care to think about what a narrow and dreadful escape that was. She also couldn't help sympathizing with the SS chief of the Greater German Reich, something she hadn't thought she would ever do. She said, "But how does Reichsfuhrer -SS Prutzmann's misfortune reflect on you?"

"It's simple, for someone with the sort of mind Herr Ebert has." Dr. Dambach scowled. "If I hadn't brought the one Tay-Sachs case to his notice, his office wouldn't have got in trouble with Prutzmann for pushing too hard. And what does Ebert do as a result of that? He blames me, of course."

"I see." And Esther did, too. "Well, the other choice would be blaming himself, and that's not likely, is it?"

The pediatrician grunted again. "Some miracles demand too much of God. But I gave him a piece of my mind before he left. You may be very sure of that."

"Good for you, Dr. Dambach," Esther said. He was a good doctor-and, within the limits of his education, a pretty good man.