In The Presence of mine Enemies

by Harry Turtledove

  "Well, well," Willi said at last. "You and Field Marshal Tetzlaff, is it? And he came to see you first. Not too shabby,Herr Gimpel. No, sir, not too shabby." He got to his feet and saluted, as he had a few minutes earlier for the Fuhrer.

  That roused the Berliner's almost automatic cynicism in Heinrich. "Oh,Quatsch, " he said. The room exploded in laughter. People came over to pound him on the back and shake his hand. Ilse perched on a corner of his desk, showing a lot of leg. She eyed him with frank calculation. She'd never looked at him that way before. He didn't particularly want her looking at him that way now.

  I'm supposed to be invisible, dammit,he thought.How can I be invisible when people keep…noticing me? He felt absurdly indignant.

  "Seriously, Heinrich my boy, I'd say your promotion chances just got themselves a kick in the pants." Willi didn't sound serious. He was grinning. To Heinrich's relief, his friend also didn't sound jealous. Willi went on, "I can just see your next performance review. There's the examiner, looking over what you've done. 'Ach, ja,consulted with the Fuhrer.' What can he say aboutthat?"

  "I don't know. If he's like most performance examiners, he'll find something rude," Heinrich answered. He hadn't meant it for a joke, but everybody laughed. Someone the Fuhrer consulted had to be a very funny fellow. Heinrich reached for the telephone. "Excuse me, please. I'm going to call my wife."

  Ilse stopped posing. She got down from his desk and stomped back to Willi's. Heinrich thoughtthat was funny. He dialed for an outside line. When the dial tone shifted, he called his home number."Bitte?" Lise said.

  "Hi, sweetheart. It's me," Heinrich said. "You'll never guess who just came in…"

  "The Fuhrer came to see a friend of mine last week," Esther Stutzman told her boss with what she hoped was pardonable pride.

  Dr. Dambach nodded. He never seemed to get very excited about anything. "Good for your friend," he answered now. "I also know some people who have met him, though I haven't myself."

  "Neither have I." Esther had never imagined wanting to meet the ruler of the Greater German Reich and the Germanic Empire, either. But maybe Buckliger was different. Maybe. Even wondering felt not only strange but also more than a little unnatural.

  "I've been doing something interesting," Dr. Dambach said.

  "Oh? What's that?" Esther asked, as she was plainly meant to do. Whatever it was, it didn't involve the coffeemaker. What the pediatrician thought interesting there was liable to seem ghastly to anybody else. Some of the things he'd done trying to fix coffee merited the word. Lately, though, the coffeemaker had been fine.

  When he spoke, Esther wished he'd spent his time messing with the machine, for he said, "Do you remember how the Kleins' genealogy charts had two different versions?" He made it a casual question, for he didn't know how important it was to Esther.

  "Yes, I do," she answered.I'm not likely to forget, went through her head.You didn't know it, but you were trying to kill me, too.

  And he still was, still in perfect ignorance. "Well, I've been going through some of the other patients' charts, to see if I can find more with the same problem."

  "I certainly hope not!" Esther exclaimed. Dr. Dambach would reckon the horror in her voice a horror of disorder and illegality, the sort of horror he had himself. And, indeed, she was acquainted with that horror in her everyday life. But what made her voice go high and shrill now was old and deeper and less…less Germanic. It was raw fear, fear of disaster, fear of death. She had to fight to hold it in check as she asked, "Have-have you found any?"

  Dr. Dambach paused to sip from the cup of coffee she'd made for him. That only gave her a few more seconds to worry and to try to remember whether Walther had had to change anybody else's pedigree. She didn't think so. No, she didn'tthink so, but doubt tore at her. Maybe she'd forgotten. Maybe he'd done it without bothering to tell her. It wouldn't have seemed that important at the time. Now it loomed as big as the world.

  The pediatrician set down the foam cup. "As a matter of fact, yes," he said deliberately, and Esther wanted to sink down through the floor. But then he went on, "Not quite like the Klein baby's case, though."

  Esther dared breathe again, if barely. "What's the difference?" she asked. The question was dangerous, but it had to come out. Dr. Dambach wouldn't read too much into it…would he? He'd all but invited it…hadn't he?

  He took another sip of coffee. Was he trying to drive her crazy? If he was, he was doing a bang-up job. He set the cup on his desk again. "The Kleins' charts showed two different family trees, so it made me wonder whether they had more Jews in their ancestry than they were willing to admit," he said, and cocked his head to one side, waiting for her response.

  She made herself nod. "I remember."I'm not likely to forget. I almost got them killed. I almost got more of my friends killed, and my family, and me. The nod showed only polite agreement. None of the nightmare underneath came out.

  "I haven't found any more cases like that," Dambach repeated.

  "I hope not!" Esther repeated herself, too. "You'd better not!" Her knees didn't want to hold her up. She felt giddy with relief. "But what have you found? You said you'd found something."

  "I have found that people will lie even when there is no good reason for them to lie." The pediatrician looked as disgusted as if he'd discovered maggots on a dressing that was supposed to be sterile. "I have found people inventing inflated ancestries for themselves, people trying to connect themselves with noble families-one family even trying to connect itself to the Hitlers. All of the forgeries are inept. Many of them are pathetic. But they riddle the files. Why?" He looked at Esther as if he really believed she had an answer.

  She did the best she could: "There are people who want to seem more important than they really are."

  "It's so stupid!" Dr. Dambach said. "And it could be dangerous to them, too. If I think a child's ancestry is different from what it really is, I'm liable to make the wrong diagnosis. Don't people think ofthat?"

  "Most of them probably don't," Esther said. Working for the pediatrician had gone a long way toward convincing her most people thought very little-certainly less than she'd believed when she took the job. Then, because she couldn't help herself, she asked, "What are you going to do about these fake pedigrees?"

  She knew she probably should have left well enough alone. But her boss had reported the Kleins without a second thought. Would he prove as hard on people he didn't suspect of being Jews?

  "I've already done it, as a matter of fact," he said. "I've talked with the Reichs Genealogical Office. They want me to forward some of the more serious cases of abuse to them for possible prosecution. And they suggested I write an article for a medical journal, alerting other physicians to the problem."

  Esther eyed him with reluctant respect. He did what he thought was right, no matter whom it involved. She could wish he didn't think getting rid of Jews was right. How many people in the Reich didn't, though? Pitifully few. That was probably the hardest part of being a Jew in Berlin these days. Everyone you met was sincerely and honestly convinced you had no right to exist.

  Asking any more questions might have made Dambach wonder why she was so curious. Instead, she said, "I'm sure the article will be very interesting."

  "Articles in journals are not supposed to be interesting. They are supposed to be informative," Dambach said, a touch of frost in his voice.

  "Why not both?" Esther asked.

  The pediatrician shook his head. "That would not be good,Frau Stutzman. I have occasionally seen an article that is frivolous, and who could hope to learn from such a thing?" He was serious himself, as serious as he wanted medical articles to be. Esther couldn't understand it. She thought she would learn more from an article that was entertaining as well as fact-filled. That anyone could think otherwise hadn't occurred to her. But Dr. Dambach did.

  Arguing with the boss when his mind was made up struck her as one of the more pointless things she could do. Instead, she went back out to the receptionist's des
k and worked on billing and medical records till patients started coming in. Out of curiosity, she looked at some of the genealogical records in the charts. She soon saw that Dr. Dambach was right. Some of the pedigrees were faked, and pretty obviously faked.Foolishness, she thought. The Kleins and her own family had the best of good reasons for tampering with their ancestries: what was more important than survival? But changing a great-grandfather for the sake of vanity? What was that? What could it be but the urge to buy a Mercedes if your neighbor had a new Audi?

  She almost didn't notice the outer door to the waiting room open. But the yowl of a baby brought her back to the real world in a hurry. She closed a chart and looked out. "Oh,guten Morgen, Frau Baumgartner," she said. "How is little Dietrich today?"

  "Teething,"Frau Baumgartner answered. She would have been a pretty strawberry blond if she hadn't had dark circles under her eyes. "He never wants to sleep any more, and if he doesn't sleep, I can't sleep, either. I hope the doctor can give me something to make him more comfortable."

  "I hope so, too," Esther said. "Your appointment isn't till a quarter to ten, though, you know."

  Frau Baumgartner nodded. "Ja. I do know. But I thought that if I got here early, I might get to see the doctor early, too."

  Sometimes things did work out like that. Sometimes they didn't. "I can't promise you anything, not yet," Esther said. "If some of the people with earlier appointments don't show up, though…"

  Little Dietrich jammed his fingers into his mouth. Somehow, he managed to let out an earsplitting howl despite the obstruction. His mother looked frazzled. "Oh, I hope they don't!" she said fervently.

  Another mother came into the waiting room, this one with a two-year-old who was tugging at her ear. The little girl howled even louder than Dietrich Baumgartner. "Guten Tag, Frau Abetz," Esther bellowed over the din. "Liselotte's earache isn't any better, is it?"

  "What?" said Frau Abetz, who couldn't have heard the Trump of Doom through that racket.

  Esther repeated herself, louder this time.Frau Abetz took the screaming Liselotte into an examination room. She had one of the nine o'clock appointments Frau Baumgartner coveted. The move redistributed the noise without making it much softer, at least for Esther. Dr. Dambach emerged from his sanctum. "Going to be one of those quiet mornings, is it?" he said with a wry chuckle, and went into the examination room himself. Moments later, Liselotte screamed louder than ever.

  And it was one of those mornings.Frau Baumgartner did get to take Dietrich in twenty minutes early, but that did nothing for the general level of peace and quiet, of which Esther saw very little. Every few minutes, another mother would bring in a shrieking baby or toddler. The phone kept ringing at the most inconvenient moments, too.

  By the time the lunch break arrived, Esther felt as if she'd worked two whole days, not half of one. As a pediatrician, Dr. Dambach had to have more than an ordinary mortal's share of patience, but he also seemed to be feeling the strain. "I ought to put some brandy in this coffee," he said, pouring himself a fresh cup.

  "I was thinking of asking if you could prescribe something stronger than aspirin for a headache," Esther said.

  "I will if you like," Dambach answered.

  She shook her head. "Thanks, but no. I was only joking-mostly."

  When Irma Ritter came in for the afternoon shift, she said, "How are things?"

  "Don't ask!" Esther said. "About the only good thing I can think of to tell you is that the office didn't catch on fire."

  She thought of one more waiting for the bus that would take her home. Maximilian Ebert hadn't come out from the Reichs Genealogical Office to confer with Dr. Dambach-and to bother her. And that, she was convinced, was very good news indeed.

  Wolf Priller walked up to Alicia on the playground. He looked at her as if he'd never seen her before. She looked at him with nothing but suspicion. He had no use for girls, and she had no use for him. Now, though, he wouldn't quit staring. "What do you want?" she demanded after half a minute or so.

  "Is it true?" he asked.

  "Is what true?"

  "Did the Fuhrer really come and talk with your dad, the way people say?"

  "Oh, that. Yes, it's true."

  Wolf's blue eyes got wider yet. "Wow," he breathed, as if she'd become important on account of the news. She supposed she had-to him, anyway. Then he asked, "How comeyou aren't more excited about it?"

  Alicia shrugged. "I don't know. I'm just not." That wasn't the whole truth, or even very much of it. Wolfgang Priller was the last person to whom she wanted to tell the whole truth. The truth was, she didn't know what to think about Heinz Buckliger's call on her father. Before she found out what she was, the visit would have thrilled her as much as it seemed to thrill everybody else.

  Now that she knew she was a Jew, the whole structure of the Reich — the structure she had loved-disgusted her. (It disgusted her when she remembered, anyhow. Some of the time, she didn't. Then, for a little while, shewas the good little German she had been and still pretended to be.) But, from what she'd gathered, the new Fuhrer didn't seem to be of the same stripe as the ones who'd come before him. Maybe he wasn't quite so bad after all.

  Where did that leave her? In confusion, that was where.

  Wolf said, "When I told my dad about it yesterday, he said he'd give this finger"-he solemnly displayed the index finger on his right hand-"to be able to sit down with the Fuhrer and talk about things."

  "They didn't talk aboutthings — not like that," Alicia said. "They talked about stuff that had to do with my father's work."

  "Even so," Wolf said. "My dad wasso jealous. You have no idea how jealous he was. I am, too. I never thought I'd be jealous of a girl, but I am." And then, as if afraid he'd said too much, he rushed off and savagely booted a football.

  Why is he jealous of me?Alicia wondered.I didn't meet the Fuhrer.My father did. She had never run into the phrasereflected glory, but she was groping her way toward the idea.

  Wolf wasn't the only one who wouldn't let her alone. Emma sidled up to her, whispered, "Lucky," and then scooted off. She'd done that four different times since hearing the news two days earlier. Alicia counted herself lucky to be alive and safe. Past that, she didn't worry about anything.

  Even Trudi Krebs eyed her in a different way. It wasn't approval halfway down the road to awe, the look she got from most of her classmates. She couldn't quite make out what it was. Disappointment? That would have been her first guess.

  Why would Trudi be disappointed in her if her father had met the Fuhrer? Was Trudi a Jew? Could she be? Alicia knew she couldn't ask, in case the other girl said no.I'll ask my mom, she thought.She'll know, or be able to find out. Alicia thought Trudi just came from a family of political unreliables. That was almost as dangerous as being a Jew.

  Herr Peukert knew about what had happened to Alicia's father, too, of course.Herr Kessler would have made a big fuss about it, till Alicia couldn't stand it any more.Herr Peukert didn't do that. He just seemed…interested. Alicia hardly knew what to make of that. It made her want to talk too much. Had her own secrets been less important, she might have.

  When she went to wait for the bus that afternoon, she found Francesca there ahead of her, face thunderous with fury."Gott im Himmel!" Alicia exclaimed. "What's the matter?"

  "I got a swat from the Beast," her younger sister answered, looking even angrier than she had already.

  Alicia wouldn't have believed she could. "What did you do?" she asked. Francesca, to put it mildly, wasn't the sort who usually got paddled.

  "I didn't do anything! Not a single thing!" she burst out now. "She called me up to the front of the class and gave me one anyway, just for the fun of it. I hate her! I'll always hate her!" When she got angry, she didn't fool around. "This isn't a camp with a bunch of Jews in it. It's supposed to be school!"

  "You already knew Frau Koch was like that," Alicia said. "Everybody knows it. Why are you so mad now?"

  "Because she did it tome!"

&nbs
p; Alicia started to laugh. She choked it down before it even began to show. Her sister's outrage was only part of the reason why, and a small part at that. Maybe, at last, she'd found some of the reason people hadn't complained about what the Party did to Jews. Who would complain, when something like that was happening to a small group of other people and not to themselves? That was doubly true because, if theydid complain, such thingswere all too likely to happen to them.

  "It will be all right," she told her sister. "Remember, you're only stuck with the Beast for a year. It's not forever."

  "It seems like forever!" Francesca often looked for the cloud, not the silver lining. She added, "And then next year I'll probably get Herr Kessler."

  She probably would, too. Alicia didn't want to tell her so, especially since that was also when she would find out she was a Jew. How would she react to that? Like Alicia-maybe even more than Alicia-she believed everything she'd learned in school about Jews. She would have to change her mind.

  The school bus turned the corner and rumbled toward the stop. Alicia pointed towards it. "Here. We're going home now," she said. Sometimes distracting Francesca worked better than actually answering her.

  Heinrich Gimpel had never imagined he could be a celebrity. What occurred to him was a most un-Jewish thought: O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Celebrity meant visibility. Visibility, in his mind, was inextricably wed to danger.

  He was stuck with it, though. Half the analysts in Oberkommando der Wehrmacht headquarters made a point of coming up to him and passing the time of day. Even crusty Wehrmacht officers-real soldiers, not just bureaucrats in uniform-unbent around him where they never had before. Some of them-not all, but a surprising number-proved to be pretty good fellows under the crust.

  And all because someone stopped at my desk for fifteen or twenty minutes,he thought dazedly.People do that all the time. It shouldn't be so important.