"Well, they were wrong, weren't they?" Daddy said. Francesca and Roxane nodded emphatically. Half a heartbeat later, so did Alicia. Her father had to hold up a mask, too. Maybe the blackshirts had put a tiny microphone in his clothes. Maybe they were still listening. You never could tell. You never could be too careful, not where the Security Police were concerned.
Up came the bus. Daddy stuck his card in the slot four times. After a while, they got off and transferred to another bus. Then they did it again. The third bus took them into Stahnsdorf and, a little more than an hour after they'd set out, stopped at the corner up the street from their house.
Daddy herded Alicia and her sisters off the bus. "Let's go. Mommy's waiting."
When they got down onto the sidewalk, Francesca and Roxane raced up the street. Alicia hung back. She looked up at her father. "Is everything all right?" she asked. "Really all right?"
He smiled. "I know what you mean." As she had, he spoke cagily. "Everything is as good as it can be, sweetheart. We're out here. We're free, the way we should be, because they shouldn't have grabbed us in the first place." Yes, he too was playing to an invisible audience that might or might not be there. "I'm afraid we won't see some friends so much, and that's too bad, but…" He shrugged. "There are worse things."
"The Dorsches?" Alicia asked.
Daddy stopped. "How do you know about the Dorsches?"
"The Security Police were asking me questions, just like they were with Francesca and Roxane." Alicia tried to remember just what the blackshirt had said. "Is Frau Dorsch really 'a piece and a half'?" She wasn't precisely sure what it meant, but it sounded impressive.
Her father turned red. He coughed a couple of times. After a long, long pause, he said, "Not…quite," in a small, strangled voice.
Alicia almost asked for more details. But the front door opened then. Her sisters ran into her mother's arms. "Mommy!" she shouted, and broke into a run herself.
Mommy had a hug for her, too, and kisses. "I know you were all brave girls," she said. Alicia's little sisters nodded eagerly. So did she, with a secret smile on her face. She'd had to be brave in a way Francesca and Roxane hadn't, because she'd known the truth and had to hide it, and they hadn't.
Their mother tousled her hair. She had a secret smile on her face, too. Yes, she'd meant that especially for Alicia. It went right over Francesca and Roxane's heads. Alicia's smile got wider. She liked secrets…well, most secrets, anyway. The big one she carried? She still wasn't so sure about that. One thing she was sure of, though, and all the more so after this ordeal: like it or not, it was hers.
Daddy came up the steps. "Did you tell them about the surprise yet?"
"Of course not," Mommy answered. "If I told them, it wouldn't be a surprise any more, would it?" Naturally, that set all three Gimpel girls clamoring. Their mother looked innocent till she'd almost driven them crazy. Then she said, "If people look in the kitchen, they may find…something."
They ran in. Roxane's gleeful squeal rang out a split second ahead of her sisters'. The cake was enormous, and covered with gooey white icing. Big blue letters spelled out WELCOME HOME! When Mommy cut the cake, it proved to be dark, dark chocolate, with cherries and blueberries between the layers. She gave them huge slices, and when Francesca asked, "Can we have some more?" she didn't say anything about ruining their appetites. She just handed out seconds as big as the firsts.
Everything was so wonderful, it was almost worth getting grabbed by the Security Police. Almost.
Walther Stutzman muttered to himself. Threading his way past the electronic traps on the virtual road that led to Lothar Prutzmann's domain wasn't his worry. He had their measure now. Sooner or later, an SS programmer would come up with some new ones, and Walther would need to spot them before they closed on him. Today, though, getting in had been easy enough. So was looking around once he'd got inside.
No, what made him mutter was not finding what he was looking for. Heinrich had given him a good description of the man who'd released him from prison: tall, blond, a major in the Security Police. By what the man had said, he was a Jew.
But Walther had been pretty sure he knew about all the handful of Jews in the SS. None of them, from what he recalled, matched this fellow. Looking through the records only confirmed that.
So who was the major, then? More to the point,what was he? Someone who'd tried a last trick to get a suspected Jew to reveal himself? That would have been Walther's guess, but it didn't fit the way Heinrich had described the scene a couple of days earlier. A joker? Or a real Jew, unknown to Walther and his circle of friends?
That would be good-the more who survived, the better. But it also raised doubts, frightening ones. Now somebody outside the circle, somebody no one in the circle knew, knew something about somebody in it. The last thing a Jew in the Third Reich wanted was for anybody to have a handle on him.
What can I do?Walther wondered. One thing that occurred to him was tracking down everybody on duty at the prison the day Heinrich was released. Not many majors would have been there. One of them should have been the man who turned his friend loose.
Before he could do that, though, his boss came back from lunch and bellowed, "Walther! You here, Walther?"
Three quick keystrokes, and everything incriminating vanished from his monitor. Three more made his electronic trail vanish. "I'm here," he called. "What's up?"
Gustav Priepke stuck his beefy face into Walther's cubicle. "You smart son of a bitch," he said fondly. "You goddamn know-it-all bastard."
"I love you, too," Walther said in his usual mild tones. His boss roared laughter. Still mildly, he asked, "Could you at least tell me why you're swearing at me today?"
"Delighted, by God," Priepke answered. "You're not only a smart son of a bitch, you're a thieving son of a bitch, too. You know that?"
Excitement tingled through Walther. Now he had a pretty good idea of what his foul-mouthed boss was talking about. "The code ran, did it?"
"Bet your sweet ass it did," Gustav Priepke said. "And backward compatibility looks as good as you said it would. We've got a real live modern operating system, or we will once we root out the usual forty jillion bugs. And we won't lose data, on account of it'll be able to read all our old files."
"That's-terrific," Walther said. Computer experts in the Reich had talked about modernizing the standard operating system for years. They'd talked about it, but they hadn't done it-till now. He was proud he'd had a part, and not such a small one, in turning talk into the beginning of reality.
And then he wonderedwhy he was proud. A new operating system would only make German computers more efficient. It would help the government work better, and the government included the SS. It might make the search for hidden Jews more effective. This was a reason to be proud?
Yes, in spite of everything, it was. If he didn't take professional pride in his own skill, his own competence, life turned empty. Whatever he did, he wanted to do well.
As smoothly as only a man with no worries in the world could, his boss changed the subject: "You going to vote when the elections for the new Reichstag come up in a few weeks?"
"I suppose so," Walther answered. "You know I don't get very excited about politics." He didn't show that he got excited about politics, which wasn't the same thing at all. But Priepke-and the rest of the outside world-saw only the calm mask, not the turmoil behind it.
"Shit, I don't get excited about the usual politics, either," Gustav Priepke said. "But this isn't the usual garbage-or it had better not be, anyhow. If you've got a chance to make a real difference, grab with both hands." The gesture he used looked more nearly obscene than political, but got the message across.
"You really think it will make a difference?" Walther asked.
"It had better, by God," Priepke rumbled ominously. "You wait and see how many Bonzen go out on their ears when they run where people can vote against 'em. A lot of those stupid bastards really believe everybody loves them. I want to see the looks o
n their fat faces when they find out how wrong they are." Gloating anticipation filled his laugh.
Without answering in words, Walther pointed up to the ceiling with one index finger and cupped his other hand behind an ear. Had his boss forgotten he was bound to be overheard by someone from Lothar Prutzmann's domain?
Priepke gestured again, this time with undoubted, un-abashed obscenity. "Hell with 'em all," he said. "That's the point of this election-to teach the goddamn snoops we've got lives of our own. And if they don't like it, they can screw themselves."
He means it,Walther thought dizzily.He doesn't care if they're listening. He doesn't think it matters. He looked up to-no, past-the ceiling he'd just pointed at.Please, God, let him be right.
Another department staff meeting. Another dimly lit conference room foggy and stinking with Franz Oppenhoff's cigar smoke and innumerable cigarettes and pipes. Susanna Weiss drew a face hidden by a pig-snouted gas mask. Wishful thinking, unfortunately. She scratched out the sketch. As it vanished, she wondered why she bothered bringing a pad to these gatherings. Nothing worth noting ever got said.
At the head of the long table, the chairman stood up. Professor Oppenhoff waited till all eyes were on him. Then, after a couple of wet coughs, he said, "A change is coming. It is a change for which we must all prepare ourselves."
"The budget?" Half a dozen anxious voices said the same thing at the same time.
But Oppenhoff shook his head. "No, not the budget. The budget is as it should be, or close enough. I speak of a more fundamental change." If he'd been trying to get everyone's attention, he'd succeeded. Even Susanna looked his way. What could be more fundamental to a university department than its funding? Oppenhoff nodded portentously. "I speak of the changes that may come to pass in the Reich itself."
Two or three professors who cared about nothing more recent than the transition from Old High German to Middle High German leaned back in their leather-upholstered chairs and closed their eyes. One of them began to snore, and so quickly that he must have had a clear conscience. Susanna, by contrast, leaned forward. This was liable to be interesting after all.
And if the department chairman expectedher to review the political situation again, she would, but he might not care for what she had to say. Like a lot of people in the Greater German Reich, she thought she could get away with much more than she had only a few months before.
But Professor Oppenhoff did not call on her. Instead, ponderously leaning forward, he spoke for himself: "Changes, I say again, may come to pass in the Reich itself. There has been much talk of openness and revitalization, some of it from those most highly placed in the state. And a certain amount of this is, no doubt, good and useful, as anyone will recognize."
He paused to draw on his cigar.Now that he's shown he can say nice things about reform, what will he do next? Susanna wondered, and promptly answered her own question.He'll start flying his true colors, that's what.
Just as promptly, Oppenhoff proved her right. "In all this rush toward change for the sake of change, we must not lose sight of what nearly eighty years of National Socialist rule have given the Reich, " he said. "When the first Fuhrer came to power, we were weak and defeated. Now we rule the greatest empire the world has ever known. We were at the mercy of Jews and Communists. We have eliminated the problems they presented."
We've killed them all, is what you mean. Susanna's nails bit into the soft flesh of her palms.Not quite all, you pompous son of a bitch.
"All this being so," Oppenhoff continued, "some of you might perhaps do well to wonder why any fundamental changes in the structure of the government are deemed necessary. If you feel that way, as I must confess I do myself, you will also be able to find candidates who support a similar point of view."
Puff, puff, puff. "Change for the sake of change is no doubt very exciting, very dramatic. But when things are going well, change is also apt to be for the worst. Some of you are younger than I. Many of you, in fact, are younger than I." Oppenhoff chuckled rheumily. That was about as close to anything resembling real humor as he came. "You will, perhaps, be more enamored of change for the sake of change than I am. But I tell you this: when you have my years, you too will see the folly of change when the German state has gone through the grandest and most glorious period in its history."
With a wheeze and a grunt, he sat down. His chair creaked as his bulk settled into it. Susanna couldn't have said why she was so disappointed. She'd known Oppenhoff was a reactionary for years. Why should one more speech make her want to cry-or, better, to kick him where it would do the most good?
Maybe it was because, in spite of everything, she'd let herself get her hopes up. Heinz Buckliger had done more to open the Reich than his three predecessors put together. He seemed intent on doing more still-and if he didn't, Rolf Stolle might. Some of the folk the Wehrmacht had conquered were reminding Berlin that they still remembered who they were, and that they'd once been free-and they were getting away with it.
Yes, the Security Police had grabbed Heinrich Gimpel and his children, but they'd let them go. The accusation that he was a Jew hadn't come from anyone who really knew, but from, of all things, a woman scorned. Susanna had trouble imagining anyone chasing Heinrich hard enough to want him dead when she didn't get him. It only went to show, you never could tell.
The point was, though, that theyhad let him go. In a world where that could happen, what couldn't? Heinrich's release only made Franz Oppenhoff's comfortable, complacent words seem all the worse.
Susanna almost burst with the temptation of throwing that in Oppenhoff's face. She'd sometimes morbidly wondered which of the Jews she knew was likeliest to get caught. She'd thought she herself topped that list, just because she had the most trouble keeping her mouth shut when she ran into something wrong. Heinrich and Lise were almost stoic in the way they refused to let what went on around them bother them. Susanna was a great many things, but not a stoic. And yet here she sat, as safe and free as a Jew in the Reich could be. No, you never could tell.
"Herr Doktor Professor?" That was Konrad Lutze, who'd gone to the Medieval English Association meeting in London with Susanna-who'd almost gone instead of Susanna.
"Yes?" Oppenhoff smiled benignly.Of course he does, Susanna thought.Lutze pisses standing up. How can he do anything wrong, with an advantage like that?
And then Lutze said, "Herr Doktor Professor, shouldn't we return to the first principles of National Socialism and let the Volk have the greatest possible say in the government of the Reich? Please excuse me, but I don't see how this could do anything but improve the way the Reich is run."
Professor Oppenhoff looked as if he'd just taken a bite out of a hot South American pepper without expecting it. Susanna stared at Konrad Lutze, too, but with a different sort of astonishment. He was an indifferent scholar. Everyone in the department except possibly Oppenhoff knew that. She'd always figured him for more of a careerist than someone who truly loved knowledge. He was the last man she would have imagined sticking out his neck.
And he'd just thrown reform in the department chairman's face. What did that say? That Oppenhoff's politics were even more dinosaurian than Susanna had thought? What elsecould it say?
Back to work. Heinrich Gimpel climbed onto the bus that would take him to the Stahnsdorf train station. While he sat in prison, he'd wondered if he would have a job if he got out. It hadn't been his biggest worry. Next to a noodle or a shower, being alive and unemployed didn't look so bad.
But he still had his place. Nobody at Oberkommando der Wehrmacht headquarters had said so out loud when he called to inquire, but he got the feeling his superiors there enjoyed putting him back in that slot, because it gave the armed forces a point in their unending game against the SS.
Three stops later, Willi Dorsch got on the bus. His face brightened when he saw Heinrich. Then, almost as abruptly, it fell. The seat next to Heinrich was empty. Willi hesitantly approached. Heinrich patted the artificial leather to show he was welco
me. (Back when Heinrich was a boy, people had called the stuff Jew's hide. You didn't hear that much any more. Till the reform movement started, Heinrich hadn't thought about it one way or the other. Now he dared hope it was a good sign.)
"It's damn good to see you," Willi said, shaking his hand. With a wry smile that twisted up one corner of his mouth, he added, "You'd probably sooner knock my block off than look at me."
"It's not your fault," Heinrich said, and then, cautiously, "How's Erika?"
"She's…better. She's glad the girls are all right. She's glad you're all right, too." That wry smile got wrier. "She wanted to find out just how good you could be, didn't she?"
"Well…yes." Dull embarrassment filled Heinrich's voice.
"I never would have figured that," Willi said. "And I really never would have figured that she'd go and call the Security Police. Sometimes I wonder if I know her at all. Now I suppose telling you I'm sorry is the least I can do."
Being sorry wouldn't have mattered if the blackshirts had got rid of Heinrich-and of Alicia, Francesca, and Roxane. Still…"It's over," Heinrich said. "I hope to God it's over, anyhow."
"Erika's sorry, too. If she weren't, she wouldn't have swallowed those stupid goddamn pills." Willi shook his head. "She swears up and down she didn't think they would go after you and the girls the way they did."
Heinrich only grunted. When she picked up the phone, whathad Erika thought the Security Police would do? Invite him up for coffee and cakes? Plainly, she'd regretted what she did afterwards. At the time? At the time, she'd no doubt wanted him dead.
He asked a question of his own: "Are the two of you really going to patch things up now, or will you go on squabbling?" And cheating on each other, he added, but only to himself. He always tried to stay polite-maybe even too polite for his own good.
Willi answered with a shrug. "I don't know what the hell we're going to do. If it weren't for the kids…But they're there, and we can't very well pretend they're not." How much did he worry about his son and daughter when he took Ilse out for lunch and whatever else he could get away with? Maybe some. He did love them. Heinrich knew that. Love them or not, though, he went right on doing whathe wanted to do.
In The Presence of mine Enemies Page 44
