In the Presence of Mine Enemies (33 page)

“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 Prützmann'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
Reichsführer
-SS Prützmann'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 Prützmann 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.

“I'm sick and tired of getting pushed around by little tin gods in fancy uniforms just
because
they wear fancy uniforms,” Dambach said. “I think everybody is, don't you? If the new
Führer
is serious about calling some of those people to account, he'll have a lot of folks on his side, I think. How about you?”

“Me? I never worry about politics,” Esther lied. She had trouble hiding her amazement. Her boss was solid, reliable, conservative. If he said things like that, a lot of people had to be thinking them.

“I try never to worry about politics, either,” he said now. “Who with his head on straight needs to most of the time? But sometimes politics worry about me, the way they did here this morning. And I'll tell you,
Frau
Stutzman, I don't care for it. I don't care for it at all.”

“Well, for heaven's sake, Dr. Dambach, who could blame you?” Esther said. Who needed to worry about politics most of the time? People like her, people whom politics constantly affected, did. And the very foundations of Nazi Party politics were built on worrying about Jews. Would Heinz Buckliger think about changing that? Could he think about changing that and hope to survive? Some of the things Walther said he'd talked about in Nuremburg were remarkable. But changing the way Nazis saw Jews would be more than remarkable. It would be miraculous. When Esther saw a miracle, she would believe in it. Till then, no.

“Why don't you go on home,
Frau
Stutzman?” Dambach said. “I don't mind answering the telephone till Irma gets here. It should be only a few more minutes, anyway.”

“Thank you very much,” Esther said. “Let me start a fresh pot of coffee before I leave, though. That should last the two of you most of the afternoon.” If she didn't, he'd fiddle with the coffeemaker while he was in the office by himself. She wanted to do something nice for him in return for his letting her go early—and for the news he'd given her. Keeping him away from the coffeemaker was the nicest thing she could think of.

 

When Willi Dorsch got on the commuter bus, he wore his uniform as if he'd slept in it. He'd shaved erratically. His hair stuck out from under his cap in all directions, like the hay in a stack made by somebody who didn't know how to stack hay. “Good heavens!” Heinrich Gimpel exclaimed. “What happened to you?”

“Another lovely night on the sofa,” Willi answered, plopping his posterior down beside Heinrich. His breath was high-octane. As if to explain that, he went on, “I took a bottle with me for company last night. It was more fun than Erika's been lately, that's for damn sure.”

“Will you be able to think straight when we get to headquarters?” Heinrich asked. “Maybe you should have called in sick instead of letting people see you like this.”

“Coffee and aspirins will make a new man of me,” Willi assured him. “That wouldn't be so bad. I'd say the old one's worth about thirty pfennigs, tops. Besides, if I called in sick I'd have to spend more time with the blond bitch, and I'm not—quite up for that.” He belched softly.

Heinrich wondered if he ought to leave it there. But he and Willi had been friends for a long time. He felt he had to ask the next question: “If you're so unhappy, why are you still there?”

“The kids,” Willi answered simply. “Joseph and Magda mean everything to me. If I walk out, Erika will fill their heads full of lies about me. Things are bad enough as is.” He glanced over at Heinrich. “You're a lucky bastard, you know that? Things go so smooth for you. As far as I can see, you haven't got a single worry in the whole goddamn world.”

That would have been funny, if only it were funny. Instead of shrieking mad laughter, which was what he wanted to do, Heinrich answered, “Well, I would have said the same about you and Erika till a few months ago.”

“Only goes to show you can't tell from the outside,” Willi said. That was truer than he knew, but Heinrich didn't say so. His friend pointed ahead. “We're just about to the station.”

“So we are.” Heinrich got ready to hurry to the platform
where they'd catch the train from Stahnsdorf up to Berlin's South Station.

Willi groaned when he had to get up. “My head's going to fall off,” he said. “I almost wish it would.”

“You can probably get aspirins in the station, if you need them that badly,” Heinrich said.

“Well, so I can. And so I will. And I can get coffee, too, even if it's shitty coffee. I was going to wait till I made it to the office and buy them at the canteen, but to hell with that. I feel too lousy.” Willi sounded as haggard as he looked.

When they got to the station, he made a beeline for the little concession stand at the back. Heinrich, meanwhile, bought a
Völkischer Beobachter
from a vending machine. Willi joined him on the platform a couple of minutes later. He too had a paper under his arm. He peeled two aspirin tablets from a foil packet and used a gulp of coffee to wash them down. Heinrich said, “That's got to be hell on your stomach, especially if you drank too much last night.”

“Now ask me if I care,” Willi answered. “The way my head's banging, I'm not going to worry about anything farther south.”

He winced when the train came up, even though it was powered by electricity, and not nearly so noisy or smelly as a steam engine or a diesel locomotive would have been. He let Heinrich sit by the window, and pulled his cap down low on his forehead to keep as much light as he could out of his eyes. When the train got moving, he pretended to read the
Völkischer Beobachter,
but his yawns and his glazed expression said it was just pretense.

Heinrich, by contrast, went through the paper with his usual care. He tapped a story on page three. “The
Führer
's going to speak on the televisor tomorrow night.”

“Be still, my beating heart.” Willi was indifference personified. “I've heard a speech or two—thousand—in my time.”

“I know, I know. Most of the time, I'd say the same thing.” Heinrich tapped the
Beobachter
again. “But don't you think this particular speech might be interesting, after what he said in Nuremburg?”

“Nobody knows what he said in Nuremburg—nobody except the
Bonzen,
and they aren't talking much,” Willi
replied. But he'd heard the same rumors Heinrich had; he'd heard some of them
from
Heinrich. And maybe the aspirins and coffee were starting to work, for he did perk up a little. “All right, maybe it will be interesting,” he admitted. “You never can tell.”

“If he's serious about some of the things he said there—”

“The things people say he said there,” Willi broke in.

“Yes, the things people say he said there.” Heinrich nodded. “If he said them, and if he meant them—”

Willi interrupted again: “Half the people—more than half the people—will watch the football game anyhow, or the cooking show, or the one about the SS man where the American spy's always right on the edge of falling out of her dress. I swear she will one of these days.”

Heinrich was damned if he'd let his friend outdo him for cynicism. “She won't when she's on opposite the
Führer
's speech,” he answered. “The programming director's head would roll if she ended up stealing that much of the audience.”

“Mm, you've got a point there,” Willi said. “Too bad.” He managed a bloodshot leer.

“South Station!” came the call as the train glided to a halt. “All out for South Station!” Heinrich hurried up the escalators to catch the bus to
Oberkommando der Wehrmacht
headquarters. Willi shambled along after him like something created in a mad scientist's experiment that hadn't quite worked.

As soon as they got to the office, Willi headed off to the canteen. He returned with a large foam cup of coffee in each hand, and poured them both down in record time. Not surprisingly, he went to the men's room shortly thereafter, and then again a few minutes later. “Vitamin P,” he said sheepishly when he came back after the second trip. “And speaking of Vitamin P, why didn't you tell me my eyes looked like two pissholes in the snow?”

“What could you have done if I had?” Heinrich asked.

“Well, nothing, but even so…” Willi opened those vein-tracked eyes very wide now. “I'm awake. I may live. I may even decide I want to.”

Ilse came up to set some papers on his desk. She started to turn away, then stopped and did one of the better double takes Heinrich had seen. “Good God! What happened to you?” she said, almost exactly echoing his words of an hour earlier.

“Erika and I had a small disagreement last night,” Willi answered. “Yes, that's about right. Just a small disagreement.”

“You poor dear!” Ilse was the very picture of sympathy, fussing over him, straightening his collar, and generally making him feel three meters tall. He lapped it up like a cat in front of a bowl of cream. Heinrich had to suppress a strong impulse to retch. On the other hand, he wondered how long it had been since Erika buttered Willi up like that. Such artful dodges weren't her style.

Later that morning, Willi said, “I'm going to lunch with Ilse today.”

“Why am I not surprised?” The tart retort came out of Heinrich's mouth before he could stop it.

His friend turned red. “I don't know. Why aren't you? You've got things going good for you now, so you get all sanctimonious. If you were the one with troubles, I wouldn't look down my nose at you.”

“You wouldn't? What's the fun in having a nose if you don't look down it?” Heinrich replied, even more deadpan than usual.

Willi looked at him, started to say something, and then started to laugh instead. “Dammit, how am I supposed to stay angry at you when you come back with things like that?”

“If you work at it, I expect you'll manage,” Heinrich said, again with next to no inflection in his voice. He got another laugh from Willi, too, although he hadn't been joking.

Ilse snuggled up to Willi as they walked toward the door. Willi slipped his arm around her waist. Heinrich went back to his paperwork.
Would I do something like that if I were having trouble with Lise?
he wondered.
Who knows? Maybe I would
. But he had trouble imagining trouble with Lise.
Maybe I don't understand how lucky I am
.

The telephone on Willi's desk rang. Heinrich was going to let it keep ringing till whoever was on the other end got sick of it and hung up. But what if it turned out to be somebody with important business? He picked up his own phone and dialed Willi's extension to transfer the call. “Analysis—this is Heinrich Gimpel.”