In the Presence of Mine Enemies (35 page)

Regularly scheduled programming was a vacuous quiz show. To Susanna, the hardest question was why anyone would watch it. People did, though. She heard them talking about it.

What
she
wanted to talk about was Buckliger's speech. She hurried to the telephone.
The Gimpels or the Stutzmans?
she wondered as she picked it up. After a moment's hesitation, though, she replaced the handset in the cradle without calling anyone. After a speech like that, weren't the phone lines too likely to be monitored? And wasn't she likely to be under some suspicion anyhow, as someone who knew the Kleins? Better safe than sorry. That wasn't heroic, but it was probably smart.

No one called her that night, either. Heinz Buckliger talked about abandoning old ground and striking out in new directions. The people living in the Greater German
Reich
were only too familiar with the old ground, and with its minefields. Buckliger might lead. After so long making such careful calculations, could the people follow?

 

At the bus stop, Emma Handrick sniffed. “I saw a little of the speech last night,” she told Alicia Gimpel. “Only a little, though. He didn't look like a
Führer
to me. How could he be a
Führer
if he wasn't wearing a uniform?”

Seeing Heinz Buckliger in an ordinary suit had also startled Alicia. Still, she said, “He's the
Führer,
all right. Who else could he be? He spoke from the
Führer
's study. We've seen it a million times. Who else could do that? What would they do to somebody who tried?” She didn't quite know who
they
might be, but there was always a
they
for such things. She had no doubt of that.

Emma sniffed. “He didn't look like it.” She had a one-track mind. “He looked like a businessman or a salesman.” In the regimented
Reich,
there weren't too many groups that didn't wear uniforms of one sort or another.

“He does seem to be something different,” Alicia said. Her parents had warned her not to talk too much about Buckliger's speech; people might pay unusual attention to what she said. Since she wasn't sure how much was too much, she changed the subject: “New school year coming up in a couple of weeks.”

“Thank heavens!” Emma exclaimed. “I don't care who I get next time.
Herr
Kessler thinks he's a concentration-camp guard, not a teacher.”

Emma didn't care what she said, or who heard it. Alicia envied her. “Some of the others are just as bad,” she said.

“They're pretty bad, all right. I think you have to be mean to want to be a teacher—look at Beast Koch,” Emma said. “I never had her, but still…. Kessler's the worst I ever had.”

“He's not very good,” Alicia agreed. She hadn't had
Frau
Koch, either, and thanked heaven she hadn't. She pointed down the street. “Here comes the bus.”

When they got to school, they played in the yard till it was time to line up in front of their classroom. Less than half a minute before the bell rang, Emma let out a gasp of horror. “I was going to ask you for your arithmetic homework,” she said in stricken tones. “I couldn't do it last night.”

“Too late now,” Alicia said. The clang of the bell confirmed her words.

Herr
Kessler opened the door. “
Guten Morgen, Herr
Kessler!” the children chorused. “He's going to skin me,” Emma whimpered under that chorus. Alicia could only stand there. Her friend was all too likely to be right.

“Good morning, children,” the teacher said. “Come in now, and no talking out of turn.”

In they filed. If anybody talked, Alicia didn't hear it. Neither did Kessler. He led them in the salute to the flag. Their arms shot out. Alicia remembered how, up till this past spring, she'd been proud to be a German like everybody
else. Part of her still was. The rest recoiled in horror from the very idea. There were times when she wondered if she'd been torn in two inside.

But she didn't have time to stay torn in two, not when
Herr
Kessler prowled to the front of the classroom. All of her had to pay attention to him. “How many of you saw the
Führer
's speech last night?” he asked. Most of the students' hands went up. Kessler pointed to a boy who hadn't raised his. “Hans Dirlewanger!”

“
Jawohl, Herr
Kessler!” Hans jumped from his seat and stood stiff and straight.

“Why didn't you watch that speech?” Menace lurked in the teacher's voice. His eyes went to the paddle on the wall.

“Sir, my father is a captain in the
Wehrmacht,
” Hans answered. “He came home on leave from occupation duty in the United States. We all went out to supper, and then to the cinema. We didn't get home till late.”

“Oh.”
Herr
Kessler considered. Reluctantly, he nodded. “This is acceptable. Be seated.” As Hans sat down, Alicia wondered if the teacher would pick on somebody else so he could give out a swat. Not this morning, though. Kessler paused, then found a question: “What is the most important thing the
Führer
said last night?”

Had he asked about arithmetic or history or grammar, Alicia's hand would have shot into the air. Had he asked about this before she knew what she was, she would also have been eager to answer. Now she hesitated. She couldn't help worrying that a mistake would endanger not only her but all the other Jews in Berlin, even the ones of whose existence she was ignorant.

Others weren't so shy—and had less to worry about. The teacher pointed to a girl. “Trudi Krebs!”

That's interesting,
Alicia thought.
She probably hasn't had less to worry about than I do
. But now that new ways of doing things seemed important,
Herr
Kessler thought Trudi had the answers. Before, he'd wanted to see her and her family in trouble. Trudi said, “The
Führer
told us the
Reich
needs to change so it can work better.”

When she put it like that, it seemed safe enough. The
teacher nodded.
“Sehr gut,”
he said. “Yes, that is exactly what the
Führer
said. And so, as he leads us, we shall change, and we shall be better for it. Do you understand?”

“
Ja, Herr
Kessler!” the children sang out.

“Sehr gut,”
Kessler said again. “Then let us go on with the day's lesson.” He spoke with a certain amount of relief, or so it seemed to Alicia. Did he sometimes think, as she did, that too much talk of politics might be dangerous? If students got answers wrong, they got paddled. What happened to teachers who got answers about politics wrong? Maybe
Herr
Kessler didn't want to find out. He nodded. “Arithmetic, then. Pass in your homework. At once. No talking.”

Behind Alicia, Emma Handrick let out a soft gasp of dismay. Kessler's head swung toward her. But he couldn't decide who had made the sound. Sometimes he punished everyone in the neighborhood if he didn't know just who had got out of line. Maybe he still felt on unsafe ground today, for he looked away.

But then he said, “We will do some of the problems at the blackboard.” He called on Alicia and several children who sat near her. She knew what he was doing. If one of them had no idea what to do, he would decide that was the person who'd made a noise. It wasn't a bad ploy in the unending war between teachers and students—except that he didn't summon Emma to the board.

Alicia got her problem right. She stood in front of the blackboard till Kessler nodded and sent her back to her seat. One boy made a mistake, but it was a careless, obvious kind of mistake: he multiplied seven by four and got thirty-five early in the problem, which naturally made his answer wrong. Other than that, he knew what he was doing.
Herr
Kessler corrected him, but didn't haul out the paddle.

Balked, the teacher went on with the lesson. Alicia hated these problems. If the German fighter plane flew forty kilometers an hour faster than the American one, started from a base sixty kilometers behind it, and took off fifteen minutes later, how far would it have to go to catch up? You had to keep track of everything at once. She was
good at that kind of thing, but even she found it hard. She wondered how poor Emma, who wasn't any too bright, was faring.

After arithmetic came grammar.
Herr
Kessler passed out worksheets where the student had to identify parts of speech and the cases of nouns and adjectives. While they slaved away on those, he graded their arithmetic papers.

Alicia was good at arithmetic, but she was very, very good at grammar. She zipped through the paper, and finished well ahead of anybody else. Of course, all that got her was the chance to sit quietly till the other children finished, too. She watched the teacher correcting papers. Every so often, he would look up to see if anyone was getting into mischief, and she would have to look away. But then he would go back to arithmetic, and she would go back to watching him.

She knew when he got to Emma's homework. She'd got a glimpse of it as they passed papers forward, and it was truly hopeless.
Herr
Kessler's head came up. He stared towards Emma. He might have been a cat spotting a juicy mouse.

“Emma Handrick!” he roared.

Emma squeaked in terror. She'd been intent on her worksheet, and hadn't paid attention to what the teacher was doing. “
Jawohl, Herr
Kessler!” she said, springing to her feet.

“What is the meaning of this—this
Dreck
you turned in?” Kessler waved the offending paper for everyone to see.

“I'm very sorry,
Herr
Kessler,” Emma babbled. “I tried as hard as I could, but I really didn't understand. Please excuse me. Please.”

“A Jew could have done better work than this. Jews were vile and wicked, but they were supposed to be clever. You, on the other hand…” The teacher let that hang in the air, then added two more words: “Come here.”

He applied the paddle with vigor. Emma came back to her desk biting back the tears that would have landed her in more trouble. She sat down gingerly. No one said anything at all.

At lunchtime, Trudi Krebs sidled up to Alicia and whispered, “When the new
Führer
changes things, do you think he'll change school, too?”

“
Gott im Himmel,
I hope so,” Alicia exclaimed. “It's probably too much to ask for, though.” She hoped Trudi would argue with her, but the other girl only nodded.

 

When the bus out of the Stahnsdorf train station pulled up to Willi Dorsch's stop, Heinrich Gimpel got off, too. “What are you doing?” Willi said. “You don't live here—or if you do, Erika hasn't told me.”

“Heh.” Heinrich smiled what he was sure was a sickly smile. “Lise wanted me to pick up some onions and a head of cabbage at Tinnacher's grocery.” He pointed toward the store, which, fortunately, lay in the direction opposite Willi's house.

“A likely story,” Willi said, but he didn't sound as if he meant anything by it. With a sour laugh, he went on, “Hell, the way things are, why would I care if you were living there instead of me?” He didn't wait for an answer, but headed up the sidewalk toward his house.

Shaking his head, Heinrich walked over to the corner grocery. He was glad Lise hadn't sent him after potatoes. She inspected every spud he bought, and didn't seem to like about half of them. Harder for him to go wrong with onions and cabbage.
I'd never make a
Hausfrau,
not in a million years,
he thought.

BEST VEGETABLES IN TOWN
! boasted the sign in Tinnacher's window. “
Guten Tag, Herr
Gimpel,” the grocer said as Heinrich came in. He did have the best vegetables for several kilometers around, and he gave unmatched personal service. Lower prices at bigger stores that sold more kinds of things made staying in business hard for him even so.

With a certain amount of relief, Heinrich skirted the bins of potatoes and headed for the onions. Lise had said she wanted the mild purple ones, not the stronger ones with the yellow-brown outer layer. Intent on the onions, Heinrich almost bumped into Erika Dorsch before he noticed she was there.

If he had noticed her, he might have tried to sneak out of the grocery and buy his vegetables somewhere else. Too late for that now. “Hello, Erika. I didn't mean to run over you there,” he said, fearing his smile here was even sicklier than the one he'd given Willi.

Hers, on the other hand, dazzled. She had a stringbag full of mushrooms and garlic and scallions and potatoes and a couple of enormous turnips. “It's all right,” she said. “Any attention is better than none.”