In the Presence of Mine Enemies (43 page)

“Surprise!”
yelled a dozen girls. “Surprise!” Alicia echoed, grinning from ear to ear. It had worked! In spite of everything, it had worked.

The look on Anna's face was worth a hundred Reichsmarks. “You didn't!” she said to Alicia. “I'll get you for this.”

“I did, too,” Alicia answered, and the other didn't bother her one bit.

Anna rounded on her mother. “You must have known,” she accused.

“Who, me?”
Frau
Stutzman said. That made everybody laugh again.

Before long, it stopped being a surprise party and just turned into a birthday party. Alicia didn't know all of Anna's friends very well. Some of them lived near Anna, while others were in her class at school. They seemed nice enough. They put up with Alicia's little sisters. Some of
them would have little sisters or brothers of their own. Alicia would have got mad if they'd teased Francesca or Roxane. That was
her
job. As far as she could tell, none of the other girls shared the secret she and Anna did. That made the two of them special—or she thought it did, anyhow. How could she know for sure? She couldn't.

It also made Francesca and Roxane special. They didn't know it yet, though, and they wouldn't be too happy when they found out. Alicia shook her head. This whole business still seemed very strange.

But then, in the midst of games and songs and cake and ice cream and “genuine American hot dogs” from a stand that had opened up a few blocks away (they tasted like any other frankfurters to Alicia), she forgot all about the secret. When she'd first learned it, she hadn't thought she would ever be able to do that.

Anna unwrapped her presents. She squealed extra loud when she opened the New Orleans Vicki. Several of the other girls made envious noises. Alicia felt especially good because of that. She wanted to give Anna a really nice present.

More cake and ice cream followed. “You're going to make them sick,”
Frau
Stutzman told Alicia's mom. She didn't sound as if she meant it, though. Not too much later, she went home, saying, “I'll see you in the morning, Anna. Happy birthday, sweetie.”

The guests ran around and sang more songs and played games and fooled around with the Gimpel girls' dolls and toys. When it got late, they spread out sleeping bags on the floor of the front room. Nobody who'd ever gone on a
Bund deutscher Mädel
outing was without a sleeping bag. Francesca and Roxane had theirs, too, even though they weren't old enough to join the organization for German girls.

They might have got into the sleeping bags. The lights might have been out. They weren't going to fall asleep any time soon, though. Alicia's father made a brief appearance, coming halfway down the stairs. “Try to keep it down to a low roar, if you please,” he said. He sounded as if he knew that was a lost hope.

They giggled. They gossiped. They told scary stories, which seemed even scarier in the dark. One of Anna's friends had read a translation of “The Telltale Heart.” That was good for plenty of goose bumps.

Roxane started to doze. Every so often, she'd say, “I'm awake,” in a small, faraway voice. She was still little, even if she would have indignantly denied it.

One by one, the girls did drop off to sleep. Snores replaced Roxane's protests. A couple of the girls Anna's age were snoring by the time Francesca gave in and slept. Alicia wasn't surprised. She knew how stubborn Francesca was.

By two in the morning, snores and deep breathing filled the Gimpels' living room. Alicia's sleeping bag lay next to Anna's. Not only were they best friends, but the party was in Alicia's house. She doubly had the right to be there. Her voice a tiny whisper, she asked, “Are you still awake?”

“No,” Anna whispered back, and they both laughed.

“Did you have a happy birthday?” Alicia asked.

Anna nodded. Alicia could barely see the motion. “I'll say,” Anna answered.

“Good. I'm glad,” Alicia said, and then, “How are…things?”

“Things are all right with me.” Anna poked her head up to make sure nobody else was awake and listening. Alicia did the same. She'd been sure Anna would know how she meant
things,
and she'd been right. Her friend even used the same word and the same little pause to ask, “How are…things with you?”

“They're not too bad, I guess.” But Alicia couldn't leave it at that. She went on, “I think it's harder when other people in the house don't know.” She stuck her head up and listened again. This would be a very bad time to find out Francesca was only pretending to sleep.

“I believe that,” Anna said. Now she paused before continuing, “Gottlieb told me the same thing once. I was really little when he found out. I was younger than Roxane.” She laughed at the follies of her youth. “He must have wanted to kick me a whole bunch of times.”

Alicia had wanted to kick her sisters plenty of times. The trouble was, they kicked back. The other trouble was…
“It's what you learn in school. It's what you see on the televisor. It's—it's just everything, that's all. I believed all that stuff till I found out.” In a tinier voice yet, she added, “Part of me still wants to believe it.”

“Oh, thank you!” Anna said. Alicia blinked. Anna explained: “I was afraid I was the only one who thought things like that.” They both came halfway out of their sleeping bags so they could hug each other.

Not once, Alicia realized, had either one of them said the word
Jew
. Even if one of the other girls were listening, she wouldn't know what they were talking about. They were both so very careful. They had to be. If they weren't careful, they were dead. Alicia had known that was what happened to Jews long before she knew she was one.

Anna asked her, “What do you think of the new
Führer?
”

“I was going to ask you the same thing!” Alicia exclaimed. She liked it when she and Anna thought the same way. Nobody else thought like her, except her father every once in a while. Since Anna had asked the question first, she had to answer it: “He seems…better, anyhow.”

“He does, doesn't he?” Anna said. “He talks about how there ought to be laws, not just…the triumph of the will.” They'd both seen the film. Everybody saw it, in school and on the televisor. It was old. You could tell when you watched it. But it had a kick like a mule even so.

“You know the lady who made that movie?” Alicia asked. Anna nodded. Alicia said, “She died just a few years ago. She was over a hundred—even older than Kurt Haldweim.” She shivered, remembering how she'd filed past the late
Führer
's shrunken, wizened corpse as it lay in state in the Great Hall.

“That's scary,” Anna said. Now Alicia nodded. Anna went on, “When your sisters…talk about things they don't know about, how do you stand it?”

“I don't know,” Alicia answered. “Just after I first found out, it really used to drive me crazy. Now it doesn't, or not so much, anyway. They don't know any better, and they can't for a while. They're too little.”

“That's funny,” Anna said. Alicia made a soft, inquiring
noise. Her friend went on, “Gottlieb said almost the same thing to me—almost the same thing about me—after I finally did find out what was what.” The last few words came out muffled by a yawn.

Alicia yawned, too. They were both up long past their usual bedtime. Of course, that was what slumber parties were for. Alicia's head went down. “I think I am going to sleep now,” she said. “Happy birthday again.”

“It was the happiest!” Anna said. In a couple of minutes, both of them were snoring with the other girls.

 

Something peculiar was happening in Adolf Hitler Platz when Heinrich Gimpel and Willi Dorsch got off the bus from South Station. Heinrich asked, “What's going on?” He had trouble seeing, not only because of the mist and light drizzle themselves but because of the way they spattered his glasses.

“Looks like…” Willi brought up his hand. Heinrich wondered why. His friend didn't wear glasses. Maybe the hand helped the visor on his cap keep water out of his eyes. Maybe he just thought the gesture looked impressive. After peering, he said, “I will be damned. Looks like some Dutchmen are holding a demonstration over there.”

“Dutchmen?” Heinrich echoed. Then, between raindrops, he too got a glimpse of the red, white, and blue flag with the stripes laid out horizontally, not vertically as in the French tricolor. A couple of dozen men and women huddled beneath the damp banner. A few of them carried signs. Distance and rain kept Heinrich from making out the words. He would have had to do some guessing, anyway; Dutch had a teasing almost-familiarity to someone who spoke German and English.

“Vrijheid!”
the Dutch shouted. Heinrich didn't have to do much guessing to figure out what that meant. It was very close to
Freiheit,
the German word for freedom.
“Vrijheid!”

Willi got it, too. “Where are the Security Police?” he demanded.

“Here they come.” If Heinrich was dismayed—and he was—he didn't show it.

“About time,” Willi said, which showed what he thought.

The men in black tunics and trousers trotted briskly across the square. They carried truncheons and pistols; a couple of them had assault rifles. Would it be arrests or a massacre? Lights blazing and sirens howling, police wagons followed the troopers. It turned out to be arrests. The Dutchmen and -women didn't try to flee. They kept calling,
“Vrijheit!”
as the Security Police herded them into the wagons, which screeched away. Adolf Hitler Platz was quiet again. The whole thing couldn't have taken more than three minutes.

“They must have been out of their minds,” Willi said. “They don't have the faintest idea when they've got it good. Bunch of damned fools, like those Danes. Give 'em a little, treat 'em halfway decent because they're Aryans, and what do they do? Do they thank you? Hell, no! They grab with both hands, that's what.”

“Maybe they're taking the new
Führer
seriously,” Heinrich said as he and Willi went up the stairs to
Oberkommando der Wehrmacht
headquarters.

Willi gave him an odd look. “Maybe they're taking Buckliger
too
seriously,” he said. “What'll we see next? Poles shouting for freedom? Russians? Jews?” He threw back his head and laughed.

So did Heinrich. The idea was, when you got down to it, pretty funny. He tried to imagine some of the handful of surviving Jews in Berlin getting out there in the middle of that enormous square and clamoring for their freedom. Would the Security Police even need to come? Or would ordinary people beat and stone them to death before the men in black uniforms got there? Everyone here, or as near as made no difference, had that same casual loathing for Jews.

“Do you think…” Willi sounded as if he'd decided to take Heinrich seriously after all instead of laughing at him. “Do you think Buckliger
intends
for things like this to happen?”

Heinrich didn't even try to answer that till the security guards had checked their identification cards and waved them through into the building. Then he said, “I doubt it.
Who would? But how can you make changes in the way things work if you can't even talk about changes without getting arrested?”

“Oh, come on,” Willi said. “These were Dutchmen. The others were a bunch of crazy Danes. You didn't see any real Germans out there, did you?”

“Not a one,” Heinrich agreed. He wondered if he ever would. The Party had spent the last three generations teaching the Germans to be docile to their rulers, no matter how ferocious they were when they put on uniforms and marched off to war. Could they nerve themselves to speak their minds? After three generations of Nazi propaganda, did they have any minds to speak? He wasn't an optimist. On a question like that, he couldn't afford optimism. The cost of being wrong was too high.

“Coffee!” Willi exclaimed when they got to the room where they worked. He disappeared, presumably heading for the canteen, and came back five minutes later with a foam cup from which fragrant steam rose. He gulped it down, then sighed blissfully. “Ahhh!”

Heinrich wanted a cup, too. Even so, he said, “I've seen drunks who didn't cozy up to a bottle of cheap schnapps the way you did with that coffee.”

“If you're going to enjoy something, you should
enjoy
it, shouldn't you?” Willi said. “Why only go halfway?”

“Because sometimes all the way is too far?” Heinrich suggested. Willi laughed at him again. It wasn't surprising that he should. National Socialist ideology scorned the idea of restraint. It always had. Heinrich wondered if Heinz Buckliger could change that, or if it had even occurred to the new
Führer
to try. He had his doubts.

He also had his work. He got some coffee for himself. With it unmelodramatically sitting there on the desk in front of him, he got down to business. Sure enough, with their assessments reduced, the Americans were paying even less than they had been. They were trying to see just how much the
Reich
would let them get away with before it clamped down. If he hadn't already been sure they would do that, it would have infuriated him.