In the Presence of Mine Enemies (76 page)

Esther shook her head. “I'm afraid not. He's stuck somewhere out in the provinces, communing with his shovel.” Heinrich's laugh wasn't far from a giggle. He hadn't been ideal material for the
Hitler Jugend;
he was slow and un
gainly and nearsighted and none too strong. But, by God, his spade had always gleamed, blade and handle both. He'd seen at once that survival lay in that direction, and he'd been right. He hadn't been an analyst yet, but he'd already thought like one.
Communing with his shovel
. He'd have to remember that. He could tell it at the office. Who hadn't gone through the
Hitler Jugend
?

“Come on,” Anna said, appearing behind Esther as if by magic. The Gimpel girls were off like three brown-haired shots.

Esther nodded to Heinrich and Lise. “Here we are,” she said.

“Yes.” Heinrich nodded, too. “Here we are. There were times this past year when I wouldn't have given a pfennig for our chances, but here we are.”

“What can I get you?” Esther asked.

“Beer will do,” he answered.

“For me, too, please,” Lise said.

They followed Esther toward the kitchen. Susanna sat on the sofa, scotch on the table in front of her. She got up to hug Heinrich and Lise. She and Heinrich each raised an eyebrow at the other. They were, in a way, veterans of the same campaign. It hadn't lasted long and there hadn't been many casualties, but it could have been much worse, and they both knew it.

“Did you ever find new bridge partners?” Susanna asked him.

“We play every now and then, but not regularly, not the way we used to,” he replied. “Willi and I still get along fine at work, but….”

“Yes. But,” Lise said pointedly. “It's hard to play cards with somebody who tried to seduce your husband and then tried to kill him.” Heinrich wondered which of Erika's transgressions his wife resented more. Since asking would have landed him in hotter water than knowing was worth, he expected he'd go right on wondering.

Esther came back with two steins of pale gold pilsner. “Here you are.” She gave Heinrich one and Lise the other.

“Thanks.” Heinrich sipped. He nodded appreciatively. “Is that—?”

“Pilsner Urquell?” Esther said it before he could. She nodded, too. “It's good beer. And besides, buying it sends the Czechs a little money. They deserve all the help we can give them.” Her usually sunny face clouded for a moment. “Anyone who wants to get away from the
Reich
deserves all the help we can give them.”

“Omayn,”
Lise said softly. She and Heinrich and Esther and Susanna all smiled. That particular pronunciation of the word ordinary Germans said as
amen
was one Jews could only use among themselves, which meant it was one they couldn't use very often. Hearing it reminded Heinrich he was part of a small but very special club.

“Where's Walther?” he asked, at the same time as Lise was saying, “What smells so good?”

“I'm carving the goose,” Walther called from the kitchen, answering both questions at the same time. He added, “It probably won't be the neatest job in the world, because the joints aren't quite in the same places as they are on a capon. But the taste won't change. Esther's responsible for that.”

“The two of you cooked goose last summer, too,” Susanna said. “Lothar Prützmann's, I mean.”

Esther blushed like a schoolgirl. “Who can say for sure? The
Putsch
might have fallen apart anyhow. The SS had already started shooting at the
Wehrmacht
at the Berlin televisor station, and that would have started things rolling downhill on Prützmann all by itself.”

Heinrich shook his head. “Don't sell yourselves short. You weren't in the square when Stolle shouted out that Prützmann was a Jew. It took the wind right out of the SS panzer troopers' sails, and it gave the crowd something new and juicy to yell at them.” He sipped from his beer. “I was yelling it myself.” That he'd yelled it embarrassed him now, though it hadn't then.

“So was I, as loud as I could.” Susanna sounded proud and guilty at the same time.

Walther came out. He was wearing an apron, to guard against grease. He had a beer in one hand for himself and in the other a glass of liebfraumilch, which he gave to Esther. Heinrich raised his own seidel in salute. “Here's to getting that story out.”

“I'm just glad it may have helped,” Walther said. “At the time, I wasn't even close to sure I was doing the right thing.”

“Who was?” Heinrich answered. “But it worked out—as well as anything could have, anyhow.” If he'd had things exactly as he wanted them, everyone would have gathered at his house for supper, the way people had two years before. But he still had to assume the Security Police had planted bugs there, and that they were monitoring them. The blackshirts were down, but they weren't necessarily out.

Esther took his mind off his worries by saying, “Let's eat, shall we?” She went to the base of the stairs and hallooed for the children. Anna's bedroom door opened. She and the Gimpel girls reluctantly emerged. Whatever they'd been doing in there, they'd had a good time at it.

The table groaned with food. The goose was stuffed with sauerkraut and caraway seeds, and was done to perfection. There was liver dumpling soup, a purée of yellow peas, boiled potatoes with plenty of butter to slather on them, and a medley of green peas, carrots, asparagus, kohlrabi, and cauliflower garnished with more butter and salt and chopped parsley. There was home-baked bread with cinnamon and raisins and candied cherries—that accounted for the enticing spicy scent Heinrich had noticed when Esther opened the door. And there was a peach cobbler, if by some accident anyone had room for it.

Pilsner Urquell and liebfraumilch and Glenfiddich flowed freely for the grownups. For the children, as there had been two years earlier, there was wheat beer with raspberry syrup, not a treat they got every day. Anna and Alicia and Francesca were careful about how much they drank. Roxane wasn't. She put down a big glass of beer and turned almost as red as the syrup. She was yawning long before dessert, which didn't keep her from making a pretty good dent in the cobbler.

But that finished her off. Her eyes started to sag shut, no matter how she fought to keep them open. When she swayed in her chair, Heinrich went over and picked her up. “I'm not sleepy,” she said indignantly, around a yawn that showed off her tonsils.

“I know, sweetheart,” he said, “but I'm going to take you up to Anna's bedroom to rest for a little while anyway.” She didn't argue with him, a telling measure of how worn she was. He carried her up the stairs. That was harder work than he'd expected; he'd put away a lot of food himself. When he laid her on the bed, she started to snore. He watched her for a minute or two to make sure she wasn't pretending, then smiled, shook his head once or twice, and went back down to the dining room.

He hadn't even sat down before Francesca said, “Something funny's going on.” She pointed to Alicia. “When you turned ten like this, you got to stay up late, too, and Roxane and I had to go to bed. I remember.”

Alicia looked at Heinrich. When he didn't say anything, she did: “
You're
ten now, so it's your turn.”

“My turn for what?” Francesca asked, curiosity and suspicion warring in her voice.

Alicia looked at Heinrich again. This time, he knew he had to speak. Despite all he'd eaten and drunk, fear made his heart pound. The past two years had taught him more about danger than he ever wanted to know. But if this didn't go forward through time, what was the point to all that danger? None. None at all. He licked his lips. “Well, Francesca, we've got a secret to tell you….”