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 Fuhrer to me. How could he be a Fuhrer if he wasn't wearing a uniform?"
Seeing Heinz Buckliger in an ordinary suit had also startled Alicia. Still, she said, "He's the Fuhrer, all right. Who else could he be? He spoke from the Fuhrer '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 whothey might be, but there was always athey 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 Fuhrer '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 Fuhrer 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 Fuhrer 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 Fuhrer 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 thi
s-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 Fuhrer 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."
"Er-yes," he said, feeling as if he were walking into a hornets' nest but unable to escape. He did his best: "Excuse me, please. I need some of those purple onions."
Erika didn't step aside. "Heinrich, why don't you like me?" she asked.
Hornets all around, sure as hell. "I like you fine," he said. "I still need onions, though."
"You don't act like you like me," Erika said.
She said it most pointedly-too pointedly for him to ignore. "I like you fine," he repeated. "I also like your husband. I also like my wife."
"I like your wife, too," Erika said. "So what? As for my husband, you're welcome to him. And if you like him the way you like me, the Security Police will sew a pink triangle on your camp uniform for you."
If he got a camp uniform, it would have a yellow Star of David, not a pink triangle. Would they bother? Or, if they found out what he was, would they just dispose of him like a crumpled-up tissue? He suspected the latter, but he didn't want to find out. He said, "I really do need those onions." He supposed he should have said something about not liking Erika that way, but she would have known he was lying.
"I've never chased a man in my life," Erika said, wonder in her voice. "Up till now, I never had to." Heinrich believed that. She eyed him with genuine curiosity. "What makes you so stubborn?"
I'm a Jew,he thought.Of course I'm stubborn. I have to be. If I weren't stubborn, would I have clung to this? He also had to be stubborn about not revealing what he was to anyone who could harm him with the knowledge. No matter how decorative Erika was, she fell into that group. She wanted him now, or thought she did. Odds were the challenge he represented interested her more than his skinny body did. But if she knew and she decided she didn't want him any more…In that case, he was one telephone call from disaster.
Since he couldn't tell her his first reason, he fell back on the second one: "I told you-I like Lise. We've been happy together for a long time. Why do I want to complicate my life? Life is complicated enough already."
"You make everything sound so sensible, so logical." Erika shook her head. "It isn't, not really."
Part of him knew she was right. But he clung to rationality anyhow-clung to it all the harder, perhaps, because it offered something of a shield against the horrors the German regime had perpetrated. "I try to make it that way for me, anyhow," he said.
She eyed him for a moment, then shook her head. "You'll find out," she said, and pushed past him to give her money to Herr Tinnacher.
Heinrich didn't like the sound of that. He also didn't like her going home with a stringbag full of vegetables. Willi was liable to think they'd arranged a meeting at the grocer's. Heinrich sighed. He couldn't do anything about that. He could get the onions and the cabbage. He took them up to Tinnacher.
The grocer weighed them, told him what they cost, took his five-Reichsmark note, and handed him change. Since Heinrich didn't have a sack of his own, Tinnacher grudgingly pulled one out from under the counter. "Fine-looking woman,Frau Dorsch," he remarked as he put the purple onions in on top of the cabbage.
"Can't argue with you there," Heinrich said.
"If she set her sights on me, I wouldn't complain."Herr Tinnacher chuckled rheumily. He was in his mid-sixties, and looked like a wizened frog. The chance that Erika would set her sights on him was better than the chance that he would win the state lottery, but it wasn't much better. Of course, without evidence to the contrary Heinrich would have said the same about the chance of her setting her sights on him. But he had that evidence, even if he didn't want it.
He also had to answer the grocer. "We're just friends," he said. Tinnacher chuckled again. That knowing little croak was one of the most obscene sounds Heinrich had ever heard. It said Tinnacher didn't believe a word of it. Heinrich got out of the grocery so fast, he almost left the sack with the cabbage and onions on the counter.
When he came home, he thrust the sack at Lise. "Here's your damned vegetables," he snarled.
"I'm sorry," she said in surprise. "If you'd told me it would be a problem, I would have gone and bought them myself."
"It's not the vegetables," he said. "I ran into Erika at the grocer's."
"Oh?" His wife packed a lot of meaning into one word. "And?" She packed a lot of meaning into two words, too.
"She's not happy with Willi. She's not happy with anything," Heinrich said.
"Would she be happy with you?" Lise asked.
"It doesn't matter. I wouldn't be happy with her," he answered.Not for more than half an hour, anyway. The animal part of him was harder to extinguish than he wished it were.
"Uh-huh." The look in Lise's eye said she knew all about that part. "And would you say the same thing if you were agoy?" She dropped her voice at the last word, which was one Jews could safely use only around other Jews.
Heinrich winced. It was a much better question than he wished it were. Instead of answering directly, he took two bottles of beer out of the refrigerator, opened them, and gave Lise one. "Here," he said, raising the bottle he still held. "Here's to us. I know when I'm well
off."
"You'd better," she told him. She knew he hadn't really answered her. He could tell. She undoubtedly knew why, too. But she drank with him even so. If that wasn't love, he had no idea what to call it. She said, "I can't be too annoyed at you. Sheis pretty, and you do seem to have some idea where you belong. Some."
"I should hope so!" Heinrich said fervently.
Too fervently? So it seemed, because his wife started to laugh. "You also overact," she told him, and swigged from the beer.
"Who, me?" he said-overacting. Lise laughed louder. Changing the subject looked like a good idea, so he did: "How are the children?" He waited to see if Lise would let him get away with it.
She did, answering, "They're fine. Alicia isso glad she's getting out of Herr Kessler's class soon. I don't blame her a bit, either. I've talked with the man a few times. He wishes he belonged in the SS. Do you know what I mean?"
"Oh, yes." Heinrich nodded. "I had a couple like that myself. They're the lords of the classroom, and don't they know it?"
"Alicia asked if the new Fuhrer 's changes would have anything to do with schools," Lise said. "How do you answer a question like that?"
"'I don't know' usually works pretty well," he said. She made a face at him. He held up a hand. "I'm serious, sweetheart. Who can tell which way Buckliger's going to go with this stuff? He's already talked more about changing things than anybody who came before him. Will he do more than talk? Can he get away with more?"
His wife shrugged. "Who knows? We'll find out. And how are Erika's children?" She brought the question out casually, which only made it more dangerous.
"I don't know," Heinrich said, which was the truth. "She didn't talk about them."
"Uh-huh," Lise said again: not quite Mene, mene, tekel upharsin, but a judgment just the same.
VIII
Like the rest of the jews in the Greater German Reich, Lise Gimpel had never been to, never even seen, High Holy Days services. She'd heard about going to a synagogue to celebrate the New Year and the Day of Atonement from her grandfather. Being able to worship openly struck her as even more amazing than the holidays themselves.
In The Presence of mine Enemies Page 25