"Would you get us snacks first?" Roxane asked.
That seemed reasonable, so Lise did. Then they all went back to the living room. The Berlin channel was showing the tape of Stolle kicking at the panzer again. Francesca, in particular, watched wide-eyed. There was no room for dissent in Frau Koch's universe. Seeing that there was, or might be, in the real world seemed to hearten Lise's middle daughter. Alicia asked, "What are the other stations showing?"
"They were just putting on boring reruns, I suppose to make people think everything is normal," Lise answered. "But we can see what they're doing now."
She changed the channel. It wasn't a daytime drama any more. Horst Witzleben looked out of the screen at her and her children. "I have been given the following statement to read," he said. "And I quote…" He looked down at a paper on his desk. "'Rumors relating to the ancestry of the Reichsfuhrer — SS are false, malicious, and despicable lies. He is of unblemished Aryan descent. This being so, anyone repeating or spreading the false rumors will be subject to the most severe penalties. By order of the State Committee for the Salvation of the Greater German Reich.' We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming."
Regularly scheduled programming turned out to be a nature film about the migration of storks. "What did that mean, Mommy?" Roxane asked.
"I'm not quite sure," Lise answered.
"He didn't look very happy about it, whatever it was," Alicia said. "He didn't sound very happy, either."
"You're right-he didn't," Lise said. Witzleben had been a cheerleader for Heinz Buckliger's reforms. If he'd actually been as enthusiastic a cheerleader as he'd seemed, what had Prutzmann's bully boys done to persuade him to speak on their behalf? Held a gun to his head? Held a gun to his wife's head? There were, no doubt, all sorts of ways, and they'd be the ones to know them. She changed channels again. The Berlin station was still broadcasting. The crowd around Rolf Stolle's residence was still there. Lise shrugged. "We'll just have to see what happens, that's all."
"Let me through!" somebody with a big voice shouted behind Heinrich. "Get out of my way, dammit! Clear a path!"
"In your dreams, pal," Willi Dorsch said.
Even if they didn't clear a path, the man kept on coming, using his shoulders and his elbows to force his way forward. He was a Berlin police officer. People did try to move aside for him, but in the press of bodies it wasn't easy. "Let me through!" he yelled again. "I've got important news for the Gauleiter."
He pushed past Heinrich and Willi. A moment later, a woman spoke sharply: "You might say, 'Excuse me.'"
For a wonder, the policeman actually did say, "Sorry, lady." Then, as roughly as ever, he went on toward Rolf Stolle, who was still arguing with the commander of the lead panzer.
"Was that your friend who called him on his manners?" Willi asked, grinning.
"Susanna? I do believe it was," Heinrich answered.
"She's got nerve," Willi said admiringly.
"Oh, yes. That she does."
There was a stir when the police officer came up to the gray-uniformed men guarding the Gauleiter of Berlin. They must have recognized him, for they let him through. He spoke to Stolle for perhaps a minute and a half. Heinrich wasn't that far away, but couldn't hear a word he said. He could see Stolle's reaction, though. The Gauleiter stared. His eyes went wide with surprise. Then, to Heinrich's amazement, he threw back his head and bellowed Jovian laughter at the sky.
"What the hell?" Willi said.
"Beats me," Heinrich said.
That great bellow of mirth had made everybody within a hundred meters turn and look at Stolle. With a sense of timing an actor might have envied, the Gauleiter waited for people's attention to wing his way before shouting up to the panzer commander: "Hey, you! SS man!"
"What do you want?" the officer in the black coveralls asked warily.
"You know your boss? The high and mighty Reichsfuhrer — SS? The chief Aryan of all time? Lothar goddamn Prutzmann? You know who I'm talking about?" Rolf Stolle waited again. He looked as if he could afford to let the moment stretch. He also looked as if he was enjoying himself immensely.
The panzer commander saw that as clearly as Heinrich did. His nod was a small masterpiece of reluctance. "I know who you're talking about. What about him?" He didn't use the bullhorn now.
That was sensible. It was even smart. But when he went up against Rolf Stolle's leather lungs, it didn't do him much good. "What about him? I'll tell you what about him, you pickle-faced son of a bitch," Stolle boomed in a voice audible all across the square in front of his residence. "You know what your precious Aryan Prutzmann is? He's a Jew, that's what-nothing but a lousy kike in a fancy uniform!"
"Why, you lying toad!" the panzer commander exclaimed, shocked out of his reticence as the crowd began to buzz.
Stolle shook his bullet head. "Not me, by God! What do you SS bastards use for a motto? 'My honor is loyalty,' that's it. Well, on my honor, it's the truth. It's all over the computers-and Prutzmann's come out and said on the televisor that people aren't allowed to talk about it. If that doesn't make it true, what's likely to? Here." He shoved the newly arrived police officer forward. "Tell him, Norbert."
Norbert told the same story the Gauleiter had, in a higher, thinner voice but with more details. Beside Heinrich, Willi Dorsch listened with his eyes wide and his mouth hanging open. He had to shake himself to turn back to Heinrich. "That can't be true, can it? But if it's a lie, it's a lie that goes right for the throat. And if it's a lie, why would Prutzmann deny it like that? Sounds like panic. And what would make him panic like the truth?"
"Beats me." Heinrich started to quote Hitler about the big lie, but checked himself. He remembered how the Kleins had got released after they were seized. One of Prutzmann's relatives had had a baby with the same horrible disease as theirs. Maybe that was a coincidence. Or maybe the Reichsfuhrer — SS really did have Jews in his woodpile, and his enemies were seizing on it.
Where was Susanna? There, only a few meters away. She was looking back toward him as he was looking for her. When their eyes met, he saw her thoughts were going in the same direction as his. Lothar Prutzmann certainly wasn't a Jew in any meaningful sense of the word. But wouldn't it be luscious if the Reichsfuhrer — SS came to grief because people thought he was?
The panzer commander disappeared down into the turret once more, no doubt to get on the radio yet again. Heinrich would have given a good deal to be a fly sitting on the breech of the cannon in there. No such luck. Whatever the officer said, no one else but his fellow panzer crewmen heard it.
He didn't emerge for some little while. When he did, his troubled features proclaimed that he didn't like much of what he'd heard. Even so, he raised the bullhorn to his lips once more. Gamely, he said, " Achtung!What the Gauleiter says is nothing but a pack of lies. Anyone saying such things about the Reichsfuhrer — SS makes himself liable to severe punishment. You have been warned."
Rolf Stolle laughed again. "Yes, you have been warned,Volk of the Reich," he called, mockery dancing on his voice. "And what have you got to say about that?"
He waited. So did Heinrich. Would the people dare, after they'd been warned not to by men with guns?
They dared. "Prutzmann is a kike!" somebody yelled, and in an instant the whole crowd was chanting it: "Prutzmann is a kike! Prutzmann is a kike!"
Heinrich shouted it, too, as loud as anybody. "Prutzmann is a kike! Prutzmann is a kike!" He looked over to Susanna again. She was shouting the same thing, her hands cupped in front of her mouth. When their eyes met this time, they both started to laugh. They went right on chanting, though. Heinrich had never imagined anti-Semitic slogans could be so much fun.