"Prutzmann is a kike! Prutzmann is a kike!" With her mother and sisters, Alicia watched the crowd in front of Rolf Stolle's residence from the safety of her suburban living room. The panzers in the televisor screen looked like toys, though she knew they were real.
"Kike! Kike!" Roxane chortled gleefully. The word was almost a joke to her. She didn't know that she'd ever seen a Jew, let alone that she was one.
Neither did Francesca. "I wonder what the Beast will tell us aboutthis," she said. "She was going on and on about how wonderful the Reichsfuhrer — SS was, and how brave, and how patriotic. If he's really a dirty Jew…"
"Dirty Jew! Dirty Jew!" Roxane didn't seem to care what she shouted, as long as she could make noise.
Alicia didn't say anything. She didn't know what to say. She sneaked a glance at Mommy, only to find her mother looking as confused as she was. Everything seemed not just upside down but dropped on its head. Alicia didn't know why Rolf Stolle and his followers thought Prutzmann was a Jew. Why hardly seemed to matter. Of all the things they could call the head of the SS, none struck a harder blow against him. Alicia understood that. She also understood that the Reichsfuhrer — SS was against all the changes the new Fuhrer had made. Did that mean using this weapon against him was all right? She didn't know. That wasn't so easy to figure out.
Over the noise of the crowd, the announcer for the Berlin station spoke in a high, excited voice: "British Prime Minister Charles Lynton calls on the men who made the Putsch to end their lawless behavior at once and release the rightful Fuhrer, Heinz Buckliger. He is joined in this call by the leaders of Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and Finland. The premier of France also agrees in principle."
"Can they do that?" Francesca asked in astonishment. The states that made up the Germanic Empire didn't talk back to the Reich. That was a law of nature. Neither did its little allies. Not talking back kept them from getting swallowed up.
"It means they think what's going on here is really, really wrong," Alicia said.
Mommy nodded. "That's what it means, all right. And they're braver than they used to be, because the new Fuhrer made them freer than they used to be."
"Holland has joined in the call for the rightful Fuhrer 's release. And"-even on this day of one astonishing surprise after another, the announcer's voice rose to a startled squeak-"in Prague, a Czech organization called Unity has declared the independence of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia from what it terms the illegal, immoral, and illegitimate government of Odilo Globocnik and Lothar Prutzmann."
"Oh, my," Mommy said. "That will mean more trouble after they get this trouble settled, if they do get it settled."
"When's Daddy coming home?" Roxane asked.
That question had also crossed Alicia's mind. She thought she'd got a glimpse of him-and maybe even of Aunt Susanna-near the panzer closest to Rolf Stolle's residence. But she hadn't been sure, and the camera had panned away before she could say anything.
"Pumpkin, I don't know," Mommy answered. "He went to the square there on the televisor this morning. Getting there was easy then. Getting away is liable to be harder. I'm not even sure they're letting people leave."
Alicia didn't like the sound of that. She tried not to show how worried she was. She had to stay strong, to help Mommy keep her younger sisters from getting upset. All she could do was wait and watch the televisor.
"Nobody's done any shooting here," her mother said. "As long as it stays like that, everything's all right."
And then, suddenly, the Berlin station announcer's voice rose not in surprise but in anger and alarm and fear: "We are under attack! I say again, we are under attack! There are SS troops outside this building, and they are assaulting it as I speak! They want to cut the Volk off from the truth and-"
There were banging noises, and shouts, and what might have been gunshots. Then the screen went blank. Alicia and her mother exclaimed in dismay. Francesca and Roxane were too little to know what that static and those swirling grays meant. As far as Alicia was concerned, they meant the end of hope.
"Change the channel!" Francesca said.
"Wait," Mommy said. "I want to see what comes on next."
What came on next, after three or four minutes of hisses and scratchy noises that made Alicia wish Mommy would change the channel, was a test pattern. Francesca and Alicia groaned. The test pattern lasted longer than the static had. Alicia's patience was wearing very thin when it finally disappeared.
Horst Witzleben's grim face replaced it. The newscaster said, "The illegal and unauthorized broadcasts formerly coming from this station have now ceased. The public is urged and instructed to disregard them, and to ignore the slanderous insults aimed at the Reichsfuhrer — SS. Regular programming will now resume here, and factual bulletins will be issued as necessary. Good evening."
Regular programming turned out to be a rerun of a game show. Alicia looked at her mother. Shaking her head, Mommy got up and turned off the televisor.
XV
Heinrich Gimpel had yelled, "Down with the SS!" and "We are the Volk!" and "All the world is watching!" and "Prutzmann is a kike!" all day long. He was tired and hungry. Some sandwiches and fruit had got to the crowd, but none had got to him. The SS's armored vehicles hadn't opened fire, but they hadn't left, either. They showed no sign of leaving. Nor was he sure they would let him-or anyone else-go.
The officer commanding the lead panzer had stayed down inside the turret for a while. Now he came out again, bullhorn in hand. "Yell as loud as you please!" he blared. "No one will hear you. No one will care. Your pirate televisor station is in the hands of the State Committee!"
"Liar!" people shouted. They shouted worse things than that, too. The panzer commander let the abuse wash over him as if it didn't matter. More than anything else, that convinced Heinrich he was probably telling the truth. If he'd got angry or defensive, he might have been bluffing. As things were, he seemed to think,Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will never hurt me. And all the sticks and stones here were on his side. The crowd in front of the Gauleiter 's residence had only words.
Still stubborn, Rolf Stolle boomed, "You don't dare let what you do see the light of day. If you were honest, you would have started shooting while the cameras were rolling."
Beside Heinrich, Willi nervously shifted from foot to foot. "I wish he wouldn't say things like that, dammit. He'll give the bastard ideas."
"He's got ideas already. He has to," Heinrich answered. "Don't you think they've been screaming in his ear to open up for hours? He hasn't done it yet. Stolle's working on his conscience."
"Son of a bitch is an SS man," Willi said. "He had it surgically removed, just like the rest of them."
"Ha," Heinrich said: a mournful attempt at a laugh. Many a true word was spoken in jest. He wished Willi hadn't spoken these; they felt altogether too true.
Slowly, slowly, the sun sank toward the northwest. Berlin wasn't far enough north to get white nights in summer, nights where twilight never turned to real darkness, but sunset came late and darkness didn't last long. All the same, Heinrich feared it would last long enough to mask dark deeds.
He looked around for Susanna. When he spied her, their eyes met. She smiled and waved. "We've both chosen our spot," she said. "I think it's a good one."
A good one to get killed in,Heinrich thought. But maybe that was part of what Susanna had meant. She got passionately devoted to causes-and if you weren't passionately devoted to being a Jew these days, you weren't a Jew at all. Even so, Heinrich wanted to live. He had another generation at home to worry about. Susanna hadn't been lucky enough to hook up with anyone with whom she got along.