"I told you-with Heinrich," Willi answered.
"Yes, you told me. Now try telling the truth, because I know crap when I hear it," Erika snarled. Lise looked at Heinrich in surprise-she'd known something was going on, all right, but she hadn't realized Willi was out-and-out lying. Heinrich did his best to keep all expression off his face. Anything he did or said now was only liable to throw gasoline on the fire.
Willi got to his feet with ponderous dignity. "I don't have to take these kinds of questions," he declared. "You're not the Security Police, even if you think you are." He left the table and walked down the hall again.
Erika looked daggers at his back. "Bastard," she said, just as the bathroom door closed. She turned back to Heinrich and Lise, her eyes going from one of them to the other and then returning. "I swear, there are times when I'd like to sleep with the first man I happen to see, just to pay him back." She was staring squarely at Heinrich when she said that.
He tried to look at the floor, at the ceiling, out the window-anywhere but at either Willi's wife or his own. He kept waiting for Willi to flush the toilet again. But Willi, this time, was using the bathroom as a bomb shelter, and odds were he wouldn't come out any time soon.
Silence stretched. At last, warily, Lise said, "Don't you think that's a little…drastic?"
"Why?" Erika didn't keep her voice down. If anything, she pitched it to carry. "If he's fooling around on me, why shouldn't I fool around on him?"
More silence. Heinrich decided he'd better say something. If he didn't, Lise was liable to get the idea he wanted Erika thinking about him like that. He chose his words with even more caution than Lise had: "If you're going to stay married, it's probably a good idea that neither one of you fool around on the other."
"Ha!" Erika said: a one-syllable demolition of the very idea. Lise had started to nod in agreement with her husband. That scornful laugh froze her for a moment with her chin in the air. She looked as if she needed a distinct effort to bring her head back down to a normal posture.
After what seemed like forever, water ran in the pipes at the far end of the hall. Willi came back to the bridge table looking grim. "We'd better go," he said to Erika. "It's getting late."
"It certainly is-in a lot of ways," she answered. "And we have a few things to talk about, don't we?"
"Yes, just a few," Willi said. The Dorsches headed up the street for the bus stop after the most perfunctory good-byes. They were shouting at each other long before they got there.
"Well!" Lise said. "That was another interesting evening."
"Interesting." Heinrich considered. "Mm, yes, that's one word for it, anyhow."
"It was the politest word I could think of," his wife replied. "What exactly did Erika mean there? And whowas Willi at lunch with?"
Answering the second question seemed safer, so Heinrich did that first: "Ilse-again-if lunch is where they went." Lise's eyes widened. Her mouth shaped a silentoh. But her expression said she hadn't forgotten the other question, either. Unhappily, he told her, "Erika probably meant just what she said. She usually does."
"I know she does. That's why I wondered." Lise frowned. "But she was looking at you when she said it. I didn't much care for that. What did you think about it?"
Now there was a question to make a man want to pretend he'd suddenly gone deaf. "It's a compliment of sorts," said Heinrich, whose ears still worked, however much he wished they didn't. His wife coughed dangerously. "Will you let me finish?" he exclaimed. Lise gave back a pace in surprise; he didn't raise his voice very often. He went on, "It's notmuch of a compliment, not when she would have said the same thing to any man who happened to be in the neighborhood." He didn't mention that Erika had already said the same thing about him in particular. He did add, "And I've told you before-I know when I'm well off."
"Oh, you do, do you?" Lise sent him a challenging stare. "How am I supposed to be sure of that?"
He took her in his arms. He kissed her. His hands wandered. "I'll think of something," he said, before adding the father's usual caveat: "If the children stay quiet, anyhow."
He was lucky. They did.
Children in the United States, Alicia Gimpel had learned, got long summer vacations from school. Her teachers said that scornfully. They offered it as one of the reasons Germany had beaten the USA: Americans didn't study enough, and had been too ignorant to take full advantage of their country's riches. No matter what her teachers said, though, the idea sounded wonderful to Alicia.
Here it was the middle of August, and she remained in school. The only real breaks she got were two weeks around Christmas and New Year's and another week at Easter time. The rest of the year was school, punctuated by much-too-occasional holidays.
Herr Kessler said, "Many important things have happened in our country. the Fuhrer is setting us on a new course, and that is the way we shall go. Matthias Walbeck!"
The boy jumped up and came to attention. "Jawohl, Herr Kessler!"
"Tell me how the Fuhrer is changing the Reich."
Poor Matthias couldn't do it. He was a big, strong boy, but good-natured-not a bully at all. Unfortunately, he also was not a scholar at all. He stayed at attention, his face a mask of misery. "I'm very sorry,Herr Kessler," he whispered. "Please excuse me."
Kessler took the paddle off the nail where it hung. Matthias turned and bent over. The teacher delivered a swat that made the boy hop forward. But Matthias let out not a peep. Showing weakness would only have earned him more. "You must study, Matthias," the teacher said. "You must pay attention."
"I will,Herr Kessler. I promise,Herr Kessler," Matthias said. Everyone in the classroom-probably including him-knew the promise would be broken.
The teacher's glower raked the room. Alicia knew the answer. She didn't throw up her hand, though. Volunteering too often got you a reputation as a teacher's pet. She already had more of that reputation than she wanted.
Herr Kessler picked another hapless student, this one a girl. She couldn't answer, either. He swatted her, too. When he was in a bad mood, he would choose children who weren't likely to know what he wanted, just so he could hand out swat after swat. He wasn't the only teacher in the school who did that, either.Frau Koch was universally known as "the Beast" to her students, and had been for years-but not a teacher ever heard the nickname.
After dealing out yet another whack on the bottom,Herr Kessler put the paddle back in its place. "I don't know what the younger generation is coming to," he said sadly. "When the Fuhrer speaks, you must listen. And what is his name, class?"
"Heinz Buckliger,Herr Kessler," the children chorused.
"Very good. You've learned that, anyway," the teacher said. "And Heinz Buckliger has said that not everything we did in days gone by was perfect, so some things must change. And why must things change?"
"Because the Fuhrer is always right,Herr Kessler," the whole class said together.
That was the right answer. Alicia knew it was. Teachers had been drilling it into students since kindergarten. She sang out as confidently as her classmates. So she was amazed when Herr Kessler shook his head. "No. What did I just say?"
They were trained to repeat his words back to him. They did now: "And Heinz Buckliger has said that not everything we did in days gone by was perfect, so some things must change."
"Yes." Kessler nodded. "So why must things change, then?"
"Because the Fuhrer says so." Again, all the children were sure they had it right. Again, Alicia was as sure as any of the others.
But the teacher shook his head once more. "No. You are wrong. What did the new Fuhrer say?"
"That not everything we did in days gone by was perfect, and-"