Buckliger hadn't said a word about Jews, not in his speech on the televisor and not in anything else Heinrich and Walther had been able to uncover. But he had cast some doubt on the overwhelming importance of Aryan blood. And how much didthat mean?
"I want to hope," Lise murmured, to herself and possibly to God. "It's been so long. Iwant to hope."
Willi Dorsch glowered in mock severity-Heinrich Gimpel hoped the severity was mock, anyway-as he climbed aboard the bus that would carry Heinrich and him to the Stahnsdorf train station. He sat down next to Heinrich and demanded, "Well, what have you got to say for yourself?"
Did he know? Had Erika been as forthright as she often was? Or had he just added two and two and come up with-surprise! — four? If he did know, he was going to have to come out and say so. "Well, how does 'good morning' sound?" Heinrich answered.
"It'll do." With a grin, Willi thumped him on the back. "Better than a lot of things you could have told me."
"I'm so glad." Heinrich hoped irony would keep Willi from noticing he was telling the exact and literal truth. Having got away with one question, he tried another: "And how are you today?"
"I could be worse. I have been worse. I probably will be worse again before too long," Willi answered. Heinrich concluded he and Erika hadn't fought during the night. The way things had been going with them, that was indeed something. His friend went on, "How about yourself?"
"Me? I just go on from day to day," Heinrich said. That was true enough. Getting through the High Holy Days every year reminded him of just how true it was.
"Just go on from day to day," Willi repeated, and sighed gustily. "Christ, I wish I could say the same. I never know if tomorrow will blow up in my face."
Neither do I,Heinrich thought.And you're talking about your marriage. I'm talking about my life. He'd grown very used to thinking things he couldn't say. What he could say was, "I hope everything turns out all right."
"You're a good fellow, you know that?" Willi sounded a little maudlin, or maybe more than a little, as he might have after too much to drink. But this morning he didn't smell like a distillery, and he didn't wince at every noise and every sunbeam like a man with a hangover. Maybe he really was just glad to have a friend. And how glad would he be after a few ill-chosen words from Erika?
Those words evidently hadn't come. Maybe they wouldn't. Heinrich dared hope. In the Reich, the mere act of hoping was-had to be-an act of courage for a Jew. With a shrug, Heinrich said, "All I know is, I've got too much work waiting for me at the office."
"Ha! Who doesn't?" Willi said. "Our section could have twice as many people in it, and we'd still be behind. Of course, if the new Fuhrer cuts the assessments in the Empire the way he's been talking about, we'll all end up out of work."
"Do you think he will?" Heinrich asked with even more genuine curiosity than he dared show.
"Me? I'm not going to try and guess along with him any more, no, sir," Willi said. "I was wrong a couple of times, and all that proves is, I shouldn't do it."
The bus pulled into the train station. Heinrich and Willi hurried off. They both paused to buy copies of the Volkischer Beobachter from a vending machine, then went to the platform to catch the commuter train into Berlin.
They sat side by side, reading the paper. Heinrich, as usual, went through it methodically. Willi was a butterfly, flitting from story to story. He found as many interesting tidbits as Heinrich did, and sometimes found them faster. "Americans question assessment," he said, pointing to a piece on page five.
Heinrich, who hadn't got there on his own yet, flipped to the story. He read it, then shook his head. "They can question, but it won't do them much good," he said. "The occupying authorities will collect their pound of flesh one way or another."
"Ah, a pound of flesh." Willi laughed wistfully. "I remember how much fun that used to be."
Heinrich winced at the pun. Maybe that wince was what made him ask, "What about Ilse?" Normally, he would think such a thing, but he wouldn't say it. The wry joke had made him drop some of his defenses. He didn't like that. He couldn't afford to drop them, even for an instant.
Willi blinked. He hadn't expected the question, any more than Heinrich had expected to ask it. After a pause when Heinrich wondered if he would answer at all, he said, "Ilse's sweet, and she's good in bed, but it's not the same, you know what I mean?"
"I…think so," Heinrich said. He thought about making love with a near-stranger after so long with Lise and nobody else. Yes, that would be very odd, especially the first few times. Then he thought about making love with Erika, who was, after all, anything but a stranger. What wouldthat be like?Cut it out, he told himself sternly. Most of him listened.
"You're lucky, being happy where you are," Willi said, and dove back into the newspaper.
"Yes, I suppose I am," Heinrich said, which was certainly the truth, for he would have been stuck where he was whether he was happy or not. Divorce drew notice to a couple, even these days. Jews mostly stayed married no matter how badly they got along.
A lot ofgoyim did the same thing. Willi said, "If it weren't for the kids, and if it weren't for the way people look at you funny afterwards, Erika and I would have split up by now. Hell, we may yet, in spite of all that stuff."
"I hope not," Heinrich said, which was true for all kinds of reasons his friend didn't understand. He chose one Willi would: "If you guys broke up, we'd have to find somebody else to beat at bridge."
"Ha! Whathave you been smoking?" That touched Willi's pride where a lot of other gibes wouldn't have. And if he thought of Heinrich as a rival at the card table, maybe he wouldn't worry about him any other way.
The train pulled into South Station. Heinrich and Willi rode the escalators to the upper level, where they caught the bus to Oberkommando der Wehrmacht headquarters. Heinrich went to his desk with more than a little apprehension-not only because now he knew Willi was sleeping with Ilse, but also because the Americans were acting up. When they did that, they made his job harder. He had enough other things to worry about without trouble from the far side of the Atlantic.
But sure as hell, four people came up to him in the first hour he was there, all of them with the Beobachter in their hands. They all wanted to know what the Yankees would do, and what the Reich would do to them after they did it. "We'll have to wait and see," Heinrich said again and again, which satisfied no one.
He said the same thing to two more men on the telephone. One was a lieutenant general, a man who disliked ambiguity of any sort. "Dammit, I need to know if we're going to move or not," the officer growled.
"So do I, sir," Heinrich answered. The general swore and hung up.
When the telephone rang again, Heinrich felt like swearing, too. "Budget analysis-Gimpel speaking," he said.
"Good morning to you,Herr Gimpel. This is Charlie Cox, calling from Omaha." The American's German was fluent, but had the flat accent English-speakers gave the language.
"I know your name,Herr Cox. You are in the Department of the Treasury,nicht wahr? What can I do for you today?"
"You can tell me how serious Herr Buckliger is about a new deal for the different parts of the Germanic Empire." Cox didn't beat around the bush. And that, of course, would bethe question in the eyes of any American administrator.
It was alsothe question, or at least closely related tothe question, in Heinrich's eyes. It happened to be one he couldn't answer, either for Charlie Cox or for himself. "I'm very sorry,Herr Cox," he said, and meant it. "I don't make policy. I just implement it when someone else has made it."
Cox grunted. "Well, I don't suppose I really could have expected you to say anything else. But you've got to have some kind of idea about how things will work out. You're a hell of a lot closer there than we are here."