Here they were! She started to carry the manila folder to the fireplace, then hesitated. They might wonder why she had a fire going, or find the remnants of photos in the ashes. Lise knew she wasn't thinking too clearly. She also knew she couldn't afford to take any chances at all.
She brought the folder into the downstairs bathroom instead. She started tearing the photos into little bits and flushing them down the commode. She couldn't help seeing some of what she destroyed. Here was the raw stuff of history, disappearing one flush at a time. Part of her thought that wasn't right-there should be some record of the Germans' crimes. The rest…She was shaking and in tears by the time the job was done. Heinrich would have shownthat to little girls? The medicine was strong-too strong, she thought.
And she couldn't keep on shaking and crying. Even though this part of the job was done, she still had more to do. She went to the telephone and dialed. It rang six or seven times before a man said, "Bitte?" in a sleepy voice.
"Richard?" she said. "Richard, this is Lise Gimpel."
"What do you want? You woke me up," Richard Klein grumbled.
Woke you up? In the middle of the afternoon?Lise blinked at that. Then she remembered he was a trombone player. Musicians kept strange hours. "Richard, I need the name and number of that lawyer you used last year. You're not going to believe it, but Heinrich has the same problem you did."
"Gott im Himmel!" Klein exploded. He didn't sound sleepy any more. "Hang on. I'll get it for you." He came back on the line a minute later. "He's Klaus Menzel. Here's his phone number. Have you got something to write with?"
"Yes." Lise took down the number.
Richard said, "Good luck. Take care of yourself. Let us know what happens." Those were all things one friend could say to another without giving anything away to anyone tapping the line.
"Thanks," Lise said, and hung up. She could have made other calls: to her sister, to the Stutzmans, to Susanna Weiss, to a few-so few! — other people she knew. She could have, but she didn't. She had a plausible reason for calling the Kleins' house. She couldn't bring them under greater suspicion by doing so. That wasn't true of the others. She didn't want the Security Police wondering about her side of the family and her friends. Even if the worst happened to her, they could go on.
Besides, they would hear soon enough, one way or the other.
She called the lawyer and set up an appointment first thing in the morning-and got his promise to try to make sure nothing drastic happened before then. She'd just hung up the phone there when someone started banging on the front door.
She didn't need three guesses to know who that was. The banging went on and on. As she walked out to get the door, she wondered if she would be able to keep that appointment after all.
Susanna Weiss sat on her couch, a glass of Glenfiddich in her hand. The news was on, but she couldn't pay attention to Horst tonight. She took a long pull at the scotch. It wasn't the first one she'd had. It wouldn't be the last one she intended to have, either. If she felt like hell in the morning-and she probably would-well, that was why God made aspirin.
"Heinrich," she muttered, and shook her head in wonder mingled with despair. When Maria Klein asked her to meet for a drink, she'd known something was wrong. Something, yes, butthat? She shook her head again.
Of them all, Heinrich Gimpel was the last one she'd expected to get caught. He was the one who never took chances, who never seemed to have the nerve to take chances. No Jew could afford to draw too much notice. But Heinrich often went out of his way to be not just solid and unexciting but downright boring. Susanna sometimes wondered what Lise, who was a good deal more lively, saw in him. She supposed something had to be there.
And now the Security Police had him. How hard were they leaning on him? How hardcould they lean on him? the Fuhrer had asked for information from him, after all. They had to know that. Even if he was a Jew, it should count for something…shouldn't it?
She finished her drink, got up, and poured herself another one. It all depended on how much they knew, or thought they knew. If they were sure Heinrich was what they said he was, they would go ahead and do whatever they wanted with-and to-him. The more doubts they had, the more careful they'd need to be. So it seemed to Susanna, anyway. They wouldn't want to tear answers out of a man who might be able to get his own back one day…would they?
They might not care. They might decide that, once they'd used him up, he wouldn't be able to do anything to them anyhow. Who in the Reich in the past seventy years had been able to do anything to the organization Lothar Prutzmann now ran? Nobody. Nobody at all.
Horst went away. Susanna couldn't remember a single thing he'd talked about. A game show came on, with a wisecracking host and a statuesque blond sidekick. Susanna usually turned off the televisor the instant the news ended. Tonight, she left it on, more for the sake of background noise than for any other reason.
The questions were stupid. Some of the answers the contestants gave were even stupider. And the way the people jumped up and down and squealed-men as well as women-made Susanna cringe.This was the Herrenvolk? This was the material from which the Nazis had forged a Reich they said would last for a thousand years?
"If this is the master race, Lord help the rest of the world," Susanna said. But what had the Lord done for the rest of the world? Given most of it German overlords, that was what. How could you go on believing in a God Who went and did things like that?
Susanna looked down and discovered her glass was empty again. That, fortunately, was easy to fix. The book-crowded living room swayed a little when she got up. She made it to the kitchen and back without any trouble, though-and she didn't spill the fresh drink, either. As for how and why you could go on believing in a God Who did dreadful things-people had been wrestling with that at least since the time of Job. She wasn't going to settle it one drunken, frightened night in Berlin.
And if she drank enough, maybe she'd even stop worrying. She set about finding out.
Heinrich Gimpel sat in a cell that held a cot whose frame was immovably set in the concrete of the floor, a sink, a toilet, and damn all else. Whenever he stood, he had to hang on to his trousers. They'd taken away his belt-his shoelaces, too.
Of course, the first thing they'd done when they got him here was yank down his trousers and his underpants. They'd grunted when they saw he was made the same way they were. One of them said, "Is that all you've got?" He supposed that sort of insult was meant to tear him down so he'd be easier meat when they really started questioning him. He wondered why they bothered. He was already about as frightened as he could be. He was so frightened, he reckoned it a minor miracle he had anything at all to show down there.
They hadn't beaten him-not yet, anyway. They hadn't drugged him, either. They'd just tossed him in this cell and left him alone. He didn't know what that meant. Were they working up something particularly horrible? Or were they unsure he was what they thought he was?
Think, Heinrich, dammit,he told himself. If he could change the mess he was in to any degree, it would have to be with his brains. But what were the odds hecould change it? Slim, and he knew as much. Still, he had to try.
If I were truly agoy,how would I act? He'd still be frightened. He was sure of that. If you weren't frightened after the Security Police grabbed you, you had to be crazy. But he would also be outraged. Howdared they think him a dirty Jew? The anger he generated was ersatz, but after a while it started to feel real. He wondered if actors worked themselves into their roles this way.
For the time being, he had no one for whom to show off his fine synthetic fury. None of the cells close by had anyone in it. No guards tramped past. Why should they? He wasn't going anywhere.