Down the hall he went, holding up his trousers with one hand. At least they hadn't cuffed him this time. Never mind the assault rifles at his back. He couldn't very well make a break when his pants would fall down if he tried. Without laces, his shoes flopped on his feet, too.
Klaus Menzel stood waiting in the room with the glass partition. The lawyer had on another suit that would have cost Heinrich a month's pay. He stepped up to the grill and said, "I have some good news and some bad news for you. Which do you want first?"
"Give me the good news," Heinrich said at once. "I haven't heard any in so long…"
"All right. Here it is." Menzel told him how the charges against him had come from Erika Dorsch, and how she'd tried to kill herself after she found out she'd got the girls seized along with Heinrich. Menzel added, "You should have just screwed the broad, Gimpel. No matter what your wife did to you afterwards, you wouldn't've landed in this kind of shit. And you'd've had the roll in the hay to remember."
"Heh," Heinrich said in a hollow voice. That had occurred to him, too. He went on, "You say Erika's going to be all right, and that's she's withdrawn these stupid charges." He needed to go on repeating that they were stupid, or the blackshirts were liable to think he believed them. "That's all wonderful! They have to let me out now, don't they?"
Gloomily, Klaus Menzel shook his head. "They don'thave to do a goddamn thing, and you ought to know it by this time. Trouble is, they don't believe this Dorsch item. They figure she's got the hots for you, so she's lying to protect you."
"That's crazy!" Heinrich yelped.
"Tell me about it," Menzel said. "But the way things are now, they aren't about to let you go right this minute. They don't want to look soft." He wrinkled up his nose, as if at a bad smell.
"Is Prutzmann-?" Heinrich began.
"I don't know anything about politics," his lawyer broke in. "If you're smart, you don't, either." That was undoubtedly good advice. With the guards in the room, with microphones bound to be picking up every word, saying anything bad-or anything at all-about the Reichsfuhrer -SS couldn't be smart.
"Well, what are you doing about everything?" Heinrich demanded. That was a question he could legitimately ask, even here.
"Trying to get them to look at what's right in front of their noses," Menzel answered. "Maybe they will, maybe they won't. They haven't given you a noodle yet, anyhow. That's something, believe me. I don't remember the last time they arrested somebody here they thought was a fullblood, not just some kind of Mischling. Whoever the last bastard was, I bet he didn't come close to lasting as long as you have. So keep your pecker up, and we'll see what happens."
As soon as Menzel turned away from the grill, the Security Police jailers marched Heinrich back to his cell. There he sat, by the world forgot though he couldn't forget the world. They didn't take him out and shoot him or send him to a camp. That was his only consolation. No, he had one other: as long as they didn't do anything to him, they wouldn't do anything to the girls, either.
Three days later, a tall, blond man in the uniform of a Security Police major came to his cell along with the warder. The officer signed some papers on a clipboard and gave them to the warder, who read them, nodded, and opened the door. "He's all yours," he said.
"Good," the officer answered briskly. He pointed a leather-gloved finger at Heinrich. "You're Gimpel?" Heinrich nodded. The major gestured peremptorily. "Come with me."
Gulping, Heinrich came. He'd been here long enough to have learned to fear changes in routine. They were rarely changes for the better. He shuffled around, shoes loose on his feet, one hand holding up his pants. Behind him, the cell door clanged.
His fear grew when the officer took him down unfamiliar corridors. Would they give him the noodle right here, when he least expected it? He braced himself, not that that would do him any good. They left the cells and went into the prison's office block. The blackshirt opened a door. "In here."
The room was small and bare. The walls were whitewashed brick, the floor cheap linoleum. A bare bulb burned in a ceiling fixture. On a rickety wooden table lay Heinrich's greatcoat, his belt and shoelaces, his wallet, his keys, his comb, even his pocket change-the personal effects he'd had when he was arrested.
"Fix yourself up," the Security Police major said. Heinrich obeyed, though his hands shook so much, he had trouble putting the laces in his shoes. Would they shoot him "while attempting escape"? When he was dressed, the major took him to a bathroom across the hall. A scissors and a razor sat on the sink.
"Shave." He did, trimming his beard with the scissors before attacking it with the blade. Shaving in cold water without soap was unpleasant, but he managed. The major nodded. "You'll do."
Heinrich was surprised when the blackshirt, after signing more papers, led him out of the prison. He was astonished when the man took him to a bus stop two blocks away, so astonished that he blurted, "What's going on?"
"You're free," the major said. "Charges quashed. Go home. This bus will take you right to South Station."
"My God," Heinrich whispered. "Menzel came through?" A few meters away, a wren scuttling through a flowerbed chirped shrilly. It was the sweetest music he'd ever heard.
"Your lawyer?" The Security Police officer threw back his head and laughed. "He thinks he did, anyhow." A bus came up. The wren flew away. The major winked at Heinrich.Did I really see that? he wondered. Casually, the fellow said, "You find us in the oddest places." The bus door opened. The major pushed Heinrich towards it.Us? He couldn't mean- He never got the chance to ask. The major had turned away, and the bus driver waited impatiently. Heinrich fed his card into the fare slot. The light flashed green. The bus rolled away.
XIII
THE MATRON WHO RAN THE FOUNDLINGS' DISCIPLINARY home reminded Alicia of Frau Koch. Like the Beast, she was perfectly Aryan: blond, blue-eyed, fair. And, also like the Beast, she had a face like a boot. She was tough and mean and ready to lash out at any moment. Alicia wondered why people like that had-or wanted-anything to do with children.
"Gimpel!" the matron said now, sticking her head into Alicia's room. "Come with me. This minute."
"Jawohl!" Alicia didn't know why the matron wanted her to come, or where she was going. Asking questions was not encouraged. Blind obedience was.
Alicia had to hurry to keep up with the matron, whose soldierly stride conceded nothing to smaller people. The woman always looked angry at the world. This morning, she seemed even angrier than usual. She kept glaring down at Alicia and muttering things the girl couldn't quite make out.Maybe I'm lucky, Alicia thought, and shivered.
"In here." The matron pulled open the door to her own office. Alicia hadn't been there since the day the Security Police pulled her sisters and her out of school. And there were Francesca and Roxane now. They sat on identical metal folding chairs and wore identical wary expressions. The matron pointed to another chair by theirs. "Sit down," she told Alicia. The next word seemed aimed at all three Gimpel girls: "Wait."
Still muttering, the matron stalked to another door and flung it open. In came…"Daddy!" Alicia shrieked, and ran to him. Her sisters' squeals might even have been higher and shriller, but couldn't have been any more delighted. The three of them put together almost knocked their father off his feet.
He bent down to kiss and squeeze all of them. Behind his glasses, tears gleamed in his eyes. "I've come to take you home," he said huskily. "The Security Police have seen that I'm not a Jew after all, and if I'm not a Jew, the three of you can't possibly be Mischlingen. And since you aren't, you don't have to stay here any more."