"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.
Looking for hope, he pointed up to the rooftop televisor cameras. "They're still filming, even if the signal isn't going out. The fear that people might see it one of these days may do for a conscience where nothing else will."
Susanna nodded. "Here's hoping."
Beside Heinrich, Willi said, "That should last us for another hour, maybe even another hour and a half. But what happens when it gets dark?"
Heinrich eyed the setting sun. He almost said something about Joshua and making the sun stand still. At the last minute, though, he didn't. Not too long after he said something Biblical to Erika, he'd ended up in one of Lothar Prutzmann's prisons. He didn't think Willi would accuse him of being a Jew. All the same, prison would be one of the better things that might happen to him if things went wrong here.
Joshua he was not. In due course, the sun sank below the horizon. Twilight began to deepen. Shadows spread and lost their sharpness. Faces farther away grew dim and indistinct. Venus blazed low in the western sky. Above it, Saturn was dimmer and yellower…and that ruddy star between them had to be Mars. Heinrich almost wished he hadn't recognized it. Tonight, he wanted nothing to do with the god of war.
Lights on Rolf Stolle's residence were bright, but not bright enough to illuminate the square in front of it after the sun went down. The panzers and armored personnel carriers turned on their lights. That, though, Heinrich knew, was not for the benefit of the crowd confronting them. Their crews wouldn't want anybody to sneak up with a Molotov cocktail or a grenade in the dark.