Maybe that’s it, she thought as she put the magazine back on the rack. The Nazis have no sense of humor, so why should they want television? Anyhow, they killed most of the really great comedians. Because most of them were Jewish. In fact, she realized, they killed off most of the entertainment field. I wonder how Hope gets away with what he says. Of course, he has to broadcast from Canada. And it’s a little freer up there. But Hope really says things. Like the joke about Göring… the one where Göring buys Rome and has it shipped to his mountain retreat and then set up again. And revives Christianity so his pet lions will have something to– “Did you want to buy that magazine, miss?” the little dried-up old man who ran the drugstore called, with suspicion.
Guiltily, she put down the Reader’s Digest which she had begun to thumb through.
Again strolling along the sidewalk with her shopping bags, Juliana thought, Maybe Göring will be the new Fuhrer when that Bormann dies. He seems sort of different from the others. The only way that Bormann got it in the first place was to weasel in when Hitler realized how fast he was going. Old Göring was off in his mountain palace. Göring should have been Fuhrer after Hitler, because it was his Luftwaffe that knocked out those English radar stations and then finished off the RAF. Hitler would have had them bomb London, like they did Rotterdam.
But probably Goebbels will get it, she decided. That was what everyone said. As long as that awful Heydrich doesn’t. He’d kill us all. He’s really bats.
The one I like, she thought, is that Baldur von Schirach. He’s the only one who looks normal, anyhow. But he hasn’t got a chance.
Turning, she ascended the steps to the front door of the old wooden building in which she lived.
When she unlocked the door of her apartment she saw Joe Cinnadella still lying where she had left him, in the center of the bed, on his stomach, his arms dangling. He was still asleep.
No, she thought. He can’t still be here; the truck’s gone. Did he miss it? Obviously.
Going into the kitchen, she set her grocery bags on the table among the breakfast dishes.
But did he intend to miss it? she asked herself. That’s what I wonder.
What a peculiar man… he had been so active with her, going on almost all night. And yet it had been as if he were not actually there, doing it but never being aware. Thoughts on something else, maybe.
From habit, she began putting food away in the old G.E. turret-top refrigerator. And then she began clearing the breakfast table.
Maybe he’s done it so much, she decided, it’s second nature; his body makes the motions, like mine now as I put these plates and silver in the sink. Could do it with three-fifths of his brain removed, like the leg of a frog in biology class.
“Hey,” she called. “Wake up.”
In the bed, Joe stirred, snorted.
“Did you hear the Bob Hope show the other night?” she called. “He told this really funny joke, the one where this German major is interviewing some Martians. The Martians can’t provide racial documentation about their grandparents being Aryan, you know. So the German major reports back to Berlin that Mars is populated by Jews.” Coming into the living room where Joe lay in the bed, she said, “And they’re about one foot tall, and have two heads… you know how Bob Hope goes on.”
Joe had opened his eyes. He said nothing; he stared at her unwinkingly. His chin, black with stubble, his dark, achefilled eyes… she also became quiet, then.
“What is it?” she said at last. “Are you afraid?” No, she thought; that’s Frank who’s afraid. This is—I don’t know what.