he still held. 'Here's to us. I know when I'm well off.'
'You'd better,' she told him. She knew he hadn't really answered her. He could tell. She undoubtedly knew why, too. But she drank with him even so. If that wasn't love, he had no idea what to call it. She said, 'I can't be too annoyed at you. Sheis pretty, and you do seem to have some idea where you belong. Some.'
'I should hope so!' Heinrich said fervently.
Too fervently? So it seemed, because his wife started to laugh. 'You also overact,' she told him, and swigged from the beer.
'Who, me?' he said-overacting. Lise laughed louder. Changing the subject looked like a good idea, so he did: 'How are the children?' He waited to see if Lise would let him get away with it.
She did, answering, 'They're fine. Alicia isso glad she's getting out of Herr Kessler's class soon. I don't blame her a bit, either. I've talked with the man a few times. He wishes he belonged in the SS. Do you know what I mean?'
'Oh, yes.' Heinrich nodded. 'I had a couple like that myself. They're the lords of the classroom, and don't they know it?'
'Alicia asked if the new Fuhrer 's changes would have anything to do with schools,' Lise said. 'How do you answer a question like that?'
''I don't know' usually works pretty well,' he said. She made a face at him. He held up a hand. 'I'm serious, sweetheart. Who can tell which way Buckliger's going to go with this stuff? He's already talked more about changing things than anybody who came before him. Will he do more than talk? Can he get away with more?'
His wife shrugged. 'Who knows? We'll find out. And how are Erika's children?' She brought the question out casually, which only made it more dangerous.
'I don't know,' Heinrich said, which was the truth. 'She didn't talk about them.'
'Uh-huh,' Lise said again: not quite Mene, mene, tekel upharsin, but a judgment just the same.
VIII
Like the rest of the jews in the Greater German Reich, Lise Gimpel had never been to, never even seen, High Holy Days services. She'd heard about going to a synagogue to celebrate the New Year and the Day of Atonement from her grandfather. Being able to worship openly struck her as even more amazing than the holidays themselves.
She couldn't so much as fast on Yom Kippur.Don't do anything to get yourself noticed was a Jew's unbreakable rule. If, say, Roxane asked,Why aren't you eating, Mommy? — how could she answer? Whatever she said, her daughter might tell a school friend she'd stayed hungry all day long. If that reached the wrong ears…Even so small a thing could mean disaster.
And so she ate breakfast with everybody else, and silently apologized to God. Heinrich, no doubt, was doing the same thing. By the somber expression on Alicia's face, so was she. Lise had told her what the holidays were and what they meant and how they were supposed to be celebrated if only that were possible. Francesca and Roxane ate pancakes and sausage without the slightest idea that today was different from any other day.
Heinrich got to his feet and grabbed his attache case. 'I'm off,' he said. 'I'll see you all tonight.' Collecting kisses all around, he hurried out the door. It closed behind him. Lise sighed and smiled at the same time. She didn't worry about him running off with Erika Dorsch or anybody else, even if she teased him. He wasn't the sort to leave unfinished anything he started. If his eyes sometimes wandered-well, he was a man. His hands and, more to the point, his heart didn't.
'Come on, eat up,' Lise told the girls. 'Then get out of your nightgowns and into school clothes. I know you don't have to leave as early as Daddy does, but you can't lie around eating grapes all day, either.'
She got giggles from the younger two girls and a disdainful sniff from Alicia, who said, 'You've used that one before, Mommy.'
Lise wasn't about to put up with literary criticism before eight in the morning, especially when she hadn't finished her coffee (the biggest advantage she saw to not fasting on Yom Kippur was that she didn't have to miss it). She said, 'I don't care whether I have or not. It's still true. Get moving.'
Alicia was the one she had to bully, the one a bird or a book or anything else might distract from the business at hand. Francesca could barely grunt before ten, but she did what she had to do on automatic pilot. Roxane liked mornings, probably because her sisters didn't.
Lise got them out the door in good time. She always did, and she always breathed a sigh of relief once they were gone, too.Especially today, she thought. The Day of Atonement she wanted to herself. Had things been different, gathering with her fellow Jews would have been sweet. But, though they got together on minor holidays like Purim, they didn't dare meet on the big ones. Someone might be watching, might be listening, might be wondering. You never could tell.
She sat down in front of the televisor. It was off. She left it off, too. She didn't want any distractions, not while she was doing her best to forgive the people who'd troubled her during the past year. In spite of her earlier forgiving thoughts about Heinrich, she wasn't surprised when Erika rose to the top of the list. Lise's smile was slightly sour. Erika couldn't help being what she was, any more than a tiger could.
Things around a tiger had a way of ending up dead. Things around Erika…
Methodically, Lise went through the rest of the list, starting with Herr Kessler, who'd vexed her because he vexed Alicia, and ending with the cleaner who had returned a linen blouse with a scorch mark and without two buttons. Then she took on the hard one she attempted every Yom Kippur: to forgive the German people.
She'd never done it, not in her heart. She'd never even come close, and she knew it. That wasn't only because their crimes were so enormous, either. Worse, they had no idea they'd committed crimes. They were convinced they walked the path of truth and justice and righteousness. If they didn't see they had anything to atone for, what was the point to forgiving them? Was there any? Not that she'd ever been able to see.
This year…This year, for the first time since she was a girl, she wondered. Heinz Buckliger seemed to have some idea that the Reich and the Volk of the Reich didn't come to their dominant position in the world with hands perfectly clean. If the Fuhrer thought the German people stood in need of atonement for some things…Well, how much did that mean?
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
