to tell her. It wouldn't have seemed that important at the time. Now it loomed as big as the world.
The pediatrician set down the foam cup. 'As a matter of fact, yes,' he said deliberately, and Esther wanted to sink down through the floor. But then he went on, 'Not quite like the Klein baby's case, though.'
Esther dared breathe again, if barely. 'What's the difference?' she asked. The question was dangerous, but it had to come out. Dr. Dambach wouldn't read too much into it…would he? He'd all but invited it…hadn't he?
He took another sip of coffee. Was he trying to drive her crazy? If he was, he was doing a bang-up job. He set the cup on his desk again. 'The Kleins' charts showed two different family trees, so it made me wonder whether they had more Jews in their ancestry than they were willing to admit,' he said, and cocked his head to one side, waiting for her response.
She made herself nod. 'I remember.'I'm not likely to forget. I almost got them killed. I almost got more of my friends killed, and my family, and me. The nod showed only polite agreement. None of the nightmare underneath came out.
'I haven't found any more cases like that,' Dambach repeated.
'I hope not!' Esther repeated herself, too. 'You'd better not!' Her knees didn't want to hold her up. She felt giddy with relief. 'But what have you found? You said you'd found something.'
'I have found that people will lie even when there is no good reason for them to lie.' The pediatrician looked as disgusted as if he'd discovered maggots on a dressing that was supposed to be sterile. 'I have found people inventing inflated ancestries for themselves, people trying to connect themselves with noble families-one family even trying to connect itself to the Hitlers. All of the forgeries are inept. Many of them are pathetic. But they riddle the files. Why?' He looked at Esther as if he really believed she had an answer.
She did the best she could: 'There are people who want to seem more important than they really are.'
'It's so stupid!' Dr. Dambach said. 'And it could be dangerous to them, too. If I think a child's ancestry is different from what it really is, I'm liable to make the wrong diagnosis. Don't people think ofthat?'
'Most of them probably don't,' Esther said. Working for the pediatrician had gone a long way toward convincing her most people thought very little-certainly less than she'd believed when she took the job. Then, because she couldn't help herself, she asked, 'What are you going to do about these fake pedigrees?'
She knew she probably should have left well enough alone. But her boss had reported the Kleins without a second thought. Would he prove as hard on people he didn't suspect of being Jews?
'I've already done it, as a matter of fact,' he said. 'I've talked with the Reichs Genealogical Office. They want me to forward some of the more serious cases of abuse to them for possible prosecution. And they suggested I write an article for a medical journal, alerting other physicians to the problem.'
Esther eyed him with reluctant respect. He did what he thought was right, no matter whom it involved. She could wish he didn't think getting rid of Jews was right. How many people in the Reich didn't, though? Pitifully few. That was probably the hardest part of being a Jew in Berlin these days. Everyone you met was sincerely and honestly convinced you had no right to exist.
Asking any more questions might have made Dambach wonder why she was so curious. Instead, she said, 'I'm sure the article will be very interesting.'
'Articles in journals are not supposed to be interesting. They are supposed to be informative,' Dambach said, a touch of frost in his voice.
'Why not both?' Esther asked.
The pediatrician shook his head. 'That would not be good,Frau Stutzman. I have occasionally seen an article that is frivolous, and who could hope to learn from such a thing?' He was serious himself, as serious as he wanted medical articles to be. Esther couldn't understand it. She thought she would learn more from an article that was entertaining as well as fact-filled. That anyone could think otherwise hadn't occurred to her. But Dr. Dambach did.
Arguing with the boss when his mind was made up struck her as one of the more pointless things she could do. Instead, she went back out to the receptionist's desk and worked on billing and medical records till patients started coming in. Out of curiosity, she looked at some of the genealogical records in the charts. She soon saw that Dr. Dambach was right. Some of the pedigrees were faked, and pretty obviously faked.Foolishness, she thought. The Kleins and her own family had the best of good reasons for tampering with their ancestries: what was more important than survival? But changing a great-grandfather for the sake of vanity? What was that? What could it be but the urge to buy a Mercedes if your neighbor had a new Audi?
She almost didn't notice the outer door to the waiting room open. But the yowl of a baby brought her back to the real world in a hurry. She closed a chart and looked out. 'Oh,guten Morgen, Frau Baumgartner,' she said. 'How is little Dietrich today?'
'Teething,'Frau Baumgartner answered. She would have been a pretty strawberry blond if she hadn't had dark circles under her eyes. 'He never wants to sleep any more, and if he doesn't sleep, I can't sleep, either. I hope the doctor can give me something to make him more comfortable.'
'I hope so, too,' Esther said. 'Your appointment isn't till a quarter to ten, though, you know.'
Frau Baumgartner nodded. 'Ja. I do know. But I thought that if I got here early, I might get to see the doctor early, too.'
Sometimes things did work out like that. Sometimes they didn't. 'I can't promise you anything, not yet,' Esther said. 'If some of the people with earlier appointments don't show up, though…'
Little Dietrich jammed his fingers into his mouth. Somehow, he managed to let out an earsplitting howl despite the obstruction. His mother looked frazzled. 'Oh, I hope they don't!' she said fervently.
Another mother came into the waiting room, this one with a two-year-old who was tugging at her ear. The little girl howled even louder than Dietrich Baumgartner. 'Guten Tag, Frau Abetz,' Esther bellowed over the din. 'Liselotte's earache isn't any better, is it?'
'What?' said Frau Abetz, who couldn't have heard the Trump of Doom through that racket.
Esther repeated herself, louder this time.Frau Abetz took the screaming Liselotte into an examination room. She had one of the nine o'clock appointments Frau Baumgartner coveted. The move redistributed the noise without making it much softer, at least for Esther. Dr. Dambach emerged from his sanctum. 'Going to be one of those quiet mornings, is it?' he said with a wry chuckle, and went into the examination room himself. Moments later, Liselotte screamed louder than ever.
And it was one of those mornings.Frau Baumgartner did get to take Dietrich in twenty minutes early, but that did nothing for the general level of peace and quiet, of which Esther saw very little. Every few minutes, another mother would bring in a shrieking baby or toddler. The phone kept ringing at the most inconvenient moments, too.
By the time the lunch break arrived, Esther felt as if she'd worked two whole days, not half of one. As a pediatrician, Dr. Dambach had to have more than an ordinary mortal's share of patience, but he also seemed to be feeling the strain. 'I ought to put some brandy in this coffee,' he said, pouring himself a fresh cup.
'I was thinking of asking if you could prescribe something stronger than aspirin for a headache,' Esther said.
'I will if you like,' Dambach answered.
She shook her head. 'Thanks, but no. I was only joking-mostly.'
When Irma Ritter came in for the afternoon shift, she said, 'How are things?'
'Don't ask!' Esther said. 'About the only good thing I can think of to tell you is that the office didn't catch on fire.'
She thought of one more waiting for the bus that would take her home. Maximilian Ebert hadn't come out from the Reichs Genealogical Office to confer with Dr. Dambach-and to bother her. And that, she was convinced, was very good news indeed.
Wolf Priller walked up to Alicia on the playground. He looked at her as if he'd never seen her before. She looked at him with nothing but suspicion. He had no use for girls, and she had no use for him. Now, though, he wouldn't quit staring. 'What do you want?' she demanded after half a minute or so.
'Is it true?' he asked.
'Is what true?'
'Did the Fuhrer really come and talk with your dad, the way people say?'
'Oh, that. Yes, it's true.'
Wolf's blue eyes got wider yet. 'Wow,' he breathed, as if she'd become important on account of the news.
