house, even the threat of getting in trouble might not hold her to doing what she needed to do. 'Hurry up, Roxane!'
'I'm hurrying!' That was a frantic screech.
Just when Lise was about to go upstairs and get her littlest daughter, Roxane came pounding down. 'All right. I'm done.' She was all smiles again.
'For heaven's sake, try to remember to do your homework when you're supposed to,' Lise said. Roxane nodded solemnly. She'd be good now-till the next time she wasn't. Then they would go through this again.Well, so what? Lise thought.Next to getting arrested and killed, forgotten arithmetic isn't so much of a much, now is it?
Kisses all around. If Lise's were more heartfelt than they had been before the girls got taken away-well, then they were, that was all. Alicia, Francesca, and Roxane probably didn't even notice. Good-byes. Out the door the girls went. There was Emma Handrick, just coming out of her house up the street. If she wasn't late, they weren't, either. And she wasn't. So they weren't.
Lise closed the door. Sudden quiet inside the house. Not just quiet-peace. Time seemed to slow down after the frantic jangling of getting her family off to work and school. Now she could fix herself another cup of coffee, sit back, and listen to music for a little while. She could, and she would. After half an hour or so, her own batteries recharged, she could get on with the things she had to do today.
Plenty of cream and plenty of sugar in the coffee, a Strauss waltz coming from the radio, a couple of song thrushes and a blackbird hopping in the back yard hunting for worms…It wasn't bad. It would have been better if she hadn't gone through terror not long before, but it wasn't bad.
And then the waltz disappeared. It hadn't ended; it just stopped, halfway through. Close to a minute of dead air followed.Somebody's going to catch it, Lise thought. Foulups like that didn't happen very often.
Music began again. But this still wasn't the vanished waltz. It was 'Deutschland uber Alles.' The 'Horst Wessel Song' came hard on its heels. Lise's brief sense of peace had shattered well before she heard the second national anthem. There hadn't been a mistake at the radio station. Something had gone wrong, badly wrong, somewhere in the wider world.
The 'Horst Wessel Song' ended. After another stretch of silence, a man's voice came on the air: 'The following important statement comes to you from the State Committee for the Salvation of the Greater German Reich.'
What the devil is the State Committee for the Salvation of the Greater German Reich?Lise wondered. She'd never heard of it. The government had nine million different committees and bureaus and commissions, so she didn't know how much that proved, but if it wasn't important, what was it doing on the air like this?
'the Fuhrer, Heinz Buckliger, has been taken ill on the island of Hvar,' the man said. 'As a result of this illness, he no longer has the capacity to rule our beloved Reich. Under such emergency conditions, the State Committee will administer affairs.'
Lise frowned. That sounded like…But it couldn't be. Nobody since the Night of the Long Knives, more than seventy-five years earlier, had tried to seize power like this.
The announcer went on, 'We address you at a great and critical hour for the future of the Vaterland and of our Volk. A mortal danger now looms large over our great Vaterland. The policy of so-called reforms, launched at Heinz Buckliger's initiative and allegedly designed to ensure the Reich 's dynamic development, has in fact gone down a blind alley. This is the result of deliberate actions on the part of those who trample on the laws of the Greater German Reich so they can stage an unconstitutional Putsch and gather all personal power into their hands. Millions of people now demand stern measures against this gross illegality.'
'Du lieber Gott!' Lise exclaimed. Whoever was on the State Committee for the Salvation of the Greater German Reich, they really meant it.
'By order of the State Committee, citizens of the Reich are to remain calm,' the announcer said-and if that wasn't a command designed to spread panic, she didn't know what would be. The fellow continued, 'The holding of meetings, street processions, demonstrations, and strikes isverboten. In case of need, a curfew and military patrols will be imposed. Important government and economic installations will be placed under guard by the SS, which remains loyal to the ideals of the state even in this time of corruption.'
Aha!Lise thought. Now she could make a good guess about who was behind the Committee and the Putsch.
'Decisive measures will be taken to stop the spreading of subversive rumors, actions that threaten the disruption of law and order and the creation of tension, and disobedience to the authorities responsible for implementing the state of emergency.' What did the announcer feel about the words in front of him? Was he for the Putsch? Did he hate it? He read like a machine, droning on mechanically: 'Control will be established over all radio and televisor stations. Now serving as interim Fuhrer of the Reich and of the Germanic Empire is Odilo Globocnik-'
'Who?' Lise had heard no more of him than she had of the State Committee for the Salvation of the Greater German Reich. His name hardly even sounded German.
'— who has previously served the state as High Commissioner for Ostland Affairs.' He'd been in charge of slaughtering Slavs, in other words. And now they were bringing his talents to the Reich itself? Lise shivered. The difference between bad and worse was much bigger than the difference between good and better. Much, much bigger.
XIV
Ceiling speakers in Oberkommando Der Wehrmacht headquarters carried the announcement of Heinz Buckliger's incapacity moments after Heinrich and Willi sat down at their desks. 'Decisive measures will be taken to stop the spreading of subversive rumors, actions that threaten the disruption of law and order and the creation of tension, and disobedience to the authorities responsible for implementing the state of emergency. Control will be established over all radio and televisor stations. Now serving as interim Fuhrer of the Reich and of the Germanic Empire is Odilo Globocnik, who has previously served the state as High Commissioner for Ostland Affairs.' After the announcement, '
Deutschland uber Alles' and the 'Horst Wessel Song' rang out again.
Heinrich looked at Willi. Willi looked back at Heinrich. 'It's an SSPutsch!' Heinrich said.
Willi nodded. 'It sure as hell is,' he agreed. And then he said, 'Odilo fucking Globocnik?' in tones of absolute disbelief.
'Be careful, Willi!' Ilse exclaimed. 'If you talk like that, who knows what kind of trouble you'll end up in?'
In times like these, that might have been excellent advice. But Willi only shook his head. 'Odilo fucking Globocnik?' he repeated, even more amazed and disgusted than before.
Over the patriotic music blaring out of the intercom, Heinrich said, 'He's Prutzmann's puppet. He can't be anything else.'
'Well, I should hope not,' Willi said. 'He's certainly nothing by himself. Didn't he get in trouble for driving drunk a while ago?'
'Beats me,' Heinrich said. 'I don't remember hearing that, but you could be right.'
'I think so, but I'm not sure,' Willi said. 'Who the hell pays attention to the Odilo Globocniks of the world?'
Running feet in the corridor. Before Heinrich could respond to his friend's bon mot, someone-a soldier-stuck his head in the room and called, 'Globocnik's on the televisor! They've got it on in the canteen!' The man didn't wait, but thudded down the hall in his jackboots and repeated his message for the next big office.
'Come on!' Half a dozen people said the same thing at the same time. Wheels squeaked as analysts pushed swivel chairs back from desks. A few stolid people went right on working. The rest, Heinrich and Willi among them, swarmed out of the room and toward the canteen.
So many men-and a few women-were going that way, something not far from a rugby scrum broke out in the corridor. Heinrich took an elbow or two and gave out a couple of his own. He squeezed into the canteen just in time to hear somebody yell, 'Shut up!' — which made the clamor from the people already crowding the room drop a little.
