Harry Turtledove - In The Presence Of My Enemies

She worked her way up the street and into the square that faced the residence. It took patience and the occasional shove. Everybody was trying to get closer to Rolf Stolle: to hear him if he came out, to protect him if the SS came after him. Feeling like a chamois or some other nimble creature of the Alps, she scrambled over an overturned trash can. It shook only a little under her feet; instead of garbage, it held dirt and stones and chunks of concrete, to make it harder to move. They'd also give people ammunition of sorts if the SS did come. Rocks against panzers…The mere idea was enough to make her wobbly.

When she stumbled, a fellow in a bus driver's uniform steadied her. "Thanks," she said.

"You're welcome." His grin showed crooked teeth and vast excitement. "This is fun, isn't it, telling the Bonzen to go stuff themselves?"

"It's-" Susanna had been about to deliver a brilliant off-the-cuff lecture on how important this moment was for the future of the Reich and the Volk. She found herself grinning back instead. "Yes, by God. Itis fun! We should have done it a long time ago." The bus driver's shiny-brimmed cap bobbed up and down as he nodded.

Televisor cameras on rooftops peered down at the crowd. Did they belong to the Berlin station, or was Lothar Prutzmann gathering evidence for later revenge? For that matter, why hadn't the SS knocked the Berlin station off the air by now? Maybe the blackshirts weren't as efficient as they wanted everybody to believe.

Some people waved to the cameras. Others aimed obscene gestures at them. Somewhere not far away, a raucous shout rang out: "All the world is watching! All the world is watching!"

It rose like the tide. "All the world is watching! All the world is watching!" Susanna joined in, hardly even realizing she was doing it. She hoped it was true. Itcould be. Other stations, in the Reich and beyond it, could be picking up the Berlin broadcasts and retransmitting them. They could-if they had the nerve.

What was going on outside of Berlin? Susanna had no idea. Whatever it was, how much would it matter? Not much, she suspected. One way or the other, history would be made right here.

Someone stepped on her foot. He said, "Sorry, lady," so he probably hadn't done it on purpose. She pressed on. After a while, she got what would have been a pretty good view of Stolle's balcony…if a beanpole in a black leather trenchcoat hadn't been standing right in front of her.

She hadn't got as far as she had in life by being shy. She poked him in the small of the back and said, "Excuse me, please, but could you move to one side or the other?"

The beanpole turned around. He wore an irritated expression-which dissolved a moment later. "Susanna! What are you doing here?"

"Committing treason just like you, if things don't go our way."

Heinrich Gimpel grimaced. "Well, yes, there is that. But sometimes you have to try, eh?"

"I've always thought so." Susanna fit her words into pauses in the All the world is watching! chant. Heinrich, on the other hand, had always believed in staying under a flat rock. Amazing what even a short stretch in the hands of the blackshirts could do…

He patted the back of the man next to him, who was almost his height and wore an identical greatcoat. "You've met my friend Willi Dorsch, haven't you?"

"Oh, yes, I certainly have," Susanna said as Dorsch-who looked as Aryan as an overfed SS man-turned and nodded to her. She couldn't resist asking, "And how is your wife?"

By Heinrich's horrified expression, he wished she would have kept quiet. Well, too late now. She'd never been as cautious as he was. Willi Dorsch winced. "Dammit, I had nothing to do with that," he said, which, from everything Heinrich had told Susanna, was true. Willi went on, "I just wish it hadn't happened. We all wish it hadn't happened, even Erika."

From everything Heinrich had said, that was true, too. If Susanna did any more prodding, she might start more trouble than she wanted. No point to pushing anyhow, not when she'd got the needle under Willi's skin. And then, even if she'd wanted to, she lost the chance to add anything more, for a great roar from the crowd would have drowned out whatever she said.

"There's Stolle!" Heinrich shouted.

He could see over most of the people in front of him. Susanna couldn't even see over him and Willi Dorsch. She had to take his word for it that the Gauleiter of Berlin had come out onto his little balcony. Showing himself took nerve. The SS was bound to have assassins in the crowd.

"You are the Volk!" Rolf Stolle boomed through a microphone. "You are the Aryans! You are the people who would have chosen your own leaders if Loathsome Lothar Prutzmann hadn't hijacked an election he didn't think his cronies could win. But do you know what?" A perfectly timed pause. "You're going to win anyway-we'regoing to win anyway-and there won't be enough lampposts to hang all those blackshirted pigdogs on!"

"Jaaaaaa!"An enormous, ecstatic, almost orgasmic cry rose from the crowd. Susanna screamed her lungs out just like everybody around her, even staid Heinrich. Part of her thought they were all out of their minds. The rest, though, wondered whether Lothar Prutzmann had even the faintest idea how big a monster he'd called into being.

The Tiergarten was quiet and peaceful. No one in the park seemed to know or care that the SS had staged a Putsch that morning. Esther Stutzman wondered whether such normality showed that nobody gave a damn or simply that it was a nice summer's day and strolling with an arm around your girlfriend's waist or lolling on the grass in the sun counted for more than whose fundament rested on the chair behind the desk in the main office of the Fuhrer 's palace. Were the people in the park too apathetic to care about the Putsch or too sane?

Did the difference matter?

Here came Walther, hurrying past a juggler keeping a stream of brightly colored balls in the air and an upside-down hat on the ground in front of him for spare change, past a hooded crow and a red squirrel screeching at each other over a discarded crust of bread, and past a couple on the grass who'd almost forgotten anyone else was around.

Esther got up from her bench. Walther gave her a quick kiss. "Lord, I'm glad to have an excuse to get away!" he exclaimed. "The Zeiss works are going nuts."

"That bad?" she asked.

"Worse," he told her. "About one man in five is all for Prutzmann and the SS. More, I think, are against them. But when the two sides start screaming at each other, there's another whole big lot who wish they'd both shut up and go away."

"I wouldn't be surprised if the whole country's like that," Esther said.

"Neither would I," Walther said. "So what's going on? I know something must be, from the way you sounded on the phone."

"Dr. Dambach was talking this morning, talking about Lothar Prutzmann and his family…" Esther went on to explain what the pediatrician had said. Then she asked, "Do you think we can do anything with that?"

"I don't know." Walther looked half intrigued, half appalled. "Do you think weshould do anything with it?"

"I'm not sure. I was hoping you would be." Esther's hand folded into frustrated fists. "If we don't, and if the SS takes over…"

"But Prutzmann's liable to win whether we do that or not," Walther said. "And if he does-or maybe even if he doesn't-using it's liable to putus in more danger."

Every word he said was true. Esther knew as much. Walther was nothing if not sensible. All the same, she said, "If we don't do anything, if we don't even try to do anything, what good are we? We might as well not be here. What difference would it make if they had wiped us out?"

"I haven't got a good answer for that," her husband said slowly. "About as close as I can come is, if we do try to do something, we'd better pick our spots with care, because we won't get many of them. Is this one? Is Buckliger that important? Are you sure?"