Harry Turtledove - In The Presence Of My Enemies

And Rolf Stolle graciously granted him a nod. "Oh,ja, ja, revitalization." He might have been humoring a child. "But that's only the beginning. We've got to do something good and final about the SS, too, make goddamn sure the lousy blackshirts can't make trouble again. And we've got to give democratic rights back to some other Aryan peoples, too, not just to the Volk of the Reich."

Buckliger's eyes widened. He coughed in astonishment. "I am sure that this is not the place for such discussions," he said.

Stolle thumped him on the back-again, or so it seemed to Esther, indulgently. "Well, maybe you're right. You ought to get rested up, get ready to deal with the new Reichstag that'll be coming in after the elections."

The camera cut away from the scene at the top of the airplane steps. A few months before, it never would have lingered so long. During the time of the previous Fuhrer, it never would have gone there at all. In tones full of wonder, Horst Witzleben said, "This is an extraordinary day in the history of the Reich. Let me repeat that: an extraordinary day. Heinz Buckliger returns to a state far different from the one he left when he went on holiday. Not all the differences are obvious yet. Some that seem obvious may not last. But surely some changes will be deep and far-reaching. Where the Volk once comes out into the streets against those who have proclaimed themselves to be the government…well, how can things possibly remain the same after that?"

Esther didn't know if things could stay the same after that. She also didn't know if their being different for the Reich as a whole would make them different for her. Buckliger and Stolle remained Nazis. She didn't expect any Nazi to have much use for Jews. But there were Nazis…and then there were Nazis. With a choice between this pair and the overthrown duo of Prutzmann and Globocnik, she knew where she stood. And the German people stood with her. If that wasn't a miracle, what was?

Susanna Weiss got out of bed early on Sunday morning. If that didn't prove it was an unusual Sunday, she couldn't imagine what would; sleep, on weekends, was a pleasure she took seriously. So was coffee, any morning of the week. She said something unfortunate but memorable when she found she was out of cream. Then, discovering whipped cream in the refrigerator, she brightened. That would do. It would more than do, in fact. On reflection, she added a shot of brandy to the coffee. She had a sweet roll with it, which made her feel thoroughly Viennese.

But she left her apartment with Berlin briskness. This wasn't just any Sunday. This was the election day the late, unlamented Lothar Prutzmann and his stooge of a Globocnik hadn't been able to hijack. She wanted to vote early. She really wanted to vote early and often, an American phrase that had been making the rounds in the Reich the last few days, but she didn't think she could get away with it.

Her polling place was around the corner, in a veterans' hall. She couldn't remember the last time she'd voted. What was the point, when the results were going to be reported as 99.64 percentja regardless of what they really were-and when votingnein was liable to win you a visit from the Security Police?

As soon as she came out of her building, she stopped in surprise. However brisk she'd been, she hadn't been brisk enough. The line for the polling place already stretched around the block and came back toward her. Normally, she hated queuing up. Now she joined the line without a qualm.Why is this night different from all other nights? went through her head. The Passover question, the Jewish question, almost seemed to fit the Reich today. Germany really might be different after this election. It might. Or it might not. Life came with no guarantees. A Jew surviving in the Nazis' Berlin knew, had to know, as much.

A man in a battered fedora, a windbreaker, and a pair of faded dungarees got into line behind her. "Guten Morgen," he said, scratching his chin. He needed a shave. "Now we get to tell the bastards where to head in."

He might be a provocateur. Susanna knew that, too. On this morning of all mornings, she couldn't make herself care. "You bet we do," she answered. "I've been waiting a long time."

"Who hasn't?" the whiskery man said. "They never wanted to listen before. Now, by God, they're gonna have to." He cursed the SS and the Party Bonzen without great imagination but with considerable gusto.

Up and down the line-which rapidly got longer behind Susanna-people were doing the same thing. They couldn't all be provocateurs…could they? Susanna didn't think so. The SS couldn't arrest everybody in the city. If they did, nothing would get done. And the blackshirts had their own worries at the moment. The Wehrmacht was gleefully cutting them down to size, with Heinz Buckliger and Rolf Stolle cheering the soldiers on.

Had Buckliger understood the animosity ordinary people felt toward the state when he ordered these elections? If he had, would he have ordered them? Susanna had trouble believing that. But order them he had, and now he'd be stuck with the results. Prutzmann's failed Putsch might have been the best thing that could have happened to reform. It reminded people what they could be in for if they voted to keep the status quo.

The queue snaked forward. The closer to the polling place people got, the nastier the things they had to say about that status quo. Men and women who came out of the veterans' hall strutted and swaggered, proud grins on their faces. Nobody needed to ask how they'd voted.

The hall smelled of old cigars and spilled beer. Helmets were mounted on the wall: big, cumbersome ones with flaring brims from the First World War and the lighter and sleeker models German soldiers had worn during the Second and Third. The uniformed precinct leader stood around looking important. Clerks in mufti did the real work.

"Your name?" one of them said when Susanna came up to him. She gave it. He made sure she was on a list in front of him, then went on, "Your identity papers." She displayed the card; she would no more leave home without it than she would without a top. Once the clerk was satisfied, he used a ruler to line through her name and address in red. Then he handed her a ballot. "Choose any vacant booth… Next!"

There were no vacant booths, not with the way people had swarmed to the polls. Susanna waited till a woman came out of one. She ducked into it herself, pulling the curtain closed behind her. She wasn't in Rolf Stolle's district, but she knew which candidate here supported reform and which was a Party hack. She knew which candidate for the Berlin city council was which, too. Voting for candidates had never mattered to her. Voting against them-being able to vote against them-carried a kick stronger than Glenfiddich straight up.

She put the ballot in its envelope, emerged from the booth (a tall man immediately took her place), and handed the envelope to the clerk. He put it in the ballot box, intoning, "Frau Weiss has voted."

"Fraulein Doktor Professor Weiss has voted," she corrected crisply. Every so often, the formidable academic title came in very handy. Half a dozen people in the veterans' hall looked her way. The clerk stared at her as she walked out.

She wanted to know right away how the election turned out. She couldn't, of course, because the polls were still open. Talking about results till they closed might have influenced those who hadn't voted yet, and so wasverboten. That made most of Sunday pass in what felt like anticlimax.

She turned on the televisor a few minutes before eight that evening. Watching the end of an idiotic game show seemed a small price to pay for what would follow. At eight o'clock precisely, Horst Witzleben came on the screen in place of the Sunday night film that normally would have run. "Today is a watershed day for the Greater German Reich, " the newscaster declared. "In Germany's first contested elections since 1933, candidates favoring the reform policies of Heinz Buckliger and Rolf Stolle appear to be sweeping to victory all across the country."