Very softly, Susanna Weiss said, “I wish someone had built a gallows for Hitler and Himmler. So many of our people gone.” She stared down into her snifter of Scotch. Sometimes Gimpel thought she felt guilty for living on where millions had died.
“I wish I could tell my sisters,” Alicia said.
Walther Stutzman grinned at Heinrich, who smiled back. The year before, Anna had said, I wish I could tell Alicia. Gimpel knew more than a little relief that his daughter was beginning to adjust to the new and shocking knowledge; he remembered his own confusion when he’d learned of his heritage.
But what Alicia had just said was also dangerous. He told her, “You can’t tell them yet-they’re too little. They’ll learn when their time comes, just as you have now. But if the secret reaches the wrong ears, we’re all dead. Just because there aren’t many Jews left doesn’t mean people have stopped hunting us. We’re still fair game.”
“Are we-the people in this room-are we all the Jews who are left?” Alicia asked.
“No,” her father said.’ “There are others, all through Greater Germany and the rest of the empire. In time you’ll meet more, and some may startle you. But for now, the fewer Jews you know, the fewer you can give away if-if the worst happens.”
Alicia’s eyes went far away. Gimpel knew what she was doing: thinking about family friends and wondering which were of her own sort. He’d done the same thing himself. Finding out about Walther Stutzman had been his biggest surprise. The Stutzmans looked like perfect Aryans, and, a generation before, much more had been made of Jews’ allegedly grotesque features.
Lise said, “Even though we have our own holidays, Alicia, we can only celebrate them among ourselves. The little three-cornered cakes we had tonight are special for Purim-they’re call Hamantaschen, Haman’s hats.”
“I like that,” Alicia said. “Serves him right.”
“Yes,” Lise said, “but that’s why you won’t be carrying any of them to school for lunch. People who aren’t Jewish might recognize them for what they are. We can’t afford to take any chances at all, do you see?”
“Not even with anything as little as cakes?” Alicia exclaimed.
“Not even,” Lise said. “Not with anything, not ever.”
“All right, Mama.” The warning about Hamantaschen seemed to have impressed Alicia about the depth of the precautions she’d have to take to survive. Gimpel was glad something had. His own father had shown him photographs smuggled out of the Ostlands to warn him how necessary silence was. He still had nightmares about those pictures after more than thirty years. But he still had the photos, too, hidden in a file cabinet. If he thought he had to, heti show them to Alicia. He hoped the need would not arise, for her sake and his own.
“Is it all right, Alicia?” he asked her. “I know this is a lot to put on a little girl, but we have to, you see, or there won’t be any Jews at all anymore.”
“It’s all right, Father, it really is,” she answered. “It-surprised me. I don’t really know if I like it yet, but it’s all right.” She nodded in a slow, hesitant way that said she thought she meant it but wasn’t quite sure.
That sufficed for Heinrich Gimpel. Finding out you were a Jew in the heart of the National Socialist Germanic Empire was not something anyone, child or adult, could fully take in at a moment’s notice. A beginning of acceptance was as much as he could hope for. Alicia had given him that.
His daughter and Anna Stutzman yawned together, then giggled at each other. Susanna Weiss got up, grabbed her handbag, walked over to Alicia, and kissed her on the cheek. “Welcome to your bigger family, dear. We’re glad to have you.” She turned to Heinrich. “I’d better get home. I have an early class tomorrow morning.”
“We ought to go, too,” Esther Stutzman said. “Either that or we’ll wait till Anna falls asleep-which shouldn’t be more than about another thirty seconds-and bundle her into the broom closet.” Her daughter let out an indignant sniff.
Lise and Heinrich passed out coats. The friends stood gossiping on the front porch for a last couple of minutes. As they chattered, a brightly lit police van rolled by. Alicia gasped in horror and tried to bolt inside. Her father held her arm until the van turned a comer and disappeared. “Everything’s fine, little one,” he said. “They know of us only if we give ourselves away. Do you understand?”
“I-think so, Father.”
“Good.”
The Stutzmans and Susanna walked off toward the bus stop. The Gimpels went back inside. Lise went with Alicia to get her ready for bed. Heinrich rinsed off the dishes and started loading them into the washer. He was still busy when Alicia came out for a good night kiss. Usually that was just part of the nighttime routine; tonight it felt special.
He said, “You don’t have to be frightened every second, darling. If you show you’re afraid, people will start to wonder what you have to be afraid of. Keep on being your own sweet self and no one will ever suspect a thing.”
“I’ll try, Papa.” When she hugged him, she clung for a few extra seconds. He squeezed her, then ran his hand through her hair. “Good night,” she said, and hurried away.
Lise walked into the kitchen a couple of minutes later. She dragged in a chair from the dining room, sat down, and waited till the sink was empty and the washer full. Then, as the machine started to chum, she got up and gave him a long, slow hug. “And so the tale gets told once more,” she said.
As he had with his daughter, Heinrich held on to his wife. “And so we try to go on for another generation,” he said. “We’ve outlasted so much. God willing, we’ll outlast the Nazis, too.”
“And of course, now that the tale is told, the risk we’ll get caught also goes up,” Lise said. “You did well there, keeping her from running from the police van.”
“Couldn’t have that,” Gimpel agreed. “But she’ll be nervous for a while now, and she’s so young.” He shook his head. “Strange how our greatest danger lies in making sure our kind goes on. No one would ever suspect you or me.”
“Why else buy pork?”
“I know.” Gimpel took off his glasses, wiped his forehead with his sleeve, set the spectacles back on his nose. “Why else do all the other things we do to seem like perfect Germans? I can quote Mein Kampf more easily than Scripture. But it’s not so easy for a child. And we have two more yet to go.” He let out a long, worn sigh, hugged Lise again. “I’m so tired.”
“I know,” she said. “It’s easier for me, staying home with the Kinder like a proper Hausfrau. But you have to wear the mask every day at your office.”
“It’s either pretend to others I’m not a Jew or pack it in and pretend the same thing to myself. I’m not ready for that. I remember too well.” He thought again of the hidden yellowing photographs from the east. “We will go on, in spite of everything.”
Lise yawned. “Right now, I think I’m going on to bed.”
“I’m right behind you. Oh-speaking of the office, on the way home today Willi said he admired how content I was here and now.”
“Good,” Lise said at once. “If you must wear the mask, wear it well.”
“I suppose so. He also asked if we were busy tonight. I told him yes, since we were, but we’ll be going over there one evening soon.”
“I’ll arrange for my sister to stay with the girls,” Lise said. “Let’s give Alicia a little more time to get used to things before we take her out.”
“Sensible. You generally are, though.”
“Ha!” Lise said darkly. “I’d better be. So bad you.”
“I know.” He chuckled. “Besides, we’ll be able to play more bridge.”
“That’s true.” Lise also laughed. Both of them were long used to the strangeness of having good friends who, if they knew the truth, might well want to send them to an extermination camp. Heinrich was looking forward to getting together with Willi and Erika Dorsch for an evening of talk and bridge., Within the limits of his upbringing, Willi was a good fellow.