In The Presence of mine Enemies Read online

  In The Presence of mine Enemies

  Harry Turtledove

  Harry Turtledove

  In The Presence of mine Enemies

  I

  Heinrich Gimpel glanced at the report on his desk to make sure how many Reichsmarks the United States was being assessed for the Wehrmacht bases by New York, Chicago, and St. Louis. As he'd thought, the numbers were up from those of 2009. Well, the Americans might grumble, but they'd cough up what they owed-and in hard currency, too; none of their inflated dollars. If they didn't, the panzer divisions might roll out of those bases and take what was owed the Germanic Empire this year. And if they collected some blood along with their pound of flesh, the USA might complain, but it was hardly in a position to fight back.

  Heinrich entered the new figures on his computer, then saved the study he'd been working on for the past couple of days. The Zeiss hard disk purred smoothly as it swallowed the data. He made two backups-he was a meticulously careful man-before shutting down the machine. When he got up from his desk, he put on his uniform greatcoat: in Berlin's early March, winter still outblustered spring.

  Willi Dorsch, who shared the office with Heinrich, got up, too. "Let's call it a day, Heinrich," he said, and shook his head as he donned his own greatcoat. "How long have you been here at Oberkommando der Wehrmacht now?"

  "Going on twelve years," Heinrich answered, buttoning buttons. "Why?"

  His friend cheerfully sank the barb: "All that time at the high command, and a fancy uniform to go with it, and you still don't look like a soldier."

  "I can't help it," Heinrich said with a sigh. He knew too well that Willi was right. A tall, thin, balding man in his early forties, he had a tendency to shamble instead of parading. He wore his greatcoat as if it were cut from the English tweeds professors still affected. Setting his high-crowned cap at a rakish angle, he raised an eyebrow to get Willi's reaction. Willi shook his head. Heinrich shrugged and spread his hands.

  "I'll just have to be martial for both of us," Willi said.His cap gave him a fine dashing air. "Doing anything for dinner tonight?" The two men lived not far from each other.

  "As a matter of fact, we are. I'm sorry. Lise invited some friends over," Heinrich said. "We'll get together soon, though."

  "We'd better," Willi said. "Erika's going on again about how she misses you. Me, I'm getting jealous."

  "Oh,Quatsch, " Heinrich said, using the pungent Berliner word for rubbish. "Maybe she needs her glasses checked." Willi was blond and ruddy and muscular, none of which desirable adjectives applied to Heinrich. "Or maybe it's just my bridge game."

  Willi winced. "You know how to hurt a guy, don't you? Come on. Let's go."

  The wind outside the military headquarters had a bite to it. Heinrich shivered inside his greatcoat. He pointed off to the left, toward the Great Hall. "The old-timers say the bulk of that thing has messed up our weather."

  "Old-timers always complain. That's what makes them old-timers." But Willi's gaze followed Heinrich's finger. They both saw the Great Hall every day, but seldom really looked at it. "It's big, all right, but is it big enough for that? I doubt it." His voice, though, was doubtful, too.

  "You ask me, it's big enough for damn near anything," Heinrich said. The Great Hall had gone up sixty years before, in the great flush of triumph after Britain and Russia fell before the planes and panzers of the Third Reich. It boasted a dome that reached two hundred twenty meters into the sky and was more than two hundred fifty meters across: sixteen St. Peter's cathedrals might have fit within the enormous monument to the grandeur of the Aryan race. The riches of a conquered continent had paid for the construction.

  The dome itself, sheathed in weathered copper, caught the fading light like a tall green hill. At the top, in place of a cross, stood a gilded Germanic eagle with a swastika in its claws. Atop the eagle, a red light blinked on and off to warn away low-flying planes.

  Willi Dorsch's shiver had only a little to do with the chilly weather. "It makes me feel tiny."

  "It's a temple to the Reich and the Volk. It's supposed to make you feel tiny," Heinrich answered. "Set against the needs of the German race and the state, any one manis tiny."

  "We serve them. They don't serve us," Willi agreed. He pointed across the Adolf Hitler Platz toward the Fuhrer 's palace on the far side of the immense square next to the Great Hall. "When Speer ran the palace up, he was worried the size of it would dwarf even our Leader himself." And, indeed, the balcony above the tall entranceway to the Fuhrer 's residence looked like an architectural afterthought.

  Heinrich's short laugh came out as a puff of steam. "Not even Speer could look ahead to see what technology might do for him."

  "Better not let the Security Police hear you talk that way about a Reichsvater." Willi tried to laugh, too, but the chuckle rang hollow. The Security Police were no laughing matter.

  Still, Heinrich was right. When the Fuhrer 's palace went up, another huge eagle had surmounted the balcony from which the Germanic Empire's ruler might address his citizens. The eagle had been moved to the roof when Heinrich was a boy. In its place went an enormous televisor screen. Adolf Hitler Platz held a million people. When the Fuhrer spoke to a crowd these days, even the ones at the back got a good view.

  A bus purred up to the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht building. Heinrich and Willi got on with the rest of the officials who greased the wheels of the mightiest military machine the world had known. One by one, the commuters stuck their account cards into the fare slot. The bus's computer debited each rider eighty-five pfennigs.

  The bus rolled down the broad boulevard toward South Station. Berlin's myriad bureaucrats made up the majority of the passengers, but not all. A fair number were tourists, come from all over the world to view the most wonderful and terrible avenue that world boasted. Blase as any native, Heinrich usually paid scant attention to the marvels of his home town. Today being what it was, though, the oohs and ahhs of people seeing them for the first time made him notice them, too.

  Sentries from the Grossdeutschland division in ceremonial uniform goose-stepped outside their barracks. Tourists on the sidewalk, many of them Japanese, photographed the Fuhrer 's guards. Inside the barracks hall, where tourists wouldn't see them, were other troops in businesslike camouflage smocks. They had assault rifles, not the ceremonial force's old-fashioned Gewehr 98s, and enough armored fighting vehicles to blast Berlin to rubble. Visitors from afar were not encouraged to think about them. Neither were most Berliners. But Heinrich reckoned up Grossdeutschland 's budget every spring. He knew exactly what the barracks held.

  Neon lights came on in front of theaters and restaurants as darkness deepened. Dark or light, people swarmed in and out of the huge Roman-style building that held a heated swimming pool the size of a young lake. It was open twenty-four hours a day for those who wanted to exercise, to relax, or just to ogle attractive members of the opposite sex. Its Berlin nickname was the Heiratbad, the marriage bath, sometimes amended by the cynical to the Heiratbett, the marriage bed.

  Past the pool, the Soldiers' Hall and the Air and Space Ministry faced each other across the street. The Soldiers' Hall was a monument to the triumph of German arms. Among the exhibits it lovingly preserved were the railroad car in which Germany had yielded to France in 1918 and France to Germany in 1940; the first Panzer IV to enter the Kremlin compound; one of the gliders that had landed troops in southern England; and, behind thick leaded glass, the twisted, radioactive remains of the Liberty Bell, excavated by expendable prisoners from the ruins of Philadelphia.

  Old people still called the Air and Space Ministry the Reichsmarschall 's Office, in memory of Hermann Goring, the only man ever to hold that exalted
rank. Willi Dorsch used its more common name when he nudged Heinrich and said, "I wonder what's happening in the Jungle these days."

  "Could be anything," Heinrich answered. They both laughed. The roof of the ministry had been covered with four meters of earth, partly as a protection against bombs from the air, and then lavishly planted, partly to please Goring's fancy (his private apartment was on the top floor). The Reichsmarschall was almost fifty years dead, but the orgies he'd put on amidst the greenery remained a Berlin legend.

  Willi said, "We aren't the men our grandfathers were. In those days, they thought big and weren't ashamed to be flamboyant." He sighed the sigh of a man denied great deeds by the time in which he chanced to live.

  "Poor us, doomed to get by on matter-of-fact competence," Heinrich said. "The skills we need to run the Empire are different from the ones Hitler's generation used to conquer it."

  "I suppose so." Willi clicked his tongue between his teeth. "I envy you your contentment here and now. I almost joined the Wehrmacht when I was just out of the Hitler Jugend. Sometimes I still think I should have. There's a difference between this uniform"-he ran a hand down the front of his double-breasted greatcoat-"and the ones real soldiers wear."

  "Is that your heart talking, or did you just remember you're not eighteen years old any more?" Heinrich said. His friend winced, acknowledging the hit. He went on, "Me, I'd fight if the Vaterland needed me, but I'm just as glad I don't have to carry a gun."

  "We're all probably safer because you don't," Willi said.

  "This is also true." Heinrich took off his thick, gold-framed glasses. The street outside, the interior of the bus, and even Willi next to him turned blurry and indistinct. He blinked a couple of times, then set the glasses back on the bridge of his nose. The world regained its sharp edges.

  The neon brilliance of the street outside dimmed as the bus went past the shops and theaters and started picking up passengers from the Ministries of the Interior, Transportation, Economics, and Food.More uniforms that don't have soldiers in them, Heinrich thought. The buildings from which the new riders came were shutting down for the day.

  Two ministries, though, like the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, never slept. A new shift went into the Justice Ministry to replace the workers who left for home. German justice could not close its eyes, and woe betide the criminal or racial mongrel upon whom its all-seeing gaze settled. Himself a thoroughly law-abiding man, Heinrich still shivered a little whenever he passed that marble-fronted hall.

  The Colonial Ministry stayed busy, too. Much of the world fell under its purview: the farming villages in the Ukraine, the mining colonies in central Africa, the Indian tea plantations, the cattle herders on the plains of North America. As if picking that last thought from Heinrich's mind, Willi Dorsch said, "How many Americans does it take to screw in a lightbulb?"

  "The Americans have always been in the dark." Heinrich clucked sadly. "Your father was telling that one, Willi."

  "If he was, he sounded more relieved than I do. The Yankees might have been tough."

  "Might-have-beens don't count, fortunately." Isolation and neutrality had kept the United States from paying heed as potential allies in Europe went down one after another. It faced the Germanic Empire and Japan alone a generation later-and the oceans weren't wide enough to shield it from robot bombs. Now it was trying to get back on its feet, but the Reich didn't intend to let it.

  Just ahead lay another monument to German victory: Hitler's Arch of Triumph. Heinrich had been to Paris on holiday and seen the Arc d'Triomphe at the end of the Champs-Elysees. It served as a model for Berlin's arch, and was a model in scale as well. The Arc d'Triomphe was only-only! — about fifty meters tall, less than half the height of its titanic successor. The Berlin arch was almost a hundred seventy meters wide and also a hundred seventeen meters deep, so that the bus spent a good long while under it, as if traversing a tunnel through a hillside.

  When at last it emerged, South Station lay not far ahead. The station building made an interesting contrast to the monumental stone piles that filled the rest of the avenue. Its exterior was copper sheeting and glass, giving the traveler a glimpse of the steel ribs that formed its skeleton.

  The bus stopped at the edge of the station plaza. Along with everyone else, Heinrich and Willi filed off and hurried across the square toward the waiting banks of elevators and escalators. They walked between more displays of weapons from Germany's fallen foes: the wreckage of a British fighter shown inside a lucite cube, a formidable-looking Russian panzer, the conning tower of an American U-boat.

  "Into the bowels of the earth," Willi murmured as he reached out to grab the escalator handrail. The train to Stahnsdorf boarded on the lowest of the station's four levels.

  Signs and arrows and endless announcements over the loudspeaker system should have made getting lost inside the railway station impossible. Heinrich and Willi found their way to the commuter train without conscious thought. So did most Berliners. But the swarms of tourists were grit in the smooth machine. Uniformed boys from the Hitler Jugend and girls from the Bund deutscher Madel helped those for whom even the clearest instructions were not clear enough.

  All the same, the natives grumbled when foreigners got in the way. Dodging around an excited Italian who'd dropped his cheap suitcase so he could use both hands to gesture at a Hitler Youth in brown shirt, swastika armband, and Lederhosen, Willi growled, "People like that deserve to be sent to the showers."

  "Oh, come on, Willi, let him live," Heinrich answered mildly.

  "You're too soft," his friend said. But they rounded the last corner and came to their waiting area. Willi looked at the schedule display on the wall, then at his watch. "Five minutes till the next one. Not bad."

  "No," Heinrich said. The train pulled into the station within thirty seconds of the appointed time. Heinrich thought nothing of it as he followed Willi into a car. He noticed only the very rare instances when the train was late. As the two men had done on the bus, they put their account cards into the fare slot and sat down. As soon as the computer's count of fares matched the car's capacity, the doors hissed shut. Three more cars filled behind them. Then the train began to move. Acceleration pressed Heinrich back against the synthetic fabric of his seat.

  Twenty minutes later, an electronic voice rang tinnily from the roof-mounted speakers: "Stahnsdorf! This stop is Stahnsdorf! All out for Stahnsdorf!"

  Heinrich and Willi were standing in front of the doors when they hissed open again. The two commuters hopped off and hurried through the little suburban station to the bus stop outside. Another five minutes and Willi got up from the local bus. "See you tomorrow, Heinrich."

  "Say hello to Erika for me."

  "I'm not sure I ought to," Willi said. Both men laughed. Dorsch got off the bus and trotted toward his house, which stood three doors down from the corner.

  Heinrich Gimpel rode on for another few stops. Then he got off, too. His own house lay at the end of a cul-de-sac, so he had to walk for a whole block.It's healthy for me, he told himself, a consolation easier to enjoy in spring and summer than in winter.

  Thesnick of his key going into the lock brought shouts of, "Daddy!" from inside the house. He smiled, opened the door, and picked up each of his three girls in turn for a hug and a kiss. They ranged down in age from ten by two-year steps.

  Then he lifted his wife as well. Lise Gimpel squawked; that wasn't part of the evening ritual. The girls giggled. "Put me down!" Lise said indignantly.

  "Not till I get my kiss."

  She made as if to bite his nose instead, but then let him kiss her. He set her feet back on the carpet and held her a little longer before letting her go. She made a pleasant armful: a green-eyed brunette several years younger than he who'd kept her figure very well. When he released her, she hurried back toward the kitchen. "I want to finish cooking before everyone gets here."

  "All right." He smiled as he watched her retreat. While he hung up his greatcoat and took off his tie, h
is daughters regaled him with tales out of school. He listened to three simultaneous stories as best he could. Lise came out again long enough to hand him a goblet of liebfraumilch, then started away.

  The chimes rang before she got out of the front room. She whirled and stared at the door. "I am going to boot Susanna right into the net," she declared.

  Heinrich looked at his watch. "She's only ten minutes early tonight. And you know she's always early, so you should have been ready."

  "Hmp," Lise said while he went in to let in their friend. Meanwhile, the girls started chorusing, "Susanna is a football! Aunt Susanna is a football!"

  "Heinrich, why are they calling me a football?" Susanna Weiss demanded. She craned her neck to look up at him. "I'm short, yes, and I'm not emaciated like you, but I'm not round, either." She shrugged out of a mink jacket and thrust it into his hands. "Here, see to this."

  Chuckling, he clicked his heels. "Jawohl, meine Dame."

  She accepted the deference as no less than her due. "Fraulein Doktor Professor will suffice, thank you." She taught medieval English literature at Friedrich Wilhelm University. Suddenly abandoning her imperial manner, she started to laugh, too. "Now that you've hung that up, how about a hug?"

  "Lise's not watching. I suppose I can get away with it." Heinrich put his arms around her. She barely came up to his shoulder, but her vitality more than made up for lack of size. When he let go, he said, "Why don't you go into the kitchen? You can pretend to help Lise while you soak up our Glenfiddich."

  "Scotch almost justifies the existence of Scotland," Susanna said. "It's a cold, gloomy, rocky place, so they had to make something nice to keep themselves warm."

  "If that's why people drink it, your boyfriend is lucky he didn't set himself on fire here a couple of years ago."

  "Myformer boyfriend,danken Gott dafur." All the same, Susanna blushed to the roots of her hair. Her skin was very fine and fair, which let Heinrich watch the flush advance from her throat. "I hadn't found out he was a drunk yet, Heinrich."