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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-" Susa
Televisor cameras on rooftops peered down at the crowd. Did they belong to the Berlin station, or was Lothar Prutzma
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!" Susa
What was going on outside of Berlin? Susa
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. "Susa
"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." Susa
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," Susa
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 Susa
From everything Heinrich had said, that was true, too. If Susa
"There's Stolle!" Heinrich shouted.
He could see over most of the people in front of him. Susa
"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 Prutzma
"Jaaaaaa!"An enormous, ecstatic, almost orgasmic cry rose from the crowd. Susa
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 Prutzma
"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 Prutzma
"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 Prutzma
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?"