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Her daughters got home from school just then. She thought that would distract her from what was going on downtown, but it didn't. They were more excited about it than she was. Francesca said, "Frau Koch says we have to do what the State Committee for the Salvation of the Greater German Reich tells us, and Odilo Globocnik is the new Fuhrer."
"Odilo Globocnik!" Roxane echoed. "Teacher made us learn how to say it."
"Us, too," Francesca said. "The Beast made us memorize his name and State Committee for the Salvation of the Greater German Reich, and anybody who couldn't do it got a swat. I did it. She's not going to hitme again." She spoke with grim determination.
"What does your teacher say?" Lise asked Alicia, who hadn't spoken yet.
"He made us learn Herr Globocnik's name," her eldest answered. "He said there wasn't any law for a committee like this one, but that wouldn't matter if they held on to power. He said we'd just have to wait and see, pretty much."
"He'll get in trouble," Francesca said. "Frau Koch says the State Committee for the Salvation of the Greater German Reich "-since she'd memorized the name, she used it every chance she got-"is going to pay back everybody who ever liked what the old Fuhrer was doing."
"Odilo Globocnik is the new Fuhrer!" Roxane showed off what she'd learned, too.
"If that State Committee wins, they may do what Frau Koch says," Lise said carefully. "But Alicia's teacher has a point. They haven't won yet.Gauleiter Stolle and lots of people are protesting against what they've done." She didn't say that Heinrich was there. Even if things went sour in front of the Gauleiter 's residence, he might get away safe.Well, he might, she insisted to herself. Aloud, she went on, "They're on the televisor, too. Do you want to see?"
"Would you get us snacks first?" Roxane asked.
That seemed reasonable, so Lise did. Then they all went back to the living room. The Berlin cha
"They were just putting on boring reruns, I suppose to make people think everything is normal," Lise answered. "But we can see what they're doing now."
She changed the cha
Regularly scheduled programming turned out to be a nature film about the migration of storks. "What did that mean, Mommy?" Roxane asked.
"I'm not quite sure," Lise answered.
"He didn't look very happy about it, whatever it was," Alicia said. "He didn't sound very happy, either."
"You're right-he didn't," Lise said. Witzleben had been a cheerleader for Heinz Buckliger's reforms. If he'd actually been as enthusiastic a cheerleader as he'd seemed, what had Prutzma
"Let me through!" somebody with a big voice shouted behind Heinrich. "Get out of my way, dammit! Clear a path!"
"In your dreams, pal," Willi Dorsch said.
Even if they didn't clear a path, the man kept on coming, using his shoulders and his elbows to force his way forward. He was a Berlin police officer. People did try to move aside for him, but in the press of bodies it wasn't easy. "Let me through!" he yelled again. "I've got important news for the Gauleiter."
He pushed past Heinrich and Willi. A moment later, a woman spoke sharply: "You might say, 'Excuse me.'"
For a wonder, the policeman actually did say, "Sorry, lady." Then, as roughly as ever, he went on toward Rolf Stolle, who was still arguing with the commander of the lead panzer.
"Was that your friend who called him on his ma
"Susa
"She's got nerve," Willi said admiringly.
"Oh, yes. That she does."
There was a stir when the police officer came up to the gray-uniformed men guarding the Gauleiter of Berlin. They must have recognized him, for they let him through. He spoke to Stolle for perhaps a minute and a half. Heinrich wasn't that far away, but couldn't hear a word he said. He could see Stolle's reaction, though. The Gauleiter stared. His eyes went wide with surprise. Then, to Heinrich's amazement, he threw back his head and bellowed Jovian laughter at the sky.
"What the hell?" Willi said.
"Beats me," Heinrich said.
That great bellow of mirth had made everybody within a hundred meters turn and look at Stolle. With a sense of timing an actor might have envied, the Gauleiter waited for people's attention to wing his way before shouting up to the panzer commander: "Hey, you! SS man!"
"What do you want?" the officer in the black coveralls asked warily.
"You know your boss? The high and mighty Reichsfuhrer -SS? The chief Aryan of all time? Lothar goddamn Prutzma
The panzer commander saw that as clearly as Heinrich did. His nod was a small masterpiece of reluctance. "I know who you're talking about. What about him?" He didn't use the bullhorn now.
That was sensible. It was even smart. But when he went up against Rolf Stolle's leather lungs, it didn't do him much good. "What about him? I'll tell you what about him, you pickle-faced son of a bitch," Stolle boomed in a voice audible all across the square in front of his residence. "You know what your precious Aryan Prutzma
"Why, you lying toad!" the panzer commander exclaimed, shocked out of his reticence as the crowd began to buzz.
Stolle shook his bullet head. "Not me, by God! What do you SS bastards use for a motto? 'My honor is loyalty,' that's it. Well, on my honor, it's the truth. It's all over the computers-and Prutzma
Norbert told the same story the Gauleiter had, in a higher, thi
"Beats me." Heinrich started to quote Hitler about the big lie, but checked himself. He remembered how the Kleins had got released after they were seized. One of Prutzma