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"Ja,"Buckliger said. But his expression was that of a man who'd bitten into something sour. Stolle hadn't said,You'll really be able to get something done. He'd assumed power would lie with the Reichstag, not the Fuhrer. And Heinz Buckliger, who'd been far away and under guard while Stolle led resistance against the SSPutsch, couldn't contradict him.
The Gauleiter of Berlin drove that home: "The Volk saved your regime,mein Fuhrer." He was most subversive when he sounded most modest. "If they'd sat on their hams, you'd be a dead man, and so would I. But they liked the way the wind was blowing, and I maybe pointed them in the right direction once they got riled up. The first edition was right. Trust the Volk and they'll never let you down."
Adolf Hitler hadn't said any such thing, in the first edition of Mein Kampf or anywhere else. But Buckliger, again, was in no position to tell Stolle he was wrong. the Fuhrer said, "Revitalization will continue." It was his first effort to get in a word for the program he'd pushed so hard.
And Rolf Stolle graciously granted him a nod. "Oh,ja, ja, revitalization." He might have been humoring a child. "But that's only the begi
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 Prutzma
Susa
But she left her apartment with Berlin briskness. This wasn't just any Sunday. This was the election day the late, unlamented Lothar Prutzma
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. Susa
"Who hasn't?" the whiskery man said. "They never wanted to listen before. Now, by God, they're go
Up and down the line-which rapidly got longer behind Susa
Had Buckliger understood the animosity ordinary people felt toward the state when he ordered these elections? If he had, would he have ordered them? Susa
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 Susa
There were no vacant booths, not with the way people had swarmed to the polls. Susa