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She put the ballot in its envelope, emerged from the booth (a tall man immediately took her place), and handed the envelope to the clerk. He put it in the ballot box, intoning, "Frau Weiss has voted."
"Fraulein Doktor Professor Weiss has voted," she corrected crisply. Every so often, the formidable academic title came in very handy. Half a dozen people in the veterans' hall looked her way. The clerk stared at her as she walked out.
She wanted to know right away how the election turned out. She couldn't, of course, because the polls were still open. Talking about results till they closed might have influenced those who hadn't voted yet, and so wasverboten. That made most of Sunday pass in what felt like anticlimax.
She turned on the televisor a few minutes before eight that evening. Watching the end of an idiotic game show seemed a small price to pay for what would follow. At eight o'clock precisely, Horst Witzleben came on the screen in place of the Sunday night film that normally would have run. "Today is a watershed day for the Greater German Reich, " the newscaster declared. "In Germany's first contested elections since 1933, candidates favoring the reform policies of Heinz Buckliger and Rolf Stolle appear to be sweeping to victory all across the country."
Hearing Stolle's name mentioned in the same breath as the Fuhrer 's was new since the failed Putsch. The Gauleiter 's status had risen as Buckliger's fell. The one was a hero, the other a victim. Even in the Reich, it turned out, there was such a thing as moral authority.
A map of Germany appeared in gray on the screen. Here and there, it was measled with green spots. There were also red spots, but far fewer of them. "Green shows pro-reform candidates with substantial leads in their districts," Witzleben said. "Red shows candidates of the other sort who are in the lead. If we look more closely at Berlin"-the map changed as he spoke-"we see that every district but one in the capital of the Reich supports reform. Rolf Stolle himself is being sent to the Reichstag by a margin of better than six to one over his foe, building contractor Engelbert Hackma
"Good," Susa
The map went back to coverage of the whole Reich. More of it had turned green. Some more had turned red, too, but not nearly so much. Then it shifted again, this time to a detailed look at the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. Most of that area was green, except for a few red patches in the former Sudetenland.
Horst Witzleben continued, "Along with electing delegates to the Reichstag, the people of the Protectorate are also voting on a nonbinding referendum concerning their relationship with the Reich. Latest returns show that seventy-seven percent favor the declaration of independence proclaimed by the Unity organization in the wake of the Putsch, while only twenty-three percent wish to continue as a Reichs protectorate-in effect, a province of the Reich. Most of the delegates elected are pledged to bring this issue to the attention of the new Reichstag, and to seek relief."
That was pretty dizzying, too. True, the referendum had no official weight, any more than the declaration had. But it wouldn't have been on the ballot if those things didn't count for something. And the Czechs had shown a lot of nerve in reminding the world they hadn't forgotten the freedom they'd known between the first two World Wars. How could a Reichstag chosen on the basis of self-determination ignore it once in office?
Maybe they'll say the Czechs are only Slavs, and too ignorant to know what they're talking about, Susa
And no one had spoken up for keeping Heinrich Gimpel and his daughters alive when they were arrested. Had the authorities decided he was a Jew and they first-degree Mischlingen, they would have been killed, and that would have been that. The Reich had come further in the past year than in the previous lifetime. It still had a long way to go. Susa
Maybe Charlie Lynton did, over in London. He had the British Union of Fascists out several steps in front of the German National Socialists. That took special nerve in a subject ally. And the white-haired Czech playwright who led Unity seemed to have a good understanding of where the Reich needed to go. Whether it would go there was another question.
More and more of the map filled in. There were spots where red predominated over green: Bavaria, parts of Prussia, rural Austria (Vie
Then the camera cut away from the map, away from the studio. There was Heinz Buckliger, walking through the little square in front of the Gauleiter 's residence with Rolf Stolle. Stolle was pointing to the makeshift memorials that had sprung up where SS panzers crushed Berliners: flowers, candles, notes tothe dead, and one big sign that said,FREIHEIT UBER ALLES!
"The two chief architects of this remarkable day confer," Horst said quietly.
It didn't look like a conference to Susa
Stolle pointed to the FREIHEIT UBER ALLES! sign. Buckliger earnestly nodded again. Stolle didn't really understand what the sign meant, either. Susa
Didn't you?We'll find out, Susa
Francesca came bounding up to Alicia at lunchtime. "Guess what!" she cried.
"I don't know," Alicia said. "What?"
"Frau Koch is gone!" her sister caroled. "Gone, gone, gone! We've got a new teacher. His name is Herr Mistele. He smiles at people like he means it. Smiles! The Beast is gone. Gone, gone, gone!"
"That's wonderful. Too bad it didn't happen sooner," Alicia said, and Francesca's head bounced up and down in unreserved agreement. Alicia asked, "Did he say why the Beast left?" With Frau Koch not there, Alicia came out with the nickname without looking over her shoulder first to see whether any other teachers could hear.
Francesca frowned. "He said…" She paused, trying to make sure she got the words just right. "He said, with the political something the way it was-"
"The situation?" Alicia broke in.
"That's right. That's the word I couldn't come up with." Francesca started over: "He said, with the political sit-u-a-tion the way it was, it was better if Frau Koch did something else for a while. As far as I'm concerned, she can do something else forever."
"Maybe she will," Alicia said. "She liked Lothar Prutzma
"Ooh!" her sister said. "Ooh! Ihope she is. She said Daddy deserved to be, back when they grabbed him and us. I hope she finds out what it's like." Francesca liked revenge.