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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, his 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 Susa
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, "Susa
"Heinrich, why are they calling me a football?" Susa
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 ma
"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," Susa
"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, Susa
"I know," he said gently. If he teased her too hard, she'd lose her temper, and nothing and nobody was safe if that happened. "Go on. Lise's trying that recipe you sent her."
The girls waylaid Susa
Walther and Esther Stutzman arrived a few minutes later, along with their son, Gottlieb, and daughter, A
The younger male Stutzman touched a finger to the space between his nose and upper lip. "It's going to be one, I hope." At the moment, the growth was hard to see. For one thing, he'd only just turned sixteen. For another, his hair was even fairer than his father's. And, for a third, he'd chosen to keep untrimmed only a toothbrush mustache; the first Fuhrer 's style was newly popular again.
Walther Stutzman differed from his son in appearance only by the presence of twenty-odd years and the absence of even the vestiges of a mustache. As he handed Heinrich his topcoat, he asked quietly, "Tonight?"
"Yes, I think Alicia's ready," Heinrich answered, as quietly. "I told her she could stay up late. How has A
"Well enough," her father said.
"We're still here, after all," Esther Stutzman put in. A slim woman with light brown hair, she peered at Heinrich through glasses thicker than his own. Somehow, in spite of everything, her laugh held real mirth. "And if she hadn't done well, we wouldn't be, would we?"
"Wouldn't be what, Aunt Esther?" Alicia Gimpel asked, a doll under one arm.
"Wouldn't be standing out here in the hall if we expected the curly-haired Gestapo to listen in." Esther's grin took all sting from the words.
Imitating her father, Alicia said, "Oh,Quatsch! " A
"Di
They all paused to admire the fragrantly steaming pork roast before Heinrich attacked it with fork and carving knife. With onions, potatoes, and boiled parsnips, it made a feast to fight the chill outside and leave everyone happily replete. Most of the talk that punctuated the music of knife and fork was praise for Lise's cooking.
Smooth wheat beer mixed with raspberry syrup went with the meal. The two younger Gimpel girls usually got only small glasses. Tonight, they found grownup-sized mugs in front of them. Francesca and Roxane proudly drained them dry, and were nodding by the time their mother brought out dessert. They munched their way through the little cakes stuffed with prunes or apricots or mildly sweet chocolate, but the filling sweets only made them sleepier. The food and beer slowed Alicia down, too, but she was buoyed by the prospect of sitting up and talking with the adults.
Seeing her daughter's excitement, Lise said, "She doesn't know yet how boring we can be, with our chatter of children and taxes and work and who's going to bed with whom."
"Whois going to bed with whom?" Esther asked. "It's more interesting than taxes and work, that's for sure."
Susa
"In the fields and on the heath, We lose strength through joy."
Gottlieb Stutzman blushed almost as red as she had before. She teased him: "Why, Gottlieb, don't you hope to meet a friendly maiden when you go to work your year in the fields?"
"It is not…not practical, not for me," he answered stiffly, rubbing a finger over his peach-fuzz mustache.
"It is not practical for any of us, as Susa
"It's wiser not to draw the attention of the Security Police, anyway," Lise Gimpel said with her usual solid good sense. "Even children know that." She looked at her own two younger children, who were valiantly trying not to yawn. "After I get the table cleared away, time for the little ones to go to bed."
Heinrich nodded to Walther and Gottlieb Stutzman. "Nice to have some other men in the house for a change," he remarked.
"You are outnumbered, aren't you?" Walther said. "I kept the numbers even. But then, that's what they pay me for." He held a moderately important post with the computer-design team at Zeiss.