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Everyone, even the men, pitched in to help Lise cart dirty dishes and leftovers (not that there were many of those) back to the kitchen. The two younger Gimpel girls exchanged their party dresses for long cotton nightgowns. Francesca and Roxane collected kisses from the grownups, then went off to the bedroom they shared-not without a couple of sleepily jealous glances at Alicia, who got to stay up.
Despite being sleepy, Alicia Gimpel felt about to burst from curiosity and excitement. She sat on the edge of the couch. Her eyes flew from her parents to Aunt Susa
Her gaze swung to A
"Yes, I have." A
"All right," Alicia said, partway mollified. But it wasn't all right. She could tell. "Why are you all staring at me like that? I don't like it!" She twisted around to press her face against a sofa cushion.
"It's an important secret, sweetheart," her mother said. "Come out, please. It's such an important secret, you can't even tell your sisters."
That got through to Alicia. She did pull away from the pillow and stared at her mother, her eyes wide. Her father said, "You can't tell anyone. Not anyone at all, not ever. We've waited till you got old enough so we could tell you, because we wanted to be sure, or as sure as we could be"-sometimes he was maddeningly precise-"you wouldn't give us away by telling somebody you shouldn't."
"I've known for a year now, and I didn't even tellyou, " A
"What's going on, then?" she asked. "You're right, A
Her father and mother didn't answer, not right away. They looked frightened, too, which alarmed Alicia far more than the fear on the Stutzmans' faces. Whatever this was, it had more weight than anything she could have imagined. At last, after a deep breath, Susa
Alicia stared. She shook her head, as if at a joke. "Don't be silly, Aunt Susa
But her father shook his head, too, to contradict her. "Youare a Jew, Alicia. Your sisters are Jews, too. So is Susa
He means it. He's not kidding,Alicia realized. Her ears and cheeks felt cold. That meant she was turning pale, all the blood going away from her face. "But-But…" She didn't know how to go on, so she stopped. After a moment, she rallied: "But Jews were filthy and wicked and diseased and racially impure." Perhaps trying to convince herself, she went on, "That's why the wise Reich got rid of them. That's what my teachers say."
"All the textbook lessons." Her father let out a long, long sigh. "I learned them, too."
Walther Stutzman said, "One of the hardest lessons anybody learns is that not everything your teachers tell you is true. For us, it's twice as hard."
"Is A
"Of course not." Alicia got angry at the very idea. She looked over at her friend, still wanting A
"Are your father and I wicked?" Alicia's mother persisted. "Is Susa
"I can get to feel that way, the morning after too much Scotch," Susa
"Hush, Susa
"But-what happens if anyone finds out I'm-I'm a Jew?" Alicia pronounced the name with difficulty; it was too strong a curse to fit in the mouth of a well-brought-up ten-year-old. "If my friends at school know, they won't like me any more."
"If your friends at school find out, dear, it will be worse than that," her father said. "If anyone learns you're a Jew, the Einsatzkommandos will come for you, and for your sisters, and for your mother and me, and for the Stutzmans, and for Susa
Alicia couldn't doubt he meant exactly what he said. She'd learned about the Einsatzkommandos in school, too. In the lessons, they were heroes, cleaning up the conquered east and then the ghettos of New York and Los Angeles. But if they came to clean up her family…
Her mother tried to soothe her: "Nobody has to find out, my little one. Nobody will, unless you give yourself away, and us with you. We're well hidden these days, the few of us who are left. We have to be." But worry clouded even her su
But Alicia wildly shook her head. She knew about the millions who had died in Europe and then, a generation later, in the United States. Every schoolchild knew. The Reich made sure of that.And now they'll come for me! Oh, God, they'll come for me!
"My father helped keep us hidden," Uncle Walther said. "He altered the Reichs genealogical database to show that our families are all of pure Aryan blood. No one looks for us any more, not here at the heart of the Germanic Empire. No one thinks there's any reasonto look. We're safe enough, unless we give ourselves away. Maybe one day, not in our time but when your children or grandchildren have grown up, Alicia, we can be safe living openly as what we are. Maybe. Till then, we go on."
His soft words about changing databases had begun to reassure Alicia. What he didn't know about computers, nobody did. But when he spoke of living openly as Jews, she only stared at him. She felt like an animal caught in a trap. "It will never be safe! Never!" she said shrilly. "The Reich will last a thousand years, and how can there be room in it for Jews?"
"Maybe the Reich will last a thousand years, the way Hitler promised," her father said. "No one can know that till it happens, if it does. But, dear, there have been Jews for three thousand years already. Even if the Germanic Empire lives out all the time Hitler said it would, it will still be a baby beside us. Uncle Walther was right: one way or another, we go on. It's hard to pretend not to be what we really are-"
"I hate it," Susa
Alicia's father nodded. "We all hate it. But when times are dangerous for Jews, the way they are now, what other choice have we got?"
"This isn't the first time Jews have had to be what they are only in secret," Esther Stutzman said. "In Spain a long time ago, we pretended to be good Catholics. Now we have to pretend to be good Aryans and National Socialists. But underneath, we still are what we've always been."