In the Presence of Mine Enemies Read Online Free PDF Page A

the Reichs genealogical database to show that our families are all of pure Aryan blood. No one looks forus any more, not here at the heart of the Germanic Empire. No one thinks there’s any reason to 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?”
    â€œMaybe 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—”
    â€œI hate it,” Susanna Weiss broke in. “I’ve always hated it, ever since I found out.”
    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?”
    â€œThis 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.”
    The grownups all sounded so cool, so collected. As far as they were concerned, everything was fine, and everything would stay fine no matter what. That wasn’t how it felt to Alicia. “I don’t want to be a Jew!” she shouted.
    Her father’s head whipped toward the windows. Sudden stark fright filled his face, and everyone else’s. Alicia understood that. She clapped her hands to her mouth. If one of the neighbors heard, the Security Police were only a phone call away.
    After a deep breath, her father said, “You have a way out, Alicia.”
    â€œWhat is it?” She stared at him, tears and questions in her eyes.
    â€œYou can just pretend this night never happened,” he told her. “You know we’ll never betray you, no matter what you decide. If you choose not to tell your husband one day, if he’s not one of us, and if you choose not to tell your children, they’ll never know you—and they—are Jewish. They’ll be just like everybody else in the Germanic Empire. But one more piece of something old and precious will have disappeared from the world forever.”
    â€œI don’t know what to do,” Alicia said.
    To her surprise, her father got up, came over, and kissed her on top of the head. “You may not realize it, but that’s the most grownup thing you’ve ever said.”
    Alicia didn’t want to sound like a grownup, any more than she wanted to be a Jew. She didn’t seem to have much choice about either. Figuring that out was another grownup thing to do, not that she knew it at the time.
    â€œIt’s not so bad, Alicia,” Anna said. “I cried, too, when I found out—”
    â€œSo did I,” Gottlieb added, which made Alicia’s eyes widen. He was so much older than she that she thought of him as practically a grownup.
    Anna went on, “But it’s special in a way, like being part of a club that won’t take just anybody. And it’s not like what we are is written on our foreheads or anything like that, even though it does feel like it at first. But if we keep the secret, no one