Free In the Presence of Mine Enemies by Harry Turtledove Page B

the location of Serbia on the map. Immediately!”
    Otto couldn’t do it, though the occupied country was plainly labeled. The teacher paddled his backside. He took the swat in stoic silence. Showing pain would have earned him another one. He didn’t get in trouble for sitting down with great care, though. Alicia had only so much sympathy for him. She could have found Serbia without the label; she’d always been good at geography. But why couldn’t poor Otto just read ?
    Herr Kessler pointed out Serbia himself. Then he went back to his tirade: “You see now, dear children, why we must stay ever on our guard. The hateful enemy still lurks within the borders of the Germanic Empire. Like a serpent, the Jew waits until our attention is turned elsewhere. He waits, and then he strikes ! We must track him down and hunt him out wherever he may hide. Do you understand?”
    â€œ Ja, Herr Kessler,” the children chorused. Alicia made sure her voice rang as loud as any of the others. She was still frightened at the idea of being a Jew, but it didn’t throw her into blind panic any more. She’d had a little while to get used to it, a little while even to develop an odd sort of pride in it.
    But then the teacher pointed at her. “Alicia Gimpel!”
    She was out of her chair and at attention behind it in a heartbeat. “ Jawohl, Herr Kessler!”
    â€œWhat is a Jew?”
    All she had to do was point at her own chest and say, I am a Jew, to ruin herself and everyone she loved. She knew that. Knowing it came close to bringing the blind panic back. It came close, but didn’t quite manage—not least because the familiar fear at being unexpectedly called on left little room for the other.
    She knew her lessons well. No one in the class knew them better. “The Jew is the opposite of the Aryan, Herr Kessler,” she recited. “He is and remains the typical parasite, a sponger who like a noxious bacillus keeps spreading as soon as a favorable medium invites him. Wherever he appears, the host people dies out after a shorter or longer period. Existence impels the Jew to lie, and to lie perpetually. He lacks idealism in any form. His development has always and at all times been the same, just as that of the peoples corroded by him has also been the same.”
    She stopped. She knew she had the textbook definition straight. Up until a little while before, she’d believed every word of it. Part of her still did. The rest…The rest seemed to stand outside of the self she’d had before the night that turned out to be Purim. She felt somehow bigger than she had before that night. Her new self enclosed the old—and who could say how much else besides?
    Herr Kessler drummed the fingers of his right hand against the side of his thigh. “This is correct,” he said, as if he didn’t care to admit it. “Now—you will tell me the meaning of the word noxious .” He spoke with a certain gloating anticipation. If she were parroting the definition without grasping what went into it, he would make her pay for that.
    But she wasn’t. “Jawohl,” she said again, still at attention. “ Noxious means disgusting or nasty or poisonous.”
    Kessler’s fingers drummed on his thigh for another few seconds. Then he gestured peremptorily. Alicia sat down. From the desk beside hers, Emma whispered, “Smarty-pants.”
    That whisper wasn’t quite quiet enough. “Emma Handrick!” the teacher thundered.
    Emma almost knocked over her chair jumping out of it. “ Jawohl, Herr Kessler!”
    â€œSince you enjoy talking so much, you will now tell the class from what source we have the proper definition of the Jew.”
    Alicia could have answered. Emma stuttered and stammered and looked up at the ceiling. Paddle in hand, the teacher bore down on her. “Mein Kampf!” she blurted in desperation. “It must be Mein Kampf!