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."

Susanna parodied a Hitler Jugend song:

"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 Susanna knows." Walther Stutzman gave her a severe look. "It is also not practical for us to sing that song anywhere but among ourselves. If the Security Police hear it-"

"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."