"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 Anna filthy?" Alicia's mother asked.

"Of course not." Alicia got angry at the very idea. She looked over at her friend, still wanting Anna to tell her this was all just a game. But Anna looked back with impressively grown-up solemnity. She'd had a year to think about what rode on holding this secret close.

"Are your father and I wicked?" Alicia's mother persisted. "Is Susanna diseased?"

"I can get to feel that way, the morning after too much Scotch," Susanna said.

"Hush, Susanna," Lise Gimpel said impatiently.

"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 Susanna-and, after that, probably for other people, too." His voice was usually soft and gentle. Now he made it hard as armor plate, sharp as a Solingen dagger.

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…