philip_k_dick_-_the_man_in_the_high_castle

way that Bormann got it in the first place was to weasel in when Hitler realized how fast he was
going. Old Göring was off in his mountain palace. Göring should have been Fuhrer after Hitler,
because it was his Luftwaffe that knocked out those English radar stations and then finished off the
RAF. Hitler would have had them bomb London, like they did Rotterdam.
But probably Goebbels will get it, she decided. That was what everyone said. As long as that
awful Heydrich doesn't. He'd kill us all. He's really bats.
The one I like, she thought, is that Baldur von Schirach. He's the only one who looks normal,
anyhow. But he hasn't got a chance.
Turning, she ascended the steps to the front door of the old wooden building in which she lived.
When she unlocked the door of her apartment she saw Joe Cinnadella still lying where she had
left him, in the center of the bed, on his stomach, his arms dangling. He was still asleep.
No, she thought. He can't still be here; the truck's gone. Did he miss it? Obviously.
Going into the kitchen, she set her grocery bags on the table among the breakfast dishes.
But did he intend to miss it? she asked herself. That's what I wonder.
What a peculiar man . . . he had been so active with her, going on almost all night. And yet it had
been as if he were not actually there, doing it but never being aware. Thoughts on something else,
maybe.
From habit, she began putting food away in the old G.E. turret-top refrigerator. And then she
began clearing the breakfast table.
Maybe he's done it so much, she decided. It's second nature; his body makes the motions, like
mine now as I put these plates and silver in the sink. Could do it with three-fifths of his brain
removed, like the leg of a frog in biology class.
'Hey,' she called. 'Wake up.'
In the bed, Joe stirred, snorted.
'Did you hear the Bob Hope show the other night?' she called. 'He told this really funny joke, the
one where this German major is interviewing some Martians. The Martians can't provide racial
documentation about their grandparents being Aryan, you know. So the German major reports back
to Berlin that Mars is populated by Jews.' Coming into the living room where Joe lay in the bed,
she said, 'And they're about one foot tall, and have two heads . . . you know how Bob Hope goes
on.'
Joe had opened his eyes. He said nothing; he stared at her unwinkingly. His chin, black with
stubble, his dark, achefilled eyes . . . she also became quiet, then.
'What is it?' she said at last. 'Are you afraid?' No, she thought; that's Frank who's afraid. This is
— I don't know what.
'The rig went on,' Joe said, sitting up.
'What are you going to do?' She seated herself on the edge of the bed, drying her arms and hands
with the dish towel.
'I'll catch him on the return. He won't say anything to anybody; he knows I'd do the same for
him.'
'You've done this before?' she asked.
Joe did not answer. You meant to miss it, Juliana said to herself. I can tell; all at once I know.
'Suppose he takes another route back?' she said.
'He always take Fifty. Never Forty. He had an accident on Forty once; some horses got out in the
road and he plowed into them. In the Rockies.' Picking up his clothes from the chair he began to
dress.
'How old are you, Joe?' she asked as she contemplated his naked body.