The ten round picnic-style tables in front failed to contain the group, whose numbers grew even as Herbert watched. Nearly three hundred mostly young men were standing or sitting on the sidewalk, curb, or street, or were leaning against cars whose owners had failed to get them out in time and wouldn't be able to retrieve them until after these three days were over. The few pedestrians who were out moved quickly through the crowd. Ahead, four police officers were directing traffic. Cars maneuvered carefully around the crowds milling and drinking on the curb outside the Beer-Hall.

Herbert had expected an army of skinheads and brownshirts-- shaved heads and tattoos, or crisply pressed pseudo-Nazi uniforms with armbands. There was a smattering of punks in pockets of ten here and half a dozen there. But most of the men and the few women he saw were dressed in casual designer clothes with fashionable if slightly conservative hairstyles. They were laughing and at ease, looking very much like young stockbrokers or attorneys who had come to Hanover for a convention. The scene was frightening in its ordinariness. This could be Herbert's beloved hometown.

With his trained eye, Herbert divided the tapestry into manageable fragments and then swallowed each image whole, rather than examining individuals. Later, if need be, he could pick out important details from memory.

As he inched by, Herbert also listened through the open window. He wasn't fluent in German, but he picked up enough to understand. These people were talking about politicians, computers, and cooking, for Chrissakes. It wasn't the way he'd imagined it would be, young men singing old German drinking songs. No wonder the authorities kept their distance from Chaos Days. If they cracked down here, they might have to lock up some of the nation's leading doctors, attorneys, stockbrokers, journalists, diplomats, or God knows who else. And God help them all if these people were ever motivated to move against the government. They weren't strong enough or united enough yet. But if they were, German rule could quickly unravel and be rewoven into a tapestry which the world would have every reason to fear.

His bowels tightened. Part of him screamed inside, They have no right, the young bastards. But another part of him knew that they had every right. Ironically, the defeat of Hitler had given them the right to say or do a great deal, as long as there was no racial or religious incitement or public denial of the Holocaust.

Toward the end of the street, there was a registration table with a half-dozen men and women behind it. The crowd waiting at the table was swelling, no one pushing, no one complaining, nothing to disrupt die general air of fellowship. Herbert slowed and watched as the organizers took money and passed out itineraries and sold black-and-red bumper stickers and lapel pins.