“Shit,” I whispered. The room tasted of sawdust and iodine, and the darkness filled my mouth and lungs like sewer water. Panicking, I fumbled for another match. I was terrified I would drop my matches, that I would lose them to the darkness. After three or four tries, I had light again.
This time, I was prepared for the sight. I collected myself, repeating something René Noël had told me before the days of Faux Soir: “When you most want to close your eyes—that is when you should keep them open.” And so I forced myself to look at the faces. They were simply photographs. I had stumbled into an old photography lab.
Holding the match aloft, I explored my surroundings. The room looked almost exactly as it does now: narrow, with angular bends and points. Half a dozen tables lay scattered about the perimeter. Each was laden with small vials, pans, sheets of paper, cracked bottles.
My match went out, stinging my hand. I cursed and lit another.
As I approached the largest desk at the back of the room, I gagged on the smell of rotting eggs. Most of the vials on the desk contained a silver powder. I picked up a bottle, sniffing its contents. Perhaps, I realized, Aubrion could make use of something here.
I turned to examine the room. Bullet holes dotted the wall behind me. About half the tables had been overturned, some photographs torn to shreds. Something illegal had happened here, that much was clear. But the Germans’ work was done, and they were unlikely to return.
Careful to keep my match away from the floor, I picked up a photograph of an older woman. She had smile lines and flowers in her hair. My mother had tried to teach me what different flowers were called, when I was a child. I had not paid attention; I could not remember their names.
The Germans would not search for me all night; their search would die with the sun. So I waited for my flame to go out. I sat and made up names in the dark.
5 DAYS TO PRINT
EARLY EVENING
The Jester
“AH, THERE HE IS,” said Noël, and Aubrion heard the director come downstairs and into the basement, saw him touch Spiegelman’s shoulder, a tacit indication that he was welcome in their home. Aubrion was surprised, for he had expected to spar with the director over Spiegelman’s sudden appearance. Noël tried to glance over Aubrion’s shoulder, failed, and tried again with Spiegelman. A piece of blotting paper sat between them. “What on earth are you two doing?”
“I thought I would get started on this now that Spiegelman is here,” replied Aubrion.
“But what is this?” said Noël.
The paper was alive with Aubrion’s fierce lettering, his arrows craning their necks at Spiegelman’s diagrams and tired, timid script. Noël stepped away as though he feared the paper might reach out and seize him by the throat.
“It’s our distraction,” said Aubrion. “René, I need you to make me a promise.”
“He wants you to promise not to put him in a straitjacket.” Spiegelman almost smiled.
Wellens, who’d moved a chair under our remaining lightbulb to read some dull finance paper, laughed. “Some of the best ideas have come from men in straitjackets, I daresay!”
Noël rolled his eyes. “All right, I promise.” He fished a wrench out of his apron pocket and tossed it on the floor. “At least for the time being.”
“To stop the vans carrying Le Soir from getting where they need to go,” said Aubrion, “Monsieur Spiegelman and I are going to make the Royal Air Force bomb the city.”
Aubrion had expected a variety of reactions to this idea, including anger, disbelief, incredulousness, even laughter. Silence, however, was not among these options. The others lapsed into the loudest quiet Aubrion had ever heard. Victor chose that moment to come downstairs and step in the silence as though it were mud.
“What did Aubrion do now?” the professor asked.
“He is going to make the RAF bomb Belgium,” said Tarcovich. With a wicked smile at Aubrion, she lit a cigarette.
“Oh, Christ keep us,” moaned Victor.
“What did Wolff want?” asked Noël.
Victor rubbed his forehead. “Nothing in particular. Just to double-check the information Aubrion gave him. What in God’s name is this business about the RAF?”
“I have two words for anyone here who doubts it can be done.” Aubrion paused, as he always did before a punch line. “Bomber Harris.”
“Who is that,” said Tarcovich, “and what comic book did he crawl out of?”
“Bomber Arthur Harris.” Wellens put his paper down. “Commander-in-Chief of the Royal Air Force.” He said it rather like he was introducing the man at a party.
“Christ Almighty.” Noël put his hands on the back of a chair to steady himself. “I suppose it can be done.”
“Can someone enlighten those of us who have no bloody clue what’s going on here?” demanded Tarcovich.
Aubrion started thus: “Everyone hates Bomber Harris, because Bomber Harris is the foremost and perhaps only advocate for area bombing.”
“Area bombing?” asked Tarcovich.
“The practice of bombing a target area, such as a city or a town,” said Victor, assuming a lecturer’s posture, “instead of a specific target, such as a building or a military unit.”
Tarcovich blew out a furious cloud of smoke. “He’s the arsehole responsible for the blitzkrieg? The reason Londoners have to step through a pile of bodies to get a pat of butter?”
“Assuming there’s still a full pat of butter left somewhere in London,” Victor said softly, “that’s correct.”
“Do you know him, Wellens?” asked Noël.
Wellens went uncharacteristically quiet. “I’ve had dealings with him.”
“I still don’t understand why ‘Bomber Harris’ is the reason this is going to work,” said Tarcovich.
“The Allies are desperate.” Aubrion twirled a piece of chalk. “This war has completely changed the way armies work. Think about it. If General Eisenhower is sitting in his rotting trousers on some godforsaken island in the Orient, and he needs to make a decision that might change the course of the war, does he have time to radio Monsieur Roosevelt and ask for permission? Christ, no. He’s got to make his decision now. Armies and army commanders think for themselves now, do you understand? And Bomber Harris is no different. Churchill hates his guts, but there’s nothing old Churchy can do. He’s got to let Harris do what Harris does, which largely involves bombing the bloody hell out of anything he wants to.” Aubrion stabbed the blackboard with his chalk. “He is destructive, unpredictable—”
“Religious,” Victor added.
“Very religious. Listen to this.” Aubrion nodded at Spiegelman, who retrieved a file that had been tucked under the blotting paper. “This is a statement Harris delivered a few years ago.”
“‘The Nazis entered this war,’” read Spiegelman, “‘under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everyone else, and nobody was going to bomb them. At Rotterdam, London, Warsaw and half a hundred other places, they put their rather naive theory into operation. They sowed the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind.’”
Tarcovich whistled. “Now that’s a male ego.”
“Last month,” said Aubrion, “Churchill issued a statement to the German people—this is incredible, actually—apologizing for all the women and children who’d died and all the homes that had been destroyed in Harris’s area raids. He wanted to emphasize that this damage was unintentional but unavoidable. And Bomber Harris? What did he do?” Aubrion laughed. “That glorious son of a bitch issued a counter-statement that said... Spiegelman?”
Spiegelman read: “‘The aim of the Combined Bomber Offensive should be unambiguously stated as the destruction of German cities, the killing of German workers, and the disruption of civilized life throughout Germany.’”
“The disruption of civilized life!” Aubrion repeated, sha
king his head.
“So, he’s odd, and he’s religious,” said Tarcovich, cataloging these traits on her fingers, “and he’s unpredictable, and people don’t like him. If not for the religion bit, you and he could make great friends, Marc.”
“Don’t you see?” said Aubrion. “Add this all together, and what do you get? Someone who is emotional. What does that mean for us?”
“It means he can be goaded,” said Spiegelman, almost to himself.
“Let me be clear on this,” said Noël, steadying himself on a chair. “You are going to goad Commander Arthur Harris into bombing Belgium.”
“Just the city,” said Aubrion, “but yes.”
“On the eleventh of November, before four o’clock, when the vans leave.”
“Yes.”
“To stop the vans from distributing Le Soir.”
Aubrion rocked back on his heels, a content smile spreading across his face. “Now you’ve got it. Was that really so difficult, René?”
“And yet the raid can’t be that destructive,” said Victor, folding his arms across his chest, “or people will shelter in their homes all day, and then who will buy Faux Soir?”
“Right,” said Spiegelman. “We will goad him, but we must not infuriate him.”
Victor regarded Spiegelman, looking down at him like an overdue library book. The professor was at least two feet taller. “Who put you on this project?” he said.
“Come off it, Martin,” snapped Aubrion. “David is here, when he would be far safer with the Germans. That is proof enough of his loyalty.”
“Wait, wait.” Noël rubbed his hands across his face and beard, perhaps wiping himself clean of this madness. “There is a logistical problem here that I feel is being overlooked.”
Lada snorted. “Just one?”
“Why on earth would Harris read a communique from the likes of us?”
“He wouldn’t,” said Aubrion.
Spiegelman broke in. “But he would read a communique from Winston Churchill.”
The Gastromancer
As Noël and Tarcovich busied themselves with a batch of Faux Soir proofs, Aubrion invited Spiegelman on a walk through northern Enghien to look for an open pub. Though Aubrion hadn’t said anything of the kind, Spiegelman suspected he felt guilty for cutting him out of the Faux Soir endeavor. His invitation was an attempt at an apology—though rather lopsided, perhaps, like a crooked painting.
“I’ll buy you a drink,” said Aubrion, holding open the door for Spiegelman. “The beer around here is mostly water, and the water tastes like beer—”
“I don’t care much for alcohol, if I’m honest.” Spiegelman shoved his cold hands into his coat pockets, wishing desperately for a pair of gloves.
“Well, that explains a great deal. A religious concern?”
“A not-looking-like-a-fool concern.”
Aubrion threw his head back and laughed, with careless abandon. “Everyone looks like a fool, David. Some of us have simply learned not to care about it. Coffee?”
“Gladly. Thank you, Aubrion—that is, Marc.”
“Think nothing of it.”
The two hurried down the street, walking quickly to warm up. It was a brittle afternoon, with a crisp snap to the air. Not many people were out, mostly women with small children. The labor camps had taken most of the men, and the nighttime raids had scraped the rest of them off the streets. Aubrion and Spiegelman crossed a street to avoid a pile of rubble. The Nazi boot had trodden softly on Enghien compared to London or Warsaw. Spiegelman had visited both cities on assignments with Wolff. When he was walking through Poland, he knew to expect the potholes that the tanks had ripped into the streets, or the wounded homes, the wreckage, the refugees. But Enghien was different. Spiegelman had never grown accustomed to finding a shattered window in a perfect wooden building, or a rusty ball of cloth on a street corner.
“Nearly there,” said Aubrion.
This was an odd thing for Spiegelman, this small friendship with Marc Aubrion. It seemed fragile: trapped inside the cocoon of something greater. Spiegelman felt eminently conscious of his body and speech: if he moved the wrong way, if his finger twitched or his voice cracked or he laughed a second too long, this delicate thing might break in his hands.
“Are you from Enghien originally?” asked Spiegelman, for wasn’t that the sort of thing one asked a friend?
“We should turn here.” Aubrion pointed down a tree-lined street. Though many of the trees had withered away to skeletons, a few clung stubbornly to their red and gold. “There’s a good coffeehouse a block away.”
“I didn’t know there were any good coffeehouses left.”
“Well, the war has diluted the definition of ‘good.’ Now it’s nearly as watered-down as the beer. But the coffee is cheap, and the barman has no love for the Germans.
“No, I’m not from Enghien originally. From Brussels, land of sodium carbonate. Did you know that? Sodium carbonate was invented—invented? Is that the right word for it? I don’t know. In any case, it was happened upon in Brussels.”
“I can’t say I knew that,” said Spiegelman. “Did you like living in Brussels?”
“Possibly.”
“Possibly?”
“I don’t know.”
“Whether you liked it?”
“The war has made me nostalgic for many things I did not like at the time.”
“Such as?”
“Farfalle.”
“The pasta?” Spiegelman laughed.
“I never thought of farfalle a day in my life before the Germans, and now I can’t be rid of it. What an astounding creation it is! Henry Ford could not have designed a superior vehicle for pesto. Ravioli is clumsy, penne is impolite, tagliatelle is inconvenient, tortellini is too ambitious—but farfalle, blessed farfalle, the quiet casualty of this horrid war. Turn left.”
“What?”
“Left.”
The coffeehouse was a slight building tucked onto a street corner. Aubrion led Spiegelman inside and ordered for them. As Spiegelman sat, he was accosted by a sudden inspiration.
“Is there any paper around?” Spiegelman asked Aubrion as he placed their coffees on a table.
“For what?”
“For writing. I have an idea for the—you know.” Spiegelman mouthed Churchill.
“Oh. Oh, Christ. Do you have a pen?”
“I always have a pen. I simply need paper.”
“A napkin?” Aubrion offered.
Spiegelman took it and began to write:
MY DEAR COMMANDER HARRIS,
For a long time I have watched with admiration your efforts to defend and conquer in the name of Great Britain and for the relief of suffering across our sacred lands. I believe I have made clear my profound gratitude to you, Commander Harris, for your sacrifice and vigilance in the face of the constant death and splendid horrors of war.
Spiegelman showed the napkin to Aubrion. “I have read some of his writing, particularly his letters, but perhaps not enough,” said Spiegelman. The napkin was rough-hewn cloth, embroidered with the image of a teacup. The teacup now appeared to be leaking ink. “I’m just trying to gauge how far off the mark I am.”
Aubrion squinted. “Conquer is wrong. The Nazis are conquerors, the Allies are saviors. That is the crux of Churchill’s rhetoric. Try something alliterative.”
“How about defend and destroy?” said Spiegelman.
“Perfect. I do like splendid horrors. It could bloody well be the name of his biography.”
Spiegelman nodded. “I’ll keep at it.”
I trust then you will understand the nature of my communication with you to-day, Spiegelman wrote, and that this communication is intended in the best of spirits, that you understand our aims are aligned, our goodwill paramount in these times of historic distress. Commander Har
ris, I have heard intelligence from our men in London, intelligence of a ghastly sort, that President Roosevelt, a fine man and a soldier of spirit and suffering by any estimation, means to conduct a campaign over the skies of Enghien on the eleventh of this month. This he intends to do without consulting either of us, and I have reason to believe that these things the intelligence-men say are in fact truthful, for they would not lie, and have not the opportunity for misdirection. Upon learning this news, I was anxious to express it to you, Commander Harris.
Having exhausted his napkin’s available real estate, Spiegelman stole another from an adjacent table. He reread what he’d written. To his gratification, Spiegelman felt his lips move with the cadence of Churchill’s speech: the over-enunciation, the pauses, the audible punctuation. Churchill had a lisp, as a boy. His parents believed he’d never speak to their satisfaction. He’d labored over words, won them over. They became his fondest companions. Churchill wrote like a glutton, swallowing whole paragraphs where sentences could have sufficed, taking fistfuls of adjectives and packing them into fat phrases. Spiegelman, reading, ate them alive.
Churchill’s script had proven difficult to copy. He did not write with the lofty curls and swoops of the nobility. “A lot of people don’t know it,” Aubrion told Spiegelman, “but Churchill was born a commoner.” In his writing, he waffled visibly between pride in his station and shame at his origins. Churchill’s handwriting looked, all at once, unpracticed and refined, artistic and rote. Each period skirted away from the end of its sentence, as though Churchill were leaving room for extra words to slip inside. His paragraphs tended to climb up toward the left side of the page, running from him as he wrote.
My second purpose in addressing you today, Spiegelman continued, is to enjoin you not to act on this information. I must repeat, Commander Harris, lest my intentions and the correct course of action to you remain unclear, that you must not act on this information. We should allow President Roosevelt’s men and the Americans to enjoy what promises to be a great and gallant victory above the cathedrals of Belgium. I believe this to be important for the war efforts, and for our continued relations with the Americans now and evermore.
The Ventriloquists Page 32
