The Ventriloquists

by E. R. Ramzipoor

  Nicolas leapt up. “Christ, Gamin, I’ve got to get back to the workhouse before—”

  “You aren’t going anywhere,” I said, lifting the sack. “Think we made these for our health, do you? We have to actually put them someplace now.”

  “Gamin, I can’t. I’m glad to have done something for Marc Aubrion and all, but there’ll be a lashing for me if I don’t get back.”

  “There’ll be a lashing for everyone if we don’t do our jobs.” But his face told a story that Nicolas could not: the lad had done all he could, had paid for it with the blood of a friend. If I pushed him any further, he would fall, and I would fall with him. “All right, go on with you.” He thanked me and followed me out of the blue-doored building.

  4 DAYS TO PRINT

  EARLY AFTERNOON

  The Dybbuk

  WOLFF HAD NOT read this way since boyhood. He read for hours. He read like idle summers with Dumas; he read for the pleasure of adverbs, his eyes skipping through dashes and semicolons, falling into grassy comma fields. He read La Libre Belgique d’August Wolff until he’d committed it to memory, then sat in mourning. The paper would never be new to him again. Wolff might laugh at it—he might admire it—but the melody was no longer mysterious. The ink of Aubrion’s prose bled onto his skin.

  Ashamed at himself, Wolff pushed aside La Libre Belgique. This was madness. His loyalties did not lie with these little men and their newspaper. For all their pretenses, Aubrion and Spiegelman were confined to the realm of small ideas. They did not grasp the completeness of the Nazi cause. Aubrion and Spiegelman did not aspire to perfection, as Wolff did.

  But the Nazis would never produce something as perfect as La Libre Belgique. Wolff knew this to be true, as clearly as he knew his own name. They were missing something. Aubrion had it in his pockets, and he’d take it with him to the next world.

  Wolff rubbed his forehead, trying to ease his headache. He was exhausted. That was all. This was foolishness, and he was exhausted, and there was nothing more to it than that. The Gruppenführer turned to examine his arrest warrants. Naturally, the Germans did not need warrants to do as they wanted; the warrants were meant to confer legitimacy, to show that they were not barbarians, but civilized organizers who got things done and left a paper trail while doing it.

  He filled out the warrant without reading it. Arrest warrants were simple; they had to be, since the Germans issued so many of them. On a line separating two chunks of text—Haftbefehl to the left of the line and de Kommandatur 2477, Enghien to the right—the Gruppenführer wrote David Spiegelman. Then he lifted his pen, his cheeks flushing at his childish letters. On the line below the first, he wrote the date, gripping the pen tightly—November 6, he wrote—and then a pause to breathe before the year, 1943.

  Exhaling, the Gruppenführer dropped his pen. Droplets of ink kissed the page. Before he could think about it any further, Wolff snatched up his pen to sign on the bottommost line, forming the letters of his name in one jerky, suicidal motion. Then it was done, all of it, save the stamp. No document could be processed unless it bore the eagle-and-swastika seal of the Reich. Wolff took the stamp from his desk drawer.

  He hovered over the paper, stamp in hand. Wolff did not have any reason to believe Spiegelman was a traitor—but he had no reason to believe he was not. After all, he’d offered to help save Theo Mullier from Fort Breendonk; Martin Victor had said as much. Of course, Spiegelman might try to claim that Wolff had no evidence, only suspicion. But that was enough; the suspicion was enough.

  Wolff was an honorable man, the sort of man who gave people chances. But Spiegelman was a Jew, a homosexual. He’d been corrupted long ago: his death was an inevitability that had nothing to do with August Wolff. And if Wolff stamped the warrant, Spiegelman would die. He would be arrested before the day’s end, executed in a fortnight. The Gruppenführer could speed that process along, if he wanted, saving Spiegelman a night in Fort Breendonk. It would be mercy, really. August Wolff was a merciful man. He gave people chances, when he could. Wolff summoned David Spiegelman.

  The stamp was still on Wolff’s desk when Spiegelman came in, but the warrant was not. Wolff had placed it in his top drawer, easily accessible if he needed it, yet out of Spiegelman’s sight. The Gruppenführer kept his hands below the desk, like a gunslinger with a hidden pistol.

  “I am told you left the base yesterday around seven in the morning.” August Wolff checked his wristwatch. “Is that correct?”

  Spiegelman took a seat without asking for permission. Wolff stiffened. Though Spiegelman was not a man of rank, and did not have to ask before sitting in Wolff’s presence, he had always asked before. The space between them sparked with change.

  “You seem to know where I am,” said Spiegelman, “far better than I do.”

  “I asked you a question, Herr Spiegelman.”

  “Yes, I was out.”

  “I truly hope, for your sake, you are not taking cues from Marc Aubrion.”

  “Because he is disposable?” said Spiegelman.

  “He is.”

  “And I am not?”

  The Gruppenführer shook himself. This was not how he’d envisioned this conversation playing out. “As you know, Herr Spiegelman, I am not one to treat my colleagues like children. I never questioned you, never asked about your whereabouts. You will agree that I have been reasonable. But in light of recent events, I feel I must ask you. Where have you been?”

  The Gastromancer

  “It is nothing as sinister as you hope, Gruppenführer,” replied Spiegelman. “I have been with the FI. I know you took me off the project, but Aubrion requested that I look over some materials. I thought Aubrion might find it suspicious if I refused to comply.”

  Spiegelman was almost disconcerted at how easily the lie came to him. He put his hands on his thighs: an easy, open posture. Though he was warm, and his clothes felt too tight around his midsection, he was not sweating the way he usually did around Wolff. Perhaps he was taking a cue from Marc Aubrion, as the Gruppenführer had suggested—or perhaps the dybbuk’s spirit was bleeding from his hands, leaving behind the residue of his lies.

  Wolff was nodding slowly. “But why did you remain overnight?”

  “It was late. I was tired, and uninterested in getting shot.”

  “What did you work on, with Marc Aubrion?”

  “The final draft of La Libre Belgique.” Spiegelman prayed Wolff would not press him for details. He had not even glanced at the final draft of La Libre Belgique.

  “I trust you know that I have ways of verifying your story.”

  “I am smart, for a Jew.”

  The Gruppenführer did not take the bait. “Herr Spiegelman, you are confined to the base for three days’ time. That is today, tomorrow, and the day after. You may move about the base as you please, but if you step outside, even for an instant, I will issue a warrant for your arrest. Is that clear?”

  Although he had expected this sentence, Spiegelman felt Wolff’s words like a death blow. This was it, then. This was the end for him. Faux Soir would be released into the world, would have its moment onstage, and would pass—and Spiegelman would see none of it. In fewer than twenty-four hours, Aubrion and Tarcovich and the others would venture to Ferdinand Wellens’s factory to oversee the printing of Faux Soir: fifty thousand copies of a newspaper that should not have existed. People would buy it, and they’d laugh, and Spiegelman would miss it all. And then Aubrion and the rest would be captured and killed. They’d be lined up in front of a wall to be shot, if they were lucky. Their story would be scattered across the world like ashes. But not David Spiegelman—David Spiegelman would live.

  “And our agreement?” he ventured, even though he knew the answer. “Will you spare Marc Aubrion?”

  “I will not,” said the Gruppenführer, and the whole world and everyone in it went still.

  Spiegelman lifted his
eyes to Wolff’s face. He was not an old man, the Gruppenführer, and yet his skin was lined and pocked, like a new road that had already seen too much use. “Why didn’t you shoot me,” Spiegelman asked, for if this was his end, he could ask what he pleased, “that day in my grandmother’s house?”

  Wolff sat back, his eyes wide. “I saved your life,” he said, as though this was obvious.

  “Is that what you believe?” said David Spiegelman. In the tales, the dybbuk never left a man’s body until its task was done. But David’s grandmother had never told him what happened if the dybbuk was slain, if it was even possible. Spiegelman got to his feet, so that Wolff had to look up to see his face. “Far be it from me to give you advice, Gruppenführer, but you should have saved your own.”

  The Gruppenführer started to reply, but he could not finish the task. Spiegelman drank greedily of Wolff’s silence. When he’d had his fill, he turned his back on August Wolff.

  The Professor

  Martin Victor found a table at the back of the coffeehouse. He sat, waving over the lazy fellow behind the counter. The professor ordered a coffee, poured a dash of cheap gin into it. As his lips and hands began to tingle with the stuff, Victor took out a paper and pen.

  My dear sir, he wrote, deliberately avoiding Wolff’s name, I am writing to you because I am embroiled in a conflict which I feel we must discuss. Please do me the honor of allowing me to make my case. I am, as I have repeated to you, a man of my word.

  Victor reread the sentence, taking a sip of coffee. He was a man of his word, and yet the phrase was so misused by other men that it sounded empty. The professor scratched it out. It was not like Martin Victor to start writing something without an objective in mind, and yet here he was, allowing his pen to take him where it willed.

  “Damn,” he said, for he’d managed to choose the only pen at the FI headquarters that was nearly out of ink. Victor shook the pen. A bit of ink dribbled onto the table. Cursing, Victor cleaned off the nib with his thumb. After several aborted attempts, he was writing again.

  I must admit I have not been as forthright in our exchanges as I should have been. These are dishonorable times. We have both had experiences we would rather forget. As I learned in Auschwitz, the struggle to survive makes vultures of us all.

  This, too, was true. Still, Victor thought, it seemed disingenuous to blame these times for what he’d become, for his inability to remain loyal to the FI or to Wolff or to himself. The war had not changed everyone; Marc Aubrion was the same bastard as he’d always been. If anything, he had flourished. The professor struck out the line about dishonorable times.

  What matters most, I suppose, is that I resolve, here and now, to give you any and all information you might need to indict Marc Aubrion and his colleagues. If you cannot accept my apology, please accept my assistance. Victor nodded. It was brief, to the point. And if it could be phrased so succinctly, there must be some truth to it. This was the right path, his path—giving himself over to the Reich entirely. The Allies had done nothing to end the war, after all. It went on, and nothing changed: nothing, except men like him.

  Let me begin with the most important information: things are not what they appear to be.

  4 DAYS TO PRINT

  EVENING

  The Gastromancer

  HE WAS CARRYING Churchill around in his head, and bless the fellow, he was starting to get heavy. Replaying one of the man’s letters, David Spiegelman retreated into his office and locked the door. He never did that, really: lock the door. It was a meaningless gesture, like the time Spiegelman hung a pinup poster above his dressing table. If the Germans wanted to get in, they would get in, and a bit of metal would delay them only an extra second. But Spiegelman needed an extra barrier between himself and the Germans, and people did foolish things for all manner of reasons—so he bolted his door. In his head, Churchill was still going on about the price of freedom. Spiegelman let him.

  David Spiegelman sat on the floor and took stock of what he had. He had the best telecommunications equipment in all of Europe at his disposal, and yet communicating with Marc Aubrion or anyone associated with the FI was out of the question. The German Command monitored all communications in and out of the base. If Spiegelman tried to get a message to Aubrion via courier, telex, smuggler or carrier pigeon, he would be shot. In addition to communications equipment he couldn’t use, Spiegelman was also blessed with archives he couldn’t access. If he requested access to the Nazi Hall of Records to get more Roosevelt and Churchill material and continue the Bomber Harris caper, Wolff would know something was amiss. He also had the pocketwatch Aubrion gave him; though Aubrion himself might have devised some ingenious way to use the watch to communicate with Bomber Harris, Spiegelman was not so creative. Spiegelman glanced at his mattress, behind which he’d carved a hole in the wall to stash a pistol. He considered grabbing the pistol and stepping into the hallway, firing at everything that breathed until the inevitable returned him to his family. But Spiegelman knew himself. He’d probably shoot the ceiling, hyperventilate, faint, and then wake up at Fort Breendonk.

  More out of habit than anything, Spiegelman dragged himself to his desk. It was mid-afternoon, and most were taking their lunch. Laughter and muted conversations floated past his door. He picked up a pen, a green Parker Duofold, the kind he’d favored as a boy. Without thinking, David Spiegelman began to write. We live in a terrible epoch of the human story, he wrote, Churchill wrote, but we believe there is a broad and sure justice running through its theme. Spiegelman studied the elegant lines, the gentle rounds of the letters. He felt his heart quicken. There was indeed, he realized, a way for him to shoot his way out of the Nazi headquarters without landing in Fort Breendonk.

  Spiegelman would not even need a pistol.

  The Jester

  Aubrion had never done well with silence. Silence was a blank canvas his mind could paint with horrid things. It was also boring; after all, he had no one to irritate. He drew idly on a blackboard, stepping in Roosevelt and Churchill’s documents. After Spiegelman left for the Nazi headquarters, Noël ran out to pick up the shipment of flour no one was going to use, Wellens went to prepare his factory for printing, Victor decided to brood elsewhere, and no one had seen Tarcovich in a while. Only Aubrion had nowhere to go. He considered running out to search for me, but he trusted me to complete the mission without him. So he languished, and in the silence, he began to feel Mullier’s death. It sat on Aubrion’s chest, weighing down his body.

  The basement was quiet; no footsteps above. People were not coming in to make things anymore. The FI—this part of the FI, Aubrion’s home—they created such wonders: the posters, the books, the leaflets. They spun art out of nothing. People who could have picked up guns instead picked up pens, and they drew pictures, and they wrote words. That was what had drawn Aubrion to the FI in the first place. The Allied cause was noble and good, of course, and the German cause was not, and that mattered, too, but, really—the FI made beautiful things. The Nazis did not.

  Aubrion rested his back against the frostbitten brick with his eyes squeezed shut. It was there Lada Tarcovich found him.

  “How long have you been down here?” she asked, but Aubrion rolled into a fetal position. Tarcovich knelt by him. “Marc? You can’t stay down there forever.”

  “I can.” His voice was muffled by his arm, which he’d thrown across his face halfway into Lada’s sentence. “I am ignoring you.”

  “And how is that going?”

  Aubrion tried to burrow into his own arm.

  “Please get up,” said Lada. “Here, I’ll help you.”

  He felt Tarcovich put her arms around his waist. Aubrion let her help him sit up.

  They did not look at each other for a while; they just left each other in peace. Tarcovich started crumpling up copies of Churchill’s speeches and tossing them across the room. It was a careless act, something Lada never would have
done before. But it would all burn soon anyway.

  “Lada?” said Aubrion.

  “Hmm?”

  “Do you remember that play I wrote two years ago?”

  “Tried to write. You’ve never finished a play, my dear.”

  “It was a one-act about how Hitler is secretly a woman who could never have children. There was a line about his ‘barren breasts.’”

  “Oh, Christ,” said Tarcovich.

  “You do know it, then.”

  “Unfortunately.”

  “I had quite a plan for it, you know. It was going to be a leaflet. We were going to drop it on the doorsteps of every house in Belgium.”

  “We were?”

  “But René didn’t share my vision. In the end, he never let it print.”

  “It occurs to me I’ve never told René how much he deserves a medal. Marc—”

  “Don’t say ‘Marc’ right now. ‘Marc’ always kills my plans.”

  “I know he does.”

  As they conversed, a radio crackled on a table. The radio was always on, listening for troop movements, for cities with strange names. Soldiers watched over the radio like it was a wounded friend gasping through the dawn. Lada walked over to shut off the newscaster’s bleary German. Our workers preferred the German radio stations, since they were more likely to spell out the truth of our losses than the resistance stations. Even back then, I knew this was a point of contention for Noël, who disagreed with our friends at the information office on the demarcation between news and propaganda.

  Lada watched Aubrion lace and unlace his fingers. His nails were chipped, his hands stained black with his craft.

  “You know,” said Aubrion, “I had a plan for a column. It would run in La Libre Belgique. I was going to do it on the day the Americans joined in the war—this was back before they’d joined, you see. I envisioned two pages, the second and third in the newspaper, so the reader had to turn the first page to see the whole thing. On the left side, we’d list the names of every Belgian who died since the invasion—René could get that from his pal in Flanders, the one with the toupee—and the right side would simply be the date and time that the Americans entered the war. Or perhaps we’d count down the days with tally marks, like on a prison wall. But I’m thinking about it now. We don’t have enough people to do it.” Aubrion seemed to gaze past the ceiling and into the empty rooms above. He did not notice, but Tarcovich started at this raw vulnerability. “We have lost nearly everyone who worked here.”