The Ventriloquists

by E. R. Ramzipoor

  “Of course we have.” Tarcovich lit a cigarette. “August Wolff threatened to kill them. Anyone with any brains would have left after that. And those who didn’t leave immediately...” Shrugging, Tarcovich puffed on her cigarette. “They heard what happened to Theo. You can hardly blame them.”

  Aubrion grew silent again. It was the habit that annoyed Lada most, he knew. When he was done speaking, he was done with it, and nothing could exorcise a word or feeling from him. But then Aubrion held his hands out to her like a beggar.

  “Listen here.” A hoarseness had entered Aubrion’s voice. It was not the hoarseness that comes of speaking too much, but of whispering. Marc Aubrion had whispered for too long. He ached to raise his voice, to test it against the length and breadth of the sky. “There was a time when I had never seen a body before—never a dead body, not once. Do you ever think about that? It’s so strange now. I passed my whole life without seeing a body. Now I can scarcely pass three days without it.” He paused. “Why does it take buttons so long to decompose? Does anyone know the answer?”

  Tarcovich studied him. “Are you angry about the Americans? Because time will judge the Americans for when they entered the war. And it hardly matters now. You know the Germans won’t last.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Just yesterday you called them bouffons. Wasn’t that the word you used?”

  “If bouffons never won anything, our political history would be a great deal nicer.” Aubrion’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Lada, I don’t know. I only wish I knew what to do.”

  “Stay here.” Tarcovich got up. “I will be back shortly.”

  She went upstairs. Aubrion shut his eyes and allowed time to pass, luxuriating in the nothingness of it: no plans, no running. After a time, Tarcovich returned, carrying a small, leather-bound notebook.

  “What is it?” Aubrion asked.

  “What’s it look like?” said Lada.

  “A notebook.”

  “Nicely done, Marc.” Lada flipped through the book. Her touch was light on its cool, virgin pages. Specks of dirt peppered the spine. She brushed them away. “I have had it for ages. I’ve been meaning to use it for my stories.”

  “Your dirty stories?”

  “No, for real stories—things I wanted to write but never did. Every now and again, I take the notebook from wherever I stashed it last, I pick up a pen—you know. But I never do anything more than that. I only hold it.” Tarcovich rested the book in her lap. “Remember what I told you before? That you should write fake obituaries for Faux Soir?”

  Aubrion shrugged in a way that suggested he did, but wished he did not.

  “You wanted to know what to do.” Lada held the notebook close. “I am telling you.”

  He seemed to consider this. Then: “What will you do?”

  “I have this,” said Tarcovich, who folded her hands across the notebook. It was a skinny thing, the leather bony and pocked. The book’s pages were few. She might, if she worked at it, fill them up before her days’ end.

  “Really, Lada,” said Aubrion, “you never listen to a bloody thing I say. I called the Germans idiots, not bouffons.”

  Despite herself, Tarcovich had to ask, “Is there a difference?”

  “Of course there is! What a question. Here’s the trouble, though.” Aubrion’s smile passed through Lada’s body, through the walls, out into the night where the stars made promises they would forget by morning. “Only the bouffons know what it is.”

  4 DAYS TO PRINT

  NIGHT

  The Pyromaniac

  WHILE NICOLAS MADE his way back to the workhouse, I returned to the Front de l’Indépendance base. The guard was at the door, like always, and I gave him the password so he’d let me in. But the inside of the place was a corpse. The typewriters had been abandoned, some chairs overturned. A stack of posters lay near our assistant director’s desk, as though he would be back in an instant to review them, like he’d just stepped out for a bite. One of our workmen had left his wrench and screwdriver on a desk, his empty tool belt at its feet. I thought for a moment that it was a Sunday; perhaps I’d lost track of time. But I knew that could not be so: it was Wolff’s raid that had left my home barren. A breeze carried the smell of rain inside, stirring papers on the floor; Aubrion once told me there’s a word for the smell of rain, petrichor, and I marveled at the wonder of that every time I remembered it.

  I found Aubrion and Tarcovich in the basement. They were seated on opposite sides of the room, at work with paper and pen. I cleared my throat for their attention.

  “Gamin!” Smiling, Aubrion got up to embrace me. He smelled of chalk and of him, but his smile did not reach his eyes. “Are you all right? I had begun to worry.”

  Tarcovich wagged a finger at me. “It’s about time you showed up, young man.” At this last word, her smile broadened.

  Aubrion offered me a seat, which I took gratefully. As he questioned me about the day’s events, Tarcovich fetched me a glass of water and a sandwich. I spoke, businesslike and monotone, between mouthfuls.

  “I can’t believe our good fortune.” Aubrion made a note, tapping his fingers on a desk. “This building sounds as though it will be perfect for our photographs. Where did you say it was?”

  I swallowed a bite of sandwich. “Up north, monsieur.”

  “Go on, Gamin. What about the bombs?” Aubrion was gripping the arms of his chair. “You did find a place to stash them, didn’t you?”

  “Oh, go easy on him, Marc.” Tarcovich glanced between me and Aubrion. “It is not the end of the world if you couldn’t find somewhere, Gamin.”

  “I did find somewhere, madame.” I eyed the rest of my sandwich. Another bite remained, but I was no longer hungry. I put it aside, wiped my hands on my trousers. “I dropped them in a dumpster outside the Le Soir print factories. My mate Nicolas says they only empty the things every other week, if that. He used to be a garbage boy.”

  Aubrion leaned back in his chair. “It’s bloody brilliant.”

  “And this lad Nicolas?” said Tarcovich. “He is safe, isn’t he?”

  “He’s fine, madame. I saw him off to the workhouse all right.” It was not a lie—Nicolas was fine, he had returned to the workhouse—but I said nothing of Leon. I remember that those words, He’s fine, madame, were flavored with sulfur and iron. I can taste them now. I will taste them until I die.

  “Excellent, excellent,” said Aubrion. “René will be pleased. Actually, René will be pessimistic and boring, but I’ll be pleased on his behalf.”

  “Hang on a tick.” Tarcovich tapped her chin with a pen. “Didn’t you mention another lad? One who came with you to Wellens’s construction site?”

  My words caught in my throat. I had a feeling that I’d done something bad, or that I’d found out something I was not supposed to know. I made another attempt to speak but tasted the salt of my tears.

  “Oh, no, you poor thing.” Tarcovich lunged forward to catch me as I fell out of my chair. I collapsed into her arms, sobbing. Even now, I recall the fresh smell of her sweater and scarf when I am sad or lonely. Her arms became my world. “Hush now. Hush.” I still could not tell her what became of Leon. When I accepted my position among the men and women of the FI, I accepted everything that accompanied it: the life of a soldier, and the death. I don’t know for certain that Leon died, of course; I did not see a body. But I never tried to find out, and for that, I carry unnamable guilt.

  Aubrion got up, aware that he was supposed to do something, unaware of what it was. He had come to think of me as a colleague, you see. I did the same work everyone else did, took the same risks. He’d never seen me cry—not because I was hiding it, you understand, but because I didn’t do it. “They made the Marquis de Lafayette a commander at age thirteen,” Aubrion used to joke, “and he probably had syphilis. You’ll be running the show in half a year.” A
nd suddenly I was neither a colleague nor a friend; we were fighting together, in a war. Aubrion watched me wipe my tears with my fists. He was doing this—all of this—to a child. Later that night, when they thought I was asleep, he confessed these feelings to Lada Tarcovich. “We are all just children, Marc,” she said, surprising me—surprising him, too.

  “You poor thing,” Lada was still saying, an incantation meant to keep me whole. But this business with Leon had turned death from a prankster into a reality. I had seen people die from afar—I had seen my own parents trampled to death—and I had seen bodies in the streets. I sang the same ballads as the other soldiers, “The Fair Lad’s Last Stand,” “Belgium Shall Rise,” “Mighty Brussels Again,” the same foolish words and yet it all meant something different now. I was not whole. The reality of death had shattered me into fragments.

  I believe that is why I chose this moment to tell Marc Aubrion who I was. It was not a choice so much as it was an attempt to put myself back together. I needed a map, you see, to show me the way back to myself, to find meaning and worth in a world that suddenly meant nothing. I needed a map, and a mapmaker cannot tell lies.

  “Monsieur?” I said. “I have something to tell you.”

  Lada released me from her embrace. As I faltered, she nodded me on.

  “What is it, Gamin?” Aubrion knelt by me on the floor, his wide eyes meeting mine. “Tell me.”

  “I’m not—well—there’s something you think I am, but I’m not.”

  Aubrion nodded gravely. “Before you go on, let me say this. Socialism has acquired a bad reputation through an unfortunate series of circumstances entirely beyond the control of anyone affiliated with the movement itself, and possibly even orchestrated by an uninspired but determined cadre of political professionals who don’t care a wretched lick about anything but their own pocketbooks—”

  “Oh, my God,” said Lada, “she’s not a bloody socialist, she’s a girl!”

  At this revelation, Aubrion looked at me, at Lada, back at me, and then heavenward, saying: “Are you sure?”

  “I’m afraid so, monsieur.” I knew Aubrion, with his trunk full of disguises and false mustaches and wigs, would not ask why I did it. If Tarcovich understood the pragmatic motivations for my identity, Aubrion understood the fanciful. But I felt compelled to tell him the reason anyway. “It was easier this way, when I was coming here from Toulouse. With all of the bad men around, you know. I heard things from my mother, before—before. It wasn’t a lie, not really. I’ve felt comfortable this way, monsieur. And I wanted to tell you, I did, but after a time—”

  “You knew about this?” Aubrion asked Tarcovich.

  “Wouldn’t you be more surprised if I didn’t know?”

  “I suppose it does seem like something you would know.” He said to me, “Why have you told me this now?”

  I told the truth. I was drawing my map, and the lines were clean and sure. “It felt like it was a good time to say it, monsieur.”

  My dear Aubrion seemed to accept that. “Well,” he said, “I can’t argue with your dramatic timing.” His attention drifted toward one of the blackboards.

  Tarcovich stepped between Aubrion and his next scheme. “Aren’t you going to ask what she’s called?” she said.

  It is not enough to say that Aubrion merely smiled at me, for while that is accurate, it is not true. Aubrion smiled at me, yes, but like he knew me, all of me—the parts that hurt, the bits that faltered, the things that were laughable or strange, the patches that tried valiantly to cover the scars. If that is what it means to smile, so be it, but I will never see another smile as long as I am alive.

  “Why would I do that?” said Aubrion. “I know exactly who Gamin is.”

  3 DAYS TO PRINT

  FIRST LIGHT OF MORNING

  The Gastromancer

  THE ALLIES HAD gotten into a row on Spiegelman’s desk. Franklin Roosevelt had started it.

  Dear Commander Harris, the president had written. It had taken Spiegelman two tries to get the handwriting right. He’d written so much Churchill over the past day that he felt as if the man had seized his pen and refused to give it back. I am certain you have received word of the impending American press into Belgium that shall begin within a week’s time. My dear friend the prime minister has conveyed to me his understanding of the tactical and spiritual significance of such an assault. He conveyed to me, too, your comprehension of the necessity that this be an American undertaking. I will be the first to speak to the extraordinary military accomplishments of the English. Spiegelman crossed out “extraordinary” and wrote “extra-ordinary” next to it. For reasons that were his alone, Roosevelt both pronounced and wrote the word that way. America, he continued, has yet to achieve a victory on this scale in the skies of Europe. It is necessary, it is important, it is vital that this change immediately.

  The reason I am writing to you is that I would like to personally give my thanks for your understanding. A man of your talents does not sit idly as his countrymen or his allies work to achieve that to which he has devoted his life. Spiegelman tapped his pen against the desk. That sentence was important, he knew. Bomber Harris would either read it and resolve not to sit idly by, or resolve to ensure he sat idly by—to spite the Americans. I am aware of the depths of your commitment, Commander Harris. These next days will be difficult for you. Spiegelman paused, then struck out the sentence. He thought the better of it, writing: These days will be difficult for you, I trust. The two extra words, though brief, added a wealth of condescension to which even a bureaucrat-general like August Wolff could only aspire. I can only hope any frustration is swallowed by the sense of duty that has distinguished you from your peers.

  —Franklin Roosevelt.

  Spiegelman reread the letter, freezing in terror each time he heard a footstep outside his door. If the Germans caught him at work, the game was up—not simply for him, but for Aubrion, Tarcovich, Noël, everyone. Though he did not know whether he would have the time or presence of mind to follow through, Spiegelman planned to burn the offending letters if the Germans were to come through his door. Pleased, Spiegelman set aside Roosevelt’s note and began a second one. It would be brief, to the extent that Winston Churchill was capable of brevity.

  MY DEAR PRESIDENT,

  I have been informed of your communication with Commander Arthur Harris. I am, and I will forever be, thankful to the Lord our God for the bond of friendship you and I have forged in the flames of this bloodiest of wars.

  Spiegelman shook himself, dizzy with prepositional phrases. He crossed out flames to replace it with fires.

  Ours is a bond of deep and mutual respect. We are aware of the delicate nature of war and the artful touch one requires in dealing, diplomatically, with one’s own people and with those on the other side. That is precisely why

  Spiegelman dropped his pen, certain he heard someone fiddling with the door handle. But, no, it must have been the wind, or his imagination. He stared at his paper for a moment, trying to figure out what he’d planned to say. And then he finished:

  I am writing to you to-day. My dear Roosevelt, I must humbly suggest, with the greatest admiration for you and for our shared work, that you send to me all communications intended for the men in my military and diplomatic ranks so that I may forward them to their proper place. I have long believed that if we are to muddle through these apocalyptic days and if we are to emerge unscathed in the fields of revelation, we must be aware of all that transpires within our ranks. It is in this spirit I humbly make my request.

  WINSTON S. CHURCHILL

  Spiegelman drummed his fingers, thinking. Most of the base went to sleep by midnight. He could probably access the communications room around two in the morning, with minimal risk of detection, and send the letters to Bomber Harris. Though they’d tried to develop the technology, the Germans did not have any means of automatically recording telex communic
ations that left their bases; it had to be done manually. The greatest risk was that Bomber Harris might respond, and that the telex operators would awake to find his message. “The odds are very low,” Aubrion had said when Spiegelman brought up that concern the day prior. “I don’t believe he’s ever responded to a communication from Churchill or Roosevelt, since the beginning of the war. The man is impressively antisocial.”

  The letters rested uneasily on Spiegelman’s desk. Though his options were few, they seemed vast: send the letters, risk detection, and invite death in two days’ time, or burn the letters and die chained to this desk. Spiegelman stood, putting his hands on the wall like a prisoner clutching the bars of his cell. His time there was limited regardless of what happened with Faux Soir. Someday soon, Wolff would tire of him, or he would tire of Wolff, and then it would be Fort Breendonk or bedsheets knotted up into a noose. Spiegelman removed his pistol from the nook behind his bed. He’d held it twice, maybe three times, in as many years. His eyes on the ceiling (the victims, the ones who stood before the firing squads, they always kept their eyes on the sky), Spiegelman pressed its cold lips to his temple.

  He’d only ever kissed one man in all his days: a boy, back when he was young. It had been in the schoolyard, and Mr. Thompkinson had watched from the window. That boy grew tall and lean. He had married a rabbi’s daughter.

  Spiegelman threw down the pistol. He had never chosen the easy stories; he had always read the most difficult books first, even as a child. And so David Spiegelman would send the letters. Any other story ended too easily. He owed it to Tarcovich, to Noël, to the others who’d taken him in—and he owed it to Aubrion, who’d never hesitated to raise his voice.