by Mal Peet
“Bibi,” Trixie corrected him. “No one calls her Barbara.”
“Bibi. Thank you. They’re in their sixties. Used to run a travelling puppet theatre called the, er . . . Blue Moon Theatre. Toured all over Europe during the twenties and thirties.”
“All over the world,” Trixie said. “America, everywhere. They were quite famous.”
“Okay. They bought the Marionette House in . . . 1936, was it? They make, repair, and sell puppets of all sorts. I don’t suppose business is very good right now.”
“No. You’re not going to be disturbed by hordes of customers. Actually, the place is more like a museum. Pieter and Bibi collect all kinds of stuff. Books, toys, all sorts. It’s a crazy place.”
Dart saw that the morning mist had condensed on Trixie’s auburn hair. It was coated in beads of moisture, tiny glass pearls.
“Bibi suffers from a terrible ulcer on her leg,” she continued. “The dressings need to be changed every few days.”
“Ah,” Dart said. “That’s why I am a frequent visitor.”
“Of course. It’s also why Bibi spends long periods sitting in her parlour, keeping an eye on the square. She’s resting her leg.”
So that’s my lookout, Dart thought. An old woman with a bad leg. “What about German radio detector cars?”
Trixie drew in a long breath. “Well, the nearest ones are in Apeldoorn. We’ve positively identified two of them — a dark blue delivery van and a black car that used to be a taxi.”
“There’s got to be more than that. It takes at least three to get a fix on a transmitter.”
“I know. We think they use ordinary army vehicles as well.”
Trying to keep his voice level, Dart said, “And what’s the procedure if they show up in Mendlo?”
“While you’re transmitting, I’ll be hanging around in the square with a girlfriend of mine, chatting and so forth. A couple of lads called Douwe and Henk will be kicking a ball about over on Kuyper Place; any traffic from Apeldoorn is almost certain to go through there. We have three other people as well; if any of them see the cars, they tip me off. Then I take my shoe off and shake it, like this. Like I’ve got a stone in it. That’s my signal to Bibi, who’ll be watching me. She’ll run to the stairs and warn you. Then you shut down immediately and leave through the workshop. Pieter will be out the back, making sure the coast is clear.”
Dart had stopped walking. Trixie turned and looked at him. He had thrust both hands into his coat pockets and was staring at the ground.
“Ernst? What is it?”
He looked up. “Mrs. Grotius will run to the stairs? This is the same Mrs. Grotius, I assume? The elderly woman who has trouble moving about because of the ulcer on her leg? Are you serious? Do you realize —”
He shut up because Trixie Greydanus had a big grin on her face. He was astonished when she slipped her arm inside his and squeezed it.
“Lord love you, Dr. Lubbers,” she said, “for being such a trusting soul. Bibi hasn’t really got anything wrong with her leg. It’s just bandages. She’s as fit as a flea.” She smiled up at him. “I wouldn’t mind betting she’s a faster mover than you are.”
The open road became an avenue between scarred and wounded trees. Now buildings appeared on either side, many of them broken and abandoned. Then, ahead and off to the left, the humped outline of the town itself emerged: a looming church tower, wet light on grey roofs, smokeless chimneys like rows of teeth.
Trixie said, “Right. We’re nearly there. Now then, the quickest way to Pieter and Bibi’s is to turn left at the first crossroads after the station and then go over the bridge by New Church.”
“Yes.”
“But we’re not going that way. We’re going to go straight on, through what they call the Merchants’ Gate.”
“Why?”
“Because there’s always a German checkpoint there.”
Dart looked at her. “What?”
“The Germans are used to me coming and going,” Trixie said. “Nine times out of ten they just wave me through. Unless it’s the skinny one on duty, the one that likes to feel my backside. And they need to get used to you too. They need to get to know your face. This morning, they are going to check you out, have a good look at your papers, all that. Next time, the next few times: the same. After a while, they won’t bother. You’ll become as familiar to them as I am.”
Dart forced a smile. “Do I have to let the skinny one feel my backside too?”
Trixie laughed, a little snort of delight. “I don’t think he’s that way inclined. But you never know.”
In the shelter of the last trees, Trixie stopped and Rosa, as if by arrangement, began to stir. “We need to split up here. You go ahead. I’ll wait a few minutes, then follow you.”
Dart could only nod. The fear was on him suddenly, like a thin coating of ice over his entire skin. Trixie unhooked the medical bag from the handlebars and handed it to him. When their hands touched, she gripped his fingers briefly. “You’ll be fine,” she said. “Really. Try to look as if you’re in a hurry, okay?”
The Merchants’ Gate was a medieval tunnel of stone and brick. From a slanting flagpole above it, the red flag of the Third Reich hung like a big wet rag. The arched entrance to the tunnel was barred by a fat coil of barbed wire slung on a wooden beam. One end of the beam was hinged to the wall; the other had a metal wheel, allowing it to be trundled open. There was a gap just wide enough for a man to walk through. Two German troopers, rifles slung over their shoulders, stood inside the gate, talking. Dart heard one of them, the older, thinner one, laugh. He had to force his legs to take him towards the barrier. He found himself praying, absurdly, that the Germans would not see him at all, that he would simply pass through the checkpoint invisibly. But they turned and watched him approach, and it took everything he had to keep walking.
He thought, My God, this is real. These are real Germans. I can’t do this. He had a mad desire to burst out laughing, to confess, to be forgiven, to be allowed home. Then he remembered that he had no home, and, strangely, the thought gave him a little strength.
“Your papers, please.”
It was the younger one, facing him at the gap in the wire. Dart looked down and saw his left hand move to his coat pocket as if someone were pulling it on a string. The hand emerged, holding the little booklet. The German took it. To Dart it seemed that the booklet had the word FAKE stamped all over it, but the sentry didn’t seem to notice. He turned the pages slowly, twice. He looked at the photograph and then at Dart and then at the photograph again. He lifted his steel head.
“Dr. Lubbers? Ernst Lubbers?”
“Yes.”
The young German had pale grey eyes. Dart made himself imagine what they saw: a dark-haired, narrow-faced man wearing a slightly shabby overcoat with a red cross armband on the left sleeve. A man carrying a leather medical bag with a false bottom concealing a gun. An agent. A spy.
“I don’t think we have seen you before, Dr. Lubbers.”
Dart heard words come out of his mouth. “Probably not. I was transferred here recently.” His hand went out and turned the pages of the booklet. “You see? The authorization from the Department of Internal Security.”
It was a flimsy piece of paper forged in England. Obviously. The German flipped the booklet shut. Dart held out his hand to take it back, but the young man turned away and went to confer with his older colleague. They spoke together, looking at the identity papers. They both looked again at Dart. The young German soldier returned to the barrier.
“What is the purpose of your journey?”
Dart gazed at the man. “I have a number of patients to visit,” he managed to say. Remembering, he made a show of looking at his watch. “Now, if everything is in order, I —”
“The names and addresses of these patients, please.”
“I . . . Well, I . . .” Dart attempted to make his stutter sound indignant. “Really, I do not think that it’s any of your . . .”
T
hen Dart realized that the German’s gaze had shifted. Something behind Dart had taken his attention, and he jerked his head in a signal to the other soldier. Dart turned to see Trixie shoving the bicycle up to the checkpoint. She looked hot and bothered. She had opened her coat so that the sentries could see her breasts tipping forward inside the threadbare summer dress. Rosa was crying. The expression on Trixie’s face was apologetic, as if she were late for an appointment with the Germans and was relieved to see them still waiting. The thin sentry shouldered his rifle and shoved past Dart, grinning. Dart had to attract the attention of the younger German.
“Er . . . My papers? Is everything in order?”
The man barely looked at him. “You may go.”
Dart squeezed through the now unguarded gap in the barrier. From the darkness under the gate he looked back briefly. The two Germans were crowding in on Trixie, who was smiling and shaking her head. Dart turned away. The icy film on his body had turned to sweat. He walked as steadily as he could into the town. The last thing he heard was Trixie’s laughter.
The square was almost deserted when Dart entered it. One or two women and girls hurried across, perhaps to take their places in the hopeless queue outside the bakery on De Kooning Street. He saw the Marionette House immediately, at the forefront of a wedge of ancient brick houses backing up towards the church. Its sign, crackled gold lettering on a dark green board, spanned most of the narrow front wall.
Dart pushed open the shop door and set jangling a cheerful little bell. Instinctively he reached up and muffled it with his hand. Because the shop window was packed with dangling puppets, the light inside was dim. He closed the door behind him and waited for his eyes to adjust. It was not a large space, and so crammed that he could not imagine how more than one customer at a time could squeeze in. The longer wall, opposite the window, was completely taken up with shelves and cabinets. One shelf supported the severed heads of clowns, kings, fabulous beasts, ogres, demons; another was filled with silent musical boxes, frozen figurines perched on their lids. A glass cabinet contained a galaxy of glass eyes. Tables and showcases crowded the floor. A host of marionettes hung limply from hooks in the ceiling like dead parachutists.
There was, Dart now saw, a narrow route through these obstacles towards a curtained doorway at the rear of the shop. Just in front of it, half a dozen ventriloquists’ dummies perched on a counter, staring at Dart as though he had dared to interrupt a private conversation. He was seriously alarmed when one of them — the one with a head sprouting white hair like dandelion seeds — opened its mouth and said, “Dr. Lubbers, I presume?” When Dart didn’t manage a reply, Pieter Grotius took his elbows off the counter and straightened up. It didn’t make much difference to his height; he was a very small man. He moved nimbly through the maze of the shop and held out his hand. Dart shook it; it felt like a clever contraption made of sticks and cords covered in skin.
“I hope you had no trouble getting here?”
“Um, no. Not really. But I am worried about Trixie. The Germans at the checkpoint —”
Grotius made a gesture, like waving away a fly. “Ach, don’t worry about Trixie. She’s an unstoppable force, that one. People with freckles lead charmed lives, have you noticed?”
“Er, no, I —”
“But you have noticed that she has freckles?”
“Yes,” Dart said.
“Good,” Grotius said approvingly. “Now, let’s go through to the workshop. Trixie will be coming in the back way in just a couple of minutes.”
Pieter Grotius’s workplace was a complete contrast to the confusion of the shop. It was a long narrow room full of cool light. Two workbenches and two stools stood below the frosted glass windows. Carpentry tools hung in precise order on racks attached to the wall. An immense number of paint pots filled a shelf, arranged in a strict colour sequence like a stretched and flattened rainbow. On one of the benches, a small wooden torso was clamped in a vice.
Just as Pieter Grotius had predicted, Trixie appeared, shoving open the back door with the front wheel of her bike. Trixie stooped to kiss him on both cheeks, then turned and hoisted Rosa from the trailer. The child was snivelling quietly, and her cheeks were wet with tears. Grotius locked and bolted the door and went to stand in front of Trixie, his eyes almost level with Rosa’s. He put his hand into his trouser pocket, and when he pulled it out again, it was wearing a white glove with two black buttons sewn onto the forefinger. He closed his hand and flexed his thumb, making a bug-eyed face that spoke with the voice of Groucho Marx.
“Hey, kid! Yeah, you! Wha’s the madder? Looks like water on your ugly face. Is it raining in here, or you got water on the brain? Need a tap on the head?”
Rosa’s wet eyes stared at the glove face.
“Yeah, I know what you’re thinking: what’s a girl godda do to get a drink in this joint? I was thinking the same thing myself. Waiter! Waiter!”
The hand looked around the room, recoiling in horror when it saw Grotius. Rosa thrashed her arms and legs delightedly.
Trixie glanced across at Dart and saw that his smile was forced. The tension showed through it. He felt, she realized, excluded from this familiar routine.
It seemed that Pieter Grotius also understood this. “Forgive us, please, Ernst. It’s our little ritual. Rosa enjoys it. And so do I, to be honest. She’s the only audience I have these days.”
“No, no,” Dart said, a little too earnestly. “I enjoyed it too. You’re very good, Mr. Grotius. You’ve got the voice perfectly.”
“Thank you. Call me Pieter, please. And time is passing, yes. Come.”
Trixie lifted the transceiver from the trailer, then they all filed back into the shop and up a flight of dark and narrow stairs. The walls of the landing were covered in masks from Japan, Africa, Italy, Java. They leered and grimaced at the passersby. Pieter Grotius led the procession into the parlour, where his wife was standing, waiting to greet them.
Bibi Grotius was a good six inches taller than her husband, with a heavy upper body but slender legs, so that she seemed to have been put together from mismatching parts. Her hair was a smoky blond with no traces of grey. A pair of spectacles hung from a cord around her neck, and Dart wondered how good her eyesight was. She was barefoot. Her left leg below the knee was wrapped in bandages. After she had kissed Rosa and Trixie, she stood in front of Dart and looked at him seriously. He had the strange feeling that he was being assessed, like someone auditioning for a part in a play. He put his bag down on the floor and held out his hand. Bibi ignored it. She placed her hands on his shoulders and kissed him on both cheeks; then, still inspecting him, she said, “Well, we must be grateful they’ve sent us a handsome one, at least.”
To hide his embarrassment, Dart looked around the room. The walls were almost entirely covered with framed posters, most of them featuring a blue crescent moon with a laughing face. He saw the names of cities: Moscow, Chicago, Berlin, Venice.
The stairway to the attic was even narrower than the previous one — not much more than a ladder. An oil lamp with a glass chimney sat on the bottom tread, and Pieter lit it and adjusted the flame. Holding the lamp, his wild white hair lit up, he looked to Dart like some creature from a dark fairy tale.
The walls of the attic sloped steeply, giving the room the shape of a long tent. There was no daylight; the lamp illuminated an infinite jumble of stuff: suitcases, tea chests, bundles of paper, boxes filled with books, empty picture frames, theatrical costumes.
“I’ve tidied the place up a bit,” Pieter Grotius said. He carried the lamp deeper into the chaos. “Here, see, I’ve made a workplace for you.”
He had shoved two tea chests apart and bridged them with a door taken from a wardrobe, making a rough desk. The chair had a woven seat and had once been painted bright yellow; it would have looked at home in some sunlit farmhouse bedroom. Dart went to the shuttered window, following a thin shaft of sun in which dust swam. It came from a small peephole in the wood; he had to stoop to put his
eye to it. He had a circular view down onto the square. On the far side, Trixie stood in a shop doorway talking to an older woman wearing a headscarf. Then two German soldiers on bicycles crossed his line of vision, and he shrank back from the hole automatically.
He rubbed his hands together in a businesslike way, forcing a grin. “Excellent, Pieter,” he said.
“It will do?”
“Of course.” Dart peered around. “Er, one thing, though. My power supply?”
“Ah, yes,” Pieter said. “It nearly broke my back, carrying those damned things up. Over here, next to the desk.”
There were two car batteries inside a cardboard box under a layer of theatre programmes. “I know someone who can recharge them, no questions asked.”
“Excellent.”
Dart sat on the yellow chair and unlocked the suitcase. Grotius put the lamp down but made no move to leave. Dart made a show of checking his watch. “Thank you, Pieter. I’d better get on with it.”
Grotius said, “How scared are you, Ernst?”
Dart busied himself, fussing with the Morse key, the headphones, the cables. “Pardon?”
“I was wondering how scared you are. I ask only because I am very scared indeed. I have not done this before.”
Dart clasped the corners of the suitcase and stared at his hands. He did not know what to say. Fear was a whole country he did not want to visit. A place he wanted no signals from.
Grotius said, “Have you done this before?”
“No.”
The little man was standing with his hands in his pockets, staring into the darkness. “It’s not myself I’m scared for.” He stopped, tried again. “No, that’s not true. I fear the Nazis and what they might do to me. They are . . . robots. They are puppets, and hate pulls their strings. They have lost control of themselves. I have seen them do terrible things, here, in this town. I have sat at night, in the workshop, painting smiles on dolls’ faces while hearing the screams from neighbouring streets. I have sat holding my breath, waiting for the sound of their boots to pass our door. But that isn’t it. Not really.”
