Paper Conspiracies

by Susan Daitch

He nodded vaguely, then shut his eyes again. I was disappointed that he didn’t want to talk to me, make room on the bed, invite me to sit down, or even help defend the place against an intruder. My vanity resurrects itself easily, pieces collecting into a neat pile once again. I went out the door leading to the kitchen and from there was able to let Delphine into the first floor. She was wet and panting with excitement, the house! I didn’t want to let her in but really had no choice.

  The next morning Wasserbaum slept late and stumbled into the kitchen barefoot and unwashed, buttoning his shirt while asking for coffee as if he owned the house and expected to be waited on by us usurpers. Still half-asleep, he knocked into Sylvie while she was trying to grind the beans. In tripping and appearing to lose his balance he grabbed her waist. She turned red, pushed his hands away. The inadvertent shove caused her to upset a dish of butter, and it landed on the floor with a soft splat. Delphine made a mad dive for the mess. In the middle of chaos and growling stomachs, which he did everything to create and nothing to resolve, Wasserbaum put his feet on a chair and actually inquired if he could rent a room from me so that he could come out to write a few days during the week, explaining his flat in Paris was small and cramped. He said nothing about the individuals, wife and daughters, who made it so. I pretended his request was unexpected and agreed to an arrangement, but for a very high sum.

  You may shudder that I have consented to this, but your children will eventually benefit from my mercenary intentions. The papers he seeks will be moved, and it will be difficult for him to search the house for them while I’m in it. He’ll have no peace. If he appears to be daydreaming I’ll make him wash the windows. He’ll be sorry.

  I followed Wasserbaum around. He talked a lot, but he didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know.

  “Commandant Esterhazy had many aliases: Monsieur de Becourt, Count de Voillemont, Mr. Fitzgerald. It was feared he would escape France and sell his story, and he did leave, easily, taking a train north as if he were an ordinary citizen. At the end of his life, living in a London slum, he was known to sleep during the day and only go out at night.” Wasserbaum mimicked Z stealthily walking across the room, his body at an angle, walking feet first, looking over his shoulder. He knocked back a drink in mime, walked with a cane, and leered at me as if I were part of the game, but I wasn’t. I couldn’t do it. He waited for me to imitate a character who might cross Z’s path, a streetwalker for example, or an informant of some kind. I stood by stonily waiting for him to trip over a leg and fall on his face. I haven’t reached a conclusion as to how his performance should be interpreted, was it intended as sympathy or satire? Esterhazy is the bone we fight over, but is his legacy really a bone at all, or is it some kind of slobbered-over rubber ball still capable of shattering windows and rolling out of reach?

  August 1, 1934

  Dear Lille,

  By making jokes Wasserbaum feels safe. Look, I’m the clown Z, he seemed to be saying, I’m Z, who by his own admission was neither a fool nor a madman. Both you and I, Lille, have often wanted what we couldn’t possibly possess. You became a martyr, but I kick at martyrdom. I have a fit on the carpet.

  Even now I’m convinced that whoever refuses me must know the truth, yet rather than saying to hell with them and rallying to my own defense, I find the perpetrators of these acts of rejection and mockery seductive. Acquiring damaging truths about me is the same as acquiring tremendous attractive powers. You might say they go hand in glove, knowledge and interpretation. Can it be that I take part in my own destruction and do so with some pleasure?

  Dreyfus is a symbol, like the Eiffel Tower. The only place you can’t see it is when you’re standing on it. I was in the middle of the Dreyfus affair, but I never saw him. Even the most well-entrenched symbols can be reclaimed and redefined. In a different era, Esterhazy and myself could be reconfigured; we could acquire heroic stature. If you look at the Reich over the border, that new era might have arrived. As cultural and national icons Z and I must be seduced, absorbed, reclaimed. Z desired fame, recognition, money, yet after being treated like an outcast, he would play hard to get. I, too, might pretend not to accept my medals.

  I lie in bed listening to branches hitting the side of the house, turn on a light and write for a few hours. Later, looking at each part of my body, arms, legs — what I can see in the

  glass — it’s as if each part belongs to someone else, some older person who made all kinds of mistakes and could make the same ones over and over again with no trouble at all.

  “What was behind Esterhazy’s conspiracies? Jealousy, that’s all,” Wasserbaum said, posing and answering his own question. I had seen him idling at his desk, and true to my promise, I interrupted his work, eager to contradict what he thought he knew about his subject. I’d be sure he knew the other “eighty facts.”

  “It’s been said too many times that he was a worm among worms, and maybe he was, but to give him credit, his driving force wasn’t desire for position, authority, recognition, or fame. Z desired something much simpler and more vulgar: money.”

  “That wasn’t entirely true, he had wanted recognition very badly; he had wept for it while waiting on park benches, in private apartments, and public urinals.”

  “No, I disagree. He was in love with Schwarzkoppen. He was jealous of Dreyfus, of everyone.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” I rolled my eyes to the ceiling. The idea that Z was in love with his victim and jealous of him at the same time was beyond anything I could imagine. In his perverse way Wasserbaum was on the right track about a few things, but I didn’t want him to know it. “He might have tried to become the confidante of rivals, incurring risk of discovery and anger; he might patronize mortal enemies, but the goal of all his conspiracies was always financial,” I said emphatically.

  “Not in the Dreyfus case. That wasn’t about money.”

  I wanted to tell him that if he knew so much he needn’t take up my time, but I wanted my time taken up, so I explained. “When Esterhazy approached Schwarzkoppen in the German embassy he was desperate. He was being followed, and he threatened to shoot himself while standing on the colonel’s desk. Schwarzkoppen only toyed with his pens and cleared papers off his blotter, giving him space to do so. He knew Esterhazy’s information was neither accurate nor of any use, and his indifference only served to make Esterhazy feel more trivial. Provoked into a frenzy, he told the colonel that he would make public his relationship with a certain woman.”

  “He was jealous of that woman, and he knew Schwarzkoppen liked men, as well.” Wasserbaum smiled. With a little knowledge he was jumping off the deep end.

  “No, not at all. Z named a name, but I have no idea if the name was an invention or someone who actually existed. The German attaché had him thrown out into the street. His poor hat landed beside him in the gutter. I felt very badly for him.”

  “How do you know what happened in the embassy? You weren’t there. You only know what he told you.”

  Wasserbaum is a frustrating interrogator. He doesn’t understand that many people were convinced by Z. Z was a hysteric who engendered mass hysteria, a kind of fabulous germ capable of grotesque infection, and now, with no living hysteric to animate his remains, I told Wasserbaum that his plans for my papers must be reduced.

  “I don’t believe you,” Wasserbaum walked out of the house and disappeared into the ruins of Star Films. He’ll be back. Whether he believes me or not, I’m one of the few participants in the affair still alive.

  What I can’t tell him: Z was always looking over his shoulder in the interest of self-preservation, but apart from his talent to convince, he wasn’t much of a spy. I knew this, yet I was usually taken in and convinced anew. He used to say, if I go to the guillotine, I won’t go alone, and I always thought he meant others, not me, but the tumbrel did arrive at my door. In return I’ll make Wasserbaum pay rent through the nose without ever getting his hands on my papers, my ace in the hole. The exchange, one man for another, doesn
’t really make sense, but accuse me of thinking like Z, the point is: there is money to be made here.

  I could hear Wasserbaum downstairs, and at his entrance Delphine began to bark her head off, jumping at the sills, scratching them, tearing the curtains. I fetched a stick, ready to punish her, but by the time I returned to the front of the house, Sylvie had let her out, and the dog was running around the yard, her destructive hysteria forgotten. I know there are some who push the dog’s nose in its business and hit away, forcing memory, but I didn’t want Wasserbaum to see me ungenerously beating a dog.

  Z used to say everyone can be tempted, or another way of expressing the same sentiment: if one looks hard enough one can find something worth transgressing for.

  So here’s what I tried: Although Wasserbaum supposedly rented a room from me in order to write, he told me he had business in Paris and would return in the evening. Sylvie, too, stayed late, shortening and pressing a dress I pulled out of storage. It had been one of Z’s favorites, but I had hardly ever worn it, and the green silk still seemed new as I removed the rustling folds from a box. It was long out of fashion, and had never been the kind of dress you could wear on the street, but rather it was the kind of dress to receive visitors in, or a certain kind of visitor. The right word escapes me. Still, I wanted to wear it; in fact, I hadn’t much choice since my clothes at present are mostly worn, the clothing of a prewar era. Eventually after a combing and painting I was dressed, and I waited for him until past midnight, pacing, unable to concentrate on any book, any newspaper, any radio broadcast. When he finally put key into lock and stepped into the house he was, I think, surprised to see me.

  “Why are you up late?” he turned on a second light.

  “I’ve something I’ve decided to show you.”

  Holding my hands behind my back I clasped a photograph of Z, then, like the slow arc of a weighted pendulum my hand swung in front of my waist. He grabbed the picture with greedy interest and held it up to a light.

  “He’s dressed in an extravagant jacket, as if about to meet Bismarck.” He took out a pair of glasses. “I’ve seen pictures like this one.”

  I could do nothing to impress him, yet when I spoke he pretended to be all ears.

  “You’ve never seen him scanning a room, performing an elaborate tennis game of eye contact, determining who might be useful and who was dangerous. He said hello to some, but it was hello period, and others didn’t even get that much. No conversation would follow unless he could gain something by it.”

  Z, in his jacket cluttered with what I think were made-up ribbons and medals retrieved from a pawn shop, was the kind of person you wanted to shake by the ankles until all his money fell out. You sensed he had something to hide, he was keeping your banknotes in some hidden pocket, but nothing rolls or clangs into the gutter, the pavement remains bare. Innocence remains intact, as stated. I was afraid I would never be able to get the picture out of Wasserbaum’s hands without it being torn in two.

  “Oscar Wilde was drawn to him, and he told Wilde that they were both great martyrs,” Wasserbaum said.

  “I don’t know anything about Oscar Wilde.”

  “Wilde wrote, ‘to be a criminal takes imagination and daring. The interesting thing is to be guilty and wear as a halo the seduction of sin,’ and Esterhazy confessed to Wilde, he had betrayed secret plans for grotesque weapons and colonial maneuvers while Dreyfus, far away on Devil’s Island, was innocent,” he said.

  “Yes, D.” I was sick of hearing about him.

  “Can I have a copy made of this?” He handed the picture back to me.

  “You would have to take it to Paris.”

  “Yes, but I would be glad to leave you any kind of security. You’d get it back, I promise.”

  “I don’t know anything about you. It would be easy for you and my photographs to disappear into the city never to return.”

  “My life is an open book. I’ve lived alone since I came to Paris. I have very noisy neighbors who argue and fight into the night. We don’t speak. I’m as invisible to them as they are audible to me. My apartment faces an air shaft. It is one room, painted yellow with a small sink, the bathroom is in the hall. The concierge has a brain-damaged son who lives with her. She’s very old, and I don’t know what will happen to him when she dies.”

  He also claimed he was from Brittany and didn’t know many people in the city, as if his provincialism was a sign of the extent to which he could be trusted.

  “You don’t have the accent of someone who comes from the coast,” I said. “One only needs the acquaintance of one scoundrel to come to grief.”

  “You should know.”

  “Yes, I do know, wise guy.”

  Don’t fret, Lille, I won’t show him Esterhazy’s letters. Picture piles of Z’s writing stacked as an isolated column in an empty room. Without having to actually see him, the contents of this pile present a far more compelling picture of him and of me. If you don’t have to listen to his voice, not only is the audience better off, but a more persuasive case is made for my gullibility as a girl seduced and forced to partake in criminal acts. To a random passerby even now, in 1934, he would look like a cartoon villain, definitely a spy, one would say. A thin man with a drooping moustache whose deep-set eyes appear shifty even in an old photograph — he looked bad and sounded worse. While you made yourself appear pitiful yet good in order to get what you wanted, Z was a man of a thousand transformations. If Z were to walk in the door at this moment I doubt he could rally his old powers of persuasion, but his letters are articulate. Once printed in their entirety readers might understand how I was convinced. Unfortunately, my lodger’s opportunism is very discouraging.

  I don’t trust him. Also, be assured, Lille, that despite my preparation Wasserbaum was no more interested in me than a fly on the wall. He all but said, “Nice dress. See you in the morning.” It lies in a heap on the floor still.

  August 5, 1934

  Dear Lille,

  For a few days Wasserbaum appeared to work at a table set up for him in what became his room facing the street. I don’t know what he wrote. When he appeared inattentive I interrupted his thoughts, partly out of curiosity, but also because as I’ve written I was determined not to make his stay an easy one.

  “What did you write about alone in your room with fights and beatings going on above your head?” He had been staring out the window.

  “Frauds,” he answered, smiling. “I write for throwaway papers investigating con artists who, in spite of their success, were shadows compared to Esterhazy.” He tipped back in his chair and counted on his fingers. “There was Ferdinand Martin of Tours, who found wealthy widows to invest in harebrained schemes like a costly chauffeur and messenger service between impossibly distant cities. Ferdinand did research on the widows, found out the details of their lives, what their interests were, what they liked to wear, where they went to church. He would be very businesslike at first, then he would ask to use a room in their house in order to organize what would become their mutual business. All bank accounts were in her name, but in the course of their relationship he would ask for loans. As Ferdinand made his way upstairs into the bedrooms the loans became more extravagant. Before the widow knew it, not only was she seduced by Ferdinand Martin, but so domineered by and dependent on him that she was unable to make decisions on her own. When there was no money left, he would leave town to find another victim to bankrupt somewhere else.”

  I’d heard of Ferdinand Martin, but wondered if Wasserbaum’s study of him was as insubstantial as the town in Brittany where Wasserbaum claimed to be from. Did an investigation of matrimonial frauds lead him to the big time of fraud: Z? If so I ought to be insulted; some would say Z was on the level more often than not. I let it go. Easily distracted (he couldn’t have been much of a writer) Wasserbaum was always ready to talk, and I sat on his desk pushing ink bottles and papers away as if I were a fourteen-year-old vamp. He never grew impatient or annoyed, never acknowledged how pathet
ic my coyness must have been. I felt ashamed of myself but couldn’t stop.

  “I’ve also written about Claude of a Thousand Aliases who worked Francophone countries on three continents and several islands,” he continued, spreading his hands as if smoothing out a map. He grew excited with his explanations. In his small room the fascination of these exploits must have been consuming. “The women he courted were usually less wealthy than those seduced by Ferdinand Martin, but they had some small sum of money set aside. His scheme was simple. He married each and every one in turn, withdrew their money from the bank, then went on to another town to marry someone else.” He drew faces on the margin of a piece of paper sticking out from under a book.

  “The women all looked considerably similar, as if he thought each was somehow the same woman after all. Like this: round faces and plain features,” he continued to draw. “And months or years later they were uniformly interested in murdering Claude should he be found.”

  Both of these men presented an appearance of honesty and good will, but when they disappeared, their image reversed to negative. What are the contents of the charlatan’s bag? How can one be forewarned? Out of the wreckage, one shouts at his dust, his shadow, footprints in the snow, but there’s no one to point fingers at.

  “Some ruses involve much more than money,” I said, trying to sound pragmatic rather than plaintive.

  If my boarder was telling the truth, and I doubted that was the case, then he dug up these people for a living. He presented himself as a hack only interested in smal-time frauds. Z was the consummate example of the kind of insect he’d spent his short life studying. Z was a queen bee of con men. I’d never doubted it.

  Rather than express annoyance at my interruptions Wasserbaum has begun to avoid me by taking walks around the abandoned film studio, the glass house that in its time provided shelter but afforded no privacy, now reduced to a garden of glass. He brings back relics: a small piece of rusted machinery, a rubber nose, blackened, stiff and split, like genuinely cracked old skin — ironic in something so obviously fake.