The Ventriloquists

by E. R. Ramzipoor

  Of course, there were only a few possibilities. Olivier was not Roma—his name made that clear enough—so he must have been a refugee from some other discarded group. Perhaps he too was a homosexual—or perhaps he was something worse, like a pedophile, as the rumors suggested. Wolff had made it clear that the Reich granted asylum to all manner of deviants whose skills were greater than their sins. They worked in isolation, hearing only rumors of one another.

  As Spiegelman read, he willed himself to absorb Olivier’s voice, to be swept away on the current of the man’s adverbs. The ease with which Olivier came to him was terrifying, exhilarating.

  There is no doubt in my mind, in anyone’s mind, in the minds of any person across Belgium—indeed, across Europe, even in Russia—and here Olivier would pause, Spiegelman imagined, to flatten his damp strands of hair against his forehead—that the army of the Germans is reaching the apex of its movements, and that we will soon see, all of us together, a greater, more momentous effort culminating in the most important victory of the war. Olivier would stop to catch his breath, his small eyes darting. The great warriors of Germany are now mounting—or have already mounted, depending on how you view the situation, whether from above or within, or even below it, looking up—Spiegelman saw him, gesturing upward with a smile full of false modesty—a campaign the likes of which has never been seen before now.

  He put his pen down, wiping the sweat from his hairline. His gift—that’s what Mr. Thompkinson and August Wolff and Marc Aubrion called it. But it was not a gift, not at this moment. Spiegelman felt as though Maurice-George Olivier was living inside his body, making parasitic holes in his stomach, as though the dybbuk had slipped inside of him when he wasn’t looking, that he would not leave until he’d drunk his fill of Spiegelman’s voice.

  It is no secret in Berlin, where an apparent calm veils a certain anxiety not bereft of a vague hope that operations in the East have entered—or are about to enter depending on the angle from which one views the situation—a new phase which is hardly different from the present phase, except with certain changes. One could say, without fear of being contradicted even by Moscow’s propaganda, that, thanks to the Autumn campaign, the Winter campaign followed the Summer campaign. So the course of these three campaigns in order shows that the German general staff have not lost at any time control over the sequence of the seasons, an element whose importance should not be underestimated.

  Spiegelman got up from his chair, teeth chattering in the warm room. He could not bring himself to look at his draft of Effective Strategy, to acknowledge this evidence of his identity. What sort of a man was he if he could do that? If he could put himself in the mind of a man like Olivier, didn’t some of that creature’s evil live in David Spiegelman?

  But the work had to be good; his promises to Aubrion and to the FI demanded it. He had to take the hammer in his hands again and beat these words until they sang, until his calluses bled. And so David Spiegelman reread each word.

  The Dybbuk

  Spiegelman was in bed when August Wolff came to call. The Gruppenführer knocked on his door, and, hearing no reply, called out:

  “Herr Spiegelman?” Wolff knocked again. “Spiegelman, are you in there?”

  The Gruppenführer’s heart stopped. Embarrassed, he added a touch of steel to his voice. “Spiegelman, this is Gruppenführer Wolff. Please open this door.” Still, he could hear nothing behind the chipped wood. Though the suicide rate on this particular Nazi base was low, there was that fellow with the shotgun last month, and the older man before that, the one with the Jewish great-grandfather. But Spiegelman hadn’t said anything about feeling depressed lately, had he? Then again, they never did.

  Wolff put a shaking hand on the doorknob. He took a breath, fighting to pull himself together. Spiegelman was a subordinate—a Jew—a homosexual. And given his past, Wolff should have expected such cowardice from him. If he found the man with a bullet in his heart, Wolff’s memo would read that night: Took the coward’s way out. Buried this evening. Will search for a replacement tomorrow. It would never read: Lost a brilliant mind today, a writer and an artist. Or, heaven forbid: Lost a friend. Wolff would do as he was taught; he would report the events as they occurred. Fire, after all, was for burning words, not for writing them.

  But as he entered David’s room, Wolff did not smell decay on the room’s breath. For that, he was relieved. The figure on the bed did not appear to be moving, though. The Gruppenführer put a hand on Spiegelman’s back.

  Gasping, Spiegelman sat up. His eyes were glass, like those in the taxidermy animals on the office walls of Wolff’s colleagues. Spiegelman’s hands curled around Wolff’s arm. Shocked at the man’s grip, Wolff tried to pull away.

  “Get ahold of yourself.” The dark metal vertebrae in Wolff’s voice made Spiegelman feel as though he had done something unspeakable.

  Spiegelman blinked a few times, then let Wolff go. Wolff tugged at his collar. Spiegelman’s room was damp: warm and damp and crowded. The Gruppenführer turned, expecting to find a half-dozen men breathing in unison behind him; it felt like a crowded city street. Spiegelman mumbled something.

  “What did you say?” the Gruppenführer asked.

  “I cannot do this for you anymore.”

  “Spiegelman—”

  “I can’t write for you anymore.”

  “What is the alternative?”

  “Kill me. Have me executed.”

  “Tell me which assignment you were working on.” Wolff slowed his breathing, silently begging his pulse to follow. “I will take you off of it.” He paused, then added: “I understand—and I’ve heard about the toll that some of this work can take on us. None of it is easy, I know. You can ask for relief, Spiegelman. I will not condemn you for that.”

  “Do you know how I feel when I finish one of your assignments?” Spiegelman let himself fall back into bed, closing his eyes. “I feel—”

  “I know, it is tiring to—”

  “I do not feel tired, Wolff. Don’t you see? I feel pride. It has always been this way, ever since I was a boy. Throwing my voice like that, becoming a general or a housewife—it’s a skill that I have cultivated. I am proud of it.”

  “And you should be.” Wolff had lost track of the path this conversation was taking, and that unnerved him.

  “Look at me.” Spiegelman glanced down at his own body. Wolff shuffled his feet, guilty at seeing the man in bed. “I’ve become fat with my own pride. I finish a document, perfectly imitating some poor, doomed nobody—his handwriting, the spelling errors he was never even aware of—and I am proud of what I have done.”

  “Desk work can smooth out a man’s edges, it’s true, but you can’t allow that to upset—”

  “It makes me ill. This is what I’ve become? A glorified Nazi clerk who takes pride in his job but no responsibility for its consequences?”

  Wolff’s heart hardened. He seized Spiegelman by the collar, hauling him upright. “Listen to me,” he said, with quiet menace. “I will be candid. You have been given an opportunity denied most of your kind—”

  “What is my kind?”

  “Must we revisit this?”

  “Jews, queers—”

  “You are not in charge here,” Wolff snapped. Spiegelman flinched, shocked at Wolff’s outburst. With uncomfortable heat in his cheeks, the Gruppenführer smoothed out his uniform. His fingers brushed his lapels. “Shit,” he said, for he’d forgotten to pin on the buttons denoting his rank.

  “Gruppenführer,” Spiegelman murmured, “why won’t you let me be? I’ve done my job. I am ready to go now.”

  “Listen. I am giving you a chance.” Wolff hesitated, then decided the time was right. “I had initially planned to execute Monsieur Aubrion when the La Libre Belgique project was at its end. This is regrettable, of course, but that is how these things are done. I am, however, considering a different tack—
asking him to join my staff, to work with you. You would no longer have to perform your duties alone.”

  Spiegelman’s fists were rigid at his sides. “Aubrion and I would work together?”

  “I understand that you do not believe me, Spiegelman, but I want to help you.”

  “Right. I see.” Spiegelman controlled his breathing. He would not prove himself to be as pitiful as Wolff believed, as Aubrion must suspect. Improbable though it seemed, Wolff had given him something precious. Spiegelman could survive this war, and he could take Aubrion with him. “What would you have me do?”

  “I will tell you in time. But you must hold on until then, do you understand?”

  Wolff’s tone dipped into melodrama—or perhaps Wolff’s body was not tailored for such feeling, and any swell of emotion seemed unnatural. Even so, Spiegelman nodded, not quite sure what he had agreed to, not daring to imagine.

  12 DAYS TO PRINT

  LATE MORNING

  The Pyromaniac

  I AWOKE IN the basement corner, shivering. I searched for something with which to cover myself. Martin Victor had left a coat on the floor; I draped it across my shoulders before returning to my corner. All the while, I could hear Aubrion. He was everywhere: at a chalkboard, walking, mumbling, hammering at a typewriter. He spoke to himself. In his youth, I heard, Aubrion would spend his restless nights swapping jokes for drinks at alehouses across Brussels. The war—specifically, the curfew, which was instituted a week after we started on Faux Soir—brought that habit to an end. And so, from dark until morning, Aubrion was a prisoner in the Front de l’Indépendance headquarters. Between fits of sleep, I watched him.

  I’m often struck by the temptation to apply modern diagnoses to Aubrion’s intensity. Many years after the war, I was reading something—a novel, perhaps; I don’t recall—and the words manic depression shook me. I have since discovered other such names, angular and long, to describe my Aubrion: attention deficit, depression, hyperactivity. But if I could return to the time of Faux Soir with the tools to heal him, to let him sleep, I do not know whether I would. Like everyone, like Aubrion himself, I was selfish with Marc’s genius. I am selfish with its beauty, and the memory of it.

  I dozed, and was awoken again by the sound of Aubrion’s footsteps. “Are you all right, monsieur?” I asked from my corner.

  Aubrion yelped. “Gamin! I did not see you there.”

  “I gathered, monsieur.”

  “I came up with something rather fun, I think. Do you know those short stories in Le Soir, those cautionary fables about sleeping with Americans and not participating in the weekly rations? That sort of thing? I think we’re going to do a parody. I might write it, or I might ask Lada to do it.” Aubrion pulled on his coat. I noted a new hole in the left elbow. “That other paper—whatever-the-devil-it’s-called—I think it did something similar last year, but it was so terrible that it’s like they never did it at all.” He headed for the stairs.

  “Are you going somewhere now, monsieur?” I asked.

  “Out for food and coffee.”

  I stood, feeling hazy. “I could get it for you.”

  “No, no, I need to walk.”

  Shaking myself, I went to the washroom to splash water on my face. When I was small, my mother stood over me as I brushed my hair, tugging it playfully when I was naughty. After she died, I cut my hair off with a French army-issue knife I found on a road. I was teetering on the edge of that age when boys and girls are visually indistinguishable, and with short hair, I could pass myself off as a young lad. But I often let it grow into a wayward thicket before cutting it again—until Lada Tarcovich, shortly after meeting me, thrust a comb and a pair of scissors in my hands with the words, “Do something about it.” And so, whenever I finished washing my face, I ran her comb through my hair. Whether I missed my long hair, or my mother’s touch, or her hairbrush with the French writing on the handle, words I’ve since forgotten—I missed something, that I knew, and I contemplated revealing myself to the others. But the right words eluded me, as indistinct as those on my mother’s hairbrush.

  I admired Lada’s sturdy wood comb. Had it come from a customer, I wondered? Had she smuggled it across enemy lines? It occurs to me that she might simply have purchased it at a neighborhood shop. But back then, it was an heirloom, contraband of unspeakable worth.

  The Jester

  Aubrion returned an hour later to find René Noël sitting alone among the typewriters. He had his boots propped up on the wall and a stack of papers in his lap. Noël licked his fingers, turned a page, wiped his hand on his inky apron.

  “Where is everybody?” asked Aubrion.

  Noël said “hmmm?” without glancing up.

  “No one’s here.” Aubrion spread his arms. Typewriters and papers peered at him like gawking spectators.

  “I know I’m not that important, really,” said Noël, “but that was harsh, Marc.”

  “You know what I meant. Hardly no one’s here.”

  “Anyone.”

  “Right, right, anyone. Hardly anyone is here.”

  “Well, what did you expect?” Noël tossed his paper onto a desk. “Being tied up and interrogated by the Gestapo tends to make people uncomfortable, doesn’t it?”

  “Where did they all go? There is nowhere to run.”

  “I am sure at least a few former members of the FI discovered that last night.” The director’s tone started lightly enough, but it soon darkened, and he covered his mouth with a fist. He would not look at Aubrion when he spoke. “I suppose you don’t know yet. About a dozen of our brothers and sisters tried to flee early this morning. Half were shot. The other half will be.” Noël’s eyes finally reached Aubrion’s. They had hardened like leaves that had been pressed into a book and then forgotten. “Their blood is not on our hands, Marc. The Germans would have found our base even if we had not made this deal with Wolff.”

  “Did I say anything about blood on our hands?”

  “Our soldiers know the risks when they sign on. I do believe one of them made it out. Bernard, if I recall.”

  Aubrion massaged his forehead. “But if they just would have stayed here—”

  “What would have happened? Wolff would have killed them in two weeks rather than tomorrow?”

  “But how are we going to print Faux Soir without anyone to do the printing?”

  “We had better hope Lada’s friend Andree Grandjean comes through. We can use a portion of her money to pay Wellens to print for us.”

  Aubrion scoffed. “We’re putting our faith in Ferdinand Wellens?”

  “No, in Lada Tarcovich.”

  “I feel only marginally better.”

  “Then think about it this way.” Noël put a hand on Aubrion’s shoulder. “She’s putting her faith in you.”

  12 DAYS TO PRINT

  LATE AFTERNOON

  The Pyromaniac

  I STIFFENED AS Theo Mullier took up Aubrion’s preferred spot at the chalkboard. “The plan,” said Mullier, “is simple.” He rubbed at his beard, uncomfortable at our attention. “It’s to get a dignitary—”

  “Who’s the dignitary?” asked Aubrion, cross-legged on a table.

  “Sylvain de Jong’s son.”

  “What’s the fellow’s name? I can’t recall.”

  “Sylvain de Jong.”

  “Oh. That’s why.”

  “Of Minerva Automobiles?” asked Victor.

  “Yes,” said Mullier. “The plan is to let the whole country know he’s an Allied sympathizer. That’ll guarantee he shows up at the fund-raiser.”

  “Is he an Allied sympathizer?” asked Aubrion.

  “I dunno.” Mullier eased himself into a chair. “Probably not.”

  Though she was seated at the back of the basement, Lada Tarcovich’s laugh filled the space. “Then how are you going to do that?” she said.

&
nbsp; “He’s going to say it on air. Like I said, simple.”

  “In the head, perhaps.”

  Mullier’s blunt fingers dug into his palms. I shrank from him. I don’t know a great deal about Theo Mullier’s life, in all honesty; he rarely spoke to anyone about it, least of all to me. I do know, however, that people had been calling him simple in the head since he was a boy—starting with his father, a big-handed butcher who’d chased the boy around his shop whenever he tripped and knocked something over. “Damn simple fool of a boy,” he’d growl, and of course Theo never made it far on that foot.

  “Look who I found,” said René Noël, with strained cheer. Noël was not a man easily given to cheer under the best of circumstances, and his good-naturedness had corroded as the war drew on. We all glanced up as Noël led David Spiegelman, whose hollow eyes remained on the floor, down the stairs and into the basement.

  “Just in time,” said Aubrion.

  Noël took a seat near the door. “What did I miss?” he asked.

  “We were discussing a very simple plan,” said Tarcovich.

  Spiegelman nearly smiled. “There aren’t enough of those in the world.”

  “That’s not true,” said Aubrion. “Hitler has one.”

  “Marc,” said Tarcovich—Noël—Spiegelman—perhaps me, too.

  “We were all thinking it.”

  “We were not,” said Tarcovich.

  “Anyway.” Aubrion wielded the word like a broom, sweeping his insensitivity away. He grabbed a piece of chalk. “Two updates. First, Joseph Beckers’s stag party is in two days.”