The Ventriloquists

by E. R. Ramzipoor

  “Not well, Monsieur Wellens,” said Noël. He explained what was amiss.

  Wellens, now considerably paler, said: “You know, Monsieur Noël, I have grown especially fond of you and yours since the beginning of this endeavor.” He was oddly quiet. “I’ll admit, I had my doubts, at the start of it all. I work for profit, and I saw no profit in this. But I’ve come to admire you, monsieur. You lot are doing things no one dares to do.” Wellens’s back straightened. “What I mean to say is that if there is anything you need—anything at all, to help you solve this problem—well, monsieur, you shall have it.”

  “Thank you, Monsieur Wellens,” said Noël. “Your kindness is certainly appreciated. The larger problem here, I’m afraid, is that we do not know how to solve our problem. I suppose we can stop the vans—”

  “We are not stopping the vans,” said Aubrion.

  “I had a feeling you would say that. It’s probably not possible anyway.” Noël sighed again. “I’m nearly terrified to ask, Marc, but do you have any ideas?”

  Aubrion thought. “That depends,” he said, “on whether you have any loose change.”

  The Professor

  As the factory quieted and the workers put their machines to bed, Victor waited for the last van to leave. It rattled off, a trail of exhaust following it to the edge of town. He’d expected some great realization at the end of it all, some acknowledgment that he’d done his job well. It would not come. Any feeling about his work—any potential satisfaction—sat hollow in Victor’s stomach. As a lad, Victor used to get a peculiar sensation every Sunday before church, as though the week’s peccadillos had built a tremendous structure inside his soul. He felt that way now. The professor snuck out while the others were occupied and took a cab into town.

  As Wolff instructed, Victor had brought all his belongings to an empty apartment in a secluded part of town. The apartment once belonged to a bookbinder, who fell out of favor with the Germans when he secured a contract with an American publishing company. Using the key Wolff had provided him, Victor let himself into the apartment. He walked the length and width of the place, as was his custom, to ensure no one was hiding inside. Though he did not distrust Wolff, he did not trust him, either. Killing Victor would solve problems.

  Victor checked his watch. He had about six minutes of privacy. The professor lit a candle and set it atop one of his trunks. The apartment was small, and soon bathed in the smell of burning fat. He knelt before the candle with his hands clasped. Victor’s grandfather taught him the Lord’s Prayer when he was a boy. The words tasted like chocolate then; they tasted of whiskey now. “O, Heavenly Father,” Victor murmured, “guide me with Your light.” Smoke from the candle stung his eyes.

  But Victor, whose students used to mock him for talking and talking without a moment’s rest, could not summon another word. He had not prayed since Auschwitz. Though Victor still believed in God, to be sure, he was convinced He’d gone blind.

  The professor was not a young man, and the effort of kneeling—with his back, and his knees—brought sweat to his brow. Still he knelt; perhaps if he kept kneeling, if he did it long enough, a prayer would come to him. His wristwatch ticked. Victor wanted to open his eyes to see how much time he had left, but he could not do so, not until God spoke to him. He cupped his hands, waiting for the words to fall into them.

  “Guide me, Lord,” he whispered. “Let my hands be Your hands, and my works be Your works, for You have not grown blind—I have.”

  Someone knocked at the door. “Professor?”

  Victor stood up quickly. “Yes, I am coming.”

  They did not wait for him. The handle turned, and the door opened, emitting four men in uniform. They stood in front of the door with their hands on the butts of their pistols. The candle shone gold in their eyes, covering them with coins for the ferryman.

  “Good afternoon, Professor. I am Leutnant Claus Huber.” The officer clicked his heels together. His face looked as though it had been wiped clean of blemishes and expressions: pale eyebrows, light skin, a thin mouth. “Before we allow you to leave the country, we must inspect your belongings. I trust Gruppenführer Wolff has informed you—”

  “Yes, I know,” said Victor. “I am to take only what can fit into a small cart, plus manservants who will be provided to me.”

  “Very well. We will begin the inspection.” Huber nodded at his men, who went to Victor’s belongings with their hands outstretched. “Please stand against the wall, Professor.”

  “Here?” Victor indicated a spot.

  “That’s fine, yes. Since you are so very well-informed, I’m sure you know what will happen if we find anything that violates the terms of our agreement.” Huber did not wait for Victor to respond. “You will be sent to Fort Breendonk immediately.”

  The professor had told himself he would close his eyes when it started. But now, he could not. Victor watched the Germans empty his trunks, putting their hands on everything he had. What are you doing? Martin’s father had asked, seeing the boy at work. Martin had been so focused that he had not seen his father come in; he jumped, his legs hitting the bottom of his father’s desk. Making a treasure map, Papa. See? X marks the spot. This was not that treasure map, but one of the many that came after. The Germans passed it to each other, puzzling over the odd names. Martin Victor’s father had been an architect, a man of draft paper and ink, who took great pleasure in drawing maps with his son.

  His parents were never rich, but they did well. By Martin’s sixteenth year, they could afford to send him to one of the finest schools in Belgium. There, he learned the names of all the cities in the world, their languages, their histories; he traveled across Europe and drew pictures of things he saw and people he met; he made maps. After a year and a half of courses, Victor sold his first atlas. Then the war broke out: the First Great War. Shortly after Victor’s eighteenth birthday, his profession was rendered obsolete. Europe had no need for maps any longer. In the apartment, the Nazis cracked open Martin’s second atlas, the one that never sold. It was indistinguishable, that book, from the treasure maps Martin had drawn with his father.

  A staunch pacifist, Victor was determined to avoid armed service. Weeks after the war broke out, he managed to secure his acceptance to Université Catholique de Louvain, where he studied ministry. The calling was good, but the work bored him. At the war’s end, Martin Victor wrote a volume on the sociology of war. Rummaging through his trunk, the Nazi inspectors grew panicked when they found the draft, perhaps convinced they’d stumbled upon top secret FI information. As Claus Huber looked through it, the glory in his eyes faded to disappointment. “It is nothing,” he said in German, echoing some of Victor’s earliest colleagues.

  Sofia Dufort had been one of the staunchest naysayers. Victor’s advisor at the university told him that when Sofia first read his book, she pronounced sociology dead on arrival. Set on winning her over, Victor walked into her office unannounced and spent the afternoon making a case for sociology. And three years hence, Martin Victor and Sofia Dufort were married. His wedding ring was humble; it looked even humbler in the gloved hands of the Germans.

  His wife Sofia had been ill for months when he received the assignment to Auschwitz. There was another war, and Martin spoke German, had traveled to Switzerland, France, Germany and America, had contacts in Berlin. Of course the Front de l’Indépendance sought him out. And of course he accepted. This was a different sort of war, or maybe Victor was a different sort of man. The Comité de Défense des Juifs had reported that the Germans were transporting Jews somewhere; Victor was to figure out where the trains went. Sofia begged him not to go—but it was such a simple assignment, and if he distinguished himself, there would be more work. In January, Sofia miscarried their child. She had been certain the child was to be a girl, and they would call her Eliza. “Eliza means Oath to God,” Victor had translated. “What is our oath?” And Sofia had smiled and replied
, “Don’t be daft. It’s just a name.”

  But Victor had sworn an oath, in that moment, to accomplish something beautiful—not just great, but beautiful—before he died. In February of 1940, Victor left for Katowice, and then for Auschwitz.

  On his seventh day at Auschwitz, he had written a letter to Sofia. My darling Sofia, it began. I will be brief. I do not wish to cause you any more anguish than I must. According to the FI’s records, he did not speak for forty-six hours upon his return to Belgium. What shall I say to you that might justify what I aim to do? On the third day, a young doctor who sat by his patient’s bed was awakened by Victor’s screams. I have witnessed more sins than I thought the Lord our God would ever permit on His Earth. I am no longer the man you married, your husband, our Eliza’s father. After telling his story, Victor slept with such stillness they’d thought he had died. Though my love for you is as it was on our wedding night, I feel we must part. Be safe and well, Sofia.

  Victor returned to Sofia with the letter in his pocket, never having mailed it. They used to laugh together, before Auschwitz. They used to cook together. But after, the house was quiet and smelled of forgotten things. Sofa died shortly after Victor’s return, and Victor’s letter to her remained unread—until now, until the Germans. The Nazis read it quietly, then folded it up without comment.

  YESTERDAY

  The Scrivener

  ELIZA STOOD UP SUDDENLY—volcanically was the word Aubrion would have used—as though she’d had an idea that was too great for the world to contain. Her pen clattered to the floor, leaving her notebook friendless on the table. The old woman watched her. Eliza was not as young as Helene had initially believed. But the glint in her eyes and cleft in her chin played tricks. Once upon a time, Aubrion too had seemed ageless.

  “That must be it,” said Eliza. “My parents told me that was Martin Victor’s request. That if either of them ever had a daughter, they would name her Eliza, that they’d help him accomplish something beautiful. But I never knew why.”

  “Now you do,” said Helene.

  “Oath to God.”

  “Or it’s just a name.”

  “Nothing is just a name,” said Eliza.

  Helene smiled. “Indeed.”

  “I wonder when and how he asked them.” Eliza returned to her seat, her forehead wrinkled. She stooped to get her pen. “In the story, Victor betrays Aubrion and the others. Isn’t that what you said?”

  “It does seem like it, to be sure.”

  “He allies with August Wolff—there was that letter, and everything. It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Doesn’t it?”

  “You know something. Don’t you?”

  “I knew a few things.”

  “What do you know? How could Victor, a traitor, have asked my parents to name their daughter after the child he lost? Why would they listen to him?”

  Helene sat back in her chair. She regarded Eliza without moving, a figure of wax and cloth, positioned like a display in the blue-doored museum.

  “You never told me,” said the old woman, “why you are here.”

  “I did tell you.”

  “Then tell me again.”

  “To write it all down. Don’t you see?”

  “I don’t, no.”

  “This is the beautiful thing Victor promised to accomplish.” Eliza placed her notebook and pen on the floor, so that only Faux Soir remained on the table. There, it breathed and took up space. Helene knew not how many copies remained. She wanted to walk the earth in search of them all, gathering them like lost children. The used-book smell was a third person in the room, ancient but bright-eyed. Eliza stopped just short of touching the old newspaper. “You’ve cared for the story until now, Helene, and you’ve watched over it, but it isn’t yours to keep. The name ‘Marc Aubrion’ should not die with you.”

  The old woman’s eyes were on the newspaper. “If you had one wish, what would it be?”

  “What kind of a question is that?”

  “An honest question.”

  Eliza spoke, the truest thing she had ever said. “I wish that I could have met them. Marc Aubrion, Martin Victor, Theo Mullier...”

  “Gamin.”

  “Yes. Gamin, too.”

  “Are you upset that you never got to say goodbye to them?”

  “No.” Eliza laughed sadly. “I’m upset I never got to say hello.”

  Helene nodded slowly.

  “And besides,” Eliza went on, “I’ve had this story in my family for so long, I had to know whether it was true. It’s just...” Her laugh was far younger than Helene had ever been, even when she was Gamin. “This is a really amazing story. I know how that sounds, how juvenile that sounds, but it’s how I feel. I had to know whether it was true, any of it.”

  “What did your parents tell you?” asked Helene.

  “To look for Gamin.”

  “Why?”

  “To finish the story. They had a piece of it, and they passed it on to me. I’m here to return it to you.” Eliza’s laughter seemed to lift a corner of Faux Soir so that the paper laughed with her. “But you must finish yours first.”

  HITTING THE STANDS

  EARLY EVENING

  The Smuggler

  LADA TARCOVICH BOUGHT a large basket of pastries—two chocolate rolls, one cheese bun, one slice of onion bread, all warm—and a cup of coffee. People stared. They must have wondered: was she some governor’s wife, taking bribes from the Germans? It seemed too unlikely: though she looked put-together, her clothes were shabby. Smiling at the gawkers, Tarcovich took her pastries and coffee to a table outside the coffeehouse.

  Across the street, a newsboy was setting up his stand. Tarcovich checked her pocket watch. It was a quarter to four: about fifteen minutes until Le Soir was due to go on sale. She settled into her chair, watching the patched-up workmen queue by the lad’s stand. Bluish smoke from their pipes and cigars formed halos around the lot of them, framing their defeated shoulders and tired eyes.

  Tarcovich studied their faces over the brim of her mug. She felt breathless—not in anticipation of what was soon to occur, but in fear of what might not—and she put down her cup too hard, nearly shattering the saucer. Perhaps Tarcovich and Aubrion and Noël had misjudged their audience. These were not towering intellectuals. Lada watched one man wipe his nose with the back of his hand, and the back of his hand with his sleeve; the fellow behind him had the dullest face she’d ever seen, as if every bit of intelligence had been erased from his features; the man behind him seemed so exhausted he could barely walk; and so on. They bought the paper because their neighbors bought the paper, and they wanted to know who to blame for the bread shortage. Aubrion had worried that his readers would not find the material funny, but there was a chance, Tarcovich knew, they would not even realize it was a joke.

  A horn blared. Lada turned around as a van rolled up the street. The driver jumped out, leaving the engine on, and took a stack of papers from the back. Tipping his cap at the newsboy, he deposited the newspapers on the lad’s stand. As the driver climbed back into his car, the newsboy waved his thanks and started unwrapping the papers. The smell of ink—like the scent of rain, but sweeter—lightened the air.

  That old clock tower in downtown Enghien chimed four times. In the still-life quiet that followed, the first man bought a copy of Faux Soir. He handed the newsboy his forty-eight cents, as did the man behind him, and they drifted away from the line. Tarcovich caught bits of their small talk: “—been ill for weeks now—can’t remember the last time I saw him at church—his wife is doing fine, I gather—Henrietta saw her and the girls at market two days ago—” Six copies were sold, then eight. The newsboy was working swiftly. “—not certain how his farm’s doing these days, what with the taxes—”

  The first workman to buy the paper stopped, nudged his companion. Neither spoke. Their fingers trace
d out words—made adoring laps around the title, the columns on the front page—circled the photograph of Hitler and the American airplanes. Tarcovich’s breath locked in her throat. The men looked, for an instant, as though they would throw their papers away. That was the danger: people were paranoid, in those days, always convinced the Nazis were testing them. But they held on to their papers. The workman turned to his friend as though looking for permission to do something, and then his friend doubled over and laughed. They both laughed, first quietly and then with abandon. All the while, they snuck guilty glances at the line. One of them made eye contact with another fellow, and a tense, wary second melted into wicked smiles. All across the line, people were gasping, laughing, then tucking the paper under their arms or into their sacks to consume in privacy. It was beautiful. Tarcovich breathed. It was everything.

  News spread quickly. People talked; there was little else to do. The newsboy delighted as tens and then dozens of people ran to his stand. When it seemed he would run out of copies, Wellens’s van returned to replenish his supply. Tarcovich soon lost count of the number of papers he sold. It was well over a thousand, for she’d stopped tallying at eight hundred and fifty.

  At half past six, the crowd thinned. Tarcovich went inside the coffeehouse to buy another round. Upon her return, she found a throng of businessmen had joined the line. Tarcovich sat back with her coffee and her pastry, curious to see how this group would respond. Aubrion and Noël had a bet: Aubrion thought the “common man,” as he called the workers and the civil servants, would find the paper funnier than the well-to-do, while Noël was betting on the latter. Tarcovich couldn’t quite decide where she stood.

  Toward the end of the line, a pair of women in cotton trousers were talking quietly. They had swastikas pinned to their lapels, as was required of everyone in the legal profession. One of them paused when she saw Tarcovich, but gave no other indication she recognized her. “Le Soir, please,” Tarcovich heard, as she’d heard a thousand times that afternoon. Their pins—the swastikas on the women’s blouses—were crooked. She felt a tearful smile growing inside her, threatening to break her in half, as Andree Grandjean purchased two copies of Faux Soir: one for herself, and one for Lada Tarcovich.