The Entertainer and the Dybbuk Read online

  “You think it’s a picnic?” asked the dybbuk.

  “I’ll gorge like a pig on trayf!” Freddie had already learned the Yiddish word for pork and shellfish and other forbidden food. “I’ll move to Mobile and retire the act. And I’ll join the Ku Klux Klan!”

  “Oy gevalt!”

  “No options. No loopholes. That’s the deal. Got it?”

  “We’ll see,” remarked the dybbuk, and went back to sleep.

  In Phoenix, Freddie checked into the Biltmore Hotel. He began telephoning Polly in Mobile every day, and every day she refused to come to the phone. But he was confident she’d soften when he could tell her the dybbuk had fled.

  He bought a newspaper moments after checking into the hotel. Once in his room overlooking desert and cactus, he found the news he was hoping for. “Wake up, Avrom Amos,” he said, folding his newspaper. “Listen to this. Your SS man is charged with killing a young assistant in his stamp business. He thought the employee was stealing from him—and get this. The assistant was a mere kid of fifteen. Right in character, for a child killer.”

  The dybbuk remained profoundly silent. It seemed to Freddie that, now that they were so close to Avrom Amos’s murderer, the dybbuk had frozen up. Unsure of himself. By dinnertime, Freddie began to wonder if the dybbuk had bailed out. There seemed to be nobody in.

  Had the dybbuk lost his grit? How, after all, could he hope to achieve his biblical revenge? Freddie wasn’t going to pick up a knife or a gun and do some murderous deed.

  No, the dybbuk had something else less lethal but more mortifying up his sleeve. He’d tipped his hand after his bar mitzvah.

  The trial resumed at ten the following morning. Freddie came early and commandeered a freshly polished oak chair in the second row. The courtroom filled rapidly and heated up. The wooden blades of a ceiling fan stirred the desert air in slow motion. A couple of newspapermen arrived at the last moment, seating themselves at a desk for the press.

  The bailiff introduced the Honorable Harold O. Fanshaw, judge of the Superior Court, who settled himself in his black robe like a thundercloud. He banged his gavel and the courtroom went silent. “Open for business,” the judge declared. “Where’s the defendant?”

  The defendant arrived moments later. He took the witness stand, all but clicking his heels. Freddie gave the former SS officer’s face a hard, piercing gaze. So this was the face of a killer. This was the man who had shown such enthusiasm for child murder? The former German officer who had shot Avrom Amos six times?

  The German was no longer wearing his vulture black uniform with its death’s-head insignia. He was no longer smoking Egyptian cigarettes, but the dueling scars and hatchet-sharp nose still had their arrogant presence.

  The defense attorney rose to continue his case. A portly man, he pulled off his horn-rimmed glasses and threw them angrily on the table.

  “So what do you see? A kindly old refugee with numbers tattooed on his wrist. J for Jew. A survivor of the Nazi death factories. Years pass. An unfortunate child chooses to take poison. And my client is charged with murder? Preposterous! What motive? May I remind you that poison residue was detected on the young man’s lips? Does that sound like murder? The rat poison was self-administered. That is clear! Suicide, open and shut, shut, shut.”

  Freddie looked around as if he might spot the dybbuk hiding among the spectators.

  The defense attorney blew hot and hotter until the judge banged his gavel and ordered a break for lunch. But not before the attorney announced defiantly that he would put his client on the witness stand to remove all doubt of any guilt.

  Freddie wasn’t hungry and wandered outside to find a stone bench and sit in the desert sun. It was then that the dybbuk seemed to shake off his sullen lethargy and come to life.

  “Thank you, Mr. Freddie. Thank you, Mr. Yankee Doodle. You were a good Jew when I needed you.”

  “What are you talking about? Where have you been?”

  “This is when we shake hands. Now we go our separate ways.”

  “You’re leaving just when you have the monster in your sights? Isn’t it him? Wrong SS officer?”

  “It’s him.”

  “And you’re backing out?”

  “You’re free of me. That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”

  “I’m no longer possessed?”

  “So long, Mr. Yankel Doodle,” said the dybbuk. “Don’t forget to pay the charity for the Swiss stamp dealer.”

  “Of course. What are you going to do?”

  “Don’t ask questions.”

  “What am I going to do?” asked Freddie.

  “You can work up an act without moving your lips. A showstopper!”

  Me, work solo? Me, The Great Freddie? He could see nothing but disaster waiting in the wings. He was going to have to walk out into the spotlight practically naked. The dybbuk wasn’t going to be there with his sharp tongue to make The Great Freddie sound like a top attraction.

  The act was finished. His young partner would vanish. Turn to smoke. Be forever gone.

  The entertainer straightened his shoulders. Freddie, he thought, you’re hopeless. Can’t you even talk to yourself without moving your lips? Did you ever once stop to realize how much you’ll miss that war-wounded kid? Remember when he was your only real knockabout friend? Ingrate! Did it ever occur to you to say thanks?

  “Thanks. I’ll miss you, Avrom Amos.”

  “Like a toothache, eh? It’s been a pleasure, Mr. Freddie T. Birch. So, now you are free to rush back and marry that girl,” said the dybbuk. “Mazel tov! Maybe I’ll find a way to send a wedding gift.”

  “I’ll take it out of your salary,” said Freddie, trying to soften the moment with a green-eyed smile. “I guess I won’t see you again—ever?”

  “L’chaim,” said the dybbuk. “To life, eh? I’ll put in a good word for you if you decide to visit our heaven. You are a righteous mensch. The door’ll be wide open. Break a leg.”

  “Not so fast!” Freddie protested. “Avrom Amos, hold on! What’s the big rush?”

  But the dybbuk was gone.

  CHAPTER 21

  The former SS officer took the witness stand as if it were a fortress to be defended. The desert sun now shot through the single window and threw a white hot spotlight on him. The defendant snapped up his right hand, eager to take the oath again. He stood under the ceiling fan, straight and almost tall enough for the blades to crop his yellow hair.

  The defense lawyer fixed a fist on his hip. “Tell us, sir, in your own words, how you found the body.”

  “Dead,” replied the German, with a sharp shrug. “Dead, and holding his stomach. What a stupid boy, eh? I knew he was stealing stamps. Trash stamps. I was glad to be rid of them, yes? Not even my worst enemy thinks I would poison the boy over a pocketful of wastepaper.”

  “You have enemies, Mr. Goldstein?” asked the attorney.

  “Not a single one in the whole world. Nein. Non.”

  “Why would the boy take poison and commit suicide?”

  “You ask me? All I know, he chose my backyard to die. Rat poison. An accident, eh?”

  The attorney hoisted a confident smile. “So you are innocent?”

  Before the defendant could answer, he gave a sort of hiccup and out came “Heil Hitler!”

  Involuntarily, his right arm rose in the beginning of a stiff-armed Nazi salute. Regaining his composure, the former officer clapped his arm back to his side.

  It was clear that he was stunned. Where had that voice come from?

  Freddie was the only person in the courtroom whose face burst into a smile. He knew where the voice had come from! He knew what the cunning Avrom Amos was up to. The dybbuk was possessing SS Officer Gerhard Junker-Strupp!

  The judge said, “You are declaring your confounded innocence?”

  “Certainly!” cried out the German.

  “—Not,” added the dybbuk. “Certainly not!”

  The courtroom seemed to catch its breath. The defendant
went pale. His jaw fell open. He was struck dumb. He couldn’t grasp what was happening to his voice; he tried to clear it.

  “Are you pleading guilty?” asked the judge, astonished.

  Again, the dybbuk’s voice came blustering out. “Do I look innocent? Guilty, a hundred percent!”

  “I object!” cried out the defense attorney. “My client declares his innocence!”

  “Let him declare for himself,” said the judge.

  The former officer tried to pull himself together, but he seemed frozen by panic, and the dybbuk overrode his voice.

  “What kind of a donkey trial is this, eh? I said I was guilty. I hired my lawyer to lie for me. Achtung! Here is some truth. My name is not Goldstein. I had those Auschwitz numbers tattooed on my wrist to fool you. I am Colonel Gerhard Junker-Strupp, hauptscharführer-SS of the proud death heads of Germany! Heil Hitler!”

  “I object, I object,” the defense attorney bellowed. “The defendant is suddenly talking nonsense!”

  “You object?” said the dybbuk. “I object. I am under oath. You are not. Sit down.”

  “Well put,” remarked the judge. “Continue, Mr. Goldstein.”

  “Junker-Strupp, sir. My stamp assistant was murdered! You want an eyewitness? You are looking at an eyewitness. Me! You want experience? I had orders to hunt down Jewkids and wipe them off the face of the earth. We used to pull that same poisoning trick in Germany. Why waste a bullet on the non-Aryan garbage? I confess I poisoned my stamp assistant!”

  By this time, the former officer was jerking around as if pulled by strings. He covered his mouth with his arm, but still words came tripping forth. His eyes rolled in a surging panic.

  Freddie sat back, folded his arms, and enjoyed the show. How adroit the dybbuk was! And what a hopeless fool the mass murderer appeared to be, now trying to stuff his mouth with a clenched fist. Bravo, Avrom Amos! Out through the German’s ram’s horn of a nose came his confession. “So, jury! So, Judge! What was my motive? What else? The boy discovered papers. He learned who I really am, a war criminal with a noose waiting for me. Why else would I kill the boy? Why else?”

  “Is that your sworn testimony?” asked the judge, hunching forward.

  The defendant pulled his knuckles free of his mouth to protest, but the dybbuk drowned him out. “I’m guilty! You, at the typing machine—are you getting this down? I, Colonel Gerhard Junker-Strupp, former SS officer, I poisoned the boy! In my native Germany, I directed the murder of whole trainloads of children. Some by my own hand. I remember a redheaded kid, Avrom Amos Poliakov by name. I shot him. His sister, Sulka. She, we poisoned. For those petty crimes alone, I should have your death penalty twice over! For the other little Jews, a million times over! Guilty! Guilty, jury, from top to bottom! I’m late for my own hanging. So kindly hurry it up, Judge.”

  As if struck by lightning, the newspapermen went flying to telephones to get this bombshell of a story in print. The judge sat back. He seemed to enjoy the chaos in his courtroom as a refreshment from dreary shoplifting and burglary trials.

  The SS officer collapsed in his chair, a gaze of profound confusion and vagueness in his eyes. Had he suddenly gone mad? Who had known these darkest war secrets of his?

  Freddie gazed at him and could see his future more clearly than any crystal ball could reveal. Until his last day on earth, the German was going to be possessed by a Jewish dybbuk. Avrom Amos was going to drive him crazy.

  Freddie sent a flick of a wave toward the witness stand. He felt sure the dybbuk was looking at him.

  “Mazel tov, pal,” Freddie said. “L’chaim!”

  He didn’t move his lips.

  Author’s Note

  Who could have imagined that the witch’s oven in Hansel and Gretel would leap out of the storybooks and into real life? It happened in Germany, during the 1930s and 1940s.

  Jewish children by the cattle carloads were delivered to the gas ovens and death factories during World War II. Why the hunt for children? Among Nazi calculations at the highest level was a fear that the Jewish young, if allowed to grow up, would seek revenge for the slaughter of their parents. No Jewish child was to be left breathing. Europe was to become Judenfrie—free of Jews.

  Before being crushed and surrendering in 1945, the Nazis came close to succeeding. The human butchery and smoking crematoria were unprecedented in history. The events have come to be known as the Holocaust. The word is from the Greek, meaning to be burned whole.

  For a few coins, bounty hunters searched out children in hiding and delivered them to the Nazis. There were special days set aside to rid the cities and villages of Jewish kids, as in this story. Collecting the terrified young in sacks, like stray cats, really happened, too. And yes, painting childish lips with poisons happened. Poison was cheaper than bullets, and what was a mere Jewish child worth?

  It is surprising how many fragmentary diaries kept by children of the Holocaust have survived and been published. Here and there, I have slipped into this narrative a few trembling words still fresh from the tragic past.

  It has taken me a long lifetime of novel writing to finally feel prepared to grapple with the Holocaust. But what tale to tell? There was a horror story in every victim. At the same time, the indomitable Jewish sense of humor somehow survived.

  It was only when I began wondering about a dybbuk, the ghost of a murdered child, perhaps, that I found a spotlight to shine on the nightmare of the centuries. Could I allow in the occasional shaft of sunlight—the tough Jewish sense of humor?

  History is easy to forget. Does it matter in our contemporary lives if we toss aside what happened so long ago? If we forget—poof!—history vanishes. The Holocaust vanishes. If we don’t know where we have been, how wise will we be in the future?

  I remember as a child of eight being told by a young friend that I had killed Christ. That was news to me. It’s a common experience for the Jewish young. Should later generations of Germans be burdened with the guilt arising from the profound inhumanity of their ancestors? Revenge may be sweet, but guilt is nontransferable. Still, hatreds survive with the persistence of cockroaches.

  Do I believe in dybbuks, misty ghosts, imps, and other ancient and fabled creatures? Only if it turns out that the earth is, indeed, flat.

  L’chaim!

  —Sid Fleischman

  Santa Monica, California

  About the Author

  “I’m too lazy to retire,” says Sid Fleischman, author of more than sixty books for children, adults, and magicians. His tales have been translated into nineteen languages. Among his many awards is the Newbery Medal for his novel The Whipping Boy.

  Sid Fleischman hesitated to write a story about the Holocaust until he found the right characters and plot. “The Jewish sense of humor miraculously survived the Holocaust,” says Mr. Fleischman. “The Entertainer and the Dybbuk captures not only the inhumane tragedies but the human comedy of the recent past.”

  Born in Brooklyn, New York, and raised in San Diego, California, Sid Fleischman is the author of the pirate epics The Ghost in the Noonday Sun, The 13th Floor, and The Giant Rat of Sumatra. His most recent books are The White Elephant, a novel, and a biography, Escape! The Story of The Great Houdini.

  Sid Fleischman lives in Santa Monica, California. You can visit him online at www.sidfleischman.com.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.

  ALSO BY SID FLEISCHMAN

  The Whipping Boy

  The Scarebird

  The Ghost in the Noonday Sun

  The Midnight Horse

  McBroom’s Wonderful One-Acre Farm

  Here Comes McBroom!

  Mr. Mysterious & Company

  Chancy and the Grand Rascal

  The Ghost on Saturday Night

  Jim Ugly

  The 13th Floor

  The Abracadabra Kid

  Bandit’s Moon

  A Carnival of Animals

  Bo and Mzzz Mad


  Disappearing Act

  The Giant Rat of Sumatra

  Escape! The Story of The Great Houdini

  The White Elephant

  Credits

  Jacket art © 2007 by Tim O’Brien

  Jacket design by Sylvie Le Floc’h

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  THE ENTERTAINER AND THE DYBBUK. Copyright © 2008 by Sid Fleischman. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  Adobe Digital Edition May 2009 ISBN 978-0-06-194785-8

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