The Entertainer and the Dybbuk by Sid Fleischman

Author:Sid Fleischman
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2008-11-11T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 12

Summer was settling in. An early dusk, pumpkin tinted, lit the Paris streets like the flare of a match. The sidewalk tables were filling up. Freddie, in a rush along a narrow side street, passed a neighborhood café. A ragged boy in a coat with bulging pockets stood at the window looking in. Freddie barely spared him a glance.

“Stop,” said the dybbuk.

“What now? We’ll be late for our show.”

“The world will end? Don’t you rich Americans have eyes?”

“What are you talking about?” Freddie asked.

“That kid at the window. He’s hungry.”

“How can you tell?”

“What’s he looking at inside? Suits, the latest styles? His stomach is growling.”

“You heard it?”

“I can hear an empty stomach at ten kilometers. And see how his pockets are bulging? He has everything he owns in those pockets. Give him a few francs so he can eat.”

“Avrom, what do you want me to do, feed every street kid and beggar in Paris?”

“Why not?”

“We’re going to miss our curtain.”

“Let them hold the curtain,” said the dybbuk. “If you can’t spare a few francs, take it out of my account.”

“What account?” Freddie replied scornfully. He supposed Avrom Amos was seeing himself hungry at a café window, with everything he possessed in the world stuffed inside his pockets.

Freddie dug wrinkled paper francs out of his pocket and shoved them into the hand of the street kid.

“Here. Get something to eat.”

When Freddie reached the Crazy Horse, and after hastily pinning a fresh flower in the buttonhole of his tailcoat, he strode center stage. The curtains parted. He rested a polished black shoe on a chair and sat the dummy on his knee.

The puppet looked at him. “Do I know you?”

Here we go, thought the ventriloquist. “I’m The Great Freddie.”

“What makes you so great?”

“I can throw my voice upstage into that barrel.”

“You get paid for throwing up?”

“I didn’t say that,” protested The Great Freddie. “I can toss my voice anywhere.”

“How about my pocket?”

“What do you want your pocket to say?”

“Keep out!”

“Why are you all dressed up?” Freddie hoped to get the dialogue back on track. “Aren’t you Count Dracula?”

“That shlemiel of a vampire? I’m a dybbuk.”

“A what?”

“A nice Jewish demon. I haunt people.”

“That doesn’t sound nice to me.”

“Is fighting wars nice?” replied the dybbuk.

“The war’s history. Yesterday’s newspapers.”

“Not for me. I placed a want ad. Let me look at the audience.”

“Are you searching for a friend?”

“A rat.”

“There are no rodents in this cabaret,” Freddie said. Where was this dialogue going?

The dybbuk said, “Keep your eyes peeled for a rat with two legs.”

“An unfortunate pet? Did you name him?”

“No. He already had a name.”

“What was it?”

“SS Colonel Gerhard Junker-Strupp. You’ve heard of him?”

“No.”

“Aha!”

“What do you mean, aha?”

“He was the worst of the Jewish child killers, and you’ve never heard of him.”

“I have a feeling this is something personal.”

“He caught me. He shot me, personally.”

“I hope you find him,” said Freddie, eager to change the subject. “What do you know about vampires?”

“Vampires are a pain in the neck.”

“Yes.”

“I think I’ll buy a pair of platypuses,” the dybbuk continued.

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