The Emperor of Lies by Steve Sem-Sandberg Read Free Book Online

front, pulling the carts, others push from behind, or walk alongside to make sure the huge mountain of bags and cases does not tip over.
    Tens of thousands of people in motion, grand folk and workers. The grey winter’s day does not differentiate between them. Despite the cold, some are wearing skirts or in shirtsleeves, perhaps with a blanket or coat round their shoulders, driven out of their hiding places by the Gestapo, which is continuing its search of every Jewish home. Sporadic shots are heard from inside the buildings. There is broken glass lying in the snow.
    He sings as he escorts the children from Helenówek.
    They have brought everything with them: even housekeepers, cooks and nurses.
    They are like a travelling company. Dangling pots and pans clatter.
    They have five horse-drawn vehicles at their disposal, among them the carriage that will later become his own dróshke , with the fold-down step and the silver plaque on each side.
    He sits in the front carriage beside the coachman Lev Kuper, along with some of the children; they are wearing thick winter hats and coats trimmed with fur. They drive past the ruins of the Temple Synagogue in Kościusz Street.
    He tells the children about the town he came from.
    It is like the town they are heading for.
    A teeny tiny town, he explains. So tiny it fits into a matchbox.
    He holds up his tobacco-stained hands to show them.
    He has a high, almost squeaky voice. It is the combination of his thin monotone and his bodily bulk (he is not tall or burly in any way, but heavy ) that makes such an overwhelming impression on the children who have had the misfortune to encounter him; this and the anger that could suddenly suffuse him, overpowering in its intensity. With eyes open wide and spittle spraying from his lips, he sends a hail of sarcastic comments over whichever apprentice or clerk or day labourer has not completed his task, and, a second later, his stick follows. Even when his voice is mild and temperate, it is clear he will brook no contradiction.
    He is also very conscious of the effect he has on others; in the same intuitive way that an actor is conscious of the range of expression available to him on stage. Playing the childish idiot. Or the tough, dogged, loyal worker. A wise old man with semi-blind eyes and a cracked voice, who has seen his whole life pass by. He is almost uncannily clever at assuming these different guises and at falling into others’ way of speaking, so he sounds just like them –
    There was a cobbler in this little town, and a blacksmith .
    (He mimics:)
    There was a baker and a lacemaker.
    There was a cooper and an apothecary.
    There was a cabinet-maker and a rope-maker.
    And of course there was also a rabbi.
    (who lived right at the back of the synagogue in an unheated room full of books and papers)
    And there was a teacher there, too, a teacher who wasn’t like your teachers but had one good eye and one bad.
    (with the good eye he looked to all those who were of any use –
    and with the bad eye at those who drifted round idly with nothing to do)
    When he talks to, or in front of, the children, his thin voice is as smooth and flat as a stone, but with a slightly pedantic ring. His tongue and palate linger a moment on every syllable, to make sure the children are listening.
    And the children truly are.
    The older ones with a look of blind fascination on their faces, as if they can’t get enough of the perfectly judged, rhythmic, metronome beat of that thin voice.
    For the younger ones, the voice is if anything more hypnotic. As soon as the Chairman starts to speak, it is as if the person behind the voice disappears, leaving just the voice, hanging disembodied in the air like the glow of the cigarette he would at some stage in his story produce from his silver case and light.
    And then there was someone who could do a bit of all the things I’m going to tell you about: he was called Kamiński.
    He skinned and flayed oxen and sheep.
    He even