The Sympathizer

THE COMMISSAR

I will tell you what cannot be found in any book. In every town, village, and ward the cadres deliver the same lectures. They reassure those citizens not in reeducation of our good intentions. But the committees and the commissars do not care about remaking these prisoners. Everyone knows this and no one will say it aloud. All the jargon that the cadres spout only hides an awful truth—

MYSELF

I wanted my father dead!

THE COMMISSAR

Now that we are the powerful, we don’t need the French or the Americans to fuck us over. We can fuck ourselves just fine.

The glare above my body was blinding. I was no longer certain whether I could see everything or nothing, and under the heat of the lights my palm was slick with perspiration. My grip on the pistol was slippery, but the commissar’s hands held the barrel in place.

THE COMMISSAR

If anyone besides you knew that I had spoken the unspeakable, I would be reeducated. But it is not reeducation that I fear. It is the education I have that terrifies me. How can a teacher live teaching something he does not believe in? How do I live seeing you like this? I cannot. Now pull the trigger.

I think I said that I would rather shoot myself first, but I could not hear myself, and when I tried to pull the gun away from his head and turn it toward my own, I did not have the strength. Those relentless eyes stared down at me, now dry as bones, and from somewhere deep inside of him came a rumble. Then the rumble burst forth, and he was laughing. What was so funny? This black comedy? No, that was too heavy. This illuminated room allowed for only a light comedy, a white comedy where one could die from laughter, not that he laughed that long. He stopped laughing when he let go of my hand, my arm dropping to my side and the pistol clattering on the cement floor. Behind the commissar, Sonny and the crapulent major stared with longing at the Tokarev. Either one would have been happy to pick it up and shoot me if he could, but they no longer possessed their bodies. As for the commissar and I, we had bodies but could not shoot, and perhaps that made the commissar laugh. The void that had been his face still loomed above me, his hilarity having passed with such rapidity I was not sure I had heard correctly. I thought I saw sadness in that void, but I could not be certain. Only the eyes and teeth expressed any emotion, and he no longer cried or smiled.

THE COMMISSAR

I apologize. That was selfish and weak of me. If I died, you would die, and then Bon. The commandant can’t wait to drag him before the firing squad. At least now you can save yourself and our friend, if not me. That I can live with.

MYSELF

Please, can we talk of this after I sleep?

THE COMMISSAR

First answer my question.

MYSELF

But why?

The commissar holstered his pistol. Then he tied my free hand down once more and stood up. He gazed down on me from a great height, and perhaps it was because of the foreshortened angle, but I saw in his absence of a face something else besides horror . . . a faint shadow cast by madness, although perhaps it was merely an ocular effect created by the glare behind his head.

THE COMMISSAR

My friend, the commandant may let you go because you wanted your father dead, but I will let you go only when you can answer my question. Just remember, my brother, that I do this for your own good.