Joshua Cohen - Witz

Finally, the Solution begins — yet again.

And so there was more trouble for Him, and it was not good, and no one could get any rest.

And we all say — forget it.

Welcome to Whateverwitz, loosely translating to whatever’s joke, anything you want, we’ll laugh, hahaha, O how we’ll indulge you. Those who had chosen not to Affiliate had chosen their deaths…alternately, “those who have not chosen to be chosen,” it’s officially said, how they’ve been chosen for death if not by it. Jawohl, their fate sealed so you needn’t be a sphragist to figure out how. In the beginning, to incite dissent within their ranks with the appointments of quote unquote selfgovernments, establishing a collaborating class of privileged VIPs (Very Important Polaks), all toward the aim of obliterating any sense of community, and so any organized resistance, they hope — to lay the blame upon the blameless, is how. To quote unquote remove them, the Unaffiliated we’re talking, first to enumerate them, round them up, transport them Transatlantic to Polandland proper, then give them the Grand Tour, show them the sites, take it all in, the works, allinclusive; then, terminal transfer to extermination facilities situated at the outer limits of major metropolises throughout the Pale, there to set only as many as neccessary to hard labor servicing the deaths of their family and peers, attending to their minimalized needs, the wanting basic, baring essentials though one goy’s subsistence be another goy’s dream, and this in a manner most costeffective, as inexpensively as possible’s what — and then to murder them, every one of them, dead, and so only the pure will be left; that’s the plan.

Nu, Torque, Hamm asks, what’s the plan — was He on one of those transports? is He dead yet? and what about us…he’s futzing with the yarmulke he has to maintain for work purposes, survival, to avoid the Gestapo’s attention.

I don’t know, says Mada, I don’t think we’re that lucky, or not. My guess is He fled here, not expecting this, who would have. And if He did expect, hymn, then He’s dumber than any of us ever thought.

But they wouldn’t kill Him, would they, Hamm takes the pleather disc from his head (this a newly issued operationally commemorative model: it’s white inviting dirt with prussicblau piping, replete with serial number and a litany of daily blessings wrought on its underside in silvery script), spins it supple around in his hands: they wouldn’t, why would they, wouldn’t make any sense…He’s one of them.

Is He? Not anymore, Hamm, my friend, not anymore…or He is and He isn’t, it’s tough to explain, so difficult nowadays with everyone of no extraction, all these late designates of fractional Faith — the questions, is He a Mischling, who knows, and, anyway, are They, Whoever They are, Whoever They ever are (up to you), the type to make such distinctions; it’s up to Him to decide, the chosen now finally choosing. Who are you, that’s never been voluntary before. Freewill and all, freewilled. This time around, martyrdom’s wholly assured. But He’s not on any of the transports (Mada spits on Hamm’s yarmulke, palms it down into his kink), and neither is he dead…Frank Gelt says, having slid downstairs and across the waxed lobby of the Hotel Under the Sign of the Hotel’s newest Polandland franchise, the Hotel Under the Sign of the Sign of the Hotel in the house’s silkslippers, he’s waving in front of him, in their faces, a sheaf of papers that gives the impression at least of being thick, smallprinted, and tiresome if not entirely, unappealably official — still they’ve been religiously stamped and signed, approved like nobody’s business: nothing registered, he says, apparently He has no number, no designation, whispering crisp quickly to Die once they’ve sequestered themselves in their most modest of suites, with all tips paidout, shades drawn, door locked with the radio on, so as to buzz their conference from any who’d pry: He’s wanted dead, Gelt says, but only by authorities on the Most High, orders direct from the Sanhedrin, Shade himself; lowerlevels have instructions only to turn Him over, ascend Him upstairs. An orchestra chokes. And then come the sermons.

Must’ve entered on a false passport, says Die in complimentary smoking-jacket falling open, exposing his hairless, smallnippled chest; he’s lying on his fourposter, canopied in black, originally topped with the taxidermied head of a grandly shot stag whose eyes, which are glass, he’d suspected of hiding surveillance cameras, microphones, or both, and so had the head ripped from the wall, now hugged under an arm, deantlered. Or, he says, maybe He’s paying His way through, if He can afford it, if He isn’t too cheap. How hard is it to be here illegal, unaccounted for, off the books — that’s the question He should be asking Himself. More like: is anything at all illegal here, eins, zwei…and will anyone ever be called to account?

First thing’s first, though; He’ll be dealt with later, needs be. In order to Polish them off, they all have to be first trained, fistragged then spit: chugged over the landscape, locomotived with cause on back to their old homes, belated, the Kowalskys returned to Polandland as the Kowalksis, neighbors there as they’d been Over Here to the Wisnowskis late of North Michigan Avenue, Chicago, what’d been Illinois, now once again Wiś nowski, you know them, moved back into their houses, their perpetually disarrayed modest flats located in the quote old historic centers unquote, packed in a million tight along with the families that’d usurped them; others, and don’t ask how, we have our methods, their addresses, yours, know from whence everyone came…what’d you think the Library’d been for, goes the thought, such intensive genealogical genius — sent, shipped as damage refused back to the graze of their lamed horses, their stables, their sootdarkened woodenshacks ever further east, further paled, empty for generations it’s been; fires in the hearth, eternal flames, as if history’s been waiting all this time for return, for itself. A facility sprung up outside Camden, Joysey, a magnet for the Tristate, then they’re packed off to the Continent aboard an ancient fallingdown skyshort aeroplane struggling for lift out of Newark. And from there, no one survived. Others soon sprang up everywhere, Canada, Mexico, Americas Central and South, and every flight landed Here, lands — this whole land, its lands, their hemisphere entire, made an enormous, ostensibly infinite Whereverwitz, a Whywald, Nohausen. How, it’s too hard. How, the corrupt, corrupting, commentary, I’m sure. The best and the brightest newly Affiliated lawyers in the world, hard-tushed hardballers all, are initially consulted for free, then retained at cost, to make sure everything’s kosher, that all the ink’s pure and that each binding letter bears its proper ornamentation. Menschs of the conscienced Cloth are rolled back into bolts, stored to mold until the paperwork comes through; their mouths shut with red tape, fingers and hands, too, needle and thread, warehoused for another yet another delay, which has first been scheduled, then rewarehoused, only to be rescheduled again: They the newly Affiliated go and rekindle the whole of the old Garment District to shvitz out the uniforms, largely piecemeal patternwork except for those of the Elite, you know who you are, Singers spooling overtime into night, the darkening lapels of sky collaring closed, silver pips, litzen and ribbons, badges and trim the red of their blood. After they come for the merely clothed, those who are housed, too, they can’t be too far behind: when the hotels go overbooked, Affiliated architects, contractors unto subcontractors, lowly subsubs owing favors to it seems every zoning board president brother-inlaw to ever deface with concrete and cement the turned cheek of the planet, they’re drafted to salary, set to work on the barracks; with layout wall-to-wall, mounted multiunit entertainment systems, hometheaters sounding in surround, minibars, minifridges, the ganze amenities, for the money that is, everything they’d ever expect and at the bare minimum, at least for those traveling Class, every solace basely afforded; lonely housewives/parttime interiordecorators do up even the No Class barracks in differently attractive combinations of mocha, peachish, and a very bright teal; newly landscaped oaks line every perimeter…