The Miracle Letters of T. Rimberg (15 page)

Letter 41
October 11, 2004

Dear Uncle Charley,

I need advice. How do I negotiate this? Help me.

One of the howling little women next to the television set was delivered a Yiddish newspaper. I pointed out the article on the front page and said, “That's me! I'm Rimberg.” The woman, who was dressed in a dressing gown and had thin painted blond hair and eyebrows painted crookedly in dogshit brown on her face, began to scream and howl, which wasn't a shock like it might have been if these women hadn't howled at me for the last seven days. But this howling was different than the howling before. Generally if I'm stern enough in my voice, I can make the women stop howling. But this new howling, this woman wouldn't stop, and she howled and screamed even though I told her very sternly to be quiet. My stern tones only seemed to fuel her howling, and soon I realized that her howl was terribly specific, even with my hands covering my ears, because she howled, “Rimberg,” and she pointed at me. Then I became upset and shouted, “Cut that infernal racket out, or I will push you down the stairs,” which didn't do any good, because she speaks no English and has clearly lost her mind. And then, with the one arm she has that hasn't been destroyed or atrophied by some stroke in her past, she attempted to wheel herself away from me . . . but of course, owing to the physics of wheelchairs, she was only able to wheel herself around and around in circles. Whenever her eyes landed upon me, she would howl terribly, her level of terror increasing with every turn. And she often howled, “Rimberg.”

This cyclical howling, which fell outside the pattern of the everyday howling, captured the attention of the other guests, and they came to find out what the matter was. She screamed, “Rimberg,” and pointed at me, which set most of them into a complete state. Several screamed at me in French and shuffled toward me in their slippers, pointing and slicing the air with their bony fingers.

I was so afraid, Uncle Charley! I screamed. It was a horror film. My own scream finally brought the Flemish cow from behind her desk down the hall to assist me. Other staff followed.

It was too late. One howling woman had fallen to her knees in front of me, still screaming in French, veins bursting in her temples. She had grabbed the arms of my chair, and the staff could not pry her off, her adrenaline prevented them from moving her. Her breath in my nostrils smelled of fish. I shook my head and said, “American. I don't understand French.” And so she spoke English. “You . . . you . . . murderer. Mother. Father. Sister. Family. All! Butcher!” she cried. Her ancient saliva sprayed me.

The staff finally managed to remove her bony fingers from around the arms of my chair, and she wept and others wept, and they repeated “Rimberg” as they wept.

I fear, Dear Uncle, our family hasn't the best reputation in this city.

I am locked in my room now. Staff tells me I need to stay in my room, because I am upsetting the other patients. I told them I would lock myself in my room and had no interest in being with these crazy women.

Could these women kill me in the night? Would they have the strength? I cannot die at the hands of these howling women. What do you think? What's your advice? Do you have any knitting needles stored in your apron I can borrow for protection?

No one has permission to kill me but me, and even I can't do that.

Won't someone save me?

T.

Day Nine:
Transcript 5

As I said, Father, I get attacked every time I'm in a hospital.

Nobody would explain to me what was going on, which was so disheartening.

Well . . . I'd seen the doctor in the morning, and it had gone well. I'd been in the place almost a week, and I was feeling good. I coughed less. The doctor and I discussed strategies for dealing with anxiety, strategies that would help me think rationally while dealing with stress. After the craziness of Paris and the break-in, I was receptive to this behavioral therapy . . . I wanted to be anchored and rational. So things were good.

Yes. I wrote letters to fictional people. So?

Of course the doctor didn't know. He told me I was doing very well, and I felt like I was . . . even if I was writing to . . .

Who the hell else was I going to write to?

Sorry, Father Barry. But really. Who?

No. Kaatje and Cranberry didn't come back. Abandoned, that's what I thought. Read the journal.

Journal Entry,
October 11, 10 p.m.

Nick Kelly. Cranberry. With payment comes responsibility. I pay you and you are responsible to me, responsible for my well-being. And I need some help now, Nick Kelly. I have to hide in a room while you and your girlfriend are out eating at restaurants? Meanwhile, I'm being stabbed in the throat by an old woman with her knitting needle, which might really happen? How is this equitable? Why should I be left to the bony wolves while you spend my money?

Day Nine:
Transcript 6

I don't know why I was fixated on money. Reading over this stuff, now . . . I think I sound like my dad.

No, they didn't. Things were happening on the outside I didn't know about.

I got the envelope with the Irish ferry ticket.

Yes, a different side of the story was coming out in the home, too.

Letter 42
October 12, 2004

Dear Uncle Charley,

I would like to leave this place. I don't like it here anymore. If Cranberry ever comes back, I'll ask him to take me away.

All night last night I suffered not from the nightmares of a past I don't understand, but from waking fears of howling old Jewish mothers sneaking into my room, poking me in the face with their needlepoint needles. Every noise made me jump out of bed.

The ladies are crazy and inconsistent, and I don't understand.

The morning staff made me go to breakfast in the common room. It seems there was no note left for the morning staff to tell them about the violence of yesterday, and even though I demanded I get breakfast in my room, I was not allowed.

I snuck to the common room and breathed relief. I was the first to arrive and was able to choose my own seat, where I could face the door.

The old ladies arrived one-by-one or in pairs, pushing their walkers or being rolled in wheelchairs. None would sit by me, but gathered around the other large table. Thankfully they did not howl or scream, but only glared and shook their heads. They fit eleven, some in wheelchairs, at a round table meant for no more than eight. That is my revenge on them. They had to reach for their food. Now their dressing gowns are covered in yogurt and orange juice from their shaking hands.

But maybe I shouldn't want revenge. Not on all of them.

Listen to this. As I was finishing my yogurt and fruit and coffee, a tiny bent little woman began to shuffle toward me from the entryway. I drank my coffee and eyeballed her, worried. I had a last bite of yogurt. Still she shuffled toward me. Adrenaline surged, and I prepared to fend her off by hitting her with my breakfast plates. But she did not take up an aggressive stance. Rather, as she got to me, she began to smile so broad, and her eyes crinkled and became wet with joy, and I could see she must have been a great beauty.

She said, “Please?” pointing to the chair next to me, asking if she could sit.

I looked over to the table of hateful howling women. They were busy spilling on themselves and seemed in no mood to ambush me while I talked to this woman. So I said, “Please,” and smiled, although I was quite nervous.

She sat slow. I braced her by the bony elbow as she bent her knees, quaking, finally falling the last foot to the metal seat of the chair. Once in her chair, she put her tiny hand on my forearm. It was a warm touch on my forearm, gentle, and I felt certain she was crazy and had mistaken me for her son or husband. But she said, “Rimberg.”

At which I gasped.

She peered at me and touched my face, then nodded, scratched her chin, rolled her eyes. She said, “Hm. English,” and laughed and shook her head. “My English . . . is no good.”

I nodded. I said, “It's okay.”

She held up her hand. She said, “Father? Rimberg? He took mother and me from the train, yes?”

“I'm sorry,” I said, assuming this was the beginning of the bad news about our family, the news that caused the howling women to hate me—that we wouldn't let people ride on our train.

“No,” she smiled. “This terrible war. Father”—she pointed at me—“took mother”—she pointed at herself, nodding—“and me from train.” She paused again, nodded, smiled, closed her eyes, and with an extended S sound, she said, “Saved. From train.”

“My father?” I shook my head. “No. He was a child during the war. Second World War?”

“Yes!” she nodded. “Child!” She smiled, her eyes lighting.

“Okay,” I said. “Thank you,” I told her. “That's very nice of you.” I stood, uncomfortable, ready to go.

She smiled and nodded. “Saved from Nazis,” she said.

“Okay,” I said. “My father? Okay.”

She smiled and nodded. She stayed in her chair, quiet but smiling, waiting for her breakfast to be delivered. I stood next to her for a moment. The howlers were staring at us. One of them shouted something. Then this little tiny sweet woman spit out in staccato French, pointing at me. Some of the howlers slowly began to nod at me, but others shook their heads no and shouted back. All the while my tiny, pretty, sweet old woman kept pointing at me and talking loudly.

After a moment, I bowed a little and left. A couple of the howlers waved.

I have no idea what took place during breakfast. It's all strange, Uncle. I need more rest. I need quiet. There is civil unrest in this home based on my presence here, a now divided group of elderly women. There is tension.

Really, Uncle Charley (I wish you were really my uncle, or that I was actually writing my real uncle), if my administrative staff would come back for me, I'd be gone today, right now. Unfortunately I have no idea where they are, and my calls to the hotel to find them go unreturned. Things could get bad for me if I don't get some relief. The doctor yesterday told me I'm in pretty good shape mentally, much better than he would've imagined, and I agreed with him then . . . I haven't dreamt for days and I feel much like myself. Or rather, felt much like myself. But this is frightening, and I fear I won't be okay for long.

I need rest. I need information. I'd like to know if I'm a criminal or a hero. I need to know. I want to leave.

Why am I writing to you?

Journal Entry,
October 12, 2004

A ticket. Crinkled. Ferry. Rosslare, Ireland, to Cherbourg, France. The date is June 17, 1990.

On the back: “How is it I love you so much?” That's my handwriting. I wrote it in 1990.

On the back: “Are you still such a romantic? What are you doing here, T.?” The message is in a woman's handwriting. The ink is fresh.

This came in an envelope that was delivered to my room by the fat cow nurse. She said a woman in a black skirt with black hair—the nurse gestured curly with her hand, and at first I took it to mean crazy—left it for me at the lobby.

There is no name, no phone number, no address.

But I know.

Julia Hilfgott.

Letter Faxed to Fr. Barry McGinn,
August 17, 2005

Note hand-written in top margin:
This is the only correspondence I received. Thank you so much for the news about T., strange as it was. I feared the worst. Please let me know if I can be of further assistance. —Sincerely, Julia Mendez

October 12, 2004

Julia,

You know, of course, that I am confused.

Look at the evidence. I'm incarcerated in a nursing home for ancient and angry Jewish women. This I still find confusing, but less confusing now that I know you met my administrative staff on the morning of my arrest. Why didn't you reveal yourself to them? Who did you need to convince to keep me out of jail? Thank you. Thank you for this. If it weren't for the controversy I'm causing in this home, I would gladly stay here forever.

Julia, I am confused. What are you doing here? You live in Antwerp? My administrative staff tells me you live next door to the building where my father grew up. I find that amazing and, of course, completely appropriate to our short relationship. Did you know my father? If so, why didn't you contact me? He apparently knew where I lived, though he gave me no indication he was alive until the time of his death, when he sent me some letters.

Will you see me, Julia? Please? I could use a sane voice.

Can I come see you, so you don't have to go out of your way? (You already have, but I want to take some responsibility.)

I'm sending Cranberry (purple hair). Please send word back.

T.

Day Nine:
Transcript 7

You've spoken to Julia? She's okay?

Did you talk to her about everything that happened in Antwerp?

Good. I'm glad she verified it. I know the stories are hard to believe. Even if I'm mentally ill, I'm not that crazy.

It wasn't romantic between us this time. Not at all. Things change.

Yes. Julia makes me think . . . makes me think life isn't random. I mean—her showing up . . . When she walked into the waiting room, the light intensified.

Me and Julia are connected. And it wasn't romantic.

You're helping me tremendously, Barry . . . I guess . . . starting in Poland, during the winter, I just stopped all thinking. I haven't reflected at all on this. I stopped thinking. Thank you for helping me.

Julia did know my father.

No, not when I was with her in 1990. She didn't live in Antwerp then. She was visiting.

She didn't know him well. Her husband sued Dad's business once.

Within an hour of Julia coming to get me, she and I were in a restaurant and I was sobbing, and Julia was holding me, because she'd told me that Dad had died, that it had been in the early summer, two months before I received his letters. He'd had cancer, and it was fast. It was in the papers. I could have figured it out on the Internet, actually. I kept saying to her that I should have known he was dead since he sent an inheritance . . . but it wasn't an inheritance exactly, there was nothing legal-seeming about the check, and the letters he sent with the money sounded so present . . . so I thought he wasn't dead.

Yes, I was really crushed. For whatever reason, I did really believe Dad was alive, even though I repeatedly called him my dead dad. I hoped. When she told me, I apologized to Dad, you know, “I'm so sorry, Dad. I'm so sorry.” It really didn't make sense considering he left me . . . but I thought he'd been calling for me, maybe, with the dreams.

Poor Julia kept apologizing while I cried. She thought I knew where Dad was all these years. She was always afraid she'd run into me in Antwerp. She didn't want to see me.

The news couldn't have come from a better source. Julia makes me feel in my skin. I needed family. I wrote in the journal someplace that Julia must've been my sister in a past life.

After breaking the news, she walked with me for hours, pointed out where Dad's business was (and it's still there—his partners bought him out in the spring before he died . . . well, sort of ). She sent Cranberry and Kaatje for my stuff and put me up in her apartment for a few days. Then she set up this thing with Mrs. Fisher.

Julia's husband was in the apartment. Of course. Mendez. He's a very good guy.

Yes. I knew she was pregnant. I knew . . . I think before she did.

Is the baby healthy?

Good.

A photo?

Look at that hair! That's Julia's hair!