The Miracle Letters of T. Rimberg (18 page)

Day Ten:
Transcript 2

So there was this knock on the door in the middle of the night at the hotel in Antwerp. I was packing to leave. It was a messenger from the Jhavari bride, Bharat's wife. He made me follow him through the dark to a house about ten blocks away. And there she was, the Jhavari, nervous to get me information and get me away, because Bharat was asleep upstairs. And . . . in the corner . . . there was the Lady and the Unicorn tapestry chair. I almost shouted. I said, “Where did you get that?” She shushed me. She told me it was Dad's. She loved it and took it when Dad left. Left? She told me my grandmother had it in her house when Dad was a kid. The goddamn chair that the little girl sits on in my dreams . . . I thought it was Chelsea in thread . . . I couldn't let it go, but the Jhavari bride started hissing, telling me she didn't need to help me.

She gave me an address in Warsaw and said I had to inquire there. “Green Bay–Palanpur Blue sends money to that address every month,” she said. “It's somehow in relation to your father.” That's all she said. She told me to get out, and she meant it. I left.

Immediately. I was at the train station within an hour (I was already packed). I went to Berlin and then east.

This is when I really got sick. I felt better after the nursing home, at least in my head, no dreams . . . but with the news and being up all night and the travel . . . I couldn't breathe very well.

Huge chest congestion—I found out it was pneumonia months later. And weirdly, I guess, my eyes were dilated . . . my heart was pounding too hard, which I guess dilated my eyes . . . I bought these fat, I don't know, Jim Morrison sunglasses in Berlin. They were enormous, cartoonish. I stayed one day in Berlin, but barely left the hotel. They were the darkest, biggest sunglasses I could find. There was too much light.

Yes, I was an odd sight, I'm sure. At least I'd shaved regularly in Antwerp.

On the train, after Berlin's sprawl, the Varsovia (that was the name of the train) cut through fields of pine and birch and with my sunglasses, the light . . . was surreal . . . orange . . . I was shallow breathing . . . dizzy, which intensified the experience. And then we crossed into Poland. The trees disappeared and the earth flattened completely and the sun . . . I can't compare it to anything. Plains in Poland are not like plains in the States.

So sick, and I wasn't dressed right. At stops the doors would open and icy wind would blow through the carriage. I had a windbreaker on, but nothing warmer underneath than T-shirts and a white oxford (which I bought to meet Bharat Jhavari). But my heart was pounding, and there was so much heat inside me. I was really ill. Must've been feverish. I wouldn't have left my suitcase with that man otherwise. Stupid.

Okay. I hate thinking about it. It makes me feel terrible.

Letter 52
October 23, 2004, just past Poznan

Dear Lech Walesa,

Congratulations, President. Your country has come far.

Filthy train riders robbing me, then . . . what? Disappearing into thin air? The train didn't stop. Where the hell did he go? This is not how a democracy functions. There have to be rules. People have to obey these rules. If they don't obey, justice must be swift and terrifying. No wonder you couldn't get reelected.

When in Rome, Lech Walesa. I'm in Poland! And I had to take the edge off. I'm not sleeping very well, again, which is not good for me. In Poland you drink vodka.

An hour and a half ago after a bad dream that woke me up, I left my carriage in search of the dining car, hoping to find vodka. I found it. Dining was nearly empty, except for three unshaven men, who were huddled at the window talking in what I would describe as a conspiratorial fashion. They eyeballed me as I entered, also conspiratorially. So I shouted hello. And they glared and shook their heads. I shouldn't have looked at them at all.

Shouting a greeting is not a crime in Poland, is it? You marched with giant Solidarity banners! What about freedom of expression? What happened to that?

You Poles should take naps. The girl at the counter looked so tired, I considered knocking her down so she could sleep. Her mouth frowned at me. I frowned back at her. Her hair was bland and dirty, and her eyes were so dead blue, I thought she might really be dead, but she spoke something, I assumed asking me what I wanted. I said, “VODKA.”

She gave me a vodka in a shot and two stale rolls, which I didn't order, but I don't give a fuck.

I sat down. One of the three conspirators from the other booth stood and approached me. He said, “American?”

“Yes.”

He said, “I buy vodka,” and pointed at me.

“Okay,” I nodded.

Forty-five minutes later, after three vodkas, after the two of us toasted Capitalism and Ronald Reagan and the Pope, I got up to take a piss. I asked the man to watch my suitcase. He smiled. “Of course, friend!” When I came back, he was gone and so was my suitcase, and his two friends shrugged. “No English,” they said.

I shouted at the counter girl, but she just shrugged, her eyes watery. I ran and found a sleepy conductor, and he got other sleepy employees to search the whole train. One ancient milk-eyed man told a conductor he saw a man leap from the train and fly into the sky. Do Poles fly, Lech Walesa? Well, good sir, I might suggest they do, as the thief was not on the train! My bag was not on the train! I had pictures of my kids in that suitcase, and I don't have any clothes. How could you let this happen? There were 10,000 euros in that goddamn bag.

Poland has no right to behave so terribly. I am stripped clean, but for my backpack, which is attached to my body, thank goodness. Stripped clean! I am not impressed, Walesa.

Sincerely,

T. Rimberg

Day Ten:
Transcript 3

We'll get to the dead guy with my suitcase later. It's still hard for me to talk about. The idiocy of that thief.

At the train station in Warsaw I had a very difficult time filing a report, because the police did not care. Then I didn't know where I was going to stay, so I had no contact number, which did not please the police.

Oh yes. The police managed to find me later regardless.

Warsaw? Unbelievably cold. I mean bright with sun when I got there, but so so so cold.

I had my passport and wallet in my pants pocket. I had my notebooks and travel documents in my backpack. I had a windbreaker and T-shirt on, but nothing else. The oxford was in the suitcase with my other pants, my bathroom stuff, all that.

Terrible Stalinist architecture. Gray bloc buildings. Gray people against dull blue skies. Me shivering.

I felt . . . lost. There was no way I could negotiate the place. I heard no English. Brgz, Coorva, Booyerguszh. It sounded like the people had mouths filled with mashed potatoes. Nothing I could possibly understand. Plus I was dying from this cough. Well, not really dying, of course.

All I had was the address in Warsaw that the Jhavari bride had given me. No map. She wasn't sure exactly what the address was for. She knew cash was being sent to this address on a regular basis, that's all. I walked for three hours hoping to run into the right street. I walked and walked and walked, slower and slower, shivering, until I was an empty ache.

Nothing helpful. The doctor in Antwerp had given me strategies for handling hard times, which I'd tried to memorize, but all I could remember was
love is an action
. So I kept repeating it. Over and over again. That's a good sign you're totally losing it. The frozen air is killing you and you're walking around repeating “Love is an action,” rather than looking for a warm coat.

I suppose I was telling myself I must really love my damn father to be in Poland walking around dying when I could be at home watching TV.

I did. And there are far worse places to stumble into than Le Meridien. It was getting dark when I bumped into a doorman. The doorman said, “Nice sunglasses.” He was English. I was wearing my crazy shades. I'd forgotten about them. I asked him if Le Meridien was a hotel, and he laughed at me. I stayed there for a week or so, until I was arrested.

Letter 53
October 26, 2004

Dear Lech Walesa,

I have done nothing but sleep for three days. But I'm here. I don't feel well. This could be the end. But I am here, President.

What is this address? The street address the Jhavari gave me is not familiar to the staff at Le Meridien. You probably couldn't help me. You're from the famous shipyards of Gdansk.

Poland is a terrible place, Lech. I'm sorry to tell you, but you really should know.

When I sleep, I don't sleep soundly and I am washed over by energies of this place. I am told by a smiling boy at the front desk that Warsaw was leveled by Hitler. No building left standing. I could tell you this from my dreams where I am dead, a ghost, floating above the burning city. There is rubble, smoke, the little girl in black and white standing over rubble, with skinned knees, malnourished, dying. And I read about the Warsaw Ghetto. A brick wall blocking a street, blocking off a whole neighborhood. Everyone inside, dead. I've dreamt them dying. What a lovely energy comes from these streets.

I understand. I empathize. I have solidarity with the dead, Lech Walesa.

The smiling workers at the desk in the hotel squint at the address from the Jhavari, hold it up to the light, pull off their glasses, and squint again. They can't read the writing, or if they think they can, they don't recognize the street. “Maybe in Praga,” one smiles. Praga is not Prague, but is a part of Warsaw across the river from here, apparently. Have you been there?

Okay, hero of the revolution. Okay, Chairman Lech. You didn't let jail time bring you down. You didn't let getting fired bring you down. You climbed the fence and led the strike. You acted. And for better or worse, you toppled Communism in this country. Heroes act. We won the cold war! I'm cold, Lech Walesa.

But love is an action. I'm going to Praga even though I cannot breathe.

Solidarity, etc.

T.

Day Ten:
Transcript 4

Still suicidal? In Warsaw or now?

What is suicide? Really? Everybody is dying, you know? It isn't something different than living.

Yes. I am quite deep.

I didn't even think about it in Warsaw. I mean, is this suicide? Allowing myself to fall apart? Entropy. You're falling apart right now, Barry. What are you going to do about it?

Physically you're falling apart . . . that's what life is: you reach physical maturity, then slowly die.

Okay, I can see that. You mean emotionally, spiritually.

Then I wasn't committing suicide. I was growing too. Growing while dying. Big fat growth.

Let's stick with Warsaw.

I wasn't suicidal.

When I gathered enough energy, the doorman told me how to get to Praga. And I got a map and . . . over there . . . in Praga . . . on a small street behind rail lines and warehouses, I found it. I was very surprised to find that it was a kosher butcher shop. This was the address listed on the piece of paper. My father the butcher?

I don't know why there's a kosher butcher in Warsaw. I thought, what's his market? Who buys from this guy? The shop was covered with graffiti on the outside. Skinhead Nazi graffiti. I couldn't understand the writing. But the pictures of hangman's gallows with the Star of David dangling and the swastikas spray-painted black onto the windows . . . I got it.

Correct. Not my father, at least. An enormous bearded Jewish guy with huge, big hands and an enormous head. He told me he had never heard of my father.

“No. No Rimberg.” He was wrapping roasts, blood all down the front of his apron. He looked like the narrator in the
Fiddler on the Roof
movie only covered in blood. “No,” he told me. “Are you going to buy meat or make questions?” I left. He intimidated me. All that blood. But out on the street, I realized I was an idiot and a weakling, so I turned around.

The bloody butcher rolled his eyes at me when I reentered. He'd moved from wrapping and was cutting long strips of muscle from backbones.

No. He didn't say anything. He kept cutting. I announced I had one more question to ask. He kept cutting. I asked the butcher if he ever got a letter or package or anything from Antwerp, from a company called Green Bay–Palanpur Blue. The butcher stopped cutting, squinted at me. “Not from company. But from Antwerp.” He pronounced a name, something like Shaj bar-e. I wrote Jhavari on a piece of butcher paper, and he got red in the face, real nervous. “I do service. Take some money, hold envelope until woman from bookstore come to pick up. Each month bill Shaj bar-e Antwerp for kosher meat.” I then convinced the butcher I was going to arrest him if he didn't give up the name of the bookstore. “You are in serious trouble with the United Nations,” I told him. I said the money was meant to fund terrorists and he was a dupe, funneling cash to Islamic terrorists.

Indeed, my friend. Very dramatic.

Yes. He gave me good information. I found the bookstore. Watanabe Bookstore.

It was the most amazing thing I've ever experienced.

Right. But I told you, I don't remember the accident.

Cover Letter,
faxed to Fr. Barry McGinn,
August 19, 2005

Dear Father McGinn,

Attached you will find three message from T. Rimberg. He contacted me via these notations, by leaving with cashier at bookstore I own with my husband. I had only learned of T. existence and also his brother in June 2004, when my father arrived to Warsaw to live. I am most happy to assist your investigations as I am able. T. departed Warsaw in May with boy with blue hair (Nik) and I have not heard of him in several weeks and become very concerned. It is happy news he is safe. My mother will be very pleased to know this.

Regards,

Paulina Watanabe

Note 1,
Faxed to Fr. Barry McGinn,
August 19, 2005

October 27, 2005

Dear Ms. Watanabe,

I am trying to locate one Josef Rimberg. I have shaken down the kosher butcher and gathered information that leads me to believe you are in direct contact with him, or at least might provide specific clues regarding his whereabouts. I am from a special investigative branch of the United Nations and I will have you arrested and jailed if you do not contact me immediately. You, Ms. Watanabe, have run afoul of international laws re: laundering money for terroristic purposes. I am at Le Meridien.

Sincerely,

T. Rimberg

United Nations—New York

Financial Investigations