Too Many Men (80 page)

“But who knows what he’s got hidden under that wall,” she said, in disgust.

[
5 1 4
]

L I L Y B R E T T

“Hit him again,” Ruth said to the old woman. The old woman spat in Ruth’s direction.

“Ruthie, Ruthie, column down,” said Edek. “I think I got something.”

He reached under the foundation and dug around with his fingers. He was lying stretched out on the ground.

“Could I help you?” the doorman said.

“I got it,” Edek said breathlessly. He pulled out a small object, and began removing the dirt from its surface. The old man and woman tried to get closer.

“What has he got? What has he got?” the old woman said.

“Step back please,” the doorman said. The old couple stepped back in unison. Like two schoolchildren who had been ordered to move by the headmaster. Ruth wanted to hug the doorman.

Edek got up. He had cleaned up the object. Ruth could see it. It was a small, rusty, flat tin. “I did find it,” Edek said, and smiled. He looked pleased with himself. Ruth looked up. Two strange men had arrived. They were standing there watching Edek.

“Who are you?” the doorman said to the men.

“Neighbors,” one of the men replied.

“Did they find gold?” one of the men said to the old woman. She shook her head.

“There was no gold,” she said.

“The Jews took it with them,” the neighbor said. The old woman nodded in agreement.

Edek put the tin in his pocket. “We can fix up the hole and go now,” he said to the doorman.

“I will return later and fix this up,” the doorman said. Ruth looked at him. She felt hopeful. What did he mean? Was this his way of saying he was accepting her invitation to rough up the old couple? The doorman laughed. “I mean that I will come back and replace this earth,” he said.

“Oh,” she said.

“I like you very much,” the doorman said to Ruth.

“Thank you,” she said. He must think that she was a thug, like him, she thought. Maybe she was.

“Are you going to open the tin?” Ruth said to Edek.

“Not here,” he said. “We will wait till we are in the hotel.”

T O O M A N Y M E N

[
5 1 5
]

“Where’s our money?” the old man said. “You said five hundred dollars if you found something.” Ruth opened her purse.

“You are going to pay him?” the doorman said.

“I like being honorable,” Ruth said.

“She said that she would pay them,” Edek said.

“Anyhow, what’s another few dollars?” Ruth said to Edek. Ruth handed the doorman the money.

“Tell her to wait for a minute,” the old woman said to the doorman after taking the money from him. “I have something else I think she will want.”

The old woman ran inside. Ruth felt sick. What was she going to come up with now?

“We do not need anything more,” Edek said. “Those bestids did take enough from us. I do not want you to give them any more money.”

“Let’s see what she’s got,” Ruth said. She needed a Mylanta. She wished she hadn’t run out. The old man smiled at her. The smile made Ruth feel worse. What were the old couple doing? What did they have in store for her? What had they kept in reserve? What was the old woman going to unearth now?

The old woman came back. She was out of breath. She was carrying a vase. A bright green vase, with a crack down one side.

“I think this might interest you,” she said. Edek looked at the vase.

“This was not ours,” he said to Ruth. Ruth shook her head at the old woman. “We are not interested in this vase,” Edek said in Polish to the doorman. Ruth wanted to grab the vase and break it over the old couple’s heads. Instead, she walked away. She turned, after a couple of steps, and spat in their direction. Edek looked at her.

“What has got into you, Ruthie?” he said.

They drove back to the hotel in silence. Ruth felt exhausted. Edek must be very tired, she thought. He sat in the back of the car with her. He didn’t speak for the whole trip. At the hotel, Edek thanked Robert, the driver.

Then he thanked Tadeusz and the doorman, lavishly. “We could not have done this without you,” he said to the doorman. Ruth paid Tadeusz and the doorman. She paid them an excessive amount. She didn’t care. She was so glad to be out of the old couple’s orbit. To be away from Kamedulska Street.

She knew that the street and the building were no longer part of anything that belonged to her or to Edek. She knew that she would never be back.

[
5 1 6
]

L I L Y B R E T T

“Give the doorman a bit extra,” Edek said.

“Okay,” said Ruth. The doorman smiled.

“It is a pleasure to do business with you,” he said to Ruth.

“My daughter is a businesswoman,” Edek said. Everybody shook hands.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” Edek said again.

“I’m going to tell the front desk that we’re checking out at four o’clock,” Ruth said to Edek. I’ll meet you in the lobby.”

“Shall I order something to eat?” Edek said. Ruth looked at him. He must be feeling okay if he was thinking about food. Maybe the contents of the tin weren’t too troubling.

“Order whatever you want,” Ruth said. “And get me some soup.

Chicken soup.”

“You want some rye bread, too?” Edek said.

“Okay,” she said.

Ruth ordered a taxi to pick them up at 3:55 P.M. “I’ll have a Mercedes,” she said to the man at the front desk. “A big Mercedes.” She went to the bathroom. She wanted to wash her face. She needed to wash some of the grime of this morning away. In the bathroom, she looked in the mirror. She was surprised when she saw that she looked quite clean. Her face was clear. Her eyes were bright. The curls in her hair were jutting out at joyful angles. She looked at herself again. There was no sign of any grubbiness.

Edek was sitting in an armchair, next to a small table, in the lobby. He looked quite calm, Ruth thought, when she saw him. She pulled up another chair.

“What a morning,” she said to Edek, as she sat down.

“What a morning,” Edek said.

“Have you opened the tin?” Ruth said.

“Yes,” said Edek. “I seen already what is inside.”

“Is it what you wanted to find?” Ruth said.

“It is what I did want to find,” Edek said.

“Can I see?” Ruth said.

“Let us eat something first,” Edek said. “It is good to eat after a morn -

ing like this.”

T O O M A N Y M E N

[
5 1 7
]

“Okay,” Ruth said. “Anyway, you need something to eat. You did a lot of digging. And it was pretty awful being there.”

“It was not so nice,” Edek said. He rubbed his hands together. “The soup will be here soon,” he said. “And I did order for myself a ham sandwich.”

Ruth laughed. “You might as well enjoy that Polish ham while you’re here. We won’t be here much longer.”

“I do like the Polish ham very much,” Edek said.

“Weren’t that old couple the most revolting people in the world?”

Ruth said.

Edek looked at her. “You was not so wonderful yourself,” he said. “I did not know that my daughter was a criminal.”

“I’m not a criminal,” Ruth said.

“Maybe you would not go through with this idea that the doorman should beat them up,” Edek said. “Maybe you would not do it if the doorman did say yes to your suggestion.”

“And maybe I would,” Ruth said.

The food arrived. “This is very good service,” Edek said to the waiter.

“Give him a tip,” Edek said to Ruth. Ruth gave the waiter twenty zlotys.

“Our tips have come to more than our hotel bills and airfares, I think,”

Ruth said.

“So what?” said Edek.

Ruth took a sip of her soup. “At least the soup is very good,” she said.

They ate in silence. Ruth felt warmed and nourished by the soup. She decided to make some chicken soup when she got home to New York. She had her mother’s recipe.

Edek’s ham sandwich had come with potato salad, dill pickles, and pickled cabbage. Edek was eating mouthful after mouthful. “I did not eat so much for breakfast,” he said eventually, when he took a break.

“I’ve never wanted to go home to New York so badly in my life,” she said to Edek. “You must be looking forward to leaving Poland, too.”

“That is the truth, Ruthie,” he said. “I am ready to leave.” He finished off the last of the pickled cabbage. He let out a large sigh, and mopped his mouth with a napkin. He moved all of the dishes out of the way, and reached into his pocket. Ruth felt scared.

“Are you sure you want to show me?” she said.

[
5 1 8
]

L I L Y B R E T T

“I am happy that you will see this,” Edek said.

Ruth felt more fearful. A sense of dread was mounting up inside her.

She could feel the dread in her mouth, in her throat, in her lungs, and in her stomach. The dread was fueled by a feeling of imminent change. Big change. A change that had been traveling in her direction for years. A change that was part of something inevitable. Part of a destiny that had been mapped out long ago. Why was she thinking about destiny? She didn’t believe in destiny. Was she destined to see the contents of this small tin? She didn’t think so. Destiny was composed of much bigger moments.

If, indeed, there was any destiny. There were destinations, Ruth decided.

Not destinies. She could deal with destinations. She believed in destinations. She took a deep breath. There was no need to feel scared, she told herself.

Edek opened the tin. There was no rust on the inside of the lid. It was silver and shiny. Ruth marveled at the condition of the inside of the tin.

How could it have remained so clean after fifty-two years in the earth?

Fifty-two years of being buried in Polish earth. Surrounded by Poles looking for Jewish gold. And it was still there. Still in pristine condition. Ruth was glad that the tin was now with its rightful owner. She realized that she was avoiding looking at what was in the tin. The tin held only one thing.

Edek removed the object from the tin. It was a photograph. A small photograph. He held the small sepia-toned photograph in his hand. Ruth looked at the tin. There was definitely nothing else in the tin. Was this what they had come to Lódz for?

Edek handed Ruth the photograph. She looked at it. It was a photograph of her mother. Rooshka’s hair was very short in the photograph. And her face was thicker than Ruth had ever seen it. Rooshka was holding a small baby. The small baby was Ruth. “It’s a photograph of Mum and me,”

she said to Edek. “No, it couldn’t be,” she corrected herself with a start. “I wasn’t born yet. I wasn’t born when this tin was buried.”

“It does look like you,” Edek said. “But it is not you.” Ruth felt sick.

She wished she hadn’t eaten the soup. What was this? Who was this?

“It’s one of the babies that she lost, isn’t it?” Ruth said. “It’s one of the babies Mum grieved for all of her life.”

“That is right,” Edek said. He swallowed hard. Ruth could see that this was not easy for him.

T O O M A N Y M E N

[
5 1 9
]

She looked at the baby in the photograph. It looked just like her. Just like all the baby photographs of her. Large hooded eyes. Fine face. You could see the baby’s face so clearly in this small photograph. Ruth felt chilled. Was this the baby of her dreams, too? The baby she couldn’t look after? The baby she always lost? Who was this little boy?

“His name was Israel,” Edek said.

“After your father?” said Ruth.

“Yes,” said Edek. “After my father.” Ruth started crying. “Do not cry yet, Ruthie,” Edek said. “I want to tell you the whole story.” She looked at Edek. He was holding a napkin. His hand was trembling.

“You know when Mum and me did find each other after the war they put us in Feldafing,” Edek said.

“The DP camp,” she said.

“Yes,” said Edek. “We was still without enough food. We was living in barracks. We did have armed guards and barbed wire around us.”

“The American general,” Ruth said, “General George S. Patton Jr., insisted that every one of the Displaced Persons camps in Germany that were under the jurisdiction of the United States was manned by armed guards and enclosed by barbed wire. He was treating the displaced people as though they were prisoners.”

“We was like prisoners again,” Edek said, “but not so bad like before.”

“Few things would rival what you and Mum had just experienced,”

Ruth said.

“That is true,” Edek said. “And we was grateful for a place to sleep, and grateful to have something to eat.”

“I think the great American general enjoyed the extra difficulties he created,” Ruth said. “He wrote in his diary that others ‘believe that the Displaced Person is a human being, which he is not, and this applies particularly to the Jews, who are lower than animals.’ ”

“Oy a broch,”
Edek said. “A big American general did say that?” He looked at Ruth. “And you, Ruthie, poor
kindeleh,
do have to remember every word.”

Tears came into Ruth’s eyes, again. Her father had not called her
kindeleh
, the affectionate diminutive of child, in Yiddish, for years, for decades.

“I was trying to get Mum extra food, in Feldafing,” Edek said. “We was

[
5 2 0
]

L I L Y B R E T T

both hungry. It was not so easy in Feldafing. People what was prisoners for so many years, and treated worse than dogs, sometimes did act like animals.

They did not want to wash, or to flush the toilet. It was not easy. Mum always did say that we did not stay alive to act like animals. She used to wash the whole bathroom at Feldafing before she did use it. Many people in Feldafing did also hide food. They did hide it so that they would have something to eat when they was starving again.” Edek paused. “Poor Mum,” he said. “She did hide bread. She did put bread in our coats and in our shoes. She was sure every day that it was our last bread. We lived like this for a long time.” He looked at Ruth. “Sometimes I would look at Mum and me and ask myself, did I live through everything what I lived through, in order to watch poor Rooshka hiding pieces of bread.”