You Saved Me, Too: What a Holocaust Survivor Taught Me about Living, Dying, Fighting, Loving, and Swearing in Yiddish (23 page)

I could have cleaned a week’s worth of bedpans for her.

The “custodial care” consisted of a few nights in the hospital followed by an efficient transfer to a temporary nursing home. And who paid for this care? Your regular health insurance on a Medicaid-pending basis, just as it would have if the big nursing home had come through with that interim bed. But why quibble now?

The other Righteous Gentile in our tale was supposed to keep me in line. He was the muscle, the tough guy, The Enforcer. The Honchos had put this man, one of their business office employees, in charge of me.

“You’re pushing hard and I won’t be pushed,” he said, responding to my request for speedier paper-pushing. His voice sounded about one degree removed from rage.

I knew that tone. I come from generations of that tone. I was raised in a house full of that tone.

Now here was someone I could talk to.

After we discussed bank statements and time frames, I tried to get him to see, as most of his colleagues had not, that I wasn’t some grifter trying to take advantage of the system. I was just trying to help a guy who had nobody.

“I’m not even related to this man,” I said.

“For what it’s worth, Sue, uh, Ms. Resnick, I have power of attorney for six people here because nobody else in this building would do it. I have to clean someone’s apartment out this weekend. I know what it’s like on your end.”

Oh, I could
really
talk to this man.

When we met in person, his appearance was as defined as his no-bullshit manner. He wore an elegant gray suit, and his white handlebar mustache was curled at the ends with wax. It didn’t seem weird or pretentious, but rather, authentic. Here was a real person with real preferences who was confident enough to show the world his true self—someone with no need to lie.

I’d gone to his office to deliver some document related to your case. We sat at a round conference table, me with a swollen folder of your records and he with a giant stack of forms. He had very blue, very round, very large eyes that looked straight at me. They were eyes that hid nothing, even the truth that I had been trying to dodge with my naiveté and optimism.

“We are not interested in taking Mr. Lieb if Medicaid won’t pay for him,” he said.

Or maybe he said “if these issues can’t be resolved.” I was writing down what he said in a reporter’s notebook—I wrote down what everyone said—but my hand seemed to freeze on the second part of the statement as I absorbed its clear meaning: no money, no entrance.

No loan, then, right?

The Enforcer didn’t know about a loan, a scholarship, or any sort of charity coming out of his organization.

“Would you want the facility to take it on the chin?” he asked incredulously, as if a Jewish nursing home taking a loss to help a Holocaust survivor was the craziest thing he’d ever heard.

You’d think this would have made me really pissed-off at the guy. But it didn’t. For once, someone was telling me the truth. I could finally see that the space behind me, where I’d imagined deep-pocketed, grand-hearted people were standing, was vacant.

They were just following orders, right? They had a certain budget and they were going to stick with it. They had printed Medicaid rules and unspoken inner-circle codes of conduct.

This is the way it works.

Still, it reminded me of them. Following orders is neat. Following consciences can get sloppy. And dangerous. People driven by the need for self-preservation aren’t crazy about danger. Guards and neighbors followed orders so they wouldn’t get killed. Perhaps nursing home administrators followed orders so they wouldn’t get fired.

The temporary nursing home that was your way station between your old life and this one wasn’t so bad. When I look back on it, maybe we should have stayed there. The people, from the head nurse with her thick Irish brogue to the aide with the voice that reminded me of piña coladas, cared. They tried to make you happy. One day I came in to find you going over the day’s menu with a very patient young aide. She’d suggest a food and you’d veto it.
Too greasy
was the usual complaint.

“Eat the minestrone,” I interrupted. “It’s good for you.”

“Be quiet, Gracie,” you ordered.

The doctors—when they showed up and remembered to put in prescriptions for the drugs we’d discussed—were compassionate. The one wearing the yarmulke offered to ask his Orthodox community to help you. He didn’t understand why the Jewish nursing home wouldn’t take you first and then figure out how to afford you.

“Come on,” he said. “This is what we’re supposed to be doing.”

The psychologist they assigned looked like a movie shrink. He wore a slightly tattered tweed blazer, a full beard, and glasses that were a little too something—big? Out of style? I couldn’t decide.

You were lying in bed with a rag on your head when he came in. Most of the lights were off and your roommate had ceased blasting Christmas carols for a while. A writer would have described the room as peaceful.

The doctor pressed his palms lightly on your sternum, the place you always point to when trying to describe the pain. He asked you to push against him with your chest.

“Again,” he said, as you learned how to take a deep breath.

He asked me if I was a social worker, and when I explained our relationship and the journey we’d been on, he said, “I guess he’s just fallen through the cracks.”

You continued to calm yourself. Then you spoke.

“In Poland, they used to say, ‘You Jews all stick together.’ Yeah—the rich with the rich, and the poor with the poor.”

The doctor didn’t argue.

But even with those good people trying to take care of you, you weren’t improving. Despite the numbing patches they stuck to your arms and medicines they handed you in paper cups, you were still in bad shape. Besides your near-constant pain and anxiety, you had a festering foot sore. And you didn’t fit with the rest of the patients, a mix of young and old, legless and deranged, mute and hostile. Everyone agreed that the big Jewish nursing home would be the best place for you. I just needed to gather the cash.

“Aren’t we having a Seder this year?” David asked one Sunday. He’d just returned from a business trip in Israel and was all charged up on primary-source Judaism. Have I mentioned that I’ve never been to Israel?

“I hate Passover,” I announced. “I’m not doing a Seder.”

Do you know what’s involved in hosting a Seder? Probably not, since you’re a man of a certain age. I’ll tell you: cooking, cooking, cooking, and more cooking. Have I mentioned that I don’t like to cook?

I’ve been trying to get David to take over the food and nutrition department of our household for a long time. He’s much better at it than I am, with his methodical nature, scientific accuracy, and tendency to obsess about details. The way he bounces from one passion to another
means it wouldn’t be too difficult for him to adjust to being head chef. He could transfer the time he spends bike riding and spreading mulch to planning meals, buying ingredients, and making big leftover-laden meals. He hasn’t accepted the offer yet, but my Seder refusal seemed to temporarily inspire him.

“Okay, I’ll do it,” he said.

I spent the Seder luxuriating like a guest, eating his spectacular brisket, and sipping the lovely kosher wine he’d chosen. I was actually having conversations with relatives instead of waiting on them. It was lovely. Then the phone rang.

A woman said you needed to talk to me. When you got on the phone, you were so upset that I thought someone died. You’d never called me at night before.

“It’s so terrible,” you said.

“What?”

“She’s …”

“Who?”

“She, you know, she can’t—Bibi. She can’t get in here to get me. And I have nobody. I’m all alone here.”

Bibi?
Dead-eighteen-years Bibi?

I moved to the family room where I could talk to you privately.

“Do you know where you are?”

“Yeah,” you said. “The place you see me yesterday. I need you to come.”

Now? Honestly, I didn’t want to come. On this of all nights, I didn’t want to come.

I told you it was raining—you old people seem to hate to make anyone drive in the rain. I told you I had guests over for Passover.

“It’s nine in the morning,” you said.

“No, it’s night. Eight-fifteen.”

“Nine?”

“Almost nine. At night.”

Then you returned, as though our conversation had shocked you back to the present like a defibrillator to the brain.

“Oh,” you said, sounding a little embarrassed. “I didn’t know it was night. Okay, I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

“Well, I can talk more now,” I said. Who cared about the company in the other room?

“No, I’ll talk to you tomorrow. You’ll come tomorrow?”

Yes. Of course I’d come.

“Doesn’t he have any family who can help?” one of the honchos asked.

Were these people fucking kidding me? Family? No, he doesn’t have any family. Why the hell do you think I’m the one getting kicked around by you assholes?

Okay, you do have family. You have Bill. And that’s no small thing. You still talk to each other on the phone almost every week. You still have one blood relative on this Earth. That gives you roots and a connection to who you used to be.

But as far as family you can count on when you’re down, they’re gone.

The first time I called Bill in New Jersey, back when I was just trying to write about how your life intersected with Vera’s, he was suspicious. What did I want from you? he asked. Fair enough. We’ve all heard stories on the news about home health aides and companions who bilk elderly people out of their fortunes. That you had no fortune made this suspicion a little ridiculous, but I appreciated that he was looking out for you.

The next time I called him, he had softened. I wanted his blessing before signing the papers that would make me your health-care proxy. I figured since he was technically your next of kin, I owed him the chance to take over your care himself. He had no problem letting me do it.

“Sometimes a good friend is more than family,” he said. “Family, you have no choice.”

He added that if you trusted me, he trusted me.

Still, I dreaded calling him to ask for money. What could be more awkward? But I had to do it. The nursing home certainly
wasn’t going to help you before I tapped every possible resource. I knew he was comfortable if not wealthy, and that he cared about you. Maybe the difficult conversation would bring all the nonsense to an end.

I called Bill, reminded him who I am, and explained the situation.

“I haven’t got money,” he said. “I had it, but I lost it in the stock market.”

He then proceeded to tell me that you’d created this situation for yourself by giving your money to strangers. He pointed out that you hadn’t given any of your money to his kids, though I’m fairly certain they never needed it, and that he was remembering incorrectly. You still have a card from one of them thanking you for the money you sent to his new baby. The note said the gift would go into a college fund.

“What can I do?” he said. “There’s got to be some organization that can help him.”

Bill has probably only seen the good side of Jewish organizations. The Joint—the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee—brought him to the United States a year and a half after you arrived. Perhaps he stayed in Germany longer because he grew comfortable living with his German girlfriend and her family. You were the one who told him not to bring her to the States. His wife of fifty-something years should appreciate you for that.

He met his wife in New York while he was working in a manufacturing business. After a few years of learning to make car seating and convertible tops, he and a few partners opened their own shop in New Jersey. When the partnership dissolved, he started a new company by himself. He went on to live the classic American up-by-your-bootstraps story. He and his wife bought a nice house, had two sons, dressed them in tuxedos that matched his at least two times, according to the posed photos, for who knows what events (bar mitzvahs? cruises? fancy-dress balls for upholsterers?), and educated them well. They gave Bill five grandchildren to spoil.

The awkwardness of our phone conversation wasn’t over. I knew the nursing home would want me to dig as deep as possible. What
about his sons, the medical men? Bill had sent you pictures of their black-tie weddings and bar mitzvahs. One of them had mailed out printed, embossed Jewish New Year cards.

“Do you think your sons could help?” I asked.

He didn’t like that question. He was adamant: He would never ask his sons to help you because you were “never good to them.”

“You know how he is,” Bill said.

“I think he’s very nice and warm,” I answered. Brother or not, no one bad-mouths you in my presence without a rebuttal.

He claimed that you were always kinder to friends than to family. He cited as an example a time when you stashed chocolate away rather than sharing it when you were a kid in Zychlin.

Who can ever know what really goes on between family members? All I have is the knowledge that you and Bill’s wife despise each other, and the fact that you still have pictures of his children and grandchildren all over your room. I don’t know the whys behind either of those circumstances. I just know that after talking to your brother, I felt more alone than ever.

Fuck you.

That’s the one Yiddish swear you wouldn’t teach me, claiming there’s no translation for it. But I looked it up.

Gai tren zich
.

Don’t worry. Even if I said it to all the people who deserved to hear it, the way I screw up languages, they’d never know what I was talking about.

If this is it, if you really don’t wake up, I’ll never hear your catchphrases again. Oh how I love the way you use language.