“Yes,” Michelle and I answered at the same time and smiled at each other.
“What was your childhood like?” he asked suddenly.
I asked him what he meant.
“I mean, how did you pass your time as a child? Did you have lots of friends? Where did you hang out? I’m asking because I want to get to know you better.”
“I didn’t have a lot of friends. I spent my afternoons with him. He insisted on it. He used to bring home boxes of model airplanes, sit with me on the floor, and help me put the pieces together.”
“He had good hands,” Ron said.
“And friends—didn’t you have any?” asked Michelle.
“Not really.”
“And your mother, what did she think?”
“I don’t know,” I said in a soft voice. “She didn’t talk very much.”
I think Michelle hinted to Ron to stop asking me questions about my mother because suddenly he changed the subject.
“Who gave you the name Eva?” he asked.
“I think he chose the name,” I said, sure for some reason that he had chosen it. He loved my name, loved to use it. One time when I was a teenager, I heard him yell, ‘Eva, her name is Eva,’ before my mother hurried into their bedroom and shut the door. Yes, no question about it; he chose my name.
“You know who Eva Braun was,” he said taking for granted that I did.
I saw Michelle stretch back in her chair, trying to catch his gaze. I didn’t understand her behavior. When it seemed that he was going to continue speaking, she got up and asked if anyone wanted seconds. Ron said that he was full and so did I.
“So, who was Eva Braun?” I asked.
“Eva, would you like to come help me in the kitchen?” Michelle said suddenly.
I saw Ron send her a questioning look, and then his expression changed. He cleared his throat and said to her, “Here, I’ll help you.”
Michelle had made quite an effort to stop the conversation. I realized that she was trying to prevent Ron from answering my question. I got up as well, and said, “Wait a minute, Ron, answer my question. Who was Eva Braun?”
Ron looked helplessly at his wife and sat back down in his chair. Michelle remained standing. The breeze from before had stopped, and the air became stifling. The peaks of the trees stood erect, silent and threatening. I felt a crisis coming. My hands began to sweat.
“Ron, who was Eva Braun?” I asked again, but my memory shot the answer to my brain before he could answer.
His answer hammered another nail into the box that was my life.
34
My life had attracted more than a few crises. I imagined my father sitting on a cloud holding a scepter. He waved the scepter from side to side, and every time it leaned toward one side or the other, something happened—something he thought up in his warped little mind. If I had any doubts about the things he did, they had completely disappeared. Now I knew. My life has been a staged performance designed by a malicious mind. He didn’t love me. He wasn’t capable of love. Everything he did for me, everything he taught me, every direction he led me, was the result of his vile desires. He never intended to atone for his childhood actions. He never felt guilt for the way he treated his parents and his brother. Did he ever regret raping Beth? I don’t think so. There was no place in his soul for a conscience or guilty feelings. Nature created a monster, and that monster was called Father.
Discovering the connotation of my name was a rough blow. I realized that, for him, I was proof of his loyalty to the group he belonged to. I was a pawn on his chessboard, and he moved me from place to place at his will. But the question of why my mother married him remained a mystery. Something or someone forced her to join her life to his. It was clear she didn’t love him—maybe even hated him—but she continued to live with him anyway. Until I discovered the secret to the root of their relationship, I would not rest.
35
Winter arrived and brought with it torrential rains. Tree branches broke off and blocked the sidewalks and streets. There were a number of car accidents, including one that caused the death of a ten-year-old boy. People tried mostly to stay indoors. The radio reported that several homeless people had frozen to death. The residents complained that the city wasn’t sufficiently prepared. The sewers weren’t capable of dealing with such large volumes of water and the streets flooded. Cars broke down and were creating uncharacteristic traffic jams all over. But in spite of the weather, I was feeling a type of renewal. The emptying of the streets filled me with the desire to wander them. People sought shelter from the wetness and I went out to embrace it.
I wandered around outside, the rain dripping down my body, my clothes getting soaked. The clear water washed away the filth that had stuck to me over the last few years. To be clean—that’s all I asked for. I took a deep breath of the fresh scent of the earth, swallowing the water that ran down my face, taking in something natural and pure, and walked and laughed to myself about my silliness, my childishness, my unconventional actions. I shook off all my guilt and felt like I always wanted to feel—released from it all.
During one of those days, I ran into a woman on the sidewalk who had found shelter from the rain under a cardboard box. Her body was obviously wet. I bent down to her and she lifted her eyes to me and wished me well. Her face was filled with wrinkles, but her eyes looked young. Her hair, peeking out from under a wool hat, was a mixture of red and black.
“Come inside my home,” she said with a big smile and moved over to make room for me. I got inside and our bodies—hers thick and mine thin—were pressed together. One of her hands reached out and embraced my shoulders.
“What’s a beautiful girl like you doing outside on a day like this?” she asked, her smile still showing on her wrinkled face.
“Walking,” I answered.
“Great.”
“And you?” I asked. “Don’t you have anywhere to go?”
“I do.”
“So why…”
“I like it like this, in the rain,” she said and burst out laughing, revealing two rows of slightly yellowing but beautiful teeth. “It seems strange to you, huh?”
I nodded.
“But you’re out in the rain too. Don’t you have a home?”
“I do,” I answered with a smile.
“So how come you’re out here then?”
“I’m getting clean,” came my answer.
“Ahh… From what?”
“From life.”
“Is it helping?”
“I don’t know. Right now, it’s helping.”
“Great,” she said and laughter rolled from her mouth like champagne bubbles.
“Why is that great?”
“Because pleasure is found in the little things—in the rain that wets your hair, a beautiful melody, a nice word to someone, a smile from someone, a kiss you receive from someone important, a beautiful landscape, a trip you took, a meeting with someone interesting on a rainy day…” She opened her mouth laughed again. It was irresistible, and I joined her. There we both sat, laughing, her arm still embracing my shoulders. We laughed harder and harder. I was holding in my stomach—it was about to burst. Tears of merriment rolled down my face and mixed in with the last vestiges of rain that clung to my hair. We sat like that until the rain stopped.
“Go home, child. Look for the simple things that make you happy.” Her hand on my back gave me a little push, forcing me to get up. I left her unwillingly, and she turned away from me as if she already had forgotten I existed.
When I got home, I went into the laundry room to take off my wet clothes. Next to the washing machine was a puddle of water. One of the pipes had come loose and was dripping water. I took a rag and shoved my hand under the machine, pulling out the water. A piece of paper floated in it. It was the birth certificate I had found a few days after my mother’s death and then completely forgotten. The name Ethel written beside the name of the newborn had gained new meaning since then—Ethel was the name
on one of the boxes in the basement, the one with the toys that had never been opened. I held the paper delicately by the corner and left the room. Droplets of water dripped onto the floor of the room and the carpet in the living room. I flattened it out on the table in the kitchen and soaked up the dampness with a dry paper towel. Some of the ink smeared, but it was still possible to read the writing clearly.
Who are you, Ethel? I asked myself. What are you doing in my house? Why did my mother hide your birth certificate? The questions kept coming and no answer was in sight. I left the sheet of paper on the table. I was hoping that by acknowledging its daily presence, some sort of hidden compartment would open up inside my head.
The certificate had been lying on the table for several days when one day my eyes suddenly saw something new: tiny letters were printed on the bottom of the page, in the right corner. I moved closer, trying to figure out what was written, but time had taken its toll; some of the letters were faded and some had become smeared in the water. I sat bent over like a withering flower stem, moving the page forward and backward. I could make out the letters m, o, n, p, and n again. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t make any meaningful words out of the letters.
I went to my room and brought out a magnifying glass to see the letters more clearly: the first and last words were “printing” and “Chicago.” I wrote each letter in the middle word several times, but the word didn’t make any sense. I tried again and again to make the lines form into a real word, and finally came up with a strange one: Manonpo. Manonpo Chicago Printing. The name had a Chinese or Italian ring to it—perhaps it was the name of the printer providing printing services to the hospital where Ethel Weiss was born in 1974.
I went to my computer and began to look for printers with that name in the Chicago area, but none of them were called Manonpo. I felt like this was a dead end, but I wasn’t willing to give up. Even if the printing company doesn’t exist anymore, someone must know where to find the owners. I assumed the owners of other printing companies knew each other, at least by name. I took the list of printing companies and began to call them in order. The first five claimed they didn’t recognize the name and couldn’t help me. On the sixth call, a nice man answered and asked me to keep saying the name Manonpo.
“It sounds like a Japanese or Chinese name,” he said.
“Yes, to me too.”
“It’s strange. Are you sure the printer is in this area?”
“Yes, why?”
“Because there has never been a printing company owned by the Chinese,” he said.
“Are you sure? Maybe you don’t know them?”
He said in a patronizing voice, “Young lady, I know them all. I’ve been in the printing business since the age of sixteen. There is no printer in the area or outside of it that I don’t know.” Then he added, “There never were—and there aren’t now—any printers owned by Chinese. They are busy in other professions, mostly retail. They don’t have any interest or know-how in printing.”
His words were very convincing, but if it was true, how would I go on from here?
My desperation must have made its way through the telephone because he asked if I was still on the line.
“Yes,” I answered.
“It’s important for you to find this printer?”
“Very much.”
“May I ask why?”
“It has to do with someone I’m looking for,” I said vaguely.
“I see. And you’re sure that’s the name?”
I wasn’t sure of anything anymore. “I have the birth certificate of someone I’m trying to find, and on the bottom of the page is the name of the printing company. I thought I’d find the hospital through this printer.”
“Where do you live?”
I told him the name of my town.
“I know where that it,” he said. Then he surprised me, saying, “Would you like to come here with the certificate so I could see it? Maybe I can help you.”
I didn’t hesitate a second. “When can I come?”
“Any time, my dear. I’m here at my printing business every day. My sons run it now. I’d love the company, and maybe you’ll even get a cup of the special tea I brew with my secret recipe.”
“How can I possibly refuse, sir?”
“Well then, tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow,” I promised.
When I set the phone down, I felt renewed energy coursing through my veins. If he’d offered, I would have gotten into my car and sped over to him that very moment. But he suggested tomorrow. So be it.
Time is a dictator. It has its own persistent pace and nobody can convince it to go any faster. Counting the hours one by one didn’t make the hands of the clock go any faster. They sneered at me with the condescension of the all-powerful.
Tomorrow finally came. I was so excited I almost forgot to bring the reason I was going in the first place. I had to retrace my steps to pick up the certificate from the kitchen table.
I arrived at the outskirts of Chicago. The nice man’s excellent directions brought me to the printers’ office well before noon. He was a man of about seventy, with white hair reaching down to his shoulders. His eyes scrutinized me through the eyeglasses perched on his nose. He walked slower than normal, and when I looked closer, I noticed one of his legs was shorter than the other. He saw me looking and said, “The polio epidemic. It broke out in the area when I was five. They didn’t know about the vaccination back then, and the ones who contracted it were mostly young children like me. But better to have one leg shorter than one leg missing, right?” He looked at me and winked.
“Yes,” I said and returned a smile.
We went into a room that was in fact a large hall filled with old, silent machines. There was chaos everywhere: papers, printing plates, boxes of colored inks, cardboard tubes, trash cans filled to the brim, tables covered with stacks of notebooks. Even the sticky floor gathered useless objects, and years of neglect had filled it with clutter. The old man cleared a path for me and invited me into a small room with no door whose filthy glass windows separated the pandemonium of the room from the hall we had just come from. He made space on a table and set down a kettle and two cups. For a moment, I wanted to refuse his secret formula, but I didn’t dare. He was nice. And besides, I wasn’t going to do anything to hurt my chances of getting any vital information from him.
Isaacs—that’s what he asked me to call him—poured two cups of the steaming drink and asked me to try and guess what the ingredients were. “I recognize cinnamon,” I said. He smiled and waited. “Maybe apple? Or orange?” I tried, but he just smiled contentedly and waited for me to continue. After a few unsuccessful attempts, he waved his hand and said with confidence, “You’ll never guess.”
I gave up and said, “Delicious.” He was pleased.
I wanted to hurry up the meeting and get to the reason I had come there. He sensed my agitation and said, “Well, would you like to show me the sheet of paper?” I took the birth certificate out of my purse and handed it to him. He took it, felt the paper with his fingers, moved it away from his eyes toward the naked light bulb in the ceiling and brought it back down. “What’s the name you said?”
“Manonpo,” I said.
“You must be kidding. Manonpo!” He laughed. “How did you get that weird name?” His laughter began to roll off his tongue, showing his nicotine-stained yellow teeth. “Manonpo,” he repeated, his laughter not dying down. His round stomach jiggled with each new attack of laughter. His laughter grew so loud that he began to cough, and I thought he was choking. I handed him his cup of tea, but he refused by shaking his head. Suddenly he got up from his chair, went to the sink blackened with grime, turned on the faucet, and threw water on his face—water that was a disgusting color. After he calmed down a bit, he picked up a moldy rag and wiped his face with it. His laughter began to die down and then he said, “I’m sorry, but I couldn’t stop, I haven’t laughed like that in a long time.” It looked like he was going
to have another bout of laughter, but this time he controlled himself and came back to the chair across from me. “Robert,” he said. “Robert printed this page.”
“Robert?” I asked.
“Yes, Robert Mahoney. And he hated the Chinese. That’s what was so funny to me.”
“Can you tell me where I can find his print shop?”
“I can, but it won’t help you.”
I looked up questioningly. “Robert passed away five years ago. His wife sold the printing business to someone who tore it down and built a large department store in its place.”
“So, the printer no longer exists?” I asked in desperation.
“It hasn’t existed for a long time,” he said. “But you don’t need him.”
“Why not?”
“Because I know exactly who he worked for. Robert and I were friends. He worked for me as a printer before he decided to open his own printing business. Everyone was sure we would be enemies, because he became a competitor. But we stayed close friends. We sometimes even passed work on to one another. There was room for the both of us. My sons were angry with me because I gave away jobs—they said we would never succeed as long as I kept doing that, but I valued our friendship and didn’t let the business come between us.
“It’s different today; my sons work without feeling. They only want to earn money and whatever happens along the way… Well, that’s not important anymore, only profit and success. And if someone gets hurt, they say that it’s part of the game. I don’t understand what game they’re talking about. Business is a soul, not a game. I don’t go into the main hall anymore, the central one. I sit here and remember how much I loved the work. We would work with our hands, get dirty, and go home all black. The work was done with soul. We would talk and laugh while we worked. That was our life. Today most of the work is done by machines. Everything is ‘what did we earn’ and ‘what did we lose’ and ‘how can we make more.’
“My sons go home clean. Their hands are white and their fingernails are clipped and manicured. I know they mock me. I also know that one day they’ll be where I’m sitting. It’s too bad we don’t have a telescope that can show us what we’ll be like in the future. Maybe then we would act differently. But I’m talking your head off with boring memories and you want an answer from me.”
Life in a Box Page 28
