by Lily Brett
“He is all right,” he said to Ruth. “There is nothing to worry about. He is just a dog.” Edek was right, Ruth thought. There was no reason to worry about the dog. The dog was much less worrying than the humans around it.
“Shoo,” she said to the brown dog. The dog wandered off toward Edek.
Edek liked dogs. Edek patted the dog.
Edek had been looking at a small patch of earth at the end of the yard.
Ruth had been watching him. What was he thinking about? she thought.
His mother’s silver dish? His mother’s china? The meals that were eaten on the china? The people who were eating the meals?
Ruth heard footsteps behind her. The old man had come out into the yard. He walked up to Edek, shaking his head and shrugging his shoulders.
“I told you to be extra nice,” he said. “She is not an easy woman!” Ruth understood what he was saying. She was surprised that she could understand.
“The flowers and the chocolates were not enough?” Edek said to the man.
“No,” said the old man. Ruth watched her father bite his lips in an effort to suppress a reply from slipping out.
“The chocolates weren’t large enough?” Ruth said to her father.
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“Not for his wife,” Edek said.
“They were the biggest box I could find in Lódz,” Ruth said.
“I understand what the man is saying,” Edek said.
“So do I,” said Ruth.
“We think alike, like usual,” Edek said.
“Let’s offer him money,” said Ruth. “Why shouldn’t we?”
“Who knows what we would get for the money.” said Edek.
“Probably more lies,” said Ruth.
“Why should we pay for lies?” Edek said.
“I’ve wasted money on lesser things,” Ruth said.
“No,” said Edek. “I do not want to give them money.”
“It’s only money,” Ruth said. “You’re not really giving them anything.”
“It would give them pleasure to get money from me,” Edek said. “And I do not want to give them this pleasure.”
“Okay,” she said.
The old man had been looking apprehensively at Edek and Ruth. He looked as though he was trying hard to fathom the tone of their conversation. Ruth thought he had worked out that he was out of luck. That neither Edek nor Ruth was about to hand over a stash of cash. The old man looked bothered.
“My wife is really a very nice woman,” he said. “It just takes something extra to put her in a good enough mood to talk.”
“Tell him he can drop that shit,” Ruth said.
“Please,” Edek said. “Do not speak like this.” Ruth smiled at the man.
She could tell he understood the general tenor of her suggestion. He fidgeted and shifted.
“Maybe a small contribution to our lives?” he said. Edek didn’t answer.
Instead, he looked at the ground and pushed a piece of loose dirt around with his feet. He looked distracted and distressed.
“A small contribution?” the man said.
“I think we’ve already contributed enough,” Ruth said to Edek, “don’t you?” Edek was quiet. “Don’t let him get to you,” Ruth said to her father.
“He is not getting to me,” Edek said. He continued to poke at the piece of earth with his foot.
“What are you doing?” the old man said to Edek. “Looking for Jewish gold? We know they buried their gold.”
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[ 1 9 7 ]
“You know nothing else,” Edek said. “But you know this?”
“I know the Jews buried their gold,” the man said.
“So the news of Jewish gold got to Cze˛stochowa?” Edek said. The man nodded. A look of fury crossed Edek’s face. “Maybe your wife found this gold?” Edek said. Edek turned to Ruth. “There is nothing here for us,” he said. “Let us go.”
“You had a cousin who came here after the war?” the old man said to Edek. Edek spun around.
“Suddenly you remember something?” he said.
“You reminded me,” said the old man. “A neighbor saw the cousin digging in the yard. Next to this toilet, as a matter of fact.” The old man looked pleased with himself. He was grinning in excitement. His grin displayed all of his stained teeth. He looked at the piece of ground. “There’s nothing there,” he said to Edek. “We already checked.”
“You found nothing?” Edek said.
“We found nothing,” the old man said.
Edek nodded at the man. His nod contained disbelief, but Ruth thought that the disbelief was largely unnoticed by the old man.
“You don’t want to try again with my wife?” he said to Edek.
“No thank you,” Edek said.
Edek and Ruth left.
“How did the neighbor know that the cousin was a Jew?” Ruth said as they walked along Kamedulska Street.
“I told you. They can smell us,” said Edek.
“How did he know he was a cousin of yours?” Ruth said.
“A neighbor who went to school with my cousin did recognize him,”
Edek said. “My cousin did tell me this.”
“So this old man with his dirty, stained teeth and his air of innocence put two and two together and came up with four,” said Ruth.
“What do you mean?” said Edek.
“He worked out that a cousin of the son of the owners must be a cousin of yours,” she said.
“I suppose so,” said Edek.
“Who was the cousin?” said Ruth.
“It was my cousin Herschel,” said Edek. “Herschel did come back to Lódz after the war.”
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“Where was he during the war?” Ruth asked.
“In a labor camp, in Germany,” said Edek.
“Where in Germany?” she said.
“Past Leipzig,” Edek said. “Near Chemnitz.”
“How was Herschel related to you?” Ruth said.
“He was the son of the sister of my brother Tadek’s wife,” Edek said.
“He was your sister-in-law’s sister’s child?” Ruth said.
“Yes,” said Edek.
“I don’t think he was your cousin then,” said Ruth.
“He was my cousin,” said Edek.
“Your brother and sister-in-law’s child would be your niece or nephew,”
Ruth said. “And this cousin who came back to Lódz would be their cousin, not your cousin.”
“What is wrong with you?” Edek said. “You think about things that it is not necessary to think about. Herschel was my cousin. We grew up together.”
“Sorry,” Ruth said.
“Herschel did stay in Lódz for one day,” Edek said. “It did take him one day to see that nobody was left here and that his life was in danger.
Every Pole he did see, in the neighborhood, looked upset to see him. ‘I thought that they killed you all,’ was what one of his old schoolteachers did say to him.”
“What happened to Herschel?” Ruth said.
“He did migrate to America,” Edek said. “In 1948. Your mum and me were still in the DP camp in Germany. He was very excited to go to America.”
Edek paused. He took a deep breath. “In America Herschel did meet a young girl, a Jew from Poland, too. He wrote to me to say how happy he was. Her name, I think, was Helcha. He did send to us a photograph of him and Helcha. Helcha was, as a matter of fact, already pregnant in the photograph.” Edek paused again.
“I didn’t know about your cousin Herschel,” Ruth said.
“He was already gone before you was born,” Edek said.
“Where did he go?” said Ruth.
“He did not go anywhere,” Edek said. “He did die. In a car accident.
He did not even live long enough to see his son born.”
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“How terrible,” Ruth said. “To survive the Nazis and die in a car crash.”
It was illogical, but Ruth thought that surely all of Herschel’s suffering should have protected him against further tragedy. Ruth felt depressed.
Life was so haphazard and unpredictable.
“I did like Herschel very much,” Edek said. “He was the only one in my family what was alive after the war.”
“Dad,” Ruth said. “Do you think we could buy your mother’s china from those Poles?”
“Forget about it,” Edek said.
“I’d really like to have it,” said Ruth. “Why should they keep using it?”
“Why not?” Edek said. “Who does it hurt? Nobody.”
“Me,” she said. “I don’t want them to have it, firstly, and then secondly, I’d really like to have the set myself. It would be very meaningful to me to have tea from the teapot and sugar from the sugar bowl that your mother used.”
“What sort of meaning does some pieces of china have?” Edek said.
“A lot of meaning, for me,” said Ruth.
“Forget about it,” he said. “I do not want to go back there. For me, it is finished everything what was there.”
They walked back to the Grand Victoria in silence. Edek looked tired.
“Would you like some dinner in your room tonight?” she said to him.
“That is not such a bad idea,” he said.
“It’s been a big day,” Ruth said.
“You can say that again, brother,” Edek said.
When they got back to the Grand Victoria, Ruth ordered some barley soup, a schnitzel, and a slice of chocolate cake to be sent up to Edek’s room. She wasn’t hungry herself. Her head was swimming with images of the old man’s teeth, and the pile of wigs, and the gold-edged china. She thought about Herschel, who got to America in order to die, and the general disarray and disorder of the universe. It was enough to take anyone’s appetite away.
Ruth sat on the bed in her room. The room felt airless and depressing.
She was finding it hard to breathe. She used to have trouble taking deep breaths. Her breath felt shallow now. This was an anxiety symptom, she
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had discovered, that appeared when she was trying to contain her anger or her excitement. Her breathing felt labored. It definitely wasn’t excitement she was suppressing at the moment.
She decided to have a cup of tea in the lobby. Before she went down she called Edek. He sounded more settled. He had almost reached the end of The One-Armed Alibi, he said, and was about to begin The Hot-Blooded Heiress.
“I hope that The Hot-Blooded Heiress is good,” Ruth said to him.
“It does not matter if it is good or not,” Edek said. “When I read it, I am living every word.” Ruth thought that the words in The Hot-Blooded Heiress would probably be a lot more comfortable for Edek than the words he had had to hear in Kamedulska Street today.
“I’ll see you in the morning,” she said to Edek. In the lobby she ordered herself a chamomile tea with lemon and some bread and jam. Plum jam.
The Poles made very good plum jam.
Ruth thought about her grandmother’s china again. The teapot and sugar bowl and milk jug. She had never thought of herself as having a grandmother. It was strange to think of her grandmother’s china. The fact that there was also a matching plate suggested that it must have been part of a dinner service. It must have been a stunning dinner set. The china was very fine and the gold fluting around the edge of the plate was unusual enough to have made it an idiosyncratic choice of tableware. Ruth wondered who had chosen it. Her grandmother? It must have been an expensive purchase. Did women choose those things then? Or did the men buy them?
The silver bowl that Edek had pointed out looked very solid. That must have been expensive, too. It was strange to think of these sophisticated and luxurious accoutrements of everyday life as coming from her own family.
She had grown up poor. She had grown up knowing that there were no family heirlooms. No legacies. No bequests or requests. No family recipes.
No words of advice or pieces of wisdom. It was very strange to think of these pieces of china as part of her past.
Ruth wondered if there was more china than the pieces she had been shown. She thought that the old woman must have known that Edek would recognize the tea set and the silver bowl. But why would the old woman want that? Was the china a carrot? A bait? Was Edek supposed to offer to T O O M A N Y M E N
[ 2 0 1 ]
buy it? Did the old couple fantasize about the amount of money an old Jew would pay to retrieve something from his former life? Or was the old woman simply flaunting her ownership of the stolen goods? Surely if the old woman had anticipated a sale, she would have given Edek and Ruth some indication of her expectation. Some grounds to begin a negotiation.
But there had been no sign that the old woman or her husband knew that what they were serving up was an invitation.
Ruth didn’t know what to do. She didn’t want to upset Edek by suggesting that they return to Kamedulska Street. Yet she wanted the china and the silver bowl. She wanted them badly. She wanted to touch them. To hug them. To hold them to her. She knew they were only inert objects, but they had been held and touched by all the people that she would never be able to hold and touch. They had been touched by her grandmother and grandfather. They had been held and touched by cousins and uncles and aunties. She wanted to hold and touch them, too.
“Excuse me,” a woman’s voice said. Ruth jumped. She had been completely immersed in her thoughts. “I’m sorry to disturb you,” the woman said. Ruth looked up. It was the blond woman who had been staring at her yesterday at breakfast. The woman was smiling at her now. “I saw you yesterday,” the woman said. “You were having breakfast with your husband.”
“My father,” Ruth said. “I was having breakfast with my father. I’m not married. I don’t have a husband. I don’t have a boyfriend. I support myself.
I don’t need a man to support me or travel with me.” Ruth was startled at her own response. Why was she being so snappy to a perfect stranger?
“I’m sorry,” the woman said.
“No, I’m sorry,” said Ruth. “I’ve just had a rough few days and my nerves are a bit on edge. I guess not many daughters travel with their fathers. It’s easy to mistake a father for a husband.” Ruth patted her hair.
She felt disheveled. As though her snarled and tangled thoughts had dis-arranged her appearance.
“My father is forty years older than me, though,” she said.
“I assumed you had married an older man,” the woman said. “Your father is very cute.”
“I think that, too, some of the time,” Ruth said.
“I hope you don’t mind me introducing myself,” the woman said. “My name is Martina Schmidt.”
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“Ruth Rothwax,” Ruth said. She stood up and extended her hand to the woman. They shook hands.
“Do you mind if I join you for a moment?” Martina Schmidt asked.
“Not at all,” Ruth said. “Please, sit down.” They both sat down. “I noticed you at breakfast,” Ruth said, “not just because you were staring at me, but because everything about you said that you didn’t come from Lódz.”
Martina Schmidt laughed. She was really very pretty, Ruth thought. “I teach here,” Martina said. “I teach at the film school. This is my last semes-ter, and then I go back to Germany, to Berlin. I was staring at you because I couldn’t believe that I was seeing you, again.”
“Seeing me again?” Ruth said.
“I was on the same flight as you from New York to Warsaw,” Martina Schmidt said. “I was two rows behind you, on your right.”
A vague recollection of someone staring at her came to Ruth. She had worked for most of the transatlantic flight. She had known that she was immersing herself in work in order to stave off an already increasing appreh
ension about arriving in Poland.
“I’m sorry I didn’t notice you,” Ruth said.
“You were busy,” Martina said.
“Can I order something for you?” said Ruth. “I’m in need of comfort, so I’m having the ultimate comfort food, bread and jam.” Martina laughed.
“I like bread and jam very much myself,” she said. “Most Germans do. We eat more bread than any other European country. We make three hundred varieties of bread and we eat nearly two hundred pounds of bread a year per person. During the years after World War II when other food was not so available, we ate three hundred and ten pounds a year for every man, woman, and child in Germany.”
Ruth laughed. “I didn’t know that,” she said. She instinctively liked Martina Schmidt. Anyone who could come up with those statistics had to be an interesting person.
“There is a German saying,” Martina said, “ ‘He who dishonors bread dishonors life.’ ”
“Really?” said Ruth. She thought it would be inappropriate to comment on the irony of Germans honoring life. She called the porter.
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[ 2 0 3 ]
“I will have a vodka,” Martina said to the porter. “I am ordering a comfort of a different sort,” she said to Ruth. “It is my birthday today.”
“Happy Birthday,” Ruth said.
“Thank you,” Martina said. “I was not feeling at all happy. This is my fortieth birthday and I am again alone.”
“I didn’t even notice my fortieth birthday,” Ruth said.
“It is not so much that I will be forty,” Martina said. “But it is the fact that once more I am alone on my birthday.”
“Alone is not such a bad way to be,” Ruth said. “It’s much better than being with the wrong person.”
“I have spent many birthdays on my own,” Martina said.
“Why?” said Ruth. “You’re very beautiful and you work in a glamorous field—the film industry.”
Martina laughed. “I’m not interested in my students, especially the Polish ones.”
“I can understand that,” Ruth said. “Not the not finding students attractive, but the not finding Polish students attractive.” Ruth looked at Martina. She thought Martina might have viewed that remark as too openly anti-Polish. But Martina laughed.
