by Lily Brett
Here she was, in Lódz, hearing about a middle-aged German man who resembled her and tapped his right foot ten times. And wished he was a Jew. Life was strange. She decided against asking Martina if she knew what occasioned the right-footed taps of her ex-husband.
“Maybe I will meet someone else,” Martina said. “A fortune-teller told me that I would live to a very old age and die in good humor.”
“What a great prediction,” Ruth said. “I wouldn’t mind a prediction like that.”
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“She also said I would marry someone who was not what he thought he was,” Martina said.
“So you acted out her prophecy,” Ruth said. “You married a German who thought he was a Jew.”
“Or a Jew who thinks he is a German?” Martina said.
“His mother would have to be Jewish for Gerhard to be a Jew,” Ruth said. “So I don’t think he could be Jewish.”
“His mother is a devout Roman Catholic,” Martina said.
“Poor Gerhard is going to have to adjust to the fact that he’s not Jewish,” Ruth said. “With a Roman Catholic mother he couldn’t be Jewish.”
Martina sighed. “Who knows what happened in those times.” She looked distressed.
“Would you like another vodka?” Ruth said.
“Yes, I very much would,” said Martina.
Ruth ordered the vodka. She looked at her watch. It was getting late.
She should go to bed, soon.
“Gerhard was looking for somebody,” Martina said. “And it was not me.”
“We’re all looking for somebody or something, I guess,” Ruth said.
“But Gerhard was convinced there was a particular person for him,”
Martina said. “Somebody who was trying to find him. A numerologist told him he was looking for a number eight. The day he came home and told me that, I knew our marriage was over. I was too German and I was a number nine.”
“You don’t believe in that stuff, do you?” Ruth said.
“I’m not sure,” said Martina. “What number are you?”
“I don’t know,” said Ruth. “How does anyone know what number they are?”
“You add up the numbers of your birth date,” Martina said. Her vodka arrived. She drank it down in one large swallow.
“I am an eight,” Ruth said.
“Maybe Gerhard is looking for you?” Martina said.
Ruth started to laugh. “I’m a Jew who doesn’t want to associate with Jews,” she said. “We’d be a perfect match. He could be my Aryan and I could be his Jew.” They both laughed.
In mid-laugh, Ruth started to feel sick. Her head started swimming and T O O M A N Y M E N
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she began to sweat. She leaned forward and lowered her head. Sweat dripped from her forehead. She was so hot. She could feel perspiration running down her back. Her legs felt hot. She could see damp patches appearing on her maroon panty hose. What was happening to her? Where was this fierce heat coming from?
“What is wrong?” Martina said.
“I’m just overtired,” Ruth said. She had to get to her bed, she thought.
She would feel better in bed.
Martina handed her a handkerchief. She realized she was trembling.
“I’ve never had anything like this happen to me,” she said.
Martina put her arm around Ruth. “It must be difficult for you to be here with your father,” she said to Ruth. Ruth sat up slowly. She felt a bit better.
“Maybe this is an early symptom of menopause?” she said to Martina.
“An unexpected dip in estrogen, a hot flash.”
“How old are you?” Martina said.
“Forty-three,” said Ruth.
“Forty-three is surely too early for menopause,” Martina said. Ruth knew that, on average, women first experienced menopausal symptoms between the ages of forty-five and forty-seven. She had read a lot about menopause. She also knew that menopause seemed to take most women by surprise. Most women seemed to be shaken by the arrival of menopausal symptoms.
“Maybe I’m precocious,” she said to Martina.
“You are shaking,” Martina said.
“I’m feeling much better,” said Ruth.
“This happened when we were talking about numerology. About the number eight,” Martina said.
“It has nothing to do with that,” Ruth said. “How can a number affect anything?” She had stopped sweating. She was feeling much better. This was probably nothing but tiredness. She had only just had her annual medical checkup. The blood and stool and urine tests had all been fine, her physician, Dr. Cooke, had said to her. “You are in great shape,” he had said. “I’d better touch wood,” she had said to him, as she reached for the parquetry floorboard.
“I hope I did not talk too much about myself,” Martina said.
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“Not at all,” Ruth said. “I’ve really enjoyed your company. I’m just overtired. I’ll go to bed and I’ll be fine in the morning.”
“I came here because you reminded me of Gerhard,” Martina said.
“But I am so glad to have met you. It was very enjoyable.”
“For me, too,” Ruth said. “Even though I broke out in a sweat. I know that it is only fatigue.” Both women stood up.
“I’m going back to Berlin tomorrow,” Martina said.
“Good luck there,” said Ruth.
She wanted to ask Martina for her address and phone number in Berlin, but she was overtaken by a shyness that surprised her. Martina looked slightly awkward, too. It was the awkwardness that often occurred in the aftermath of an unexpected intimacy. The sudden embarrassment that could accompany the conscious acknowledgment of the familiarity that had just taken place. It was similar to the stiltedness and discomfort of surfacing with an unfamiliar sexual partner when the sex and the heat had subsided. She really should ask Martina for her address, Ruth thought. But she couldn’t. She felt exhausted. And sticky. She wanted to kiss Martina good-bye. But she felt too clammy to kiss anybody. She held out her hand to Martina. They shook hands. Ruth went up to her room. She was too tired to shower. She lay down on the bed and fell asleep.
Edek was already eating his breakfast when Ruth arrived in the hotel’s dining room. “I did start,” he said to Ruth. “I hope you do not mind.”
“Of course I don’t mind, Dad,” she said. “I’m glad to see you enjoying your breakfast.”
“It is not that I enjoy it,” Edek said. “It is that I have to eat something. I been up since four o’clock.”
“You couldn’t sleep,” she said.
“I could not sleep,” he said.
“It’s a pretty disturbing trip, isn’t it?” Ruth said.
“I am all right,” Edek said.
Ruth looked at what Edek was eating. His plate was crammed. He had four sausages, a small mountain of bacon, and what appeared to be a three-or four-pound slab of scrambled eggs on his plate.
“That looks good,” she said.
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“I did take too much,” Edek said.
“You don’t have to eat it all,” Ruth said. “Just enjoy whatever you want of it.”
“I am not enjoying,” Edek said. “I am eating a breakfast.” He looked disgruntled.
Ruth went to the buffet and chose some breakfast for herself.
“You eating that stuff again?” Edek said.
“The muesli, you mean?” Ruth said.
“The stuff what is for birds,” Edek said.
“I like it,” said Ruth.
“No wonder you don’t look so good,” Edek said. “This is for birds, or maybe for a mouse or even a fish. But not for a person. A person has to have a breakfast.”
Edek leaned across the table and peered into Ruth’s bowl. His head almost touched the muesli. He stared at it with concentration. As though if he looked long enough t
he individual grains of oats and seeds and fruit might speak up and explain themselves.
“The muesli would be too big for fish,” Ruth said.
“It would be good for big fish,” said Edek. He shook his head and returned to his scrambled eggs. Ruth looked at her father. He looked tired to her. Or maybe she was so tired that everyone looked tired to her.
Edek was wearing his parka at breakfast. He had had the beige-colored parka on every day. Whether he was inside or outside. She looked more closely at Edek. He was wearing the same navy knit top he had arrived in Warsaw in. Ruth wondered if he had worn it every day. She hadn’t noticed what he had been wearing under his parka.
“Have you been changing your clothes, Dad?” she said.
“Of course,” he said, and continued to eat.
“Weren’t you wearing that top and those trousers when you arrived in Warsaw?” Ruth said.
“Yes,” Edek said.
“Have you worn them every day?” she said.
“Yes,” he said.
“So what are you changing?” Ruth said.
“What difference does it make to you what I wear?” Edek said.
“I just want to know,” said Ruth.
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“I did change my gatkes,” Edek said. Gatkes was the Yiddish word for underpants.
“I should hope so,” Ruth said, and then felt queasy. Why were they discussing her father’s underpants over breakfast?
She took two Mylanta tablets out of her bag and put them in her mouth.
“What are you doing?” Edek said.
“I’m having some Mylanta,” she said. “I don’t feel well.”
“This Mylanta does make you better?” he said.
“Sometimes,” she said.
“You need to eat something,” Edek said. “Tablets and stuff what a fish would not eat is not a breakfast. It is not normal. Have some eggs.”
“I’ll have some eggs tomorrow,” she said, and grimaced as she chewed the last of the peppermint-flavored indigestion pills. She knew it was odd to chew antacid tablets for stress, but sometimes they made her feel better.
Relieved her queasiness.
Edek had finished the food on his plate. “Maybe I will have a small piece of bread with jam,” he said.
“Have you changed your socks?” Ruth said.
“I did change them on Saturday,” he said. “What is wrong with you? To talk about my socks when we eat our breakfast? Clean or dirty socks is not something to talk about during a breakfast.”
“I wanted you to feel better,” Ruth said. “I thought you’d feel better if you had clean clothes.”
Edek looked at Ruth. He looked annoyed. “You have every day everything clean,” he said. “Every day something else. A black skirt with a pleat one day, a black skirt without a pleat one day. A black dress with a piece of something in the front in the morning, a black dress without a piece of something in the front in the afternoon. A black coat with something on the collar yesterday, the day before a black coat with nothing on the collar.
And all this black stuff is very expensive. My daughter does not like to put on something which costs less than fifty dollars.”
“You can’t get anything for less than fifty dollars today,” Ruth said. Why was her father picking on her? He must be stressed, she thought.
“I got shoes for twenty dollars,” Edek said. He stuck his foot out from under the table. “And these shoes was not the cheapest shoes. They did have a pair for ten dollars.”
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“Made out of cardboard?” Ruth said.
“Made from leather,” said Edek. “Real leather.”
“I paid three hundred dollars for these shoes,” Ruth said, and lifted her leg to show Edek the plain black lace-up shoes she was wearing.
“Crazy,” snorted Edek. “They look like those shoes what you did wear to school.”
“That’s why they’re three hundred dollars,” Ruth said. “They’re an imitation of the shoes that schoolgirls wear. I love them. When I look at them I remember how I felt in my University High School uniform.”
“Those shoes what you did wear to school was brown,” Edek said.
“I can’t believe you remember that,” said Ruth.
“I remember many things,” said Edek.
Ruth looked at her shoes. They were Prada. She had bought them on sale. Reduced from over four hundred dollars.
“I can get you such shoes from Melbourne for twenty dollars,” Edek said.
“You couldn’t,” said Ruth. “Nothing costs twenty dollars anymore, not even chewing gum.”
“You are crazy,” said Edek.
“Maybe I am,” she said.
“It is not normal,” Edek said, “to buy shoes for three hundred dollars.”
“You buy gadgets,” Ruth said. Edek looked hurt.
“You tell me to spend money,” he said. “And I buy only stuff what is useful for you.”
Ruth felt sorry for him. He looked wounded. She hadn’t meant to wound him.
“That’s true, Dad,” she said. “Sorry, I’m just tired.”
“You want me to put on such clean clothes every day to feel better,”
Edek said. “I feel fine. You do not look so fine.”
Ruth knew she looked bad. She had showered and put on clean clothes, but she still felt crumpled. She’d slept in her clothes last night. She had been shocked when she had woken up and discovered this. She had fallen asleep in her clothes, on top of the faded bedspread that covered the bed.
She hadn’t removed the eyeliner she wore under her eyes or cleansed her skin with cleansing milk. She hadn’t washed her face or brushed her teeth.
She had just fallen asleep. Falling asleep like that, unprepared and
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unaware, was something she hadn’t done since she was fifteen or sixteen.
This morning she had shaved her legs, scrubbed her face, and rubbed ton-ing lotion over her body, but she couldn’t feel uncrumpled. She straightened the collar of her shirt.
“You do not look so good,” Edek said. “I think it is too much for you to be in Poland.”
“I’m really glad to be in Poland with you, Dad,” she said. “Really glad.”
“Maybe five days in Lódz is too much,” said Edek.
“Is it too much for you?” Ruth said.
“Not for me,” Edek said. “I can take anything. But it is, I think, too much for you.”
“Okay,” she said. “We can go to the Orbis office and change the date of our train tickets to Kraków. Let’s leave on Wednesday instead of Thursday.”
“Wednesday?” Edek said. “Today it is Monday, that is another two days.”
“Do you want to leave even earlier?” Ruth said.
“Not me,” said Edek. “I came here to be with you. We will stay till when you want to stay.”
“I’d like to go to the Jewish Center today, then the ghetto and the Jewish Cemetery tomorrow,” Ruth said.
“The ghetto and the cemetery?” Edek said.
“I think it will be very interesting,” Ruth said.
“If you say so,” said Edek.
“Maybe we’ll do the cemetery today,” Ruth said.
“Is the train tickets expensive?” Edek said.
“No, they’re very cheap,” she said. “Train travel in Poland is extremely cheap. We can go and change the tickets after breakfast.”
“We have to go by train?” Edek said.
“I thought it would be better than flying,” Ruth said. “We’ll be able to see the countryside.”
“We did see the country, already,” Edek said. “When we was in the Mercedes.”
“Would you rather fly?” Ruth said.
“I will go whichever way you do choose,” Edek said.
“What would you prefer?” she said.
“It is all the same to me,”
he said.
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Ruth knew that there was something behind Edek’s query about the price of the train tickets but she couldn’t figure out what. She decided to ask him about it later.
“Do you still want some bread and jam?” she said.
“I will have just a little piece,” Edek said.
“I’ll get it,” Ruth said. She got up and walked to the buffet.
“Apricot and plum,” Edek called out to her. She got some jam for Edek and some fruit compote for herself.
She watched her father eat his bread and jam. He clearly loved it. He spooned large spoonfuls of jam onto each bite of bread. It cheered her up to see his hearty appetite.
“It’s good jam, isn’t it?” she said.
“Very good,” he said. Her father really was in very good shape for an eighty-one-year-old, she thought. She should be really grateful for that.
“You look great, Dad,” Ruth said. “You look years younger than you are.”
“I know,” said Edek. “Everybody does say this.”
“You shouldn’t be on your own,” Ruth said. “You should be with somebody.”
“I am with somebody,” Edek said. “I am with you.”
“You know what I mean,” Ruth said. “A partner, company, somebody to go out with.”
“Do not start with this, please,” Edek said.
Ruth suddenly thought of Martina Schmidt’s widowed mother. Martina’s mother, if she was half as gorgeous as her daughter, would probably appeal to Edek. Edek loved a blonde. So did most Jews. Most elderly Jewish women ended up blonde regardless of what color they had started out as.
“I heard about a woman who seemed very nice,” Ruth said to Edek.
“I told you, please, do not start again with this,” Edek said.
Ruth remembered, with a start, the drawback to Martina Schmidt’s mother. Even if Edek were interested in meeting a woman, Martina’s mother was German. And possibly, despite her efforts at seeking out Jews, might not want to go out with one. What was she doing thinking about Martina Schmidt’s mother? She had only met her daughter once, and
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would probably never see her again. Martina Schmidt was a stranger to her.
It was strange that the connection they had had been so intense.
