by Lily Brett
Ruth was tempted to look at the photographs of Liebala and Hanka and Fela and Juliusz. But she decided against it. This was not the morning to look at the past. This was the morning to look to the future. To being back in her own apartment. In New York. The city had never seemed more like a haven. She corrected herself. The city had never seemed like a haven
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before. That’s what a comparison with Poland could do, she thought. Make any other place look cozy. Cozy and comforting.
She decided that she would wait to look at the photographs until she was back in New York. She would have them framed, she decided, and hang them on a wall. Maybe she would put them on one of the walls in her bedroom. Or maybe they would look better in the living room. She might have them enlarged, too, she thought. That way she could study everybody’s features and expressions. She felt excited at that prospect.
She thought about the china. All the plates and bowls and cups and saucers. She wanted to touch the china. To run her fingers around the fluted gold rims. To hold the cup handles. To feel the glaze on the plates. It was going to be overwhelming to own the china. To live with it. To look at it, every day. Ruth couldn’t imagine eating from the china. Using it for meals. Her instinct was to preserve it, behind glass, like some museum piece. That was absurd, she thought. She would have to force herself to use it. The cups and saucers and bowls and plates were meant to be used. They had been in constant use, until February 1940. Ruth hoped they hadn’t been used since then. She couldn’t bear the thought of the stained-toothed old man or his bewigged wife using that beautiful china.
She would use the coat, too, she thought. She would have it altered. She would take it to the tailor on Twelfth Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. She knew he was very expensive. She hoped that his prices reflected quality in his tailoring. She was looking forward to wearing the coat. She thought she would look good in it. Thinking about the coat and the china had lifted her spirits.
Ruth looked at her watch. It was still early. She thought she could fit in half an hour’s work before she showered. She knew exactly how long it took her to shower. She knew exactly how long it took her to shower without washing her hair, and how long it took her to shower and wash her hair.
She knew exactly how long it took her to shower and dress. She timed everything she did. On the surface, the timing seemed to be aimed at efficiency. But Ruth knew that knowing how long things took was one way of offsetting and avoiding the panic of the unknown. It reassured her to know how long things took. How long it took to walk to the post office or to cook vegetables or eat breakfast or read the paper.
It was an attempt at control, of course. It didn’t take a genius to figure T O O M A N Y M E N
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that out. Ruth had grown up frightened of the random elements that had arrived in Rooshka’s life. Overnight. The errant and erratic events that changed everything. And left Rooshka unnerved, decades later, at anything unexpected or unplanned. A knock at the door or a phone call would cause Rooshka to gasp or tremble.
The world of letters was completely controllable. No one could intrude on a letter. Or disagree. Or do something disagreeable. Today, the quest for control was seen as unhealthy. Ruth had nothing against control. So much of everyone’s life was out of control, anyway. Why shouldn’t you exercise control when you could?
She got out her notebook. She felt like writing by hand. She couldn’t even begin to think about the three hundred and twenty-seven letters John Sharp had ordered. She decided to tackle the thank-you-for-the-introduction-to-the-agent letter. Dear X, she wrote. She always addressed her letters to “Dear X.” She had to address them to someone. She couldn’t write any letters without using the word “dear.” Sometimes she began letters with the recipients’ names, but mostly she began with “Dear X.”
She had tried many times to write without addressing them to anyone first. But couldn’t. She couldn’t think of anything to say if she wasn’t saying it to someone in particular. Even if that person was “X.” She looked at the Dear X she had written. She added a line. I want to thank you so much for your generosity, she wrote. Ruth thought for a minute or two. And I want you to know that I know that the generosity is in the offer, not the outcome.
The introduction, and not what comes of it. Ruth put her pen down. She couldn’t get involved in this letter. She would have to do it another time.
She had too many things crowding her head.
She felt her bite again. It was still swollen and inflamed. Why had the fly marked her like this? What a stupid question, she thought. The fly hadn’t marked her. It hadn’t marked her out of the crowd. It had just bitten her.
She felt annoyed to have been bitten by a fly, in Auschwitz. Still, to come out of Auschwitz with only a bite was something other inmates would have prayed for. She stopped herself. It was not other inmates. It was just inmates. She was not an inmate. Others, clearly distinct from her, were there. She was not there. She chided herself for this slip. She was born more than a decade after it was all over. All over for those who died. And all over for those who didn’t die. You couldn’t really live, after you had
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been in Auschwitz. Even if you appeared to be living, like others around you, you couldn’t live. Parts of you were gone. And would never return. It was hard to live with missing parts.
Ruth showered and dressed. She felt better. More herself. She had chosen a dark, burnished orange dress. She felt like having some color on her.
She had been dressing almost entirely in black since the day she arrived in Poland. She thought that she might surprise Edek and have eggs for breakfast. She went downstairs. She looked for Edek among the guests already eating their breakfast. The room was quite full. She couldn’t see Edek. She found a table near the buffet. She put her room key on the table and walked to the buffet. They had boiled eggs and scrambled eggs and poached eggs today. This was the first time she had seen poached eggs in Poland. She sat down and waited for Edek. He would probably be here soon, she thought. He was usually punctual for breakfast.
She felt hungry. It was one of the few mornings in Poland that she had felt hungry. She was glad she was hungry. Glad to have her appetite back.
She asked the waiter if it was possible to poach her eggs to order rather than take them from the buffet. He said of course. She told him she would wait for her father before placing her order.
Ten minutes later, Edek still hadn’t arrived. Ruth had been trying not to feel anxious. Now she was worried. Edek was never late for meals.
Auschwitz had probably been too much for him, she thought. And then she had dragged him to a synagogue. Suddenly a full-scale panic took hold of her. Her heart started racing. How could she have just sat here and waited? She should have gone to his room to check up on him the minute he was late.
She ran to the elevator. Dear God, she prayed. Please let my father be all right. The prayer shocked her. Who was she turning into? A person who prayed. She got out of the elevator and ran to Edek’s room. She knocked at the door. There was no answer. She felt ill. Dear God, she said, please don’t let my father die. She knocked again. She looked around to see if there was a cleaning lady nearby. They usually had keys to all the rooms. She could feel her nausea rising. She knew the trip to Poland was a mistake. Edek hadn’t wanted to come. And now look at what had happened.
She was almost breathless. She knocked one last time. She was about to turn and run down to the front desk for help, when she thought she heard T O O M A N Y M E N
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a noise in the room. She knocked again, with such force that her knuckles hurt. There was some more noise, and then the door opened. “Good morning, darling,” Zofia said to her. Ruth stared at Zofia. What was Zofia doing here? Had she knocked on the door of the wrong room?
All the lopsided, uneven, disconnected, and unrelated pieces of information star
ted to settle. Suddenly, Ruth knew that she hadn’t knocked on the door of the wrong room. This was Edek’s room. Zofia was in Edek’s room. And had been there for quite a while by the look of things. Zofia was half-dressed. Ruth stood there and shook her head. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. A minute ago she’d imagined that her father was dead.
The prayer she had put in to God was completely unnecessary, she realized.
Her father was far from dead.
Zofia was in her bra. Her breasts looked flushed and large. Larger than the very large breasts they already appeared to be when they were fully clothed. Ruth felt anxious and insignificant. A pallid, flat-chested, blood-less spectator.
Zofia was struggling to button up a very tight, stretch skirt. “Darling,”
Zofia said to Ruth. “Your father is in the shower. We did go to sleep quite late.” Ruth just stared at her. She still hadn’t spoken. A clutch of words, reasonable words, appropriate words, pertinent words, civil words, digni-fied words, seemly words, were all stuck in her gullet. She opened her mouth to see if that would free some of the words. None came out.
What was happening? Ruth thought. The world seemed awry, askew, topsy-turvy, faulty. Nothing made sense. The unexpected and the improbable had been let loose. The questionable and the implausible had joined forces with the unfamiliar and undreamed of, and had gathered momen-tum and run amok.
“Your father is a wonderful man,” Zofia said.
“I think so, too,” Ruth finally said.
Zofia smiled. “A wonderful man,” she said again. Ruth saw, from Zofia’s smile, that she and Zofia were not talking about the same qualities in Edek.
Zofia was thinking about something Ruth would rather not hear any more about.
“Tell my father, I’ll go down to breakfast and meet him later,” she said to Zofia.
“Darling, we will have breakfast with you in a few minutes,” Zofia said.
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We? They were already a “we,” Ruth thought. She felt giddy. Zofia looked at Ruth’s expression. “Maybe your father will talk to you first,” she said,
“and I will see you later.”
“Okay,” Ruth said.
“Your father is a very nice man,” Zofia said. “He is very good in that department,” she said conspiratorially, as she cast her eyes in the direction of the bed. Ruth was mortified. Why did Zofia have to tell her that? Zofia had looked so matter-of-fact about it. Ruth didn’t think it was a matter-of-fact matter to discuss someone’s father’s sex life with the person in question’s daughter. It horrified her. Was she just prim? Reserved? A prude? Zofia looked so comfortable with the subject matter. Ruth heard her father call out something from the shower. “I’ll be right there, my little boy,” Zofia shouted to him, in Polish. My little boy? Was that what she said? Ruth’s head was spinning. Mój ma l y ch l opczyku. My little boy. That’s what she called him.
“A man like that is very hard to find,” Zofia said to Ruth. “Too many men are not satisfying.” Ruth reeled. Too many men. Was it Zofia’s life that the gypsy woman was talking about? Too many men. That was what the gypsy woman had said. Ruth started to feel faint.
“I’m going downstairs,” she said to Zofia.
“Good-bye, darling,” Zofia said. She still hadn’t managed to do her skirt up.
Ruth tried to calm down. What was so terrible about any of this? Nothing. There was nothing wrong. Nothing out of the ordinary. And she had to stop imbuing normal things with abnormal meaning. “Too many men” was a common enough phrase. In regular usage. And so was sex. Sex was normal and common. Sex between friends. Sex between lovers. Sex between strangers. Her father was entitled to have sex with whomever he wanted.
There was nothing strange about this. Still, she felt sick. She went to her room and got some Mylanta.
Ruth sat at the breakfast table. She could still feel the coating that Mylanta left on your tongue. She thought she should have something to eat.
To displace the taste of the Mylanta. But she didn’t feel hungry. She had lost her appetite. Her father clearly had no trouble with appetite, she thought. Appetite of any sort. Why was she so upset? she wondered. Her father hadn’t done anything wrong. There was no disloyalty involved. Why T O O M A N Y M E N
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was she thinking about loyalty and disloyalty? Did she want her father to hate all Poles? Was that what was making her feel betrayed? She didn’t know. She just knew she felt flat. Upset. Exhausted.
What a picture in contrasts they were. She and Edek. She was swallowing Mylanta day and night, and couldn’t even keep a meager breakfast down. And he was devouring everything in sight. She paused. Why did she have to use the word “devouring”? She didn’t want to think of her father devouring Zofia’s breasts or any other part of Zofia. She grimaced. She tried to shake that thought out of her head. She could have used other words. She didn’t have to choose “devouring.” She could have used savor-ing, consuming, ingesting. She could have used relishing or engulfing. No, she thought, they were no better. They led to the same series of images. She shook her head again, more violently. It gave her a headache.
Edek arrived. Ruth could see his beam from the other side of the room.
He looked refreshed and alive. He perused the breakfast buffet quickly as he ran toward Ruth.
“I am sorry I am late, darling,” he said to Ruth. “Zofia was talking and talking. And it did make me late.”
“I think she was doing more than talking,” Ruth said tersely. Edek laughed.
“Maybe,” he said. “She is a very nice girl.”
“She’s not a girl,” Ruth said. “She’s a woman. An old woman.”
Why did she have to say that? Ruth thought. It was completely unnecessary. And so bitchy. She hated not being supportive to women. Solidarity among women was a very important issue. An issue that decades of femi-nist tracts and organizations had not addressed effectively. Women needed to support one another if they were to get anywhere. That was the way men did it. And it was so effective. Women had reputations as nurturers and supporters. But this nurture and support was rarely directed at other women. And here she was, trying to demean Zofia on the worst grounds, her age. If she wasn’t careful, Ruth told herself, she’d be hoeing into Zofia’s looks next.
“She is not so old,” Edek said.
“You are right,” Ruth said. “She is not old and she is very attractive for her age.” She examined what she had just said. Was that another slur?
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Attractive for her age. Was the antagonism in her so inherent that it sprang out even when she was trying to hold it in?
“She is not a bad-looking woman,” Edek said.
“She is a very attractive, vibrant, energetic woman,” Ruth said. Edek nodded. Why had she had to use “energetic” in that string of adjectives, Ruth wondered. She didn’t want to think of any of Zofia’s energetic activities. Particularly the most recent ones. She wanted to shake that thought away. She shook her head again.
“Why do you do this with your head?” Edek said.
“I am just annoyed with myself.”
“What for should you do like this with your head?” Edek said. “It is not good I am sure for your head. You been doing this for years.”
“Really?” she said.
“Since you was a child, you was shaking your head like this.”
“No wonder I’m all shook up,” she said. The reference to Elvis Presley escaped Edek.
“You are not so shooked up,” he said.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Zofia is really a very nice person,” Edek said.
“I’m sure she is,” Ruth said. ‘But do you mind if we don’t continue this conversation?”
“You do not want to talk about Zofia?” said Edek.
“No, I’d rather not,” Ruth said.
“It is nothing what should make you upset,”
said Edek.
“I’m not upset,” Ruth said.
“I can see that you are upset,” said Edek.
“I’m not upset,” she said.
“You are upset,” Edek said.
“I am not upset,” she shouted.
Several people eating their breakfast looked at Ruth. She glared at them. “I am not upset,” she said to Edek. “Your insistence that I am upset, upset me.”
“You are upset about Zofia,” Edek said.
“No I’m not,” Ruth said.
“Yes you are,” said Edek. “I know my daughter.”
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“Maybe I am a bit upset,” Ruth said. “Doesn’t it bother you that she is a Pole?”
“Bother me?” Edek said. “Why should it bother me?”
“Because we don’t like Poles,” Ruth said.
“We do not like some Polish people,” Edek said. “But not all Polish people. Zofia is a very nice person.”
“Yes,” Ruth said. “Zofia is a very nice person. A very nice big-breasted person.”
“Yes, she has such big breasts,” Edek said. “What is wrong with that?”
“Nothing,” Ruth said.
She couldn’t believe that she had resorted to underhand, antiwomen tactics again. And she couldn’t believe she was discussing this subject with Edek. It wasn’t normal to be discussing the anatomy of your father’s lover with your father. Oh, God, she thought as she winced. Why did she have to put those words together? Father and lover. She wished she had never brought up the subject of Zofia’s breasts. She wished she had been kinder about Zofia.
“There is no need for you to worry about Zofia,” Edek said.
“I’m not worried,” Ruth said.
“Zofia would like to speak to you after breakfast, herself,” Edek said.
