by Lily Brett
“Neighbors,” one of the men replied.
“Did they find gold?” one of the men said to the old woman. She shook her head.
“There was no gold,” she said.
“The Jews took it with them,” the neighbor said. The old woman nodded in agreement.
Edek put the tin in his pocket. “We can fix up the hole and go now,” he said to the doorman.
“I will return later and fix this up,” the doorman said. Ruth looked at him. She felt hopeful. What did he mean? Was this his way of saying he was accepting her invitation to rough up the old couple? The doorman laughed. “I mean that I will come back and replace this earth,” he said.
“Oh,” she said.
“I like you very much,” the doorman said to Ruth.
“Thank you,” she said. He must think that she was a thug, like him, she thought. Maybe she was.
“Are you going to open the tin?” Ruth said to Edek.
“Not here,” he said. “We will wait till we are in the hotel.”
T O O M A N Y M E N
[ 5 1 5 ]
“Where’s our money?” the old man said. “You said five hundred dollars if you found something.” Ruth opened her purse.
“You are going to pay him?” the doorman said.
“I like being honorable,” Ruth said.
“She said that she would pay them,” Edek said.
“Anyhow, what’s another few dollars?” Ruth said to Edek. Ruth handed the doorman the money.
“Tell her to wait for a minute,” the old woman said to the doorman after taking the money from him. “I have something else I think she will want.”
The old woman ran inside. Ruth felt sick. What was she going to come up with now?
“We do not need anything more,” Edek said. “Those bestids did take enough from us. I do not want you to give them any more money.”
“Let’s see what she’s got,” Ruth said. She needed a Mylanta. She wished she hadn’t run out. The old man smiled at her. The smile made Ruth feel worse. What were the old couple doing? What did they have in store for her? What had they kept in reserve? What was the old woman going to unearth now?
The old woman came back. She was out of breath. She was carrying a vase. A bright green vase, with a crack down one side.
“I think this might interest you,” she said. Edek looked at the vase.
“This was not ours,” he said to Ruth. Ruth shook her head at the old woman. “We are not interested in this vase,” Edek said in Polish to the doorman. Ruth wanted to grab the vase and break it over the old couple’s heads. Instead, she walked away. She turned, after a couple of steps, and spat in their direction. Edek looked at her.
“What has got into you, Ruthie?” he said.
They drove back to the hotel in silence. Ruth felt exhausted. Edek must be very tired, she thought. He sat in the back of the car with her. He didn’t speak for the whole trip. At the hotel, Edek thanked Robert, the driver.
Then he thanked Tadeusz and the doorman, lavishly. “We could not have done this without you,” he said to the doorman. Ruth paid Tadeusz and the doorman. She paid them an excessive amount. She didn’t care. She was so glad to be out of the old couple’s orbit. To be away from Kamedulska Street.
She knew that the street and the building were no longer part of anything that belonged to her or to Edek. She knew that she would never be back.
[ 5 1 6 ]
L I L Y B R E T T
“Give the doorman a bit extra,” Edek said.
“Okay,” said Ruth. The doorman smiled.
“It is a pleasure to do business with you,” he said to Ruth.
“My daughter is a businesswoman,” Edek said. Everybody shook hands.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” Edek said again.
“I’m going to tell the front desk that we’re checking out at four o’clock,” Ruth said to Edek. I’ll meet you in the lobby.”
“Shall I order something to eat?” Edek said. Ruth looked at him. He must be feeling okay if he was thinking about food. Maybe the contents of the tin weren’t too troubling.
“Order whatever you want,” Ruth said. “And get me some soup.
Chicken soup.”
“You want some rye bread, too?” Edek said.
“Okay,” she said.
Ruth ordered a taxi to pick them up at 3:55 P.M. “I’ll have a Mercedes,” she said to the man at the front desk. “A big Mercedes.” She went to the bathroom. She wanted to wash her face. She needed to wash some of the grime of this morning away. In the bathroom, she looked in the mirror. She was surprised when she saw that she looked quite clean. Her face was clear. Her eyes were bright. The curls in her hair were jutting out at joyful angles. She looked at herself again. There was no sign of any grubbiness.
Edek was sitting in an armchair, next to a small table, in the lobby. He looked quite calm, Ruth thought, when she saw him. She pulled up another chair.
“What a morning,” she said to Edek, as she sat down.
“What a morning,” Edek said.
“Have you opened the tin?” Ruth said.
“Yes,” said Edek. “I seen already what is inside.”
“Is it what you wanted to find?” Ruth said.
“It is what I did want to find,” Edek said.
“Can I see?” Ruth said.
“Let us eat something first,” Edek said. “It is good to eat after a morn -
ing like this.”
T O O M A N Y M E N
[ 5 1 7 ]
“Okay,” Ruth said. “Anyway, you need something to eat. You did a lot of digging. And it was pretty awful being there.”
“It was not so nice,” Edek said. He rubbed his hands together. “The soup will be here soon,” he said. “And I did order for myself a ham sandwich.”
Ruth laughed. “You might as well enjoy that Polish ham while you’re here. We won’t be here much longer.”
“I do like the Polish ham very much,” Edek said.
“Weren’t that old couple the most revolting people in the world?”
Ruth said.
Edek looked at her. “You was not so wonderful yourself,” he said. “I did not know that my daughter was a criminal.”
“I’m not a criminal,” Ruth said.
“Maybe you would not go through with this idea that the doorman should beat them up,” Edek said. “Maybe you would not do it if the doorman did say yes to your suggestion.”
“And maybe I would,” Ruth said.
The food arrived. “This is very good service,” Edek said to the waiter.
“Give him a tip,” Edek said to Ruth. Ruth gave the waiter twenty zlotys.
“Our tips have come to more than our hotel bills and airfares, I think,”
Ruth said.
“So what?” said Edek.
Ruth took a sip of her soup. “At least the soup is very good,” she said.
They ate in silence. Ruth felt warmed and nourished by the soup. She decided to make some chicken soup when she got home to New York. She had her mother’s recipe.
Edek’s ham sandwich had come with potato salad, dill pickles, and pickled cabbage. Edek was eating mouthful after mouthful. “I did not eat so much for breakfast,” he said eventually, when he took a break.
“I’ve never wanted to go home to New York so badly in my life,” she said to Edek. “You must be looking forward to leaving Poland, too.”
“That is the truth, Ruthie,” he said. “I am ready to leave.” He finished off the last of the pickled cabbage. He let out a large sigh, and mopped his mouth with a napkin. He moved all of the dishes out of the way, and reached into his pocket. Ruth felt scared.
“Are you sure you want to show me?” she said.
[ 5 1 8 ]
L I L Y B R E T T
“I am happy that you will see this,” Edek said.
Ruth felt more fearful. A sense of dread was mounting up inside her.
She could feel the dread in her mouth, in her throat, in
her lungs, and in her stomach. The dread was fueled by a feeling of imminent change. Big change. A change that had been traveling in her direction for years. A change that was part of something inevitable. Part of a destiny that had been mapped out long ago. Why was she thinking about destiny? She didn’t believe in destiny. Was she destined to see the contents of this small tin? She didn’t think so. Destiny was composed of much bigger moments.
If, indeed, there was any destiny. There were destinations, Ruth decided.
Not destinies. She could deal with destinations. She believed in destinations. She took a deep breath. There was no need to feel scared, she told herself.
Edek opened the tin. There was no rust on the inside of the lid. It was silver and shiny. Ruth marveled at the condition of the inside of the tin.
How could it have remained so clean after fifty-two years in the earth?
Fifty-two years of being buried in Polish earth. Surrounded by Poles looking for Jewish gold. And it was still there. Still in pristine condition. Ruth was glad that the tin was now with its rightful owner. She realized that she was avoiding looking at what was in the tin. The tin held only one thing.
Edek removed the object from the tin. It was a photograph. A small photograph. He held the small sepia-toned photograph in his hand. Ruth looked at the tin. There was definitely nothing else in the tin. Was this what they had come to Lódz for?
Edek handed Ruth the photograph. She looked at it. It was a photograph of her mother. Rooshka’s hair was very short in the photograph. And her face was thicker than Ruth had ever seen it. Rooshka was holding a small baby. The small baby was Ruth. “It’s a photograph of Mum and me,”
she said to Edek. “No, it couldn’t be,” she corrected herself with a start. “I wasn’t born yet. I wasn’t born when this tin was buried.”
“It does look like you,” Edek said. “But it is not you.” Ruth felt sick.
She wished she hadn’t eaten the soup. What was this? Who was this?
“It’s one of the babies that she lost, isn’t it?” Ruth said. “It’s one of the babies Mum grieved for all of her life.”
“That is right,” Edek said. He swallowed hard. Ruth could see that this was not easy for him.
T O O M A N Y M E N
[ 5 1 9 ]
She looked at the baby in the photograph. It looked just like her. Just like all the baby photographs of her. Large hooded eyes. Fine face. You could see the baby’s face so clearly in this small photograph. Ruth felt chilled. Was this the baby of her dreams, too? The baby she couldn’t look after? The baby she always lost? Who was this little boy?
“His name was Israel,” Edek said.
“After your father?” said Ruth.
“Yes,” said Edek. “After my father.” Ruth started crying. “Do not cry yet, Ruthie,” Edek said. “I want to tell you the whole story.” She looked at Edek. He was holding a napkin. His hand was trembling.
“You know when Mum and me did find each other after the war they put us in Feldafing,” Edek said.
“The DP camp,” she said.
“Yes,” said Edek. “We was still without enough food. We was living in barracks. We did have armed guards and barbed wire around us.”
“The American general,” Ruth said, “General George S. Patton Jr., insisted that every one of the Displaced Persons camps in Germany that were under the jurisdiction of the United States was manned by armed guards and enclosed by barbed wire. He was treating the displaced people as though they were prisoners.”
“We was like prisoners again,” Edek said, “but not so bad like before.”
“Few things would rival what you and Mum had just experienced,”
Ruth said.
“That is true,” Edek said. “And we was grateful for a place to sleep, and grateful to have something to eat.”
“I think the great American general enjoyed the extra difficulties he created,” Ruth said. “He wrote in his diary that others ‘believe that the Displaced Person is a human being, which he is not, and this applies particularly to the Jews, who are lower than animals.’ ”
“Oy a broch,” Edek said. “A big American general did say that?” He looked at Ruth. “And you, Ruthie, poor kindeleh, do have to remember every word.”
Tears came into Ruth’s eyes, again. Her father had not called her kindeleh, the affectionate diminutive of child, in Yiddish, for years, for decades.
“I was trying to get Mum extra food, in Feldafing,” Edek said. “We was
[ 5 2 0 ]
L I L Y B R E T T
both hungry. It was not so easy in Feldafing. People what was prisoners for so many years, and treated worse than dogs, sometimes did act like animals.
They did not want to wash, or to flush the toilet. It was not easy. Mum always did say that we did not stay alive to act like animals. She used to wash the whole bathroom at Feldafing before she did use it. Many people in Feldafing did also hide food. They did hide it so that they would have something to eat when they was starving again.” Edek paused. “Poor Mum,” he said. “She did hide bread. She did put bread in our coats and in our shoes. She was sure every day that it was our last bread. We lived like this for a long time.” He looked at Ruth. “Sometimes I would look at Mum and me and ask myself, did I live through everything what I lived through, in order to watch poor Rooshka hiding pieces of bread.”
“It must have been so awful,” Ruth said, “because by then you knew that your parents, Mum’s parents, and all your brothers and sisters were dead.”
Edek nodded. “Mum did not even know she was pregnant,” he said.
“She was eating a lot of bread, and slowly, like quite a few of the women there, she was getting a bit fat. If you been starving for six years it is not so easy to stop eating. Mum went one day to a doctor what was looking after some of the women in the camp and he did tell her she was pregnant. She was not happy, Ruthie. What mother does want to bring a baby into a barracks, that has mud and policemen and guards. I did make a promise to Rooshka that we would get out of the camp.” Edek heaved a big sigh. “It was not so easy,” he said.
“Poor Mum,” Ruth said.
“Poor Mum,” said Edek. “I was myself happy to have a child. I did think we would get out of the camp and make a life together. I did say to Rooshka, ‘Rooshka this child will be a wonderful child.’ And Mum did feel better. She did make some clothes for the baby. One of the officers did give Mum some parachute silk. And she did sit and cut out and stitch, by hand, very beautiful things for the baby.” Edek started to cry. Ruth took his hand.
“I am sorry,” he said. Ruth started to cry, too.
“It’s okay to cry, Dad,” she said.
“The doctor did arrange with Mum that a midwife would come for the birth,” Edek said. “But Mum did want the doctor himself to be with her.
He did say he would try.” Edek sniffed, and wiped his eyes with the back of T O O M A N Y M E N
[ 5 2 1 ]
his hand. “It was lucky that the doctor did come,” he said. “As soon as the doctor did see the baby, he did see that something was wrong. The midwife could see it also. When Mum did ask what was wrong, the midwife did say the baby was not such a good color. The doctor did say the baby must go to a hospital.”
Edek stopped speaking. He turned away from Ruth. Ruth could see his shoulders heaving. He was weeping. She put her arm around him.
“Dad, you don’t have to tell me this,” she said. Edek got a handkerchief out of his pocket. He blew his nose.
“I want to tell you, Ruthie,” he said. He wiped his eyes. “Mum did scream and scream when they did take the baby away from her,” Edek said.
“Ruthie, she did scream like an animal, like a dying person, it was a terrible, terrible scream. Nobody could stop her. ‘Where is my baby?’ she did scream, in German, until they did give her something to make her go to sleep. Even the midwife was crying.”
Ruth was trembling. She didn’t want to hear any more of this story. She did
n’t want to think of her mother screaming. Screaming for a baby that had been taken from her again.
“The midwife did say to me when Mum was asleep that she did think there was something wrong with the baby’s heart,” Edek said, and started weeping, again.
“You can tell me the rest of the story later,” Ruth said. “You don’t have to tell me right now, Dad.” She was freezing. Her teeth were almost knock-ing into each other. She couldn’t bear to see Edek cry like this.
“The midwife did say it was a tragedy,” Edek said. “The midwife did look at Mum and say, ‘She did bury, already, too many.’ I said to the midwife, ‘She did not bury any,’ ” Edek said. “The midwife said she did understand what I was saying.”
Ruth felt exhausted. Her legs were shaking. She tried to keep them pinned onto the floor.
“Mum was still crying when she did wake up,” Edek said. “The doctor did bring the baby back the next day. Mum was so happy. He was a beautiful little baby. The doctor did explain to me what he did think was wrong.
And I did have to explain it to Mum.”
Edek shook his head and blew his nose again. Ruth looked at him. His eyes were red. His features were in disarray. He looked broken. Heartbro-
[ 5 2 2 ]
L I L Y B R E T T
ken. “The doctor did explain to me,” Edek said, “that there was something wrong with the baby’s heart. He did explain to me that the job of the heart is to pump the blood through the body. The blood does carry the oxygen from the lungs to the body. He did explain to me that there is two sides to the heart. The left side and the right side. The left side is bigger and does get the blood from the lungs, which does have a lot of oxygen, and does pump it to the body. The right side is smaller and does take the blood which is coming back from the body and does pump it to the lungs. Do you understand what I am saying, Ruthie?”
“I’m following you,” she said.
“The doctor was a nice man,” Edek said. “He did explain to me that he was not sure but he did think that this baby did have a small hole between two places what are smaller pumps on the left and the right. He did say the baby would not die straightaway, but babies with this small hole did not usually live to be adults. He did say it did depend on how big was the hole. He did say this baby was not so blue, so maybe the hole was small.”
