The Miracle Letters of T. Rimberg (13 page)

Journal Entry,
September 27, 2 a.m., under a bridge next to the Seine

Just woke up. Just dreamed this:

You are walking with kids on either side. Charlie is on the right, Kara and Sylvie on the left. We're in a hall in a large basement, low lights, bare bulbs and the earth is shaking around us. We're moving fast. The heat is rising in your face. We turn left at a T in the hall and down another. Machine-gun fire sounds, sporadic—like they're aiming and firing, not spraying—from upstairs. The kids are breathing so hard, louder than our footsteps. Shh, you say. But Kara is gulping air. She is going to cry. She says, Daddy. We go through a door into a dark room. You feel the walls around the door for a light switch. Can't find a switch. You reach into the air, grasping for a pull cord. Your kids are whimpering. You find a cord, machine-gun fire closer, maybe in the stairwell you just passed. You pull the cord. Light explodes. And Dad is smiling in the middle of the room. Corpses in striped camp uniforms are piled all around him, with eyeglasses, gold teeth, suitcases. Dad is not dead. He shakes his head, raises his eyebrows, extends his arms, says, “It is too late. Lights out.” And then blackness.

That's it. You are not going to have another dream.

Journal Entry,
September 27, under a bridge next to the Seine

Fully clothed. Pockets stuffed with broken concrete. I'm in. Blow out air. Say goodbye. Goodbye. And sink. Down. Down. Surrounded by dark cold, cold and green, cold and blue, and bubbling up. Up? Big lights. Streetlights. Air and light and bridge. Blow out again. Go limp, go still. Goodbye Charlie. Goodbye Mary. Goodbye. Sink through green to blue. Let go. And darkness. And bubbles. And up. Blue. Green. Up. Bubbling up. Exploding light and bubbling up. The bridge. The city. The surface. Then suck. Breathe water in. Drink water. Drink dirty water. Drink it. And down. Cough. Coughing water out. Lights everywhere, big bubbles of light on top of the water and the current should be carrying you away. It's not.

On the bank. Angry. Hit head on wall. Awake.

In. Bleed from head. Shark bait. Blow out. Blow air. Suck water. Fill lungs. Sink. Light light light, bubbles, back up. No sharks to take you. On the bank. Throw up this water, sick water, Paris water. Vomit hard. Back in. Sink. Sink. Sink. Swallow. Eyes burning, acid water. Sink. Can't sink. Please please. No. Back up. Vomit. Bleed. In. No! No! No!

People shout from the bridge. You run away across Paris.

Day Eight:
Transcript 3

I wrote that an hour after my last attempt, sitting on the curb right before I barged back into the hotel to Kaatje and Cranberry, who had called to report me as a missing person.

Yes. Before this drowning farce I was thinking very clearly. I wasn't having romantic thoughts or heroic thoughts . . . I was killing myself rationally.

I couldn't stay under. I don't know. I just remember being pushed up every time. Maybe it was the bubbles?

When I got out of the river the final time, people were shouting at me from the bridge, wanting to help me—it was morning rush hour by then, so there were lots of people—and I shouted back at them, I screamed at them. I must have looked crazy. Then a policeman showed up on the bridge, and I grabbed my backpack and ran away.

I kept running through crowds and traffic . . . I was electrified, like shock treatment? Actually, I have no idea what that feels like.

I blame the Seine for my lungs now. I still can't stop coughing. I haven't recovered. Disgusting water. You can't imagine what I saw in that water.

No, the river couldn't kill me. I really tried.

It would've been a more definitive attempt if I'd jumped off the Eiffel Tower or off the top of Notre Dame. If I bounced, we'd know a little more, wouldn't we?

An hour after I got back to the hotel we were on a train north.

Why? Antwerp, Barry. Antwerp is north.

Journal Entry,
September 27, on damn train

Fell asleep for five damn minutes. But still in those five minutes you're right up there in the apartment with Dad and with little spooky dream sister, watching troops march. Dad turns and smiles. He says, “You do what you do to survive. Are you sorry to survive? Not a choice! The only option. Correct? Am I correct? And if you only have one choice, how can you feel sorry to make it?”

Shut up, Dad. Shut up! Shut up!

Day Nine:
Transcript 1

I slept hard last night. I didn't cough at all. Relieved to get past Paris, I guess.

Kaatje dropped us off in Antwerp on her way to Amsterdam. She had to go back to quit her job. She was back with us in Antwerp within a day.

I told her to do whatever felt right. When she said she was going to quit, I offered her up a high-five and said something like, “Slap me some skin, sister.”

She did sort of high-five me. The Dutch aren't great at high-fives.

Not exuberant, no. Not drowning made me . . . maybe I was kind of exuberant? Energetic. But different than before . . . not like the zippy dipshit philosophical loser in Amsterdam.

Not concerned with the abstract, with ideas or whatever. I was driven to find out what the hell was going on. I wanted to understand what actually happened to Dad and to me, so I was focused.

We hit Belgium on the train, and I was like a dog, nose pressed against glass . . . I knew that flat countryside. From Julia

Hilfgott, sort of, when I'd traveled with her . . . but that wasn't it. I just know the Belgian countryside. My father lived in it.

When we got to Antwerp, I ran out of the train and ran straight from the train station all the way into the middle of the old city, where the cathedral is.

No map. I'd been there with Julia Hilfgott. Maybe that's why I knew where to run. It could also be that I was running directly away from a convoy of Nazi trucks that I saw parked at the station when I left the train. The Nazis were frightening to me, so I ran and was lucky enough to run into a pretty part of town. That's possible, too.

Yes. Broad daylight, 2004. I saw a convoy of Nazi trucks parked at the train station.

Yes, Barry, I would call that a vision. Or perhaps a hallucination.

It wasn't that far a run. Cranberry had it worse. I had run off the train with only my backpack. He had to roll both our suitcases and keep up with my running, while shouting at me, which couldn't have been easy.

I got us a hotel near the cathedral. From there I walked around for several days, searching, peering into the eyes of the enemy. Nazis everywhere, like from my dreams, except I was awake.

Letter 36
October 3, 2004

Dear Professor Lewis,

Waffles, Professor! Do you know there are waffles in Belgium? It's true. Belgian waffles. Do you remember when you taught my Survey of Ethnography class and talked about the phallic-driven rituals of the Balinese cockfight? That left a lasting impression on me. Preening, fluffing, all that cock violence. Your class made me so curious and made me feel so human, and you, Professor, turned me on to learning (although I've done nothing with my life until now).

I'm engaged in an investigation, Professor. My father is hidden from me! The nature of reality, the truth, it is all hidden. I hope you remember me. T. Rimberg? Scholar of human behavior and history?

I am sitting on a square in downtown Antwerp, Belgium. I've been coming back here again and again in the several days and nights I've been in town in order to observe and take notes. Have you been to Antwerp? I believe your area of expertise was Micronesia. Micro means tiny.

Antwerp (Antwerpen in Flemish) means “hand-throwing,” literally “hand-throwing.” I read that on a brochure about the city I found sitting on a table in this waffle restaurant. No, not hand-throwing as in throwing a pot with one's hands on a potter's wheel. Oh no! There's no making in this story. This throwing is about destruction.

Antwerpen. Hand-throwing.

Folklorically speaking, a young boy hero killed a bad giant a long time ago, cut off his hands, and threw them in the river right where modern Antwerp is. Thus the name Antwerp. Hand-throwing. This is meaningful to me. I threw myself in a river last week. In Paris. If this city were named for my throwing incident, it would be called “Rimbergwerpen” or “T.werpen.” Funny, but true. As a scholar, I take knowledge gained and apply it to new situations to see how it fits. It fits good, Professor. I like “Rimbergwerpen” (literally Rimberg-throwing).

Check this out: I rose up from the river into which I threw myself. I know. But believe it. (Rimbergopklimmen—literally “Rimberg rising”—if I understood what the waffle waitress told me when I asked.)

Waffles.

So I'm sitting in the square, and there is an enormous, delicate cathedral nearby, hovering above everything—I am looking at its clock tower now. Yes, I remember it from when I was here in college (crazy trip). But it is bigger than I remember, which is amazing. Everything else I remember from when I was a youngster is diminished in size from memory. All my memories of big yards and big houses and big adults . . . when I see them again they are small and unimpressive. (I'd likely think you tiny if I saw you now.) But this cathedral is enormous.

Do you know what else is enormous in Antwerpen? Waffles!

They are much bigger than Eggo waffles. Me and my brother David (bastard) ate those sometimes when we were kids.

My dad hit David because of a waffle. One morning David and I were joke-fighting over an Eggo waffle (not real fighting, which was normally the case). A waffle popped out of the toaster, and we both grabbed for it, and we shouted back and forth, just like on the TV ad, “Leggo my Eggo!” My mom sort of laughed, rolled her eyes, and kept scurrying around the kitchen, putting our school lunches together. And the radio was on, local news, cattle prices. And it was warm and good in that kitchen. And me and David got louder and louder, shouting, actually having a good time with one another.

And then my father stormed in, grabbed the Eggo out of our hands, tore it, and threw it in the garbage. He spat, “Fighting over cardboard shit.” He slapped David on the ear, and he would've hit me, but Mom grabbed his arm. Father shoved her away and left the house.

Now I know why, Professor. The waffles in Belgium are magnificent. These waffles are worth fighting for. These waffles are the real thing. My dad must've eaten this kind of waffle growing up. Of course he was upset with us.

In order to understand human behavior, one must understand root causes, eh, Professor? Had I known about these Belgian waffles, I would've known a thing or two about my old dad.

Speaking of Dad, I'm quite sure I see Nazis walking around here. Not neo-Nazis, Professor. Old-fashioned, straight-out-ofthe-movies-Nazis. It's confounding. This is my life's work, I think. This is what I'm here to do.

You've been a real inspiration to me.

Thank you,

T. Rimberg

Letter 37
October 3, 2004

Dear Aunt Jemima,

I'm sorry to say that you've been replaced in my heart by fresh fruit. The lord giveth and the lord taketh away. I only say this because I know from listening to NPR one morning a few years ago that you are named after one of the biblical Job's daughters. Poor, poor misused Aunt Jemima.

Job was Jewish.

I am real and I see Nazis and I'm in a city that was decimated by Nazis and my dad was born here and he was a Jew. That's bad. So don't complain! You're a racist trademark with a hanky on your head. Still I always loved you and your friend Mrs. Butterworth even though you are not real.

Don't complain to me! Especially now that I know a waffle should be covered in fresh fruit and whipped cream, not fake maple butter syrup, which I loved to pour on my Eggo waffles as a small child. I remember staring at your face on the syrup bottle, you smiling at me, while my brother screamed and cried and my mother screamed and cried and my dad slammed the door and left the house.

Sweet liquid and bad memories, Aunt Jemima, daughter of Job. I am in Antwerp, and we shall receive the good hand of the lord (and cut it off and throw it in the river?) and we shall receive evil, Aunty.

Thank you for being a friend.

T. Rimberg

Letter 38
October 4, 2004

Dear Professor Lewis, teacher of the phallic Balinese Cockfight,

More investigatory notes:

Antwerp is filled to the gills with Jews. I didn't remember this from being here with Julia Hilfgott. These Jews are present-day Jews, too, not just Jews from wartime who I dream when I'm awake. The city is filled with actual Jews. The only Jews I remember from my time here with Julia Hilfgott were her family members, who paid no attention to me, who made me feel not at home, which fueled my pain and anguish over leaving Molly Fitzpatrick in Dublin, which caused me to look at the ground and not at the beautifully Semitic Julia Hilfgott, even when Julia pleaded with me to be with her, because, she knew it, we belonged together. Oh, did Julia get upset!

Everybody's always so upset with me, Professor Lewis. Should probably take a hint, huh? I'm an upsetting person.

Other than the shit that was an inch from my own nose when I was here, I don't remember much of Antwerp.

Now I see everything.

I am an examiner, an investigator. I am tracking down my father, Professor, tracking, although that's a ludicrous inclination. I have every evidence he is dead. Still, here I am. I should be dead, too, but I'm not, I don't think, so that's something.

Professor, this morning, after several days of wandering and eating, I told the concierge at the hotel that I was looking to see Jewish stuff. I bet that's part of your investigatory process. Ask a local for info, someone in the know?

The concierge said, “The Shtetl? Diamond district? It is all very close.”

“Shtetl?”

“Yes, Shtetl. I don't call it Shtetl. American tourists often, though. Shtetl because so many look in this neighborhood as if they are from a different century, in Poland maybe?”

“You mean all those Jews in hats aren't ghosts?” I shouted.

The concierge looked at me and didn't crack a smile. She looked mad, maybe, or concerned or annoyed, but she gave me a map. The one direction I haven't walked in this city leads directly to the Shtetl! The fact is every time I've started walking in that direction, I've seen Jews in hats whom I thought were ghosts and I've gotten terrified and run home. But they're alive!

Me, Kaatje, and Cranberry (long story—two young people with me—my research assistants, if you will) walked from our hotel toward this Shtetl. It's good little Kaatje and Cranberry came with me. I am cautious around them, because I know they are agonizing over my behavior (another long story, Professor) and have heard them discuss putting me in a hospital, which is not a good idea. With my research assistants around, I do not say what's on my mind, because I need to stay undercover in society. I can't scream when I see the Gestapo, because nobody but me is privy to their presence, and it's better for me not to set off alarm bells. Got it? To put it in terms an anthropologist would understand, I need to observe, not participate.

Sooo, get this. Not too far from our hotel, maybe a mile or so, we came to the Central Station. (Our train arrived at this station on the way into town, but I saw something strange and ran away from it without ever looking at it.) And, this station. With me finally really engaged in seeing it, really looking, I saw some stuff. I saw people in fur coats and children in hats and Stars of David and I saw bombs falling from the sky. Oh, I knew what was happening, and I was not pleased to know any of this. I knew something about this station. And not just because I see into the past, although that doesn't hurt.

In August, I received a package that contained several pictures of my likely dead father in front of this very station, standing with various formally dressed people—I assume family members or business associates? And there is a zoo next to this station, through this ornate, pretty gate. And also in the package there was a picture of my dead dad at ten years old or so, black and white, a beautiful little-boy Dad, looking like my son Charlie, standing at the gate of this zoo. The exact same gate I see now! My father is ten, but his face is morose. And I see this gate today, and I also see people in overcoats with Stars of David and men with military jackets blowing whistles, and also present-day businessmen. Whoa! My eyes! I cannot participate.

Me and my research assistants crossed the front of the domed station. In present day, the civic square in front of it is dug up for some kind of construction, so it isn't pretty, but the building, Professor, it is perhaps one of the most beautiful train stations anywhere, ever. Golden and darkening metal and dirty stone, but majestic. It scares the shit out of me.

Running along the right side of the station is a long street. This street is filled with diamond shops. As soon as we turned on this street, I knew we were getting close, close, close. Men with dark beards and dark hats rode bicycles. They did not wear Stars of David—these were present-day Jews. Hasidic Jews, so it's hard to tell they're from today. They wore dark wool coats, though the sun was shining and it was in the high sixties. Some were stopped together, in little droves of bicycles, speaking quietly to one another. There were also people who looked more like my dad, big men with big glasses and big rings, climbing out of expensive cars. These, I think, are modern Jews. There were also Indians—from India! Walking around! What do you make of that? Global economy. But mostly Jews.

Jews, everywhere. Some from the olden days, but mostly from right now, today. My dad once told me that only a few hundred Jews were left in Antwerp after the war. I remember him saying it was terrible, terrible. And his parents dead . . . And his brother escaped to New York (where my dad would eventually follow). There have to be thousands of Jews in the city now. The diamond street was filled with them.

Because my research assistants were with me and I needed to mind my manners so they didn't commit me, I did not approach anyone on the street to get the lowdown, whatever that might have been.

Diamonds. I do believe my family dealt in diamonds, Professor, or still does.

Me and my assistants took a right from the diamond street into a little winding neighborhood where all the storefronts—clothes, grocery, pharmacy, bakery—were Jewish and had signs in Hebrew and, I assume, Yiddish. (That's what Kaatje thought—she is a Dutch speaker and her Dutch helps her even with Yiddish—I had no idea—language!) Mothers in dark coats pushed crying babies in strollers, with little boys bounding next to them in yarmulkes. The mothers' heads were covered in scarves or in obvious wigs. These are fundamentalists, Professor Lewis. They're like the Amish but with money and cars. And bicyclists in black hats and old rabbis with long gray beards and gray, grave faces and grave gaits, moving along with their hands clenched behind their backs. They all mumble. Everyone mumbles, mutters: men, women, children. Either to each other, or if alone, to themselves. I remember this from Dad. Their voices are always rumbling soft in their throats. I can hear it now. Just like my dad.

In a bakery, case after white case filled with beautiful foods, everything like something I know, but not exactly—cake-like, bread-like, pretzel-like—I caught fire, and even though my research assistants were with me, I stopped simply observing and began participating. I struck up a conversation in English with a middle-aged woman at the counter. Goose pimples raised on my skin. I told her my father lived in Antwerp before the war. And I ordered a knish and potato latkes, and she said, yes, and wrapped up my purchases, and yes, she lives around the block with her husband, who owns this shop, and yes, three children, and yes, blessings, all are doing well in school.

“Jewish school?” I asked.

She squinted her eyes at me, nodded.

So I nodded, paused, almost said a lot more, but didn't, because I wanted her to ask, wanted her to ask me my name, show she recognized me, but she didn't ask.

Then another woman entered the store, and the shop lady turned her attention to the woman, gravel talking, fast talking, nervous talking in Yiddish, and so I nodded and squinted at both of them, my eyes watering, and then my research assistants grabbed me by the arm and pulled me out of the store. I had my knishes, etc., so okay, fine.

Outside Kaatje said, “You should be careful. I think the shopkeeper was saying something not nice about you to that woman.”

I'm getting closer in my investigation, Professor, closer to my father. I must tread delicately so as not to blow my cover. Yes. Careful I shall be! Fly under the radar. Not raise the eyebrows. I've got to keep my secrets.

We wandered awhile longer, the sun so warm in this place though I've been told it's cold, cloudy, and rainy here this time of year. We found a nicely landscaped park, with little hills, large hardwood trees, and long ponds. The park felt familiar, perhaps from my dreams, which I take seriously these days, even though social scientists like us perhaps should not. I saw kids pulling wagons and riding bikes, kids in 1940s woolen sweaters and khaki shorts, and I then considered my need for stealth, so looked away. The sun shone down, and there we sat and ate, Jews and Indians and Belgians all around. And without the earth shaking or the light changing, I saw jeeps pulling guns, panzers that disappeared into air, flashes of fires and marches of civilians, kids knocked to the ground, bleeding, and I couldn't react, so I looked to the sky, but there prop airplanes streaked, popping clouds and exploding, and so I shut my eyes.

Bakery shop. She knows me in the bakery shop, Professor. I know she recognized me. Perhaps she could provide me information as to the whereabouts of one Josef Rimberg, my father, who likely is or isn't deceased. (What's the difference?)

I will go about these inquiries with great stealth and control.

I wish you were here to guide me in my information gathering, Professor. You would be helpful and dispassionate and rational, unlike my research assistants, who watch me like hawks.