The Miracle Letters of T. Rimberg (21 page)

Day Twelve:
Transcript 1

Thank you. Good morning to you.

Me and Faye watched the Packer game on TV last night.

Faye is so great. Hi Faye. She'll hear this because we're recording, right?

Hi Faye!

Yeah, they got thumped . . . but preseason . . . you know, whatever. Favre looked good. He threw that touchdown.

Wow. I bet you're right. He probably does know who I am now. Weird.

I'm glad you enjoyed the game.

Well, there isn't much left to tell, Father B.

Correct. My father had written to me again, a few days before he went into a coma. He did send the letter but made the mistake of addressing it himself—a banker in Switzerland had addressed the inheritance envelope. Dad's handwriting was so bad, it took the post office a while to figure out where to deliver it.

I was already in Europe when it arrived, otherwise I would have gone right to Poland and would've avoided all that crazy stuff, would've avoided Amsterdam and Paris and Julia in Antwerp.

Maybe. Maybe I'll get there, Father B. I suppose—I guess I can't imagine who I'd be right now if I hadn't jumped in the river or . . . broken into my father's apartment. It isn't like I'd wish that stuff on anyone, though.

It took me a month before I realized Dad was in this crazy vase covered with birds. Everything in Pani's room is covered with birds. Bird photos, bird paintings, she had a bird bedspread. A vase on her dresser covered with birds didn't catch my attention.

Sometime in December . . . Paulina was drinking. She whispered, “Father is in a vase!” We went creeping into Pani's room and tiptoed up to it, but Pani woke up and shouted at us.

Of course I took a closer look later. I spoke to Dad. Not literally . . . to his remains.

I was with Paulina on that. I got drunk with her all the time. Pani would cook for us and clean. The kosher butcher decided he'd keep taking the business checks after Pani and Paulina took me down there and I apologized . . . so we had money. Paulina and I drank.

I haven't had a dream since November 9 of last year. Kristallnacht. Paulina stopped dreaming, too. So we communed the only way we knew how, I guess. Got into a common state of inebriation.

It really just made it easy to talk and laugh. We played cards a lot.

Sometimes. She gave me a black eye once. She's very strong.

It was messy. Sometimes we'd sleep on the floor under the dining room table. We were pretty serious about drinking.

I didn't think about anything. I just was. My health was pretty bad, you know? I didn't have a lot of energy to think about the future. Especially with all that drinking.

I grew to love Poland. I love that place. At least I grew to really love the apartment and the grounds right around it. The building felt like home. We didn't leave much, sometimes not for weeks at a time.

By spring. When it started getting warm and I wasn't getting better. All winter I believed my health would improve when it warmed up. But it warmed up and I still felt horrible. Then I got scared. I stopped drinking in spring. So did Paulina—she started running, decided to train for road races, which is a better way to . . . you know. Deal with loss.

You know how.

Yes, Cranberry, agent of change.

He took Kaatje to meet his mother, back in St. Paul. During that trip, in April, he picked up my mail from the post office. Cranberry found the letter from Dad. It led him right to Warsaw.

Poor kid thought I was dead.

Letter from Josef Rimberg mailed to T. Rimberg on August 15, 2004. Handwritten address nearly illegible. Delivered to T. in Warsaw by Nick Kelly, May 2005.

August 15, 2004

Dear Theodore, my good boy,

I'm afraid it is late. I had some big plans, but as soon as your father gets afraid to die, he starts keeling over right then.

Dying has never been a worry to me. I rode a horse right up to a train while Germans tried to kill me and never was afraid to die, not even when one of their bullets hit me on my hip. Never afraid, because what did I want to live for? My terrible father? My poor mother? I knew they would not survive the war even though my father would do everything to survive, lie, steal, kill everyone else to stay alive. I knew he would die and I would never see him again. You know what his great wish to live got him? A noose for both him and my mother in Holland. That's another story. You worry too much about beating death, you start dying. I never worried about it, but now I am.

I got cancer in my liver. The doctors told me I might have a year to live and I believed them. So I made some plans. I will tell you this, no government in Belgium is going to get my money. What did they ever do for the Jews? And then they think they should have my money? I moved some assets, made arrangements with my business partners, then I paid a Jewish doctor to sign my death certificate in Antwerp and I moved to be with my love in Warsaw. She is a good girl, Jadwiga. I know you will understand why I love her. She is a good woman. I wish now I would have moved to Warsaw a long time ago, but I never thought much about time and how it would end and what maybe I missed. I did my business and I worked hard. And I was good to the people I worked with, Theodore. You ask any of them. Josef Rimberg was a good man.

I would not want them to ask you what you thought. They might change their minds and think I'm not such a good guy. If maybe I moved a little faster, I could change your mind, but these doctors are quacks and I do not have a year anymore.

The other morning I woke up feeling sick and when I looked in the mirror my face was an orange color. This was not a healthy look. I went right over to Geneva on an airplane and got that money I took out of my business, which is not all the money but my Jadwiga and Paulina they got to eat too, and sent it to you. I sent you all those letters, too, that I meant to send you for Hanukkah, but I won't last to Hanukkah. You mostly got a lot of money. Don't think, Theodore, that I think I can bribe you to love me with money, but money does not hurt. And it is all I have got to give you, Theodore, because I have no time. My skin is orange because my liver won't cooperate anymore.

Do you know my best memory? Remember when me and you went to visit the Green Bay Packers summer training? David your brother was already too good to go around with his parents and wanted to meet girls in the park, so he and your mother stayed home. Me and you drove to Lambeau Field and saw the hall of fame, and I bought you that running back jersey. Terdell Middleton. I never liked his name. But he was a good running back. We stood out there with all the Packer fans and watched Lynn Dickey throw those passes to James Lofton. There is nothing so pretty as seeing real professionals play sports. Dickey threw those long passes that arched down the field, and Lofton leaped up and took those balls right from the sky. It was beautiful to watch. Nothing brings tears to my eyes. But thinking of those passes with my little boy Theodore holding my hand next to me. That does the job. Remember how Chester Marcol kicked that ball so bad it bounced up to us on the sideline? I handed you the ball, and Chester let you run it back over to him. Nice man. There wasn't no cloud in the sky that day. Just bright, still, light. My best memory, Theodore. I remember it like it just happened. All that light.

You will understand soon how fast twenty-five years passes you by.

There have been only a few days when the world is light like that. The day when the Catholic boys and I went after that train. The day you were born. The day I came to Warsaw and saw your sister the first time. The day Brett Favre won the Super Bowl. I thought about you that day, even though it was the middle of the night in Antwerp. I turned on every light in the apartment and shouted out my window. I knew you were watching, too, Theodore. I knew you had your own children, and I worried so much about what I had done to you. But Brett Favre won it and I thought everything, Theodore, everything will turn out.

Twenty-five years, and I never thought we didn't have a good relationship. Now I am afraid of dying, I do not want to because now we will never sit down and have a good talk which is something we need. Your mother never wanted me to be in contact, which I gave her to pay her back for the trouble I caused. She would tell me how you are doing, which I thought was enough. But what can a mother really know? I should have stayed in your life. I never was afraid, but now I want to see you, Theodore. So I have a favor for you.

I am asking you to come to Warsaw immediately. This is the invitation I did not put in your inheritance. You get this letter, you come to Warsaw and we will talk. I would call your telephone, but I am afraid of your rejection and don't want it to be the last thing in my life. I prefer to think maybe we did have a good relationship all this time. It is a terrible chain, being afraid of dying and becoming a coward because I am afraid of what life might give me now that my liver stops working and my face is orange. We were friends, weren't we, Theodore?

Come to Warsaw. The address is on the envelope. You come. I will not be afraid anymore. We say goodbye. Then you take my ashes and put them at Lambeau Field. Jadwiga will not be happy with this, but you should see this jar she wants to put me in. It is not a good jar, and I do not want to be in a jar. She won't listen. I want to be with you in the Midwest.

You need to meet your sister even if I am gone. She has had bad luck but she's a good girl, she's typing this as I speak, not so well but we will fix it, and she could use a good brother like you.

You got money now. You get on a plane, okay, Theodore? We will talk about what we need to talk about.

With great love,

Your Father

Day Twelve:
Transcript 2

My dad was not a bad guy. At least, he didn't want to be a bad guy. That's something, I think.

Cranberry?

I wept when Cranberry showed up at the flat. I cried like a baby.

Cranberry carried all of the past with him . . . all of my reality before Poland . . . he somehow carried it . . . I only thought of Poland when I was in Poland.

Paulina, after she reread the letter, knew it was the right thing to do. Dad clearly didn't want to be in that bird vase. She got Pani Jadwiga to agree to take a trip to Krakow to see her cousins.

I felt very guilty, but it was necessary, Barry.

The whole thing was surreal. I walked them out to the car, knowing I was going to go. Paulina was just shaking. She whispered not to forget about her. They got in Paulina's car to drive south, and boom, Cranberry and I were off to America.

No, by that time I knew I wasn't in legal trouble. I mean I'd known for a couple of weeks. The U.S. embassy had finally called.

I would likely have left Warsaw after I found out Dad was dead. It was important that I believed I was in trouble.

Since I've been back, I've been in Milwaukee, bowling a lot.

No, I never went. I don't really like going to the doctor. I felt a little better after I stopped drinking, anyway.

I didn't call them. I thought about them a lot, of course . . . missed them while I was gone . . . you know when I was in jail in Poland. I don't know why I didn't contact them. Maybe I'm still an ass. I was afraid. I am going to see them now, you know? Nothing will stop me.

You mean why'd it take so long to get to Lambeau?

It wasn't my intention. I was trying to figure out how to get into the stadium. I definitely didn't intend to wait until August, but after looking and considering, I figured the only way I could do it was if there were a lot of people around, if I could somehow blend into the scenery. There was a training camp scrimmage scheduled in the stadium on the eighth. I saw that on the website. That's where I was headed when the accident happened.

Yes, I did have the note for Brett Favre Dad wanted me to deliver. It was written on the bottom of that last gooey letter Dad wrote.

It burned in the crash.

Dad told Brett Favre that the way he plays football is instructive. He said that you can't fear interceptions—you can't fear for your safety or you'll get hurt. You have to enjoy the ride, Brett! That kind of stuff. Pretty goofy.

Yes, I miss her a lot. My sister! We've talked on the phone several times throughout the summer. Pani was very very very angry. Out of control. Slapped at Paulina, threatened to throw her out of the apartment. Not good.

Oh, she calmed down eventually. I spoke with her on the phone in July. She understands English, you know.

Yes, of course I miss Paulina. I already said that.

What are you smiling about?

What do you mean nothing?

Well, anyway, that's pretty much the story. I've been in Wisconsin ever since May, waiting for football season. I was on my way to the stadium when it all exploded.

Nope. I haven't written a journal entry or letter since Kristallnacht.

Why are you smiling like that, Barry?

Paulina?

When? Into Green Bay? When?

Did you arrange this?

Charlie?

Barry, when?

You are—you really, really are—the most beautiful priest I have ever met. I know. I know. But you still are. You are, Barry.

Section IV

Green Bay

Letter 58
Letter left at front desk of St. Vincent's Care
Center, Green Bay, WI
August 22, 2005

Dear Father Barry,

Watch out. I have a pen in my hand. I haven't written anything in nine months other than bowling scores and phone numbers, but now in my hand is a pen you left behind after we talked yesterday. The pen is advertising St. Vincent Catholic Church's summer schedule. “Our services are prayer conditioned.” Did someone from the diocese write that?

Speaking of Saint Vincent, I read about him in
Life of the Saints,
a large beaten book that sits next to the television in the common room here. Saint Vincent de Paul, the book said, loved everyone: poor, rich, crazy, ignorant, sweet. Saint Vincent, as you probably know, cared for everyone and asked everyone to be humble and to take special care of the sick and the sad.

All of Green Bay was like Saint Vincent last night.

I felt very loved up there at the accident site, on the embankment, where thin threads of light dance off the burnt pavement when it gets dark. Charlie, my son, nuzzled his head into my chest as the sky darkened, and people surrounded me to thank me for my actions. I'm glad my right arm isn't in a cast, so I could hug Charlie to me.

You asked me what changed between the time Charlie arrived on the bus from Minneapolis, so sullen and cold, and the time we drove out to the accident site, when he was better. I didn't want to answer in front of Charlie; I didn't want to embarrass him. You were right, something changed. But nothing is fixed.

When me and Charlie were alone in my room, after Faye left to get Paulina, I stood up from the bed and said to him, “Oh man, there you are. You're here. It is so good to see you, Charlie.” I had tears in my eyes. My voice wavered.

Charlie didn't respond. He looked out the window and his eyes began to tear up.

I said, “You're mad. You should be angry. I'm so sorry.” I moved to hug him, and he shoved me back onto my bed.

“You are a shit-bag dad,” he shouted. “I hate you.”

I sat there on my bed for a moment, staring at his face that just said shit, his little-boy face, red and swollen with anger. He pushed me onto this bed, Father B., where for the last two weeks I've had to think so hard about what I've done, which hasn't been a great deal of fun. And I nodded, and I said, “Charlie, I have been a terrible, horrible shit-bag dad. I know.”

“You're lucky I'm even here. Mom made me come.”

“I'm so sorry. I'm so lucky you're here. I don't deserve such a good son.”

“You're an asshole dad,” Charlie sobbed.

“Asshole dad?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said.

This is strong language, Father Barry. It hurt. But I told him he was right, and that his language didn't go far enough. I told him we'd have to come up with much worse language to cover what kind of dad I've actually been because
asshole
and
shit bag
don't really do the matter justice. Charlie listened. I caught his attention. He's been working as an extra at the Guthrie Theater this year while I've been gone. Apparently he's learned new ways of expressing himself. He found more terrible language to describe me. He used lots of new words.

It helped Charlie to express himself as truthfully as he could. By the time Faye returned from the airport with Paulina, Charlie was in the mood to hug everyone. He hugged Paulina, which made her cry, and Faye, who apparently cries more often than not. And I cried, too, because what am I going to do with all of this?

This morning, after everything last night, I was really emotional, and I sat Charlie down in the chairs where you and I sit to talk. I looked into his eyes, and I asked him to forgive me.

He smiled and said, “No.” Then he laughed. Then he went to the nurses' station to get a donut. He returned with an extra donut and gave it to me. Then we watched cartoons.

Father Barry, I can't make up for what I've done. Still, Charlie loves me. He brought me a donut. I don't necessarily deserve to be forgiven, you know? But I think we're going to be okay. He wants to be my son. Would I have forgiven my father if given the chance? I don't know. I still love him. I think I understand him, and if I had a chance to talk to Dad, I would tell him that I understand. Maybe
forgiveness
is an empty word. Maybe acceptance is all there is. Chances are Dad would've screwed up again if he had lived. Would I have brought him a donut? Probably.

What a strange night.

From watching television, I didn't imagine the accident site correctly. Yes, there were hundreds of people, a mob. But driving up and seeing those people against the backdrop of a flat landscape that goes on forever was a little underwhelming. People are so small and the sky is enormous and the browns and grays of the earth and pavement stretch away forever. TV puts everything in a box, intensifies it all, but the land goes on and on.

It wasn't until we moved into the crowd that I felt the intensity. We were guided in by the police and people pushed toward me to get a look. They smiled and waved and shook my hand. The sun began to set. So many in the crowd held candles, and the light pooled in the darkening air, which began to create a sense of boundary from the enormous sky. We arrived at the edge of the downed overpass and I could see people in their shorts and Packer T-shirts lined up down the highway and on the opposite embankment, so many with lit candles, like All Souls' Day in Poland, the whole scene bathed in candlelight. And the sun went down and the air rose.

And I saw it. Heat from the departed sun rose off the pavement. I saw it. Quiet Green Bay whispered and prayed, and Charlie nuzzled into me, and Paulina stared down at the highway, then turned toward me, her mouth open, because she couldn't understand what we were seeing: wisps of light, strings of lit dust lifting from the burnt pavement and twisting in the air, organizing and breaking, then reconfiguring, rising up. I don't know, Father Barry.

You asked, after, what I made of it all, seeing the scene. I have a hard time believing I have anything to say about anything. I'm aware, after reading through the notebooks with you, that I am a huge fool. But before the letters, Father, I never said anything to anybody. Even if I never sent a single one of those letters and never intended to send them and even if I'm crazy, when I began to write them, I was trying to communicate something, wasn't I?

Dad was trying, too, it seems.

Okay. Listen. I think I've seen it before. I think the light is from Dublin and Julia, and from Paris in the Seine, and it was in Antwerp in the park, and I saw candlelight mix with that kind of light in the Polish cemetery. It might be the light my dad saw the day he and his Catholic brothers attacked the train and released a hundred and fifty people who were bound for Auschwitz. If I've seen it, millions of people have seen it in a million different ways, and I don't know what it is. It might be nothing at all or it might be something. I think it's something.

“What do you make of all this?” you asked. I couldn't answer and maybe I shouldn't, but I'm going to.

Father Barry, I'm sorry. I didn't see the Virgin Mary down there where the bus crashed and the overpass collapsed. But I understand why you might see her, why Catholics see her. The light is amazing. And there is this astonishing thing that happened. If an astonishing thing is a miracle, that was my miracle . . . and the Virgin Mary is associated with miracles. Maybe that light is her and I simply don't have the background to recognize her. Maybe Mary showed up to mark the spot. But I didn't see her.

I saw dust that gathered light and rose on the air from the burnt pavement, dust that rose and danced.

What do I make of all this? My first inclination is to shrug and to believe the guy on CNN who said, “It's marvelous to see, but come on. The light is caused by the chemicals the fire department used to douse the fire. The foam left a dust, and the dust rises on heat from the pavement, and it's being illuminated by man-made sources of light.” Yes. Sounds right. You know, Dad's ashes are also mixed up with that foam dust. Maybe his earthly remains are incandescent. He was quite a guy.

But my inclinations don't stop with that first one. My second inclination is to think of Van Gogh's painting
Starry Night
. My third inclination is to think of Julia Hilfgott in a bubble of light by an Irish cemetery. My fourth inclination is to see my sister illuminated as a little girl in my dreams, saving me. My fifth inclination is to remember. I remember now, Father Barry. I remember hitting the tour bus after it veered and crashed into the overpass in front of me. I remember exploding into the side of the bus. I remember opening my eyes, the airbag deflating, dust from my father's bird vase thick in the air. I remember thinking, “What just happened?” I remember kicking the door out, sliding out of the luggage hold of the bus, running away then stopping, hearing the roar of fires and screams behind me. I remember turning back to the bus, thinking, “This is a disaster.” And I remember charging into the fires to free the people on the bus, seeing slabs of concrete from the overpass that had buckled when the bus hit its support blocking the door to the bus, screams from the bus and faces pressed against glass. I remember crying to them, “I can't get to you.” I remember climbing the remains of the overpass and finding a pick-up truck crashed and empty on it (the driver had apparently already run). I remember rolling the pick-up truck off to the right, rolling it over the edge of the buckled lane where it dropped ten feet onto its side (I hoped getting the truck off the overpass would somehow help me move the slabs that blocked the bus door, which was wishful thinking, except . . .). When the truck hit the pavement, it exploded. The explosion shot me into the air, and for a moment I had this slow, clear view of Lambeau Field and I knew I had to die, knew it was time, and I laughed because I thought, “Oh, now that I don't want to die, this is what I get?” And then I was amazed because I knew I wanted to live. I fell to the earth screaming. Rebar saved me. I fell onto hot bands of metal that bent with my weight, slowed me. For a moment I hung there, yards from the ground, my back searing, and I cried out in pain, but mostly in celebration. I swore with words Charlie hasn't even dreamed of. I broke my arm as I twisted out of the metal and I cried, “Fuck you, arm!” And I looked up and saw the bus door. The exploding pick-up truck had moved the bus, cleared most of the cement in front of its door. I ran to the door, shoved and kicked the remaining blocks of concrete, and opened the door, and people tumbled down the stairs and out, shoving into me, screaming. I climbed into the bus, crawled along the floor, pulled people out from under crumpled seats with my good arm. People dragged their children and parents out around me. The machine roar of the fire swallowed their cries. Fire climbed the windows. Heavy smoke billowed and exploded, carrying burning fabric. “I'm not going to die,” I shouted at people who escaped. Finally, I pulled a girl who seemed dead out from under a seat. I pinched her to me, dragged her toward the door, past the bus driver, his mouth open, dead eyes open—a heart attack, I heard, that caused the whole accident in the first place. I said sorry. And then I dragged this girl down the stairs, tripping on her dead legs, out of the bus. People were screaming at me as we emerged from the smoke, heading toward the cars and the crowd, away from the bus.

I think the bus exploded then. I remember a deafening sound and nothing else until your blurry face, backlit from a window, Father Barry. We were in the hospital. You bent over me. You said, “Mr. Rimberg. The Lord has blessed you.” You made me laugh.

Later I remember waking and wondering where I'd put my father's ashes. I couldn't remember, but knew my loss had something to do with the cards and phone calls from families and the visit from the family of some girl who was in stable condition somewhere else in the hospital. And you were in my room wanting to talk, and I felt broken everywhere, and groggy, and confused. I was most definitely alive, even though I had the sense I shouldn't be so lucky.

And what did we talk about when we sat together? You had somehow gotten your hands on my notebooks. We talked about this exhausting, ridiculous year I've had, this year spawned from my utter inability to live decently.

There are things I want to say. They grew during the time we've been together. I wasn't sure I wanted to say these things, Father Barry. I wasn't sure of them. But having Charlie here and Paulina, having seen what I saw last night—I have to give voice to these things.

I am a complete idiot, a narcissist, a navel gazer, and a philanderer. I am humbled and culpable. But I am happy I was suicidal. I am delighted I saw ghosts. I believe my dad talked to me after he died. I saw my little sister in my dreams before I knew she existed. I saved a busload of goddamn Packer fans from death. I am a father. This is all real and right and I am not ashamed. Life is a complete disaster. It is horrible and ridiculous. I am so lucky to have this chance. Most people aren't so lucky. They should pay better attention.

That's what I have to say.

Now I'm going to pull Charlie from watching TV in the common room. We're going to meet Faye and Paulina at the Perkins across the parking lot for some breakfast (even though my smarty-pants son says he doesn't want to eat at a chain restaurant). I will buy breakfast for all of them, anything they want, because I love these people.

Later today, Faye is driving us to Minneapolis so Paulina can meet my daughters. I'm going to hug them and take all the abuse and anger they've got, because I deserve it. And then I'm going to tell them some amazing stories. And then what? I'm going to love my kids and they're going to know it. I'll go from there.

Sound like a plan? I hope so, because that's all I got.

Thank you so much for what you've done, Father Barry. Really. Thank you.

T.