Too Many Men (21 page)

The breakfast room was full of men. Polish men. They were already smoking and drinking. They talked while they ate. Gold teeth and gold rings flashing. “They’re peasants,” she said to Edek. He glared at her. He was right. She shouldn’t call Poles peasants. It was a harsh and unfair assessment. She wished she had a better attitude to Polish people.

“I am not hungry,” Edek said.

“Well, just have something light,” said Ruth. “You need to eat, we’ve

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L I L Y B R E T T

got a lot of walking ahead of us.” Edek brought two slices of ham, in the middle of a large plate, to the table. “This is not too much?” he said to Ruth. Ruth felt agitated. How could two slices of ham be too much? Why did Jews have to be so neurotic about food? Fixated by every detail of everything that went into their mouths? “No, it’s not too much,” she said to her father.

She looked at the bowl of fruit compote she had in front of her. It looked beautiful. Whole plums had been stewed with apricots and prunes and pears. She was about to take a mouthful when she felt somebody staring at her. It was the blond woman. She was staring at Ruth. Staring fixedly.

What was she staring at?

Ruth checked herself. She had been in a hurry to get out of her room this morning. Maybe she had forgotten something. She checked her clothes, her panty hose, her shoes. Everything seemed to be in place. She felt her hair. Maybe it was sticking out more than she had intended. No, her curls seemed to be protruding and springing at the angles she had maneuvered them into.

The woman was still staring at her. Ruth looked the woman in the eye.

The woman didn’t appear to notice. She seemed almost in a trance. Ruth felt unnerved. She looked at Edek. He hadn’t noticed anything. She turned her back to the woman.

A group of workers were hammering and banging in one corner of the breakfast room. The Grand Victoria was undergoing renovations. “They’re badly needed,” Ruth had said to the receptionist this morning. “Why do they have to do the renovations right now?” Ruth said to Edek. “You’d think they could work on a less busy part of the hotel now, and come back here later, when there’s no one here?”

“First you complain that everything is broken,” Edek said. “And now you complain when they fix it up.”

The men were hammering slowly. One nail at a time. There seemed to be several workers for each nail. These renovations were going to be a lengthy process, Ruth thought. She looked at her father. He looked happy.

He had been back to the buffet several times. He had eaten the two slices of ham, four fried eggs, some smoked mackerel, some compote, and some toast. Ruth hadn’t touched her food.

“Shall we walk to Kamedulska Street this morning?” she said to Edek.

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“If you want,” he said.

Kamedulska Street was where Edek had grown up. At number 23. His father had owned the whole apartment block and the one next door. Edek and his parents had lived on the second floor of number 23. Edek’s brothers and sister also lived in the building.

After walking along Piotrkowska Street for several minutes Edek announced that he knew exactly where they were and what route they should take to Kamedulska Street. “It is not so far,” he said. “Maybe fifteen, twenty minutes.” He rushed ahead of Ruth. “The next street is for sure Pusta Street,” he shouted back over his shoulder to her. At the corner he peered at the street sign and ran back to Ruth. “Pusta must be the next street,” he said, and ran off.

Ruth didn’t know why he had to run. Why was every event, finding a street, buying an ice cream, tying a shoelace, an emergency? Edek came running back to her. He was a bit breathless. “This one is also not Pusta,”

he said. “It must be the next one.”

“Calm down, Dad,” she said. “We’re not in a hurry.”

“I am calm,” he said. “I am not the one who needs to calm down. You are the one who looks terrible.” He ran off again.

Ruth sped up. She couldn’t have her eighty-one-year-old father running backward and forward in the streets of Lódz. He would be worn out way before they got to Kamedulska Street. She met him at the next corner. He looked crestfallen. “I thought for sure if the last street was not Pusta then this one would be Glówna. He was staring at the signpost. It said Pilsudskiego.

“Maybe Pusta and Glówna are a little farther on,” Ruth said.

“I know Lódz,” Edek said. “I know every street. I do not know what is happening.”

“Let’s try a few more blocks,” Ruth said. “If we don’t get anywhere, we can go back to the hotel for a taxi.”

“Okay,” said Edek. He started to run again.

Ruth walked behind him. She was too tired to run. “What’s happening?” Edek said to her when she caught up to him three blocks farther along Piotrkowska Street. “This street is supposed to be Gubernatorska and it is not,” he said. He looked very distressed. “What is happening?” he said again.

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“It’s been a long time since you were here, Dad,” she said. “It’s been fifty-eight years. Things have changed.”

“Nothing has changed,” Edek said. “I recognize everything.” They were approaching another corner. Edek ran ahead to the street sign.

“Orla,” she heard him shout. “It is Orla Street. It is exactly what I remembered.” He ran back to her. “If this one is Orla then the last one must be Gubernatorska. I have to go back to check.” Ruth followed him.

She hadn’t expected this. Edek was craning his neck to read a small sign on the side of a building. He swung himself around to face her and almost fell over. Her father had been wheeling and turning and spinning since they left the hotel. Lurching and whirling through the streets of Lódz. It should have been comic, but it wasn’t funny.

“It says Abramowskiego,” Edek said, steadying himself. “We never had a street called Abramowskiego.” Ruth suddenly remembered something she had forgotten. She had a map in her bag. She had several maps in her bag. She had a newly published map of Lódz, she had a map of the former Jewish areas of Lódz, and a map of the Jewish Cemetery. How could she have forgotten about the maps? She always overprepared for everything.

She got out the maps and studied them. Edek walked back to her. “It seems to me,” she said to him after a few minutes, “that some of the street names have changed.”

The maps of the former Jewish sections of Lódz seemed to have different street names from the same configuration of streets on the new map. “I think,” Ruth said, “that Pusta is now Wigury and Glówna is Pilsudskiego.”

She wasn’t sure of this. Maps were not her forte. She considered it an accomplishment that she could now read a map. Maps used to give her a headache. For years all maps looked like mazes. Crisscrossed, clashing, colored lines.

“Geography is complicated for you,” her first analyst had said. “You don’t want to know about other places. For you, catastrophes happen in other places.”

“But I travel,” she had said.

“Only to places you know or know about, you are frightened of the unknown,” the analyst had replied. The unknown that her analyst had been referring to was not a location. It was her parents’ pasts. Ruth had tackled quite a bit of that unknown since then. She had asked her parents quesT O O M A N Y M E N

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tions. She had read books, and now, here she was, in Lódz, able to read a map. What an accomplishment, she thought.

“Why did you not remember you had such a map?” Edek said to her.

“I’m sorry, Dad,” she said. She handed him the maps. Edek leaned against a shop window and studied the maps.

“You are right,” he said. “The names of the streets are not the names what I was used to. They have changed the names. I told you, I would for sure know where I am. And I know where I am. Fifty-eight years and I did forget nothing.” He looked excited. He listed a long list of streets they would be passing on their way to Kamedulska and ran ahead of her. She could hear him listing the streets to himself as he ran.

The area began to look familiar to Ruth. She remembered some of the streets from her last trip. The Jewish areas were all quite close to the center of Lódz. The buildings, like most of the rest of Lódz, were run-down. They looked old and decayed. Crumbling walls, dark, cracked windows. Everything about these dwellings spoke of departure, past lives, lack of life.

Tiles and beams and pieces of plaster and chunks of concrete were missing from building after building. Windows were wired shut and doors patched up. The Poles had not taken care of the buildings. They had taken care not to care about the Jews they had replaced when they moved into these apartments. The Poles were happy, then. Happy with the apartments, the furniture, the china, the clothes, and all the other accoutrements of life that the Jews had left behind. There was not much life left in these fully occupied dwellings now.

Ruth caught up with Edek. He didn’t look tired. He looked well. She felt worn out. Exhausted. Maybe she was suffering from Seasonal Affective Disorder. Seasonal Affective Disorder was a popular disorder in America at the moment. SAD, as it was called, was a deprivation of daylight, which resulted in lethargy and depression. The winter light here in Poland was particularly weak. She was sure it contained none of what she needed to stave off lethargy or depression.

“Did you call the Jewish Center?” she said to Edek. She had asked him to call the Jewish Center on Zachodnia Street. The keys for the Jewish Cemetery had to be picked up from the Jewish Center. Ruth was interested in seeing the center anyway.

“I did call,” Edek said. “I did say we was interested in seeing the center.

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The man I did speak to did say he was very busy. Then he did hang up the phone.”

“Busy?” said Ruth. “There are seven Jews left in Lódz. How busy can he be? I’ll call myself tomorrow.”

Ruth knew that the Jewish Center in Lódz looked after only a handful of Jews. All old men. It was set up to maintain the religious and cultural traditions of the Jews of Lódz. Edek was a Jew from Lódz. Why would the director of the center say he was busy? The center had another purpose. To revive Jewish life in Poland. To reclaim Jewish culture. To give an identity to people who were surfacing, now, in Poland, who thought they might be Jewish. Jews who weren’t sure about their pasts. People who had a grandparent who was Jewish. People who were adopted. People whose parents seemed more Jewish than the parents would admit. Edek was a real Jew.

Not like some of the newly discovered Jews who were beginning to turn up in the few synagogues left in Poland. Jews who looked very Polish to Ruth.

Maybe the director of the center was tired of old Jews passing through Lódz? Maybe he was interested only in those who were staying. She hadn’t expected to be embraced by the Jewish Center of Lódz, but she hadn’t expected to be rejected. Too busy. She felt annoyed. Why hadn’t he just said he wasn’t interested? She was sure that his “too busy” was a lie. Why did he have to lie? She felt angry. She caught herself. Why was she so outraged about the man who ran the Jewish Center of Lódz? She was obviously overtired. She was glad that she hadn’t heard from Max this morning.

Having to deal with Mr. Newton or Mr. Long would have been more than she could handle.

Ruth thought about Max’s married lover. Max was sure that he was not lying to her. “He’s got no need to lie to me,” she had said to Ruth. “I’m not his wife.” Max hadn’t seemed to see the lack of logic in her thinking. But then maybe logic played no part in affairs. “I see him three or four times a week,” Max had said to Ruth. “He’s so supportive of me. He spends weekends with his wife. And I don’t mind that. She doesn’t seem to mind if he’s out on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday. But he’s got to be back with her on Saturday and Sunday.”

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her.” Ruth had remained silent. “Okay,” Max had said. “Maybe sex isn’t so routine with her. Shit, why am I thinking about her?”

“I guess you share something pretty intimate,” Ruth had said.

“Pretty and intimate,” said Max. “His you-know-what.” They had both laughed.

Morality was such a complicated question. Ruth dealt with minuscule aspects of it in her work life every day. A client she hardly knew had asked Ruth if it would be dishonest of her to become pregnant without telling her partner what she was planning.

“How are you going to carry out that plan?” Ruth had said.

“I would inseminate myself after sex, with the contents of the condom,”

the client had said. “It’s always my job to throw it out.”

“Well, he wouldn’t have had any further use for it,” Ruth had said.

“You’d be using up something that would have just been thrown away.”

They had laughed.

“Would it be dishonest of me?” the client had asked again.

“Dishonest?” Ruth had said. “I don’t know. The world is full of men who manipulate women in the name of the law, the government, and God.

I don’t know if it would be dishonest.”

Afterward, she had thought that she had been cowardly. Of course it was dishonest. There were degrees of dishonesty in everyone’s life, of course. She herself felt a vague discomfort when clients cried at certain things she had written. She had caught one of her clients weeping pro-fusely, in the office, after he had picked up a condolence letter. “I thought you didn’t like your uncle?” Ruth had said to him. “I never saw this side of him,” the client said. Ruth had seen no point in pointing out that she hadn’t known his uncle. “Everything you’ve said in this letter is true,” the client had said, and left the office, still weeping.

What was the truth and what wasn’t was often impossible to detect. The truth had appeared obscure to Ruth, from the time she was a child. She used to lie a lot. She made things up. As a six-year-old she spun whole stories around her lies. Stories of poverty and hardship. The Rothwaxes were poor, but in Ruth’s tales they had to endure extreme deprivation. She and her mother and father had to share one blanket, Ruth told her school friends, and they slept on old newspapers, on the floor. Her school friends