Too Many Men (12 page)

“A child prodigy,” Ruth said.

“Thank you,” said Höss. “For me, being a soldier was very much a calling. The first time I shot a man, I was ice calm. I was completely composed.

I said to myself: ‘My first dead man.’ For me, the spell was broken.”

T O O M A N Y M E N

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“The spell of thinking that to kill is difficult?” Ruth said.

“Precisely,” said Höss. “I think you know something yourself about spells and superstitions and illusions.”

“I know nothing about killing people,” Ruth said.

“During the war, I kept thinking about my parents’ desire for me to be a priest,” Höss said. “I was, as you know, disillusioned about the priesthood, but even if this had not been the case I would have questioned my suitability for the priesthood. In the last letter my mother wrote me, before she died, she told me never to forget the path my father had chosen for me.

My guardians and in fact all of my relatives pressured me to go immediately to a training college for priests. I did explain, did I not, that the war I am referring to is of course the war before the one in which your parents were involved.”

“That’s the best use of the word ‘involved’ that I’ve ever heard,” Ruth said. “My parents were not ‘involved.’ My mother was starved and beaten and raped and brutalized in about as many ways as your people could devise. I don’t think that that could be termed ‘involved.’ You’ll have to improve your English.”

Ruth felt herself feeling shaky again. “You are very concerned about words, aren’t you?” Höss said.

“Some words make me feel sick,” she said.

“It was not an easy time for me, this time that I am talking about,” Höss said. “The full significance of my mother’s death hit me, just after she died.

I realized that I no longer had a home. My relatives had divided out our possessions. They were so sure that I would become a missionary and my sisters would remain in the convent to which they had been sent. I knew then that I would have to battle my way through the world alone.”

Ruth looked around her. Krakowskie Przedmiescie was quite crowded now. She must look odd, she thought. She must look as though she was talking to herself. The Poles thought her exercise clothes were odd enough.

Now she must look like someone from another planet.

“You are not listening to me,” Höss said. “I can see you are concerned with what other people think of you.”

“Well, I must look pretty strange,” Ruth said.

“You do not need to be self-conscious,” Höss said. “Nobody else can hear what I am saying to you.”

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L I L Y B R E T T

“They can hear me,” Ruth said. “I obviously look as though I’m talking to myself.”

“When you speak to me, it is not so apparent to other people,” Höss said.

“That doesn’t make sense,” said Ruth.

“Not very much in the world makes sense,” Höss said, “I think you know that.” Ruth’s head started to spin. She felt exhausted. “Don’t worry,”

Höss said. “You worry more than is strictly necessary. You will be all right.

Nobody will arrest you. I was arrested myself for a very unfortunate incident when I was a young man. It was June 28, 1923. I remember the date exactly. I am very good with numbers.”

“Is this a long story?” Ruth said.

“No, not at all,” said Höss. “I was in the Freikorps. The Freikorps were volunteer soldiers who were formed to guard the frontiers and to prevent internal disturbance.”

“ ‘Internal disturbance,’ ” Ruth said. “ ‘Internal disturbance’ sounds like a gastric disorder.” What a stupid thing to say, she thought. She could tell that she was no longer thinking clearly. She had to get back to the hotel.

“What a stupid thing to say,” Höss said. “I will ignore it. The German government needed the Freikorps for those situations in which the police force—and later on the army—was too weak to deal with the trouble. The result was that they could not punish offenses committed by the Freikorps, so we administered our own justice. Treachery was punished by death, and there were many traitors. Our murder trials were modeled after the Vehmgericht, medieval courts that sat and passed sentence in secret. This worked very well for us. But I was unlucky. A Vehmgericht murder trial in which I was involved became known, and I was brought to trial at the state court for the Defense of the Republic. We had killed a man who had betrayed one of us to the French. Schlageter, who was betrayed, was as a matter of fact an old comrade of mine.”

“Could you edit this story?” Ruth said. “I’m not feeling well.” Why was she listening to him at all? Surely she could just walk back to the hotel.

“I will be brief,” Höss said, “you do not look well. I was, of course, there when the traitor was killed. But I was most certainly not the ring-leader. During our interrogation I saw that the comrade who did the actual killing would be incriminated by my testimony so I took the blame myself.”

T O O M A N Y M E N

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“I wondered how long it would take you to get on to your innocence again,” Ruth said. “First, you accidentally pushed a boy downstairs, now you say you’re innocent of a murder. I can’t wait to hear what else you are going to come up with.”

“How can you speak to me in this way?” Höss said. “I am trying to tell you the story of my innermost being. The psychological heights and depths of my life.”

“What a prospect,” Ruth said.

“I am trying to be as truthful as I can,” said Höss.

“I can appreciate how hard that is for you,” Ruth said. Höss didn’t seem to notice the irony in her voice.

“It is painful for me,” Höss said. “Remember that in Zweites Himmel’s Lager we feel pain.”

“That is one of the most interesting things you’ve said to me,” Ruth said. “I wouldn’t forget that.”

“On March 15, 1924,” Höss said, “I was sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment for the murder of this traitor. Let me tell you that serving a sentence in a Russian prison is not an experience that I would recommend. As a political prisoner I was kept in solitary confinement. This was what saved me.

“I watched my fellow inmates from my window. I watched them exercise in the courtyard. I watched them in the washhouses or getting their hair cut. I listened to them talking to each other every night. I listened to their warped minds, to their monstrous thoughts, their depravities, their odiousness, and their aberrations. A world I did not know existed opened before my eyes. I had the time, in prison, to reflect on my life. To think about mistakes I had made and weaknesses that I had shown.

“I made a promise to myself. I would do everything in my power to ensure that the future would be as rich and rewarding for me as possible. I slowly adjusted, to the crude language of the prison guards and to the des-picable, vile, squalid, and sordid language of the prisoners. But I could never adjust to the cynicism with which the prisoners treated all things of beauty. They used their reprehensible, filthy language to describe things that many men view as sacred. I learned, too, from observing myself, that a sensitive prisoner suffers more from unjustified hostile spiteful words than from any physical cruelty.”

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L I L Y B R E T T

“Fuck, shit, asshole, dickhead, piss face,” Ruth shouted. The words flew out of her mouth and left her stunned. Where had they come from?

“Motherfucker,” she shouted at Höss.

“This does not offend me,” Höss said. Ruth thought that she detected a puritanical pinch to his consonants and syllables.

“I think you must be feeling better,” said Höss. “The color in your face is greatly improved.” Ruth didn’t answer. “I had a very upsetting time at the end of my second year in prison,” Höss said. “I became unable to eat or to sleep. I could not concentrate on anything, and all day I paced up and down in my cell. The doctor diagnosed it as prison psychosis. I was given tranquilizers and put on an invalid diet. One night I saw my dead parents standing next to me. I spoke with them. I have never told anyone at all about this episode.”

“I’ve got to go,” Ruth said. “I have to have a shower and change my clothes before I meet my father for breakfast.”

“It is not very sensitive of you to choose this moment to leave,” Höss said. “Anyway, I was lucky. A majority was created in the Reichstag by a coalition of the extreme right and the extreme left when I still had five years of my sentence left to serve. Both parties wanted political prisoners to be set free. An amnesty act was passed on July 14, 1928. I was a free man.”

“Hooray,” said Ruth.

“It is useless to use sarcasm,” Höss said. “It does not affect me. The freedom was not so easy for me, at first. I went to Berlin. Kind friends there insisted I go to films and theater and all sorts of parties. It really was too much for me. I longed for peace. I needed to get away from the noise and the rush of the city. I was lucky. After ten days I left Berlin to take up a job as an agricultural officer. I wanted to live on the land. I wanted to rebuild Germany. In prison I had decided that I would fight and work for one thing only. To own my own farm, and to live there with a large and healthy family.”

“You sound like a superannuated hippie,” Ruth said.

“What did you say?” Höss said.

“Nothing,” she said.

“I needed to escape the frivolous, unhealthy, and morally corrupt life of the cities,” Höss said.

T O O M A N Y M E N

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Ruth realized that she didn’t have enough time to shower before breakfast.

“I found the woman I had longed for during all my years of loneliness,”

Höss said. “It felt like we had known each other our whole lives. This com-patibility and unity and harmony stayed with us throughout our life together. We were like this during the hardships and during the good times and during the bad times. We were not influenced in our love for each other by anything that happened in the outside world.”

“Hey,” Ruth said. “I don’t have to listen to this.”

“What is wrong with what I am saying?” Höss said.

“You wouldn’t understand,” Ruth said. “Anyway, you used the word

‘during’ three times in the one sentence.”

“I understand much more than you think,” Höss said.

“I’m going,” said Ruth. She had had enough. She turned sharply on her heel and walked away. Höss screamed. It was the cry of a man in pain. She turned back to where she imagined he was. “What’s wrong?” she said.

“Nothing, nothing at all,” Höss said. He sounded fragile.

“Then why hold me up?” she said. “I’m in a hurry.” She turned and walked away again. Höss screamed louder. Ruth tried to stand in a position that she imagined might be facing Höss. “What’s up?” she said very firmly.

“Can’t you bear farewells?”

“I can tolerate everything,” Höss said. Ruth turned away, in disgust.

The scream that came from Höss hurt her ears. She stopped.

“This has nothing to do with anything that you are doing,” Höss said.

“Really?” Ruth said. She went over her previous movements slowly. She dug her heel in the ground, as though she was going to turn. Höss cried out. She tried it again. He screamed.

“This has nothing to do with anything that I am doing?” she said.

Höss was silent.

“I’m going,” she said. She walked briskly along Krakowskie Przedmiescie. She felt good.

Chapter Five

R
uth almost didn’t see her father. He was sitting in an armchair, in the lobby of the Bristol Hotel. He was nearly buried in the stuffed and puffed-up body of the chair. His shoulders were slumped. His head was bent. His chin touched his chest. His cheeks and his mouth had slipped and shifted to a lower position on his face than they usually occupied. He had the stillness of a corpse. For a moment, Ruth was alarmed.

Then she saw his eyes move. He watched her walking toward him.

“What are you doing, Dad?” she said

“Waiting for you,” said Edek. “We did have an arrangement that I should meet you at eight o’clock.”

“But why are you waiting here?” Ruth said. “Why didn’t you go into the restaurant?”

“I am very comfortable here,” Edek said. “Why should I go into a restaurant by myself?”

“Oh, okay,” she said. He looked tired. “Are you all right?” she said.

“Of course I am all right,” Edek said. “What is not to be right?”

“The way you were sitting,” Ruth said. “I thought that something might be wrong.”

“What should be wrong?” Edek said. “I am here in Poland, with my daughter. Just like you wanted. It does not always have to be something wrong.” He stood up and looked at Ruth.

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“You look shocking,” he said. “Maybe it was not such a good idea to come to Poland?” He looked at her again. “You do not look heltzy,” he said. “We can call the whole trip off. We can have a dinner in a nice restaurant tonight, maybe some
pierogi
, then we can change our tickets. I will come back to New York with you for one week or maybe two weeks.”

Edek’s pronunciation of healthy usually made her laugh. She had tried to teach him the correct pronunciation many times. “Healthy,” she said.

“Heltzy,” he always replied. It didn’t make her smile this morning. “If you really want to leave Poland, we can leave,” she said. “I never wanted to force you to be here.”

“I don’t think about calling the whole thing off for myself,” Edek said.

“I am fine. There is nothing wrong with me. You look terrible.”

“I think I ran for too long this morning,” Ruth said. “I was out for over an hour.”

“A
mishegaas,
this running,” Edek said. “To run to somewhere where there is no need to run is a
mishegaas
. People should run if they are in a hurry, but to run just for nothing is
meshugge
.”

“Thanks, Dad,” she said.
Meshugge
was one of the first Yiddish words she’d learned. It meant stupid, mad. A
mishegaas
, was a stupidity, a madness.

Ruth looked at herself in the mirror, in the lobby. She looked pale, but not terrible.

“You look shocking,” Edek said. She looked at Edek. He looked tired.