Too Many Men (17 page)

“Of course,” he said.

“The porter, not the doorman,” Ruth said.

“You want me to come and see if I can fix it?” Edek said.

“No, just call the porter,” she said.

“You are right,” said Edek. “I am not so good in such things. As a matter of fact Garth did come and help me when I needed to put such a rail what you hold on to, on my bath.”

“Garth put a bath rail in for you? Why?” Ruth said.

“He wanted to,” Edek said. “I was going to get a handyman, but Garth said he was coming to Melbourne and he would do it. As a matter of fact he is not such a good handyman. The bar what he put in is three foot long. It looks pretty stupid.”

“You shouldn’t have let him,” Ruth said. “I’m sure he’s got plenty to do when he comes to Melbourne.”

“It did take him only two or three hours and then we did go to T O O M A N Y M E N

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Scheherezade for a
cholent,
” Edek said. “He is the only
goy
I know who does like a
cholent
. Then we did have a piece of apple cake each.”

“You don’t need him to fix things in your apartment,” Ruth said.

“I do not need him to fix things,” Edek said. “But I like to be with him.

And to tell you the truth, he likes to be with me. I can feel it.”

Ruth knew that Garth was no handyman. He had the large, broad hands of a handyman, but he was hopeless. Things he built fell apart. Although he worked with his hands every day, he just didn’t have a knack for renovations or repairs. Ruth thought about Garth’s hands. Sometimes she remembered moments of their lovemaking. She remembered their sex with extraordinary clarity. Maybe because it had made her feel so good. Nourished, whole, replete. On the whole, she didn’t think about sex much.

Maybe she just wasn’t a highly sexual person. Or, maybe sexual thoughts had to come attached to love, for her.

She caught herself. How could she be thinking about sex, with her father on the other end of the line?

“Let’s go for a walk, Dad,” she said. “Ring the porter and get me out of here, and let’s go for a walk.” Edek hesitated. “Okay,” he finally said.

“Okay, let’s walk a bit. I did see a McDonald’s not far away. McDonald’s does do a very good chocolate thickshake.”

“I can’t believe you’ve spotted a McDonald’s already,” Ruth said. “I thought you were busy talking to the driver.”

“I did talk to the driver and I did see a McDonald’s,” Edek said.

“Can you believe a McDonald’s, in Lódz?” Ruth said. “It is something hard to believe,” Edek said.

It took the porter fifteen minutes to unstick the stuck door handle. Ruth was looking for a couple of zlotys with which to tip the porter when the phone rang. It was Max.

“Where are you?” Ruth said to Max. “You can’t be in the office. It’s Saturday morning.”

“I’m at home,” Max said.

“We have to be brief,” Ruth said. “I’m just about to go out with my father, and it’s going to be the first time he’s walked in the streets of Lódz since he was twenty-three.”

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L I L Y B R E T T

“Okay,” Max said. “I’ve only got one question. I wouldn’t have called you except that this seemed to be something you would want to know about. I haven’t wanted to intrude on your very emotional time with your father.”

“Max, ask the question,” Ruth said.

“Mr. Kendall wants to know if he can buy the copyright to the refusal-to-lend-his-name-to-the-fund-raising letter we did for him,” Max said. “He said it was such a brilliant tactic to praise the charity lavishly in the first paragraph.”

“He wants to own the rights to that letter?” Ruth said.

“Yes,” said Max.

“I’m not sure about that,” Ruth said. “I should have thought about this issue before, really. Possibly he already owns the copyright as it’s his letter.”

“But you wrote it,” Max said.

“I know,” said Ruth. “Nothing is simple anymore. Not even owning your own letters.”

“But whose letter is it?” Max said. “Yours or his?”

“It’s his letter and my letter,” Ruth said. “Why does he want to own it anyway?”

“He said he doesn’t want anyone else to use exactly the same letter,”

said Max. “I told him it would be very expensive. He said that was fine.”

“Tell him he’ll have to wait until I get back,” Ruth said.

“By the way, Mr. Newton was very pleased with the thanks-for-your-thoughts-while-I-was-ill letters,” Max said. “You faxed me sixteen, so I gave him the extra one for no charge.”

“I’m glad he was pleased,” said Ruth.

“He sounded in very good shape for someone who has just had bypass surgery,” Max said. “In better shape than my neighbor’s dog.”

“What are you talking about?” Ruth said. As soon as Max started answering her, Ruth regretted that she had asked the question.

“My neighbor’s Labrador had a bypass operation,” Max said. “It was done at Michigan State University’s Veterinary Hospital, which is recognized for the quality of its open-heart surgery.”

“Open-heart surgery for dogs?” Ruth said.

“Of course. It’s a veterinary hospital,” Max said. “You can have dialysis for cats and pacemakers for dogs. This Labrador was on Prozac for months T O O M A N Y M E N

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before he underwent his surgery. You can get your cat’s teeth straightened, too. Orthodontics for dogs and cats is big at the moment.”

“How do you know all of this?” Ruth said.

“My neighbor who owns the Labrador told me,” said Max.

“I have to go,” Ruth said.

“Take care,” said Max.

“I’m trying,” Ruth said. She called Edek’s room. “I’m ready,” she said.

Ruth and Edek walked along Piotrkowska Street. Not many people were out. Ruth felt flat. They walked without speaking. She resisted asking her father how he felt. She didn’t want to annoy him. There was a blank passiv-ity in the faces of the people in the street. Ruth found it depressing. It was five o’clock on Saturday night. “Let’s go to McDonald’s,” she said to Edek.

They walked in the direction of McDonald’s.

The acrid smell of coal smoke filled the air. Ruth’s eyes began to sting.

“Are your eyes hurting?” she asked Edek. “Nothing is hurting,” he said.

Every second person who passed them seemed to be coughing, and spit-ting. It must be the smoke from the coal fires, Ruth thought. Lódz really was an oppressive city, she thought. It was dark, now. Very dark. And still.

The black air hardly moved.

Where was the moon? Ruth wondered. In mourning? There was not much sign of life in the streets, as though Lódz had swallowed its people for the night. Squat, gray buildings sat on either side of the black tram tracks. There seemed to be a lot of dog shit in the streets. “Be careful you don’t step in dog shit,” she said to Edek.

“Look,” he said. “The McDonald’s.” The McDonald’s in Piotrkowska Street was as garish as any McDonald’s anywhere. Ruth was so happy to see it.

Edek sipped his chocolate thickshake. She and Edek were the oldest people in McDonald’s. The rest of the customers seemed to be teenagers.

Ruth didn’t mind the teenagers. She had never been in a McDonald’s. She felt oddly at home.

“This chocolate thickshake is very good,” Edek said.

“I’m pleased,” she said.

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L I L Y B R E T T

“Maybe I will try an ice cream tomorrow,” Edek said. “In Polish ice cream is
lody
. The
lody
in Poland was always very good.”

Ruth had heard this from him before. She had heard it in stories about Edek hiring a
doroszka
to take him to the ice-cream shop. And stories about Edek buying ice creams for all of his friends. He must have been such a playboy, Ruth thought. She looked at him. He looked so happy with his chocolate thickshake. She wanted to cry. “We’ll buy lots of
lody
tomorrow,” she said.

“Piotrkowska Street used to be full of people on Saturday night,” Edek said. “People walking up and down. It was such an excitement in the feeling of the street. Young boys and girls walked together. Couples walked together. Everybody was talking. Everybody was happy. Look outside now.

No one is there. There is nobody.” He was quiet for a minute. He looked out at the street. “You cannot imagine what Piotrkowska Street was like,”

he said to Ruth. “Everybody was dressed up. Girls went to meet boys. Boys went to meet girls. Who is there now? Nobody.”

“Did you go there on a Saturday night?” Ruth said.

“Of course I did,” he said. “All the young people did.” He looked sad.

“The most beautiful girls were the Jewish girls,” he said. “And your mum was the most beautiful of them all.”

Thinking about her mother on Piotrkowska Street on a Saturday night was too much for Ruth. She started to cry. She tried to hide her tears from Edek. Maybe this trip was a mistake, after all.

“There is no Jews here, now,” Edek said, and shook his head.

Chapter Six

I
t is funny, is it not, how many of our names begin with the letter ‘H,’ ” Rudolf Höss said.

Ruth was in a café directly across the road from the Grand Victoria Hotel. “I can’t believe it’s you again,” she said.

“I am referring, of course, to my colleagues. To my former colleagues, of course,” Höss said. “It is of great interest to me this preponderance of names among us beginning with the letter ‘H.’ Höss, Hess, Hanfstängl, Harlan, Hauptmann, Heyde, Heydrich, Himmler, Hoffman, Hugenberg, Hossbach, and the most obvious one, naturally, Hitler.”

“I can’t believe it’s you again,” Ruth said. “I thought you must have been a figment of my imagination, or a bad dream.”

“Both of these could be said to be correct,” said Höss.

“Are you trying to be mystical?” said Ruth. She felt miserable. This was Rudolf Höss and she, Ruth Rothwax, could hear him.

“You do not believe in mysticism?” Höss said.

“I don’t believe in you,” said Ruth. “I was sure I had made the whole thing up. I was sure I had imagined it. I thought it must have been my lack of sleep that made me think I had spoken to you. Or too much stress. Or something I ate.”

“I have not been brought about by indigestion or an acid stomach,”

Höss said.

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L I L Y B R E T T

“Why can’t you leave me alone?” said Ruth.

“I do not cause you any pain,” Höss said. “I do not hurt you. I do not disturb you.”

“That’s a joke,” Ruth said. “I find you very disturbing. Can’t you go away? I’ve had a long day.”

“I know this,” Höss said.

“I wouldn’t have gone out on my own if I’d known you were going to appear,” Ruth said.

“You do not have to be alone,” said Höss. “I can speak to you anywhere.”

Ruth looked around her. No one had appeared to notice that she was talking to herself. There were not many people in the café. It was still early.

Surely, even in Lódz, this café would fill up soon. It was Saturday night.

She hadn’t told Edek that she was going to go out. He had looked so tired. And he had asked her several times if she was going to go straight to bed. He seemed to need to know where she was. She had told the hotel operator to call her in the café if Edek called her room. She had known that she wouldn’t be able to sleep. She knew she had to try to unwind. Cafés usually relaxed her. She could drift off and daydream. She had also needed to see some sign of life in Lódz.

A young woman in an evening gown was playing a selection from
My
Fair Lady
on a piano, just beside the refrigerated selection of cakes. The café had the white crocheted lace curtains of a country inn across the windows and elaborate plastic chandeliers above each table. Ruth had been admiring the lack of restraint in the decor when Höss had broken up her thoughts.

“Do you not find this interesting, Miss Rothwax?” Höss said. Ruth started. She had forgotten that he knew her name. She wasn’t sure why this should startle her. It certainly wasn’t more startling than the fact of his presence. Or his presence in her life, to be more precise.

“Don’t I find what interesting?” she said.

“The fact of so many of our names beginning with the letter ‘H,’ ”

Höss said.

“No, I don’t find it interesting,” Ruth said. “There are so many of you, so many Nazis, that you could look up any letter of the alphabet and find many major Nazi figures.”

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“So many Hs. What does it mean?” Höss said.

“A better question would be why so many Nazis?” Ruth said. “So many members of the party, so many vociferous supporters, and so many silent followers and informal friends? So many dependents and adherents and appendages. So many flunkies.”

“I know this word ‘flunky,’ ” Höss said.

“A person of slavish or fawning obedience,” Ruth said.

“I am familiar with the term,” said Höss. He coughed uncomfortably.

Was he coughing in discomfort at the thought of himself as a flunky?

Ruth thought. She shook her head. She couldn’t believe she was thinking about Rudolf Höss’s thoughts. The thoughts of a dead, long-departed, former tiller of the soil, former agriculturist, and Nazi.

“Himmler, that skinny little failed chicken farmer, looked like a flunky,”

Höss said. “But he was not. His pedantic mannerisms and excessively courtly manners made him look like a flunky. A humble flunky. Or are all flunkies, by necessity, humble?”

“I’m not sure,” Ruth said. “You could possibly have an arrogant flunky.

Is this skinny chicken farmer you are referring to Heinrich Himmler, Reichsführer-SS?”

“Failed, skinny little chicken farmer,” Höss said. “He had a diploma of agriculture. He was a salesman for a firm of fertilizer manufacturers before he went into the poultry farming business.”

“Like you, he was the son of a very pious and authoritarian Catholic father, wasn’t he?” Ruth said.

“What has this got to do with anything?” Höss said.

“I don’t know,” said Ruth.

“Himmler was not discouraged by his failure to farm chickens,” Höss said. “The fact that his chickens failed to breed did not dishearten or dis-may him. He did not see this failure as an obstacle to tackling human genetics. It was Himmler who established
Lebensborn
. You know what
Lebensborn
is?”