Too Many Men (26 page)

T O O M A N Y M E N

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“You want to knock on the door?” Ruth said. They were standing outside Edek’s old apartment, the apartment he grew up in.

“No,” he said.

“Shall I knock?” she said.

“No,” he said.

“One of us has to knock,” she said. “This is the door that used to be the front door of your apartment? Right?” she said.

“This is the door,” Edek said.

Suddenly, and abruptly, Edek lifted his fist and knocked on the door. A loud abrasive knock. Ruth’s heart started racing. She felt breathless. The door opened slightly. An old man looked out into the darkened hallway. He seemed about Edek’s age, but more aged than Edek. His shoulders were bent, and he seemed to have trouble seeing. He fumbled in his pockets and put on the glasses he was searching for. He peered at Edek and Ruth.

Edek stepped forward. He extended his hand to the man. Edek explained, with the aid of a multitude of polite and well-mannered expressions and bows of respect, that he was here to take nothing away from this man. He introduced himself. He explained that he once lived in this building. “I grew up here,” he said. “And I just want to see the home of my childhood again. The home of my mother and father.”

Edek motioned toward Ruth and said that Ruth, too, wanted to see where he had grown up. The old man looked up at Ruth. “She has been here before,” he said. Ruth understood what he was saying. “He remembers me,” she said to Edek.

“She was here fourteen or fifteen years ago,” the old man said. “She wore a long black coat. And her hair was much longer.”

“He remembers your coat,” Edek said.

“It was only an ordinary coat,” Ruth said. Even an ordinary coat had looked luxurious in Poland then. People were queuing for bread and there was no toilet paper. The man looked at the coat that Ruth was wearing now.

It was a new coat. But still black. He smiled at her.

“He’s remembering that I gave him several hundred zlotys,” Ruth said to Edek.

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L I L Y B R E T T

“Several hundred?” said Edek.

“They were worth much less, then,” she said. “I am not interested in taking anything away from you, kind sir,” Edek repeated. “Neither is my daughter.”

“Your family owned this building,” the man said. “Your daughter told me.”

“We do not want this building,” Edek said. “I have lived for nearly sixty years without this building. Why should I decide I want this building now?

I am an old man. I just want to see my old home.” Edek paused for a minute. He looked at Ruth, then turned back to the man. “As a matter of fact, dear sir, I did not want to come here. What do I want to think about the past for? I am comfortable with my life. But she wanted me to come.

She wanted to be here with me. What can you do when your child wants something? And she is my only child.”

“I have two daughters, myself,” the old man said.

“Congratulations,” said Edek.

Edek turned to Ruth. “I do not think he is going to let us in,” he said.

“I’ve been able to understand most of what he’s saying,” said Ruth.

“You understand more Polish than you know,” said Edek. “What are we going to do? I think we have to go.”

“We have to let him know we’ll make it worth his while,” said Ruth.

Edek turned to the old man.

“I know that to let perfect strangers, with no warning, into your own home is an inconvenience,” he said. “We will of course make up to you for this inconvenience.”

The old man nodded his head. He stepped back and opened the door.

“You were right,” Edek said to Ruth.

They both entered the apartment. Inside, it was dark. The man switched on a lamp. Edek looked around. He seemed disoriented. He took a few steps and stumbled. He turned in the other direction and walked into a wall. “Be careful, Dad,” Ruth said.

“They did chop it all up,” Edek said. “They did cut off one room which used to be here. It must be now in the apartment next door.”

“They haven’t looked after the place, have they?” she said.

“You can say that again, brother,” Edek said. “Brother” was an Australian expression Edek had latched on to not long after his arrival in the country.

T O O M A N Y M E N

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“You can say that again, brother,” he repeated.

Everything about the apartment was worn and in a state of decay. The walls were peeling, the windows were blackened, the carpet was thread-bare and stained. Everything looked dirty.

“You have a very nice place,” Edek said to the old man.

“Sit down, sir,” the old man said. “I will make a cup of tea.”

“Shall we have a cup of tea?” Edek said to Ruth.

“I guess we have to,” she said.

“Thank you very much,” Edek said to the man. Ruth and Edek walked into the living room. “This room used to be part of our lounge room,” Edek said. Ruth was too distressed to be reassured by his pronunciation of

“lounge.” From the day he had learned the word he had pronounced it

“lunge.” “I’m lunging with my spunch,” Ruth used to say, to amuse Garth. It always made him laugh. Not even the thought of lunging with a spunch could make her laugh now. She felt so miserable, standing in this cramped, slumped, and grubby apartment. She had remembered more light in the apartment, more room, more life. She had embellished everything. She mustn’t have seen the neglect, the breaks, and the chips and cracks. She must have overlooked the dust and dirt. She must have been overwhelmed. Overawed to be there at all. Overawed by the thoughts of the lives that had been so alive here.

When she had walked up the stairs in Kamedulska Street for the first time she had known she was placing her feet on the same steps her father had stepped on. As a child. As a teenager. As a young man. The same stairs her grandmother and grandfather had stood on. They had all used those stairs. All the aunties and uncles and cousins and nephews and nieces. And, that year, fifteen years ago, when she, Ruth Rothwax, had been twenty-seven years old, she, too, had walked up and down those stairs.

She had walked up and down the stairs for two or three hours before she had knocked on the door of the apartment. She had walked from the ground floor to the top floor, five flights of stairs, dozens of times. She had almost been in a daze. As she walked she had imagined the children who must have run from one floor to the other. And the mothers and the fathers. And her father. And her father’s father and her father’s mother. She had been quite exhausted when she had arrived in this apartment. Maybe that accounted for her blemished vision.

Edek looked distressed. “This was not like it was when we did live

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L I L Y B R E T T

here,” he said. “It was a beautiful apartment.” He looked over in the corner. “The balcony is still there,” he said. “My father used to watch me come home from school from this balcony. He did want to check that I did have my hat on.”

“You told me that story,” Ruth said. “I went out on the balcony when I came here last time.”

“Probably even the balcony is not very nice now,” said Edek.

“It was a bit dirty and run-down,” she said.

“What for do we need to stay?” said Edek. “Maybe I tell him to forget the tea?”

Ruth looked around her. The crumbling walls and broken windows were at odds with the building’s past. In the past this building had housed excitement and laughter, excitement and tenderness, excitement and love.

She had felt the excitement on that first visit. And she could feel it now. It wasn’t eroded by the disintegration or the neglect. She felt much better. It was still there. Still in the air.

“If you stand still, Dad, you can feel the past,” she said. “You can feel the life.”

“Don’t speak like that,” Edek said. “It will be no good for both of us.”

He looked as though he was about to cry.

“The tea is nearly ready,” the old man called out. “Please sit down.” A sofa piled high with clothes was against one wall. A rocking chair faced the sofa. The rocking chair was covered with cat’s fur. Ruth had noticed a large cat asleep in the kitchen. She moved the clothes and cleared a space for herself and Edek. Edek looked at the sofa. His face crumpled. He started to cry.

“What’s wrong, Dad?” Ruth said. He shook his head. He looked embarrassed to be crying. He tried to stop. But his tears were insistent. They kept coming. Ruth felt sick. She shouldn’t have put her father through this.

“We can go now, Dad,” she said.

“He is already making the tea,” Edek said. He wiped his eyes. “This couch was our couch,” he said.

“Oh no,” she said. And she started to weep. Edek sat down on the couch. “Do not cry,” he said to her. She sat down next to him. She put her hand in her father’s hand. They sat on the couch, holding hands. “Do not cry, please,” he said to her, after a few minutes.

T O O M A N Y M E N

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The old man arrived with three stained cups, a pot of tea, two teaspoons, and a sugar bowl on a tray. He put the tray on top of a cardboard box.

“Thank you very much, sir,” Edek said. “It looks very nice.” Ruth wiped her eyes. She was glad there wasn’t much light in the room. She didn’t want to see the cracked, old cups with any more clarity.

“Ask him when he moved in here?” Ruth said to her father. Edek asked the old man the question.

“Approximately 1940,” the old man said.

“It must have been minutes after all the Jews were moved out,” Ruth said.

“Do not speak like this,” Edek said.

“He can’t understand me,” said Ruth, and she held her cup of tea up and smiled at the old man.
Bardzo dobrze
, she said to him. He nodded, pleased with her compliment about his tea. “It’s disgusting tea,” she said to her father.

“Ruthie, please,” he said.

“Ask him what happened to all of the things that were in here and in all of the other apartments,” she said to Edek.

“It is not necessary to ask this,” Edek said.

“Please, Dad,” she said.

Edek asked. “He said his wife will know all of this. She was in charge of the rents in the building. She will be back at four o’clock,” Edek said to Ruth.

“Ask him if he wondered what happened to all the people who lived here?” Ruth said. Edek asked. Ruth could understand the old man’s reply.

“I heard they moved somewhere else,” the man said.

“Ruthie, what good is this?” said Edek.

“I’m not sure,” she said. “There must have been so many photographs, books, documents, left. Ask him if he saw any.”

“My wife knows all of that,” the old man said. “If you are extra nice, she will talk to you.”

“What does he mean extra nice?” Ruth said.

“He said his wife is not such an easy woman. We should maybe bring some chocolates and some flowers.”

“That’s no trouble,” said Ruth.

“You really don’t want to think of owning this building,” the man said

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L I L Y B R E T T

to Edek. “This building is nothing but trouble. The owner can’t sell it.

Everything is broken. People don’t pay their rents because nothing gets fixed. There is no heating. It is terrible.”

“Tell him we’re not going to take this flea-hole from him,” Ruth said.

“I can promise you, sir, I have no interest at all in owning this property,”

Edek said.

“You don’t even want to think of it,” the man said.

“Ask him who the owner is,” said Ruth. The man shook his head. He said that he didn’t know. Ruth and Edek got up. “Is sixty zloty enough?”

Edek whispered. “It’s enough,” Ruth said. “I don’t think we’re going to get anything out of him.” “We will be back at four o’clock,” Edek said as he shook hands with the old man. Ruth was surprised. She had been sure that her father was not going to want to return.

Edek and Ruth walked along Kamedulska Street. They passed an empty block of land.

“My father did have a yard for timber, here,” Edek said. He sounded very flat.

“Mum told me about the timber yard,” she said.

“You want to walk to Pomorska Street where Mum did live?” Edek said.

“Yes, please,” she said. “I’d love to.” They walked quietly, without speaking. Ruth was exhausted. Her father must be totally wrung out, she thought.

“I love you, Dad,” she said.

“I love you, too,” he said.

On Poudniowa Street, Edek pointed to an empty storefront. “It used to be here the bakery,” he said. “On Friday I would take our
cholent
to the baker to go into the oven after the bread was finished. The next day was
Shabbes
and we couldn’t cook. You know
Shabbes,
the Sabbath?”

“Of course I know
Shabbes,”
Ruth said.

“The
cholent
did stay in the baker’s oven all night,” Edek said. “The next day when
Shabbes
was over we did pick up the cooked
cholent
. My mother told me always to be sure it was our
cholent
that I did pick up, because we had plenty of meat in our
cholent
.” Edek smiled at the memory of the
cholent
.

“Your
cholent
had more meat in it than most of the local people’s
cholent
?” Ruth said.

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“Much more meat,” he said. “Some people’s
cholent
had no meat. As a matter of fact I did once pick up the wrong
cholent
. It was in a pot what was just like our pot. It had no meat in it at all. My father was not very happy with me.” Edek seemed to have cheered up, talking about the
cholent
. “Two more streets and we will be in Pomorska Street,” he said.

Ruth recognized the building her mother had lived in as soon as she saw it. She hadn’t been able to look inside when she had last been in Lódz. No one had been home in the ground-floor apartment that Rooshka had lived in. Ruth and Edek peered into the hallway. It was dark and quiet. The only sign of any occupants was the washing strung out on lines in the courtyard.

You could see the washing from the street. The windows in her mother’s old apartment were covered with layers of improvised drapes. Squares of an old blanket, pieces of faded lace, part of a used tablecloth.