Too Many Men (56 page)

“You did tell Mum that Mr. Watson was not very nice to Mrs. Watson when you was six,” Edek said.

“When I was six?” Ruth said.

“Yes,” said Edek. She must have been a nosy, if precocious, child, Ruth thought.

“You did say that Mrs. Watson did used to have someone else who was nicer to her,” Edek said.

“What?” said Ruth.

“That is what you said,” said Edek. “And this was true. She had a first husband we did know nothing about.”

“She must have told me about it,” Ruth said.

Ruth remembered spending most of her Sunday afternoons, until she was ten or eleven, watching Mrs. Watson make apple pies. Every Sunday afternoon Mrs. Watson baked four apple pies to take to the Methodist church that night. The church, around the corner, fed the poor every Sunday night.

Ruth used to love to watch the pastry being rolled, the apples being peeled and cored. She never tired of watching Mrs. Watson pinch the sides of the filled pastry together, and then make decorative marks with a fork around the rim of the pie.

“Mrs. Watson did say she did never tell anybody about her first husband,” Edek said. “Not even her son did know.”

“She must have told me,” Ruth said.

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It was possible to tell a lot about a person without being told things, specifically, anyway, Ruth thought. She remembered Mrs. Watson’s wistful, faraway expression. Ruth had known that Mrs. Watson was thinking about someone else. Someone she had loved. Someone who was no longer alive.

Ruth had had a lot of experience in identifying that sort of longing. She had been exposed to so much wishful, wistful thinking.

“Mrs. Watson was married to someone who died,” Ruth said.

“You did tell Mum this,” Edek said. “Mum did ask Mrs. Watson. Poor Mrs. Watson did cry for nearly a whole day after Mum did ask her that question. She said she never did tell anyone in her whole life about this dead husband. Not her son, not her husband. She didn’t want her husband to think he was not the first man. In those days that sort of thing was important. Do you understand?”

“I understand,” Ruth said. She didn’t want Edek to expand on the importance of virginity in marriage, in those days.

“Mrs. Watson’s first husband died in the war,” Ruth said.

“That is exactly what she did tell Mum.”

“She must have told me, too,” Ruth said.

Edek looked at her, in a bothered way. “You did always know what people was thinking,” he said. He shook his head. “But this about Mrs. Watson’s dead husband is not something it is easy to know from a person’s thinking,” he said.

“Mrs. Watson must have told me,” Ruth said.

“She must have told you,” Edek said. “My sister Fela was like this. She did know what people was thinking.” Edek walked in front of Ruth, still shaking his head.

Ruth was bothered. She couldn’t remember Mrs. Watson telling her.

She reassured herself. You could deduce a lot about someone without a word being spoken. Demeanor and movements and gestures and habits and expressions were very revealing. There was no need to feel bothered.

Edek’s sister Fela must have observed people carefully, too. Ruth was cheered by that thought. Cheered by that alliance.

Outside the entrance to the Jordan Jewish Bookshop and the Noah’s Ark Café, a young woman approached Edek and Ruth.

“Would you like a guided tour of the Schindler’s factory area?” the young woman said.

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“No thanks,” said Ruth.

“Why not?” said Edek.

“You really want to see Schindler’s factory?” Ruth said.

“Why not?” Edek said. “It is something interesting.”

“Do you know much about the factory and its history?” Ruth asked the young woman.

“Jewish studies is one of my subjects at the University of Kraków,” the young woman said. She put out her hand. “My name is Helena.”

Ruth and Edek shook hands with Helena.

“Are you Jewish?” Ruth asked her.

“No,” she said. “But I am very sympathetic to their history.”

“What do your parents think of your studying Jewish Studies?” Ruth said.

“They are not very happy with this,” Helena said. “But they have become less unhappy. They can see that I can support myself during my studies with money that I earn as a guide.”

“So you get regular work taking these tours?” Ruth said.

“Yes, very much work,” said Helena. “There are many guides like me.

The bookshop provides its own guides. But I am cheaper.”

“Okay, we’ll do the tour,” Ruth said. “But first I need to have a cup of tea. Can we take ten minutes to go into the bookstore and the café?”

“Of course,” Helena said. “I will wait here.”

In the Noah’s Ark Café, an eighteen-inch-high carved wooden figure of an Orthodox Jew playing a cello stood on top of several of the tables. Three yarmulkes, black ones with gold trimming, were perched on top of the piano. There was Hebrew writing on the walls and a plaintive Yiddish song was playing as background music. None of the customers in the café looked Jewish.

Ruth felt sick. She was sick of Jews being reduced to caricatures and turned into artifacts. Edek sat down at one of the tables. He started to hum along to the Yiddish song. It was a lullaby. A lullaby about a mother singing her child to sleep.
Sleep my small child, sleep
, the mother sang.

The menu of the Noah’s Ark Café had “Jewish cheesecake” as well as an assortment of other food described as “Jewish.”

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“I think I will have a cheesecake,” Edek said. “And a cappuccino.”

“I’m not sure they do a cappuccino in a mock-Jewish café in Poland,”

Ruth said. The waitress came up to them. There was no cappuccino. Edek settled for a cup of tea. “Is this café owned by Jews?” Ruth said to the waitress.

“No,” the waitress said.

“Why do you ask such questions?” Edek said to Ruth.

“Because I want to know,” she said.

“It is not always necessary to know everything,” he said. The cheesecake arrived. It was small and flat.

“It’s not even a Jewish cheesecake,” Ruth said. Edek tried the cheesecake.

“It is very nice, as a matter of fact,” he said.

Ruth felt furious. What were these Poles doing mimicking a Jewish life they had been so happy to see disappear? They were making money, that was what they were doing. Edek finished his cheesecake.
“Mottel Mottel,”

one of his favorite Yiddish songs, was now playing in the background.

Edek started humming again. He turned in his seat and looked around him at the rest of the café. “It is very nice,” he said.

“It’s created by Poles,” Ruth said. Edek shrugged his shoulders.

The Jordan Jewish Bookshop and travel agency were also not owned by Jews. There were books, artifacts, and pieces of jewelry for sale. Silver Stars of David, and Hebrew letters on silver chains. There were candleholders and Passover dishes. A small sign said that you could buy books and souvenirs of Jewish culture, and maps, guides, and postcards, and cassettes of Jewish music.

Another sign offered three tours. Each tour was printed in bold capitals: SIGHTSEEING OF JEWISH KAZIMIERZ, RETRACING
SCHINDLER’S LIST
, and TRIP TO AUSCHWITZ-BIRKENAU. The store looked a bit disordered. A bit untidy. As though the owners hadn’t quite known how to display the merchandise. Surely Jews wouldn’t shop here, Ruth thought. She spotted a book on Auschwitz on one of the upper shelves. It contained reproduc-tions of all of the documents left behind by the Germans. Ruth had never seen the book before. It was a large thick book. She asked to look at it. She flipped through the pages. It was a very interesting book. Ruth felt torn.

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She didn’t want to contribute to this business, but she wanted the book.

“I’ll have it,” she said to the man behind the counter.

Edek was waiting outside with Helena, the guide.

“The person who owns the Jordan Jewish Bookshop isn’t Jewish, is he?” Ruth asked Helena. Edek glared at Ruth. She ignored him.

“No,” Helena said. “But he is a very good man. Very sympathetic to Jews.”

“See,” said Edek.

“See what?” Ruth said.

“Forget about it,” Edek said. “We are going to walk to the Schindler’s factory.”

Ruth was surprised that Edek had agreed to walk. She had thought he would want to get this tour over as quickly as possible. “Good,” she said.

Edek and Helena walked ahead of her. Ruth could see that Edek liked Helena. He was smiling and chatting with her. He was telling her about his life in Australia. He was telling her about his job as manager of the shipping department of the sporting goods store, and his subsequent position in the health food store. He explained at length how important it was that the cleanliness of the store was maintained in these health food places.

Helena looked riveted.

Ten minutes later, they were still in the square. Edek and Helena had stopped walking and were deep in conversation. Ruth felt she had waited long enough. “Can we move on?” she said.

“Of course,” Helena said.

“We was just going to start walking again,” Edek said. “Helena is a very nice girl.” Helena blushed.

They walked for a few minutes. They stopped outside a building on Szeroka Street.

“Here at number 6 was housed from the sixteenth century the community bathhouse and the
mikveh
.”

“See she knows what is a
mikveh,”
Edek said to Ruth. Helena nodded.

“A ritual bath for women on certain occasions,” she said.

“Yes, yes, that is a
mikveh,”
Edek said. Helena looked very pleased.

Helena was a sweet girl, really, Ruth thought. She couldn’t be more than twenty or twenty-one.

“This bathhouse was called the big bathhouse,” Helena said. “This was

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in order to distinguish it from the small bathhouse, which was near Nowy Square.”

“Very interesting,” Edek said. Helena was clearly finding Edek interesting. More interesting than Ruth. Ruth noticed that Helena was addressing all of her remarks to Edek.

“This building was renovated and modernized between 1974 and 1976,” Helena said to Edek. “It is now occupied by the Kraków branch of the Historical Monuments Restoration Workshop.” Edek nodded his head.

They set off again. Ruth looked at her watch. It was 2 P.M. She hoped that they would get to Schindler’s factory before nightfall.

Helena stopped outside another building. “Here on Bochenska Street was the Jewish Theater of Kraków from 1926 to 1939,” she said.

“A very nice building,” Edek said. Ruth was astonished. Since when had Edek been interested in buildings? He had never expressed any interest in any building. Ruth looked at Edek. He was smiling at Helena. He looked so happy. He had always liked a pretty girl or an attractive woman.

And they had liked Edek. It seemed that they still did. Helena was beaming at Edek.

“Ida Kaminska, the famous Jewish actress, played regularly in this theater,” Helena said to Edek.

“See, she knows Ida Kaminska,” Edek said to Ruth.

“Since 1945 this theater has been occupied by the amateur theater of the railway men,” Helena said.

“They do probably a very good job,” Edek said. Ruth couldn’t believe Edek’s pronouncement. He knew nothing about theater and less about railway men. Helena seemed pleased.

“Can we get a move on?” Ruth said. “I’d like to get to Schindler’s factory.”

“Certainly,” Helena said. She and Edek began to walk faster. Ruth followed them.

Edek looked happier than he had for days, Ruth thought. Ruth was glad that they had hired Helena as a guide. She knew that her father loved her, but too much time solely in her company had probably depressed him, flattened his spirits. Helena’s company was good for him. Ruth thought that some of the places she had chosen to visit with Edek had probably T O O M A N Y M E N

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dampened his spirits, too. Few people would find ghettos and cemeteries uplifting.

They were well away from Kazimierz now. This part of Kraków was as run-down and dilapidated as any part of Lódz. They passed an old woman sitting at a table in the middle of a small square. The old woman had a dirty red and black cotton scarf tied around her head. An odd assortment of plastic bags and pieces of cardboard were on the table. In the middle of the table, on top of two sheets of white paper, was an enormous, pink, slumped, plucked turkey.

The turkey had no feet. Its legs were sticking out, rigidly, in front of it, as though rigor mortis had already set in. But the bird looked too fresh, and maybe rigor mortis didn’t set in if you had already been plucked and decapitated. Ruth made a note to herself to look up rigor mortis and how it occurs in one of her many medical encyclopedias. A bucket with scraps of plastic was under the table. Was this woman hoping to sell the turkey whole? Or in pieces? Ruth couldn’t see a knife. To whom was she hoping to sell this piece of poultry? Ruth looked around the square. There didn’t seem to be any customers.

At the other side of the square there were two more stalls. Ruth had walked past them. At each of these stalls, a few screwdrivers, nails, hammers, and other bits and pieces Ruth didn’t recognize had been set up on folding tables. Ruth worried about who was going to buy the turkey. The woman must know what she was doing, Ruth decided. She wouldn’t have just set up a table anywhere, in the hope of selling a dead turkey. Ruth smiled at the woman. The woman glared at her.

They arrived at Schindler’s factory. Ruth recognized the curved gates from the movie.

“Look, Ruthie,” Edek said. “The factory of Oskar Schindler.”

“Here where we are standing at 4 Lipowa Street,” Helena said, “was the factory of Oskar Schindler. Because of Oskar Schindler’s contacts with the
Wehrmacht
he managed to build a small factory of forty-five employees into a prosperous factory that employed seven hundred and fifty Jews from the ghetto, which was very near to this factory.” Ruth and Edek nodded. It was strange to look at this building in this quiet street and think of the people who must have walked in and out of this gate. Jews, Gestapo, Poles, Ger-