Too Many Men

by Lily Brett

  “Now you sound really retarded,” said Ruth. But she was unnerved.

  What did Höss mean by that?

  “I first became acquainted with Jews en masse, in Sachsenhausen, after Kristallnacht, ” Höss said. “Before then, there were few Jews in Sachsenhausen. It was not yet an extermination camp. After the Jewish invasion, things changed at Sachsenhausen.”

  “I think you’ve got your terminology wrong,” Ruth said. “Prisoners are rounded up and imprisoned. They do not ‘invade’ prisons.”

  “Please do not interrupt me with such irrelevant things,” Höss said.

  “Before the Jews, bribery at Sachsenhausen was virtually unheard of,”

  Höss said. “Now, it became commonplace. Bribery and corruption were widespread.”

  “Among the prisoners, you mean?” Ruth said. Höss ignored her. “I can see that the Jews were a real problem for you,” Ruth said. “You are helping me to understand why you killed millions of Russians, gypsies, and Poles, but designated only Jews to be wiped off the face of the earth.” She hoped that her sarcasm was loud and clear. She felt flushed, as though she had shouted the words. “Not only were Jews corrupters of German bodies and souls, they were a massive logistical problem for you,” Ruth said to Höss.

  “How do you kill so many people and dispose of their bodies in an efficient and economical manner?”

  “This was a question we relegated a lot of resources and manpower toward,” said Höss.

  T O O M A N Y M E N

  [ 1 7 9 ]

  “You spared those Jews who were personally useful to you,” Ruth said to Höss.

  “What do you mean by ‘personally useful’?” Höss said.

  “I’m being specific,” she said. “Specifically referring to those Jews who were useful to you.”

  “I do not understand you,” Höss said. “I treated all Jews in the same manner. According to my orders.”

  “You had orders to employ two Jewish dressmakers in your home in Auschwitz?” said Ruth.

  “You have been listening to the wrong people,” Höss said. “I did not employ Jews.”

  “Well, it wasn’t technically employment,” Ruth said, “because there was no pay. But they worked for you. Making dresses for Mrs. Höss. I guess their pay was that they were not immediately killed.”

  “I have asked you once before, if you could please leave Mrs. Höss out of this,” Höss said. “Please.”

  “Maybe,” Ruth said.

  “I want to emphasize to you that I have never personally hated Jews,”

  said Höss. “It is a fact that I looked on Jews as the enemy of the German people, but I myself never felt a personal hatred for Jews.” Ruth didn’t say anything. “I saw absolutely no difference between a Jewish prisoner and any other prisoner,” Höss said, with indignation. “I treated all prisoners in exactly the same way. In any case, I am not the sort of person who accom-modates hatred with ease. It is simply not my nature. I know all too clearly what hatred looks like. I have witnessed much hatred around me, and I have been the recipient of hatred. I have suffered from hatred. I know what hate is.”

  “I know you know what hate is,” Ruth said. “Few people would doubt that.”

  The doorman approached Ruth and asked her if she would like a drink.

  He seemed unaware of the intense dislike she felt for him. Ruth wanted to say no. She wanted to say no to anything from this man. But she was thirsty.

  “I’ll have a Perrier,” she said. He came back to say they had no Perrier. “I’ll have anything that isn’t bottled in Poland,” she said to him. He brought her a bottle of something that looked Italian. She poured a glass. It tasted fine.

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  L I L Y B R E T T

  The doorman smiled at her. She tapped at a few keys on her computer, and made out as though she was engrossed in her work. The doorman went back to the front door.

  “The worst thing in the world is to be unoccupied,” Höss said. “I would accept any hard labor, any task at all, rather than this enforced idleness.”

  Ruth drank her mineral water. “I am cut off from everything,” Höss said.

  “Maybe that’s the point of Zweites Himmel’s Lager,” Ruth said.

  “No it is not,” said Höss. “Other inmates of Zweites Himmel’s Lager have jobs and occupations. But I am not allowed to have a job.”

  “Maybe you were too zealous in your last one,” Ruth said.

  “They are punishing me,” Höss said.

  “You could be right,” she said. “Is there a worse category of inmate than you in Zweites Himmel’s Lager?” Ruth said.

  “We are residents,” said Höss. “Not inmates.”

  “You just called the residents of Zweites Himmel’s Lager inmates yourself,” she said.

  “It was a mistake,” Höss said.

  “Are there worse conditions than the conditions set out for you?” said Ruth.

  “I don’t think so,” he said.

  “No red hot flames?” Ruth said.

  “They ceased with the flames a few years ago,” said Höss. “The psychologists, there, said the flames were not a deterrent. They instituted instead solitary confinement, censorship, and peer review.”

  “Peer review?” said Ruth.

  “Yes, that is what I have to endure,” Höss said. “A monthly review by my so-called peers. A bunch of blackguards and thugs and criminals and antisocial types. They deliver reports on my behavior.”

  “What do they say?” said Ruth.

  “They are so stupid,” said Höss.

  “I’m sure,” Ruth said.

  “They say I am antisocial,” said Höss. “Who would be social in this company?”

  “You may have a point there,” Ruth said. She sipped her mineral water.

  “Talking to you has very much helped my restlessness,” Höss said. “I T O O M A N Y M E N

  [ 1 8 1 ]

  have been forced to do nothing for so long. It is very hard. I cannot even pace.” A strangled sound escaped from him.

  “Maybe if you pass your sensitivity-training class they’ll let you exercise,” Ruth said. “Maybe you should try to impress your peer review panel?

  Try to get on well with the boys.”

  “They are not all boys,” Höss said.

  “There are some women on the panel?” Ruth said.

  “Yes,” said Höss.

  “I’m glad that women are able to rise through the ranks in Zweites Himmel’s Lager,” Ruth said. “Speaking of peers, several of your peers in Auschwitz said you appeared to be a kindly, unselfish, introverted man.

  Although I’m not sure how seriously you can take some of those peers.

  They also said you were a perfectionist. I can believe that.”

  “I am a perfectionist, that is true,” Höss said.

  “Well, you’ll have to perfect the art of doing nothing,” Ruth said. “It will be a whole lot better than what you were previously perfecting.”

  “I do not think I will need to perfect the art of doing nothing,” Höss said. “I believe I will get out of here, one day. Things change, even in Zweites Himmel’s Lager. And I am not a fatalist, unlike most Jews.”

  “Really?” said Ruth. “Unlike most Jews?”

  “I observed the Jews in Auschwitz over a lengthy period of time,” Höss said. “Jews have a propensity for melancholy.”

  “Auschwitz was not, for most people, an uplifting experience,” Ruth said.

  “That is true,” said Höss. “But I see the melancholy in all Jews. I see this melancholy, on your face.”

  Ruth touched her face. “The melancholy is not there all the time,” she said.

  “The Jews in Auschwitz had more reason for melancholy. They, unlike most of the other prisoners, knew that they were, every single one of them, condemned to die,” Höss said. “They knew that they would remain alive for only as long as they were capable of work.”

  “Sure,” Ruth said. “That is why, even in
that first selection process, young girls tried to look older and stronger and old women tried not to show their age. They knew the appearance of whatever energy they could muster could save their lives.”

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  L I L Y B R E T T

  “The Jews, however, deteriorated very quickly,” Höss said.

  “Could that be because they arrived, most of them, after years of starvation and disease and imprisonment, years of unrestricted brutality?”

  Ruth said.

  “The Jews were fatalists,” Höss said, ignoring her. “They gave in to all the wretchedness and discomfort and desolation. They gave in to the terror. They accepted their fate with a hopelessness. This lack of a desire to live, this indifference, this collapse of will made them susceptible, physically, to the slightest thing. Death was inevitable for them. They accepted their fate.”

  “You mean they didn’t fight back?” said Ruth. Höss didn’t answer. “I’ve heard that before,” she said. “It’s remarkable how fast those Jews went downhill. First they were ordered out of their homes. They should have refused. The punishment was only death. Then they were imprisoned and deprived of all of their rights, not to mention their properties and material possessions. They were cut off from the rest of the world. A world that didn’t care too much for Jews, anyway. The living conditions they were imprisoned in were so harsh that many of them died before they could be murdered. They died of disease and starvation and beatings. Being beaten to death was much easier than slowly starving. How did those Jews buckle so fast? Some of them didn’t even last a year.

  “They all worked for as long as they lasted. They worked for the Germans, making machinery and straw boots and other essentials for the German army. Children of all ages worked to help the Germans murder them later down the line. It’s amazing how quickly the Jews went downhill under those conditions. And that was years before most of them were shipped to you, Mr. Höss. Rudolf Franz Ferdinand Höss SS-Obersturmbannführer.”

  Ruth thought she was going to throw up. She had to get outside. She had to get some fresh air. She ran out into Piotrkowska Street. She took several deep breaths. She couldn’t allow herself to become so agitated. She had known this trip was going to be difficult. She hadn’t known how difficult.

  She felt grubby. She couldn’t shower again. She would come out in a rash if she kept washing herself each time she felt soiled. Anyway, what she was trying to get rid of couldn’t come off with soap and water.

  She suddenly wanted to go home. Next to Höss, New York looked wholesome. She thought of Washington Square Gardens and Fifth Avenue T O O M A N Y M E N

  [ 1 8 3 ]

  and the East Village. She made a promise to herself never to complain about the city again. She missed New York. Its edginess and worrying qualities seemed normal and reasonable, next to this.

  “You do not know what you need to know,” Höss said.

  “I’ve had enough of you and your incomprehensible phrases and sentences,” Ruth said.

  “I can help you,” Höss said.

  “You can help me by disappearing,” she said. “Piss off.”

  “This obscenity does not affect me,” Höss said.

  “This will affect you,” Ruth said. She dug her heel into the ground as hard as she could. She dug so hard that her foot hurt. She hoped that Höss’s blood vessels, if he still had any, were dilating. She hoped he had an enormous headache. She heard a high-pitched sound, a faint shrill moan, and then a whoosh. It was the sound of a draft or a shifting air stream. Höss was gone. She could feel it. The air was less dense, less viscous. It was easier to breathe. She took several deep breaths. She felt better. She went inside.

  Chapter Nine

  E dek and Ruth were standing outside number 23

  Kamedulska Street. It was four o’clock. The remnants of a small altercation they had had before leaving the hotel still hung between them. The discord, like most discord, had arisen from something inconsequential. Ruth had ordered a ham sandwich for Edek. She had wanted him to eat something before they went back to Kamedulska Street. She had taken the sandwich to Edek’s room. Edek had been reading on the bed. He had hastily pushed some wrappers out of the way when he had answered the door. Ruth had noticed the corner of a cardboard McDonald’s container and a large plastic cup on the floor. Several chocolate wrappers were in the wastebasket.

  “When did you go to McDonald’s?” she had said to Edek.

  “An hour ago,” Edek said.

  “I didn’t see you,” Ruth said. “I was in the lobby.”

  “I did go out from the side door,” Edek said.

  “You shouldn’t have gone out without telling me,” Ruth said. She said it more sharply than she had intended to.

  “What is wrong with you?” Edek had said. “I went just to the McDonald’s and back.”

  “If I had found you not in your room I would have been worried,”

  Ruth said.

  T O O M A N Y M E N

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  “You like to worry,” Edek said. “You are such a nervous type.”

  “Thank you,” she had said. “Don’t go out again without telling me.”

  “Okay, okay, do not get so nervous,” Edek said.

  “And what are you eating junk for?” Ruth had said. “McDonald’s is junk.”

  “If the McDonald’s was such rubbish, would they have so many McDonald’s?” Edek said. He noticed the ham sandwich Ruth was holding.

  “I will have this sandwich, too,” he had said. “I did get only a small hamburger.”

  “Jews are not meant to eat hamburgers,” Ruth said. “Hamburgers are for goys.”

  “And ham is for Jews?” Edek had said. Ruth didn’t know why she had picked on her father for eating a hamburger. It just didn’t seem like the sort of food an eighty-one-year-old should be eating.

  The footpath outside 23 Kamedulska Street was strewn with old newspapers and other debris. The mess upset Ruth. She wanted to clean it up. She didn’t want litter around this building. She suddenly understood why people tended and cleaned graves. Why they tidied up around tombstones and monuments. But this wasn’t a grave—23 Kamedulska Street wasn’t a shrine. It was just a site of a former life. It wasn’t a mausoleum. There was no one buried or interned here. This building was nothing more than a patchy amalgam of building materials. Nothing of those who had lived here was left. The markings on the walls and floors from fingers and feet were long gone. Rubbed out. There were no sounds from past lives. No smells. There was nothing. This building was no longer attached to her or to Edek. This building was someone else’s building. It was just another building, in Lódz.

  Still, the mess disturbed her. She wanted to sweep the old leaves that had gathered against the wall. She wanted to get rid of the stubbles of straw and the cigarette butts, and the dust. She kicked a couple of old rags to one side, until they were in front of the building next door. Then she remembered, her grandfather had owned that building, too. She kicked the rags into the gutter. She wanted to get a bucket and a scrubbing brush and

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  L I L Y B R E T T

  scrub the pavement clean. She wanted to get down on her hands and knees and clean the street herself. She told herself that she was being ridiculous.

  She had seen other Jews in Poland. Jews like herself. Looking for something that was no longer there. Looking for gravesites of mothers and fathers who were never buried. Looking for monuments and testaments to the existence of people. People who were extinguished without fanfare or comfort. Without prayers. Without tombstones and headstones. Without anyone at their side.

  Ruth had met Jews who had traveled to Poland to erect plaques in the birthplace of lost mothers and fathers. Plaques listing the family members who once lived there. In return for permission to put up the plaques, the Jews contributed money. Money for the upkeep of the town square, or money to build a public park. Polish officials were, on the whole, pleased with these arrangements. And so were t
he Jews. This way they had a site, a marker, a memorial. A place to visit and sit with their dead. A place to pay their respects.

  Housing the dead seemed to Ruth to be an essential part of life. She wasn’t sure why it was so important. The dead were absent. They were absent regardless of whether their memories were enshrined in a vault or tombstone. Or their names engraved on plaques and monuments. The dead were as absent as they could be. A dwelling place for the dead was really an address for the living. A place where the living could commune with those who were out of reach of regular communication. On the surface the fixtures and fittings of death, such as cemeteries and gravesites, seemed unnecessary. The obstacles to communion with the dead seemed less tangible than the problem of a clearly marked location for the meeting.

  Still, she wanted to clean up this particular location. She contemplated hiring someone to keep at least the exterior of 23 Kamedulska Street clean.

  She decided that that was absurd. What would she be keeping clean? A memory? You couldn’t sweep and scrub and wash memories. Memories came with their own degrees of cleanliness and comfort.

  “Why can’t they keep this place clean?” Ruth said to Edek.

  “What for?” he said. “For us? It could be the cleanest street and the cleanest building in all of Poland and it would not make any difference to us.”

  T O O M A N Y M E N

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  “They should clean it out of a respect for the memory of those people whose lives they moved into,” said Ruth.

  “It is too late for respect,” Edek said.

  Edek was carrying a dozen red roses and a box of Lindt chocolates. A four-pound box of Lindt chocolates. The roses were beautiful. Tall, volup-tuous, full-bodied roses. They were a deep red. The color of blood. Her mother had loved roses.

  “Mum did like roses very much,” Edek said.

  “That’s exactly what I was thinking,” said Ruth.

  “We think alike, me and my daughter,” Edek said. Ruth thought that Edek must have forgiven her her irritation at his solo outing.

  “We do, don’t we?” she said. She took the roses from Edek. “You give Mrs.

  Whatever-her-name-is the chocolates and I’ll give her the roses,” she said.