by Lily Brett
“You went alone to a Polish home with two Polacks?” Edek said.
“I told the manager of the hotel where I was going, and that it could be dangerous,” Ruth said. “I told him to ring the police if I wasn’t back at the hotel by ten o’clock, and to let you know.”
“What time did you go?” Edek said.
“Eight o’clock,” she said.
“By ten o’clock you could easy be dead,” Edek said.
Ruth had forgotten she had called the manager, the night before. The manager had clearly forgotten, too. It was 10:30 A.M. There was no sign of the manager or of any police in the hotel, and the manager had not called Edek. So much for her foolproof security arrangements.
“It was a stupid thing to do,” Edek said. “They could kill you in a second.”
“It’s not so easy to kill Jews today,” Ruth said.
“It is not so hard, too,” said Edek.
“I went back to buy the china,” Ruth said.
“My mother’s old teapot?” said Edek. “Are you crazy? To go early in the morning by yourself with two Polish men to a house where there is more Polacks? Don’t you know what happened in Kielce after the war? A pogrom. They did kill more than fifty Jews. And this was after the war. This was Jews who was looking for their families, for their homes.”
Edek looked agitated and irate. Ruth was surprised. He hadn’t seemed particularly concerned about their safety in Poland. He hadn’t seemed concerned at all. Maybe he felt that Jews were okay as long as they stuck to brightly lit main streets and kept out of Polish homes. She realized he had been reluctant to walk too far from the hotel at night.
“I know about Kielce,” Ruth said. “They killed forty-two Jews in Kielce, on July 4, 1946. They were shot and stoned or killed with axes and clubs.
They were killed by a crowd of Poles who were incited by the same old rumors of Jews kidnapping and murdering Christian children for ritual purposes. The same old story.”
“China is only china,” Edek said. “It is not alive.”
“But I am,” Ruth said. “And I got the china. There was much more of it than we saw.”
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[ 2 9 5 ]
“Really?” Edek said.
“There was the tea service,” Ruth said, “and then there were eighteen dinner plates, twenty bread and butter plates, twenty bowls, twenty cups, and twenty saucers!”
“They did have so much pieces?” Edek said. He shook his head. “It is something impossible to believe,” he said.
“And everything was in perfect condition,” Ruth said. “Not one crack on a cup or saucer or bread and butter plate.”
“We did use these small plates not for bread and butter,” Edek said.
“We did use them for Vorspeisen, for appetizers.” He shook his head again.
“My mother did serve herring and an egg salad on such small plates.”
“Well, I’ve got them, now,” Ruth said. “We can eat on them together.”
“What for?” said Edek. He looked sad.
“Does it make you feel sad?” she said.
“No,” he said. “How can some pieces of china make me feel sad? The sad things did already happen, and not to this china.”
Suddenly the thought of the cost of the china occurred to Edek. Ruth could see it coming. She had known it would be only a matter of time before Edek asked her how much she had paid.
“What did you pay for this stuff?” Edek said.
“I’ll tell you in a minute,” she said. “But first I want to show you something else.”
Ruth removed the coat from the bag. She stood up and held the coat out in front of her. Edek looked bewildered. And then an expression of pain mingled with disbelief came across his face. He didn’t say anything. He just kept shaking his head. Ruth waited for him to speak. She found Edek’s silence disturbing. He looked as though he was going to cry. She thought that maybe this was too much for him. She shouldn’t have produced the coat now. She was just about to speak when Edek spoke.
“This coat did belong to my father,” he said.
“I thought it might have,” Ruth said. She showed him the embroidered name and initials on the coat’s lining. Edek kept shaking his head. He looked very vulnerable. Ruth wished that she had waited to show him these purchases. Why was she calling them purchases? she thought. They were not ordinary shopping items. They were not purchases, they were discoveries. Discoveries unearthed after decades. As important to her as archaeo-
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logical relics uncovered by archaeologists. She could tell so much about Israel Rothwax and his wife Luba from this coat. She could see how big he was, and she could see in what beautiful condition Luba maintained his clothes. Not one part of the lining was marked or torn. Maybe tidiness and order were inherited traits. She kept her most formal clothes in plastic clothes bags in her cupboard. If something tore, she had it mended. She cleaned every item right after it was worn. Maybe that was a Rothwax quality. A thrill ran through her. The thrill of being able to link herself to a family. To be part of somebody else. She had only ever been part of Rooshka and Edek.
“I’m so happy to have this coat,” Ruth said to Edek.
“It was very dangerous what you did,” Edek said. He shook his head again. “The last time I did see my father in this coat was at my sister Fela’s wedding anniversary,” Edek said. Ruth was worried. Edek looked as though he was on the verge of tears. She didn’t want him to cry. “I remember Fela’s husband Juliusz did help my father to take the coat off when my father did arrive to the anniversary party,” Edek said.
Fela’s husband Juliusz, Ruth thought. She had never heard Juliusz mentioned before. He sounded like a nice man, helping Israel off with his coat.
Ruth knew that the knowledge about Juliusz helping someone take off a coat was not enough information to give you a full picture of a person. But it was a start. Juliusz must have had good manners and he must have been fond of his father-in-law.
“I did like Juliusz very much,” Edek said. Juliusz definitely must have been a nice man, Ruth decided. She was glad that Fela was in a good marriage. A contradictory thought surfaced in her. How did she know that her father’s sister Fela had a good marriage? The fact that Edek liked Juliusz didn’t on its own make Juliusz a wonderful husband. She didn’t want to ask her father. She felt she was already causing him plenty of turbulence.
“I’ve got something else, Dad,” she said. “It might give you a shock, so prepare yourself. It’s something you haven’t seen for a long time.” Edek tried to look composed, but Ruth could see his apprehension and his distress. She really should have waited, she thought, before presenting all of this to her father. She should have waited until he was back at home, in his apartment, in Melbourne. But she had already started the whole thing off, and she couldn’t stop now.
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She got out the old envelope and removed the photographs. She handed them to Edek. Edek held them in his lap. He looked at them for a long time. He didn’t move. He was so still he looked as though he had stopped breathing. Ruth wanted him to say something. She wanted to see that he was all right. Edek didn’t speak. He raised his head as though he was going to say something. Then he lowered it again. And then he began to weep. He wept and wept.
The sight of her father crying was too much for Ruth. She began to weep, too. They sat, side by side, on a sofa, in the lobby of the Grand Victoria, and wept. Finally, Edek pulled out a handkerchief and blew his nose.
Ruth tried to stop crying. She wiped her eyes with a wad of tissues. They were Polish tissues and much rougher than their American counterparts.
The tissues hurt her skin. She had to be strong, she told herself. She couldn’t dissolve into a weeping mess. She had caused the distress that Edek was experiencing. The least she could do was look after him.
“This is my mother and father,” Edek said.
>
“I thought it was,” Ruth said. She started to cry again.
“We shouldn’t cry, Ruthie,” Edek said. “My mother and father is already dead. My sister Fela is dead. Juliusz is dead. Tadek, who is also in these pictures, is dead. His wife Maryla is dead. Everybody is dead. It is too late to cry.”
Ruth looked at her father. Edek’s face looked crumpled. Crumpled in grief. His eyes were wrinkled and furrowed, his mouth knotted and distorted. His shoulders had sunk. In sorrow. Weighted with a sadness that couldn’t be submerged or defeated. Her father looked buckled and broken. Ruth felt frightened.
“I’m sorry,” she said to Edek. “I shouldn’t have inflicted all this on you now.”
“You did not do anything,” Edek said. “The things that was done was done by other people.”
“But I shouldn’t have brought all this up now,” Ruth said.
“When would be a better time?” Edek said. “Never.” He straightened himself up. “I am sorry I did cry,” he said to Ruth. “A man my age should not cry.”
“Dad, you’ve got a lot to cry about,” Ruth said.
Edek wiped his eyes, again, and sat up. He spread the photographs out
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on his knees. “This is my sister Fela,” he said. “And her husband Juliusz, what I did just tell you about.” He handed Ruth the photograph. Ruth looked at Fela and Juliusz. What a good-looking couple they were. They were looking at each other, in the photograph. It was a look of love. Ruth thought that they must have been madly in love. Or at least quite in love to be still looking at each other that way. They had obviously been together awhile. They had two children.
Ruth wondered if it was possible to be quite in love. Or was quite in love, too mild to be love? Was anything less than madly in love, not really love? She looked at the photograph again. Fela and Juliusz looked madly in love, to her.
“Here is Tadek,” Edek said, handing Ruth another one of the photographs. “Next to Tadek is Tadek’s wife, Maryla.” Tadek looked like Edek, Ruth thought. A very young, handsome Edek.
“He looks like you,” Ruth said.
“Everybody did say that,” Edek said.
“You can really see the resemblance,” Ruth said. “You were both very handsome young men.”
“You can recognize me from this photo of Tadek,” Edek said.
“Yes,” Ruth said. “Tadek looks like the photograph of you, after the war, before I was born.”
“Of course,” Edek said. “I did forget about those photographs.”
“You were so handsome,” she said.
“I am not so bad now,” Edek said. He smiled at Ruth. His smile cheered her up.
“You’re not so bad at all, Dad,” she said.
“I do not know why Tadek’s two boys was not in the photographs,”
Edek said. “Maybe they was somewhere else at the time.”
“The photographs look as though they were all taken on one day,”
Ruth said.
“You are right,” Edek said. “Maybe Tadek’s boys was with Moniek’s children that day.”
Tadek’s children. Moniek’s children. Juliusz, Maryla. All these people she had never heard about. All related to her. All family.
“Who are those two girls?” Ruth said, pointing at the photograph Edek was holding.
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[ 2 9 9 ]
Edek looked at the photograph. “They was such lovely girls,” he said.
“Quiet, and good at school. Very good at school.”
“Who are they?” Ruth said.
“They are nobody anymore,” Edek said. “They are dead.” He looked morose again.
“Who were they, Dad?” she said.
“They were Fela’s daughters,” he said. He looked as though he was going to cry again. “Liebala, the older one, was my favorite. Always smiling.
Always talking. She did love to talk. ‘Uncle Edek,’ she called me. ‘Uncle Edek, can I come on the doroszka? Uncle Edek, can I walk with you? Uncle Edek. Uncle Edek!’ ” Edek put down the photograph and wiped his eyes.
“Are you all right, Dad?” Ruth said.
“I am all right,” he said.
“What was the younger girl’s name?” Ruth said.
“Hanka,” Edek said. “Hanka was very nice, too. A bit more quiet than her sister, but very nice.” Edek sniffed and wiped his eyes again. He put his handkerchief back in his pocket. The handkerchief looked very wet.
“Don’t you think Hanka and Liebala look like me?” Ruth said.
“I always did know this,” Edek said. “So did Mum.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Ruth said.
“What for?” said Edek. “To tell you the truth,” Edek said, “I did try myself not to think of it too much. It is not so easy to have a child who reminds you so much of other children. Children what are dead.” Edek looked as though he might start crying again.
“Of course, Dad,” she said. “I understand.”
“They was clever girls, both of them,” he said.
“I’m glad they were clever,” Ruth said.
“Especially Liebala,” Edek said. He held his mouth together, in an effort to stem any more tears.
“Let’s put the photographs away now,” Ruth said. “I’ll have copies of them made in New York and give you a set.”
“Probably they do such copies, in Poland,” Edek said.
“I’m not giving these photographs to any Pole,” Ruth said.
Edek laughed. “Maybe that was not such a good idea,” he said.
“I’m going to have the coat altered so it fits me, in New York, too,”
Ruth said. Edek shook his head at her. “It’s going to look great,” Ruth said.
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Edek laughed. “You are crazy,” he said. Ruth was glad that her craziness was making Edek laugh. Edek took one last look at the photographs before he handed them over to Ruth.
It must be so strange for him to look at these photographs, Ruth thought. He hadn’t seen these people for so many years. So many decades.
And, here he was, looking at an image of them. An image that had preserved them, perfectly, looking exactly the way they had looked when he last saw them.
“I’m happy we got these,” Edek said. “Better to remember my mother and father and Fela and Tadek like this than how they was in the ghetto.”
Of course, Ruth thought. How stupid of her. This wasn’t how he had last seen his mother and father and sister and brothers. His last view of them hadn’t been like this at all. Not one of them had been well dressed when he had last seen them. Not one of them had been well fed. Fela’s high cheekbones wouldn’t have had a coating of flesh when Edek had last kissed her. They would have been sharp and angular. Probably protruding a long way out off the rest of her face. And what had happened to the girls in the ghetto? To Hanka and Liebala? Ruth didn’t dare ask.
“Make me two copies of the one with my mother and father,” Edek said. “The one which is only my mother standing next to my father.”
“Okay,” Ruth said.
“I want to send one to Garth,” Edek said.
“To Garth?” said Ruth. “What do you want to send it to Garth for?”
“I want to show him what my mother and father did look like,” Edek said. “He will be interested.” Ruth dropped the subject. She didn’t want to agitate her father. She had put him through enough this morning.
“How much did you pay for all this stuff?” Edek said. This was the question she had been hoping to deflect. She didn’t answer. “How much did this stuff cost you?” said Edek.
“It’s not stuff,” Ruth said.
“It is stuff what is important to us,” Edek said. “But it is stuff.”
“Quite a bit,” Ruth said.
“How much is such a bit?” said Edek.
“Three thousand two hundred and fifty dollars for the set of china an
d the silver bowl,” Ruth said.
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[ 3 0 1 ]
Edek whistled. “Oh, brother,” he said. “Three thousand and two hundred dollars for some china and some photographs.”
“No, the photographs and the coat were extra,” Ruth said.
“Extra?” said Edek. “Three thousand two hundred and fifty American dollars was not enough?” He paused for a second. “It was American dollars what you was talking about, not Australian dollars?” he said.
“They were American dollars,” Ruth said.
“Of course,” Edek said. “Everybody wants American dollars. How much was the coat and the photographs?”
“Another thousand dollars,” Ruth said.
“Another thousand,” he said in disbelief. “Those bestids.”
Not even the way he pronounced “bastard” could cheer up Ruth.
Edek’s version of “bestid” usually lifted her spirits. She felt appalled at how much she had spent. She could see that her father was appalled too.
“Those bestids,” Edek said again.
“It’s not such a huge amount of money for me to spend,” Ruth said. “I could spend it on a vacation or on a piece of furniture.”
“It is not the four thousand dollars,” Edek said. “It is the fact that you did give this four thousand two hundred and fifty dollars to those Polacks.”
Her father was right, Ruth thought. It was not the amount of the expenditure that was the most bothering aspect of this, it was who the money was handed to. It was given to people who had already profited from the death of his mother and father and sister and brothers and nephews and nieces.
“Those bestids,” Edek said again. Ruth thought that one day she should teach Edek a few more obscenities. He was stuck on bestid. There were several more potent profanities. Bestid seemed too timid to Ruth. There was a string of much stronger words for cursing.
“They did get what they wanted, those bestids,” Edek said.
“We got what we wanted,” Ruth said.
“I did not want this,” Edek said.
“I did,” she said. Edek was quiet.
Ruth put the photographs back in the envelope. She folded the coat and returned it to its new home. A Saks Fifth Avenue shopping bag. Edek slumped back against the back of the sofa. The price that Ruth had paid for the coat and the china and the photographs seemed to have deflated him.