I used to think of you as my Sancho Panza. You've got your own story now. My story is done. I've found what I came for and it's time to retire.
You'll find ten thousand euros enclosed. Don't spend it all on expensive dinners.
You're an inspiration. You've grown up in two months.
Take care of yourself (and treat Kaatje like a queen—I know, you do that naturally).
I think of you as my son, Nick Kelly.
T.
Letter 50
October 21, 2004
* * *
Dear Julia,
I have this dream that I've told no one about. It's a recurring dream, but it sort of evolves. I believe you might be in it, except you're a tiny girl. In it, you and I are linked together so closely that we can never be separated. Sometimes you seem angry with me, and other times you protect me. I've just woken up from it now, and it's the middle of the night.
I'm leaving. I have what I need and can't stay here. I will not destabilize you.
Thank you so much, Julia. You are perfect. When I saw you in Dublin all those years ago, I knew you were amazing, someone so important to me. Who knew we'd see each other again? I'm so sorry my leaving then gave you such heartache. Who knew you'd give me this gift? You've given me my family history. Thank you. And I have no way of repaying you, except by leaving and letting you live a beautiful life.
You're pregnant. I dreamt that, too. My dreams all come true, though not all of them should. This one should. I'm so pleased, Julia.
You are lovely and bathe in light wherever you walk.
Please give hugs to Cranberry and Kaatje and your good husband, Mendez.
T.
Section III
Poland
Day Ten:
Transcript 1
* * *
Good morning.
I'm thirty-six. It's my thirty-sixth birthday.
Oh, drop it. I don't give a shit about birthdays.
Sorry, Barry. I'm joking. Happy Birthday to me.
I slept pretty well.
Poland? Are we there already?
No. I didn't just go on a whim.
Two days earlier, I'd moved over to the hotel from Julia's, because I didn't want to outstay my welcome. I was in the same hotel as Cranberry and Kaatje. Remember, it was pretty close to the train station. It was probably one a.m., and I decided to leave. Not to Poland. I thought I'd hop the first train in any direction and disappear. That's all . . . get out of Julia's hair, go do something with this new hold on my life. Then a knock on the door.
Letter 51
October 23, 2004
* * *
Dear Dad who is dead,
Are you dead? Are you?
I've crossed into Poland. I'm coming. You probably aren't surprised.
I just fell asleep on the train. Here is my dream.
A sunset light in a room . . . living room or parlor. I am in a rocking chair in a little house with my family. I know there are flowers in flower boxes in front of my windows, a pretty tree in back. And there is perfect quiet, except for the sound of my children putting together a puzzle on the floor, on the rug. A little laughing from them. And my wife is wiping the table. I am reading a book in the rocking chair above where the children play. There is so much quiet. But then comes far-off thunder. It grows. Then deeper thunder, still far away, but powerful enough to shake floorboards, to vibrate cups in the cupboard. My children look up at me. I shrug. It gets closer, closer, and I know it can't be thunder. These are explosions, punctuated explosions, with a continuous noise rolling underneath. What is that noise? I recognize the noise. It is the rumbling of tank tracks on pavement. Heavy machinery. Troops marching. The sound of those horrible engines. My children leap up to me, terrified. Nestle into me. “What's that noise?” Put their hands over their ears, little bodies shaking. They cry for protection. I don't know what to do. I am just a person and just as easily obliterated as they are. I am useless. I am desperate. My wife is Mary and the children are my children but younger than they are now and we're frozen together. It's coming and there's nothing we can do.
But then a little girl who is not my child, but is for some reason in the room with us, motions for us to follow her, takes us to a cellar in back. I recognize her. She opens the door and we climb in, but she doesn't come with us. She shuts the door above us and we are together in the dark cellar.
Above us, we hear soldiers, boot stomps, crushing the material of our house, firing guns into walls—exploding plaster, the boards shaking—pushing bayonets into feather beds—sssslip—hoping to see blood, we know, they want to see our blood from the mattresses. And the children whimper, swallow sobs, and Mary can't breathe and I'm trying to keep them quiet. Please, quiet. But my children cry for protection. All that saves us is the noise of the soldiers' brutality. They destroy everything above us and I can only assume they get the little girl, too, destroy her, too. Firing, explosions, crushing glass and wood. It goes on and on until my children, exhausted by their fear, are asleep in my arms. Hours pass and there is quiet above, too.
I slowly reach up, push open the cellar door, terrified the soldiers are silent and waiting in the house. But there is no one. No house. Nothing. Glowing embers and black night sky with dim stars. There is nothing left and no sign of the little girl, but my family is alive at night in the Polish countryside.
This is how I sleep: for ten minutes, which feels like hours, waking up exhausted like I've lived a whole other, horrible life.
How are you, Dad?
I'm on my way.
T.
Day Ten:
Transcript 2
* * *
So there was this knock on the door in the middle of the night at the hotel in Antwerp. I was packing to leave. It was a messenger from the Jhavari bride, Bharat's wife. He made me follow him through the dark to a house about ten blocks away. And there she was, the Jhavari, nervous to get me information and get me away, because Bharat was asleep upstairs. And . . . in the corner . . . there was the Lady and the Unicorn tapestry chair. I almost shouted. I said, “Where did you get that?” She shushed me. She told me it was Dad's. She loved it and took it when Dad left. Left? She told me my grandmother had it in her house when Dad was a kid. The goddamn chair that the little girl sits on in my dreams . . . I thought it was Chelsea in thread . . . I couldn't let it go, but the Jhavari bride started hissing, telling me she didn't need to help me.
She gave me an address in Warsaw and said I had to inquire there. “Green Bay–Palanpur Blue sends money to that address every month,” she said. “It's somehow in relation to your father.” That's all she said. She told me to get out, and she meant it. I left.
Immediately. I was at the train station within an hour (I was already packed). I went to Berlin and then east.
This is when I really got sick. I felt better after the nursing home, at least in my head, no dreams . . . but with the news and being up all night and the travel . . . I couldn't breathe very well.
Huge chest congestion—I found out it was pneumonia months later. And weirdly, I guess, my eyes were dilated . . . my heart was pounding too hard, which I guess dilated my eyes . . . I bought these fat, I don't know, Jim Morrison sunglasses in Berlin. They were enormous, cartoonish. I stayed one day in Berlin, but barely left the hotel. They were the darkest, biggest sunglasses I could find. There was too much light.
Yes, I was an odd sight, I'm sure. At least I'd shaved regularly in Antwerp.
On the train, after Berlin's sprawl, the Varsovia (that was the name of the train) cut through fields of pine and birch and with my sunglasses, the light . . . was surreal . . . orange . . . I was shallow breathing . . . dizzy, which intensified the experience. And then we crossed into Poland. The trees disappeared and the earth flattened completely and the sun . . . I can't compare it to anything. Plains in Poland are not like plains in the States.
So sick, and I wasn't dressed right. At stops the doors would open and icy wind would blow throug
h the carriage. I had a windbreaker on, but nothing warmer underneath than T-shirts and a white oxford (which I bought to meet Bharat Jhavari). But my heart was pounding, and there was so much heat inside me. I was really ill. Must've been feverish. I wouldn't have left my suitcase with that man otherwise. Stupid.
Okay. I hate thinking about it. It makes me feel terrible.
Letter 52
October 23, 2004, just past Poznan
* * *
Dear Lech Walesa,
Congratulations, President. Your country has come far.
Filthy train riders robbing me, then . . . what? Disappearing into thin air? The train didn't stop. Where the hell did he go? This is not how a democracy functions. There have to be rules. People have to obey these rules. If they don't obey, justice must be swift and terrifying. No wonder you couldn't get reelected.
When in Rome, Lech Walesa. I'm in Poland! And I had to take the edge off. I'm not sleeping very well, again, which is not good for me. In Poland you drink vodka.
An hour and a half ago after a bad dream that woke me up, I left my carriage in search of the dining car, hoping to find vodka. I found it. Dining was nearly empty, except for three unshaven men, who were huddled at the window talking in what I would describe as a conspiratorial fashion. They eyeballed me as I entered, also conspiratorially. So I shouted hello. And they glared and shook their heads. I shouldn't have looked at them at all.
Shouting a greeting is not a crime in Poland, is it? You marched with giant Solidarity banners! What about freedom of expression? What happened to that?
You Poles should take naps. The girl at the counter looked so tired, I considered knocking her down so she could sleep. Her mouth frowned at me. I frowned back at her. Her hair was bland and dirty, and her eyes were so dead blue, I thought she might really be dead, but she spoke something, I assumed asking me what I wanted. I said, “VODKA.”
She gave me a vodka in a shot and two stale rolls, which I didn't order, but I don't give a fuck.
I sat down. One of the three conspirators from the other booth stood and approached me. He said, “American?”
“Yes.”
He said, “I buy vodka,” and pointed at me.
“Okay,” I nodded.
Forty-five minutes later, after three vodkas, after the two of us toasted Capitalism and Ronald Reagan and the Pope, I got up to take a piss. I asked the man to watch my suitcase. He smiled. “Of course, friend!” When I came back, he was gone and so was my suitcase, and his two friends shrugged. “No English,” they said.
I shouted at the counter girl, but she just shrugged, her eyes watery. I ran and found a sleepy conductor, and he got other sleepy employees to search the whole train. One ancient milk-eyed man told a conductor he saw a man leap from the train and fly into the sky. Do Poles fly, Lech Walesa? Well, good sir, I might suggest they do, as the thief was not on the train! My bag was not on the train! I had pictures of my kids in that suitcase, and I don't have any clothes. How could you let this happen? There were 10,000 euros in that goddamn bag.
Poland has no right to behave so terribly. I am stripped clean, but for my backpack, which is attached to my body, thank goodness. Stripped clean! I am not impressed, Walesa.
Sincerely,
T. Rimberg
Day Ten:
Transcript 3
* * *
We'll get to the dead guy with my suitcase later. It's still hard for me to talk about. The idiocy of that thief.
At the train station in Warsaw I had a very difficult time filing a report, because the police did not care. Then I didn't know where I was going to stay, so I had no contact number, which did not please the police.
Oh yes. The police managed to find me later regardless.
Warsaw? Unbelievably cold. I mean bright with sun when I got there, but so so so cold.
I had my passport and wallet in my pants pocket. I had my notebooks and travel documents in my backpack. I had a windbreaker and T-shirt on, but nothing else. The oxford was in the suitcase with my other pants, my bathroom stuff, all that.
Terrible Stalinist architecture. Gray bloc buildings. Gray people against dull blue skies. Me shivering.
I felt . . . lost. There was no way I could negotiate the place. I heard no English. Brgz, Coorva, Booyerguszh. It sounded like the people had mouths filled with mashed potatoes. Nothing I could possibly understand. Plus I was dying from this cough. Well, not really dying, of course.
All I had was the address in Warsaw that the Jhavari bride had given me. No map. She wasn't sure exactly what the address was for. She knew cash was being sent to this address on a regular basis, that's all. I walked for three hours hoping to run into the right street. I walked and walked and walked, slower and slower, shivering, until I was an empty ache.
Nothing helpful. The doctor in Antwerp had given me strategies for handling hard times, which I'd tried to memorize, but all I could remember was love is an action. So I kept repeating it. Over and over again. That's a good sign you're totally losing it. The frozen air is killing you and you're walking around repeating “Love is an action,” rather than looking for a warm coat.
I suppose I was telling myself I must really love my damn father to be in Poland walking around dying when I could be at home watching TV.
I did. And there are far worse places to stumble into than Le Meridien. It was getting dark when I bumped into a doorman. The doorman said, “Nice sunglasses.” He was English. I was wearing my crazy shades. I'd forgotten about them. I asked him if Le Meridien was a hotel, and he laughed at me. I stayed there for a week or so, until I was arrested.
Letter 53
October 26, 2004
* * *
Dear Lech Walesa,
I have done nothing but sleep for three days. But I'm here. I don't feel well. This could be the end. But I am here, President.
What is this address? The street address the Jhavari gave me is not familiar to the staff at Le Meridien. You probably couldn't help me. You're from the famous shipyards of Gdansk.
Poland is a terrible place, Lech. I'm sorry to tell you, but you really should know.
When I sleep, I don't sleep soundly and I am washed over by energies of this place. I am told by a smiling boy at the front desk that Warsaw was leveled by Hitler. No building left standing. I could tell you this from my dreams where I am dead, a ghost, floating above the burning city. There is rubble, smoke, the little girl in black and white standing over rubble, with skinned knees, malnourished, dying. And I read about the Warsaw Ghetto. A brick wall blocking a street, blocking off a whole neighborhood. Everyone inside, dead. I've dreamt them dying. What a lovely energy comes from these streets.
I understand. I empathize. I have solidarity with the dead, Lech Walesa.
The smiling workers at the desk in the hotel squint at the address from the Jhavari, hold it up to the light, pull off their glasses, and squint again. They can't read the writing, or if they think they can, they don't recognize the street. “Maybe in Praga,” one smiles. Praga is not Prague, but is a part of Warsaw across the river from here, apparently. Have you been there?
Okay, hero of the revolution. Okay, Chairman Lech. You didn't let jail time bring you down. You didn't let getting fired bring you down. You climbed the fence and led the strike. You acted. And for better or worse, you toppled Communism in this country. Heroes act. We won the cold war! I'm cold, Lech Walesa.
But love is an action. I'm going to Praga even though I cannot breathe.
Solidarity, etc.
T.
Day Ten:
Transcript 4
* * *
Still suicidal? In Warsaw or now?
What is suicide? Really? Everybody is dying, you know? It isn't something different than living.
Yes. I am quite deep.
I didn't even think about it in Warsaw. I mean, is this suicide? Allowing myself to fall apart? Entropy. You're falling apart right now, Barry. What are you going to do about it?
; Physically you're falling apart . . . that's what life is: you reach physical maturity, then slowly die.
Okay, I can see that. You mean emotionally, spiritually.
Then I wasn't committing suicide. I was growing too. Growing while dying. Big fat growth.
Let's stick with Warsaw.
I wasn't suicidal.
When I gathered enough energy, the doorman told me how to get to Praga. And I got a map and . . . over there . . . in Praga . . . on a small street behind rail lines and warehouses, I found it. I was very surprised to find that it was a kosher butcher shop. This was the address listed on the piece of paper. My father the butcher?
I don't know why there's a kosher butcher in Warsaw. I thought, what's his market? Who buys from this guy? The shop was covered with graffiti on the outside. Skinhead Nazi graffiti. I couldn't understand the writing. But the pictures of hangman's gallows with the Star of David dangling and the swastikas spray-painted black onto the windows . . . I got it.
Correct. Not my father, at least. An enormous bearded Jewish guy with huge, big hands and an enormous head. He told me he had never heard of my father.
The Miracle Letters of T. Rimberg Page 17