Dad ran home to Europe with Jadwiga but wouldn't live with her, even after she had his child. Not pretty.
Dreamed last night of James Lofton catching a pass on a sunny day at Lambeau Field. You and Dad and Paulina were down on the sidelines and the sun was high and the football blotted out the sun, then James Lofton jumped twenty feet in the air and pulled it down before being tackled.
At breakfast, Paulina comes late and says, “I might like tanks and Nazis more than watching these sports.” She smiles, though. Sends shivers through your body.
“Football?” Pani Jadwiga asks. “Chicago Bears. Walter Payton! Nice smile.”
“You do not speak English,” Paulina snarls at her.
“Walter Payton is dead,” you mumble.
Pani Jadwiga cries, “Oh!” She leaves the table, crying.
So much crap in this box and you can't stay awake to read it all. Some letters are not addressed, but seem to be to you. At night, Paulina paces around the apartment, and you can't sleep unless she does, but are too tired to read. And then all day you both sleep and dream of Green Bay. Tonight is Kristallnacht, Paulina informs you. You never drink with her, but agree you will drink tonight, because, apparently, Kristallnacht was important to Dad. Kristallnacht is important. November 9.
First you will finish reading these things.
One last note is glued to the back of a newspaper filled with soccer scores. You had to peel it away slowly to not damage it.
Then this.
“Theodore, I mailed you that letter. I made it plain to you that I am dying and you should come visit me here in Warsaw, but it doesn't matter what I say, because you won't come in time. I have maybe five minutes and I will be out again with this dripping medicine. I dream and I'm awake but never completely awake again. You know I know your children? I know Charlie and Sylvie and Kara. I know their names and even have had pictures of them your mother sent to me. I want to tell you that your mother invited me to come visit when Charlie was born. She invited me, but I didn't. I told her no. I told her I had too much business and you wouldn't want to see me after all this time. Don't be upset with your mother, because she tried. Even with all her depression and craziness, she tried hard for you and invited me to come meet my grandson. Now when I sleep I hear echoes of these children. I dream them, too. I dream them playing on the floor in front of me, just like I was a good grandpa, and I tell them how beautiful they are. I'm afraid that too late I realized I am like my father who put business in front of people. I always thought that I'm not like him. I used my dreams to feel close to my family and he used his to frighten people, to gain advantage. I am not like him, I said. He worked for Nazis and I set his victims free. I am not like him. But even if I was treated as some kind of hero, it was only one train, Theodore. It was only one action. I let it go to my head, that I wasn't like my father, because I risked everything to save people. But it was only one train on one day. And my good family was only a dream.
“I dream of my grandchildren and they are good kids, but time changes everything, and they might not stay good kids. You have to tell them I love them.
“Theodore, when I'm not asleep, I feel Jadwiga's hand on my head and she says, 'Nyeh, nyeh, nyeh, nyeh.' That means no over and over. I tell her to speak in English, because she can. You have to watch out what you say in front of her, because she has some big ears and she lived in Chicago two years, so she plays dumb, but she understands and she listens. She doesn't want to speak English. She only ever wants to speak French with me because English makes her feel guilty that she broke up my marriage, which she didn't. And now she says in Polish, ‘No.' I tell her to stop saying no when I have the energy. I want her to say yes. But that makes no sense to her. Theodore, I want you to say yes. Do you understand what I'm telling you? You say yes to your children. You say yes to Paulina. You say yes whenever you should say yes. Paulina will have to say yes, too, even though her poor Japanese is dead. Losing someone you love is quite a shock. I know. You know it too. But I'm telling you right now, you can't say no, Theodore. You have no excuse. I want you to say yes. That's it.
“Today I don't have good dreams. Today I dream I am a stormtrooper breaking up furniture, setting fire, while a whole family of Jews cowers and cries. This is Kristallnacht in my dream. I'll tell you what, if I wasn't so sick, I would fight that dream. I would turn myself into a good guy and I would fight. I'm very sick, Theodore. Too sick, I'm afraid to say.
“So goodbye, Theodore.
Your Father”
Kristallnacht is tonight.
In the first sentence of that last gluey note, Dad says his letter is too late? The inheritance notes gave no indication he was dying, no indication where he was, no indication you should visit. Was there another letter? You ask Paulina, who is already drunk, if he means the notes you received with the inheritance back in Minneapolis. She shakes her head no. You tell her to stop saying no. She shouts, “The letter he wrote you that you don't listen to for two months!”
You say, “As God is my witness, I did not receive another letter other than what was in the inheritance envelope.”
“I do not believe in God,” Paulina shouts back.
You and Paulina glare at each other. You push the gluey final note into Paulina's face. She grabs it from your hand. She reads. She pauses. She says, “Yes. There is other letter. You don't know this letter? We send.”
You shake your head no.
“I am sorry, Theodore,” she says. “I am sorry.” There is so much empathy in her eyes. She passes you the bottle. Then you begin to drink.
“To our father,” you say.
“To Father,” she nods.
And soon everything is slow with booze. From the bedroom Pani Jadwiga's deep snores shake. And Paulina, now sitting on the floor, says, “Brother, if you do not know last letter, why do you come to Warsaw?”
You squint at her, thoughts muddled, unsteady. You squint at your sister and say, “I don't know.”
Paulina nods and smiles.
Day Twelve:
Transcript 1
* * *
Thank you. Good morning to you.
Me and Faye watched the Packer game on TV last night.
Faye is so great. Hi Faye. She'll hear this because we're recording, right?
Hi Faye!
Yeah, they got thumped . . . but preseason . . . you know, whatever. Favre looked good. He threw that touchdown.
Wow. I bet you're right. He probably does know who I am now. Weird.
I'm glad you enjoyed the game.
Well, there isn't much left to tell, Father B.
Correct. My father had written to me again, a few days before he went into a coma. He did send the letter but made the mistake of addressing it himself—a banker in Switzerland had addressed the inheritance envelope. Dad's handwriting was so bad, it took the post office a while to figure out where to deliver it.
I was already in Europe when it arrived, otherwise I would have gone right to Poland and would've avoided all that crazy stuff, would've avoided Amsterdam and Paris and Julia in Antwerp.
Maybe. Maybe I'll get there, Father B. I suppose—I guess I can't imagine who I'd be right now if I hadn't jumped in the river or . . . broken into my father's apartment. It isn't like I'd wish that stuff on anyone, though.
It took me a month before I realized Dad was in this crazy vase covered with birds. Everything in Pani's room is covered with birds. Bird photos, bird paintings, she had a bird bedspread. A vase on her dresser covered with birds didn't catch my attention.
Sometime in December . . . Paulina was drinking. She whispered, “Father is in a vase!” We went creeping into Pani's room and tiptoed up to it, but Pani woke up and shouted at us.
Of course I took a closer look later. I spoke to Dad. Not literally . . . to his remains.
I was with Paulina on that. I got drunk with her all the time. Pani would cook for us and clean. The kosher butcher decided he'd keep taking the business checks after Pani and P
aulina took me down there and I apologized . . . so we had money. Paulina and I drank.
I haven't had a dream since November 9 of last year. Kristallnacht. Paulina stopped dreaming, too. So we communed the only way we knew how, I guess. Got into a common state of inebriation.
It really just made it easy to talk and laugh. We played cards a lot.
Sometimes. She gave me a black eye once. She's very strong.
It was messy. Sometimes we'd sleep on the floor under the dining room table. We were pretty serious about drinking.
I didn't think about anything. I just was. My health was pretty bad, you know? I didn't have a lot of energy to think about the future. Especially with all that drinking.
I grew to love Poland. I love that place. At least I grew to really love the apartment and the grounds right around it. The building felt like home. We didn't leave much, sometimes not for weeks at a time.
By spring. When it started getting warm and I wasn't getting better. All winter I believed my health would improve when it warmed up. But it warmed up and I still felt horrible. Then I got scared. I stopped drinking in spring. So did Paulina—she started running, decided to train for road races, which is a better way to . . . you know. Deal with loss.
You know how.
Yes, Cranberry, agent of change.
He took Kaatje to meet his mother, back in St. Paul. During that trip, in April, he picked up my mail from the post office. Cranberry found the letter from Dad. It led him right to Warsaw.
Poor kid thought I was dead.
Letter from Josef Rimberg mailed to T. Rimberg on August 15, 2004. Handwritten address nearly illegible. Delivered to T. in Warsaw by Nick Kelly, May 2005.
* * *
August 15, 2004
Dear Theodore, my good boy,
I'm afraid it is late. I had some big plans, but as soon as your father gets afraid to die, he starts keeling over right then.
Dying has never been a worry to me. I rode a horse right up to a train while Germans tried to kill me and never was afraid to die, not even when one of their bullets hit me on my hip. Never afraid, because what did I want to live for? My terrible father? My poor mother? I knew they would not survive the war even though my father would do everything to survive, lie, steal, kill everyone else to stay alive. I knew he would die and I would never see him again. You know what his great wish to live got him? A noose for both him and my mother in Holland. That's another story. You worry too much about beating death, you start dying. I never worried about it, but now I am.
I got cancer in my liver. The doctors told me I might have a year to live and I believed them. So I made some plans. I will tell you this, no government in Belgium is going to get my money. What did they ever do for the Jews? And then they think they should have my money? I moved some assets, made arrangements with my business partners, then I paid a Jewish doctor to sign my death certificate in Antwerp and I moved to be with my love in Warsaw. She is a good girl, Jadwiga. I know you will understand why I love her. She is a good woman. I wish now I would have moved to Warsaw a long time ago, but I never thought much about time and how it would end and what maybe I missed. I did my business and I worked hard. And I was good to the people I worked with, Theodore. You ask any of them. Josef Rimberg was a good man.
I would not want them to ask you what you thought. They might change their minds and think I'm not such a good guy. If maybe I moved a little faster, I could change your mind, but these doctors are quacks and I do not have a year anymore.
The other morning I woke up feeling sick and when I looked in the mirror my face was an orange color. This was not a healthy look. I went right over to Geneva on an airplane and got that money I took out of my business, which is not all the money but my Jadwiga and Paulina they got to eat too, and sent it to you. I sent you all those letters, too, that I meant to send you for Hanukkah, but I won't last to Hanukkah. You mostly got a lot of money. Don't think, Theodore, that I think I can bribe you to love me with money, but money does not hurt. And it is all I have got to give you, Theodore, because I have no time. My skin is orange because my liver won't cooperate anymore.
Do you know my best memory? Remember when me and you went to visit the Green Bay Packers summer training? David your brother was already too good to go around with his parents and wanted to meet girls in the park, so he and your mother stayed home. Me and you drove to Lambeau Field and saw the hall of fame, and I bought you that running back jersey. Terdell Middleton. I never liked his name. But he was a good running back. We stood out there with all the Packer fans and watched Lynn Dickey throw those passes to James Lofton. There is nothing so pretty as seeing real professionals play sports. Dickey threw those long passes that arched down the field, and Lofton leaped up and took those balls right from the sky. It was beautiful to watch. Nothing brings tears to my eyes. But thinking of those passes with my little boy Theodore holding my hand next to me. That does the job. Remember how Chester Marcol kicked that ball so bad it bounced up to us on the sideline? I handed you the ball, and Chester let you run it back over to him. Nice man. There wasn't no cloud in the sky that day. Just bright, still, light. My best memory, Theodore. I remember it like it just happened. All that light.
You will understand soon how fast twenty-five years passes you by.
There have been only a few days when the world is light like that. The day when the Catholic boys and I went after that train. The day you were born. The day I came to Warsaw and saw your sister the first time. The day Brett Favre won the Super Bowl. I thought about you that day, even though it was the middle of the night in Antwerp. I turned on every light in the apartment and shouted out my window. I knew you were watching, too, Theodore. I knew you had your own children, and I worried so much about what I had done to you. But Brett Favre won it and I thought everything, Theodore, everything will turn out.
Twenty-five years, and I never thought we didn't have a good relationship. Now I am afraid of dying, I do not want to because now we will never sit down and have a good talk which is something we need. Your mother never wanted me to be in contact, which I gave her to pay her back for the trouble I caused. She would tell me how you are doing, which I thought was enough. But what can a mother really know? I should have stayed in your life. I never was afraid, but now I want to see you, Theodore. So I have a favor for you.
I am asking you to come to Warsaw immediately. This is the invitation I did not put in your inheritance. You get this letter, you come to Warsaw and we will talk. I would call your telephone, but I am afraid of your rejection and don't want it to be the last thing in my life. I prefer to think maybe we did have a good relationship all this time. It is a terrible chain, being afraid of dying and becoming a coward because I am afraid of what life might give me now that my liver stops working and my face is orange. We were friends, weren't we, Theodore?
Come to Warsaw. The address is on the envelope. You come. I will not be afraid anymore. We say goodbye. Then you take my ashes and put them at Lambeau Field. Jadwiga will not be happy with this, but you should see this jar she wants to put me in. It is not a good jar, and I do not want to be in a jar. She won't listen. I want to be with you in the Midwest.
You need to meet your sister even if I am gone. She has had bad luck but she's a good girl, she's typing this as I speak, not so well but we will fix it, and she could use a good brother like you.
You got money now. You get on a plane, okay, Theodore? We will talk about what we need to talk about.
With great love,
Your Father
Day Twelve:
Transcript 2
* * *
My dad was not a bad guy. At least, he didn't want to be a bad guy. That's something, I think.
Cranberry?
I wept when Cranberry showed up at the flat. I cried like a baby.
Cranberry carried all of the past with him . . . all of my reality before Poland . . . he somehow carried it . . . I only thought of Poland when I was in Poland.
I felt very guilty, but it was necessary, Barry.
The whole thing was surreal. I walked them out to the car, knowing I was going to go. Paulina was just shaking. She whispered not to forget about her. They got in Paulina's car to drive south, and boom, Cranberry and I were off to America.
No, by that time I knew I wasn't in legal trouble. I mean I'd known for a couple of weeks. The U.S. embassy had finally called.
I would likely have left Warsaw after I found out Dad was dead. It was important that I believed I was in trouble.
The Miracle Letters of T. Rimberg Page 20