Too Many Men (37 page)

She knew the center had two hundred members, a prayer house somewhere in the building, a canteen, and a kosher kitchen. The cabbage that they could smell must be kosher. They served thirty free meals a day, Ruth had read, and provided the community with matzoh at Passover. The center’s aim was to maintain and support the religious and cultural traditions of the Jews of Lódz. How did you do that when there were no Jews left? It was an impossible task, Ruth thought. Not one that could be carried out with the help of boiled cabbage.

“We are to arrange for a guide,” Ruth said again, in the direction of the man. “I rang you earlier.”

“Yes, yes,” he said. “I will try to contact him.”

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“Please,” Edek whispered to Ruth. “He is busy. Can we go?”

“We’ll wait for another few minutes,” she whispered to Edek.

“I do not want so much to go to the cemetery,” he said.

“Just another few minutes, and we’ll call it quits,” she said.

The woman looked up from her typewriter and smiled at them. Ruth and Edek smiled back. The man continued to shuffle papers. Ruth looked at her watch. It was 11:24 A.M. “How many Jews do you look after here?”

she said to the man.

“We feed about thirty a day,” he said, not looking up.

“Are most of them old?” Ruth said.

“All of them,” he said.

“Men and women?” Ruth said.

“Most of them are men,” he said.

So this was what the Jewish community of Lódz had been reduced to, Ruth thought. Thirty poor, old men, who had boiled cabbage for lunch. It was heartbreaking. “I think we’ll go, Dad,” she said to Edek. She noticed a photograph of the American philanthropist, businessman, and cosmetics heir Ronald Lauder on the wall. She knew that the Jewish Center of Lódz was supported by the Ronald Lauder Foundation.

“This is the worst Jewish place I saw in my life,” Edek whispered. Edek looked depressed. The lack of any welcome had probably added to her father’s distress, Ruth thought.

“You’re supported by the Ronald Lauder Foundation, are you?” Ruth said to the man.

“Yes,” he said.

“I was at his home, in New York, recently,” Ruth said.

The man dropped his papers, took off his glasses, and faced Ruth. He looked about thirty or thirty-five, Ruth thought.

“You were just at Mr. Lauder’s house?” the man said.

“Yes,” said Ruth. It wasn’t a lie. She had been to the Lauders’ spectacular art-filled New York apartment. She had been served the sort of food that should be canonized and memorialized, not eaten. Each dish had been more dazzling, more aesthetically pleasing, than the dish that had preceded it. Ruth thought that she saw several of the guests genuflecting over the wines that were served.

Ruth had touched the van Gogh painting hanging in the Lauders’

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library. She had followed the brushstrokes with her fingers. Traced Vincent van Gogh’s movements. Nobody had noticed. Ruth had known that she would never get that close to a van Gogh again. Ruth was at Ronald Lauder’s apartment for a book launch that the Lauders had hosted for a friend of a friend of Ruth’s.

“Mr. Lauder has a beautiful apartment,” Ruth said to the man. The man came up and shook hands with Edek and Ruth. “Sit down, please,” he said.

“We are so grateful to Mr. Lauder. Mr. Lauder makes it possible for us to feed old Jewish men and look after them. Mr. Lauder is trying to rehabilitate the Jewish community of Poland.”

Ruth wondered if “rehabilitate” was the right word. The Jewish community was not damaged or diseased. It was destroyed. It was nonexistent.

She decided this condition was still open to the possibility of rehabilitation.

Ronald Lauder could also have used restore, reconstitute, or rehabilitate.

They would all do, she decided. She wished she didn’t get sidetracked by words and their meanings.

“You were in Mr. Lauder’s apartment?” the man said again.

“Yes,” she said. “Quite recently.”

“My daughter mixes with everybody,” Edek said. He looked very pleased to be making this announcement. “My daughter is very rich, herself,” he said. Ruth nearly started laughing. She restrained herself.

“Not as rich as Mr. Lauder,” she said.

“Please have a cup of coffee,” the man said. He told the woman to put on the kettle.

“No thanks,” Ruth said, at exactly the same time as Edek was saying,

“Thank you very much.”

She shook her head at Edek. She didn’t want to stay in this place one minute longer than she had to. “No thank you,” Edek said. “We did just have a coffee.”

“We’d like a guide for the cemetery,” Ruth said.

“Of course, of course,” the man said. “For which day would you like a guide?”

“Today,” Ruth said. “This afternoon.”

“I can organize it for you,” the man said. “I will arrange for our best guide. He is very familiar with the archives of the cemetery. We look after the archives in this office, thanks to Mr. Lauder.”

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“Could we have the guide at two-thirty P.M., for a couple of hours?”

Ruth said.

“You want to be in the cemetery for two hours?” Edek said to Ruth.

“I just want to make sure we have enough time,” Ruth said.

“What is there to do in a cemetery?” Edek said. “You walk in, you have a look, and you seen the cemetery.”

Edek turned to the director of the center. “Tell the guide we will need him for half an hour maybe, one hour maximum.”

“We’ll have two hours,” Ruth said.

“What for?” Edek said. “Everyone in the cemetery is dead. You cannot stay and talk.”

“Maybe you want to pray in the cemetery?” the director said.

“We don’t pray,” Ruth said. The man looked startled.

“You have to explain to him,” Edek said. “You cannot say just we do not pray.”

“You can explain how you and Mum and your parents were brought up as Orthodox Jews,” Ruth said to Edek. “You can tell him that you decided there was no God after watching Nazis play football with babies, and bang babies’ heads against walls. I don’t want to go into it.”

“I will ring the guide straightaway,” the man said. He walked briskly to the phone.

“Why do you make trouble?” Edek said.

“I don’t like him,” said Ruth.

“You make trouble with everybody,” Edek said. “In the taxi you did want to make the driver feel bad. Here you do want to make this poor man feel bad.”

“Why shouldn’t I make taxi drivers feel bad?” Ruth said. “If they feel bad it’s only for one minute. They don’t really think about what it means to have no Jews left in Poland, but plenty of anti-Semitic graffiti.”

“What did this man here do to you?” Edek said.

“He didn’t make us feel welcome,” said Ruth.

“That is true,” said Edek. “You was really in this Mr. Lauder’s home?”

Edek said.

“I was,” Ruth said. “There was me and a hundred other people.”

Edek laughed. “You are a clever girl,” he said.

“Thank you,” she said.

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“Excuse me,” the director called out. “Can the guide meet you at your hotel?”

“Of course,” Ruth said. “We’re staying at the Grand Victoria.”

“That is perfect,” the director said. “The Grand Victoria at two-thirty P.M. sharp.” He made the arrangements with the guide and hung up.

“Marek is our best guide,” the director said to Edek and Ruth. “Marek will show you the funeral home, which was built in 1898. He will show you how the bodies were brought into the hall from the doors on the west side of the building.”

“You want to see this?” Edek said to Ruth. Ruth nodded.

“Marek will show you everything.”

“Thank you very much,” Ruth said.

“Thank you very much,” said Edek.

“I am glad that you were able to visit our center,” the director said.

“Could I ask you a question?” Ruth said.

“Of course, of course,” he said.

“Why would you want to rehabilitate Jewish life in Poland?” she said.

“I’m not trying to undermine what you are doing here, in helping these elderly Jews, but why would you want to reestablish Jewish life here?”

“It is very important that Jewish people have a home in Poland,” he said. “We have to build up Jewish life in Poland once more.”

“But why?” Ruth said. “Poland is not a conducive place for Jews. Why would you want Jews to live here? Poles don’t like Jews. There’s anti-Semitic graffiti in the streets. You must have seen it.”

“Of course I see it,” he said.

“And you must see more than that if you’re walking the streets of Lódz looking like a Jew,” she said.

“I cover my yarmulke with a cap,” he said.

“So you want all Jews to have to cover their yarmulkes with their caps?”

Ruth said. “What sort of a Jewish life would that be?”

“Ruthie, Ruthie,” Edek said. “Do not get so excited.”

“I’m not excited,” Ruth said. “I’m disturbed. I can understand why it is important to look after those Jews that are left, but I don’t understand why you want to create a Jewish community here.

“And where are you going to get the Jews from? Your current members are obviously too old to procreate. And you’re not going to get any Jews T O O M A N Y M E N

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that I know to migrate to Poland. Apart from the intrinsically unattractive prospect of living in Poland, a lot of Jews view Poland as one large gravesite.”

“Ruthie, this is not a nice thing to say,” Edek said.

“Well, it is one large gravesite,” Ruth said.

“I didn’t mean this, I did mean it is not nice to say it is no good, the life in Poland,” Edek said.

“Would you live here?” Ruth said. Edek didn’t answer.

“We are looking for Jews who are already here,” the director said.

“Where are they?” said Ruth.

“They do not know they are Jews,” he said.

“Well, what’s the point of telling them?” Ruth said. “It’s not all that wonderful to be a Jew.”

“They want to be Jews,” the director said.

“The ones who don’t know they’re Jewish?” said Ruth.

“The ones who have already come forward,” he said.

“Why?” Ruth said. “So they can experience the antagonism and the anti-Semitism that they’re missing out on?”

“She has got a point,” said Edek.

“They want to be Jews,” the director said. “Some of them have gone to a lot of trouble to establish that there was Jewish blood in the family.”

“Don’t they know that Jewish blood is still suspect in Poland?” Ruth said.

“They know that,” he said. “Some of their families will not admit to any Jewishness.”

“So they are estranged from their families and living in Poland as Jews?” Ruth said. “That doesn’t sound great.”

“At least they are not living a lie,” the director said.

“Lies are not necessarily all that bad,” Ruth said.

“Now you are being stupid,” said Edek.

“Why don’t you ship those Poles who are desperate to be Jews off to Israel?” Ruth said to the director.

“They are not Poles, they are Jews,” he said.

“Well, still, why don’t you help them to get to Israel?” Ruth said. “Or ask Mr. Lauder to help them get visas to America. No Jew in his right mind would want to stay here.” Ruth shook her head. What was she trying to

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achieve here? Was she just being argumentative? Taking out her frustra-tions on this poor lone young Jew. Edek shuffled his feet and cleared his throat.

“I didn’t know I was a Jew myself, until I was a young adult,” the director said.

Ruth felt bad. “Do you want to stay in Poland?” she said.

“I hope to go to Israel,” he said. There was an uncomfortable silence.

“I do not feel so comfortable in Israel myself,” Edek said.

“That’s a whole other story,” Ruth said to the director.

“Israel is very important for the Jews,” Edek said. “But for me the Jews what are there are not the same Jews what I grew up with.”

“The Jews you grew up with are gone,” Ruth said. “Anyway, you don’t like being in crowds of Jews.”

“That is true,” said Edek. “But I do give money to Israel,” he said to the director, “and so does my daughter.”

“Having Jews in Poland is a sign that Hitler did not win,” the director said.

Ruth was speechless. Hitler didn’t win? What would Hitler have had to do to be considered to have won in this man’s eyes? Ruth opened her mouth to reply, but nothing came out. There was too much to say, and the words were all jammed and backed up in her in astonishment at this man’s proposition.

“I think Hitler did win,” she said quietly. Edek looked at her. She couldn’t tell if he was about to admonish her not to continue this discussion, or whether he was sending her an expression of solidarity. Edek rolled his eyes slightly at her. Ruth was grateful to know that her father agreed with her.

“Ronald Lauder is restoring synagogues in Poland,” the man said. “He is giving undiscovered Jews back their Judaism. People who did not know they were Jewish now know.”

“Does it help them?” Ruth said.

“Of course,” he said.

“They’re not experiencing any more anti-Semitism as Jews than they did when they thought they were Poles?” she said.

The man thought for a second. “I don’t know the answer to that,” he said.

It was absurd to renovate synagogues in Poland, Ruth thought, and think that that was restoring Jewish life. The existence of the synagogues, she thought, underlined the fact that the Poles and the Germans had very T O O M A N Y M E N

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successfully gotten rid of the Jews. The synagogues stood there alone and unattended except for a handful of mostly elderly people in some of the larger cities. And a stray tourist or two.

Ruth wanted to leave. The smell of cabbage felt as though it had permeated her skin and her hair and all of the rest of her. She felt that her lungs were expelling the scent of boiled cabbage.

“Thank you very much for organizing the guide for us,” Ruth said to the director. She put on her coat.