Too Many Men (42 page)

The napkins, Ruth noticed, were also floral. A different floral from the curtains.

Edek was calling her. “Ruthie, Ruthie,” he called. She looked at him. He was gesturing at the buffet. “It does look pretty good,” he called out across the restaurant. Ruth walked over to him. He looked excited. “This is really Chinee,” he said, pointing to something that was labeled, in English,

“Wonton.” Ruth looked at the wontons. These wontons weren’t Chinese dumplings. These wontons were half-pound Polish meat loaves wrapped and encased, like
pierogi
, in boiled pastry. They were enormous. Edek had put three of them on his plate.

“I thought you were going to have chicken soup,” Ruth said to him.

“Ach,” he said. “The chicken soup does not look so good.”

Ruth looked at the chicken soup. It was a clear, unfatty broth with a few scallions floating in it. It looked, to Ruth, like the most appetizing of all of the items on display. Ruth took some chicken soup.

“Why do you take the soup?” Edek said. “You need to eat. Have some sweet and sour beef. The Chinee do a very good sweet and sour meat.” The sweet and sour beef had enormous cubes of beef floating together with cubed potato in a brown gravy.

“It looks more like goulash to me,” Ruth said.

“This is not goulash,” Edek said. “This is Chinee.” Edek added another wonton to his plate and walked back to the table. He looked so happy.

Ruth decided to keep her culinary criticism to herself.

“They got fried rice, too,” Edek called out.

Ruth looked at the fried rice. It looked more like cooked coleslaw sitting on a bed of gravied rice. Thick slices of fried kielbasa sausage decorated the fried rice platter. Ruth started to laugh. It really was very funny.

She laughed and laughed. It was good to laugh. She hadn’t laughed for what felt like a long time. She was still laughing when she got back to the table.

“What are you laughing at?” Edek said.

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“The food is not really Chinese,” she said.

“Why not?” he said.

“It’s Polish,” she said.

“It looks Chinee to me,” Edek said. “And I did eat a lot of Chinee in Melbourne.”

“The Chinese food in Melbourne doesn’t look like this,” Ruth said.

“No, not exactly like this,” Edek said. “The pieces here are a bit bigger.”

Ruth started to laugh again. Her laughter was contagious. Edek joined in. “It is good to see you laughing, Ruthie darling,” he said through his own laughter.

“It’s good to laugh,” she said, wiping her eyes. She started to eat. “This chicken soup is really delicious,” she said.

“My wonton is very very good,” said Edek.

Ruth finished her soup. She felt better. She decided to have another bowl of soup. A bowl of boiled noodles was on the buffet, next to the soup.

Ruth added some noodles to her soup. The noodles were very thick. They looked more like spaghetti than noodles. This trip was proving to be a dietary aid, she thought. She had been worried that she would gain weight in Poland. The government could probably revive the whole Polish econ-omy if they advertised weight-loss tours of Poland for Jews, Ruth thought.

She felt the waistband of her skirt. It was definitely loose.

“I did speak to my lawyer,” Edek said when Ruth returned to the table.

“Your lawyer in Australia?” said Ruth.

“My lawyer in Australia is the only lawyer what I got,” said Edek.

“Did you ring him?” she said.

“Of course,” he said. “Do you think that I am such an important client that he should ring me in Poland?”

“You rang this afternoon?” she said.

“Yes,” he said.

“What time was it in Australia?” Ruth said. “I hope it wasn’t in the middle of the night.” She did some quick calculations. She was relieved. It could have been morning in Melbourne.

“I do not know what was the time in Melbourne,” Edek said.

“Well, I’m glad you didn’t wake him up,” Ruth said.

“He was in his office,” Edek said. “Of course I did not wake him up.

You want to hear what he did tell me?”

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“Yes, of course,” Ruth said.

“He did say that all the talks with the Swiss banks for a settlement for the Jews are kaput,” Edek said.

“Kaput?” Ruth said.

“Finished,” Edek said. “The Swiss did take away their offer.”

“That small, piddly offer that was a fraction of what they took from the Jews?” Ruth said.

“The Swiss do not want to negotiate anymore,” Edek said. “They say that the Holocaust survivors and other Jewish groups was trying to get more money from the banks with threats of bad publicity for the Swiss.”

“So it’s the Jews who are behaving badly again,” Ruth said.

“It is always the Jews,” said Edek. “My lawyer did say that the gold what the Swiss did get from the Nazis would be today valued at nearly three billion dollars.”

“And it’s still the Jews who are behaving badly,” Ruth said. “We don’t need their money,” she said.

“That is true,” said Edek, “but some Jews do.”

“It’s disgusting,” Ruth said. Edek looked alarmed.

“The soup?” he said.

“No, the Swiss,” she said.

“The lawyer did tell me that finally Volkswagen is going to give some money to those people who was forced to work for them during the war,”

Edek said.

“So Volkswagen has finally decided to pay those people who were used as slave labor,” said Ruth.

“Yes,” said Edek. “The lawyer did tell me Volkswagen did admit that they did employ fifteen thousand slave laborers during the war.”

“Most of the people who were used as slave labor would be dead by now,” Ruth said.

“Of course,” Edek said.

“I wonder if Volkswagen has agreed to a settlement because they’ve just bought the Rolls-Royce Company,” Ruth said. “They’re also buying Lamborghini, the Italian sports car company. The Lamborghini is an incredibly expensive car.”

“I do know what is a Lamborghini,” Edek said.

“I wonder if Volkswagen suddenly worried about its image,” she said.

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“I wonder if the discrepancy between their refusal to pay for the slave labor they used and the luxury of the cars they produce seemed embarrassing?”

“That’s very clever,” Edek said.

“I don’t think Volkswagen was really concerned about the Jews,” Ruth said. “I think they were concerned about their image. They’ll probably try to pay the poor slave laborers who survived the smallest possible amount of money.”

“This is probably what they are doing,” Edek said. “Ah, forget about it,” Edek said suddenly. He looked disturbed.

“I told you it would agitate you if you tried to get back what is owed to you,” Ruth said.

“I am all right,” Edek said. “This goulash is very good.”

“I told you it was goulash,” Ruth said. She started laughing.

“It is Chinee goulash,” Edek said. Her father should know what it was, Ruth thought. This was his third helping. “You want some?” Edek said.

“No thanks, Dad,” she said. They ate in silence.

“Oy, a broch,”
Edek said loudly.

“What’s wrong?” Ruth said.

“A worm,” he said. “Here is a worm.” He was holding a small prawn on the end of his fork.

“It’s not a worm,” Ruth said. “It’s a prawn.”

Edek examined it. “It is a worm,” he said.

Ruth took the small prawn from Edek’s fork. She put it into her mouth.

“It’s delicious,” she said. Edek grimaced.

“I did ring Stefan,” Edek said. “I did want to make sure that he did arrive.”

“He’s in Lódz?” Ruth said.

“He is in Lódz,” Edek said with a beam. “He does like his hotel very much.”

“I’m so pleased,” Ruth said.

“You are being sarcastic,” Edek said. “I know you.”

“No, I’m not,” Ruth said. “I actually am very pleased that Stefan is pleased because that makes you happy.”

“It does not make me happy,” Edek said. “I did want for Stefan to drive us because it will be more comfortable for you. Why should you sit on a Polish train? Why not instead to be in a Mercedes?”

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“Why not?” said Ruth.

“They have got very good cakes on the buffet,” Edek said, after a minute.

“I know,” said Ruth. “I saw them.”

Displayed at the end of the buffet, after the wontons and the sweet and sour beef and the crispy-skinned chicken, and the chow mein and chop suey and fried rice, was a selection of cakes. There was a black forest cake, a sour cherry cake, a cheesecake, an apple cake, and a poppy seed cake.

“You can have a piece of poppy seed cake,” Edek said to Ruth.

“It does look very good,” she said. “The Poles know how to make a poppy seed cake.”

“And a cheesecake,” Edek said. “Maybe I will have a small piece of cheesecake. I just finish this first.” He ate the last of his fourth helping of sweet and sour beef.

“Oy, cholera,”
Edek said suddenly. He looked at his fork. “Another worm,” he said. Ruth took the prawn from his fork. “This small prawn couldn’t possibly hurt you,” she said. “I’ll eat it.” She put it into her mouth.

“See?” she said. “It’s delicious.”

“My daughter does like worms,” Edek said. He shook his head and shrugged his shoulders.

Chapter Eleven

R
uth was awakened by a phone call from Max. It was 6 A.M. Ruth was completely disoriented. For a moment she didn’t know where she was. Was she in Poland? In New York? In Australia? It had been years since she had thought she was still living in Australia.

“Bern’s mother has turned out to be very good,” Max said.

“What time is it in New York?” Ruth said.

“It’s midnight,” said Max. “I’m at home.”

“I’ll call you back in five minutes,” Ruth said. She hung up.

She sat on the edge of the bed. She felt dislocated. Max’s call had rattled and flummoxed her. The call had felt like a communion from another time, another place. It was as though Max was calling from Mars. Ruth felt so removed from Rothwax Correspondence. She could hardly remember anything about what was going on in the office. She felt as if she had been away, under a spell. Or adrift at sea. She hoped that she still remembered the business phone number. She checked. She was relieved that she still did.

What was Max saying about Bern’s mother? Of course, Ruth remembered. Max was talking about the possibility of Bern’s mother writing letters by hand for them. Ruth picked up the phone. “I want to cancel the two wake-up calls I booked for 6:10 A.M. and 6:15 A.M.” she said to the hotel operator.

“Why is this?” the operator asked.

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“Because I am already awake,” Ruth said. She shook her head in bewilderment. What other reason could there possibly be for canceling a wake-up call? She would never understand Poles, she thought.

She got out of bed and switched off both of the alarm clocks she had set. She had bought an extra alarm clock in Lódz. She didn’t trust the anti-quated electric clock in the room. She brushed her teeth in the bottled water and swallowed her vitamins. She looked at the display of vitamins and minerals. She wasn’t sure what they were doing for her.

She rang Max.

“Let me call you back,” Max said. “It’s cheaper that way.”

“Okay,” Ruth said. She hung up again. Why was everything in life, including a simple phone call, so complicated? Max was right, though. It would cost far less for her to call Ruth. Max wouldn’t be paying the exorbitant price that was charged for international calls in Poland, or the hotel surcharge.

The phone rang.

“Bern’s mother is very good,” Max said. Max sounded excited. “Her handwriting is clear and not full of flourishes and swirls,” she said.

“It’s not pretentious?” Ruth asked.

“Not at all,” said Max. “It’s intelligent handwriting.”

“Intelligent handwriting. That sounds good,” Ruth said. She felt as though she could do with some intelligence herself. Her head felt thick and clogged.

“She can do three pages in an hour,” Max said. “She’ll soon, when she gets used to it, be able to do four pages an hour.”

“What is Bern’s mother’s name?” Ruth said.

“Alouette,” said Max.

“Alouette,” Ruth said. “That’s a great name.”

“I suggested to Alouette that we have a trial run with her,” Max said. “I told her not to leave her current job until she knows how she feels about us and how we feel about her.”

“Did you feel odd saying that to someone much older than you?” Ruth said.

“No,” said Max.

“Were you uncomfortable suggesting a trial period to someone of color?”

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“No,” Max said.

“That’s good,” said Ruth.

“Alouette is very comfortable to be with,” Max said. “I didn’t think about her age or her color. I just liked her. I suggested that she work for us for a few hours a couple of times a week. And then we’ll all decide how we all feel.”

“Perfect,” said Ruth.

“I said we’d pay her fifteen dollars an hour,” Max said.

“We charge twenty-five dollars a page,” Ruth said. “I think we can afford to pay her twenty dollars an hour.”

“Okay,” said Max.

“If we take her on permanently, we’ll negotiate a salary,” Ruth said.

“That’s what I told her,” said Max.

“Well, you sound like you’re handling everything pretty well,” Ruth said.

“How are you doing?” Max said. “I’ve been thinking about you all the time.”

“I’m fine,” Ruth said.

“Are you sure you’re fine?” Max said.

“That’s a very Jewish question, Max,” Ruth said. “I’m fine.”

Max laughed. “I’ve been worried about you,” she said. “I’ve been thinking about you facing all that loss. And your father facing all that loss.

The two of you together lost in the loss. And then there’s the loss of all the other Jews.”

Ruth interrupted this messy monologue on loss. “Edit, Max,” she said,

“edit. I really appreciate your concern, but I’m very tired. So, let’s move on to the rest of the business.”