Book Of Ruth

Germany

July 1946
Germany

The doctor gave no other instructions, but to wait. Just wait.

Leon pats his mother on the shoulder. Sitting in watchful silence, her bright green gaze drifts up from the old woman on the thread bare sheets. In the faint light of the single oil lamp,the somber lines of Frau Wagner's once beautiful countenance are dimly visible. Sometimes, her famed beauty that once graced Edwardian garden parties back in England before the Great War can be spied. But not tonight.

"You go to sleep. I'll stay up with her. If anything changes, I'll come fetch you," he instructs his mother.

She grasps him by the shoulder as she leaves the room. Like everywhere else in the house, the walls have been stripped bare. Most of their possessions have been bartered away, except for the bare necessities. Though not as prominent as in the big cities, there is a thriving black market in their little village with the occupying soldiers. Trades for cigarettes, extra rations, chocolate, anything is available. For a price.

Leon's stomach lurches with hunger. He retrieves the book on the bedside table. Leafing through the worn pages, he pauses at chapter twenty-two.

"Read to me, liebchen."

Leon glances up. He hadn't realized the old woman was awake. Her eyes are closed but loosely, relaxed. The doctor had given her something before he had left to make her more comfortable. He was thankful to see it working. He clears his throat.

"From that time on, the world was hers for the reading. She would never be lonely again, never miss the lack of intimate friends. Books became her friends and there was one for every mood."

"Who was the young lady?"

Leon stares at the page. 

"The one whose name is on the inside cover?" she persists.

He had forgotten Ruth had inscribed her name into it. He had kept the novel to himself until Hannah had become bedridden. He had started reading aloud to her in the evenings and would leave it by the bed after she drifted off. She must have gotten curious one day and picked it up.

"Is she Jewish?"

Hannah's eyes are open, the same midnight shade as Ruth's. She studies him as she used to when he was a little boy. Like she could wrinkle out any truth in him that she wished.

"With a name like Ruth, it made me wonder," she explains, turning her snowy head towards him.

"I don't believe so. Though she never mentioned it." He shuts the book, running a worn thumb down the spine. "She is an American."

"Ah, an American girl. They are a diverse lot. What is she like?"

"Dark." Leon leans back in the chair. "Dark hair, dark eyes. Quiet at first, at least you think she is in how she moves. But then she looks at you and-" He chuckles, combing his fingers through his hair. "I sound ridiculous."

"Tell me more, please."

He meets her eyes with a heavy breath.

"My friend from school, Albrietcht Huber, he was in the Luftwaffe. He told me about when a hole was punched into the side of their aircraft and sucked out the gunner. The pull was so strong, he was certain he was going to be dragged out into the empty sky by the draft. It was like nothing he had ever experienced. Deafening and all consuming."

"When you saw this Ruth then..."

"I felt like I was being pulled out into nothingness. Everything I was, all I had done-" He swallowed hard. "Everything around us muted."