Ruth Tucker is a dark flame. She is cagey as a starving, feral cat. With lithe wrists like branches in winter, thin fingers and watchful eyes. A latent spark of fear, sometimes shifting to disgust, burns behind them as she studies him. Eyes that disturb Leon Wagner's sleep at night, laying on his back and blowing smoke to the canvas ceiling.

Leon fears Ruth will haunt him all the way home, if he ever makes it back. She will return to West Virginia. The thought of that foreign place makes her smile, a rare and rewarding sight. He will fade away for her until he is merely a strange memory. A story to tell her grandchildren of her brief encounter with a surrendered enemy soldier.

Leon fears Ruth will remain to him as glaring as Polaris. His constant northern star in a frenzied, revolving sky.

Leon fears Ruth as she fears him, but for entirely different reasons.

∆∆∆

Zell am See, Austria

Summer 1945

The rain is heavy the next morning. Though the storm is brief, it leaves the ground supple with mud and trampled grass. My shoes sink in the mire as I emerge into the glistening air. The sun breaks free of the cloud cover. I dump out the pan of dirty water.

"Hello Ruth."

Leon stands at the tent flap holding a yellowed piece of paper that trembles with the breeze. Absently, I muse that his hands look fit for playing piano or the violin. I find it difficult to imagine them shooting a rifle. Even harder to imagine them killing a man. He folds the paper and tucks it into his pocket.

"Did you receive a letter?" I ask, bringing my thoughts to the present.

His brow wrinkles and his eyes narrow. "I am a POW. Do you think I would?"

My face flares up. I nod briskly and turn to leave.

"Wait, I'm sorry," he calls out. "I was joking."

I glance over my shoulder, holding the tin pan to the breast of my apron. Leon shrugs and rubs the back of his neck. It's the first time I've seen him look unsure of himself.

"Bad joke, hmm? I apologize. My sense of humor has never been very keen, even before the war. I take after my father too much. But you are correct. It is a letter."

I take a step closer. "From whom?"

"My brother."

"Where is he now?"

His sharp eyes cut into the mud. "Not here."

I swallow this new piece of the puzzle. Digging into my pocket, I tug out a new pack of cigarettes. They are Lucky Strikes, the coveted brand among the troops. I hold it out to him from where I stand an arm's length away. Leon takes the offering with a nod. Opening it, he perches a cigarette in his mouth and extends the open pack to me.

"I have more. Keep it."

His hand doesn't drop. "Then have one with me."

My hand hesitates midair before retrieving one. Putting it in my mouth, he steps towards me before I can react. He flicks a lighter and cups his hand around the flame. He holds it towards the end of my cigarette. His closeness blisters into me. I breathe in the heat of the glowing tobacco and he draws away. A moment of silence passes as I gather my rattled thoughts.

"Is he older or younger?" I ask as the smoke catches the wind.

"Older." Leon lights his own and holds it lightly by his side. "I have one more below me."

"You are the middle son?"

"Yes."

"What are their names?"

"Paul, the older. Wilhelm is the younger." He waves his hand with the smoke drifting around his fingers as he folds the pack closed. "Paul was in Holland when he was killed in action."

My heart drops to my stomach. The casualness of his tone chills me, it's too familiar. I know I sound the same when people ask after Cal.

"I'm-"

"I know. I know, Ruth Tucker," he cuts me off, his mouth twitching down as he puts the cigarettes in his pocket. "I'm sorry too."

His words pierce my reserve. I clutch the pan, unsure of how to continue the conversation. I had never seen death up close till the war. Now I've seen too much to know how to discuss it sensitively.

"He was a lieutenant," he continues for me, sensing my apprehension. "Very brave."

A brave enemy. It's strange to think of them in terms that feel reserved only for our boys.

"I was conscripted, you know. I went willingly, almost happily. I've never been so stupid." He sounds like he is talking more to himself. "But Paul had already been to the front and I didn't want to be left behind. I wanted to be near him. I didn't go to war for my fatherland, I went for my brother."

I'm finding it hard to look at him. 

"I did too. That's why I'm here at all, I joined up for Cal. Even though our parents were against it. I was already eighteen, so they couldn't stop me."

"And did you see him here?"

"Several times. Our corps seemed to follow his movements. It was uncanny."

"You mean lucky. That's what you are then, Ruth Tucker. Just plain lucky." He drops the cigarette butt to the ground. "I wish I could have seen Paul one last time. He died right before my last leave home."

His head tips forward as he digs the toe of his boot into the ground, burying the cigarette in the sod. Dark brown hair falls forward onto his forehead and I wonder if he has had a chance to bathe recently.

My eyes trail towards the front of the tent. The brutal head nurse is leaving as her shift ends. The other one replacing her is more lenient with us girls. Perhaps she won't notice.

"Wait here." I flick away the cigarette and brush past him into the hospital.

I emerge a few moments later with a bar of soap, a chipped glass bowl, and ragged square of a towel.

"Follow me," I direct, marching along the side of the tent.

I stop at an indented corner of the field hospital that faces the mountain range. I'm not sure if I will get in trouble for this, but I don't care. I don't know how else to react to what I have just learned about Leon. As he talked about his dead brother, all I could see was Cal on that stretcher as the ambulance doors closed.

"Sit." I point to a discarded wooden crate. A barrel of collected rainwater will have to do.

Leon obeys, studying me with interest. I spread the towel over the masculine angles of his neat shoulders. I peer down and his mouth parts in a silent question.

"Lean your head forward," I snap. "You're filthy."

Without mercy, I dump the bowl full of rainwater over his head. He hisses through his teeth as it races cold down his bare neck. The skin erupts in gooseflesh and a bark of laughter bursts from him. I can't help my smile as I throw another splash onto him.

Lathering the soap in my hands, I sink my fingers down to his scalp. His posture stiffens. He clutches his hands together, elbows resting on his knees. I try not to consider what I am doing. I am intensely aware that this is crossing the line. Combing the soapy strands with my fingers, his eyes close.

I shake the suds from my hands brusquely, heart thudding so hard it almost hurts. After filling the bowl once more, his head tilts back as I pour the water over his head. The antiseptic smell of hospital soap drifts up to me. I run my fingers past the shell of his ear and Leon exhales through his nose as though he's been holding his breath.

I wipe my hands on my apron, taking a shaky step back. Another laugh rumbles from his chest. Leon shakes his head like a dog, a cascade of droplets catching the morning light in a myriad of prisms. I shield myself with my hands and find myself laughing as well. Leon rises, rubbing at his head with the towel. I hadn't realized how close we were until I'm looking up into his face. He is only two or three inches taller than me. His fallow stare has feathered away. The smile fades from his mouth. 

The bowl slips from my grasp and shatters against the corner of the crate. I kneel to gather the pieces, but only manage to slice the soft pad of skin on my palm below my thumb. Hissing, I jump to my feet.

"That was stupid," I grumble with a wince.

"Here." He wraps a warm hand around mine, pressing the towel to the wound.

His touch is like a flint being struck against my nerves, lighting my senses like a fuse. I am staring at our conjoined hands. I don't see the hands of an enemy. I see his writer's hands. His hands holding a book. Fingers drifting down the keys of a piano or patting a dog between the ears. Alarmingly human and real. The bitter, calcified knot in my heart loosens.

This is too much.

I tear myself away, eyes fiercely flickering up to his face. "Please don't touch me again."

I sprint back to the hospital and gather my things to leave for the day.