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."

"Love will do that you know. The rare kind." She smirks knowingly. "I should know. I've loved enough in my time."

Leon shakes his head, lowering his gaze to his hands.

"You do not think it was love?" Hannah coaxes gently.

"I wonder if I am capable of it anymore."

"Why is that?"

The ache in his throat pulses at the thought. He knows he can never tell her what happened during the war. Not Hannah Stahl, his nanny since birth. The woman who had scolded him for making messes and cleaned his cuts. Wiped his tears when Paul would exclude him from games with the older boys. The woman who had taught him to read before he had even started school. She had praised every piece he had ever written. The woman who had loved him even in the uniform that was an affront to her existence.

Hannah, along with her grandson Elya, were the sole survivors of their family since Leon's mother hid them the last few years of the war. While he was watching trains full of people just like her being shipped to camps.

"Come here."

She holds her spindly arms out towards him, the mottled skin on her hands as supple as velvet. Without resistance, he allows her to press his face into her shoulder as she used to when he was a child.

"Dear boy," she says quietly.

Leon sniffs and pulls away, dragging his sleeve under his nose. "You don't know, Hannah. I don't deserve this."

"No, I suppose you don't, but you need it desperately," she answers gently.

"It cannot be that simple."

"Sometimes it is. Especially for an old woman on her death bed."

Leon rises on his one leg and grasps one crutch under his arm. He maneuvers towards the half open window. Night steeps the courtyard below, insects humming in the last of the summer foliage in the trees. He rests his elbow against the pane.

"I shouldn't move past it."

"You won't move past it and perhaps it's best you don't. These things should never be forgotten." Her brittle voice fills the room like a white light, "But you can grow from it, learn to live with it. All of you must now. It's the only thing left. You must for your mother, brother, my little Elya. You must."

He pivots towards her and she smiles before closing her eyes.

"Don't let your heart die while your body lives. Hating yourself is as destructive as hating someone else." She lifts her branchlike hand and beckons him over. "Now come and read to me. I am feeling tired."

∆∆∆

July 1946

West Virginia 

"Who is Leon?"

I hesitate before entering my room. He is standing on his remaining leg by the open window. The letter flutters in his fingers with the light summer breeze.

"What are you doing?" I let the suitcase from my Tennessee trip drop to the floor.

Cal levels me with a glare. "The other letter is in German."

"I know." A creeping heat hums at the back of my neck.

"Ruth, what happened in Austria?" He holds the letter with tense fingers.

I'm terrified he'll crumple up the paper or tear it in two. Gingerly, I settle onto the edge of my neatly made twin bed.

"What do you think happened?"

Cal snorts in disbelief. He sits hard into the desk chair and studies the letter.

"Is he dead?"

"I don't know."

"Why did you keep these things? He asked you to send them."

"I know, I'm going to get them to his mother." I rub my hands together. "Actually, I was going to tell mom and pop about it tonight."

"You aren't planning on mailing them to her, are you?" He shakes his head with a heavy exhalation. "Is it worth it?"

"Yes," I breathe.

"Are you going alone?"

"Florence is coming as well."

"Two women in war torn Germany. That's genius." He grabs a crutch propped on desk. "The only way mom and pop will take this is if I go too."

My gaze shoots up his feet. The hardlines around his mouth soften and he shrugs.

∆∆∆

Christmas 1946

Germany, British Occupied Zone

I tug the heavy red flannel shirt over my bare shoulders. In my slacks and boots, it feels like we are still at war. The utilitarian style of the past few years was easy to adopt after days of rough travel through Europe. However, Florence still insists on her red lipstick. If only because Hitler hated the shade, she says.

I pause in the Spartan parlor of our hotel rooms. The night before, I had left Florence and Cal talking over a bottle of schnapps. I awoke a few minutes before 5AM and found Florence had not come to bed.

She had fallen asleep on Cal's chest on the sun stained chaise lounge by the broad windows. Cal's arm is draped over his eyes, his other hand resting between her shoulder blades. Florence's long white arm hangs down across his torso, a cigarette smoldering dangerously between her fingers. Quietly, I tiptoe towards them and stump the smoke into a nearby ash tray.

Tucking a short note onto the table next to them, I pick up my knapsack and venture out into the city streets of Hamburg.

After a series of hitches, I'm dropped off at the crossroads in a steady snowfall. The walk to the town is brief, wind tunneling along the lane hemmed by looming trees. All the leaves are long gone. I stop in the near empty street. The rubble has been cleared away and gutted buildings boarded up.

Nearly two years out, echoes of war haunt the derelict stores and threadbare faces of the natives. America is rife with the trauma of those violent years as well, we merely pretend the elephant isn't in the room. An ocean away from the wreckage, it was easy over there. But not here.

I hitch my knapsack higher on my shoulder and edge down the sidewalk, keeping to the curb. My gaze shifts to the ground as I feel the eyes of an older woman on me as she passes. She whispers to the young girl at her side and they scurry down a nearby alleyway.

The people are haggard, thin and suspicious. There is no heated hostility in their grey countenances, only shadows of exhaustion. Nothing like my father had prophesied. He said that they would be angry at us for returning to the scene of the crime. My mother hadn't taken the news well. She had managed to get both of us home only to have us leave once more.

But Cal had insisted on traveling with us and that quieted their fears.

A man steps into the doorway of a bakery. The front window, that no doubt once displayed baguettes, croissants, and loaves of bread, only contains empty baskets. My finger twirls around the end of one of my braids. I have gathered my hair into two plaits. I look like Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz. I feel just as lost.

Despite my trepidation, I pause.

"Excuse me- Entschuldigen Sie..." I bite my lip as he narrows his sickly, pale eyes on me. "Frau Wagner?"

His shifts his weight from the door frame, blowing out a column of smoke as he tosses his cigarette butt to the snowy cobblestones. He gestures with a sharp nod down the street.

"To the end of the street. Then left," he answers in perfect English.

"Thank you," I mumble, trying to ignore the feel of his stare on my back.

It was stupid of me to leave by myself, but I had to do this alone.

I stop in the middle of the street in front of a multistory town house. It occupies the entire corner with a large fenced yard, covered in snow. Beyond the rod iron gate, the front brick walk has been shoveled clean. The gables of the home arch upwards in an alpine style, the walls cream and trimming cranberry.

He is so very real here. My breath comes fast as I envision him as a child on the single swing, reading books in the shade, riding a bike into the street where I now stand. I try to imagine what he could have been had the world not been ravaged by power crazed, murderous men. I can see his face as though we were in Austria only yesterday. Like it hasn't been over a year since I last saw Leon.

Swinging my knapsack around, I unhook it and tug out the book. Paul's letter is tucked into the cover. My feet are glued to the pavement. From here, I am anonymous. I don't have to explain to a bereaved mother why her second son is dead.

If I stay in the street, I can still hope that Leon is alive. Perhaps ignorance is best.

The gate swings away with ease when opened. Edging up the steps, I lay the book by the double doors. I straighten, eyeing the iron knocker in the shape of a lion's head. It isn't too late. I pivot away.

As I do, the front gate clangs shut. I gape numbly towards it through the snowfall.

His trench coat is open, revealing a left pant leg pinned up at the knee. He uses one crutch like my brother. His face is thinner, giving prominence to his cheek bones. He could use a haircut. I step out onto the brick walk, my eyes not leaving his face.

Leon stares at me as though he is in a dream. His mouth parts and he releases a heavy breath that turns to mist in the frenzied air. His potent stare has not lost its gravity.

"Hello." 

I stop an arm's length from him.

He doesn't speak. His eyes sweep the length of me. For a moment, I am embarrassed by my rough appearance. Between my braids and flannel, I certainly do look like a coal miner's daughter. After seeing the grand home where he was raised in comparison to my own upbringing in rural West Virginia, I feel shabby.

"I didn't know if anyone was home..." I begin then bite my lip in shame. "No, no that's not it. I was too cowardly to knock."

I receive only silence and the arctic green of his eyes. I swing my open bag around and dig into it.

"I know things are hard over here, so I didn't come empty handed." I babble nervously, pulling out a can of beets. "I thought your family could use these, I have quite a few more here as well. It was heavy to bring, but I didn't mind..."

My voice fades as Leon moves forward. He stops directly in front of me. Peering down into my face, he lets the crutch fall into the snow. With his hands free, he braces his cold palms against my neck. As he leans forward, he rests his nose against my forehead. My eyes close and I grip his wrists.

"So," he whispers, lacy ice melting at where our skin touches. "It is you who has come to me."

"I hope that's okay." I can't think of anything else to say.

"I was trying to find a way to come to you as soon as things settled down." He breathes in sharply through his nose, eyes drifting shut and fingers tangling up into my hair. "My stranger in a strange land. My Ruth."