From: BEWalton17@aol.com Message-ID: Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1998 16:20:06 EST Subject: QL: The Enemy (Chapter 10) CHAPTER TEN Ruthie was still worried about Sid when she left, but he didn't seem to be responding to her. He knows. It was possible. Probable, even. So she didn't push it. She only stopped at Northwestern long enough to leave a note cancelling class on her classroom door. She got into her car and began driving around the city. She tried to tell herself that the drive was aimless, rambling, just a semi-hypnotic activity that would allow her to think straight for awhile. But she hadn't been remotely surprised when she'd found herself on the Lower West Side, parking beside a church that billed itself as "The Fountain of Eternal Life." A Star of David was still engraved above the door, although Ruthie had to search for it under the vines that had been planted since the new owners had taken residence. It had been her _shul_, all those years ago, and the feelings it awoke in her were mixed. The vibrant Jewish community of the river wards, the crowded tenement neighborhoods where so many immigrants had found their foothold in Chicago, was long gone. It had been dying when Ruthie was a child -- her tiny Hasidic sect was one of the last to go -- and now it had disappeared almost completely, coming alive only briefly on Sundays, when the Maxwell Street Market boomed again. Ruthie wondered if it hadn't lost something in its mad dash to the suburbs. She stared up at the Star. On the other hand, she thought, remembering some of the brutal and sacreligious things that had gone on here, maybe some things were better left behind. She had told Nate there no were such things as ghosts, but walking through this neighborhood was like walking into a haunted house, where shades roamed every corridor, and she knew that not all of them were benign. She had no intention of going into the church that stood where her _shul_ had been; its ghosts had been quiet for many years, and she felt no desire to awaken them. She got out of her car and locked the doors without thinking, then looked up the empty, November-dreary street. It was depressing -- it had always been depressing -- but there had once been a little girl who had looked down this street, maybe from this very spot, away from the enclosed world she had known, and found enchantment in the bleak vista. How much of me is still here? she wondered uneasily. How much of me *is* this place? How much of me is Albert? The thought was as unwelcome as it was familiar. It had been put into words by a painting student in the later days of her marriage to Albert. The girl who had first brought up the subject had never been one of Ruthie's favorites -- a feminist of the first water, without a nice word for any woman who still wore a bra -- but her attack on Ruthie's relationship with Albert had been uncommonly brutal even for her. Still, the words had stuck, and Ruthie found them returning to her mind every time she felt compelled to return to Albert. How much of me isn't me? Ruthie closed her eyes, and shut out the thought. The past stretched before her. She stepped away from her car and is ten years old. It is Shabbos morning, the first Saturday in April of 1954. She steps quietly out of the shul, looking one last time to see if anyone is following. Inside, she can hear the droning prayers of her foster fathers and the other men, and, faintly, the gossip of the women sitting in the curtained balcony. Public prayer is not exactly a forbidden activity for women, but it is not required either, so it is not done. Ruthie has prayed this morning, or started to, but has been unable to endure the disapproving looks from her elders. So she has decided to try something else to pass the endless Saturday morning. She has excused herself to go to the bathroom, but has not even bothered stopping there on her way out. Today, she has decided, she will finally see what lays on the other side of the shul, the side which is not completely taken up by the Hasidic congregation which is raising her (and, as often as not, using her as an indentured servant; she will not learn for many years that their mistreatment of an orphan is only one of their offenses against Torah). She closes the heavy door slowly, so that it will not make too much noise, then looks anxiously up the street. Whatever is there, it has to be more interesting than what is behind her. Feeling light-headed with her rebellion, she runs down the street and around a corner into a new and exotic world. Around her, people are shouting at each other in the street, hawking various exciting sounding foods. She can buy none of them, of course; even if the food were kosher (which she understands as "provided by a member of her sect"), she cannot use money on Shabbos. But it is so tempting... One of the vendors finally comes to her, an old woman selling vegetables. She is speaking a language Ruthie does not understand, but finds lovely and enchanting anyway. Eventually, it becomes apparent that there is to be no sale, and the old woman leaves Ruthie with a smile. Ruthie smiles back and goes on down the street, unmindful of the curious stares she has started to attract. People always look at her as she passes; she has never known why, but it is a part of her life and she accepts it. She is unaware that the long skirt and long sleeves of her good Shabbos dress, the one Mazel sized down just for her, and the long blond braid lying on her back all mark her as a stranger here. She passes a sign that reads "St. Joseph's Home for Orphans." Ruthie is an orphan, and she wonders whimsically who this "St. Joseph" is and if he would take her into this home and teach her to speak the pretty language she is hearing on every streetcorner here. But she catches sight of some of the orphans who live in the home; they are playing basketball in a small lot surrounded by a chain-link fence. They are all boys. St. Joseph apparently only takes in boy-orphans. "Hey, Jew-girl." She looks up, suddenly frightened. The two boys have flanked her, and she can see no immediate way out. She has been thinking her own thoughts, and has not seen them coming. All the stories she has been told about the goyim start playing in her mind -- they are murderers, they hurt Jewish girls in ways that make them unclean, they mark their victims with brands... She tries to run, but the boy on her right catches her and pushes her back. The other boy catches her and holds on to her shoulders. "We don't like you dirty Jews around here," the first boy says. "I'll leave," Ruthie promises immediately. It seems like the safest thing to do. "That's not good enough," the boy behind her says. "You shouldn't have come in the first place." The first boy steps forward and leans close to her. "What should we do to make sure you don't come around here again, Jew- girl?" "I won't, I promise I won't. Please let go." The first boy sighs, as if he truly regrets what he is doing. "That's not good enough. Everybody knows you can't trust a Jew on her word." His fist shoots out quickly and lands in Ruthie's stomach. She feels the air escape her body. She hears the chain link fence of St. Joseph's rattling behind her, but in her terror she pays no heed to it. "No," the boy says, "I think you may need a little more reminding than that." He pulls something out of his pocket. It looks like a broken knife handle, and Ruthie thinks he is going to hit her with it. It looks heavy, and it could break her nose, if he decides to. Then he pushes a button on its side, and she sees a blade pop out of it, and she cringes backward into the other boy, but he pushes her back, and she sees the knife looming closer and closer -- And then a tan hand reaches out of nowhere and grabs the knife-wielder's arm. A new boy, older than the other two, steps between Ruthie and the regretful-sounding boy, and then punches him squarely in the stomach, just as that boy had punched Ruthie a moment ago. The older boy takes the knife away easily and hands it to Ruthie without looking at her. She grabs hold of it and slashes frantically at her captor's hands. He doesn't stay long. Both of her attackers flee down the street. The new boy shouts after them: "Go pick on someone your own size!" then turns to Ruthie. He is very strong-looking and very handsome. "Are you okay?" he asks. Ruthie finds herself unable to speak. She nods dumbly, and feels the knife slip out of her grasp. "You sure?" She nods again. The boy looks at her doubtfully. "I'm Albert," he says, offering his hand. "I have to go," she answers, and runs back toward home. She decides that she will not return to this place. But, of course, she does. By Tuesday, she knows she has to see this stranger, this Albert, again. She has dreamed about him every night, and when she asked Mazel -- her favorite foster sister, whose family could only afford to keep her one week a year, but who was always around when Ruthie needed someone to talk to, or even a helping hand with her chores -- what it meant when a dream came over and over again, Mazel had said it meant that Ruthie should listen to what it is trying to say. Mazel knows a lot about dreams and things like that; she was born with a caul. Ruthie did not mention precisely what the dream had been. It seemed kind of private. She sneaks out of the house on Wednesday afternoon, while her foster family -- the Simlovitzes this week; Ruthie hates their son Reuben, who is always trying to touch her when his parents aren't looking -- is about its various errands. It is raining outside, but she doesn't bother with an umbrella. She hurries down the two blocks she traversed on Saturday and ducks into the doorway of St. Joseph's Home for Orphans. Her dreams always have him living there. She is quickly met by a man in a long robe; she thinks these men are called priests or monks and that they are something like rebbes. She is not afraid of him, exactly, but he brings back strange, imagistic memories from her infancy, and she associates him with being hidden from a large and horrible nightmare. She will not read her mother's diary for another six years, so she does not yet know that her mother had eluded the Third Reich to have her child, or that she'd been found by a priest who worked in the underground, who had found shelter for both of them in a Polish convent for the last year and a half of Hitler's reign. Ruthie knows none of this yet, but she does know that being here in this building, looking at this robed man, makes her feel afraid. But she has to see Albert again, to say thank you, or so her excuse will be if she is asked. The priest-or-monk stops her near the door. "May I help you with something, my child?" he asks. "I'd like to see Albert," she says. "Albert?" "Yes. He helped me on Saturday." "Do you mean Albert Sciara or Albert Calavicci?" Ruthie doesn't know. She feels like crying -- to have come this far and not be able to see him -- but she does not cry in front of people. She looks down. "He has brown hair," she says. "And he scared off two kids who were making fun of me. I don't know his last name. He just said his name was Albert." When she looks up, the priest-or-monk is looking at her somewhat more kindly. "I think it's Albert Calavicci," he says. "Albert Sciara is only eight." "May I see him?" The priest-or-monk thinks about it for a moment, then nods and asks Ruthie to follow him. They go down a dingy corridor, and up a rickety staircase to an open room on the second floor. Eight or nine small boys are playing marbles in the middle of the room. A group of older boys is in a corner, smoking and shouting, and occasionally picking up marbles and throwing them at the younger ones. All of the boys turn briefly to look at her; a few heckle her in the language she has found so lovely before, and it no longer sounds that way. She does not need to understand the words to get the message. She is terribly afraid that Albert is hidden in the group of bigger boys, and that his is one of the heckling voices. But the priest-or-monk leads her past them without pause, toward a darker corner of the room, where a table is set up. There is some kind of game on top of it. Albert is standing at one end of the table, looking at the gameboard. As Ruthie approaches, she sees him move a piece, then go around the table to the other side and look at the gameboard from there. "Albert?" the priest-or-monk says. Albert holds up one hand to signal him to wait. He stares intently at the game, and suddenly moves a piece three spaces, knocking another piece off the board. He looks up. "Sorry, Father," he says. Ruthie wonders for a minute if Albert is the priest's son, but something about that seems strange. Then she remembers hearing that goyische priests didn't get married, so they couldn't have any children. She tries to figure out how they decide who will be in charge of the congregation next, if they have no sons, but decides it doesn't really matter to her. All that matters is Albert; the rest of the goyim can do whatever they want, even if it doesn't make sense. "Are you winning?" the priest-or-monk asks wryly. Albert doesn't answer. "You have a visitor," the robed man says, then goes to the other end of the room without further introduction. Ruthie swallows hard and looks at Albert. He doesn't seem to recognize her at first. She thinks her heart will break if he has forgotten her, and it almost has when she sees him smile in recognition. "Hey," he says amiably, "I didn't think we'd see you around here again after what happened Saturday. You're pretty tough, for a girl." He nods approvingly. Ruthie realizes she has been holding her breath, and lets it go. "I wanted to say thank you," she says. He shrugs. "What was I gonna do? Let that nozzle cut up your pretty face?" Ruthie looks pointedly around the room. Most of the boys had been out on Saturday. She had seen them playing basketball. "The rest of them would have," she says. Albert shuffles his feet uncomfortably. "Aw, they're good guys." There is nothing to say for a minute. Ruthie's eyes dart around the strange room; Albert stares at a dust curl on the floor. Finally he looks up. "You have a name?" "It's Ruthie," she tells him. "Ruthie Minkin." "Ruthie," he repeats, just trying it out. He nods for no reason, then looks at her again. "Do you play chess?" he asks. Ruthie shakes her head. "Do you want to learn?" Ruthie does not particularly care about learning chess, but she does want to stay here, so she says yes. Albert spends the next twenty minutes teaching her the rules of the game, then beats her soundly in five. Forgetting that the game doesn't interest her, she demands a re-match. This one takes nearly half an hour before she loses. They talk while they play, and somewhere in the conversation, the subject of age comes up. Albert is fourteen, he says. He looks Ruthie over carefully and says, "What are you, about twelve?" She says yes, although she is ten. She will tell him the truth in two years, on the Fourth of July, after the fireworks, the warm breeze, and the bottle of sweet kosher wine she has stolen from her foster home have combined to take them past the point of no return, and he will be angry at the deception and will leave her crying alone in the park (but he will come back to her an hour later, and then only the truth will be between them, and, after, he will whisper, "I love you, Ruthie," and she will hold tight to it because she will know in her heart that he will never say it again, and she will be right), but right now the lie seems innocent enough. She does not stop to wonder why she told it. 1984. The rain was starting to fall when Ruthie reached St. Joe's. It was no longer an orphanage. Ruthie didn't know if such things as orphanages even existed anymore. She supposed there must be some, although she hadn't heard of one in years. Social Services would need to have a place to keep children between foster homes. At any rate, St. Joseph's Home for Orphans had become a shelter for battered women and their families. Ruthie debated going in, but chose not to. There would be too many questions to answer inside, and not all of them would come from other people. Instead, she walked the length of the building to the point where the chain link fence had once begun. It had been replaced by a high wooden fence, which provided more privacy for the residents who ventured outside. Ruthie felt a sharp stab of regret. She and Albert had talked across that chain link fence for four years, sitting back-to-back with it between them, holding hands under a gap at the bottom and looking up at the little corner of space that could be seen even from the river wards. "I'm going up there," Albert had said quietly on one of those long nights, when they had both snuck away from their guardians. Ruthie hadn't doubted him, although putting any men in space was science fiction at the time. Truth to tell, she probably wouldn't have doubted him if he'd told her that he would get there by clicking his heels together three times and saying "There's no place like space." Things had been good at first. Sneaking out of the neighborhood to visit with a _goy_ (and even to hold hands with him sometimes! In Hasidic custom, she couldn't even touch a boy who was a member of her sect, let alone an outsider) had been enough to satisfy her rebellious urge; having her there had, in some way, helped Albert deal with his sister's absence. They had played chess, talked about books, argued about religion (Ruthie, even in rebellion, had liked the concept of religion, if not the particulars; Albert had hated it), and taught each other bits and pieces of their second languages. They had been family to each other (the Yiddish word was _mishpocheh_; Albert had picked it up and used it talismanically ever since) and for two orphans, that had been worth the risks they often took to see each other. Their relationship had changed slowly and inevitably over the next two years. Ruthie had since come to the conclusion that Albert simply didn't know how to have a platonic relationship with a woman, and she had come to him at the start with a full-blown crush just begging to be exploited. She thought she should regret that part of their relationship more than she actually did -- it had, after all, ended up tearing her life apart -- but she couldn't. There are times and places where you reach for love in whatever form it takes, and her childhood on the Lower West Side had been one of them. Her childhood had not ended on that Independence Day night in the park; it had, if anything, strengthened the fragile beauty she had been able to find in her youth. The end of childhood had not come for two and a half more years, days after her fifteenth birthday, when one of her foster fathers had found her unclean (But how did he know? a part of her mind questioned uneasily; there was a nervous flutter in her stomach and her head became woozy, so she pushed the thought away). He'd decided that if she could defile herself with a _goy_, she could defile herself with him, whether she wanted to or not. He'd thrown her out of the house when he was done -- *literally* thrown her, from a second floor window. If it hadn't been for a rotting pile of shredded newspapers, she might have died. Ruthie knew she had been lucky. Things could have fallen apart a lot sooner and a lot more severely than they had. She had spent volunteer time counselling in various youth centers in the city, and some of the girls who came to her had been pregnant at thirteen, or contracted diseases that would be with them for the rest of their lives. One had even been diagnosed with that new, killer disease, AIDS. What Ruthie's foster father had done had been terrible, but it was also over quickly, and afterward, she had found a new home -- her first *real* home -- with the Burkholtzes. They had started her painting and finally sent her to college. The bruises had healed, and even the nightmares had stopped after awhile. She supposed there were still psychological scars, but her life was full despite them. There was nothing left here, and Ruthie headed back to her car. As she came to it, the doors of the Fountain of Eternal Life opened, and a little girl of perhaps ten years old emerged. She was wearing a long, old-fashioned skirt, and her mousy blonde hair was braided. She took a look back inside the building, then shut the door. She turned and looked at Ruthie, and her face registered a great disappointment. She looked at the door, then down the street, then back at Ruthie again. Ruthie smiled at her. "Go on, honey," she said. "I won't tell." The girl returned the smile and winked conspiratorially. She bit her lip, ran down the stairs... and disappeared.