by Joan Dobbie

Clipping: Hattersville Courier, January 15, 1950: At last Hattersville has a doctor again! On behalf of the town board, we welcome our new young Doctor Hans Weisman, his wife, Claudia, and their two darling daughters, Hanna, 7, and Anna Ruth, 4. Dr. and Mrs. Weisman, originally from Vienna, Austria, escaped the Nazis in 1938. After ten years in St. Dietrich, Switzerland, where Dr. Weisman served as refugee camp doctor, the family emigrated to New York City. Upon completion of his American internship in Brooklyn City Hospital, the Weismans decided to look for a practice upstate. Lucky for us, they came upon Hattersville’s ad placed in the AMA Journal by Mrs. Ida LaFountain, secretary, Search Committee. Thank you, Ida.

Summer 1953

The doctor’s second daughter, Anna Ruth, lived in a world of her own. Alone, she played in her meadow and walked in her forest. Alone, she gazed out, over her river. It was a windswept meadow that bloomed just outside her “kinderzimmer” window , a dark forest grove that grew thick with berry bushes out back, beyond the meadow. And at the end of her forest, there flowed her river. Ruthie never sat by her river alone, that was too dangerous. But she always, when things troubled her, sat in her meadow alone, or walked through her forest alone. Alone she could think.

Butterflies drifted over her hair, beetles crept over the palm of her hand, sparrows and robins twittered in bushes close by. Now and again a green snake would appear, disappear. And although she had no beloved black wolf in her meadow, no wild wolf in her forest, Ruthie liked to imagine she really did have one. For inside the small cave of her chest was a longing. And always she longed for her wolf.

Each evening, just about sunset, Ruthie’s mommy would call her inside where the sweet smells of stews, noodles and soups warmed the air. Ruthie ate her warm suppers with pleasure, though she cringed at the thought of the calves who were killed for their meat. She knew about meat from a story her big schwesterlein, Hanna, had told her one night after supper, when the parents were gone over to the doctor’s office next door and Mary Lou, the sitter, was in the back yard with her sweetheart.

“They drag baby calves away from their mommies,” the big schwesterlein had stated in a quiet, serious, voice, solemnly brushing and braiding Ruthie’s thick brown-black curls. Then she had described in dreadful detail the desperate lowing of the mommy cows trying to reach their babies, the pitiful calls of the babies. “They drag them away by their feet across gravel and shove them up into this huge rickety truck and drive them to the slaughterhouse..” Hanna had said, with a slight proprietary tug on Ruthie’s just finished left braid. “... an immense stone building without any windows anywhere and blood running in rivers all over the floor.”

Ruthie had sat wide-eyed in silence. Deep in her brain she was watching the killing of calves. “They slit their throats and then they peel off their skins just like peeling a banana,” Hanna had continued, patting Ruthie’s dark bangs into shape. “And that’s how we get meat.” Yes, it was true, she had insisted. She knew from a news clip she’d seen one time when she'd gone to the movies with Patty Winderman’s family . And she was certain, she’d said, that the parents knew too. Though they never spoke of such matters. Then she had got out the mirror so Ruthie could inspect her professional looking French braids.

Ruthie liked when her big schwesterlein played with her hair. Patty Winderman’s mother ran the town beauty shop, so often when Hanna came home from the Winderman’s, she would say to Ruthie, “Come, have a seat, sweetheart,” in just Mrs. Winderman’s comfortable North Country twang, and she had Ruthie sit down while she fixed up her hair.

Ruthie didn’t much mind how she did or didn’t look, but she loved more than most anything the touch of her sister’s hands in her hair. And she loved nearly as much the stories she told her -- she who knew everything.

The big schwesterlein had round gray-blue eyes and lovely blond curls, and she was taller and broader than Ruthie, who was small, skinny and dark. Ruthie thought her the most beautiful girl in the world. The big schwesterlein's name (of course) was Hanna, except nowadays she was calling herself Wendy and everyone else had to call her Wendy too.

It had happened the Sunday she’d come back from seeing PETER PAN with the Windermans. “From now on,” Hanna had announced that evening at supper, “my name is Wendy.”

“Mein Gott, wvas ist wrong with Channa?... genug, genug...enough already...” the daddy had grumbled, making room on his plate for the thick-gravied stew with which the mommy was covering his five steaming nockeln.

I hate being Hanna,” Hanna had retorted. It’s a horrible name. At school they can’t even say it! Wendy is a pretty name, like Patty.” And she had smiled at the daddy, batting her wide gray-blue eyes until even the daddy himself had smiled back.

“You were named for your poor Tante Channa, may she rest in peace,” the mommy, who never spoke quietly, had said quietly, spoon in mid-air, hovering strangely, like a small silver moon.

“Did she die mommy? What happened? asked Ruthie.

“Nozzing happened,” said the mommy.

A shadow fell over the daddy’s face. “Ich weiss nicht... I don’t know... the soldiers were running behind us... und... your mommy...

“Genug!,” said the mommy, her oddly soft voice stiff as iron, the silvery spoon shaking in her hand. “Never mind. Nothing happened...”

“... und... dann... I remember only... I was running...” said the daddy... “... und... the dogs... big like wvolves....”

“What dogs? What happened? “asked Ruthie.

“Genug already!” said the mommy suddenly loud enough to make the cups shake. She reached straight across Ruthie’s face, dropping a dark glob of gravy onto Hanna’s plate, hard. “Eat your supper. Nothing happened.” Then she half- growled, half-whispered something in German to the daddy. And he half-whined, half-whispered something in German in response.

“Eat, Shatzi, eat, Channa,” said the daddy to Hanna.

“Stop calling me Hanna! My name is Wendy,” Hanna had pouted. Then the phone rang and the daddy had had to go out, leaving his half-eaten plate on the table.

So now the big schwesterlein was no longer Hanna, but Wendy. It didn’t much matter to Ruthie. In Ruthie’s mind, she was grander, more special, than any name. In Ruthie’s mind, she was always “the big schwesterlein.”

After the story was over, the calves long dead and eaten, Ruthie followed her big schwesterlein out into the night, down the narrow back yard path, through the small back yard forest, to the apple tree place. Suddenly the big schwesterlein stopped short, slapped a hand over Ruthie’s mouth, and pointed.

There in an odd, squirming lump under the apple tree Mary Lou and her boyfriend Scott were half naked, squeezing and kissing, bumping and moaning. Ruthie and her big schwesterlein hid in the brush just a little ways off. They watched for a very long time, feeling a marvelous tickle deep in their tushies, and they had to squeeze each other’s hands very tight so not to giggle.

The next morning they tried with each other. They took off their clothes. They bumped and panted, moaned and groaned. At first it was fun, but then Hanna banged her head on the corner of the dresser and said it was all Ruthie’s fault and she was going to punch her right in the mouth so Ruthie grabbed her around the waist and bit her hard right on her belly and they both started to scream. Then the parents arrived.

The mommy threatened to spank Ruthie. The daddy threatened to have every last one of her teeth pulled out, and to keep her tied up on a leash besides. He called her a “wvild animal, a wvolf-girl, a wvicked and dangerous beast.” He growled that the mommy had no idea how to raise kinder, and what was she raising? wvild animals???

The mommy snapped back that if he knew all the answers then maybe he ought to be raising them. He could at least help once in a while. Ruthie stared up at her daddy, his long dark face so much like her own in the mirror, his dark unruly curls so much like her own (except when Hanna combed them). He looked like a sad grown-up clown.

He grumbled some swear words in German. He told them, “Get dressed.” Then he took the big schwesterlein’s hand, patted her silky blond head, and led her next door to the doctor’s office. Ruthie was left by herself in the "kinderzimmer".

The kinderzimmer was the room where they slept. It had two beds in it, one big and one little. On the south wall by the window was Ruthie’s little cot, all fluffy with blankets. When Ruthie first woke up in the morning she liked to look out her window over the meadow across to her forest, and finally out to her river. On clear days, if she woke early enough, the entire scene would be rose red with sunrise. Sometimes on such a red morning, Ruthie liked to imagine a wolf came to play in her meadow. If she squinted her eyes just hard enough she almost could see him.

On the north wall of the kinderzimmer, up over Hanna’s big bed, was the blue china cabinet. On its mirrored glass shelves stood Hanna and Ruthie’s china animals: lions and horses, a giraffe, and Ruthie’s favorite of all, the black porcelain wolf, a gift from her Opa who lived in New York.

They had been very small girls the day they had gone with Opa to the Bronx Zoo. That was long , long ago. Half her lifetime ago, really, when they’d first come to America on the Queen Elizabeth. But Ruthie had a vision etched into her memory, as if it were happening right now:

Opa’s strong, heavy hands warm at her waist, standing her up on the railing, holding her up, close to the bars of the cage. The beautiful, mystical, pacing of Wolf around and around the stone walls of his cage. His long, limber legs; his glistening fur. His anger at having nowhere to go. Her eyes meeting his.

“But Wolf must remain always in his cage,” her Opa had explained.

“Why?” she had asked. “Is he wicked?”

“Not wvicked,” her Opa had slowly replied, “... not wvicked, but wvild.”

Later, in the zoo gift shop, Opa had bought her a shiny black replica of Wolf .

When no one was looking, Ruthie liked to take her wolf down off the shelf and pretend he was really alive. She pretended he grew to be big as the zoo wolf, far bigger than she was. But he was always her own, and he loved her, and licked her, and they whispered together in the language of wolves. Together they plotted such plots as the rescue of calves, the destruction of slaughterhouses.

Ruthie never told anyone that she played in this way, and if, while she was playing this game, the mommy called up the stairs, “Ruthie, wvhat are you doing up there?” she blushed, stammered, “Nothing mommy, nothing.” And quickly put Wolf back up on his shelf. If the big schwesterlein came in and said, “What are you doing on my bed?” Ruthie blushed, hid Wolf in her pocket and said, “Nothing.” Then she would do something else, like jump on the bed. Sometimes Ruthie and Hanna liked jumping from one bed to the other. Ever since Hanna had gone to see PETER PAN with the Windermans, they pretended the jumping was flying.

But now Ruthie neither jumped on the beds nor even looked over at Wolf and the others where they stood on the china shelf. She just lay on her belly on her cot, chin on the windowsill, staring out the window.

When Hanna came back from the doctor’s office, fresh band-aid stuck to her belly, and the parents were done with their fussing, Ruthie slipped out of the kinderzimmer and went for a walk in the field where the butterflies flew and the grasses were almost as tall as herself. Here in her meadow she felt almost happy. Here in her meadow she knew she was good.

The deep yellow sunshine of summer settled over her skin, turning it freckled and golden. She liked the warm touch of the sun. She wanted more of it. So she pulled off her clothes. Even her panties. Naked she lay in the sun and the pores of her skin drank in the sunshine like nectar. She pretended the tiny soft hairs on her arms roughened and thickened into shiny black wolf fur, and that she really was a wild wolf, a wolf-girl, a marvelous, dangerous creature.

A few days later, she did it again. The big schwesterlein was gone off to Patty Winderman’s house, Mary Lou was busy in the kitchen, the daddy and mommy were working in the doctor’s office. All alone, Ruthie went out to the butterfly field. She sat in her same pressed down place surrounded by daisies and grasses and milkweeds. It was early afternoon, the sun shining bright. She took off her clothes, lay down on her belly and felt her skin grow its luscious black fur. The grass was so tall it held her safely inside itself. She lay so very still that a patterned green snake slid over her ankle as though it was just one more lump in the grass.

In a place near the roots of the grass Ruthie came upon pebbles. She pretended the pebbles were calves, and she lined them up one by the other in a long careful line. Then she opened the doors of the slaughterhouse, telling them, “Run! Run fast to freedom.”

When Ruthie looked up from her game she was no longer in sunshine, but covered in shadow. A figure was looming above her. It was the new older boy from the fresh painted house just across the street from the doctor’s office next door. His people had moved into town from somewhere in the midwest. His father was Hattersville’s new minister.

When that house had been old lady Tuttle’s, it had been a pale mustardy yellow sort of house with lace curtains in the windows. Then for what seemed like forever, nobody lived there, the windows were boarded up, the yellow paint faded and peeled. Now the Reverend White and his family owned it. They’d painted the house a cheery bold white like their name, and the old unpainted barn at the end of the driveway, a jolly rich red.

Ruthie had only seen the new boy a couple of times before, and that from a distance, the day he’d moved in and one other day when she and Hanna had stood on their side of the road watching the working men paint.

But now the new boy was very, very close. And she could see he was huge. He towered above her. He was very, very huge, even huger than daddy. He wore a tight very clean t-shirt and very tight very clean blue jeans and a heavy black and silver horse face on the buckle of his pants. His hands were huge puffy pink hands. His face was in shadow, but Ruthie could see a sort of reddish glow to it, and he was breathing hard, as if he’d been running. He wore thick heavy glasses, making his bulging gray eyes look like fish in a fish bowl. He had a deep thunderish voice, and he kind of mumbled very fast, very low, “Wanna see kittens?”

“Oh, yes!” Ruthie cried, thinking of kittens. And she started to follow him.

But then she remembered her clothes. So she went to turn back around but he grabbed her up into his arms and he carried her fast through the meadow, fast past the house, fast, fast across the road, fast, fast, fast up the driveway and into the newly painted red barn.

And all the time he was carrying her he had one big hand over her naked behind, and his other big hand high on her leg touching her tickle place hard, and it felt good, and it felt not good at the same time. Then he was moving his fingers up and down in a terrible tickling hurting sort of way and Ruthie wanted to get down.

She tried to get down, but he wouldn’t let her, and he growled in his thunderish voice, “What’s the matter? Don’t you want to see kittens?” And he kept moving his fingers in the tickle/hurt place harder and harder.

There was a mattress upstairs in the barn loft and he carried her up the steep stairs and he threw her down hard on the mattress. When she started to cry, “Where are the kittens?” he didn’t say anything. He just pinned her down on the mattress with his huge heavy arms and kept moving his fingers harder and harder down there where it hurt.

Then Ruthie’s mouth began talking. She heard the mouth talking, but somehow she couldn’t make it stop saying the things that it said.

“Take Hanna,” the mouth was saying again and again. “Hanna is bigger. Hanna is pretty. Please, let me go and take Hanna.” And he squeezed her all over very hard with his big heavy hands, and he stuck his big dirty fingers deep into her pee place, her tushy. And the mouth in her face kept on saying, “Hanna. Hanna. Why don’t you take Hanna?”

And then he put one big sweaty hand tight over her mouth, though the mouth kept on trying to talk through the hand. With his other hand he yanked hard at the shining silver horse face on his belt. He was breathing very, very hard.

Ruthie saw everything clearly. She tasted the soft puffy flesh of his hand pressing into her mouth. And suddenly , she remembered her wolf self. She knew she could bite. She could bite down so hard that she’d feel his flesh breaking under her teeth. She’d be tasting his blood. So her wolf mind told the mouth, “Bite!” But nothing happened. Her mouth wouldn’t bite, it just talked. “Take Hanna,” it said again and again. “Please let me go and take Hanna.”

And as if there were nothing else in the world, there hung in the air over her body like a giant balloon his huge pimpled red face, the fish-eyes gaping at Ruthie through glass. And Ruthie’s hand could have grabbed at the thick heavy glasses and yanked them off that face and thrown them far across the barn. And Ruthie’s wolf-mind commanded, “Grab the glasses!” But nothing happened. Ruthie’s hand didn’t move. Only her mouth kept on talking.

Then something happened. Maybe a dog barked, or a car drove by. Maybe an angel stepped in. But all of a sudden he stopped yanking at the silver horse head on his belt and he shoved her onto the floor off the mattress and then he was yelling, “Get the fuck out of here! Get!” And he was shoving her so she fell down the stairs. She fell fast down the stairs out the door. Behind her she heard his deep ugly voice growling like thunder. “I’ll kill you,” the voice was roaring behind her. “I swear, little Jew brat, if you ever tell, I will kill you.”

Ruthie stumbled down the driveway. She tore across the road, scrambled up the front porch steps and into the hallway and through the living room and into the bathroom where she locked the door tight and huddled under the sink in the corner by the toilet. Then she started to scream. She screamed and she screamed and she couldn’t stop screaming. The parents had to take a screwdriver to the door to get her out of the bathroom. It took a long time. They had a hard time getting the hinges off the door.

When finally they did get the door off, what they found huddled under the sink was a dirty, naked, wild beast with blood on its mouth. It was shaking and screaming. “It’s alright, it’s alright,” the mommy said to the wild beast. “Ssshshhh! It’s alright. Nothing happened.”

Even after the mommy had washed it and dressed it, the teeth of the wild beast chattered, and it’s body didn’t stop trembling. Even after it finally stopped with its screaming, it shook and made strange sounds, but it didn’t say words. Nor did it walk on two legs, but when it was set down on the floor it crawled on all fours. They lifted the wild beast up to its feet. They told it to stand. They tried to get it to talk. But after a while they gave up.

“Nothing happened, “they said again and again to the wild beast.

“What is wrong?” they said as they stuffed it into some pants and a shirt and it struggled to escape them.

“Genug! Nothing happened.”

The mommy went into the kitchen to warm up the supper that Mary Lou had cooked. The wild beast crept into the living room. There stood the big schwesterlein, next to the goldfish bowl. “Look, Ruthie,” said the big schwesterlein, who had just come home from the Winderman’s house. She was sprinkling fish flakes into the fish bowl. The wild beast stared at the fish bowl and started to scream. The big schwesterlein had her mouth open. She was just starting to say, “Look at Freddy Fish, isn’t he cute? See how he swims up for food when I tap it?...” but the wild beast was screaming like crazy. So she closed her mouth.

Then the mommy came in. She picked up the wild beast and carried it into the kitchen. It was stiff as a stone in her arms. There was macaroni goulash for supper. It looked like pieces of calf mixed in with blood, and the wild beast that huddled in the corner by the wall refused even to taste any. The big schwesterlein tried touching the hand of the wild beast, but it withdrew and snarled at her. Nor would it look in her eyes. She promised she’d fix up its hair after supper. She asked if it wanted a story. The wild beast growled like a wild wicked wolf and said nothing. The big schwesterlein ate her goulash and drank her milk, and didn’t try any more.

“Channa, what is wrong with your kleine schwesterlein?” the daddy said to the big schwesterlein.

Then he turned to the mommy. “Why is she like this? What is wrong with her? Nothing happened.”

“My name is Wendy, daddy,” said the big schwesterlein. “Don’t you ever remember?”

“Eat, shatzi,” said the mommy, pulling the wild beast’s chair to the table. “It’s your favorite. Goulash. I made it especially for you.” And she tried pushing a spoonful into the mouth of the wild beast. It growled, snarled and snapped.

“Mein gott, will you stop?” said the mommy. “Mein Gott, nothing happened.”

“Mein Gott, what is wrong with her?” the daddy and mommy asked one another again and again. “Why is she like this? Nothing happened.”

And the parents tried eating as if nothing happened. They tried to talk sensibly, one to the other, but they ended up snapping. “Nothing happened,” they said again and again. “Nothing happened.”

After supper they carried the wild snarling beast next door to the doctor’s office. the office smelled like it always smelled, like old people, lysol and medicine. They walked past the desk where the mommy wrote patients’ names on yellow file cards, into the treatment room, where the daddy took patients in private.

They put the wild beast down on the white crackly paper of the treatment table and took off its clothes, even the panties. The beast didn’t snarl, and it didn’t scream, it just shook. It shook all over from head to foot. Even its teeth chattered. The room was warm enough, and the table was not terribly cold, but the wild beast shivered as if it were frozen.

The daddy wiped blood off the lips of the wild beast. He opened its mouth and saw it had chewed up its tongue. He dabbed drops of mercurochrome onto the scratches all over its body. Every drop stung. The daddy was growling in German, shaking his head and growling in German.

“Stop shaking,” he said again and again to the wild beast. “Nothing happened.”

For a very long time he looked here and looked there, dropping red stinging spots here and there. Then the daddy pushed open the legs of the wild beast and looked in at the pee place, the tushy. He opened the tushy lips with his fingers and looked even closer. His eyes had an angry look, like what he was seeing was ugly. The wild beast was shaking so hard that its teeth chattered.

“She is red. I suppose she vas touching herself,” he said to the mommy, his voice hard as stone. “What is it you teach these children to do these things? You let them go naked around like wvild beasts...”

“Do not touch yourself there,” he growled at the wild beast. “You’ll get an infection. You’ll die.”

The mommy put clothes back on the wild beast and then she took the clothes off again. By now they were back in the house, upstairs, in the new upstairs bathroom. The big schwesterlein was sitting all chubby and red in a tub of white bubbles and steam. The mommy set Ruthie down in the water next to her schwesterlein.

Then she picked Ruthie up out of the water and stood her up on the toilet seat. She took soap and scrubbed it all over Ruthie’s body. The soap stung in the mercurochrome places and it stung worst of all in the tushy. Ruthie started to fuss, and the mommy put her back into the water. Then she took her out again. She rubbed her all over with a towel. The towel felt rough on Ruthie’s skin. Everything hurt.

Then Ruthie and the big schwesterlein were out of the bathtub all dressed in pajamas in the kinderzimmer. The mommy had gone downstairs. The lights were turned off and only the moonlight made light. The big schwesterlein was high up in her big high bed on the dark side of the room. Ruthie was in her own little cot by the window.

Outside was the meadow, and beyond the meadow, glowing in moonlight, the river. Ruthie was afraid of the window, but she didn’t know why. She was afraid of the meadow, but she didn’t know why. When she closed her eyes, she saw two ugly gray fish behind their glass bowls. She started to shake. But she didn’t know why.

Ruthie crawled out of her bed, over the cold wooden floor to the big schwesterlein’s big high bed on the safe side of the room. She climbed up beside her big schwesterlein, who did not kick her out as she usually did, but opened the covers, and yawned in a half whispery, sleepy sort of voice, “... I was having the most wonderful dream....

.... I was dreaming, “said the big schwesterlein, “that our china animals came alive. They were flying around all over the room.... and, we were trying to catch them... but they kept getting away. And then fairy dust came drifting down out of the ceiling, just like snow...” And with her fingers she made a sprinkle of fairy dust over Ruthie’s hair and face. “And then we started to fly...”

“Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!” said Ruthie’s voice, but then she started to giggle.

Sprinkle, sprinkle, sprinkle went the big schwesterlein’s fingers all over Ruthie’s body until Ruthie giggled harder. She giggled and giggled like crazy. She giggled so hard she almost was peeing her pants.

But then she was crying. She was sobbing huge slobbery sobs. It was like when the kitten had died, only this time she didn’t know why she was crying.

Ruthie grabbed Hanna around the waist, tight, like her big schwesterlein might any second disappear, and for once Hanna let her.

“...Wendy...” whispered Ruthie in a very small voice... a half-sobbing high little voice...” ... Wendy... did wolf come alive too? Her voice sounded wobbly, babyish, but it made words.

“Oh, yes! wolf was the most alive of all. He was way bigger than we were, big as that wolf we saw in the zoo. And you two were talking, you and Wolf. Yes, I remember now, you were whispering in wolf language...”

That’s because I am a wolf,” said Ruthie. “I am really.”

“I know, sweetie,” said the big schwesterlein, touching Ruthie’s hand to her band-aid so she could feel it in the dark. “You bite like a wolf too.”

“I do bite like a wolf,” agreed Ruthie. So if any bad man ever goes after you, don’t worry. I’ll bite him. I’ll save you.” But a sour bloody taste flooded her mouth, and she started to shake. For a very long time, Ruthie lay, shaking, beside her big schwesterlein.

“Will you get me down Wolf?” Ruthie finally asked her big schwesterlein, who reached a long arm way up to the shelf and handed him down.

Now Ruthie had her own Wolf, small and shiny in her own hand. All night Ruthie lay beside her big schwesterlein, clutching Wolf tight, and after a very long time, she stopped shaking, and slept. But she dreamed about fish bowls and deathly pale fish staring out like gray smoke-swollen eyeballs. They wanted to eat the big schwesterlein.

In Ruthie’s dream, she had to keep smashing the fish bowls, but as soon as the fish were free they turned into huge swollen monsters chasing her, howling, “I’ll kill you , bitch, Jew bitch, I will kill you.“

And she dreamed about ugly red barns with endless stone walls and no windows anywhere, their floors red and slippery, running with blood.

3/16/98-12/28/07 Copyright (C) Joan Dobbie 1998