The first thing you do when you get a copy of a newly-released book written by your mother's one and only lifelong friend is to stare at the pictures on the cover. Next, you flip through and look for more pictures of your mom, who has been gone for 10 years already She hardly ever spoke about her childhood. You flip past the first part of the book in Austria (which you discover later is filled with betrayal and fear) and with interest, you see the two of them in Longview, Washington standing in a field, wearing shorts and halter tops with saddle shoes. (It's on the bottom left on the cover.) In 1949 they have grown, and stand together again with peter pan collars and sweaters. There is also a picture of Ruth with Shirley and Ruth's boyfriend Fred (later her husband for fifty-six years) sitting outside of a lodge at Spirit Lake, posing like they are going to be on the cover of an album, confident and cool as only high schoolers can be.
Then, you start to read the words around the pictures. This is a life of ongoing upheaval and stress. Attending fourteen different grade schools, each with "vile racism and anti-semitism." This is a life that includes pain I never thought about; her stomach being literally pinned together after surgery due to lack of proper supplies during the war; the smell of kids who can't bathe regularly, the school fights and being called a nigger, the weariness and fear during the ongoing cloud of the war.
I know very little about my mother's youth; much of what I know was confirmed here; she went to Camp Fire Camp in the summer, she loved Spirit Lake, and she dated in high school. I didn't know about her extensive list of daily chores, or how much she and her brother both played piano. Ruth was envious of her in many ways; her life had stability and white privilege, even in their meager circumstances. How my mom once stopped talking to Ruth so that she could attend a dance with a boy who didn't want to go with someone who was friends with a Jew. Those are the kinds of things that only a very strong bond can move beyond.
I later heard the skinny dipping story from Ruth and my mom when I was much older and they decided to visit us in Japan, and was pleased that they had been so daring. Whenever Ruth was around, there was always a lot of laughing; they had a shared enthusiasm for adventure. Together, we watched pearl divers and they bought pearl necklaces.
I was glad to read the testament to the closeness and ongoing friendship with my mother, but even then, Ruth is always aware of possible danger at every turn. "My criterion for non-Jewish friends was this: Would this person hide me from the Nazis? If the answer were no, we would not be friends. Only two or three times in my life was the answer yes, and these were friends I could trust. I most cases, the answer was maybe, and the friendship was only on the surface and would not last. Shirley was a special case. Our friendship lasted for over sixty years, but through all those years I fortunately didn't need to test it.
The book was written to "share recollections of a Jewish child in fascist Europe." I share the preface here as a testament to the spirit of this book -the bulk of which I've ignored here in my own selfish search for memories of my mother:
The sentences and syntax are, at times, awkward and repetitive. These flaws reflect that fact that I had to translate my memories from the thoughts of a child who had a sparse knowledge of English, and later from the disconnected diary entries of a teenager, traumatized by the dichotomy and mixed messages of her world.
Thank you, Ruth.
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