10 
FOUND AND LOST
Ruth found her little sister on the floor, whimpering, with one hand over her ear. She took it as a sign that things had finished with Aaron, that a new era would begin now. It would just be the two of them again.
Anna tried to hold back her tears as Ruth leaned over her, but her tears came pouring, and she could not look at her sister.
“It doesn’t matter,” said Ruth. “Just cry. It’ll stop. Everything stops, and then we start again.”
One of Anna’s ears had been battered. It looked red and tender, twisted and stuck to her hair. Her face didn’t look too bad, just one eye was swollen up and closed, and the skin on one cheek had been grazed. It was only when Ruth undressed Anna that she became worried. Anna’s neck was swollen, and she breathed heavily and moaned when she moved. There were black, blue, and yellow marks all up her back and down her sides. Ruth felt her, trying to see if there was anything loose, anything that wasn’t as it should be. But she couldn’t find anything and told Anna to lie still.
“I’m going to get help,” said Ruth. “I’ll find somebody who can see to you better than I can.”
“I don’t need it,” Anna said softly. “Don’t go, I don’t need any more help, I need you.”
“It’s fine, Anna,” said Ruth. “Just lie down here. Aaron’s not coming back. He’s finished with you. It was Aaron, wasn’t it?”
Anna nodded. She looked at Ruth, and then at the door. A chill wind blew straight through the back alley to them. Some birds landed on the ground outside, and Ruth bent down to Anna again and kissed her on the cheek.
“It’s all right, I’m here with you,” said Ruth.
Anna got better, but nothing could be done about her ear. Ruth noticed that Anna always covered it up, and she thought that whichever man would lay his hand gently on that ear must love her little sister. Anna could never deal with the way men left her. It was as if she always had to be destroyed, as if the world had come to an end, every time she was abandoned. Anna was hurt, beaten, smashed to pieces. Only to get back up again and start something new with a new man. How many times could she stand it?
Ruth, on the other hand, was much more used to the ways of the world. “I know the score, and when you know that, it’s not so easy to fall and get hurt,” she used to tell the men who came to her. She wanted to teach this to her sister, but Anna wouldn’t listen. It was as if she were waiting for someone, for somebody or other who would come and touch her like nobody had touched her before. Ruth shook her head when Anna spoke about these beliefs and waiting and being touched. How could you make brothers or sisters listen to you, how could you get them to see what’s best for them? Ruth would do anything so that her little sister could live a good life.
When they talked, Ruth always stressed that Anna should look for love in a man who respected her. No more than that.
“No more than that?” said Anna.
“It means a lot,” said Ruth, “a man who respects you and won’t hurt you. A man who’s with you, who comes back, time after time. A man who stays, who gives you children, who builds a house, who prays to the Lord with you.”
“That is a lot,” said Anna.
“It’s no more than other people have around here,” said Ruth, “but it’s a lot more than we’ve had. You can’t go around thinking that any man who comes to you is a good man. The ones who come to us have lost their way, and all they want is to think, just for a short while, that they’ve found the way home.”
Ruth never told Anna that she thought that the two of them had also lost their way. She was afraid that her little sister wouldn’t be able to stand living like that, wandering about aimlessly. If there was anything Ruth could do as a big sister, it was to nurture and maintain Anna’s belief that somebody would come. The belief that the two sisters were the constant, and that there was somebody out there searching for someone like them.
When Ruth found Anna with her ear battered, lying on the ground in her own home, she began stitching up what had been torn apart. She took care of her little sister, sat by her side in the evening and washed her in the morning. She told her stories she remembered from when they were small. She said things that were meant to help, to do good, such as:
“It’s over now, something new and better can begin.”
“Maybe it was for the best, he was bad, and now he’s no longer here with you.”
“God is with us, he can see us, he won’t let us be destroyed.”
“I’m your big sister, I’ll look after you, our love is strong, love that will save you.”
“You’ll be healed soon, and everybody will see how beautiful you are.”
“Somebody else will come along, somebody good.”
“Everything will grow, and soon you’ll have forgotten who he was and what he did.”
Ruth really thought that this would be a turning point. She didn’t want to see the cuts and the swelling and the marks as traces of evil. No, Ruth thought that this time, finally, they meant liberation. Being torn apart, destroyed, only to get up again and be put back together for a new life. Anna wanted to listen to Ruth, letting her words lead her through the world and into the arms of a good man.
But the little sister didn’t do as her big sister did.
Only a short time passed before Anna met a man called Reuben. He frightened Ruth with his stature and his pale, rough hands. The way he ignored Ruth, as if she weren’t part of Anna’s family, not her sister, nothing but dead to him. One time she came to see to Anna, Reuben was sitting on a stool at the door, drinking from a small pitcher. She stopped, but he didn’t say anything to her; he just lifted the pitcher up to his lips and stared right past her.
“Is Anna here?” she asked.
He shook his head, turned around on his stool, and looked into the house behind him.
“Where is she?” said Ruth.
“Big sister,” he said.
She was about to say something, but he waved her away, telling her to go.
“She’s just gone for a walk,” he said. “I’m waiting for her.”