CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
August 1944
After the initial adrenaline of her flight had worn off, Ruby’s pace slowed. There was no one following her, and the underbrush grew trickier to navigate as she moved deeper into the forest. She couldn’t see the sun, and she was no longer certain of which direction she was going. Her body burned, her head throbbed, and her vision was blurry with tears. “Nadia,” she repeated over and over as new tears spilled. What had her friend done? Had she known, when she encouraged Ruby to flee, that this could happen? Was that what Nadia was trying to tell her, that she was prepared to die to protect her?
By the time night fell, the world was spinning. Ruby stopped near a creek, filled the bottle Herr Hartmann had given her, and drank it all down. She ate half a potato but vomited it back up almost immediately. She sat and leaned against a fallen tree and told herself she would rest for just a few minutes before moving on. But before she knew it, the night had closed in. Sleep overtook her, and her slumber was rich with nightmares about Nadia’s blood spattering the foggy German afternoon.
When she awoke, daylight was streaming through the trees, and Ruby sat up with a start. How long had she been out? There was no way to know; she had no watch, and she couldn’t see the position of the sun in the sky. She struggled to her feet, made her way back to the creek, and drank more water, followed by another half potato. This time, the food stayed down, but she knew she was still feverish. Her stomach swam; her forehead burned. But at least some of the dizziness had receded, which had to mean she was getting better.
She changed into the dress and shoes Herr Hartmann had given her, and she was surprised to realize just how well a child’s garments fit her. Had she really lost that much weight? She knew, as she looked down at her body, that the answer was yes. She was skin, bones, and belly. Herr Hartmann had also included a kerchief, which she tied around her head, knowing that her short hair might give her away as an escaped prisoner.
Ruby sat for a few minutes to gather her strength and to talk to the baby, then she stood and began heading in the direction she thought was west. It was possible, she realized, that she might even be trudging back in the direction of the camp, right into the arms of a search party. Then again, did they know she was missing? Perhaps the guard who had shot Nadia was humiliated that he let Ruby go. Maybe he didn’t say a word to anyone. She would have been missed at roll call this morning, but by then, surely they would have considered it too late to hunt for her. She only hoped that Herr Hartmann’s complicity in her escape hadn’t been discovered.
As she walked, Ruby begged God to deliver her safely into the hands of someone who would help her rather than turn her over to the authorities. After all, she knew that Ravensbrück wasn’t near anything but the Polish border, and heading east seemed foolish; the Germans still had a stranglehold on Poland, and there were, in fact, more horrific concentration camps located there. Before she’d fled, the camp had started receiving shipments of prisoners from Auschwitz, and those women looked even more skeletal than the women at Ravensbrück. They died by the hundreds each day, some dropping dead right in the middle of their forced labor, some simply failing to wake up in the morning.
“Hush, little baby, don’t say a word,” Ruby began to sing shakily as she walked, her hands protectively around her belly. “Mama’s gonna buy you a mockingbird. And if that mockingbird don’t sing, Mama’s gonna buy you a diamond ring.” Ruby couldn’t remember any more of the lyrics, so she sang the ones she knew again and again.
Eventually, hours later, Ruby came to a broad road on the edge of the forest. She stopped in her tracks, unprepared for the risks that came with a return to civilization. But she might pass as a local laborer instead of a prisoner. The problem was that she knew very little German—only a few words. She certainly couldn’t pass herself off as a German civilian, but perhaps she could make someone believe that she was a refugee from somewhere else. The other alternative was to melt back into the forest and press on in a different direction, but already, Ruby felt wildly lost, and she had the feeling she would starve to death or succumb to her fever long before she found her way to safety. No, her best bet was to try to hitch a ride with someone heading west and to hope that whoever picked her up would take pity on her. It was her only chance.
She began to walk along the road, head down, heart thudding. She wasn’t sure she was doing the right thing, but she was certain she had no choice. Several cars whizzed by, their drivers ignoring her entirely, and then, in the distance, she saw a small truck whose hood featured a white square emblazoned with a red cross. She blinked a few times as it drew closer, sure at first that she was imagining things. Could it be a German Red Cross vehicle?
She stepped into the middle of the road and began waving her arms over her head. “Bitte stoppen!” she cried in German. “Please, stop!”
To her relief, the truck slowed and came to a halt beside her. The man in the driver’s seat looked barely older than Charlotte, and she could see that his gaze was concerned rather than angry. It was a good sign. He said something to Ruby in German. She shook her head and murmured, “Ich verstehen nicht.” I don’t understand. He tried again, repeating his words more slowly, but still she shook her head. “I’m sorry,” she said in French. “I don’t understand.”
Something in his expression changed, and he looked her up and down. “Prisoner?” he asked in French.
“No,” she said quickly. “Laborer. Er, Arbeiter.”
The man looked skeptical, but he turned to confer in German with the other two men in the truck. Finally, nodding, he turned back to her. “Get in,” he said in French, nodding to the back of the truck. “We take you as far as we go. Then you exit.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” Ruby said, a wave of relief sweeping over her. “Thank you so much. Vielen Dank!”
“Bitte,” the man said with a small smile. He paused and asked in French, “You are sick? Ill?”
Ruby’s mouth went dry. Yes, the truck likely had medical supplies, but what would she do if they refused to transport her because they didn’t want to be exposed to her fever? No, it was more important that she get as far away from Ravensbrück as possible. “Just very tired,” she said as firmly as she could. “And hungry.”
“Yes,” the man said. He turned and said something to the man in the passenger seat, who rummaged in a bag and withdrew an apple, a piece of bread, and a piece of cheese. “Here. You eat.” He nodded again to the back of the truck, and Ruby, momentarily stunned by the bounty of the feast, mumbled a thank-you before grabbing the food and climbing in. She ate greedily as the truck began to pull away, and although she felt nauseated, she closed her eyes and willed the food to stay down. Her baby needed it. Soon, lulled by the truck’s movement, she fell into a deep sleep.
It was dark by the time she awoke to a man shaking her shoulder. It was the driver of the Red Cross truck, she realized, and he was saying something to her. “I—I don’t understand,” she managed to say as she struggled upright.
“You go here,” he said in French. “We go that way.” He pointed down the road, and although she wasn’t sure why she couldn’t continue with him, she knew better than to talk back.
“Thank you very much for the ride,” she said. “Where are we?”
He took a moment to process her question. “Very near to Swiss border. Swiss is that way.” He pointed down the road in the darkness.
“Switzerland?” She sat up straight now, her heart thudding. It wasn’t the direction she had intended to go, but wasn’t this better? Switzerland was neutral, and she’d be more likely to find help there than she would have if she’d headed north to occupied Denmark. Switzerland adjoined France too, which meant she wasn’t so far from home. “Thank you,” she said to the man, who was glancing not so subtly at his watch. “Danke. Thank you very much.”
“Bitte,” he said. “Viel Glück. Good luck.”
He helped her down, and before she had a chance to say anything else, he was already climbing back into the driver’s seat, already pulling away. It wasn’t until he’d gone that she realized he’d handed her another apple and another piece of cheese before he left.
She wolfed down the food as she stood in the grass, trying to decide what to do. This was a smaller road than the one they’d picked her up on that morning; it was made of dirt and appeared to wind through an unpopulated rural area. If she was near the Swiss border, as the Red Cross man had said, she could feel a bit safer. Perhaps she didn’t need to melt back into the forest and risk getting lost. If she stayed along the main road, maybe she’d find a safe place to sleep.
Her body ached, and she sang to the baby again as she walked. Her fever, she realized, wasn’t burning quite as fiercely. The sleep on the truck had been restorative, but she knew that if she let her body get depleted again, the illness could come storming back. She had to find a safe place to stop for the night.
Without a watch, and without guards barking orders about where she needed to be, it was impossible to keep track of time, so it might have been thirty minutes later, or it might have been ninety, but eventually, Ruby saw a farmhouse on a hill just off the road a quarter mile ahead, backlit by the glow of the moon. She picked up her pace, her mind spinning. It was late; she couldn’t just knock and ask for refuge, could she? Besides, what if the people who lived there called the authorities? But there was a small barn next to the main house, and Ruby reasoned that at the very least, she could sleep for a few hours in the hay before moving on prior to daybreak.
But as she approached a few minutes later, walking across what appeared to be a cornfield, the front door of the house opened, and a man emerged, holding a lantern. “Wer ist da?” he called into the night. Ruby cowered in the darkness, hoping he wouldn’t see her, but her clothing must have caught the moonlight, for a moment later, he came striding directly toward her, barking a string of threats. Or she thought they were threats, anyhow; they sounded just like the tirades the guards went on at Ravensbrück just before they pulled prisoners out of line to beat them.
Ruby considered running, but she was so weak, and she knew the man would overtake her quickly. So she stumbled backward a few steps and then began to cry, her hands raised. “I mean no harm!” she said in English, switching to German to add, “Ich werde dich nicht verletzen,” which she thought meant roughly the same thing.
And then, before she could say another word, the man was standing a foot away, shining his lantern in her eyes. She shielded her face from the light.
He asked her something in German, and although she couldn’t understand the words, she realized he sounded less aggressive now. He had a head of bushy red hair and a full beard and mustache to match, and he was huge—easily more than six feet tall with broad shoulders and a thick neck. He asked her another question in German, more gently this time, and she answered in English, “I don’t speak German,” and then repeated the same words in French.
The man stared at her for a moment more before replying. “You speak French?” he asked in French.
She blinked, weak with relief, and replied in French, “Yes. I live in France. You speak French too?”
“Yes. We are not so far from the French border here.” He paused and looked her up and down. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”
“I’m . . .” She trailed off, unsure of how to answer. What if he was in collusion with the Nazis?
“Don’t worry,” he said a moment later, as if reading her mind. His tone was gentle, and there was something about him that reminded her of Herr Hartmann. “I will not hurt you. Are you running from the Nazis?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“You will come inside, then. You must rest. I think perhaps you have come a very long way.”
“Yes.” But she hesitated, not sure if she could trust him.
“Come.” He placed his hand on her arm. The motion was gentle, supportive. “My name is Fritz. My wife is just inside.”
Ruby finally relented, letting the farmer lead her toward the house.
Inside, she found a fire blazing in the hearth and a woman about her age with long, dark hair and big, brown eyes cutting a piece of meat in the kitchen. The woman turned as she entered and said something in German, but Fritz spoke quickly, and the woman changed effortlessly to French.
“You are an escapee, no?” the woman asked, and Ruby glanced at the man and then back at the woman. Was this a trap after all? But before she could reply, the woman added, “Don’t be frightened. We want to help you. We do not believe in the same things the Nazis believe in.” The woman exchanged looks with her husband. “We are, how do you say, fighters for freedom.”
Ruby blinked back unexpected tears. She didn’t know whether the woman was telling the truth, but her instinct was to believe the words.
“And you, the Nazis have done much to hurt you?” the woman asked.
Ruby nodded, wordless.
The woman’s eyes filled. “We are so very sorry. Please, have some food, and get some rest here. We will figure out tomorrow how to help get you to safety.”
“Why?” Ruby whispered. “Why would you help me?”
“Because no one deserves what has happened to you. Now come. Sit. Eat. Tonight, you worry about nothing.”
AFTER FEEDING RUBY A SMALL dinner of sausage, bread, and ale, Fritz’s wife, who introduced herself as Eva, showed Ruby to a small bedroom that looked as if it had belonged to a child. Ruby awoke some time later with a sharp pain in her abdomen. When she blinked into the unexpected daylight, she realized Eva was there beside her, holding her hand.
“You are pregnant?” the woman asked gently, and Ruby struggled to sit up. Doing that made her hurt even more, and her heart thudded. What had she gotten herself into by coming here?
“Why do you say that?” Ruby wanted to get up, to run away, but the sharp pain in her abdomen was back, and she cried out, inadvertently squeezing Eva’s hand. The woman held tight to her.
“Because you are in labor,” Eva said gently. “The baby is coming now.”
Ruby blinked up at her. “No. No, that cannot be. I must keep the baby inside.” Images of her tiny dead son in the Dachers’ apartment flooded back, and she was terrified. The urge to protect the child in her womb was the only thing that had gotten her this far. If she failed now too, how would she go on? What was there to live for?
“Relax,” Eva said calmly. “Your baby is strong. I will help you. I have helped deliver many babies in this town.”
Ruby blinked a few times, losing herself to another contraction. “Please, you must make sure my baby stays safe,” she murmured when she could speak again. “Please, promise me.”
“I promise. Now, will you tell me your name? And the name of the baby’s father?”
Ruby could feel her own expression freezing in horror.
“Don’t worry,” Eva said quickly. “I will never betray you. But in case something happens to you, I need to know where the baby should go.”
Ruby thought about this for a few seconds and nodded. Of course. She didn’t want her child to wind up in an orphanage in Germany. “My name is Ruby Benoit.” She didn’t mention Thomas, because she didn’t want to endanger him. “If something happens to me, you must contact my parents. They are in America.”
“America?” Eva’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. She beckoned to her husband and said something in German. He appeared by her side a moment later with a piece of paper and a pen, which Eva handed to Ruby. “Here. Please write their information here. But this is only in case of an emergency, Ruby. I know you will be fine.”
Ruby still wasn’t entirely sure she was doing the right thing, but what harm could there be in giving this woman her parents’ address? She scribbled it out and then looked Eva in the eye. “Make sure the baby stays safe,” Ruby said as another contraction overtook her. “Please. It’s the only thing that matters.”
Eva squeezed Ruby’s hands tightly. “Ruby, you can make sure of that yourself. Now relax. Breathe with me. The baby is coming.”
The last thing Ruby was aware of before drifting off into a dreamless sleep was the feeling of a great weight slipping from her body, followed by the most beautiful sound she’d ever heard: a baby’s piercing wail. Ruby began to sob, and as she looked up, Eva entered her blurry field of vision cradling a tiny, squirming bundle.
“It’s a girl,” Eva said, smiling. “A beautiful baby girl.”