Put Out the Fires by Maureen Lee Page B

received no word from his daughter, he’d been on tenterhooks, expecting to hear she was dead, her husband was dead, as well as the grandchildren he’d never met. Even worse would be to hear nothing at all, to die himself without ever learning what had happened to his Ruth and her family.
    Jacob knew all about the Fuhrer’s concentration camps, even if the British Government tried to pretend they didn’t exist.
    Now, miraculously, Ruth was back and at least one of his prayers had been answered. But although Ruth’s body might be there, her spirit was somewhere else. She was cold and uncommunicative. It wasn’t so much that she refused to answer his many questions, she simply ignored them. It was as if he hadn’t spoken when he asked about Benjy and the children. His heart ached for the bright-eyed girl who’d left to stay with his brother in Graz, and ached even more fiercely for the woman who’d come back.
    What terrible things had happened to his dear Ruth?
    “I expect you will want to play the piano,” he said hopefully, “though I’m afraid it’s terribly out of tune.” He was longing to hear her play something, but she hadn’t touched it, not that there’d been much time. He lifted the lid and struck a few notes. “C sharp is completely off key.”.
    “Why don’t you get a tuner in?” she asked in an uninterested voice.
    “I keep meaning to.” Even tuned, the piano was nothing like the one she was used to, he thought miserably. She’d had a Steinway, a baby grand, at home in Austria.
    Jacob Singerman felt wretched that he could offer his precious daughter so little. What sort of home was this to come back to after 143 Blumenstrasse, a double-fronted house with a big garden and a garage for the cars? There was a snapshot of the house in the album he’d begun to keep when he realised she wasn’t coming home. It was a rare day he didn’t look through the pictorial history of her life, starting with a photo when she was two, then older at the piano, her wedding, numerous snapshots of Simon and Leah growing up. There was even a photo of the cook, Gertrude, in the album. After all, Benjamen Hildesheimer was a professional man, a dentist, patronised by the great and the good of Graz.
    “I’m sorry,” he said brokenly.
    “For what?” Ruth wondered why he looked close to tears.
    “This!” He spread out his arms. “This is not much to comeback to.”
    “There’s nothing wrong with it. Though I find it odd nothing has changed.”
    “What was there to change?”
    Ruth shrugged, feeling as if the conversation was going nowhere. He was staring at her soulfully and she sensed he wanted to take her in his arms and comfort her, or possibly for her to comfort him. Their only physical contact had been a perfunctory kiss on the cheek when she first arrived. She’d escaped from his embrace then, and felt the same urge now to get away from his grief stricken face.
    She left the room, saying, “Let’s have a cup of tea. Ever since I arrived in England, the old desire for tea has returned, yet I scarcely drank it at home. We preferred coffee.”
    Ruth filled the kettle, though it took forever to boil on the range in the living room with the fire being so low. “Is there any more coke, Dad? I don’t feel like waiting half an hour for my tea.”
    “I’ll put the last bit on. I need to buy some more.”
    “You’d best get some groceries in, too. Surely you’re allowed more than this on rations?” When it came to fresh food, there was merely half a loaf and a small piece of cheese in the larder and nothing at all in the meat safe.
    They’d had fried bread for breakfast.
    He looked slightly uncomfortable. “I’ll do some shopping later on.” He went out into the yard and came back, puffing slightly, carrying a shovel of coke.
    “Who lives next door?” Ruth asked. “They had a terrible row last night. It must have been midnight before they finished shouting. It sounded like a foreign