“To me, please,” the old woman said.
She had an innocuous American accent. But there was a false sweetness to the “please.” Ruth waited politely . . . no, perhaps a little impatiently . . . for the woman to tell her what her name was. They went on looking at each other, the recognition not coming to Ruth Cole.
“My name is Muriel Reardon,” the old lady finally said. “You don’t remember me, do you?”
“No, I’m sorry,” Ruth said. “I don’t.”
“I last spoke to you at your wedding,” Muriel Reardon continued. “I’m sorry for what I said at the time. I’m afraid I wasn’t myself.”
Ruth went on looking at Mrs. Reardon, the color in her right eye changing from brown to amber. She hadn’t recognized the terrible old widow who’d been so certain of herself in her attack, five years ago, for two understandable reasons: she’d had no expectations of ever running into the harpy in Amsterdam, and the old hag had remarkably improved her appearance. Quite the opposite of being dead, as Hannah had declared, the wrathful widow had restored herself very nicely.
“It’s one of those coincidences that can’t be merely a coincidence,” Mrs. Reardon was saying, in a way that suggested she was newly religious. She was. In the five years since she’d assaulted Ruth, Muriel had met and married Mr . Reardon, who was still beaming beside her, and both Muriel and her new husband had become avid Christians.
Mrs. Reardon continued: “Begging your forgiveness was strangely foremost on my mind when my husband and I came to Europe—and here, of all places, I find you! It’s a miracle!”
Mr. Reardon overcame his shyness to say: “I was a widower when I met Muriel. We’re on a tour to see the great churches and cathedrals of Europe.”
Ruth went on looking at Mrs. Reardon in what seemed to Harry Hoekstra an increasingly un friendly way. As far as Harry was concerned, Christians always wanted something. What Mrs. Reardon wanted was to dictate the terms of her own forgiveness!
Ruth’s eyes had narrowed to the point where no one could have spotted the hexagonal flaw in her right eye. “You remarried,” she said flatly. It was the voice she read aloud in—curiously deadpan.
“Please forgive me,” Muriel Reardon said.
“What happened to being a widow for the rest of your miserable life?” Ruth asked.
“Please . . .” Mrs. Reardon said.
Mr. Reardon, after fumbling in the pocket of his sports jacket, produced an assortment of note cards with handwriting on them. He seemed to be searching for a specific card, which he couldn’t find. Undaunted, he began to read spontaneously. “ ‘For the wages of sin is death,’ ” Mr. Reardon read, “‘but the gift of God is eternal life. . . .’”
“Not that one!” Mrs. Reardon cried. “
Read her the one about forgiveness !”
“I don’t forgive you,” Ruth told her. “What you said to me was hateful and cruel and untrue.”
“‘For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace,’” Mr. Reardon read from another card. Although it was not the quotation he was looking for, either, he felt obliged to identify the source. “These are from Paul’s letter to the Romans.”
“You and your Romans, ” Mrs. Reardon snapped.
“Next!” Ruth called—for the next person in line had every reason to be impatient with the delay.
“I don’t forgive you for not forgiving me!” Muriel Reardon cried out, an un -Christian venom in her voice.
“Fuck you and both your husbands!” Ruth shouted after her, as her new husband struggled to lead her away. He’d returned the biblical quotations to his jacket pocket—all but one. Possibly it was the quotation he’d been searching for, but no one would ever know.
Harry had assumed that the somewhat shocked-looking man seated beside Ruth Cole was her Dutch publisher. When Ruth smiled at Maarten, it wasn’t a smile Harry had seen on Ruth’s face before, but Harry correctly interpreted the smile as indicative of a renewed self-confidence. Indeed, it was evidence that Ruth had re-entered the world with some of her former assertiveness intact.
“Who was that asshole?” Maarten asked her.
“Nobody worth knowing,” Ruth replied. She paused then, in mid-signature, and looked around as if she were suddenly curious about who might have overheard her uncharitable remark—meaning all her uncharitable remarks. (Was it Brecht who said that sooner or later we begin to resemble our enemies? Ruth thought.)
When Harry saw that Ruth was looking at him, he withdrew his face from the window he’d made in the bookshelf, but not before she’d seen him.
Shit! I’m falling in love with her! Harry thought. He’d not fallen in love before; at first he suspected he was having a heart attack. He abruptly left the Athenaeum; he preferred to die on the street.
When the line for Ruth Cole’s autograph had dwindled to only two or three remaining diehards, one of the booksellers asked: “Where’s Harry? I saw him here. Doesn’t he want his books signed?”
“Who’s Harry?” Ruth inquired.