Apples & Ruth's Core

by Amy

 “I sent them over to Ruth.” [Monsieur Béliveau] placed his large hand on her tiny one. “I was afraid, and I just wanted to get rid of them. Of him.” He squeezed Ruth’s hand. “I’ve never forgiven myself that cowardice.” [...]
“Would I meet your eyes, and stand,/rooted and speechless,” said Ruth. “While the pavement cracked to pieces/and the sky fell down.”

Gamache looked at her.
“I wrote it after he left.” She gestured to the photograph. “After I sent him on. I did the same thing, Clément. I threw them Al Lapage, in hopes they’d take him and leave me. I’d have done anything to get rid of him. After Gerald Bull left, the project manager returned. Alone. He knocked on the door and that’s when he asked if I could write a few lines to accompany the drawing of the Whore of Babylon. I told him I couldn’t. I told him I wasn’t really a poet. That it was just a lie I told myself.”
Her hands were trembling now, and while Monsieur Béliveau held one, Armand took the other.
“When we left I went up to St. Thomas’s,” she said, looking at the small clapboard chapel. “I prayed he’d never come calling again. I sat there and cried for shame. For what I’d done. Then I wrote those words, sitting in the pew, and didn’t write again for a decade.”
[…]“So when it came time to throw someone to the wolf you chose him?” asked Armand.
“Is that really necessary, monsieur?” asked Monsieur Béliveau.
“It’s all right, Clément. He’s just speaking the truth.” She turned back to Armand. “Al Lepage or Frederick Lawson or whatever he chose to call himself was already damned. What I hadn’t counted on was that in doing it, I was too.”
“That’s not true, Ruth,” said Monsieur Béliveau.
“But it is. We both know it. I sacrificed him to save myself.”

In Middlemarch, by George Elliot, there is a scene where a young girl, a poor relation hired by a stingy old man, is with him in his last hours. The house is full of relatives who, like vultures, await his death. Everyone hopes to be in his will and think themselves more deserving than the others. He is on his deathbed. Alone. The only people there are hired, including Mary, or relatives who care not a bit for the man, only for his money. His last will (still a mystery) is vindictive, dark humored, and intending to hurt. At the last, he urges Mary to take some money and burn his last will so the one that came before would prevail. If she had done so, she would have had a little to herself and the man she loved would have as well. She didn’t know what she was giving up. All she knew was that he was a man not known for integrity or kindness and his request required secrecy and subterfuge.

“No, sir,” said Mary, in a firm voice, “I cannot do that.”
“Not do it? I tell you, you must,” said the old man, his voice beginning to shake under the shock of this resistance.”
“I cannot touch your iron chest or your will. I must refuse to do anything that might lay me open to suspicion.”
“I tell you, I’m in my right mind. Shan’t I do as I like at the last? I made two wills on purpose. Take the key, I say.”
“No sir, I will not,” said Mary, more resolutely still. Her repulsion was getting stronger.
“I tell you, there’s no time to lose.”
“I cannot help that, sir. I will not let the close of your life soil the beginning of mine. I will not touch your iron chest or your will.” She moved to a little distance from the bedside. (MIDDLEMARCH - George Elliot)

Mary Barlow managed to keep her life unsoiled by old Peter Featherstone’s filth. She received no money, but I doubt she would have traded the money – and heavy conscious – for the life she went on to create. I wish I were always so wise. Some things seem minor, but they may become big regrets.

Ruth, unlike Mary, only managed to escape halfway. She didn’t give Fleming what he wanted. But she feels wretched for having passed him on to someone else.

I don’t think she would feel half so bad if she weren’t, at her core, a highly sensitive, caring, perceptive, and kind person. She suffered and hurt because she is a deeper thinker than most.

Last week’s post was about Ruth… this one is the scene where she reveals what she believes is the root of her bitterness.

“Who hurt you once so far beyond repair,” said Gamache, quoting her most famous poem.
“So far beyond repair,” Ruth repeated. She looked at Gamache and almost smiled. “I was nice once, you know. And kind. Perhaps not the most kind, or the nicest, but it was there.”
“And it still is, madame,” said Armand, stroking Rosa. “At your core.” 

Her core.

Ruth’s core is nice, and kind, and humorous, and sensitive, and perceptive, and full of grace and love and hope and the kind of intelligence that is rare. She is creative and brilliant and giving and understanding. She is forgiving. But not of herself.

It is her self-loathing that hurts her far beyond repair. That’s what she teaches Clara. That’s what Beauvoir realizes – and teaches Jacques. I think, in helping Olivier, Clara, Jean-Guy, and even Gamache (by blaming him and criticizing him for things that obviously aren’t under his control) forgive themselves, Ruth may slowly, slowly be starting to heal.

At the core.

I hope I learn from Ruth, too. I hope I learn to forgive myself because I don’t think there should be hurts that are that far beyond repair. If we are to love others as we love ourselves and forgive others as we have been forgiven, that means we have to learn to accept Grace in our own lives, not just extend it to others.

“He picked up an apple from the grass. With an expert twist of his hands, the apple split in two. He offered one half to Armand.
The outer flesh was white and moist. Perfect. But the core was dark, decayed.
“After a while, in my profession, you can tell when something’s gone rotten,” said the elderly grocer. 
“Even if it’s not obvious from the outside.” 

It’s apple season!

I now have not only a greater, but different, variety of apples here than I did when I was in Brazil. Even the same Fuji (old favorite) doesn’t taste the same. My son and I went on an apple tasting adventure. I bought EVERY kind of apple I could find, then we washed them (saving the labels to make it easier to remember which was which), and tasted them with a non-scientific method of tasting and commenting. His comments were so much fun that I wrote them down.

I’m sure not everyone would agree. In fact, my sister’s favorite (Red Delicious) brought forth comments of how the name was ironic and maybe trying to overcompensate because it was anything BUT delicious! We enjoyed the process.

Some people – both on the blog’s Facebook page and on my personal one – commented on their favorites and I tried to find them all. Some add salt to their apples (I didn’t enjoy that) or lemon juice (I’ve always liked that). Some of the less tasty apples (in my opinion, of course… this is a terribly controversial subject, I find) can be “fixed” with peanut butter or almond butter… Cheese between slices helped “cleanse the palate” (and just add the joy of eating cheese, which was the real reason I had it).

All of quotes, unless stated otherwise, are from Louise Penny’s Nature of the Beast