Fourth Annual Wild Violet Writing Contest Winners (2006)
Fiction — Third Place
Mary
Ellen Walsh has been writing poetry ever since she was a teenager.
She is
also an avid reader, her favorite poets being Sylvia Plath, Edgar Allen
Poe, Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost. She enjoys reading biographies,
horror and critiques of other authors and poets.
Anton
By Mary Ellen Walsh
1991
Bermatingen, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany
They all died on the same day. How interesting was that for her memoir! Anna Welch lay on the big, soft bed, in this pretty hotel, her thoughts racing with theories of murder. She had come to Bermatingen, Germany, because at the age of thirty-two, she realized she had written all the poems she wanted to, all the little "pieces of dust," to quote Sylvia Plath. Now was the time to dip her toe into the literary world of novel writing; and why not start here, in this place of her mother's father's ancestors, with their gothic sounding names: Crescentia, Nothpurgis, Ursula, Urban, and Sylvester? Very Charles Addams-like.
She suffered from insomnia. That was why she was fired from her last job, because she was always fatigued. Her boss had said "your demeanor and appearance is not what we are looking for in a salesperson. You are too laid back for us," which was, of course, ridiculous. Her job had been in a mattress store.
The night became more enjoyable than the day, but in this town, with the air heavy and still, day was like night to her.
Anna was doing further research on church records, some of which she had already found on microfiche in the States. Anton Bauer's baptism record had intrigued her. It was a blank that needed to be filled in, and he would be her main character.
Yesterday had been spent in a church looking over old records with Pfarrer Lanz. They were translating the beautifully written script, with its flourishes done with black ink, now only slightly faded, though it had been penned centuries ago.
Anton Bauer had been baptized as an illegitimate baby, but with both his parents present, which was unusual. The mother was usually alone, if she was unmarried. His baptism took place on May 27, 1746, with his parents Mathaus Bauer and Anna Maria Beringer present. When his only brother, Sebastian, was baptized in 1757, he was described as a legitimate child. His parents must have married sometime after Anton's birth.
The air in the church had been earthy, like forest mixed with clay. Anna felt a sense of peace. The tall, beautiful stained glass windows of shepherds with their staffs blocked the noise of traffic. They also turned the piercing, headache-inducing sunlight to shades of blue, yellow, and red that splayed across the floor, a harmless mosaic.
Now it was hours later, and as the night had come, all she wanted was to sleep, so another day of research could begin.
She became aware of voices, a man's and woman's, in the next room. They weren't speaking German or English, but Latin, or something similar to it. (At Saint Alois High School, they had taught Latin, and Anna had been one of the few students interested in this dead language.) She pressed her ear against the wall and heard singing, in wavering tones of high sounds, then low voices. Suddenly it stopped. Then Anna felt a chill run through her: She realized the other side of the wall was the back of the building, not a room.
She awoke
that morning, unrefreshed as usual. The mirror showed her as a young woman,
with thick disheveled hair and dark circles under her eyes. Did she have
a dream she went to a mass late last night, not in the church where she
had spent the day, but a strange place, with black drapes and red velvet
pews? And had she gotten up and walked around the room, or gone out into
the hall? Perhaps it was just a dream — a vivid dream. The different
grounds, different air, of this town were causing bizarre hallucinations.
