Fourth Annual Wild Violet Writing Contest Winners (2006)
Fiction
— Third Place
Anton
By Mary Ellen Walsh
(continued)
At the front desk, there was a message from Pfarrer Lanz. He could not see her today; his father had taken a turn for the worse. He would be gone for awhile, and Anna could not look at the church records without the priest's permission.
She went back to the nursing home. Kath told her that Claudia Bauer had slipped into a fatal coma the night before. "After you left yesterday, Claudia needed to take a nap. As she lay in bed and closed her eyes, she had said 'wir werden ihn ja sehen, wenn er kommt.' That was the last thing she ever said."
We will see him if he comes. That was what the nurse said Claudia had softly spoken before drifting into eternal dreams.
She asked
Kath when the hotel she was staying in had been built. "Sometime
after
1870. I am not sure exactly when." Kath's pleasant, plump face was
honest. If something were bizarre about the hotel, wouldn't she tell Anna?
As she walked past the cemetery, she thought: Keep your secrets close to you. It is all you have left.
She wandered around the town for hours, enjoying the slightly overcast skies. Then she went to a restaurant, hoping to deliberately overeat so she could sleep well that night. She sat in the large meeting hall, warmed by the huge fireplace. The table was decorated with pretzels and red and white radishes. Anna helped herself to a buffet of smoked fish, Bavarian sausages, sliced roast pork, and veal and potato dumplings. For dessert she had apple strudel with vanilla sauce.
She even drank beer, which she did not like. She hoped the warm beer would further relax her. Anna listened to the German voices around her. This is something she enjoyed doing, because she knew that most people did not suspect how fluent the language was to her. Their voices mingled, some low and soft, some high and excitable, some of children laughing as they talked.
But one voice made her recoil.
Anna, Anna.
Sich vorsehen.
She heard that, she was sure, and it was a man's voice, but high-pitched, with almost a lisp. It had an eerie quality to it, and it was threatening somehow. Anna looked around the large hall to match the face with the voice. But she could not.
Be careful. That was what the voice had said.
Anna had the urge to look up at the ceiling, but she didn't want to draw attention to herself. She was already an oddity, she was sure — someone in a foreign country sitting by herself.
The walk
back to the hotel was on languid feet. The air had a smell to it, like
Blood — a gruesome thought, but being a woman, she was very familiar
with that smell. In front of the hotel, there was a commotion of police
cars and people. The woman at the front desk told her, without meeting
her eyes, that a murder had occurred sometime late last night. Anna Schilling
worked at the hotel; she was a maid on the night shift. Her body was found
several hours ago, against the wall outside in back of the hotel.
She was a quiet young woman, with a three-year-old son. But whispered in horror was this: She had been gutted, with her insides found beside her in a neat puddle.
Anna sat in the lobby, not wanting to go upstairs yet. Sometimes, Anna thought, when we go looking for something dark and disturbing, we may find it. But when we do, there is no way back to a safe place.
Were the police aware of the fact that this woman was named Anna, like Anna Welch's ancestor (and Anna Welch herself), and like this ancestor, was an unwed mother? But that should be just a coincidence to them — Anna was a common name in Germany. Throw a stick, and you will probably hit an Anna.
But the police never talked to her. If they had, she would have told them: "Nightmares have to come to me in my waking hours, because I have trouble sleeping."
The town had been beautiful four hundred years ago, and it will still be beautiful four hundred years from today. She would stay here now; in fact, she had never planned to leave.
That night, as Anna lay in bed, she waited for something, something to finally happen to her. As the room chilled, Anton's face appeared...
And with
him came the sleep of angels.
