by L. E. Waters
“I have always considered your memories of past lives as fantasy. A delusion you’d invested much detail and faith in, but a delusion nonetheless.”
“They are real to me.” I can’t help but cross my arms.
“Let me finish.” He slides even closer to my chair. “I’ve always been amazed with how intelligent and bright you are. I don’t often get to counsel individuals such as yourself, so coherent and expressive. All except for your delusions.” He laughs. “But I find myself even more compelled with your stories. You speak about these lives and I want to know more.”
My arms begin to uncross a bit. He takes my hand in his two and holds it up. His hands are so warm and strong. I hope he won’t let go too soon.
“I owe you an apology.”
“For what?”
He releases my hand and I let it fall slowly, wishing he would pick it up again.
He goes to a paper on his desk and places it before me. Before I can start to read, he says, “I never thought to research anything you said before because…well, because I truly thought you made it up. But the story you told the other day felt so real. You gave so much detail and, I don’t know…” He looks out the window instead of at me. “Well, it started to feel real to me too.”
My stomach twists so sharply I have to hug my middle.
“There was in fact a James Lyons in the 149th.” He turns back to me and reminds me of James. “And he was captured and sent to Andersonville Prison.” He leans close to me to point to the article he borrowed. “There was also a Joseph in the 149th.” He kneels down beside me. “Discharged for sexual incompatibility.”
He lets the words hang in the air, and I can almost see a glistening at the corners of his eyes. He studies my face and chuckles. “You don’t seem as shocked as I am about this.”
“I’m not surprised that there’s proof of my memories, but I’m just so happy that you’ve looked into all of this. No one else has ever believed me enough to do so.”
He takes up my hand again and my heart can almost sing. “I want to apologize for not believing you before. Obviously, something unique is happening here. I want to start from the beginning again and see what we can unearth.” He takes his other hand and strokes my cheek. “You might not really belong here after all.”
A tear rolls from my eye. A tear so long-held I’m surprised the ice has finally melted.
“I don’t know where I belong.”
His smile is twice as warm as I’ve ever seen. “For now, you belong here with me, and I will finally start to help you.”
I could hug him, but I hold back. I can’t stand to lose him now. There’s a shuffling by the door and he checks his clock. “Ugh. Why does time disappear so quickly in our sessions?”
I get up and make sure there is no trace of tears on my face. As I walk to the door, he calls, “Annelie?”
I half turn to him as my hand rounds the doorknob.
“Do you want to know what happened to James?”
My heart stops. I’m not sure if I do, but the grin still on his face makes me answer with an urgent nod.
“He survived.”
Now I’m shocked.
“Just barely, but he survived.” He crosses his arms triumphantly. “And best yet, his last address was listed as Kansas City.”
Tears spring from my eyes, and I don’t know why, don’t know how, but I’m suddenly in his arms. In some belated closure, I hug James and he hugs Josephine. When I pull away, his face is wet with tears as well. A knock on the door brings us back. I hurry to wipe away all evidence of my tears and he tries to erase his, too. I pull the door open and can’t care less how haughty the nurse looks. A gigantic smile spreads across my face, threatening a sprain of muscles, which bothers the nurse even more. I run out to the garden immediately. I pull Teresia out and hold her floppy body close. James had returned to me. Most likely from being dragged back by Jesse, but even so, he did come back, and that meant little Violet had her father. Not only that, but now someone other than Kathrin and Odelia believes me. There might be hope for me after all.
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
The train I’m riding on comes to a sharp stop, as if the conductor almost forgets the station. Everyone around me grabs hold of something to keep from falling onto each other, and I nearly stumble as I make my way for the steps. The steam from the stacks hisses out and fills the air above me and I strain to read the blurry station sign. I hurry to the town square where a gathering swarms. Must be some kind of event. I spin around, trying to get my bearings. Dark skies threaten overhead and red rain falls. I pick up a discarded newspaper to shield myself from the deluge and find shelter in a nearby alley. Someone walks at the end of the alley with puffs of cigarette smoke encircling him but doesn’t turn to look at me. I’m drawn to him and I call out, “Hello?” but he doesn’t hear me. I throw down the newspaper and run as fast as I can in my heels to catch up. The alley opens up to a large factory lot with steel and timbers surrounding us. I finally tug on his rough leather coat and green eyes blaze upon me. I can’t say a word. He pulls out a cigarette and smiles, a beautiful, slightly gap-toothed smile.
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
I wake up to a long line outside the bathroom. “Why are you all standing out here?”
Verena turns, laughing with Ursel. “Bathilda’s been sputtering away in there the last twenty minutes.”
“Pee-yew.” Minna waves a hand in front of her face.
“No one wants to go in.” Odelia laughs. “She stuffed half of the box of sweets in her face last night.”
Elfi shrieks with laughter. “I’m surprised she made it into work today.”
Juliane sneers. “I might not ever be able to use that toilet again.”
Even Frieda enjoys the scene. She tries to cover her smile as she comes up to us. “Well, we can’t wait for Bathilda to go down to breakfast. She might be there all morning.” She chortles off in laughter.
Gitta has her legs crossed. “But I haven’t been able to go yet.”
“There’s a bathroom down by the dining room. If we leave now, you’ll all get the chance to go and wash up.”
We walk away to volcanic sounds gurgling out from the bathroom.
As soon as I finish my creamy oatmeal and dark coffee, I head out to water my garden as the sun rises. Yet there’s already a figure in the garden. Dr. Evert stands beside the budding roses. The scent from the early morning dew and late spring blooms takes away all of the drudgery left by the oatmeal in my mouth. A sugary, dizzying scent fills me. The other girls are close behind me.
Something crackles in my pocket and I remember Gustav’s letter. I pull it out and hang it in front of Odelia’s face as she starts deadheading. She doesn’t take it right away.
“You should at least read it.”
“I know what it says. What he always says.”
“What if it doesn’t?”
She peels off her gloves slowly and takes the letter. She finds a quiet corner away from everyone to open it.
I go to my banged-up watering can and he turns as soon as he hears the pump.
“Good morning, Annelie.” He starts to head toward me.
“Good morning, Dr. Evert.”
He purses his lips. “Fridric in the garden, remember?”
I still think it’s odd I should call him different things in different places, but I’m not going to argue about it.
“Fridric.”
He cracks a smile. “That sounds so much better.” He takes a deep breath as he arches his back. I only notice now that he has a mug in one hand and a book in the other. “The garden is intoxicating this early. I should take my coffee here every morning from now on.”
“At least until the cold weather comes.”
“Maybe even then.” He gazes around. “You really have transformed this into quite a haven.”
“Everyone has transformed it. I could never have done all this mys
elf.”
“Even so, you should be proud.” He lays his half-full mug down on the bench.
Teresia paws at the chicken wire to get my attention.
I lay down the watering can to go fetch her water bowl to refill, and she doesn’t let me reach in without nudging me to pet her first.
“There’s something I want to tell you.” He walks up beside me. “And for some reason, I can only do so out here. Not in that stuffy room. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have all sessions out here in this garden? I think it could make such a difference.”
“I would certainly prefer it.”
“But I guess it might be too distracting and tempting for some.” He smacks the book causally with his broad hand.
I can’t imagine the state of the patients he sees. How hard it must be to try to break through to them when they’re made of stone.
I try to read the title of the book but I can’t read it upside down. He holds the book up to me. “A biography of Edgar Allan Poe. I suddenly was curious to see if anything sounded familiar to me.”
“In that case, I’d pay special attention to a Miss Helen Whitman.”
“I don’t think I’ve gotten to her yet.” He thumbs through the pages and squints. “I hope I’m not the reason for his sad demise.”
“You should be happy to know that you were not. And those biographies are mostly rubbish anyway.”
He closes the book. “Well, then, I hope you’ll be able to tell me more about it in our next session, perhaps.” He lays the book beside his mug and pulls out a pair of shears to cut some roses. He snips one and smells it right away.
“What did you need to tell me?” I feel as if I have to ask, or he won’t bring it up again.
“Oh, I nearly forgot.” He looks down at a rosebud he’s spinning in his fingers. “Even before I found James’s information, even before you told me your memories of the camp, I’d been plagued by nightmares.”
I pick Teresia up in my arms and rub my hand over her forehead and down her silken ears.
“More like night terrors. I can’t even remember when they started, since I always remember having them. They would come without warning, a few times a year. But always the same dream, over and over again. No change. The same horrible vision.”
“Of what?”
His eyes seem to lose focus as he sees this memory in his mind.
“I was filthy, and so incredibly hungry. And sick, so sick. I could barely get up to drink the putrid water that I had to lap up out of a muddy puddle. I knew I was dying, but it was taking so long. When I looked down at my body, nothing was left. It was a wonder I could even get up to drink at all. Dead bodies were everywhere. Just left out in the sun for days. The smell couldn’t get worse. My nose couldn’t even perceive any scents besides rot, excrement, and misery. Nothing to see around me but mud, and men suffering worse than myself. Begging for death. And you want to know the only thing I could think about?”
“Escaping?”
He snorts. “I could hardly move; how could I escape?” He brings the rose up to his nose for a moment. “A girl. A girl with dark eyes just like yours and a horrid, short haircut.” We both laugh. “Someone who I have hurt, and I can’t die without making things right with again. I have to survive to see her again, but my body’s failing me. I can’t die until I see her again.” He laughs nervously. “That might not sound horrifying, but I would wake up screaming, covered in sweat.”
“No, I can’t imagine much worse.”
“I couldn’t make any connections because there was no memory of a name. I didn’t even realize it was a prison. All I knew was that I was getting through each day with only the vision of this girl in my mind.”
He tucks the rose softly behind my ear. His voice is just as gentle. “It wasn’t until after our hypnosis session and you described the prison and told me the story that I made the connection. It all made sense.”
“Trauma will follow you until you are able to release it.”
“Who is the doctor and who is the patient now?”
“I thought you were only Fridric and I was Annelie in this garden.”
His nervousness dissipates and his eyes seem to latch onto mine. “I hoped that is what you’d say. That you could see me not as your doctor, since I don’t see you as my patient.”
“Is it only because you have validated James that you can see me like that?” I place Teresia back in her hutch and he gives me a confused look. “Had you not found him anywhere, what would you have thought of me then?”
“I don’t understand.” He reaches his arms out to hold on to me. “What is the problem?”
“Do you see me for me, or do you see Josephine?” I never thought I’d be saying something like that. Can I be jealous of a past life?
“Can I see you as both?”
I let out a long sigh and look away from him.
“What is wrong with that?”
“I have to go inside.”
“No you don’t, you have nothing to do all morning.”
“I may not be free to leave this place, but I’m free to go inside when I want to.”
“No, I will leave.” He releases me. “I’m sorry if I upset you. Go back to your gardening. I won’t trouble you anymore.”
I pretend not to notice him rush out of the garden, leaving his book and mug behind. I plunge my bare hands in the rich soil as a distraction. Yet I still see him out of the corner of my eye as he fumbles in his attempts to close the garden gate. I turn away feeling guilty, but set my sight on Odelia crying quietly with the letter clenched to her chest. As soon as she composes herself, she folds the letter back up lovingly and tucks it safely away in her pocket.
Chapter 13
Kathrin comes again after a few days and I’m surprised by the tall man by her side. He takes his hat off to me as soon as they approach the table I’m reading at. He gives a double-take.
“I thought I was prepared for how similar you both look, but it’s so strange.”
We both laugh, used to this after so many years. He keeps looking from my face to hers. Finally, he sits down across from me. “Kathrin talks about you so much, I feel like I already know you.”
I’m guessing she hasn’t told him yet that I already do. “I feel the same.”
It’s so nice to see those indigo eyes again.
His handsome face draws everyone’s gaze from each corner of the room. Verena slinks closer and closer to my table, drawing her hem up a little higher as she walks.
Frieda claps. “It’s piano time.” She says to me, “I don’t want to disturb your visit, but we’ve got a busy day with lunch and garden time and I promised Minna she’d get to practice today.”
I check with Kathrin and Carsten. “Do you mind if they play?”
“Mind?” Carsten walks to the piano. “Can I play a little something?”
They nod eagerly, and if the girls weren’t in love with him as soon as he walked in, they surely are by the time he pushes back the piano bench. I know before he even starts which rowdy tune he’ll play: Follow Me Up To Carlow.
No one else seems to know the words except Carsten, Kathrin, and me, but the rest of them clap along with the happy tune. Kathrin shines brightest of all the enamored, and Carsten returns a proud look as she dances to his song. Even though I’ve seen them dance together throughout many lives, this is the first time I sensed a calmness and comfort between them. Something has finally come full circle for them.
The noise in the room is so loud I didn’t hear the normally jolting, clanking sound of the gate opening at the end of the hall. I nearly jump out of my skin when Dr. Evert comes up beside me.
I’ll never get a chance to visit with Kathrin and Carsten now if I have to go meet with Dr. Evert. I point to the hall for us to leave since he can’t hear me, but he shakes his head and starts clapping with everyone else. He looks on at dancing Kathrin with a wide grin and, when the chorus begins again, he pulls
me out with Kathrin and spins me around the piano.
The girls laugh at seeing the normally serious doctor dancing so, and I catch a knowing smile from Kathrin every time we sweep by her. Verena cuts in, but then all the other girls wait in line to get a chance to dance with the doctor, forcing Carsten to play the chorus five more times than he should.
As soon as Carsten finishes with one last, loud note, everyone cries for one more song, and Carsten plays a slow, haunting melody with no words: Pachelbel’s Canon in D. Kathrin gives me wink once she recognizes the tune of her music box at home. Minna perches above him, trying to watch his fingers, and Dr. Evert walks over to the window overlooking the garden. Kathrin and I follow.
Between heavy breaths, he says, “Kathrin, have you seen the garden your sister has created?”
I scoff. “I didn’t create it alone.”
Kathrin gasps, not noticing it before. “You all did that? I can’t even remember what was there before.”
“Just a dirt lot.” Dr. Evert removes a handkerchief to dab up the perspiration on his upper lip and forehead. “Now it’s a sanctuary.”
“It’s beautiful,” Kathrin agrees. “I never had a green thumb. It seems that is where Annelie and I are different.”
Dr. Evert laughs and leaves to address Carsten, as Kathrin whispers for only me to hear, “You are aware that the handsome doctor is quite in love with you?”
I nudge her to stop speaking since anyone might overhear her.
“This will be very interesting once you-know-who appears.” She giggles. “You have a difficult choice here.”
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
The train I’m riding on comes to a sharp stop, as if the conductor almost forgets the station. Everyone around me grabs hold of something to keep from falling onto each other, and I nearly stumble as I make my way for the steps. The steam from the stacks hisses out and fills the air above me and I make out the station sign: DRESDEN. I hurry to the town square where the Führer is set to speak. A huge mass of followers pulses at Hitler’s every shouted word. Dark skies threaten over his head and red rain falls among him and his crowd. I pick up a discarded newspaper to shield myself from the deluge and find shelter in a nearby alley. Someone walks at the end of the alley, with puffs of cigarette smoke encircling him, but he doesn’t turn to look at me. I’m drawn to him and I call out, “Hello?” but he doesn’t hear me. I throw down the newspaper and run as fast as I can in my heels to catch up. The alley opens up to a vacant factory lot with steel and timbers surrounding us. I finally tug on his rough leather coat and green eyes blaze upon me. I can’t say a word. He pulls out a cigarette and smiles, a beautiful, slightly gap-toothed smile.