I was six when they came. Their white gloved hands lightly pressed my back to urge me forward. "Open the door," the lady said, in just hardly a whisper. I beamed and obeyed.
The room was unpigmented, as if the vail of a ghost stretched itself over the walls. It was in a shape bestly described as a jagged hexagon. The only item in the room was a table that was placed further towards the top of the hexagon. The table matched the room. It was rounded, with a chair on each side of it. One chair possessed a woman.
She was an elderly lady with protruding lips and a slightly pointed nose. She had cocoa colored eyes and frayed grey hair wrapped in a bun with curly baby hairs sticking out. She was beautiful, yes, but her best feature was definitely her laced sleeve, pale rose colored pajamas. As a six year old, I thought it was the funniest thing that she, of all people, would be wearing pajamas in a place like this.
She patiently tapped her long, but kept up nails. She gestured me to the chair. "Do you know why you're here today, dear?" I shook my head and she offered a small smile. "Aren't you just a peach?" I jumped up enthusiastically. "Peaches are my favorite fruit!" She laughed alongside me. There was a pause, and I could see a slight tinge of pain and fear in her eyes.
Me, being the polite and observant six-year-old I was, asked her what was wrong. She turned her attention back to my face giving me that same small smile. "All is right, dear. My only regret is that I haven't done this sooner." How soon was "sooner?" "How old are you?" I asked. "I'm approximately two weeks from my ninety-fifth birthday." I was amazed! This woman has lived out her life, almost a centenarian, but she's sitting right here with a regular beating heart, full of life. She pulled out a sticker of the color bright yellow out of her pajama pocket. It was a simple smiley face. She folded it into my hands.
"Yellow is my favorite color!" The woman winked. "Did you know that?!" I asked, out of blatant curiosity and enthusiasm. "Well of course I did." I frowned. "But I don't know you." The women leaned in closely, "have a conversation with me, get to know me."
I waited anxiously. "I was born and raised in the villa, South of Munich. When I was just a young girl, our quiet kept villa experienced an airstrike that set our villa into flames." The woman became expressive. "Big, gushing, rapid flames! Burned my family! Burned myself!" I wanted to know more. She moved forward.
We moved to Bastogne in my 20's. I lacked an education, therefore I was unable to go to college and was forced into the military. I was shot in the face in the Battle of the Bulge. Oh how the rain poured the day I was shot! Oh how it poured! I was intrigued. Confused. Baffled.
She shivered towards the thought. "The Seine is so cold," she whispered. "You swam in the Seine?! That's allowed?" The man in the back questioned. The woman shot him a blood curdling stare. "No," she said harshly. An eerie dinging sound emerged from the lady's pocket.
The woman grabbed my hands. "Stay safe, I love you." I didn't know what to think. I didn't know this woman. My six-year-old self suddenly questioned why I was so willing to enter the room to begin with.
She stood up from her chair and strutted out of the room with loose lace hanging from her pajamas. I remember sitting in that room with them, the man and the lady, questioning who that woman was and what had just happened.
The room was drowning in silence, shots of sound here and there were ringing in the distance. After the woman spewed out her life, when she dropped a bomb on me, I simply didn't know what to think.
* * *
A few weeks later, I read about the death of the woman in the paper. She had died by falling from an unsteady ladder that was rested against a tree while she was on a farm picking peaches, allegedly her favorite fruit. I was absolutely saddened and horrified at the time.
Throughout my life, I've always questioned that faithful day. As I've gained knowledge and experience, I began to understand why the woman told me those events. Hell, she didn't even give me her name yet she had poured her life into me, critically. Today, I am a 67 year old woman, who is broken and damaged from her past, but would have it much worse if it weren't for the old woman.
Today, has been an unplanned strained of events with life spewing out here and there. I received a phone call. The first thing I did was call my children to tell them that I love them. The second thing I did was put on a pair of rose colored silk lace pajamas for my own comfort. I'm out the door.
