THAT THING IN ANNA MARIE'S EYES by Jenois Harris
“I only feed them one bag a day.”
Startled, I turned to face the stout, grey-haired woman sitting next to me on the bus stop bench.
“What did you say?” My tone was brusque, dismissive. I really did not want to be bothered. My mind was engaged in revisiting the argument I had just had with the auto mechanic earlier that morning.
About mid-morning he called me at work to say my car needed extensive repairs, which would cost hundreds of dollars. Hundreds of dollars I did not have. I tried to tell him I did not have enough money to make all of the repairs he had listed. I did have enough to make one.
“What do you think I should do first?” I asked him. “I’ll fix everything else as my money allows.
“They are all important,” was his response. “If you don’t fix them now, your car is going to fall apart.”
I felt a wave of heat come over me. He’s trying to take my money. I fumed.
“No!” I screamed into the telephone. “Put my car back just like you found it. I am coming down right now to pick it up.”
Pleading sudden illness to my supervisor, I clocked out and rushed to the bus stop in front of City Hall. I told the mechanic that I would be at the shop within the hour. I hoped the bus would hurry up and come.
“I only feed them one bag a day,” the woman repeated. “That’s all they get from me.”
She held up an almost empty cellophane bread bag and nodded toward a group of pigeons pecking at breadcrumbs a few feet away from the bus bench.
I stared at her. Lady, I thought, I don’t give a rat’s patootie about the number of bags of stale bread that you feed those nasty birds. Anyway, why aren’t they out in the forest somewhere foraging for their food like nature intended instead of congregating in the middle of town spreading poop and disease all over the place? Furthermore, don’t you know there is a city ordinance prohibiting the feeding of pigeons in this part of town? You are going to get yourself a fine.
Her presence irritated me, and I thought about telling her everything that was on my mind, but I could not bring myself to be mean. Other than invading my private reverie by making innocuous comments, she had committed no offense. Why should I take my frustration out on her? Talking to strangers at bus stops and feeding pigeons is probably all that she had to look forward to everyday.
I thought I had detected an accent in her speech. “Where are you from?” I thought I had detected a German accent in her speech.
“I’m from Germany,” she replied.
“What part?” I asked, hoping she would say she was from the town where my family had lived when my stepfather was stationed near Stuttgart. The town where she was born and raised was nowhere near Stuttgart. Nevertheless, I was enthused to be able to talk with a German native.
Curious to know what brought her here, I asked, “Why are you in America?”
“I love America. I love Americans. When the war came, my father and brother were killed by Nazi soldiers. My stepmother and I were alone. When we heard that Hitler’s army was coming to our town, we did not know what to do. We had nowhere to go and no one to help us. We knew the Nazi soldiers would rape us and commit all kinds of other atrocities. Instead of leaving our fate up to the barbaric members of the Third Reich, we decided we would put our heads in the oven and kill ourselves.
Fortunately, the day after we made our decision, our town was liberated by American soldiers.”
She started laughing. “It was just like in the movies,” she said. “The American soldiers parachuted in, bringing chocolate for the children, cigarettes for the men, and stockings for the women.” She shook her head from side to side. Then she stared off into space.
What was she seeing? What scenes from her past were occupying her memories? She resumed her story.
“My stepmother and I were rescued. I made a vow that I would come to America and become an American citizen. And I did.”
“Congratulations,” I said. “Where are you living?”
I asked just to make conversation, but when she told me where she lived, I frowned. She must have picked up on my distress because she smiled quickly and said, “I am happy.”
I was getting ready to ask her how she could be happy living in a place like that, when I spotted something in her clear blue eyes. Baffled, whatever it was, I wanted to grab it. I wanted to find out why it drew me. Why it washed over me like a healing mist. I was getting ready to ask her about the look in her eyes when my bus arrived.
As I boarded, the woman called after me, “My name is Anna Marie”.
Anna Marie? Anna Marie had been our maid for a few months when we lived in Germany. I recall her as a kind woman who fascinated me by eating bread and bacon drippings for breakfast. Occasionally she substituted mayonnaise for the bacon drippings.
She left in the middle of the night under mysterious circumstances, which saddened me. She returned a few months later to get work references from my mother.
Could this woman be my Anna Marie?
On the way to the auto shop, all I could think about was what I had seen in her eyes. So mesmerized, I forgot to be angry with the auto mechanic. I picked my car up without incident, drove it home and parked it in the driveway, where it remained for several months. I was forced to take the bus.
The bus route took me directly in front of the hotel where Anna Marie told me she lived. Every day, I looked to see if I could spot her. One day, when the bus was nearing the building, I saw a woman sitting in one of the second-floor windows, too far to tell if it was Anna Marie.
As I watched the woman feeding pigeons on her window sill, a realization came to me. That look I saw in Anna Marie’s eyes was joy. Joy for living in America. Joy for being an American citizen. The overwhelming joy of being alive.
Absolute joy. That was the thing that I saw in Anna Marie’s eyes.
