Raindrops

    It was a rainy Tuesday morning and as I sat in my car outside the doctor’s office waiting for my husband, the wet floor mats gave off an unpleasant familiar fume.  As I vaguely regarded the people walking across Woodside Avenue through the blurry windshield, my mind drifted.  A flurry of images blew across oceans of time.  This tide came washing in memories of two women who had crossed my path.  

  Recently I learned dogs can sniff out people who have cancer.  Every so often I meet a person and my lingering impression is his or her scent.  My friend Anna introduced me to a neighbor of hers with whom she had recently become acquainted.  I detected a musty odor in her presence every time we were together.  Oddly, Anna never noticed the smell of mildew that I sensed coming from her neighbor, Sara.  It permeated the air and my nostrils flair even when I recall it.  Soiled laundry and dirty socks reek similarly.  I wondered if something unclean or diseased oozed from her pores or if she suffered from an unclean spirit. 

  As a three-year old, my grandmother would take me with her to visit people from Germany.  

“Girl you cannot be rude to Tante Schmachtenberger, verstehst?”

“Ja, Mama, ich verstehe.” (Yes, Mama I understand.)

 “Good.  She is your great-great aunt and a kind lady.”

   Tante Schmachtenberger answered the door in her dressing gown wearing two different house shoes and lots of jewelry.  Once we were in her parlor, she and my grandmother would converse for a while leaving me to observe the surroundings.  The dust and grime of her ancient Persian rug lingers in my recollections accompanied by a faint odor of decay that permeated the room.  On sunny afternoons the light would drench that front room and dust mites flew upwards like sparks.

  Our visits were always brief.  Mama stood the whole time.  On one of the stands there was  a glass dish with a few disintegrating sourballs in it.  I cringed whenever she offered me one.   Once we got out of the house Mama would walk briskly and replace the stale and slightly dank air with deep breaths in the great outdoors.

Yvonne A.

Feb 2020