Memories connect us to another time and tether us to the past…

I had gone back to Karlsruhe for a short visit during a writer's convention in Baden Baden. I was sitting in the Kaffee Mozart on Kaiserstraße, it had not changed, time seemed to stand still. The coffee the waitress brought was steaming hot, black and strong. I poured a cup from the small stainless steel pitcher and just enjoyed the coffee's intense aroma for a moment. On a small plate was a piece of delicious Bienenstich pastry to go with the coffee. Sitting there looking out the window watching the traffic, the aroma from the coffee triggered some by-gone memory.

Frau Huber, a friend of my Oma's, sprang to my mind. I remembered her from the late 50's when she came to the house a few times a week, always right around dinnertime. That was my grandmother's doing, to feed her, Oma knew that Frau Huber could not eat well on her small pension.

Home from school, right away my grandmother would have me help her tidy up. Put all your toys away, she would yell throughout the house, open some windows and let some fresh air in, which was another of her favorites. Then she would cook up a real nice dinner for all of us, but we couldn't eat until Frau Huber showed up. I could hear her come up the two flights of stone stairs. Go help Frau Huber up the steps, my grandmother would say, or see if she needs help carrying her bag up. Must I? I don't like her, she scares me. And for an eight-year-old boy, this fear was real. I complained a bit, and then helped her.

For the longest time, Frau Huber scared me. I even remember having had a bad dream once about her, seeing her large hook nose up close, I could have sworn it had a large wart with hair on it; and she was snaggle-toothed; there was one in particular, a gnarled tooth that seemed to stick out from the corner of her mouth. I bet she had probably ate one or two small children with those teeth, I did not want to be number three or four on her list. But of course these thoughts were all in a young boy's imagination.

But back to dinner. There she would sit at our small kitchen table and usually put at least two plates of food, some of my grandmother's best, away. I would stand behind my grandmother and watch, quietly, as she ate. Now the thing I didn't understand is why they did not call each other by their first names, it was always Frau Huber and Frau Trautwein. I asked my grandmother one time about that, we just do, no real reason, she said. Doesn't she have a home where she can go eat or be with her family? I asked my grandmother. Well, she doesn't have anyone or anything, she lost everything in the war, she now lives on a small pension.

Dinner over with, she would help to wash the dishes at our little kitchen sink. My grandmother would set up cake and coffee in our living room. Frau Huber could drink a whole pot on her own, and most times she would. Then she would start her pacing up and down, groaning with pain. What is wrong with her, I would ask grandmother in a very low voice, her gallbladder, she has a bad one, Oma would answer. Since I had no idea what that was, I would just quietly watch and listen to their conversation. Now to be fair and to make Frau Huber think that the meal was not charity on my grandmother's part, she would always have her read the cards and tell everyone's fortune. She would sit at our little kitchen table reach into the large bag she always carried, for her cards. There she would sit drinking coffee and laying out her cards. Now mind you my grandmother did not believe in this hocus pocus, but it made Frau Huber feel useful.

The one occasion when Frau Huber came over for dinner that really sticks in my mind, is the one with the coal incident, as I call it. Dinner was fine, as always. Oma made her great Sauerbraten and potato dumplings. She always made extra, because I always had two helpings. Frau Huber also had two helpings. Dinner over and she started pacing and rubbing her right side and talking all the time, talking and pacing, pacing and rubbing. Oma turned to me, Männle go down to the cellar and get a bucket of coal and some kindling for the stove before we have coffee and cake. Now all the times before, Frau Huber had never volunteered to help, but this time was different. She told Oma that she would go with me to the cellar and help me bring up some coal and firewood.

I got hold of the coal bucket, but I just wasn't to sure about her going with me in that dark cellar. When we got down we found one of the lights in the coal bin was burned out. Even though I knew the cellar and could find my way around, the blackness of the coal bin still scared the hell out of me. Frau Huber stumbled a few times, I could hear her quietly cussing, shit I can't see the coal. This opened the door for me to make a smart remark, and I did. Frau Huber, you can see all those things in the cards you lay, so why can't you see this coal? She reacted with a guttural sound, smart-ass. I could imagine in the darkness of the cellar, that her teeth were protruding and ready to bite me; she scared the hell out of me. She grabbed a bundle of kindling and I hurriedly filled the coal bucket, and we headed back upstairs. She told Oma about my smart mouth; Oma just gave me one of those, wait-until-later glances.

Later that evening we sat in the living room, I would read a book and Oma would read the newspaper. Of course she had set out a tray with a large porcelain pitcher of steaming coffee and a plate with four or five pieces of pastry from the Kaffee Mozart on the little coffee table. Out of nowhere came this loud laugh, it startled both my Oma and I. I looked up from my book and saw that Frau Huber was hysterical with laughter, she almost spilled her coffee. She looked at me laughing still, you know what you said in the cellar was funny, very funny. Oma smiled. It was the first time that we had seen her smile or laugh.

She came again next week, she smiled when she saw me and gave me a big hug, she was no longer scary. After that she would bring me chocolate. Over the next few years her dinner visits became fewer and fewer, then one day she didn't come at all. Some workers had found her dead in her tiny mansard apartment. We never really found out what she died of, we think it was loneliness. A few days later Oma went to her funeral. Oma looked at me, Männle, I will miss Frau Huber. I gave Oma a hug, so will I. Thinking back, I never really understood their friendship or relationship.

I poured the remnants of coffee from the little pitcher into my cup; it was still steaming hot, took the last bite of the pastry and looked out the window a bit longer. Memories…