The four of us stood under the automatic porch light. Kandy cradled Elena while I held a sleeping Daniel. “I expect the bad witch to come out at any moment,” said Kandy, as I pressed the doorbell. I looked at the inn’s outer wall of dark overlapping half round shingles and had to agree.
When the door finally opened it was not a witch, but an old, old man who gazed out at us. Yet somehow he brought the freshness of a mountain lake with him. His right cheek bulged as though he constantly chewed tobacco. He wore a green tweed suit coat, red vest, white shirt and dark trousers. It was eleven pm in the summer, twenty-three degrees and we were all in shorts and tee-shirts.
At that moment, Elena stirred uneasily and started to cry. Loudly. Our two-year-old never did anything by halves.
The crying awoke Daniel, who climbed down from my arms, wiping sleep from his eyes. My four-year-old stood separately in the pool of light, not holding my hand.
The man said in the local Alemannic dialect, “Good Evening.”
“Good Evening, mein Herr,” Daniel replied in the same dialect.
I stepped between Daniel and this man and said in high German, “We’ve had a long drive, and the children are sleepy. We’d like to go to our rooms as soon as possible, if we may.”
The man started, blinked and turned to look at me.”Netherlanders?”
“Yes.”
His gaze was inexorably drawn back to Daniel. “But your son speaks German, even Alemannic, our Black Forest Dialect? At such a young age?”
I said unwillingly, “My mother. She grew up in Mittelbach.”
The man smiled. The myriad of small lines in his face coalesced into a few deep creases around his mouth and eyes. “A young Schwarzwald boy,” he looked pleased.
Kandy had soothed Elena and spoke up. “We live in the Netherlands. Our children are Dutch.”
The man continued staring at Daniel, who looked back, mesmerized. The man said, “I have some toys your son might like to see. Mechanical things — trains, planes, cars.” He smiled. “They all work.” He smiled further. “A boy’s delight.”
Daniel looked excited. “Thank you, mein Herr.”
The man kept smiling.
Daniel said nothing, but continued gazing.
I said, “Daniel!”
My son didn’t answer.
The old man suddenly seemed to recollect himself. “Well, it’s late now. We’ll do that tomorrow. The children must go to bed, hein?”
By now, we had progressed to the entrance hall. I looked around. A framed large poster showed the Mummelsee. A broad lake in the mountains, surrounded by evergreen trees. The poster showed a fairy tale figure of a large man with a green face and white beard. He wore a crown and held a trident. A grey cast-iron mermaid sat on a rock in the lake beside him. I shook my head. Kitsch. What the locals will do to bring in tourists.
The old man led us out of the reception and through the breakfast room. Wood everywhere, this time pine. Pinewood, knot holes. My mind flew to peep holes.
This had seemed a safe, family-type village, familiar from my mother’s stories. Now a parent, I worried about old men interested in young boys and possible apertures in walls. I held Daniel’s hand tightly and pulled him close. A dusty cuckoo clock struck midnight as we passed. The wooden floor creaked. The overhead bulb glimmered and flashed, giving out a weak glow.
The man unlocked a door on the far side of the breakfast room. He easily carried our heavy suitcases and set them down in our room. “There’s a carafe of water for you. From the spring on our own land in the mountains. Perhaps you know ‘bronn’ in ‘Baiersbronn’ means ‘spring’.”
I nodded.
“I’m sure it will help you sleep after your journey.”
I didn’t understand how spring water might do this, but let it pass.
The man looked once more at Daniel, who stared back. The man then handed me the keys and left.
I locked the door behind him. The lock seemed rudimentary, and I put a chair against the door handle.
I scanned the walls, while Kandy got the children ready for bed. There did not appear to be any unplugged knot holes.
“Children, we’ll all have some water,” Kandy said. She had poured out four glasses from the carafe.
I looked at her. “Do you think it’s safe?”
“Spring water is usually purified through the rock in the mountains.” The problem with a wife who read a lot. “It contains many minerals, and is very healthy.”
“It stinks!” Daniel said.
“It stinks like sour milk!” said Elena.
“Children!” Kandy said. “It’s good for you.”
“I won’t!” said Daniel.
Kandy was apparently also tired, and let it pass. Elena, she and I drank. I have hay fever and the smell of this water didn’t bother me.
Suddenly, a great weariness overcame me and all I wanted was to sleep.
Elena too was almost asleep as I carried her to the bunk bed. Kandy yawned as she coaxed Daniel to slumber. At last she and I climbed wearily into our own bed. My last thought was to wonder if bringing my children to my mother’s homeland had been such a good idea after all.
I awoke the next morning to the smell of coffee. Cups clattered, silverware clanked just on the other side of the door to our suite. I looked at my mobile phone. Eight o’clock! I hadn’t slept this late for more than four years.
There should have been other sounds. Elena pulling at our covers, Daniel jumping on our bed. Especially in a strange place. At the very least, I expected to hear them playing in their own room. But there was only silence.
I looked at Kandy. She was still deep in slumber, most unlike her. I decided it had been a long day yesterday and she needed to catch up.
Then I heard a violin playing from beyond the wall of the children’s room. It must be the private area where the owners lived.
I recognised “Kling, Glöckchen, klingelingeling”, or “Ring, Little Bell”, a jolly Christmas song adapted from a Schwarzwald folk tune. My mother had sung it to me as we ate warm spritz cookies, smelling of anise. But now this normally happy song gave me the shivers. My son was on the other side of that wall. I did not know with whom.
I rushed into the children’s bedroom. Elena still slept. Her forehead did not feel hot, her breathing looked regular. But she still slept. Strange.
My thumping had roused Kandy. She plodded into the children’s room. “What’s that dreadful smell?”
“What smell?”
“Sour milk. I guess this is a dairy area. But usually dairy farmers have to keep everything really clean. Like the cheesemakers in Friesland.” English Kandy knew more about Dutch history and geography than I did.
“Never mind the smell,” I said.
“It smells awful, but somehow not quite like rotten milk,” Kandy mused. “Hmmmm. They use a lot of herbal medicine in these mountains. I wonder if it could be Valerian.”
“Never mind the smell!” I said more loudly.
“Valerian makes you sleepy.”
“Elena isn’t awake yet,” I said. “And Daniel’s bed is empty.”
Kandy looked at me now. Worry pierced her eyes.
The violin played. I jumped.
Then my son’s voice, coming from the same direction behind the wall, said, “Yes, yes I see. I understand now.” He didn’t sound afraid.
Unshaved, and unshowered, I threw on clothing and rushed out of our suite. This brought me immediately into the dining room where calm, sophisticated elderly couples were quietly enjoying their breakfast of coffee, crispy rolls, cheeses and cold meats. I pushed my way through their tables out to the reception and stood in front of an unattended counter.
I called out. “Dannniel! Where are you? Time to get dressed!”
No reply, no violin, no voice of my son. Kandy arrived with uncombed hair in shorts and tee shirt. We looked at each other. A door opened behind the reception desk, letting in a faint noise of machinery and a whistle. I quickly called out, “Daniel!”
A young woman, about the same age as Kandy, came through the door and then shut it.
I said to her sharply in German, “Is my son in there? A small boy?”
She looked at me in surprise and said in English, “I’m sorry, I only speak English. I’m here to study German, but just arrived.” She seemed to think this covered it and continued ahead to the dining room where she started clearing away dirty plates.
I went behind the reception counter and tried the door. It was locked. I rattled the handle, pounded and called sharply, “Daniel!” My son was in there. I had heard him speaking on the other side of that wall from our suite. And perhaps with the old man that had shown such an unsavory interest in him last night.
No one answered, the door stayed shut. I saw an old-fashioned key behind the reception desk. I tried it. It didn’t fit the door. Faint machinery noises came through again. I started to panic and pounded louder on the door shouting, “Daniel! Daniel! Are you there?”
Finally there were footsteps and an old woman opened the door. She had the same creases in her face as the man last night. Kandy and I stepped through into a kitchen. A square, tile-covered block in the corner had a metal hatch in front and many pots and a kettle sitting on top. A hand-embroidered tea towel hung on a wall.
Daniel sat in a painted green wooden chair at an old pinewood table in his pajamas, drinking milk and eating a crispy round roll smeared with butter and a red jam. Jam. Something he wouldn’t have at home where it had to be Nutella or something else too sweet and bad for him. Kandy whispered to me, “I smell fresh bread.”
“Oh,” said the woman in excellent high German. She wore a light summer frock, neat and ordinary. A violin lay on a small table by the window. “Were you worried?” she continued. “I do apologize. For some reason, this boy-”
“Daniel, his name is Daniel,” I interjected. It seemed important that he was not just a boy, but Daniel, my son, and closely attached to a family.
“Yes, of course, Daniel,” she looked at him fondly, “was here when I got up this morning, and well, the rest…” she shrugged her shoulders. Kandy walked over and stood between the woman and Daniel. He kept eating the roll, punctuating it with gulps of milk.
I said, “Was it your husband who let us in last night?”
“My husband?” The woman looked offended. “Certainly not.” She paused and then her face caved in. “We lost Ulrich twenty years ago.”
Kandy said, “I’m so sorry.”
But I was determined. “I’m sorry, may I ask then who was the gentleman who let us in last night? He was an older man, who spoke, if I am not mistaken, Alemannic dialect.”
She stared at me, her manner more and more frigid. “I don’t know what you mean. My son Olaf let you in. I saw it on the register this morning.”
“Your son?” Kandy and I both looked incredulous.
By this time Daniel’s plate and milk glass were empty. Daniel peeked around his mother to say in Alemannic, “Mr. Ulrich was here last night and then again this morning. He played the violin for me meine Frau.”
The woman collapsed backward into another green chair, suddenly looking older.
Daniel said to her, “He’s a very nice man. After the violin, we played with the trains. He told me he had to go, but that I should think of becoming a train engineer when I got older. I will, but now I want to learn the violin, too.” Our son, who had locked himself in his room to avoid piano lessons. Kandy and I stood with our mouths open. “Meine Frau, is there perhaps another roll and some more milk?” Daniel added.
But the woman cried out, “So he’s come back. For a while. Ach. My Ulrich.” Tears fell down her face, sliding into the crevices between her nose and the corners of her mouth.
“A ghost?” Kandy tried to keep skepticism out of her voice.
“He always liked children,” the woman said. “He loved to show young boys, smart ones, his collection of trains. I sold them all when he died.”
Daniel said, “Well, there were some here this morning. The Class VT 88.9 Diesel Powered Rail Car-the “Pig’s Snout”, that one’s German, and the Class 1100 Electric Locomotive. The locomotive is Dutch. He showed me that because my mother said I was Dutch and he knew I would like it.” Daniel smiled. “And I did.”
The woman said again, “So. He’s come back.”
Daniel said, “He told me about the Mummelsee. ”
“Ja, he came from that region of the Schwarzwald. The Mummelsee is a deep lake in the forest, about an hour’s ride from here,” the woman said.
I said, “I thought it was about twenty kilometers away.”
She turned to me briefly. “An hour’s horse ride.”
I said, “Ah,” but she had already returned to Daniel.
Daniel continued, “The Mummelsee, yes. Herr Ulrich told me.” He turned to the woman and took a deep breath. It was going to be a long story, I guessed.
The old woman asked if we would like coffee. Kandy and I looked at each other. There was no trace of the man. He seemed to be permanently gone. I nodded and so did Kandy.
“The Mummelsee is named after mermaids, the ladies of the lake.” Daniel said. He couldn’t wait until we sat down to tell us. “These ladies used to come onto land during the day to help with the farm work. But their king, who had a green face, a white beard and carried a trident, declared they had to be back in the lake by the evening, when the first star shone in the sky.”
The woman nodded. “Did he tell you the rest of it?”
“About the lady who stayed with her lover too late?”
“Yes. So you know,” said the woman dreamily. “Yes, that particular lady returned to the lake and struck the water three times with a willow rod. The water parted and a marble-white staircase appeared, leading down to the crystal castle where all the mermaids lived. The water then closed.”
Kandy and I stared at each other. A vague memory of a fairy tale from my mother stirred. Kandy looked interested as she always did in cultural oddities.
The lady continued as though reciting a memorized catechism, “And the farmer, her lover, was standing on the shore watching her. But when the water closed, all he could see was a dark red wave on the surface. Just that.” The old woman paused. Tears streamed down her face. “It was his true love’s blood. The farmer never saw his true love, again.”
The woman and Daniel gazed at each other.
Daniel said, “But there’s more. A lot more.”
The woman shook her head, face getting wetter.
Daniel continued, “Herr Ulrich said there were not only women living in that lake, but men. Men living below the lake, though he says there’s no white staircase like they say in the legend. And he says that he, Herr Ulrich, is one of them. That he lives there, even now.”
My wife’s cultural interest evaporated as the tale started to involve her son. Kandy said, “Meine Frau, I’m sure you’re busy. We’ve taken up enough of your time.”
Kandy and I both put down our coffee cups and stood up.
Daniel stayed seated and continued his story. “But Herr Ulrich can stay away for twenty-four hours. A day and a night. That’s why he could be here last night but then had to leave this morning,”
Kandy grabbed Daniel’s arm to pull him up. Our son didn’t budge.
The woman said, “My Ulrich,” she said. “My dear husband.” She breathed deeply in and sniffed. “He’s done this twice before. Usually he shows up closer to the Mummelsee.” She shook her head. “This time in our own house.”
“What nonsense is this?!” Kandy whispered to her son, this time pulling Daniel upright hard, possibly with enough force to dislocate his young shoulder. I winced and came over to them.
“Your mother’s right,” I said. “It really is time for us to go.” Between us, we pried him
away.
We kept Daniel between us as we three walked towards the door. When we were almost there, Daniel escaped. He ran back to the woman, and looking her directly in the face said, “He’s a nice man. We played with his trains. And he gave me this.” Daniel held out a willow rod. “Maybe you’d like to have it.”
Kandy said in an undertone to me, “For heaven’s sake, let’s get out of here. That piece of wood is probably made by the thousands in China.”
The woman went to a drawer. She smiled, and pulled out an identical willow rod. “I know,” she said. “He used to whittle these. Always carved his initials, UTM. His knife had a blunt part and the twist needed to make the turn in the M didn’t work.” She pointed. “You see? Your “M” has the same flat second hump as mine.”
Daniel smiled. She hugged him. Daniel kept his own willow rod, and this time, ran away with us.
We returned to our suite, just as Elena was waking up. She looked at Daniel. “How were the trains?” she asked.
“Super, ” he answered.
*****
Valerie Nichols’s poetry has appeared in “A Year of Mondays–24 Mayo Writers”. Her short stories have been published in The Sandy River Review https://sandyriverreview.com/2023/12/11/monets-garden/, Commuterlit.com, https://commuterlit.com/?s=Nichols, and the Avalon Literary Review, Winter 25 Edition.
Her Creative Nonfiction has been published in “Wordgathering”, https://wordgathering.com/vol18/issue2/creative-nonfiction/nichols/ She wrote and performed the script “The Adventures of Soldier Juan Álvaro Rodriguez” at the Kelder van Gent Theatre in Utrecht, Netherlands in May 2024. She is co-organizer of the Eindhoven Creative Writing Group. For more information, please see: https://arboles321.wixsite.com/arlenescholvi
