I used to play my violin in this attic room. The mountain vista drew the music from my fingers as if I were playing to some celestial audience. When Anna converted the house to an inn, she kept this room for me, although she said it was for her. She loved to hear me play. Dust coats my violin case now, unopened since the day of her death. Securing the loose window sash rattling in the rising wind, I note the heavy pewter colour of clouds laden with more snow. No tire tracks mar the drifts in the lane. It has been many years since the last guest stayed under this roof. I don’t encourage visitors.
This old place is in disrepair, but I haven’t the heart to do anything with it. I just want to live out my days in peace. I cannot abandon this old inn˗˗it is the place where I have known happiness. The ghosts of better days tread the empty halls, reminders of memories too dear to leave.
I descend the grand staircase sweeping down to the main hall. In yuletide seasons past, Anna made this the heart of the house. Beginning with a tall, fragrant evergreen regally filling the curve of the staircase, she spread her Christmas magic to every corner. I remember carrying in armfuls of pine boughs and holly for her to wind around the balustrade, and lighting a fire of sweet applewood in the stone fireplace. She would gently push me out and close the curtained French doors so she could add the finishing touches in secret.
Stealing a look through a slit in the drapes, I would see her kneeling before the manger scene she always saved until last. Old, worn figurines of Mary, Joseph and the infant Jesus were touchstones in her hands as she lovingly set them in place. These weren’t just family keepsakes to my Anna. The nativity was real to her, just like the rest of the Bible she read. Why she married a heathen like me, I’ll never know.
Fingertips of snow brushing against the windows bring me back to the empty cavern of this great room. The guest rooms and this lofty hall have long been unused. Much of the furniture was sold and doors shut after Anna was no longer here to welcome visitors. I live in the kitchen and back bedroom now, rarely venturing this way.
I hear a tentative knock at the front door. It startles me, so I stay hidden in the shadows by the staircase. I have been a recluse for too long. I don’t know how to be with people anymore. After a second knock, I see two figures through the frosted glass door, moving away toward the outbuildings, not back down the lane. I go to the window. The snow is flying thickly, but I can see it is a man and woman. He has his arm around her shoulders, sheltering her and whatever she carries in her arms from the blowing snow. I mutter under my breath when I see them pull open the slightly gaping plank door of the old barn and go in. I meant to fix that long ago.
There is no car in the lane, only a trail of footprints coming to the door. Did they get lost or break down on the twisting turns of the mountain road? Have they come to break in and steal? I am bewildered by this new turn of events. I wasn’t that fond of visitors when Anna was running the inn, but she ran it so smoothly I hardly knew they were here. Now she is gone and I am faced with two strangers taking shelter in my barn.
I am tempted to ignore their presence in hopes they will go away, but dusk is descending and the storm is getting worse. It is too cold to spend the night in an unheated barn. I struggle between my desire for privacy and knowing what Anna would want me to do. Finally shrugging into a parka, I grumble my way out to the barn.
When I push open the door, I am struck by a tableau startlingly close to my earlier memories of Anna’s manger scene. The woman is kneeling in the hay, her scarf-draped head illumined by snow light coming through a barn window. Beside her stands the man in his long coat. They are both gazing down at a baby wrapped in a soft blue blanket, lying in a small nest of hay. In the pause before my next heartbeat, Bethlehem becomes reality.
Then the woman rises to her feet, picking up the baby, huddling close to the man, and I see they are just ordinary people, not some sacred vision sent to convert an old man. I am surprised by my disappointment. As I had figured, they told me they had a car breakdown a short distance past my lane, so needing to find some shelter, they came up the hill to the inn. Despite my rusty social skills, I invite them in for warmth and food. They follow me gladly, stamping the snow off their boots and unwrapping the child from his blanket in the steamy kitchen. They introduce themselves as Jason, Maria and their son, Joshua. The familiarity of their names is not lost on me. They are gravely polite, graciously thanking me for the meal and a place to stay out of the storm.
The baby is wide-eyed and quiet at first, drinking his milk from the safety of his mother’s lap, watching me across the table. Then he begins to fuss, working himself into a red-faced howl. Maria tries to settle him, walking with him back and forth across the kitchen. Jason tries as well, but the child is overtired and won’t be soothed. Maybe it is the loud crying invading my reclusive quiet which sends me up to the attic for my violin. I have heard that music might settle a baby. I light a fire in the great hall, pull up some chairs, and usher my guests close to its flickering warmth.
At the first draw of my bow across the strings the baby stops crying. His unblinking stare of wonder gradually changes to droopy lids as I play simple carols. Maria swaddles him in his soft blue blanket, her loving gaze on his now peaceful face. Jason makes a bed of cushions and blankets before the fire where they will spend the night. In the morning, I will ask the boy who delivers my groceries to send the mechanic up from town to look at their car. The companionable presence of others in this old inn makes itself felt through the walls as I go to bed. I drift off with the vision in my mind of a child asleep in the hay and a star bright in the night sky.
I thought I would be relieved to see the small family leave the next morning, but to my surprise I am not. Their company has manifested my Anna’s presence again and I want to keep her close. Before they leave, Maria places her son in my reluctant arms. His innocent gaze pierces my heart, and I quickly give him back before my eyes well over. Jason shakes my hand firmly; Maria gives me a gentle hug. Then they head down the lane.
The fireplace in the great hall gives crackling accompaniment to my violin as I play Christmas carols for my Anna. The ache of loss gives way to joy in the memories. Strangers at the inn have opened the long-locked door of the past and I am grateful.
I am interrupted by a knock on the door. The mechanic stands there with a puzzled look on his face. He tells me he can find no car around the bend from my lane, nor any tire tracks in yesterday’s snow. Am I sure they were here? The delivery boy and the mechanic have trampled the snow up my lane, so no double set of footprints give proof of the family’s passage. Windblown snow covered their trail to and from the barn last night. I can tell he is annoyed at making a wasted trip out here because of some old man’s rambling delusions.
After he leaves, I sit down hard in a kitchen chair, my legs too wobbly to hold me. Did I imagine all this? I look around the kitchen for proof of my visitors, yet all is the same as before. But I am not. If their mystical resemblance to the holy family is only a figment of my aging mind, I do not care, for they have opened the rusted door on this old innkeeper’s heart and set it beating again.
I go outside to gather pine boughs and holly to decorate the great hall. Surely this is a Christmas season I need to celebrate. Their fragrance fills the room, and I gaze around me with satisfaction. Anna would be pleased. Then something under a chair catches my eye. I reach for a blue baby’s blanket. Pressing it to my cheek, its softness absorbs my tears of joy.
.JPG)
