Memories: The Priest and the Girl

“And you would like to take on this work in our house?” asked the head nurse, looking at me over her glasses while holding a document in her hand. “We’re looking for a few strong helpers to help us clear out the entire attic, make the floor and prepare everything so that it can be converted. It starts at 7.30 in the morning and you finish at 5 pm. Weekends are free. Do you think you can do it?”

‘Memories’ is a new column in which I occasionally share an anecdote from my past. The only thing that really matters to me is that it involves a memorable moment or an interesting encounter or incident, which may well be mystical, convoluted, amusing, crazy or something else. Personal details, times and places are not given, names are changed.

“Of course,” I replied.

I was young and needed the money. I could certainly have looked for an easier job, but in the small town I was currently living in, the glorious offers were less frequent.

“You can eat for free here in our canteen, even with seconds. A room is available for you in our guest house. However, we do not allow women to visit. Remember, otherwise you will be dismissed immediately. Likewise, no parties or other such debauchery. Night rest begins at 10 pm. You will certainly want to enjoy it.”

While she was explaining all this to me, I looked around the room. A desk with a push-button telephone and lots of papers on various shelves, behind her a large window overlooking the courtyard. I could make out a small part of the guest house behind some trees. It had two floors and was painted the same white color as the entire retirement home.

“Please be especially considerate of our residents, as they need a lot of rest and indulgence. They are paid $600 a month. That’s not the world, but you have free living and meals.”

The head nurse, also known as Sister Superior, wore a classic white coat and a bonnet of the same color. She was quite corpulent, but broad rather than fat, stocky with large upper arms. Her personality seemed reserved to cool.

“If all this appeals to you, our house would be delighted if you would like to help us with this project.”

At the time, I didn’t think about why they hadn’t brought in professionals to take over. I was actually just happy to have a roof over my head and free food. On top of that, there would be some nice pocket money.

“If that’s the case, Thomas will show you your room and the whole complex straight away. Your work will then start tomorrow morning. We will provide you with work clothes, i.e. a blue overall and work gloves. Please treat the clothes with care. You can wash them in our basement. There are several washing machines, clotheslines and everything else you need.”

Sister Superior, as she was usually called, then picked up the phone and called Thomas in. Shortly afterwards, he appeared in the office.

He was about 1.85 m tall, had brown, semi-long, slightly wavy hair, brown eyes and looked very thin and lanky. I estimated him to be about 20 years old.

We introduced ourselves briefly with a handshake and then left the office. My travel bag was still in the hallway. I quickly grabbed it and Thomas led me to the guest house.

Up close, the guest house looked in need of a bit of renovation. The plaster was peeling in some places and the dark green front door looked pretty battered.

“You can open the door with any bank card. In case you forget the key. And the rooms don’t have keys anyway!” Thomas explained.

We laughed. I quite liked him. He wasn’t very chatty, but seemed empathetic, polite, nice and intuitive.

After I had put my things away in the wardrobe and bathroom, there was a knock at the door. Thomas wanted to show me around the grounds and the home. I had already seen the entrance area and the sister superior’s office.

“There’s also a janitor’s area here. If a heater needs to be vented or a light bulb in one of the rooms gives up the ghost, you can go to the workshop to get a new one and replace it,” Thomas explained to me.

“Can I just get one from the garage without telling anyone first?” I asked to be on the safe side.

“Yes, you can do that.”

Then I got to know Sven. Another chosen employee of the attic project. He was perhaps in his mid-20s and about 1.70 m tall, had blond, very short, stubbly hair and made a physically fit and quite compact impression. He introduced himself briefly and then disappeared again, as he still had to take care of the garden.

“The garden?” I asked Thomas.

“Sven sometimes does gardening too. Repotting plants, mowing the lawn, sweeping leaves, watering, sweeping the yard and so on. You might have to help him sometimes.”

As the days went by, I quickly settled in there. The work was physically demanding. First, the floor was torn up with a percussion drill, the stones were packed onto a wheelbarrow and taken outside into a container. The attic was huge and must have been over 300 square meters. But sometimes there were also days when it was important to keep very quiet in the home. Drilling work or other activities of this kind were then suspended to give the old people a break. During this time, we would help Sven in the garden, lie around on the lawn and discuss God and the world.

Sometimes we just had to be careful, because although the entire home was run by Sister Superior, the priest was still one step higher in the hierarchy. Less than a hundred meters away was his large estate with a beautiful house and huge garden, where he lived all by himself. Thomas had said that we shouldn’t let the priest catch us being so lazy, because he was very old-fashioned and loved working people. He also mentioned that all the sisters, even the matron, would kowtow to him.

“He has the power!” declared Thomas. “So, take good care he doesn’t catch you idle.”

We quickly had a direct encounter with the priest in question. I was just driving one of the wheelbarrows across the yard and was about to take a running jump up a plank that would have brought me level with the container to tip the stones into it when he more or less stood in my way and immediately addressed me by name. At his side was a girl who was probably no more than 16 with long brown hair, blue eyes and rather noticeably large breasts for her age. Her gaze seemed inattentive and fixed.

“You’re the new guy?” he asked.

I nodded and we shook hands in greeting. He was about six feet tall, had dark, thinning hair and was probably over 60 years old. His companion only looked into the distance and seemed slightly absent. Sometimes she looked down at the ground as if she was searching for something, and from her behavior I realized that she was mentally handicapped.

“I’ll look after her a little,” he said, as if he had read my thoughts and made me understand that my assumption had been correct. “I would appreciate it if you could come with me to my house and move some stones around. They should go in the garage. I need the space in the garden.”

As I was actually happy not to have to carry these heavy chunks of screed down from the attic, I told Thomas, who was just leaving the entrance area with his wheelbarrow, and followed the priest.

He ran ahead and the unknown girl followed him wherever he went. I stayed a few meters behind and let him show me the way.

Actually, the work here didn’t look much different. There was a pile of stones in the garden that might be used to build something and they had to be transported to the garage.

The sun was shining and the church clock nearby was just striking 11 o’clock when I started moving stones again with a wheelbarrow. At the moment when the church clock struck and the sweat ran down my forehead, I experienced a strange déjà vu. I had experienced this exact situation before! But it was impossible, because I had never done anything like this before. Even the striking of the church clock, the weather, the priest’s house and a large garden seemed strangely familiar to me. However, I was only referring to the setting itself, not to the priest or his unknown companion.

At that moment, I also had the clear intuition that the priest also liked to have a go at the unknown girl. I couldn’t say to what extent she tolerated this or even noticed what was happening at such moments. The déjà vu had so overwhelmed me in those minutes that I didn’t think any further about the priest’s preferences.

I had the feeling that I had already experienced this situation in another life. At the same time, an image of a house and the owner I had worked for appeared before my eyes. In a way, I liked this moment, despite the physical exertion, and I have to say that it even made me happy for a moment. It was as if I was transported back 500 years in time for a moment and was allowed to live in the life there, in which I was very happy.

Now I sat down on the remaining pile of stones and enjoyed this wonderful moment. My present life faded away and for a few more minutes I bathed in the time long gone.

Sister Superior had been right. The night’s rest began at 10 p.m. and I often fell into a deep sleep at 9 p.m. from sheer exhaustion. Sometimes I took time in the evening to walk around the small town center, but tiredness quickly drew me back to my room in the guest house. Sometimes I allowed myself to read a little or looked thoughtfully through the open window at the tree opposite and the foliage, but the work was already very tiring. I wanted to reserve the weekend for more relaxing excursions.

I still remember another story from this retirement home. One day, I was working alone because Sven and Thomas had gone shopping, which was supposed to last until the afternoon. Suddenly I got a call from the head nurse to change a light bulb in room 251 and then to take Mrs. Lessing to Mass in her wheelchair. A nurse was also absent that morning and they had too much to do to take care of the little things.

When I entered this room, an old woman with gray hair was lying on her bed and looking at me.

“Good morning! Here comes the janitor service!” I called out in greeting.

Grandma opened her eyes, looked at me skeptically for a moment, then her face relaxed, turned to the side and giggled sheepishly.

Scrutinizing and playing the role of janitor, I looked at the ceiling lamp. No wonder nobody wanted to replace the bulb, because the socket was still in it. The bulb itself was nowhere to be found.

“The light bulb has burst!” Grandma Lessing said to me with a grin.

“I see, how did you manage that?” I asked.

“It wasn’t me, it was my husband!”

“Your husband? And why did he do it?”

“He came to see me tonight,” she said dryly.

“Visited how? As a ghost?”

“Yes, exactly! You said it! He appeared in my room here and told me that he would pick me up shortly. I was really scared, but it was my husband. You know, and after he said that, there was a loud BANG and then the light bulb burst. Nobody here believes me. Everyone says I’m crazy! But I’m not! I definitely saw him! I swear to you!”

“You don’t have to worry about me doubting you because of that. If you say that your husband has visited you, then he has visited you! Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Besides, it’s really nice of him to stop by. Not every husband does that… ” I replied.

Then one of the nurses came in and helped Mrs. Lessing into her wheelchair so that I could drive her straight over to the mess hall. When she was finally seated, I grabbed the handles and pushed her swiftly through the door.

“Man, you’re off!” she laughed and looked at me with sparkling eyes.

She seemed to like that, so I tilted the wheelchair back a little and raced her across the corridor on just two wheels. She whooped and screamed as she waved her arms wildly with joy. She loved the fast ride across the sterile corridor.

When we arrived, she was grinning from ear to ear and I had the feeling that she had been happy for a long time. Not only because of the fast ride, but also because her husband had looked after her during the night and she had been able to see him again for a brief moment.

“Thank you so much for this lovely ride,” Mrs. Lessing said to me as I drove her to the service and dropped her off.

“We can do it again,” I said and shook her hand goodbye.

Three days later, the phone rang again.

“Mr. Dilas, you did such a good job last time. Could you change a light bulb in room 251 again?”

At first I wanted to ask if Mr. Lessing had been there again that night, but then I refrained from commenting. After all, this was a church institution and in this case I didn’t want to have any discussions about experiences of the afterlife with Sister Superior, who was strictly Catholic.

I walked leisurely up to the second floor and into room 251. A glance at the ceiling light quickly showed me that the light bulb must have burst again. There were even a few tiny shards on the floor. My gaze then turned to the bed, but Mrs. Lessing was not in it. Instead, one of the nurses was standing there, wordlessly making up the bed.

“Where is Mrs. Lessing?” I asked.

The nurse turned to me and said with a serious face: “Unfortunately, she passed away tonight. She couldn’t walk very well, but otherwise she was still quite fit! That’s why we hadn’t expected it to happen so soon.”

Oh, I thought, then Mr. Lessing had actually picked up his wife tonight. He had kept his promise…