That Christmas Feeling (8 page)

Flossie hummed for a moment, her eyes misting and her face growing soft. “‘Stille Nacht.’ That’s ‘Silent Night’ in German. Hans gave me a music box that played it. He would put the key in and wind it up—kind of like the apostles clock he sent over—and we’d sit together in his family’s parlor and listen to it.”

“Wait—an apostles clock?” Claire asked. “What in the world is that?”

“On the mantel. It doesn’t work anymore. Neither does the music box over there.”

Claire glanced from the ornately carved clock that she hadn’t even noticed to a large, jewel-encrusted case on a nearby table she had just begun to uncover. “Hans sent you these things? After you returned to America?”

“Why not? He loved me. We were two of a kind, really, Hans and I. I’d grown up here in the mansion, and he lived in a big house, too. But we were both country people at heart. We fell in love right away. Didn’t take us more than a week. He asked me to marry him, and I said yes. His family couldn’t have been happier.”

“You
married
Hans Schmidt?”

“Who do you think these letters came from?” Flossie fingered the envelopes gingerly, as though they might suddenly disintegrate. “He was my husband. People around here still call me Flossie Ross. Dumb sounding name. Flossie Ross, Flossie Ross—like a hissing snake. I’ve always hated it.”

“Florence Schmidt,” Claire said. “It’s nice.”

Flossie grinned, her face folding into the first pleasant expression Claire had ever seen on it. “Yep, that’s me. Mrs. Schmidt. Frau Schmidt is how you say it in German. Anyhow, it turned out the USO didn’t want married girls. Too much trouble. Hans decided I ought to come back here and set up housekeeping. So after our wedding he packed me up and sent me off. He was going to join me as soon as he got his papers together—no more than six months, we figured.”

“What happened, Aunt Flossie?”

“Nothing, at first. Things ticked along as good as that clock on the mantel. I sailed back home. Hans and his folks crated up the very best of their furniture—every fine chair and rug and lamp and painting in that big house in Salzburg—and they sent it over here to me. I unpacked it all, put everything in place and went to waiting for Hans.”

She smoothed her hand across the stack of letters. “He wrote me every week. Faithful as the sunrise in the morning. We had us a big plan, Hans and me. We were going to live here at the house, and pretty soon we’d bring his parents over, too. All of us together—one big happy family. There’d be plenty of room. The Schmidts wanted to leave Austria—desperate to get out, really. Folks had turned against ’em after the war, when it came out that they’d been secretly helping the resistance. ’Course, that made them heros to the Allies, and folks resented that the family had made it through the war with their house and all their belongings still safe and now were being feted by their wartime enemies.”

“He never came, did he?” Claire whispered.

“One afternoon right before Christmas I got a telegram. Said there’d been an accident on a road high up in the mountains. The Alps. The car skidded on a patch of ice and plunged off a cliff. The whole family died. That was a lie, too, of course. The Schmidts had a few friends still in Salzburg, and later I got letters telling me the truth. Hans and his parents were murdered. Made it look like a car wreck, but it wasn’t. They killed him.”

Claire laid her hand over her aunt’s. “Who did it?”

“How should I know?” The snarl returned as quickly as it had gone. “I was a twenty-year-old girl from Buffalo, Missouri. I couldn’t just sail back over there and sort it all out. What did it matter, anyway? Hans was dead. All I had left of him was this.” She swept her hand around the room. “Things. Furniture. And more furniture. Look at that painting over there. The frame is covered in gold leaf. You hear what I’m telling you? I got gold and silver and china and silk and velvet and ivory and more junk than you could ever put a name to. I got stuff I don’t even know what it is. Musical instruments. Cooking utensils. That clock on the mantel.”

“The apostles clock?”

“Back in Austria, when the hour struck, one of the twelve apostles would come out through a little door. He’d slide right over in front of the nativity scene and bow to the baby Jesus. Then he’d slide back through that other door. A different one would come out each hour. All of ’em bowed except Judas. Don’t give me that look, girl. Judas did
not
bow. I saw it myself—all done with cogs and wheels
and tiny chains. But I never understood how to wind the old clock. I don’t know how to play that crazy-looking guitar over there, either. And I don’t give a flip about these paintings. None of it means a thing to me, except that it once belonged to Hans.”

“Then why don’t you sell some of it, Aunt Flossie? You could take the money and move into a nice—”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Then you’d inherit the rest of my treasures when I’m dead and gone.” Flossie glared at her niece. “Well, you can’t have them! They’re mine! Hans gave them to me. They were his, and I mean to protect them.”

“Protect them? Aunt Flossie, you’ve let everything deteriorate so much that most of it is probably worthless. The clock is covered with soot. Your music box is…well, it’s been buried under all those damp newspapers so long…”

Claire stretched out her hand and tugged the crusty box off the table. When she turned it upside down, she could see that the key was still in place. She tried to give it a twist, but the key wouldn’t budge.

“Stuck. See? It’s all worthless,” Flossie said. “Just a pile of sorry old junk. And when I die, it’ll all be just as worthless as I was. As Hans was. As empty and hopeless as everything in this God-forsaken world.”

Claire ran a fingernail along the dirt-encrusted seam around the box’s lid as she spoke. “God hasn’t forsaken the world, Aunt Flossie. He’s here with you. And He’s with me, too.”

“You think so, do you? Fool!”

“If God had abandoned you, would He have sent me here? We have each other now, Aunt Flossie. My fiancé left me feeling just as empty and hopeless as Hans left you. I never even had the chance to get married before he abandoned me. He found himself another woman—someone prettier, maybe, or smarter. Certainly she was more adoring. I don’t really understand what happened. All I know is he canceled the wedding, and for a while I thought I had nothing and no one.”

“You
don’t
have anyone, girl. Don’t kid yourself! You’re alone in this world, and nobody gives two hoots about—”

The tinkling sound of the music box silenced the woman. The key had been wound to its tightest point, Claire discovered, and when she lifted the old wooden lid, it began to play. Flossie knelt at her side, and together they gazed in awe at the majestic miniature scene that unfolded before them.

Set on snowy white velvet, a group of enameled porcelain figures clustered around a tiny baby lying in a manger. On either side of the Christ child stood Mary and Joseph, clothed in brilliant blue robes and crowned with halos of clustered diamonds. As the familiar song played, a group of onlookers slowly circled the Holy Family. Shepherds knelt with heads bowed. And the magi, three of them, presented gifts—a cube of solid gold, a teardrop-shaped ruby and a square green emerald. Inside the box lid, painted angels raised their hands as they worshiped amid an array of tiny starlike diamonds embedded in the wood.

“‘Stille Nacht,’”
Flossie sang softly, her voice quavering.
“‘Heilige Nacht. Alles schläft, einsam wacht…’”

“‘Round yon Virgin Mother and child,’” Claire joined in. “‘Holy infant so tender and—’”

“Who’s here?” Flossie broke in.

As red lights flashed on and off, Claire imagined for a moment that somehow a Christmas tree had magically appeared outside the mansion. But the heavy footsteps on the porch told her it was Rob, and the light came from his squad car.

“Ho, ho, ho! Merry Christmas,” he called out, knocking on the heavy wooden door. Before Claire could respond, he appeared in the foyer and poked his head into the parlor. “Hey, Miss Ross. Afternoon, Claire. I saw your car here and thought I’d check on your progress.”

Her heart beating far too heavily over the mere sight of Buffalo’s police chief, Claire gave an exaggerated shrug. “We’re fine, thanks. Aren’t we, Aunt Flossie?”

“Better than you, you ol’ scalawag!” Flossie shook her fist at Rob. “You’re the scoundrel who stole my guns! Took away my cats—”

Before the old woman could scramble to her feet, Claire caught her arm. “Unless you’ve come here to help out, Rob West, you can just get your sorry hide back to chasing drug runners. My aunt and I are too busy to chat.”

Rob’s dark brows rose a fraction as his mouth curved into a smile. “As a matter of fact, I did come here to help out. Along with a few other good folks.”

He turned his head, put his fingers to his lips and blew a piercing whistle. As the foyer filled with people, he continued. “After the parade, the mayor and I got to talking.
It’s not too cold this afternoon, and we decided that since the fire truck was already out, maybe we could put it to good use. Several firemen, three of my patrolmen, Jane Henderson and quite a few others have come over to see what we can do for our good neighbor.”

As Rob spoke, the mayor took up a position on the third step of the long staircase in the foyer and began to supervise the work. Bellowing instructions, Jane Henderson directed the cleaning crew, ordering those with brooms to start at one end of the marble floor and those with mops and buckets to follow along behind them. Two of the firemen began to work on the fireplace in the adjoining second parlor—a more formal room kept closed behind pocket doors—which primarily had been used by the Ross family for wakes. A group of women wearing rubber gloves rolled up their sleeves and began dumping into heavy-duty garbage bags the mounds of reeking newspapers that covered nearly every surface. Outside, the rest of the firemen hooked up their hoses and started spraying down the old house, washing away the accumulated grime from roof to basement.

Aunt Flossie flew into a rage. “You people get out of here!” she screeched, leaping to her feet and dancing around in a state of near hysteria. “This is my house! These are my things. You can’t have ’em. Get out! Help! Where’s my gun?”

Desperate to ease her aunt’s panic, Claire put an arm around the old woman’s shoulder and drew her close. To Claire’s surprise, Flossie sagged suddenly, burying her
face in her niece’s embrace. “Oh, help me. Somebody please save me,” she wailed.

“I’m right here,” Claire murmured, leaning her cheek against the puff of fluffy white hair. “No one will hurt anything that belonged to Hans. I’ll make sure of that. No one will steal it. No one wants to take your things, Aunt Flossie. I don’t want anything in this house. It’s all yours. Yours and your husband’s.”

Flossie nodded as tears rolled down her cheeks. Torn between slapping Rob and hugging him, Claire led her aunt toward the kitchen. When she pushed open the swinging door, another surprise awaited her. Expecting the large room to be filled with trash, she discovered that it must not have been occupied in years. The counters were clean, the long wood table was bare and the 1930s vintage refrigerator was still humming. Though the room was chilly and the stench from the rest of the house had permeated it, the kitchen clearly remained locked in a time capsule. After seating her aunt at the table, Claire was preparing to rummage around for tea or coffee when Rob tromped into the room bearing a large thermos.

“Hot coffee, Miss Ross?” he asked. “We’ve brought enough to float everybody clear to China and back. Here you go.”

He set a foam cup on the table before Flossie and then faced her niece. “I hope you don’t mind,” he said, pouring a cup for Claire.

She rolled her eyes. “Well, now’s a fine time to ask,” she retorted, taking the offered coffee. “You might have checked with us before you came barging in.”

“Us?”

“This is our project. Aunt Flossie’s and mine.”

“I hate to disagree, but I’m the one who got the ball rolling. I look at it like our Buffalo history project. It’s just you and me, Clarence. And Aunt Flossie, of course.”

“Just you and me? Then what are all those people doing here?”

“I brought them. Fulfilling my part of the project—like I always do.”

Claire glanced down at her aunt, who was sipping gingerly at her coffee. The minute the invasion had begun, Homer and Virgil had hightailed it out to the kitchen, and both cats were now curled up at her feet. Despite the chilly room and the noise and confusion outside, it was a pleasant scene.

“You come with me,” Claire said, grabbing Rob’s arm and pulling him toward the door that led to the backyard. They crossed the kitchen to the darkened corner beside the old refrigerator. Claire leaned close enough that he could hear as she spoke just above a whisper.

“I’m talking to you now as the chief of police, Rob,” she began. “I’ve just found out from Aunt Flossie that this house is filled with treasures from Austria. Most of what you see was sent here right after World War II, and its worth is probably…well, it’s priceless. I’m a historian, Rob, and I’m telling you right now that nothing better disappear from this house. Your cleaning crew is not to touch one painting—not even the frames. If lemon-spray polish landed on that fragile artwork, it would—”

“Calm down, Claire.”

“I’ll calm down when you assure me that everything here will be treated with the utmost care and respect.”

“Okay, okay.” He set his hands on her shoulders. “Relax.”

“Historically this is so important, Rob. Not just for my aunt and our family. It’s important to Buffalo. Maybe even to the world. I don’t know what she has in this house. It could be very significant. The furniture needs to be professionally restored, if at all possible. The lamps have to be taken down, and each crystal removed and washed separately. The rugs that are totally ruined can be tossed, but if there are just a few holes—”

“A few holes? The rugs are shredded and soaked in cat urine. You can smell it all the way in here! Claire, this place is a disaster. I was hoping to get those fire hoses inside and just spray everything right out the door and into a Dumpster.”