annashay 
by Rebecca Klassen
‘My house has a yellow door,’ we repeat at the table, you rolling your boiled egg and peeling off the shell, arranging the little shards on your plate, a calcium mosaic forming no picture. I remind you to eat the egg, don’t play with your food—something you would’ve said to me years ago, in this very kitchen, before I painted your door yolk yellow: the centre, your homing beacon. It used to be blue, like most of the other doors in the neighbourhood. You spit a mouthful of egg into your hand and whisper, ‘schleimig,’ to the runny glob. You’ve been speaking in your mother tongue more and more recently.
After breakfast, as I look for your other shoe, you play O Tannenbaum on my old glockenspiel, and I feel possessive over it as you strike the bars, the beater woolly like dandelion pappus, but I keep looking for your lost loafer. ‘The door key is in it,’ you say: that much you remember. After five verses I find the shoe and key under the sofa, and I wonder how I’m going to leave you here alone again later. I’ve got my own home with my own children who call me mum instead of mama, who eat burgers instead of bratwurst, and who depend on me like you do.
Once we’ve bought your shopping and are walking back home, I ask you which house you live at. ‘It’s down here,’ you say, heading in the wrong direction towards my old primary school. When I steer you down our street, I hum O Tannenbaum in the warm sunshine, praying it’ll plant you back to this morning, that you’ll see the colour yellow, but you walk past your house, and I have to beckon you back to your door.
A week later, Mrs Langley, my old headteacher calls me. She’s got her job and a sick husband to deal with, so the guilt bends me double when she says you turned up outside the school at pick up time, asking why I hadn’t come out with the other children, banging on classroom doors and calling for me. She gives you biscuits and lets you play in the home corner until I get there; I’ve had to leave work early. You’re delighted to see my face and offer me tea in a doll’s cup. As I pretend to sip, I know I can’t take you back to my house where everything is barren of familiarity for you.
Mrs Langley tells you how much she always enjoyed your lebkuchen at the Christmas fayres, and I think about the sugar cracking between my teeth, followed by spicy cinnamon, and I can’t remember when you last made them or imagine you making them again, and I pray you’ve written the recipe down. I should make them for you to enjoy with your granddaughters this Christmas.
As we walk home, some passing children in the school uniform I once wore point at you, giggling, and when I hear one whisper crazy cow, I scream at them to piss off, and you pat my hand. ‘Gut! Don’t let the other girls push you around,’ you say.
When we get behind your yellow door I make some calls. An agency is going to send someone at breakfast and dinnertime to check on you, ensure you’ve not left the front door open, or the oven on, or the taps running. They’ll make sure you’re functioning, a word that makes you feel like a faulty appliance. The toaster isn’t burning the toast, it’s you.
Making your dinner, we repeat several times, ‘My house has a yellow door.’ As I leave you eating eggs and bacon in front of the telly, watching lionesses on Attenborough lick their new cubs, I know I have to be brave as I close your door.
Three days later, Paul from my old class who’s also the town librarian contacts me via Facebook. It’s not weird: we comment on each other’s family holiday photos, laugh emoji at memes. He uses the messenger facility. Your mama is in the library asking for the deutsche texts.
I leave work, my emergency sounding bogus: I’ve got to pick Mama up from the library. When I arrive, you tell me all the books are too difficult, then you ask me in your mother tongue where the glockenspiel is, and I say you can play it when we get home. ‘You know, your home with the yellow door, remember?’ You tell me I’m silly, looking a little cross, then you blow a kiss at Paul before sitting on the stripy beanbags in the corner. I wonder if you know who he is, then I hope you don’t remember, that he isn’t still a schoolboy in your mind.
I ask Paul if he has any books I could borrow to help you. He shakes his head and is gentle when he says that he heard what happened with you at the school, that the neighbourhood isn’t just familiar faces anymore, and not everyone will know to call me or how to. ‘Your mama has been lucky,’ he adds, and it’s hard not to argue with him. Then you come over, telling Paul how handsome he is, that you bet he has, ‘festes Gesäẞ,’ and I thank God that Paul doesn’t understand you. Maybe you think you’re a schoolgirl too, a teenager back in Köln, and Paul isn’t a married man with a baby on the way.
Then I’m envious of how you can teleport not only to different times and places, but different selves, ones when you’re carefree, vivacious, adventurous, not inhibited by the tedium and burden encumbered in adulthood. You don’t remember those nostalgic days: you live them. Then I’m guilty all over again when you hold my hand, telling me you’ve lost your Mama and to take you home. ‘We’ll go home,’ I say, ‘the one with the yellow door.’
I scramble your eggs while you smack the glockenspiel with rhythm but no tune. Humming O Tannenbaum as I add milk to the pan doesn’t jog your memory.
Leo calls and asks if I’ll be home for the girls’ bedtime. He knows the answer. Once I’ve got you fed and bathed, I tuck you in bed and make up a story for you, my girls listening at the other end of the phone. You hear their voices and say, ‘meine kinder,’ and I struggle to get through the rest of my story. When I’ve hung up, I climb into bed with you, your lumpy mattress and your hand in mine like muscle memory, making me remember how safe you made me feel, and I hum O bloody Tannenbaum to stop my feelings spilling onto the pillow. You’re asleep, but I swear you smile.
I make coffee: you were up a lot in the night, and I greet the carer, a woman named Rachel. You’ve never met her before, and I give her some space to deal with you, but she knows I’m spying from the kitchen, and that’s why she flounders all the more when you don’t speak any English.
She has a bash. ‘Sprechen sie Englisch?’
You shake your head. ‘Ich bin Deutsche,’ you say.
When Rachel leaves you play the glockenspiel and sing Oh Christmas Tree in perfect English, and I want to smash the instrument into a million pieces as I gather my things, knowing I’ll be late for work, wearing yesterday’s clothes. Then I have an idea. I help you with your coat, find your missing loafer, tell you it’s a nice morning for a walk to the library. You agree, and I don’t remind you of your yellow door as I usher you through it. I call Paul and tell him you’re on your way and to show you picture books of the Rhine and the Danube before sending you home. He offers to walk you back, but I say you’ll be fine. God, I hope you’ll be fine.
Ninety minutes have passed, and everything is in place. This fix is temporary, like your current state: you’ll only get worse, but it’s all I can do for now. I go upstairs and observe the street from my old bedroom window, the room that’s seen me grow, watched us both change. I spot you ambling to the corner, your head cocked, and I know you can hear it. It brings you closer. The windchime I’ve cobbled together with string and wire with the glockenspiel bars plays on the breeze. You see the door. Yellow, red and black: three solid stripes. I’ve painted it for the days with no wind, for the days a stranger finds you, hears you speak and remembers the German house. When you come down the path, I run downstairs to open the door, but you’ve pulled out your key and unlocked it. Opening your arms, I run to you.
‘Meine kind,’ you say.
oOo
Rebecca Klassen is co-editor of The Phare and a Best of the Net 2025 nominee from Gloucestershire, England. She has won the London Independent Story Prize for flash, and was shortlisted for this year’s Alpine Fellowship, Bridport, and Laurie Lee Prize. Her work has featured in Mslexia, Shooter, The Brussels Review, Amphibian, Roi Faineant Press, Ginosko, Riggwelter, Cranked Anvil, and Ink, Sweat & Tears. Rebecca’s stories have been performed at numerous literature festivals and on BBC Radio.
