“Are you a notary?” Ann asked me as I walked off the fluorescent-lit elevator and into the dimness of our apartment floor. She was hovering at the elevator bank, her gaunt frame hunched over her walker. Her blue eyes shone from her taut face, all encircled by a bird’s nest of frizzy gray hair. “Yes,” I told her, not stopping to chitchat. After an exhausting day at work, I just wanted to take off the pumps that were pinching my toes, change into sweatpants, and eat my leftover dinner in front of mindless TV. I did not want to notarize documents, something I did almost daily as a legal services attorney. “Good,” she said, likely sensing I was too tired to engage more. “I will need you at some point.”
I had moved in to Lane Towers a few weeks before and had already been accosted by Ann multiple times. She used our floor as her physical therapy room, slowly pushing her shiny, red, four-wheeled walker up and down the hallway in the evenings, after her home health aide left. Hanging from the front of her walker was a small stuffed chicken, yellow with an orange beak that curved into a smile. Ann was like that chicken, tiny and bird-thin. She always wore a soft wool sweater, even in the height of summer. If she ran into one of our neighbors, she would drop into the walker’s black leather seat, settling in for a talk. The old-timers on the floor were happy to engage. The newer residents, less so.
About a week after the notary conversation, my apartment intercom buzzed. It was 2 p.m. on a Sunday and I was having a relaxing afternoon to myself. “Hello?” I hesitantly said as I pressed the intercom button. It was the door attendant. “Ann doesn’t have your phone number,” he told me. “So, she asked me to buzz you. If you are free, she wants you to go to her apartment to notarize some documents.” I let go of the intercom button, sighed heavily, and rolled my eyes. Might as well get this over with. I grabbed my keys and notary stamp and headed to Apartment 10A.
I rang the bell. Ann’s face lit up as she invited me in. The large living room was awash in sunlight, with clear views of the Tudor-style mansions in Forest Hills Gardens, a neighborhood in Queens. It was April, but Ann had the heat pumping. “I need someone to notarize these papers,” Ann told me as she guided me to the blond-wood dining room table with four matching spindle-back chairs. On the table was a plate of bakery cookies, a French press full of coffee, and two empty mugs waiting to be filled.
“I need to see photo ID,” I told Ann, annoyed that she expected me to stay for coffee. Ann bobbed her head up and down. “Of course,” she said, seeming to enjoy the officialness of the task. “Give me a second to find it.”
I took a seat at the table as Ann went into her bedroom to search for ID. I looked at the papers on the table. Half of it was in German, but the other half was an English translation. “Life Certificate,” it said at the top.
Ann made her way back to the living room, now opening the drawers of the console table. “I know I have ID somewhere,” she said.
“Ann, what are these papers for?” I asked softly.
“To prove I am alive. I have to sign them every year to receive money from Austria since they killed my uncle during the Holocaust,” Ann casually said, not looking up from her search. “I grew up in Vienna.” My eyes became wide as I did the math. She must have been a young teenager when the Nazis came.
“Here we go,” Ann triumphantly announced. She made her way carefully back to the dining room table, smiling as she handed me a driver’s license. It was from the early 1990s and while it had her name on it, the photo was of a woman with a full, round face, fewer wrinkles, and smooth, dark hair, perfectly coiffed. Her smile was barely noticeable, and the start of a paisley silk blouse with a matching bow tied loosely below the neck peeked from the bottom of the photo.
After examining the driver’s license, I paused. What was I supposed to do with a 20-year-old ID that looks nothing like the person? Notary law requires officials to verify the identity of the person with some form of government ID, preferably one that has not expired. But as I sat there, glancing from the stranger in the picture to smiling, eager old Ann before me, I wondered about the pain and misery this woman must have endured. “Ann, please sign here,” I said, pointing to the line for her signature. I then took my notary stamp and aggressively pressed it on the document.
“Coffee?” Ann asked after we finished our official business. “Yes, please,” I readily responded. That Sunday would become the first of many weekend chats, and through the years, I would come to learn Ann’s story: how she escaped Vienna on a Kindertransport; how, when she arrived in New York, she worked for the U.S. Army, censoring letters from German prisoners of war; and how one day her beloved Uncle Julius’ letters from Dachau ceased. After raising a family, she earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in 1971 and went on to start a successful business career. It was from Ann that I learned what resilience really means and how fortunate I was to be born in a time of relative peace.
In 2017, Ann passed away. I had moved a few months before. But whenever I go back to visit friends who still live on the 10th floor, I always turn to look at the door to 10A and, for a moment, long for my Sunday chats with Ann.