A Lot Like Christmas: Stories

by Connie Willis

  He stepped forward and put his hand on the door. He had a blanket draped over him, which was why she’d mistaken him for a woman. “Erkas,” he said, and he sounded upset, desperate, and yet somehow still diffident, timid.

  “Bott lom,” he said, gesturing toward the woman, who was standing back almost to the edge of the porch, but Sharon wasn’t looking at her. She was looking at their feet.

  They were wearing sandals. At first she thought they were barefoot and she squinted through the darkness, horrified. Barefoot in the snow! Then she glimpsed the dark line of a strap, but they still might as well be. And it was snowing hard.

  She couldn’t leave them outside, but she didn’t dare bring them into the hall to wait for the van either, not with Reverend Farrison around.

  The office was out—the phone might ring—and she couldn’t put them in the Fellowship Hall with all the stuff for the homeless in there.

  “Just a minute,” she said, shutting the door, and went to see if Miriam was still in the adult Sunday school room. It was dark, so she obviously wasn’t, but there was a lamp on the table by the door. She switched it on. No, this wouldn’t work either, not with the communion silver in a display case against the wall, and anyway, there was a stack of paper cups on the table, and the plates of Christmas cookies Miriam had been carrying, which meant there’d be refreshments in here after the rehearsal. She switched off the light, and went out into the hall.

  Not Reverend Wall’s office—it was locked anyway—and certainly not Reverend Farrison’s, and if she took them downstairs to one of the Sunday school rooms, she’d just have to sneak them back up again.

  The furnace room? It was between the adult Sunday school room and the Fellowship Hall. She tried the doorknob. It opened, and she looked in. The furnace filled practically the whole room, and what it didn’t was taken up by a stack of folding chairs. There wasn’t a light switch she could find, but the pilot light gave off enough light to maneuver by. And it was warmer than the porch.

  She went back to the door, looked down the hall to make sure nobody was coming, and let them in. “You can wait in here,” she said, even though it was obvious they couldn’t understand her.

  They followed her through the dark hall to the furnace room, and she opened out two of the folding chairs so they could sit down, and motioned them in.

  “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear” ground to a halt, and Rose’s voice came drifting out of the sanctuary. “Shepherd’s crooks are not weapons. All right. Angel?”

  “I’ll call the shelter,” Sharon said hastily, and shut the door on them.

  She crossed to the office and tried the shelter again. “Please, please answer,” she said, and when they did, she was so surprised, she forgot to tell them the couple would be inside.

  “It’ll be at least half an hour,” the man said. “Or forty-five minutes.”

  “Forty-five minutes?”

  “It’s like this whenever it gets below zero,” the man said. “We’ll try to make it sooner.”

  At least she’d done the right thing—they couldn’t possibly stand out in that snow for forty-five minutes. The right thing, she thought ruefully, sticking them in the furnace room. But at least it was warm in there and out of the snow. And they were safe, as long as nobody came out to see what had happened to her.

  “Dee,” she said suddenly. Sharon was supposed to have come out to get her some cough drops.

  They were lying on the desk where she’d laid them while she phoned. She snatched them up and took off down the hall and into the sanctuary.

  The angel was on the chancel steps, exhorting the shepherds not to be afraid. Sharon threaded her way through them up to the chancel and sat down between Dee and Virginia.

  She handed the cough drops to Dee, who said, “What took you so long?”

  “I had to make a phone call. What did I miss?”

  “Not a thing. We’re still on the shepherds. One of the palm trees fell over and had to be fixed, and then Reverend Farrison stopped the rehearsal to tell everybody not to let homeless people into the church, that Holy Trinity had had its sanctuary vandalized.”

  “Oh,” she said. She gazed out over the sanctuary, looking for Reverend Farrison.

  “All right, now, after the angel makes her speech,” Rose said, “she’s joined by a multitude of angels. That’s you, junior choir. No. Line up on the steps. Organ?”

  The organ struck up “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing,” and the junior choir began singing in piping, nearly inaudible voices.

  Sharon couldn’t see Reverend Farrison anywhere. “Do you know where Reverend Farrison went?” she whispered to Dee.

  “She went out just as you came in. She had to get something from the office.”

  The office. What if she heard them in the furnace room and opened the door and found them in there? She half stood.

  “Choir,” Rose said, glaring directly at Sharon. “Will you help the junior choir by humming along with them?”

  Sharon sat back down, and after a minute Reverend Farrison came in from the back, carrying a pair of scissors.

  “ ‘Late in time, behold Him come,’ ” the junior choir sang, and Miriam stood up and went out.

  “Where’s Miriam going?” Sharon whispered.

  “How would I know?” Dee said, looking curiously at her. “To get the refreshments ready, probably. Is something the matter?”

  “No,” she said.

  Rose was glaring at Sharon again. Sharon hummed, “ ‘Light and life to all He brings,’ ” willing the song to be over so she could go out, but as soon as it was over, Rose said, “All right, wise men,” and a sixth-grader carrying a jewelry box started down the center aisle. “Choir, ‘We Three Kings.’ Organ?”

  There were four long verses to “We Three Kings of Orient Are.” Sharon couldn’t wait.

  “I have to go to the bathroom,” she said. She set her folder on her chair and ducked down the stairs behind the chancel and through the narrow room that led to the side aisle. The choir called it the flower room because that was where they stored the out-of-season altar arrangements. They used it for sneaking out when they needed to leave church early, but right now there was barely room to squeeze through. The floor was covered with music stands and pots of silk Easter lilies, and a huge spray of red roses stood in front of the door to the sanctuary.

  Sharon shoved it into the corner, stepping gingerly among the lilies, and opened the door.

  “Balthazar, lay the gold in front of the manger, don’t drop it. Mary, you’re the Mother of God. Try not to look so scared,” Rose said.

  Sharon hurried down the side aisle and out into the hall, where the other two kings were waiting, holding perfume bottles.

  “ ‘Westward leading, still proceeding, guide us to thy perfect light,’ ” the choir sang.

  The hall and office lights were still off, but light was spilling out of the adult Sunday school room all the way to the end of the hall. She could see that the furnace room door was still shut.

  I’ll call the shelter again, she thought, and see if I can hurry them up, and if I can’t, I’ll take them downstairs till everybody’s gone, and then take them to the shelter myself.

  She tiptoed past the open door of the adult Sunday school room so Miriam wouldn’t see her, and then half sprinted down to the office and opened the door.

  “Hi,” Miriam said, looking up from the desk. She had an aluminum pitcher in one hand and was rummaging in the top drawer with the other. “Do you know where the secretary keeps the key to the kitchen? It’s locked, and I can’t get in.”

  “No,” Sharon said, her heart still pounding.

  “I need a spoon to stir the Kool-Aid,” Miriam said, opening and shutting the side drawers of the desk. “She must have taken them home with her. I don’t blame her. First Baptist had theirs stolen last month. They had to change all the locks.”

  Sharon glanced uneasily at the furnace room door.

  “Oh, well,” Miri
am said, opening the top drawer again. “I’ll have to make do with this.” She pulled out a plastic ruler. “The kids won’t care.”

  She started out and then stopped. “They’re not done in there yet, are they?”

  “No,” Sharon said. “They’re still on the wise men. I needed to call my husband to tell him to take the turkey out of the freezer.”

  “I’ve got to do that when I get home,” Miriam said. She went across the hall and into the library, leaving the door open. Sharon waited a minute and then called the shelter. It was busy. She held her watch to the light from the hall. They’d said half an hour to forty-five minutes. By that time the rehearsal would be over and the hall would be full of people.

  Less than half an hour. They were already singing “Myrrh is mine, its bitter perfume.” All that was left was “Silent Night” and then “Joy to the World,” and the angels would come streaming out for cookies and Kool-Aid.

  She went over to the front door and peered out. Below zero, the woman at the shelter had said, and now there was sleet, slanting sharply across the parking lot.

  She couldn’t send them out in that without any shoes. And she couldn’t keep them up here, not with the kids right next door. She was going to have to move them downstairs.

  But where? Not the choir room. The choir would be taking their folders and robes back down there, and the pageant kids would be getting their coats out of the Sunday school rooms. And the kitchen was locked.

  The nursery? That might work. It was at the other end of the hall from the choir room, but she would have to take them past the adult Sunday school room to the stairs, and the door was open.

  “ ‘Si-i-lent night, ho-oh-ly night,’ ” came drifting out of the sanctuary, and then was cut off, and she could hear Reverend Farrison’s voice lecturing, probably about the dangers of letting the homeless into the church.

  She glanced again at the furnace room door and then went into the adult Sunday school room. Miriam was setting out the paper cups on the table. She looked up. “Did you get through to your husband?”

  “Yes,” Sharon said. Miriam looked expectant.

  “Can I have a cookie?” Sharon said at random.

  “Take one of the stars. The kids like the Santas and the Christmas trees the best.”

  She grabbed up a bright yellow-frosted star. “Thanks,” she said, and went out, pulling the door shut behind her.

  “Leave it open,” Miriam said. “I want to be able to hear when they’re done.”

  Sharon opened the door back up half as far as she’d shut it, afraid any less would bring Miriam to the door to open it herself, and walked quietly to the furnace room.

  The choir was on the last verse of “Silent Night.” After that there was only “Joy to the World” and then the benediction. Open door or no open door, she was going to have to move them now. She opened the furnace room door.

  They were standing where she had left them between the folding chairs, and she knew, without any proof, that they had stood there like that the whole time she had been gone.

  The young man was standing slightly in front of the woman, the way he had at the door, only he wasn’t a man, he was a boy, his beard as thin and wispy as an adolescent’s, and the woman was even younger, a child of ten maybe, only she had to be older, because now that there was light from the half-open door of the adult Sunday school room Sharon could see that she was pregnant.

  She regarded all this—the girl’s awkward bulkiness and the boy’s beard, the fact that they had not sat down, the fact that it was the light from the adult Sunday school room that was making her see now what she hadn’t before—with some part of her mind that was still functioning, that was still thinking how long the van from the shelter would take, how to get them past Reverend Farrison, some part of her mind that was taking in the details that proved what she had already known the moment she opened the door.

  “What are you doing here?” she whispered, and the boy opened his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “Erkas,” he said.

  And that still-functioning part of her mind put her fingers to her lips in a gesture he obviously understood because they both looked instantly frightened. “You have to come with me,” she whispered.

  But then it stopped functioning altogether, and she was half running them past the open door and onto the stairs, not even hearing the organ blaring out “Joy to the world, the Lord is come,” whispering, “Hurry! Hurry!” and they didn’t know how to get down the steps, the girl turned around and came down backwards, her hands flat on the steps above, and the boy helped her down, step by step, as if they were clambering down rocks, and she tried to pull the girl along faster and nearly made her stumble, and even that didn’t bring her to her senses.

  She hissed, “Like this,” and showed them how to walk down the steps, facing forward, one hand on the rail, and they paid no attention, they came down backwards like toddlers, and it took forever, the hymn she wasn’t hearing was already at the end of the third verse and they were only halfway down, all of them panting hard, and Sharon scurrying back up above them as if that would hurry them, past wondering how she would ever get them up the stairs again, past thinking she would have to call the van and tell them not to come, thinking only, Hurry, hurry, and How did they get here?

  She did not come to herself until she had herded them somehow down the hall and into the nursery, thinking, It can’t be locked, please don’t let it be locked, and it wasn’t, and gotten them inside and pulled the door shut and tried to lock it, and it didn’t have a lock, and she thought, That must be why it wasn’t locked, an actual coherent thought, her first one since that moment when she opened the furnace room door, and seemed to come to herself.

  She stared at them, breathing hard, and it was them, their never having seen stairs before was proof of that, if she needed any proof, but she didn’t, she had known it the instant she saw them, there was no question.

  She wondered if this was some sort of vision, the kind people were always getting where they saw Jesus’s face on a refrigerator, or the Virgin Mary dressed in blue and white, surrounded by roses. But their rough brown cloaks were dripping melted snow on the nursery carpet, their feet in the useless sandals were bright red with cold, and they looked too frightened.

  And they didn’t look at all like they did in religious pictures. They were too short, his hair was greasy and his face was tough-looking, like a young punk’s, and her veil looked like a grubby dishtowel and it didn’t hang loose, it was tied around her neck and knotted in the back, and they were too young, almost as young as the children upstairs dressed like them.

  They were looking around the room frightenedly, at the white crib and the rocking chair and the light fixture overhead. The boy fumbled in his sash and brought out a leather sack. He held it out to Sharon.

  “How did you get here?” she said wonderingly. “You’re supposed to be on your way to Bethlehem.”

  He thrust the bag at her, and when she didn’t take it, untied the leather string and took out a crude-looking coin and held it out.

  “You don’t have to pay me,” she said, which was ridiculous. He couldn’t understand her. She held a flat hand up, pushing the coin away and shaking her head. That was a universal sign, wasn’t it? And what was the sign for welcome? She spread her arms out, smiling at the youngsters. “You are welcome to stay here,” she said, trying to put the meaning of the words into her voice. “Sit down. Rest.”

  They remained standing. Sharon pulled the rocking chair. “Sit, please.”

  Mary looked frightened, and Sharon put her hands on the arms of the chair and sat down to show her how. Joseph immediately knelt, and Mary tried awkwardly to.

  “No, no!” Sharon said, and stood up so fast she set the rocking chair swinging. “Don’t kneel. I’m nobody.” She looked hopelessly at them. “How did you get here? You’re not supposed to be here.”

  Joseph stood up. “Erkas,” he said, and went over to the bulletin board.


  It was covered with colored pictures from Jesus’s life: Jesus healing the lame boy, Jesus in the temple, Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane.

  He pointed to the picture of the Nativity scene. “Kumrah,” he said.

  Does he recognize himself? she wondered, but he was pointing at the donkey standing by the manger. “Erkas,” he said. “Erkas.”

  Did that mean “donkey,” or something else? Was he demanding to know what she had done with theirs, or trying to ask her if she had one? In all the pictures, all the versions of the story, Mary was riding a donkey, but she had thought they’d gotten that part of the story wrong, as they had gotten everything else wrong, their faces, their clothes, and above all their youth, their helplessness.

  “Kumrah erkas,” he said. “Kumrah erkas. Bott lom?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know where Bethlehem is.”

  Or what to do with you, she thought. Her first instinct was to hide them here until the rehearsal was over and everybody had gone home. She couldn’t let Reverend Farrison find them.

  But surely as soon as she saw who they were, she would—what? Fall to her knees? Or call for the shelter’s van? “That’s the second couple tonight,” she’d said when she shut the door. Sharon wondered suddenly if it was them she’d turned away, if they’d wandered around the parking lot, lost and frightened, and then knocked on the door again.

  She couldn’t let Reverend Farrison find them, but there was no reason for her to come into the nursery. All the children were upstairs, and the refreshments were in the adult Sunday school room. But what if she checked the rooms before she locked up?

  I’ll take them home with me, Sharon thought. They’ll be safe there. If she could get them up the stairs and out of the parking lot before the rehearsal ended.

  I got them down here without anybody seeing them, she thought. But even if she could manage it, which she doubted, if they didn’t die of fright when she started the car and the seat belts closed down over them, home was no better than the shelter.