by Jo Nesbo
“Of course not.”
“Ha! You see? Because you’re lying!”
“Now, now, kids,” Doctor Proctor said, but Nilly had already leaped onto the table.
“It’s not in the book because a goat with meat that tender is not an animal you wish didn’t exist,” Nilly declared, standing on the table. “Quite the contrary, it’s an animal you’re glad exists because you can’t imagine a more mouthwatering Sunday roast.”
“Well put, Nilly,” Doctor Proctor said. “So well put that, as a reward, you have permission to do the dishes.”
“The dishes . . . ? Reward?”
“Yes, and you’re certainly welcome to ask your best friend if she wants to help you dry.”
Nilly moaned and closed his eyes. His red-haired head and his short arms drooped. Then he raised his head again, opened one eye, and looked at Lisa.
“Heeeeey, Liiiiisa . . . ?”
“Fine!” she said, pulling the napkin off her lap in annoyance. “I’ll help you.” She started gathering up the dishes.
“Oh, Lisa, you’re so nice!” Nilly jumped down beside her and flung his arms around his best friend.
“Yes, and you always manage to take advantage of that!” she said, and gave him a little swat on the head, although not that hard, and it’s possible she might have been smiling a bit, too. Because if Lisa was to be honest—and she almost always was—there were actually a couple of things she loved even more than Jell-O, and one of them was Nilly.
Nilly and Lisa did the dishes while Juliette and Doctor Proctor drank coffee at the kitchen table and hummed along to the Christmas music on the radio’s call-in show. Lisa told them that what she wanted for Christmas was a kinder world where things were a little better for poor children. She didn’t see Nilly, who was standing behind her making faces and yawning as loudly as he could. And Nilly explained that he wanted a little time soap so he could go back to the Moulin Rouge in Paris in 1922 and watch the dancers dancing the cancan onstage.
“I looove cancan dancers,” Nilly said with his eyes closed, so he didn’t see Lisa, who was making faces and rabbit ears behind his back. And then all four of them suddenly froze because the voice on the radio had just said Doctor Proctor’s name.
“ . . . Victor Proctor would like to dedicate this song to his girlfriend, Juliette Margarine, and wishes everyone on Cannon Avenue, including Lisa and Nilly, a very merry Christmas!”
And then an accordion started playing and a woman began singing in French. “Édith Piaf!” Juliette said with a smile.
“What’s she singing about?” Lisa asked.
“Something romantic that’s a little sad in the middle,” Juliette said. “But listen. Now it gets cheerful!”
And then Doctor Proctor danced with Juliette, and Lisa asked if Nilly wanted to dance too, and he said sure, but only if they danced the cancan. So Lisa and Nilly stood next to each other, put their hands on their hips, and kicked their legs into the air as high as they could while yelling, “Cancan!”
“THIS IS AN EXTRA NEWS BULLETIN! THIS JUST IN! TODAY THE KING SOLD CHRISTMAS TO MR. THRANE!”
The voice on the radio had spoken so abruptly and what it said was so shocking that Doctor Proctor and Juliette slipped in the middle of a pirouette and Nilly and Lisa tipped over backward, each with one foot up in the air.
“MR. THRANE ANNOUNCED THAT FROM THIS POINT FORWARD CHRISTMAS COULD ONLY BE CELEBRATED BY PEOPLE WHO HAD PURCHASED AT LEAST TEN THOUSAND CROWNS’ WORTH OF PRESENTS FROM ONE OF THRANE’S DEPARTMENT STORES.”
Still Five Days to Go until Christmas Eve
LISA AND NILLY ran out of the blue house at the end of Cannon Avenue and out the gate. A group of children was caroling in front of one of the other houses. They were singing “Joy to the World” with Mr. Madsen conducting them, the way they did every Christmas. In another yard a man was up on a ladder decorating his apple tree with tinsel, blinking lights, and a tall hat on top.
“Hi, Nilly and Lisa,” said a little girl in a Santa hat who was sitting on a sled in the middle of the street and looking up at them. “When Santa comin’?”
“In one hundred and two hours,” Nilly said. “All you have to do is start counting.”
“One, two, twee, fouw . . .”
Lisa and Nilly stopped in front of the gates to numbers 14 Cannon Avenue and 15 Cannon Avenue.
“Do you think it’s true, Nilly, that there might not be a Christmas this year?”
“Nonsense,” Nilly said. “Just look around. Everything around here is just the way it is every single Christmas, right?”
“But—but . . .”
“We’re going to go home to bed now, Lisa. And when we wake up in the morning, then we’ll see that all this was just a dream.”
“A terrible dream.”
“Worse than a monster-chasing-you-while-you-try-to-run-through-a-swamp nightmare.”
“Do you promise?” she asked.
“Trust me, Lisa. I’ve dreamed of worse things than what we’re dreaming right now. And tonight I’m going to play you ‘O Come, All Ye Faithful.’ ”
“Okay.”
Then they each ran into their houses, Lisa into the red one and Nilly into the yellow one.
“ISN’T IT SHOCKING?” said Lisa’s mother, who was sitting in her chair knitting when Lisa walked into the living room.
“Just awful,” grumbled the commandant, whose recliner was tilted so far back he was practically lying down. He turned up the volume as the TV reporter looked directly into the camera and said:
“SO MR. THRANE’S COMPANY OWNS THE RIGHTS TO EVERYTHING CHRISTMAS-RELATED. IN OTHER WORDS, FROM NOW ON NO ONE CAN CELEBRATE CHRISTMAS WITHOUT AUTHORIZATION FROM MR. THRANE. THE FOLLOWING THINGS ARE ALL STRICTLY FORBIDDEN: CHRISTMAS CAROLS, CHRISTMAS COOKIES, BOUGHS OF HOLLY, CHRISTMAS DINNERS, CHRISTMAS CHURCH SERVICES, OR EVEN SAYING ‘MERRY CHRISTMAS’ WITHOUT MR. THRANE’S APPROVAL. MR. THRANE SAID IN HIS PRESS RELEASE THAT PERMISSION WILL BE GRANTED ONLY TO REGISTERED MEMBERS OF CHRISTMAS. AND THE ONLY WAY TO QUALIFY FOR MEMBERSHIP IS TO SPEND AT LEAST TEN THOUSAND CROWNS ON CHRISTMAS PRESENTS FROM ANY OF THRANE’S DEPARTMENT STORES BEFORE CHRISTMAS EVE. THIS IS ACCORDING TO MR. THRANE HIMSELF AT THE PRESS CONFERENCE HE GAVE EARLIER THIS EVENING . . . .”
“Ugh, ugh, and ugh!” Lisa’s mother said as the greasy face of Mr. Thrane, their former Cannon Avenue neighbor, filled the screen. Below his wet, smacking lips there was a stack of wobbling chins. Then his mouth opened and started talking:
“I, MR. THRANE, WARN THOSE WHO PLAN ANY ATTEMPT TO CIRCUMVENT THESE RULES THAT WE HERE AT MY CORPORATION, THRANE INC., HAVE HIRED OUR OWN CHRISTMAS POLICE TO ENFORCE THE RULES, AND THEY ARE ON PATROL AS OF NOW!”
Mr. Thrane thrust his face and mouth so close to the camera that it fogged up as he whispered:
“SO, YOU OUT THERE—YOU DESPICABLE CHEAPSKATES WHO HAVEN’T SPENT TEN THOUSAND CROWNS ON GIFTS YET AND ARE BURNING SEASONAL CANDLES OR DRINKING EGGNOG RIGHT NOW—BLOW THEM OUT! POUR IT OUT!”
Then Thrane took two steps backward so that almost all of his massive body fit in the shot. He lit up in a smile and tugged on his suspender straps.
“BUT, MY DEAR CHRISTMAS MEMBERS, TO YOU I WISH A MERRY CHRISTMAS. YOU, WHO HAVE DONE WHAT GOOD CONSUMERS SHOULD, WHO HAVE SPENT TEN THOUSAND HAPPY CROWNS SUPPORTING SOCIETY AND THE BUSINESS COMMUNITY BY BUYING THINGS YOU MAY NOT NEED. THAT IS WHAT MAKES THE WHEELS GO ROUND. SO, TO ALL OUR VALUED CHRISTMAS MEMBERS, LET’S ENJOY THIS PEACEFUL CHRISTMAS SEASON TOGETHER. AMEN!”
The commandant clicked the TV remote and Mr. Thrane disappeared.
In the ensuing silence they heard the voices of the carolers out on the street. They were singing “Silent Night.” But the song ceased abruptly when a scared, breathless woman’s voice shouted, “Stop this! Stop this right away! You’re not allowed to use the word ‘Christmas’! Go home all of you. Go home!”
“They can’t do that, can they?” Lisa said. “They can’t just ban people from celebrating Christmas. I mean, it’s the
best holiday we have, and it belongs to everyone.”
“I must admit that’s what I thought too,” the commandant said. “Until now at any rate.”
“So what will Christmas be like now?” Lisa asked.
“We’ll have to wait and see, Lisa my dear,” the commandant said, and then sighed.
Lisa heard the distant sound of music and walked over to the living room window.
The music seemed to be coming from one of the huge, well-lit houses up in the snow-covered hills above Cannon Avenue. They were playing “White Christmas.” They must have been having a big party up there. Maybe the music was actually coming from the Thrane family’s house. They had moved to one of those houses up there the year before. Everyone on Cannon Avenue had been happy to see the boastful Thrane and his bullying twin sons, Truls and Trym, move off their street. But the three Thranes still sometimes came back to visit, strutting up and down Cannon Avenue as if stopping by to see their former neighbors, but everyone knew that Mr. Thrane was only there to show off how rich and powerful he’d become.
“So, are you still commandant of that outdated old fortress?” Mr. Thrane had asked Lisa’s father the last time he’d strolled down Cannon Avenue, and sort of jokingly thumped him on the back. “Have you guys even shot anything with your cannons in the last three hundred years, hmm?”
And Lisa’s dad had tried to smile pleasantly, but Lisa had noticed that he hadn’t quite pulled it off. And afterward, as Mr. Thrane had continued swaggering down Cannon Avenue, Trym and Tuls had seen their opportunity to yell “Flatu-Lisa!” and “Are you still hanging out with that speckled dwarf?”
Up in the hills the music was turned up a little louder still.
“I can see that you’re worried, Lisa,” said her mother, who had come over to stand beside her by the window. “Sure, ten thousand crowns is a little more than we were planning to spend, but we’ll buy what we need to. We promise. We’ll qualify for Christmas membership, and you’ll get to celebrate. So don’t fret about it, Lisa.”
“That’s not what I’m thinking about, Mom.”
“It—it isn’t?”
“Mom! I’m thinking about all the other people out there who can’t afford it, who won’t get to celebrate Christmas this year at all.”
“Oh, right,” her mother said. “Yes, of course. That is a shame for . . . uh, a lot of folks. But, unfortunately, there’s not much we can do about that.”
“But it must be possible for us to do a little something about it, right?”
Her mother stroked Lisa’s cheek. “You’ve always been a brave, stubborn girl when you feel you’re in the right, Lisa. But now that you’re getting bigger, I’m sure you’ll see that there are some things that just can’t be changed. And you have to live with them.”
“Sure, Mom—”
“Have you already had dinner?”
“Yes, but is it fair for Christmas to—”
“And have you done your homework?”
“Yes, but—”
“Then it’s bedtime, Lisa. Tomorrow is a school day, you know. And maybe after we’ve slept on it we’ll find that all this business about Christmas isn’t so bad.”
“Mom, think about—”
“No more thinking today, Lisa. Good night, sweetie.”
Lisa sighed. “Dad?”
“Yes, honey?” the commandant growled.
“Do you think we’re dreaming right now, that maybe this isn’t really happening? That when we wake up tomorrow there’ll be Christmas after all?”
The commandant swiveled his chair to look at her. “I think that’s a wonderful thought. Hold on to it, honey.”
AFTER LISA WENT upstairs to her room, her mother sat back down with her knitting. “Lisa sure is concerned about the world, about the environment, poverty, peace, and all that,” she said.
“Hmm,” the commandant said as he browsed through the newspaper. “You mean that fully automatic machine gun I bought her for Christmas might not be quite the right gift, hmm?”
Lisa’s mother dropped her knitting in her lap.
“Arnold! You didn’t! Please tell me you did not buy her a fully automat—” She stopped when she realized that he’d lowered his newspaper and was watching her.
“Huh,” she said. “You were joking?”
He nodded slowly and confirmed, “Joking.”
“Well, in that case, ha-ha.”
“Do you want me to read you the weather forecast now, dear?”
“Yes, please, but on the subject of Christmas presents, dear: Maybe you should ask for something more expensive than a tie for Christmas this year.”
“Hmm, you mean so we’ll spend more than ten thousand crowns? In that case I wish I had a new missile-that-never-misses for the fortress, since we only have one, and it would be nice to have a second.”
“I see. So how much does a missile like that cost?”
“A million crowns.”
“Arnold! We don’t have a . . . Wait! Were you joking?”
“Joking.”
“In that case, ha-ha-ha. Go ahead and read the weather forecast now, dear.”
NILLY UNLOCKED THE door of the yellow house, walked inside, and listened. The radio, stereo, and TV were all off, so his sister must be out, as usual. He snuck up the stairs and heard moaning from behind the closed bathroom door. He tiptoed toward his bedroom and thought he’d made it there undetected when he heard his mother’s voice yap from the bathroom, “Nilly? Where have you been?”
“At Doctor Proctor’s place.”
“You and Lisa spend too much time there. I don’t like it!”
“Would you rather I be here, then?”
“No. Good heavens, no! But be somewhere else. With all the crazy things that Proctor guy invents, that whole place is going explode someday, you mark my words.”
“Mom, this whole place is going to explode if you don’t manage to unleash the hounds in there.”
“Hey, constipation is no laughing matter! How many times do I have to tell you that? Listen . . .” A deep gut gurgle could be heard from behind the bathroom door. “On a different subject, though, I need some cash. Ten thousand crowns, to be precise.”
“Mom, I told you that kind of Christmas celebration isn’t really important to me. I mostly cared about it when Grandpa was alive.”
“For you, sure! You only think about yourself. What about a hardworking single mother? Shouldn’t she get to celebrate Christmas? I want a Christmas, and I’m going buy myself a few little odds and ends for ten thousand crowns. Because I’m worth it! Do you hear me?”
“I heard what you said about hardworking, yeah. And, I mean, I don’t doubt you’re working hard right now, sitting in there, but how are you going to get ten thousand crowns if you don’t want to work, Mom?”
“Want? Of course I want to! But I can’t! I’m . . . weak. Is that somehow my fault? That’s what I tell my doctor anyway. If I could quit being weak, then he wouldn’t have to keep writing me doctor’s notes to explain all my absences.”
Nilly could hear her crying a little in there.
“Do you want me to make you some tea, Mom?”
“No, you nitwit! I want you to help me get ten thousand crowns! What about your bike?”
“You sold it when you and Roy or Ove or whatever his name was wanted to go on vacation to Majorca last year.”
“Do I hear whining? Hey, we all need to do our part around here! We’ll scrimp and save. You know, I don’t even have toilet paper in here, just magazines.”
“Maybe you ought to give up the magazines instead. Those are more expensive than toilet paper, you know?”
“Are you crazy? How else would we keep up to date on world affairs? What about your trumpet? That thing just makes a racket around here. It would be nice to be rid of it.”
“The mouthpiece is ruined, and a new one costs a thousand crowns.”
“Well, then, you don’t need the trumpet, do you?”
“Mom, you can’t sel
l a trumpet without a mouthpiece!”
His mother emerged from the bathroom, struggling to do up her pants.
“No, I guess not, but what about that pocket watch you got from your grandfather? Or that book of his? Wouldn’t those have some kind of value to collectors?”
“The pocket watch runs fast, and you’re not touching AYWDE!” Nilly stared at his mother’s distended gut. “Are you pregnant?”
“Ugh!” his mother snapped, and then slapped Nilly on the back of the head. Then she stopped, put her finger to her chin, and looked as if she were actually considering the possibility. But then she slapped his head again and flung open the door to his room. “Where’s that book? Bring it here!”
“Never!” Nilly said, darting into the room ahead of her.
He propped his hands against her knees and managed to push her out, but when he went to shut the door, her arms were still inside and her fingers were feeling their way along his wall until they reached the spine of the thick, leather-bound book on the shelf over his bed. Nilly grabbed the monster swatter he kept lying next to his bed. He had gotten it from Doctor Proctor, who had said it was an invention that chased nightmares and general spookiness out of a bedroom after dark, but actually it just looked like a completely normal flyswatter. He slapped his mother’s fingers with it.
“Ow! Ow!” Her fingers vanished, and he heard footsteps and his mother’s voice moving away down the hall. “All right, all right. I’ll ask Åke if he can loan me some money, then. He owes me that much after that disastrous ferry ride to Denmark. Pregnant? Right, can you imagine?”
Nilly pulled the book off his shelf, flipped through it a little, kissed the picture of the tsetse elephant, and hid the book under the loose floorboard beneath his bed. Then he had the thought that his mother wasn’t usually so awful. It was just the constipation that had her in such a bad mood.
Nilly took his trumpet off the nail on the wall, opened his window, and waved to Lisa across the street.
A few seconds later her bedroom window opened. Nilly took a breath and raised his trumpet to his lips. And then he started playing. Since the trumpet didn’t have a mouthpiece, it didn’t make much noise. Well, actually none at all, just a little dry air. But it had been that way for a long time. That’s why he told Lisa every evening what he would be playing so she could close her eyes and imagine him playing that specific song. And right now he was playing “O Come, All Ye Faithful” so silently that only two people in the whole world could hear it, him and his best friend, Lisa.
