‘Sure; what can I bring?’
‘You bring nothing – you are my guest.’
I remembered that Lucille had picked up the tab twice now. For coffee, and for breakfast. I didn’t even think to pay for my own breakfast this morning. I should call her. I can’t call her. I don’t have her cell.
I went into my building.
A great big silver bell with a red bow had appeared outside the booth of the Dead Doorman. I knocked loudly on the glass but all I could see was the back of his head and Angela Lansbury running around in ‘Murder, She Wrote’.
Am I going to be killed by the Mysterious Christmas-Tree Fairy? I deserve it.
As I tumbled the locks on my apartment door I was both afraid and excited. What now?
Answer: nothing. Disappointment is the default position of my life. There was the tree. There were the lights, but nothing new.
So I caught up on some work emails. They all came back with an out-of-office auto-reply. There’s no work ethic in America. It’s barely 11am on Christmas Eve.
By noon I was showered and shaved and changed with nothing left to do. I thought I’d take a walk. Get something for Farouk anyway. He liked baseball caps.
I was passing McNally’s bookstore. There was a copy of a Hart Crane in the window. I stood looking at it, and I heard myself saying out loud,
‘I could never remember
That seething, steady leveling of the marshes
Till age had brought me to the sea.’
Crane wrote that when he was twenty-six. He was dead at thirty-two. My face was wet with rain or snow. I went into the store and bought the book.
The Hart Crane isn’t for Farouk but the leopard-skin baseball cap is.
I was sitting with him on the rusty treads of the fire escape behind the building. It’s too hot inside now – every Afghan in New York City is at the party. The music’s live and there’s a lot of laughter. Farouk must have seen me slip out on the fire escape. He followed me with a beer. So I pulled out the cap I bought him.
‘Does it fit? Try it on.’
There’s a broken fridge with glass doors propped on the gantry of the fire escape. Farouk peers at the makeshift mirror of the glass, using his phone as a light, pulling the baseball cap low on his head, so that the peak is right on his eyes that are deep like black coals. ‘I never seen a leopard-skin baseball cap.’
‘I guess it’s for winter.’
‘I feel like a mountain cat in the Hindu Kush. You ever been to Afghanistan?’
‘Not me.’
‘Most beautiful place on earth. Here, I show you some pictures. My phone. Goats, eagles, the market where my father works – those sacks are rice. He is seventy and he can carry them. Very strong. He thinks I am a taxi driver. He always wanted himself to be a taxi driver.’
‘Would you go home if you could?’
Farouk shakes his head. ‘What is home? Where is home? Home is a dream. Home is a fairy tale. This Afghanistan does not exist. Not for me. Home is where you make it, my friend. What do you think if I wear this backwards?’
He rearranges his cap. Then he says, ‘Your girlfriend – nice girl, big smile; where is she tonight?’
‘She’s not my girlfriend.’
Farouk looks sorrowful. ‘Girl like that – you should try harder.’
It’s later now, much later, and I am back in my apartment, staring at the tree and finishing Mrs Noblovsky’s clairvoyant vodka. I can see the future and it’s just like today. What kind of a future is that?
I throw open the window. Deep breaths of air. The music’s still coming from the party. I should get some sleep. One night sleeping fully dressed on the sofa is enough.
But there’s something I want to do first.
On top of the wardrobe there’s a box in a box. There are other things in the box too, but it’s the box in the box I want, a cardboard box and tied with kitchen string.
My mother gave it to me when I was leaving home for college. I smiled, kissed her, kept it for the train.
I opened it like I am opening it now. What had she given me to remind me of home?
Inside was the aluminum butter dish in the shape of a shell.
She never could receive. She never could give.
I should have hurled it out of the train window. Instead I kept it like poison I had already swallowed. Why?
My hands were shaking. I went to the window, leaned back and pitched the dish full pelt, past the air-conditioning units and satellite dishes, away through the night stars. Away into nothing. I didn’t hear it fall.
Then I slept.
Morning came. It does.
I went yawning into the lounge in my boxers and T-shirt. There was the tree. There were the lights. Under the tree was a long cardboard box tied with a silver ribbon.
I went back into the bedroom, did the whole yawning and stretching routine again, and returned cautiously to the lounge. The present – it had to be a present, didn’t it, because it was under the Christmas tree? – was still there.
Going into my lounge was getting to be as unpredictable as having a wild animal in the house. What was I supposed to do? I made coffee, checked my phone; no messages. I wasn’t drunk. Yes, the item under the tree was definitely still there.
All right. Deep breathing. Be calm. Get dressed. Jeans. Shirt. Sweater. Now take the box into the hallway and down the stairs and out onto the street and open it. Whatever is in there needs to be out of there.
I grabbed a knife from the kitchen to split the cardboard. The box was heavy and bulky. In the lobby I saw that the blind was down on the Dead Doorman’s booth. Up. Down. So what? Dead is dead.
OK, now I’m outside. It’s a beautiful morning. The sub-zeros last night have crisped the snow into a white carpet the length of the block. The moon is still in the sky although the sun is out. The air is sharp as a knife. My knife is not as sharp as the air, but I rip through the cardboard, pulling it away from the object inside.
Objects aren’t happiness. But this one is.
Inside the box is a deep-polished wooden sledge with a red leather rein and blue steel runners. But this sledge has articulated joints on the footrests so that you can steer it. Forgetting everything, I sat on it and tried the steering. It’s great.
I didn’t notice a car pulling up – until the polished hubcaps of the retro VW Beetle flashed the sun in my eyes.
‘Do you want to go to Riverside Park and try it out?’
It’s Lucille in a bobble hat, the top down on the convertible.
‘Did you give me this, Lucille?’
Where didn’t we go? Pilgrim Hill in Central Park, Hippo on Riverside. Owl’s Head Park. And I was sledding through time or maybe there was no time because Christmas Day comes just once a year.
The sun was going down before we were done. I said, ‘Do you want to come back for some lox and cream cheese? It’s not Christmas dinner but . . . I have black bread and some interesting vodka . . . actually I don’t; I finished it last night.’
‘I’m taking you to my place,’ said Lucille. ‘It’s small and I share it but the others are gone home for the holidays. And I have dinner for us. But let’s go by your place first. I need to drop something off.’
‘Haven’t you dropped off enough already? The tree, the lights . . . they were from you, right?’
Lucille nodded. Such soft eyes. I love the way she smiles.
‘But how did you get in?’
Back at the building I left Lucille in the lobby while I took the stairs at a bound, changed into dry clothes and packed the lox. I hesitated, then threw in a spare T-shirt, shorts and my electric toothbrush. And something else. Something I knew I had bought for Lucille when I bought it.
‘Thank you,’ I said to the tree on my way out.
In the lobby Lucille was standing with
an elderly man who had the same kind of bright smile that she did. He seemed vaguely familiar. When she saw me she said to him, ‘This is Sam.’
‘Sure I know it’s Sam,’ said the vaguely familiar guy. ‘Always wants something, so I always ignore him.’
Then he kissed Lucille on the top of her head and went back towards the booth. I recognised the back of his head. ‘See you tomorrow, sweetie.’ The booth door closed on the not-so-Dead Doorman.
‘He’s my grandpa,’ said Lucille.
We got into her VW. We went to her place, small as an envelope. We ate. We talked. I nearly kissed her, but then I gave her the Hart Crane, and she kissed me. She was in charge, I guess. I said, ‘I owe you for coffee and breakfast.’
She said, ‘There’s all of next year.’
e make our own traditions.
Christmas Eve is frosty. The sky is clear. The stars are like bells. The day is short and the fire is lit. There is peace and anticipation.
In my mind that’s how it is. It doesn’t matter how it really is. Usually it’s raining, or the city is gridlocked, or nothing is ready for Christmas dinner, or the presents aren’t wrapped, and it’s bath salts again for your auntie.
Some years ago I realised how I wanted to begin Christmas.
I have always loved and always listened to a service on BBC Radio 4 called ‘A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols’. This plays live from the chapel of King’s College, Cambridge at 3pm on Christmas Eve – and it has done so since 1928.
The service runs for ninety minutes. It’s a time-warp mixture of Bible readings from the Old and New Testaments that prophesy and fulfil the promise of the Messiah. In between these readings the choir and congregation sing carols old and new, and there’s specially commissioned music from contemporary composers. The service begins with a single boy soprano carrying a single candle. He enters the chapel singing ‘Once in Royal David’s City’.
These days you can watch it on TV, but why would you?
The beauty is in the music, the voices, the readings and prayers. And a sense of continuity – religion is good at that.
And a sense of belonging to something more necessary than shopping and party-going. This is a spiritual experience, whether or not you believe in God.
Wherever I am in the world I listen to this service. Everything is put aside and this is an hour and a half of mental relaxation and spiritual concentration. I listen to the readings, though I know them by heart, and I join in with the singing.
If I am at home I light the fire and the candles. I make sure the kitchen is tidy, and I make ready the same food every year, because this is a ritual. The point of ritual is that the sameness of it concentrates and then clears the mind. It’s why Jews, even non-observant Jews, light the Shabbat candles on Friday night.
Ritual is a way of altering time. By which I mean a way of pausing the endless intrusion of busy life.
Here’s my ritual for Christmas Eve.
Bake some really good dark bread – a rye bread or a sourdough. You can buy this, of course, but making it is part of the pleasure of making this time for yourself.
Get the best butter you can afford.
Get the best smoked salmon you can afford.
Lemon.
And you need pink champagne. I prefer Veuve Clicquot or Billecart-Salmon on Christmas Eve, because there’s a richness and an exuberance in those wines without any heaviness. Bollinger is a bit too powerful for me in the afternoon.
OK – so if you can’t afford any of the above there are alternatives. I’ve used them myself.
Stick with the best bread, but try taramasalata, preferably home-made, or get a couple of tins of good-quality sardines.
The oil will mean you won’t need butter either way.
Or make a chicken-liver pâté the day before – it’s cheap and good if you do it yourself.
Cut the dark bread into small squares and put your topping on nice and thick. It’s Christmas!
Smoked salmon and pink champagne look so pretty together against the browny-blackness of the bread.
Lay out a generous plateful.
If champagne’s not for you, find a wine you love and have that instead.
Look, you could do this with a pot of tea and a piece of toast.
You could do this with a lovely cup of coffee and a plate of chocolate biscuits – make them yourself.
The reason I suggest making some of this small meal yourself is because ritual has an anticipatory relevance – we prepare for it, practically and psychologically; that’s part of its benefit.
It’s about making your own raft of time. Your own doorway into Christmas.
You can do this with family and friends, of course, if they’re in the zone. And yes, you could do it while wrapping presents, but it wouldn’t be as powerful.
Ritual isn’t about multitasking.
Ritual is time cut out of time. Done right it has profound psychological effects.
We are too busy and too distracted. Everybody knows that time is speeding up like a car with go-faster stripes and we are running alongside trying to keep pace. Christmas is the busiest time of all – which is crazy. It’s lovely rushing around to see family and friends, but how about an hour and a half that belongs only to you?
To begin with it takes a conscious effort – everything worth doing starts with a conscious effort. But you might find this ritual, or your version of something similar, becomes an unexpectedly precious part of Christmas.
THE MISTLETOE BRIDE
t is the custom in this part of England to play Hide-and-Seek on Christmas Eve. Some say the custom comes from Italy, where the party draws lots to decide who will be the Devil and who will be the Pope. When this is decided, all the others in the party run away to hide themselves as well as they can. Then the Devil and the Pope search the house looking for sinners. Some are damned and some are saved. Then each must offer a forfeit to the Devil and the Pope. Usually a kiss.
Tonight my husband declares we will play Hunter-and-Hart. The ladies shall hide. The gentlemen shall hunt them.
My husband sits me on his knee, fondly, and kisses me. I am his caught thing but he has not had me yet. There is time for that.
It is my wedding night. It is the custom in these parts to marry on Christmas Eve. It is a holy time, but glowing with strange lights. It is not yet Christ’s day; it is still the day of unexpected visits and mummery.
I come from elsewhere. I come from a wild country, though I am gentle-born. My new husband is twice my age at thirty-four. He tells me I am as near a bird as a creature without wings can be. He means it kindly. I am light-boned and fall without a mark. My footsteps leave no print. My husband loves my waist, slender as a rope. He says my hands and feet are delicate as a web. He calls me his spun thing. When we met he gently unwound my hair and kissed me.
‘You will learn to love me,’ he said.
I am my father’s youngest daughter. My dowry is small and I had expected to be sent to the convent. But my new husband is rich and cares nothing for his wife’s jewels. I am his jewel. He would rather I shine beside him than glint dully behind the convent walls.
It is the custom here that the husband provides the wedding dress; white, but with a small red stain placed where he chooses to mark the loss of a maidenhead. The maid came to dress me for the wedding. She wished me happiness and health.
‘Is he a good man, my husband?’ I asked as she fastened the dress tight.
‘He is a man,’ she said. ‘The rest you must decide for yourself.’
I was dressed and I looked at myself in the silver mirror. The maid had a vial of blood. ‘For the stain,’ she said.
She dabbed the blood over my heart.
My soon-husband and I had travelled from my father’s house on horseback. The roads are too rough for a coach. The land is white-cove
red, bedded down under snow. My horse’s bridle is traced with frost.
‘Purity,’ said my husband. ‘This white world is for your wedding day.’
My breath was thick. I fancied I could read the shapes that flew from my mouth. It was as though I was talking to myself in a vaporous language no one else understood. My breath formed words:
LOVE. BEWARE. COURAGE. UNSEEN.
This game amused me through the long icicle of our journey. As we rode through Bowland Forest, my soon-husband stood up in his stirrups and cut a low branch of mistletoe from an oak tree. He twisted it into a coronet and hung it on the pommel of his saddle. It was for me, he said, when we married. I would be his mistletoe bride.
I looked sideways at him; so confident and sure he is. I am shy and gentle. I like his certainty and ease.
‘She’s nervous as a hare,’ my father said. ‘Nervous as a hare bolted from cover.’ My husband said he would cover me. All his men laughed, and my father too. I blushed. But he is not unkind.
As we rode along I fancied that my childhood self rode with me a while. Then, at the first crossroads, she turned her little pony and waved goodbye. For all those miles I had thought only of my home and what I was leaving. I was leaving a part of myself.
There were other selves, too, who disappeared on that bleak road. My free, careless, unconsidered self, the one I am when I am alone on the moors, or reading head down in the dark night by candle-light – she could not come with me, though she tried.
The more my soon-husband talked amiably of my duties as his lady, the more I felt myself caught in a long day of orders to give and people to receive. It would not be fitting for the wife of the lord of the hall to throw a cloak over her shoulders and run out in the rain.
But this was only growing up, and surely nothing to fear? A new self would be waiting to meet me.
Trumpets. Flags. Running feet. Flares.
My Lady, this is your home.
Yes. Here. The castle. Old and walled. His family built it centuries ago. It is as though we are living inside them.
And at the drawbridge – there she is, waiting for me. The self I will become; older, graver, darker. She nodded as I rode over the tongue of the drawbridge. She did not smile.
Christmas Days: 12 Stories and 12 Feasts for 12 Days Page 9
