The Autobiography of Santa Claus

by Jeff Guinn

  It was going to be a long walk before I reached Constantinople, hundreds of miles, and as a sixty-three-year-old man I expected I would tire easily. This didn’t happen. I would walk all day and then walk through the night hours, and when the sun came up again I’d find I had walked thirty miles, or even forty or fifty. This was impossible ; in one day at normal speed I might have been able to travel twenty miles if I rode the mule part of the way. My steps weren’t longer than any other man’s. I’d always needed as much sleep as anyone else. Yet somehow I was walking farther in one day than any man ever had, and still I wasn’t feeling tired, although I rarely slept at all. In five days I was in Constantinople. The journey should have taken two weeks. This was the first magic. It wasn’t anything spectacular like being able to fly, but there was no way to logically explain it. Somehow, as I walked, time and distance became different for me than for everybody else.

  It was easy to get a berth on a ship to Rome. Merchant vessels let travelers pay for the privilege of sleeping in their holds along with whatever goods were being shipped. Some people would only sail on ships carrying cargos of aromatic spices or fresh-smelling linens. Although I wasn’t sure why, I wanted to get to Rome as quickly as possible, so I paid to board the first ship sailing there from Constantinople. It was a cattle ship. The animals bellowed constantly. I didn’t mind. I’d grown fond of Uncle the mule and was pleased to be able to take him to Rome with me. He was tethered down in the hold with hay to eat. I spent the twelve-day voyage on deck, enjoying the sea air and idly wondering what I was going to do when we arrived.

  Constantinople and Rome

  The other passengers were all seasick for the first few days. As for me, I never felt a twinge of discomfort. Indeed, I heartily ate all the food the crew offered me, and they offered a lot in hopes I’d get an upset stomach and turn green like the rest of the passengers. It was a game the sailors liked to play. When I consumed cheese and bread and jelly and fruit and candy and fish, and didn’t lose my meal overboard right afterward, the sailors clapped me on the back and invited me to their cabin area to sing songs with them. When they asked my name, I said it was Nicholas. They were all strangers and I didn’t think they’d know about a humble bishop from Myra.

  “Say, you’re named the same as that bishop who works miracles down in Lycia!” one of the crewmen boomed out.

  Well, so much for that. Before I could say a word, the other sailors chimed in with stories they’d heard about the wonderful Bishop Nicholas, how he’d touched one finger to a blind man’s eyes and made him see again, and how he’d planted a single grain of wheat in the ground and stalks sprouted for acres in every direction. They were very entertaining stories. I could even enjoy them, if I forgot they were supposed to be about me.

  My mule, “Uncle”

  “On my next shore leave I intend to go to that bishop’s town, Myra, I think it’s called, and see him work some of these miracles for myself,” a sailor said.

  “Would you be very disappointed if this bishop turned out to be an ordinary man who worked no miracles at all?” I asked.

  “Don’t be so sour,” he urged me. “Don’t you think that, in this hard world, we all need some magic to believe in?”

  He was right, of course. That night, for the first time since I’d left Myra, I curled up in a blanket and tried to sleep until dawn. I hoped I’d dream again about Phillip, and that he’d tell me something more about time standing still. Instead, I dreamed about snow, something I’d not seen in Lycia but had heard about—frozen rain coming down from the sky and turning into a soft white blanket over the Earth. When I awoke the next morning, I thought it was odd to have dreamed of such a thing.

  When we docked in Rome, I found it to be the biggest, loudest, dirtiest place that ever could have existed. Most streets were paved and had gutters, but people washed many disgusting things down those gutters. The city seemed to stretch on forever. It was built on hills, and every hill was covered with buildings.

  The winter cold was fierce. I used a little of my money to buy warmer clothes. Now that I’d arrived, I wondered what I should do next. On an impulse, I took a room at a small inn. At dinnertime, I went downstairs, ordered a simple meal of bread and cheese, and sat at a table to eat it. When I was done, I put on my new heavy cloak and walked outside.

  “You! Yes, you!” hissed a voice from the shadows. “Come over here. I’ve got an important message for you!”

  I looked, and there in an alley beside the inn was a scared-looking stout man. His round face was dirty and, though it was so cold, his forehead was shining with sweat.

  “What do you mean, a message?” I asked. “No one in this city knows who I am, or even that I’m here.”

  “I was told to give you a message,” the man insisted. “Won’t you come and get it from me?”

  “Certainly not,” I said. “It’s obvious you’re a thief who wants to knock me over the head and steal my money, if I have any money. You’re not even a good thief, either. Look—I can see that stick you’re hiding behind your back. You hope to hit me with it.”

  The fellow looked behind himself and said, “A stick? What stick? Oh, that one? I’ve never seen it before. Someone must have put it in my hand. Please come and get your message. I’m very hungry.”

  “Why should my getting a message have anything to do with your hunger?” I asked. “This is a silly conversation. You want to rob me and I don’t want to be robbed. I believe you must be the worst thief in the world, to be so obvious about it. You should be ashamed of planning to hit an innocent stranger over the head with your stick.”

  The man dropped the stick and took a few steps forward. I could see his clothes were torn and not heavy enough to keep out the cold.

  “I’m sorry,” he muttered. “I wasn’t really going to hit you, anyway. I just wanted you to think I’d hit you if you didn’t give me your money. I could never hurt anyone. That’s why I’m so hungry now.”

  He didn’t seem very dangerous, just sad.

  “Why is that?” I asked. “Tell me your story. But first, why don’t we go back inside the inn, where it’s warm? I’ll gladly buy you dinner. There’s no need to rob me if you need money for a meal.”

  The would-be thief looked so grateful that I knew I’d said the right thing.

  We went back inside the inn, and I told him to order all the food he wanted. At first I think he didn’t believe I would pay for his meal, and asked for water and bread, the very cheapest things. So I pulled out a coin, big enough to pay for all the food in the kitchen, and soon my new companion was gobbling away from a mountain of meat, cheese, and pastry.

  “You’re a fat fellow to be starving,” I noted. “I mean no offense, but how come you’re so hungry? When did you eat last?”

  “At midday,” he said between huge bites on a leg of lamb. He held the meat in his hands; no one used knives and forks back then. “I can’t help it. I just need more food than most. I’ve been stealing my meals for a week, ever since I ran away from my master.”

  He lowered his voice when he said this. Slavery was part of Roman society, and runaway slaves were severely punished whenever they were caught.

  “Did your master beat you?” I asked. “Were you in fear for your safety?”

  “I was in fear for my own life and the lives of others,” he said. “My master said I ate too much, and ordered me to train as a wrestler. He meant to make me fight other wrestlers, and charge admission to watch. Well, I don’t like other people hurting me, and I don’t like hurting other people. So I ran away.”

  “Don’t you miss your family?” I wondered. “Don’t you miss your friends?”

  “I have no family or friends,” he replied, and his answer touched my heart. I quickly sensed he was a good person, and I admired him for running away from a master who wanted him to fight.

  Felix

  “Well, now you have a friend,” I said. “My name is Nicholas. I’m alone, as well. I’m not sure where I’m going or
what I’m doing next, but I have one plan you might like. I have some money. Why don’t I go see your master and ask if I can buy you? Since I hate slavery, I’ll set you free right away, and you can go wherever you like and not have to fight anyone.”

  Tears of joy filled the man’s eyes. “Would you really do that?” he asked. “Are you sure this isn’t a trick to learn my master’s name and then take me back to him? I suppose he’s offering some kind of reward for me.”

  “You have my word on it,” I promised. “Let’s get some sleep tonight, and in the morning we’ll find your master and make everything right.”

  I paid the innkeeper a little extra to let the man sleep in my room with me. I would have gotten him his own room, but I thought he still might worry during the night that I really meant to trick him and force him back into slavery, and that might make him decide to run away before dawn. It wasn’t until he was rolling himself up in the clean linen bedding that I remembered to ask him, “What’s your name?”

  “I’m Felix,” he said. Then, before he could finish a huge yawn, he fell fast asleep.

  Felix must have been very tired from running away and hiding. He snored loudly most of the night, but I was used to the cattle mooing on the boat and the noise didn’t disturb me.

  In the morning we went to see Felix’s master, a mean old man who wanted to beat Felix for running away as an example to his other slaves. But I offered a great deal of money if he would sell me Felix instead, and unbeaten.

  “Give me the money and make the sale official before I tell you this,” the nasty old slaveowner growled. I gave him the coins and he snatched them from my hand, carefully tucking them into his purse before saying, “You’ve bought a useless slave. He eats too much and has too kind a heart.”

  “As of this moment, he’s not a slave at all,” I answered. Under Roman law, it was possible for owners to declare their slaves free at any time. “He’s now as free as you or me.” Felix, standing beside me, yelped with happiness.

  His former owner cringed. “Don’t let him near me! He’ll attack me because of the way I treated him!”

  Before I could reply, Felix said, “Slave or free man, I would never hurt anyone, even you. I do beg you to be nicer to the rest of your slaves, and to consider setting them all free. It’s wrong for one human being to own another.”

  The slaveowner was too greedy to set any of his other slaves free, but at least Felix had asked. Afterward, we walked back to the inn, discussing where we might want to go next since neither of us really liked the crowded streets of Rome. It just seemed completely natural for us to assume we’d stay together. That’s how Felix joined me and my next adventures began.

  I felt embarrassed when we came to the tomb; it was a grand monument and I couldn’t help thinking how many poor people could have been helped with the money it took to build it.

  SIX

  Felix and Me

  I suspect you didn’t think there was enough magic in that last chapter—just being able to walk fast and sometimes not needing to sleep. Well, not all magic is fireworks and fanfare. Sometimes magic is quiet and sneaks up on you. An illusion is what needs all the bells and whistles to make itself appear grander than it really is, which is just a trick that can be explained.

  It took Felix and me a while to realize magic was happening to us. We left Rome on foot, leading Uncle the mule. Before leaving the city we bought some provisions, and for the first few weeks of our travels we had a pleasant time exchanging our life stories. Felix was the son of slaves, and his parents were the children of slaves, and beyond that he had no idea of his family roots.

  I told Felix all about my gift-giving and being the Bishop of Myra. I wanted to keep on giving my gifts to children, and Felix said right away he hoped to spend the rest of his life helping me do this. So we began to travel about rather aimlessly, finding towns and staying a few weeks while we discovered needy families, then delivering our presents—sandals, perhaps, or cloaks, or, less often, a few coins—during the dark of night and slipping away on the road to the next town before dawn. Mostly we stayed within a hundred miles or so of Rome, although sometimes we ventured into the countries that would later be known as Germany, France, and Spain. There was fighting going on everywhere—Huns and Vandals and Goths and Visigoths and Ostrogoths. Some of those names might sound silly, but the battles were always bitter. The Romans had tried to push the boundaries of their empire too far, and even their mighty legions couldn’t fight successfully in so many places at the same time. Meanwhile, ordinary people tried to live their lives as peacefully as possible, keeping their children safe and fed and warm. It was pleasant to think Felix and I helped some of them do this.

  We passed many nights gossiping with other travelers around fires at inns where we stopped for the night. It was on one such evening, perhaps a year after Felix and I had begun our travels, that I was stunned to hear a merchant returning home to northern Italy from Lycia tell me the people there had built a wonderful church above the tomb of Nicholas, who’d been Bishop of Myra.

  “Tomb?” I asked doubtfully. “What did they put in that tomb?”

  The merchant looked at me in wonder. “Why, the bishop’s body, of course! What else would be put in a tomb? The man worked wondrous miracles during his life. One night he went into his house to sleep and the next morning they found him lying dead in his bed. So they buried him, and a fine ceremony they apparently made of it.”

  “Buried him?” I asked, too stunned to say anything more clever. “People went into the house of Bishop Nicholas and found him there?”

  Now the merchant believed he was talking to a very stupid person. “I just said that. They took the body and put it in a great tomb, and then built a great church over that.”

  “But I—” I began, and Felix poked me in the ribs with his elbow. “I walked away in the middle of the night,” I hissed in Felix’s ear. “How could they find my body if I was gone?”

  Felix and I hurried back to Rome and took passage on a ship to Constantinople. We couldn’t find a ship with room for Uncle the mule, so we had to sell him. It was hard to part with such a faithful friend, but I felt his new owner would take good care of him.

  We landed safely in Constantinople and walked from there back to Myra. Because I didn’t want to be recognized, I camped outside of town and sent Felix ahead. He came back a few hours later shaking his head. “I don’t know how to tell you this,” he muttered. “You won’t believe me.”

  “I promise I will,” I said.

  “Well, there is a magnificent church, and inside it is an equally magnificent tomb. This tomb has your name on it, and the date of your death—December sixth, 343 A.D. It even has your likeness carved on marble, although I think you’re heavier now than the way they made you look. An old man who was standing beside the tomb said he’d been sleeping outside Bishop Nicholas’s door—sorry, outside your door—on the fatal night, hoping when you came out the next morning you would heal his leg, which had been crippled from birth. The sun came up, but you didn’t come out. By midday people were worried, and it was decided someone should go inside and see if you were all right.”

  “A crippled man, you say?” I asked. “I really didn’t look too closely when I left that night. I tried to step over people quietly so they wouldn’t wake up and prevent me from leaving.”

  The Roman Empire, as it would appear in the fifth century

  Felix’s eyebrows knitted together: I was to learn he often had this expression when he was trying especially hard to figure something out. “Well, maybe you didn’t get away as completely as you thought. This crippled man was chosen to go inside, and he swears that when he did he found you on your bed, and that you must have died overnight in your sleep. People who had known you for years all agreed the body was yours. It must have resembled you exactly.”

  “How strange,” I said rather faintly. It was odd to hear about someone finding me dead.

  “Oh, don’t worry, he said everyone
mourned you greatly,” Felix said quickly, mistaking my bewilderment for disappointment in public reaction. “There were tears all around, and loud wailing, and the decision was made to build you the greatest tomb any bishop ever had.”

  “How flattering,” I muttered.

  “Oh, but you haven’t heard the best of it,” Felix warned. “The tomb was built and the body they found put inside it. Almost at once, this old man told me, a kind of wonderful oil began to drip from the tomb. He got some on his fingers and rubbed it into his crippled leg, which was immediately healed. He pulled up his robes just now to show me how both his legs were strong and healthy.”

  “This is too strange, Felix,” I argued. “I’m sure he never was crippled at all. To find a body when the person hadn’t died, and then to say some sort of holy oil seeped from the tomb, well, it’s just impossible.”

  “Perhaps,” said Felix, “but you’ve told me about being able to travel great distances without rest, and that you think time somehow doesn’t affect you as it does ordinary men. Where these miracles exist, can’t there be others?”

  I insisted we go back to town so I could see this tomb for myself. Since I was supposed to be dead, there seemed no danger I’d be recognized, and I wasn’t. I passed a few men and women who’d once been my friends, and they never gave me a second glance.

  I felt embarrassed as we came to the tomb. It was a grand monument and I couldn’t help thinking how many poor people could have been helped with the money it took to build it. No oil was oozing from it, but there were several people kneeling in prayer.

  “What are you doing?” I asked one woman.

  “Praying to the good Bishop, of course,” she replied. “He does miracles for those in need. My daughter is blind. I’m asking the Bishop to restore her sight.”