Season of Wonder

by Paula Guran

  “Hang on!” Hogan shouted. At that moment lightning cut the dark bowl of the sky from one horizon to the other.

  I pointed, indeed, but I pointed back toward Erris. I would have spoken if I could, but I did not need to. In two hours or less we were sitting comfortably in Hogan’s parlor, over whiskey toddies. The German tradition of the Christmas tree, which we Americans now count among American customs, has not taken much root in Ireland, but there was an Advent calendar with all its postage-stamp-sized windows wide, and gifts done up in brightly colored papers. And the little crèche (we would call it a crib set) with its as-yet empty manger, cracked, ethereal Mary, and devoted Joseph, had more to say about Christmas than any tree I have ever seen.

  “Perhaps you’ll come back next year,” Hogan suggested after we had related our adventures, “an’ then we’ll have another go.”

  I shook my head.

  His wife looked up from her knitting, and with that single glance understood everything I had been at pains to hide. “What was it you saw?” she asked.

  I did not tell her, then or later. Nor am I certain that I can tell you. It was no ghost, or at least there was nothing of sheet or skull or ectoplasm, none of the conventional claptrap of movies and Halloween. In appearance, it was no more than the floating corpse of a rather small man with longish white hair. He was dressed in dark clothes, and his eyes—I saw them plainly as he rolled in the wave—were open. No doubt it was the motion of the water; but as I stared at him for half a second or so in the lightning’s glare, it appeared to me that he raised his arm and gestured, invitingly and with the utmost good will, in the direction of Inniskeen.

  I have never returned to Ireland, and never will. And yet I have no doubt at all that the time will soon come when I, too, shall attend his midnight Mass in the ruined chapel. What will follow that service, I cannot guess.

  In Christ’s name, I implore mercy for my soul.

  How can you go home for the holidays when home is no longer the magical place it used to be? And if you can’t bear home without its lost magic, where do you go instead? Kenneth Grahame’s classic fantasy The Wind in the Willows is not usually associated with Christmas, but its fifth chapter, Dulce Domum, can stand alone as a charming seasonal tale. Ellen Kushner employs this brilliantly in a story that is, in some other aspects, more for adults than children.

  Dulce Domum

  Ellen Kushner

  Come see my band, he’d say, and they pretty much always did.

  —Europe, huh? she asked languidly. They were lying in her bed, which was where he liked to be after the show, after they’d seen the band. Good sex, and the comfort of warm skin, and just enough talking to make it real.

  —R&B goes over big there. And they love Todd’s chops: authentic African-American. They don’t need to know he went to Buckley with us and played lacrosse.

  —Buckley, huh? She named some friends she said had gone there, and he knew one or two, but not well. A lot of those kids had gone away to boarding school after ninth grade, while he stayed in Manhattan with his family.

  —So do you like it there, in Europe?

  He stretched. —It’s OK.

  —So do you, like, spend a lot of time in any one city?

  She wanted to know if he had a girlfriend there. Already she was trying to figure out if he was serious material. Oops, time to go. He kissed her, and she tasted very sweet. —Just here, he said, and kissed her again. —New York is home.

  New York was home, but in New York the band was no big deal. So they played in a few bars here, and they had dinner with their families, and escorted a friend’s sister to a fundraiser for art or literacy or wildlife, depending, and maybe took a niece or a cousin’s kid to see Nutcracker. Then the band went on the road again, the road across the sea, where playing the chords in tight jeans was enough, knowing home was always back here, waiting for him to take his place. His family was here, colorful and stable, in the stone castle with big windows on the park. A window would always be open for him to fly back through, no matter how big he got, or how long he was away.

  He fell asleep as soon as he’d come, and she didn’t wake him, which was nice of her. His eyes snapped open at first light. It was an old East Village apartment with leaky Venetian blinds. He was pulling on his jeans when he heard her say, Jet lag? and when he turned around she was spread out like a kid on the playground being an airplane, sleepily purring a sort of phlegmy Vroom, vroom, so he fell back onto her and improvised something about, Be my jet plane, baby, ba-dum, ba-dum, Gonna make your engine scream, so together they achieved one of those moments of intimacy that promise either a relationship’s worth of in-jokes, or guaranteed embarrassment next time you meet.

  He took her phone number, but he doubted he’d be back.

  He called her late on Christmas Eve. She was home. She said, Come on up, which was good because he was standing at a payphone two blocks away, his cellphone deliberately run down, and it was raining.

  She was wearing sweatpants and a fleece bathrobe with moons on it. The “I don’t care if I’m attractive or not” gambit. He called her on it by falling to his knees before her, singing softly, “Oh, holy night, the stars are brightly shiiiiining . . . ” So she took the cue and undid her sash.

  In the castle where he grew up, two kings ruled. It was a brown stone fortress at the edge of Central Park; on rainy days their nanny would send his sister and him running up and down the back stairwell, to work off energy. That was their tower, the northeast corner of the big building. A famous musician lived on another floor, and sometimes in his tuxedo on his way to the Philharmonic he would use the back stairs, too, but they knew it was really their tower.

  —You’re not drunk, she said when she tasted his mouth. She seemed a little surprised. She must really like him.

  He made an effort. —I’m sorry, he said. —I was just, you know, kind of wondering if, if you—

  Her fingers were on his lips. —Shh. I know. I mean, I don’t know, but I kind of do.

  She let him fall on her, graceless and helpless. She was so warm, so alive.

  He was allowed to think of them as kings. They were both golden, powerful men with strong wills and interesting work. When he was older, he’d made one joke about queens, and only one, and only once.

  She wriggled around and took him in her mouth.

  —Don’t, he said. —Not now.

  —Right. She came back up, and smooched his ear. —Full frontal?

  He smiled in her hair. —Yeah.

  And they were there right now, he thought, or tried not to think. There, in their castle, high above the Park, wondering when he was going to turn up to drink eggnog and light the fire and see the tree. If they were thinking of him at all. If they even had a tree this year.

  He kept the last of his weight on his elbows, but he touched as much of her as he could, his front to hers, fitting her curves and pressing them down for the sense that there was something that could bear him, and she could.

  They would ask his sister if she’d heard from him. They never pried, but when it came to something they both wanted, they didn’t really care about privacy all that much. They didn’t care that his phone was dead, or why.

  “Kay doesn’t let his battery run down.”

  “Not usually, no.”

  “Is he coming?”

  He was. But not there.

  —But we aren’t Oy Vey Jews, she was explaining to him. He must have apologized for bothering her on Christmas Eve, and started her on her story: —My grandparents were, like, all Philharmonic subscription, Opera Guild, Metropolitan Museum members, and my mom went to Vassar . . . You know.

  He knew. He hadn’t cried, and that was good. He didn’t, usually, but tonight he didn’t trust himself. He smiled, and remembered to say, —So that’s why you’re home now? Waiting for stray lonely goyim to come in out of the rain?

  She touched his hair. —It is my destiny. My spiritual practice, in return for killing your god. I feel I o
we you something. Tomorrow I observe the ritual celebration of a movie and Chinese food, but for tonight . . . hot sex with a hunky blond. What about you? Your folks out of town?

  He waited too long to say No, and she kept going: —Went to Aspen and forgot to book you a ticket? Gone to Vienna for the winter balls and left you to take care of the Shih Tzu?

  —Nuh uh. He nuzzled her hair again. Her scalp smelt like herbs, and the ends of her hair a little like popcorn. He wasn’t ready to leave, even though they were getting to the talky bit, and he should. Soon.

  —It’s okay, she went on; —I’m used to spending Christmas Eve with people who are depressed about their families. It’s kind of a specialty. In college I had all these divorced friends —I mean, their parents were—and they were all upset, you know, spending Christmas Eve with one parent, and the Day with the other . . . so I’d make them come over and we’d do stupid kid stuff like painting on clown faces—you don’t hate clowns, do you? Some people are really weirded out by them.

  —My sister hates clowns. But I don’t care. What else did you do?

  —Well, we made French fries from scratch. She scrunched up her face. —Boring, huh?

  —Not really. Not if the point is to get someone to feel happy and normal. Food is good that way. My dad is, like, the king of comfort food. If you like whole steamed sea bass.

  —Is your dad, um, Asian?

  (And a second husband? Because he himself was blond? She was so obvious.)

  —Naw, he’s just a foodie. When he’s jetlagged, he used to go to the Fulton Fish Market to get the first catch, back when it came in there at dawn. Makes his own duck confit. You know, like that. My other dad—

  —Stepfather?

  —No. Two dads, no mother.

  —Oh, Peter! she chortled, and rather sharply he said, —What?

  —Sorry. She ran a fingertip down his arm in apology. —Peter Pan. “Haven’t got a mother.”

  —Lost boys, he said. —That’s us, all right.

  —Except for your sister.

  She lay waiting to listen, but he could feel her quivering with another quote.

  —Spit it out, he said, and she chortled, —“Girls are far too clever to fall out of their prams.”

  He pinned her deliciously down. —Better stop reminding me of my sister, or things could get weird.

  —How weird? she purred.

  He pulled back slightly and she gasped, —God, I’m an idiot. You’re not there for a reason, and I—I’m sorry, I’m just an idiot. She bunched her fingers in his curls —Sorry— and kissed him.

  He had kissed his sister exactly once. They were both fifteen, and both a little drunk, and she said, Okay, let’s just get it over with, so they puckered up, but at the first sign of moist inner membrane they broke apart, going Eew! like six-year-olds, and Eloise said, Okay, so now can we stop worrying?

  And he said something blindingly original like, Yeah, I guess.

  He’d still been a little scared, then, that he’d like his sister the way her dad liked his dad. It was a huge relief, so huge they never spoke of it again. He was sure his sister was back home with them tonight. Eloise got along with both of them so well. Her own dad didn’t scare her, even now.

  This kiss was enthralling, deep and thoughtful. He always liked the kisses that happened after, building their way back to urgency, but not there yet, not urgent, just deep. He liked the way she assumed there would be an after, too. She wouldn’t kick him out before he was ready to go.

  —So it’s just us, she murmured into his cheek. —Just you and me, and a city full of people full of their own crazy business out there, who don’t know we’re even here.

  —With no idea what we’re up to.

  —Not a clue.

  Was he talking too much? She seemed to want it, but did he?

  Mouths licked and pinched and sucked between words. Words dropped in between their busy lips and teeth. She said, That’s nice . . . and he occupied her mouth with his to keep words out, to keep words in.

  —Not thinking of your sister now, huh? she asked him, and he moaned, —No— and so, of course, then he was.

  His sister said he couldn’t possibly remember the first time; they were too young. But that was her, not him. He was five whole months older. He remembered, really well.

  They were in the living room high above the city, with all the glittering lights, the fire in the fireplace, the huge tree, the spread of cakes and fruit and decorated Christmas cookies—some the gifts of clients, the best ones baked by his dad—the spiced wine they each got a sip of . . . he could have been remembering any year, sure. The tree never seemed to get less huge, no matter how much he grew. Maybe their dads kept buying bigger ones. He wouldn’t put it past them to think of that.

  But he remembered seeing the book for the very first time that night. Eloise was on her own father’s lap on the sofa, he was sitting on the floor next to them, and Linton reached one arm out around his little girl to show Kay the pictures. The book was little, with pale blue cloth and animals stamped on the front in gold, and the smell of the old paper rose up even through the pine and spices.

  “He’s going to get chocolate on it,” his own dad said, but Linton just kept holding the book out to him.

  “It’s okay, Graham,” Linton said. “They won’t know it’s not hundred-year-old chocolate by the time it goes to auction next.”

  “What about carbon dating?” muttered Eloise.

  “That’s just for dinosaurs and fossils,” Kay said. “Gimme.”

  “ ‘Give it to me,’ ” Linton corrected.

  “Please,” added Graham.

  He held the book carefully. There were line drawings of animals, almost on every page. They all wore clothes. You could tell the animals were still little, though, because of their being next to leaves and grass and things. There were colored pages, too, pretty and pale, of animals rowing boats. “Read,” Kay said.

  Linton opened the book, began reading something about spring-cleaning. Then he said, “No. Not tonight. I think it should be more . . . ” He flipped through the pages, and began again:

  Home! The call was clear, the summons was plain.

  “Ratty!” Mole called, “hold on! It’s my home, my old home! I’ve just come across the smell of it, and it’s close by here, really quite close. And I must go to it, I must, I must!”

  Kay had barely understood it, the first time, but it was the voice that mattered.

  Home! Why, it must be quite close by him at that moment, his old home that he had hurriedly forsaken, that day when he first found the river.

  The voice, warm and flexible and fluid like the river, taking him somewhere he’d never been before, introducing the two animals who were such good friends, and looked after each other when they were lost in the snow, and found the pathway to the Mole’s little house in the ground, and Ratty made the fire and cooked some snacks, and then—and then—

  —He’s a musician, he said, —my other dad.

  —What kind?

  —Piano, mostly.

  It was the harpsichord, really, but there was always one thing he changed or left out whenever he talked about them. He just did.

  —Jazz?

  —No. Classical. And new music. Downtown stuff.

  —Is that where you get it from, the music?

  —He’s not my bio dad.

  She pulled both his arms around her, flattening her breasts against him. —Sorry.

  —He hates what I do, my band, anyway.

  —Music snob?

  —No. He thinks I’ve got no technique. And know what? He’s right.

  —Ohhhh, you’ve got technique, all right. I love your technique.

  Every year after that, Linton read from the book on Christmas Eve. The same chapter, Dulce Domum, where they’re trudging through the snow on their way back to Rat’s cozy River Bank digs, but Mole suddenly catches the scent of his old underground home, and they go and find it but then it’s all cold and ther
e’s no food and then they build up a fire and then Rat finds some biscuits and sardines and then they light candles and then—and then they hear voices, and Mole says, “I think it must be the field-mice. They go round carol-singing this time of year,” and then they open the door to the field-mice with lanterns and mittens and little red scarves and then—and then—

  We others, who have long lost the more subtle of the physical senses, have not even proper terms to express an animal’s intercommunications with his surroundings . . . and have only the word “smell,” for instance, to include the whole range of delicate thrills which murmur in the nose of the animal night and day . . .

  —Enjoying yourself?

  He was giving her all he could, holding back carefully, holding back to observe her giving in to him, to observe how she enjoyed it, to admire his own skill and selfless self-restraint.

  —Mrrrrrph . . .

  —Is that a Yes? It is, isn’t it? Cat got your tongue?

  —You’re evil.

  —No I’m not. I’m good . . .

  Linton tried reading Dickens once instead, and Eloise nearly had a meltdown. They were very young. Funny how, now that things were surreally bad, his sister was acting like nothing was wrong, and he was the one who couldn’t stand it. Especially since it was her dad who was so messed up.

  —Wait, she said. She pushed her tangled hair back from her eyes with the back of her wrist.

  —What?

  —My turn.

  He tried to say No, but he shivered with delight as she did things, delicious things with him on Christmas Eve.