Christmas Carol

by Speer, Flora

  There were fourteen of them for dinner that night, including Aug and Carol. And they were included. No one questioned Nik’s decision on the matter of Carol’s admission to their group, and everyone spoke openly about their plans in front of her.

  “Why have you scheduled your uprising for two days after Winter Solstice?” Carol asked after listening for a while. “Why not on the day itself, when police or other official types will be distracted by the ceremonies?”

  “Previous revolts have been attempted during seasonal celebrations, using just that reasoning.” The speaker was Jo, a short, red-haired woman whom Carol suspected was fond of Bas. “As a result of those attempts, the Government now provides extra civil guards for all festivities.”

  “If we wait until after Solstice, then the Government will have removed its guards and sent some of them away on furlough.” That was Luc. Slender, black-haired, with olive skin and dark, languid eyes, he glanced toward Pen, who nodded her agreement with what he was saying. “We have a better chance of succeeding if we strike when the Great Leaders are relaxed and congratulating themselves on another festival peacefully concluded.”

  Carol was finding the relationships among the conspirators fascinating. She was certain that Luc cared deeply for Pen, yet he was close friends with Al and constantly deferred to the older, tougher man who was openly Pen’s lover. All of them ultimately deferred to Nik, and to Aug. But they did listen to the opinions of each member of the group. Thus, Carol felt free to say what she thought.

  “What can you hope to accomplish by rising against a worldwide government system when you are so few in number?” she asked. “Even if there are other, similar bands willing to coordinate their activities with yours, there cannot be enough of you to make a real difference. You will be suppressed, and the Government will see to it that no one ever learns what you have done.”

  “We know the risks and we accept them,” Nik said. “We must try. Sooner or later, a rebel group will succeed. Then other groups will arise to join it, and the movement will grow until opposition to the Government is so overwhelming that a change will be made. At last each person will have a voice in the making of laws. We will form a new and better government, one willing to heed the wishes of the governed.”

  “It won’t be as simple as you imagine,” Carol cried. “True democracy is a tumultuous thing and you are used to conformity. After listening to your talk for the last couple of hours, it’s clear to me that you are in the minority. Under the Great Leaders, most people have stopped thinking for themselves. They are willing to be told what to do. That kind of inertia will be difficult to overcome.”

  “Still, we must make the effort.” Pen’s face was alight with the inner vision all of them shared. “We will go forward one step at a time. Our first objective is to bring down the World Government, and we are here to discuss the tactics for our uprising.”

  “I’m sorry,” Carol said. “I didn’t mean to throw cold water on your hopes. I just wanted to point out some of the pitfalls ahead.”

  “We needed to hear your words of caution,” Nik responded. “Sometimes, our hopes and dreams for the future carry us forward too quickly.”

  “I wouldn’t want to spoil anyone’s dreams,” Carol said. “I agree with what you are trying to do. I just don’t want to see any of you get hurt.”

  “There will be sacrifices to be made,” Nik said. “Each of us is prepared to give up life itself for our cause. But remember this, Car; when we have won, there will be freedom to celebrate any holiday you want. Then, I promise you, we will raise up a Christmas tree.”

  “A what?” Pen looked at her brother in bewilderment, but Nik was smiling into Carol’s eyes.

  She could not avoid smiling back at him. His enthusiasm and hope were inspiring. There was much more Carol could have said on the subject of eliminating repressive governments. There were twentieth-century examples she might have cited, of countries where disparate groups had worked well together until their freedom was achieved, at which point those groups fell to fighting each other with a bloody violence that doomed the weakest and most helpless souls in their societies.

  Carol said none of this. Instead, she sat listening during the long evening of discussion, and her heart grew heavier with every word that was spoken. Some, and perhaps all, of those who sat at table with her would die in the struggle to come. Yet they believed the possible cost was worth the gamble, for the prize was political and religious freedom. In spite of her fears for them and her own lingering cynicism, Carol absorbed some of their idealism and their hopes for the future.

  Toward the end of the evening, Carol saw Lady Augusta watching her with approval written on her lined face.

  “Is this what you wanted me to learn?” Carol asked as the group around the table broke up.

  “In part,” Lady Augusta said. “There is more to come. The hardest lesson of all will be the last one.”

  “And what is that?” Carol demanded.

  “When the time comes for you to learn it, you will know what to do.”

  “Car,” Nik interrupted, “Pen and Jo will show you to the women’s sleeping quarters.”

  “But—I thought—” Carol looked at him in confusion. She had imagined they would spend the night together.

  “I must leave the house,” Nik said. “There are important tasks ahead of me tonight. Do not ask what they are. Go with Pen. She is waiting for you.”

  “What are you going to do?” Carol cried, seeing Nik, Bas, and Luc pulling on heavy outdoor garments. She immediately envisioned the three rebels attempting to blow up railroad tracks or a power station. Nik seemed to read her mind.

  “Nothing violent, I assure you. Among other things, we are going to visit another dissident group, to make some final plans so we won’t have to meet during the Solstice, when the civil guards are always especially suspicious.” Lightly, he laughed away her concerns. “Aug will be with us, so we shall be safe.”

  “Can’t I go, too?” Carol asked.

  “It would be better if you stay here.” His hand on her shoulder reassured Carol that he did understand why she was worried. “The three-day holiday begins tomorrow. Then we will all be free for personal pleasures.” He waited until Carol bowed her head in assent before he removed his hand.

  “Do as he says,” Lady Augusta murmured to Carol under her breath.

  “Will I still be here tomorrow?” Carol asked her. “Or the next day? I would like to see this famous Solstice celebration.”

  “We will remain in this time,” Lady Augusta replied, “for three, and perhaps for four more days. For as long as is necessary.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Spare me your gratitude until you know what the future holds,” Lady Augusta snapped with a tinge of her old sharpness in her voice. Gazing at Carol as if she pitied her, Lady Augusta added, “You are as great an optimist as Nik is, and that surprises me. I would not have thought it of you.”

  The sleeping quarters were underneath the kitchen, in what had once been a storage cellar. The two rooms were clean, but sparsely furnished, and a faint smell of damp earth lingered in the air.

  “The women sleep in one room, and the men in the other,” Pen explained, showing Carol the way into the women’s bedchamber. “Bas closes up the outside door and bars it every night, so we are secure.”

  “Does everyone sleep in here? I thought Nik said that you and Al—that is, don’t you occasionally want privacy?”

  “There are rooms upstairs,” Pen said. “It is just that we are safer down here.”

  “This is a terrible way to live.”

  “I dream of another way,” Pen said. “I would like a room with windows I dare to open, to let in a breeze when the weather is hot. Sometimes, I think of bright colors. Once, I saw the wife of one of the Great Leaders when she came to Lond for a visit. She was wearing a long robe the exact color of the sky. How wonderful it must be to dress in colors.”

  “Why can’t you?” Carol as
ked. “Is it forbidden?”

  “No ordinary person could afford dyed fabric,” Pen replied wistfully. “If I were to wear such a garment all my friends would wonder where I had obtained it, and what I had done to earn it.”

  “No wonder you are willing to risk your lives for a better government,” Carol muttered. “You people are little more than serfs.”

  The mattress on her cot was thin, and so was the blanket she was given, but after her conversation with Pen, Carol was not inclined to complain. She found it difficult to relax in her underground surroundings, and the lamp that was left burning at all times kept her awake for hours. In the morning she discovered that Nik and his companions had not yet returned.

  “Where were they going?” Carol asked Pen.

  “I do not know. Nik takes care not to reveal his activities when he goes out at night.” Pen regarded her with a slight smile, then put an arm around Carol’s shoulders. And Carol, impelled by an affection born three centuries in the past, returned the embrace. “They will all come back safely, Car. Don’t forget, Aug is with them.”

  “If you want to keep busy,” Jo put in, “then come with us to the market. Bas has given me a list of supplies to buy for the Solstice feast.”

  Curious to discover what this future version of London would be like, Carol agreed, and the three women set out at mid-morning. Because the weather was so bitterly cold, all of them wore extra garments over their usual outdoor gear. Carol was wrapped in an old cloak-like woolen covering worn over her lined raincoat. In addition she had on a knitted hat and thick mittens. She was certain no one seeing her would ever suspect that she did not belong where she was.

  They walked. There did not appear to be any public transportation. Carol could not help wondering if this was a deliberate tactic of the Great Leaders, a way of keeping the populace from traveling very far from where they lived, thus preventing people from communicating with each other and perhaps fomenting a rebellion. If such was the intent of the Leaders, they were not particularly successful.

  There were great open spaces in the city, but they were not the parks Carol remembered. All traces of trees or grass or public gardens were gone, and large sections of “Lond” lay in rubble. The scenes she saw reminded Carol of photographs taken at the end of World War II. The difference was that the evidence of that earlier war was removed as promptly as possible and new buildings were quickly erected on the bombed-out sites. The damage she saw now was decades old. Pen and Jo told her there were people living in the windowless, half-ruined houses they passed, as Nik and his friends lived in the building they called Mar House.

  “At least Buckingham Palace is still standing,” Carol murmured, “but it doesn’t look to be in very good shape.” The wrought-iron fence was gone, half of one wing had been destroyed, and most of the windows were boarded up. A hideous new windowless building rose where once there had been acres of well-kept royal gardens and a lake. This building was the only sign of new construction Carol had seen since arriving in the future. There were still guards at the palace entrances, but instead of the colorful uniforms of Carol’s own day, these guards were clad in dark brown overcoats and trousers and they carried wicked-looking weapons and wore metal helmets.

  “Those are the Government offices for all of this country,” Pen said, hurrying Carol along.

  “Don’t go near those buildings unless you are on official business. I have known people who went in there and never came out again.”

  The market where they were to shop was set up along the Mall. Here there were crude stalls made out of brick and stone scavenged from ruined buildings. Carol saw a few old doors being used as counters, but most of the foodstuffs lay in baskets on the ground or on top of piles of broken building material. All of the stalls were crowded, for this was the first day of the three-day Solstice celebration and most workers were free to spend their time in preparations for the holiday feast.

  “Here, the biggest meal of the year is eaten at the Fall Equinox,” Pen said in answer to Carol’s questions, “because it occurs in the middle of the harvest season when a lot of extra food is brought into the city. Is it different where you live? Nik didn’t mention your home city.”

  “I think it’s best if I don’t talk about where I usually live,” Carol replied.

  “I understand. Discretion is always the safest option.” The readiness with which Pen accepted her false response was depressing to Carol. That a young woman whom she knew to be open and sweet-natured should have to resort to such caution—that Pen should have to go about in fear for her life—made clear to Carol why the present Government needed to be replaced with something much better.

  “This is the best stall for fresh foods,” Jo said, interrupting Carol’s unhappy thoughts.

  At this winter season the produce displayed was primarily root vegetables. The women bought turnips, beets, and carrots. Pen added a small bunch of greens and some herbs, and then they moved on to the meat and poultry section of the market. Here Jo took charge, saying Bas had told her exactly what to buy.

  “Chicken, unless it’s too dear,” she said, examining the few birds hanging from metal racks. She haggled with the poultry man, ending with the best chicken she could get for the money she had to spend. Carol thought it was a scrawny bird too small to feed all of their group, but she kept quiet, not wanting to embarrass Pen and Jo.

  “On to the sweets,” said Pen. “They are the best part of the seasonal celebrations.”

  The provision of sweets was apparently the most profitable business at the holiday, and there were at least a dozen booths selling them. The sweets, formed of hardened, molded sugar, or of a substance that looked remarkably like sugar, were laid out on trays in front of each booth. Carol stared at them.

  “Don’t they make your mouth water?” Pen asked. “I do so look forward to the sweets. I’d eat them every day if it were allowed. Perhaps it’s just as well the Government only lets them be sold four times a year.”

  “I’m sure the law cuts down on tooth decay,” said Carol in a dry tone. She regarded the sweets with a dislike that stemmed from what she had learned about the all-powerful Government. “They are trees. Little sugar trees with an orange-colored sugar ball stuck in the branches. I suppose the ball represents the Orb you were talking about yesterday, Pen.”

  “We should buy one for each of us,” Jo put in. “Nik gave me enough money for fourteen of them.”

  “When do we eat them?” Carol asked, still viewing the miniature creations with a jaundiced eye.

  “Not until Solstice Day,” Jo said.

  “I’m not sure I can wait,” Pen said, laughing. “First the dawn ceremony and then the festival meal. Then, at long last, the sweets.” Glancing around to be sure there was no one to hear her next words, she added in a whisper, “After we change the Government, I hope we can still have sweets on holidays.”

  “If you succeed in changing the Government,” Carol told her, “you will be allowed to eat sweets every day of the year. The decision will be yours, along with a lot of other decisions. I hope you have thought about that. Making choices can be exhausting.”

  “Do be quiet,” Jo warned, and Pen smiled and shook her head and did not say anything in reply to Carol’s remarks.

  Carol found the hours she and the other women spent away from Marlowe House disorienting because of the physical changes that had taken place in the city she knew so well, and saddening because there were so few signs of a cheerful holiday spirit. She missed the sparking white fake snow, the red and green and tinsel decorations, and the brightly colored lights that once had made the shops glow.

  She also missed the street lamps, for in this desolate version of London there were none. Pen told her that people were expected to stay home after dark and thus lamps were not needed. In any case, there was no electricity, except in the Government offices and the houses of the most important officials. There were no shops, either, just the booths and, here and there, some goods spread upon th
e ground without the protection of a booth. It was not long before Carol wished she could hear just one person telling her in a cheerful voice to have a merry Christmas.

  Nik, Bas, and Luc returned to Marlowe House in the late afternoon, shortly after Carol and the other women finished unpacking and storing the food they had purchased. The three men sauntered into the kitchen as casually as though their day had been no more adventurous than the women’s walk to the market. Aug was not with them, but no one remarked on her absence.

  “We will eat the remains of last night’s stew this evening,” Bas decided, pulling off his outer garments and heading toward the cooking fire, which Jo was presently feeding with bits and pieces of wood. “But tomorrow, we will enjoy a great feast.” He launched into a series of questions aimed at Jo, most of them about the food for the following day.

  Over the heads of the others now crowding into the kitchen, Nik’s eyes met Carol’s. She did not need to touch him or even speak to him to know he had thought about her often during the day. As she had thought of him, for his image had been with her while she gazed at the ruins of a once-great city, and later, as she helped her new friends to carry home the paltry, bruised ingredients for a holiday that meant nothing to her.

  The Winter Solstice did matter to the others. Out of a growing fondness for their little company, Carol kept her opinions on the celebration to herself. She sat on a bench beside Nik at the dinner table, increasingly aware of the way his thigh brushed against hers from time to time.

  “Our plans are complete,” Nik said to all of them. Pushing aside the chipped plate that held the last few scraps of his evening meal, he leaned forward, looking from face to face as he spoke. “There are a dozen other groups like this one, all willing to join with us on the night after the holiday ends. For reasons of security there will be no further contacts among the groups until the uprising begins. So, my friends, enjoy the holiday, but do not drop your guard when you are outside this house, and maintain the usual identification procedures when going in and out of it.”