The Beasts: A Winter's Tale

Christmas Presents

Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man.

-Friedrich Nietzsche

The high, wide grey facade of Saint Ursula’s Cathedral made up the center of Germantown. It was two blocks down from the Strauss House where Dimler Street met King Street, and its face stood on King Street, the wide triple doorways like encircled by earlike rings of saints and angels, at the top of a long flight of high steps. Light shone through stain glass, and the Strausses and Kellers, arriving early but not early enough, drove around and around and through the parking lot looking for spaces. At one point Myron and Jim honked at each other, fighting over a choice space between the old social hall the brick school building.

 “I’m glad we drove alone,” Joyce said to Marabeth.

 “How you like the family?”

 “I like them just fine,” Joyce said as Marabeth simply parked a block down in front of the school building. “I think I like you all better than you like yourselves.”

 Marabeth laughed and said, reflectively, “That might not be far from the truth.

 “When you said Kris lived at home, I thought… well you know, I thought of someone living in their mom’s basement, which isn’t much like Kris. But now that I’ve seen that house… How is it I never saw the house?”

 “I never took you there,” Marabeth answered simply, getting out of the car. As she shut the door and Joyce shut hers, and crossed the frosted grass to the sidewalk, Marabeth added, “I never feel much of a need to go very often, so there really isn’t a reason you would have been there. But you seem to be a big hit. Especially with Jim and Myron.”

 “I think your cousins might be the kind of guys who hit on everyone.”

 On the other side of Dimler Street, across from them, were several old houses, most of them strung up with Christmas lights, some tastefully and some not so much. Joyce realized that just because this was Germantown didn’t mean there was anything particularly German about the houses, and now they passed the long school building and were walking in front of something else, tall, mansard roofed, brick with white trim windows and finely made.

 “Of that’s the social hall,” Marabeth said. “When I was growing up we went to gym there and sometimes we went to weekly Mass. We had special masses in Saint Ursula proper. I went to Girl Scouts there.”

 “You were a Girl Scout?”

 “I was a Brownie,” Marabeth modified, “and not a very good one.”

 Marabeth exhaled. “I can see my breath. We need to pick up the pace. But… I love this place. I mean, I know I talk about not wanting to be here and all of that, but I do love it here. Especially on Christmas.”

 Now that they had approached the actual church, they were coming into contact with other people and exchanging Merry Christmases.

 “Marabeth!” one or two called out. Marabeth embraced a black girl with microbraids and explained, “This is Diana Vickers. We went to K through 8. Oh my God, I didn’t know you’d be back in the neighborhood for Christmas.”

 “Just for a few days,” Diana said. “Are you sitting with the clan?’

 “I am. I didn’t see your parents.”

 “They’re in the back with the husband.

 “The husband? Do I get to meet him?’

 “Did you think you’d get out of meeting him?”

 Joyce noted that Diana wasn’t the only black person there and when they entered through the north transept of the church and she could see past the rows of pews into the great lit nave there were all sorts of people

 I’m so stupid. Germantown was Germantown in 1900. They’ve got to have all sorts of people living here now. She decided, as Marabeth genuflected and she did as well, and they turned down the arcade aisle looking for her family, that she would keep this bit of stupidity to herself.

 Marabeth did not bother to sit down with Kris, who was beside her mother and grandmother whom he had driven. Apparently it was enough that the family be more or less together, and Joyce was counting past Myron and Jim, Myron’s kids and Peter’s kids and the other younger cousins. There would have just been too much crawling over people, and Marabeth pointed to a pew toward the back and slid in, tapping a dark haired woman not unlike herself who clapped her hands, reached over and hugged her, and then hugged Joyce, though they’d never met.

 “My cousin Maris,” Marabeth said, and Joyce thought she’d heard the name earlier.

 “It was my great aunt’s name. Her grandmother,” Marabeth whispered. She was rudely shoved and was about to say something inappropriate for church when she looked up and laughed.

 “Joyce, Ben Keller. Ben Keller,” Marabeth said, “Joyce.”

 But by then, the lights in the massive church were dimming. Joyce had the sensation of being inside the ribcage of a great whale, and now only some of the lanterns shone from the high ceiling as the children’s choir sang:

The first Nowell the angel did say

Was to certain poor shepherds in fields as they lay;
In fields where they lay, keeping their sheep,
On a cold winter's night that was so deep:

Nowell, Nowell, Nowell, Nowell,
Born is the King of Israel.

Marabeth did not think of herself as away from God. She was no atheist. She thought of herself as the title Spiritual-But-No-Longer-Religious. The world had ended and started at Saint Ursula’s for her once, and when she was away from it she would make fun of this, but sitting here in this darkness, under the high vaulted ceiling in the wide apart forest of these trees, able to see the lit crèche near the altar while the music went on, she thought, well, this world is very big, and very mysterious, and no wonder I thought God could be contained in it.

 Once I thought I’d found something better. What did I find?

 Tonight she felt unready and foolish, and as if she had misjudged everything, and now even more lights went out, and the children’s choir began to sing:

Once in royal David’s city
stood a lowly cattle shed,
where a mother laid her baby
in a manger for His bed:
Mary was that mother mild,
Jesus Christ, her little child.

As they sang, the children entered, flanking off on either side of the manger, and the next to the last child removed a rose that had lain in the manger, and then the last child, a Keller cousin, placed an infant Jesus, legs crossed arms open, into the manger as the church lanterns gradually brightened. The priest incensed the manger, and white smoke filled the church, sweet and thick at the same time, as the Mass began. Marabeth could not say that she perceived something, for perception means understanding. But something was unlocked in her at that moment, as the congregation’s voice swelled along with the organ. She was in the miracle of Christmas, and she could not rightly say exactly what that miracle was.

“I’ve been away from all this for so long,” Marabeth said after Mass, while the organ fantasy was playing and the church still smelled of incense. “I don’t know. Maybe I thought I was too much of a grown up for it.”

 Joyce nodded.,

 “We could come here. Now and again,” she looked around the arcades and the grottos where red candles glowed under saint feet. “Not all the time, mind you. But now and again.”

 “I know what you mean,” Maris said, “It does get you.”

 Marabeth grinned and her grandmother came to them squeezing their hands and kissing them.

 “Merry Christmas, Joy.”

 “Are you guys ready to head back?” Kris asked.

 Marabeth looked at Joyce and Joyce said, “Part of me doesn’t want to leave.”

 “But the rest of you?” Kris said.

 “It’s time to go,” Joyce decided.

 Outside, the night was black and blue and snow covered the ground. As they walked down Dimler Street, others called out, “Merry Christmas,” and the world seemed different and safe and full of promise.

 “Do you want to go home or come with me?” Marabeth asked.

 “Where are you going?”

 “I was going to our house, and I know you’re invited,” Marabeth said. “We always sit around a little longer and drink a coffee or a cocoa, open one gift apiece then slowly move toward bed.”

 “I’d like to be there for that,” Joyce said, “if it wouldn’t be interfering.”

 “Oh, no,” Marabeth said. “I think I’d love it.”

 They crossed the street, and as Joy looked down the main thoroughfare of King Street, she saw a McDonalds, a Burger King, rows of shops and apartment buildings, and then they crossed, heading down the three blocks to the Strauss House. Now Joyce understood it more. All of the townhouses on this street were tall and the Strauss house was three stories, the first two with high windows, the last with low windows under the intricate cornices. Strauss House was brick with black shutters over the great windows, and as Marabeth parked they crossed the sidewalk and went through the low iron gate up the steps to the broad stoop.

 “What?” Marabeth said.

 “It’s a little bit like a mansion,” Joyce said as they entered.

“It’s so late,” Kris almost moaned from the high backed chair. “Are you guys going home or staying here?”

 “I’m staying,” Jim piped up.

 “You always stay,” Kris said, “even though you’ve got a penthouse.”

 “It is not a penthouse.”

 “It’s not a roach motel either.”

 “Stay here, Joyce!” Mrs. Strauss interrupted the boys, “It will be just like old times. We can get up in the morning and have Danish and coffee and open presents before everyone else comes.”

 “Yes, let’s,” Grandma said, and then Marabeth looked to Joy and Joy said, “If there is a bed involved and maybe a housecoat.”

 “Oh, I’ll do you better than that,” Rebecca Strauss clapped her on the arm. “You look about my size and I’ve got pajamas.”

 As they departed, Grandmother kissed even Joyce good night, and then she headed out of the living room, past the dining room and down the hallway. Her room was beside the library, and across from the bathroom, and next to her was Rebecca’s room and then the kitchen that led to the back porch. But for now Rebecca led them up the stairs, Joyce deliciously in the middle, feeling a fortunate part of the company, Mrs. Strauss at the top of the steep stair leading to the second floor, Jim and Kris straggling with Kris murmuring, “It is a penthouse.”

`  Up here it was still lit, and it seemed a little like a hotel or a European inn. Rebecca showed Joyce a large white tiled bathroom with porcelain knobs and a lit mirror, and on either side of it were two rooms.

 “That was Mara’s room growing up,” she pointed to the one on their rights that must have looked over the street, “and this one here might as well be yours tonight. It’s the spare room, but it’s not that spare ‘cause family always stays over.”

 “And,” Jim said, “because there are lots of spare rooms.

 “Good night guys,” he waved them off and gave Marabeth a quick hug. He looked at Joy mischievously for a while then said, “Don’t think you’re getting away without a hug too,” and hugged her quickly before heading down the hall.

 “And that,” Kris said, “is my cue to be off as well.”

 He kissed them all, and as he went to the stairwell, suddenly Joyce realized what she hadn’t seen before. Beside the staircase was a door to another room, but now she realized the doorway was not what she had thought, but the beginning of another staircase. She stood aside, watching Kris Strauss move to the darkness.

 “You’re going up there?’

 “It’s an entire floor.” He turned around and laughed.

 Joyce thought it was completely eerie, but Kris said, “I know it like the back of my hand. I grew up in this house, Joy. Goodnight.”

He disappeared into the dark, and she could hear his feet touching the floor upstairs as she turned around and headed to bed.

And, now, if you loved The Old, but not necessarily reading it from a computer screen one segment at a time, a hardcopy is available on Amazon.