Christmas

Christmas in Jablunka, Marienberg, and in Kilmarnock.

Chapter Twenty- Five

Christmas

 

Peter had grown to like living on the hill. The snow coated slopes the village boys away from him. He  could imagine them armed with curved sticks chasing him across the ice.  Here. Behind Kilmarnock’s Hills walls he could almost feel secure.

The McKays sat in the drawing room. Elijah Grimsby having left to spend Christmas with Donald, George was copying the old man’s  words from one notebook into another notebook, Maureen was busy knitting. Peter and Maggie were in Peter’s room engrossed in Alex’s library.

Maggie having finished the last of Oliver Twist looked up at Peter. “What was Christmas like in Germany” she asked .

                Peter looked up from his book. “Christmas?”

                “It must be different from here.”

                “Yes.”  He dropped back into his book.

                Of all the days of the year the one that Peter hated most was December twenty-fifth.

                “What was it like,” Maggie asked.

                “Like?” Peter thought for a moment, traveling back to a distant forest. “In my mother’s cabin no one ever noticed it.  The winter days were all the same, cold, dark and hungry. The village bell would toll, but then it would do that every day calling people to mass except us.  As with every other day we would boil water, scrounge firewood, cook whatever was to be had, usually thin oatmeal porridge, and listen to Maminka talk on and on.”

                “Maminka?”

                “Mother. Sometimes in a good mood she would tell us stories about witches and ghosts.  Sometimes she would go on for hours cursing her aunt and uncle and the villagers and then silence, then  sleep. I first heard of Christmas from Milos.”

                “Milos?”

                “After maminka died I was given to Milos, the pigkeeper. The priest and overseer of the village told me he was my father. One day he said that it was Christmas Day. He was going to the village and that he would not be back until late. When I( asked him what Christmas was he said it was a day for him to drink. I spent  the day feeding  the pigs, chopping wood  and sitting beside the fireplace. Sometimes as I worked outside the wind would bring a sound of bells and bits of people singing.  So soft I had to try hard to hear it. Then it was gone. “

                 “Christmas dinner was the same stew and stale crusts I had every other day.  All day I thought of running away but the snow was too deep, the forest too dark.  Anyway where would I go? Anyone I met would bring me back to Milos.  So, instead, I sat and   thought maybe someone would come just to say hello. No one did.  That night I fell asleep on my straw mat beside the fire.” For a moment he saw himself in the dark of that faraway hut, lying on a thin mat on a  earthen floor “At dawn Milos stumbled into the hut and fell asleep without noticing me  Now I think of it sand I remember.  It was he only day I had with him without a beating, That was my Christmas present.  I should have run that day.”

                “We can’t always know what to do. Your next Christmas, was it better?”

                “In some ways.”

***

                Josef had learned of Christmas and the birth of Christ from Father Schiller. Frederick had told the boy that Christmas had nothing to do with the birth of Christ.  It was simply an adapting of the old Germanic winter solstice festival practiced in ancient times to celebrate the return of light. The church had just adapted it to Christian tastes. Christian tastes.  Peter doubted if that were true.  The church did say that Christmas was Christ’s birth date.  Who should he believe; the church or Frederick?  He wondered what Alex would have thought of the theory.  One thing Peter did know, Frederick’s scepticism did not prevent the baron from celebrating with feasting, gift giving and music. In keeping with one of the few customs that Frederick liked a great fir tree was brought into the main hall, its upturned branches reaching up towards the ceiling.  The baron supervised as servants decorated it with candles and ornaments Then, late at night after the feasting, after the gifts and the singing he would be in Frederick’s bed.  Better not to think about hat. As with Maminka and with Milos Christmas had changed nothing.  There it had not stopped the cold or hunger. Here it did nothing to end the fear or the shame.

                Frederick had asked him what he thought of the tree.

                “Will it burn” he asked.

                “Little danger of that, pet.” said Frederick.  “The servants have been doing this for generations.”

                It should burn thought Josef. He could see a tiny yellow flame from a solitary candle. Near the base of the tree, it would take hold of a branch and then race up s side of the tree.  Soon it would be engulfed, a mass of yellow and red, the flames shooting up towards the ceiling and up towards the sky, the entire house now aflame, trapping them all, Radek, Frederick, Katrina, the servants and Josef, burning them for their sins.

                The next morning as he and Katrina looked up at the tree he murmured, “I wish it would burn.”

                “So do I” she whispered.

“You had a tree” Maureen him asked at dinner.

Peter looked up and remembered where he was. “Yes. A tree.”

George nodded. “Prince Albert has introduced a Christmas tree to the royal palace.  A symbol of life in winter, so they say.  A very good idea We’ll go and get a tree tomorrow” said George.  “Won’t we Peter?”

“Yes.” He slipped back into his book.   Who was he to argue with the Queen.

                One thing Peter had learned from Radek and from Frederick.  Accept what cannot be avoided.  to  He thought of the peasants in Jablunka working just hard enough to avoid the overseer’s anger but never more than that.  Frederick’s father, the old baron had tried to make farming on his estates more efficient.  Frederick himself had ordered that money be put aside for schools, an order that Radek had simply ignored.  So too had the peasants ignored any attempt to change them.      Be like the peasants.  Be like Radek.  Pretend to obey but in the end do as you want. When Maureen had told him of her plan to have a celebration at Kilmarnock Hill after  the birth of her child he had said nothing.   Safer that way. 

                It had been safer never to talk about Radek  Long before coming to Kilmarnock he had learned what would happen if he dared speak of Frederick, Radek and the Leuger twins.  One of two things would happen.  People would not believe him calling him a filthy-minded liar and put him in prison.  The other thing would be that they would scream at him, call him a filthy-minded bumboy and put him in prison.  He knew now that Alex would not have done that but Alex was dead like Father Schiller before him.  If  he had spoken out earlier maybe Alex could have done something but  maybes do not matter.  Easier just to pick up old habits again.  Safer to say nothing.

        George nodded.  “Tomorrow after breakfast Peter and I will get a tree.  “Snow’s too soft for walking in though .We’ll need snowshoes.”

                “Snowshoes?”

                “Native invention.  They let you walk on the snow.  I think I have a couple of pairs in storage somewhere.”

  George closed his book.  He left the room returning a few minutes later with two pairs of snowshoes. Two feet long, toes  curved, white ash frame supported in the middle by a light cross bar with moose hide webbing.

“I have to wear those?” Peter asked.

“Better than getting stuck in the snow.  Anyway, it’s easy once you get the feel of it.”  He caught the frown in Maureen’s eyes.  Not here the look told him.  “We’ll go out to the kitchen porch and you can try them.”

Peter tied the moose hide thongs around his legs.

 “Stand  up” said George

Peter stood.

                “How do they feel?”

                “Strange.” Said Peter looking down at the snowshoes. “Heavy.”

                “You’ll get used to them soon enough.  Try walking.”

            Peter stepped forward, tripped over a snowshoe and fell face-first in the snow.  He brushed the snow off his face. “S**t.”

                George’s mitt pulled him up by his right shoulder. “Watch your language. If you can walk you can snowshoe. Watch how I do it.”

                George took three strides. “Lift the shoe, Slide the edge of the shoes over each other.”      

                Peter took a tentative step copying the doctor’s strides.  As he accustomed himself to the snowshoes George went into the woodshed.  From out of it he brought an axe and a toboggan.  With Peter towing the toboggan the two headed down the hill towards the lake.   He walked towards a small copse of blue spruce growing close to the edge of the lake.  He looked at the trees for a moment. He pointed  picked at a five foot tall spruce.

                “It looks good” he said.  Peter nodded.

                As he chopped at the base.  Peter waited beside the toboggan.  As he waited laughter and shouting from the lake disturbed his thoughts.

He walked towards the river.  He looked through the trees at the frozen lake. Two clusters of children were skating on it.  George looked up from his chopping.  “Why don’t you join them?”

 “Me?”

“Why not?”

“You know why.”

“Do I?”

“It would be ... wrong.”

“Would it? Why?  Go on.  I don’t mind.” 

Peter shook his head.  They would simply leave when he came as they always did.  He remembered the hours sitting beside the windows in the house back in New York looking at children playing in the park. His face and hands pressed against the glass he had strained for a better look. Then someone, Frederick or Katrina or one of the Leugers,  would call him  and he would have to turn away. Now he knew that the looking had been a foolish waste of time.

                From the shelter of the trees he looked down at the larger cluster.  A gang of boys were playing hockey,

chasing a rubber ball, swinging at it with wooden sticks.  The smaller cluster was made up of girls skating or sitting on the river bank.  He noticed that in the middle of the second cluster wearing a blue woollen cap and brown coat was Maggie. She was, he thought, the most beautiful thing that he had  seen. 

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“What if they should … know?”

“Why would they have to know?”

“So I just lie to them … as I did to Alex?”

“It’s not the same.”

Peter  turned away from the river. He made a tentative smile. “At least between us, there are no lies.”

The doctor turned back to dragging the tree.  “And Maggie?” he asked.

Peter  helped the doctor place the tree on the toboggan.  “I will lie.  What else can I do?”

Author's Note

Canadian English