How Mrs. Claus Saved Christmas (7 page)

“We're not going to steal this food, and don't call me fat,” whispered the first man. My eyes were adjusting to the darkness, and I could see him better. But, like me, he and the other man had the hoods of their cloaks pulled around their faces, too, so I still had no idea what they might look like. “Were you going into that tent to
leave
food rather than commit robbery?”

“I've never robbed anyone,” I replied, snatching back my bread loaf and returning it to my pocket with as much dignity as I could muster given the strange circumstances. I didn't want to lose the bread. After all, I had so very few things left to give before my mission was over. “Where have you put your club? Are you going to hit me with it?”

He chuckled, and pushed into my hand another long loaf, which I had obviously mistaken for a weapon. “Neither of us seems to be a robber, my friend. I think I want to know you better. My companion and I have a warm, clean room back in the city. Join us there; we'll eat and drink and talk.”

Well, I certainly couldn't accept this invitation. I still wasn't sure I could trust these men, and if they were somehow bad and they discovered I was a woman, my situation would only become worse. So I suggested we first distribute food to the poor nomads in their tents instead, hoping that in the process I would have a chance to run away. But while the second man waited outside the camp, the first one I'd stumbled into stayed right by my side as we left bread and fruit and cheese. When the last item was placed by the final sleeping mat, the man gently took my arm and led me back to where his friend was waiting. I was caught.

As we walked back into the city, the first man let go of me, but I noticed he and his companion walked on either side of me, perhaps so I couldn't get away. They began to talk in their normal voices. I kept whispering. My cloak was baggy, its long empty pockets flapping since the food I'd stored in them was gone. Apparently, these two still thought I was a man.

We arrived at the inn where they were staying, and they invited me to come up for something to eat and drink. Sensing my chance, I simply shook my head and turned to walk away, but the man who'd waited outside the nomad camp caught me and said somewhat impatiently, “What's the matter with you? You know now we're not thieves. If you don't have a place to stay, you can even sleep with us.”

“I have to leave,” I whispered. “Good night.” I meant to go. I would have, but then the first man reached out toward me. I could have avoided his touch. But somehow I was frozen in place.

“At least let me see who you are,” he said, gently tugging my hood away from my face. My long hair tumbled out, and as the light coming through the windows of the inn fell upon my face, I knew it was clear I was certainly not a man.

“Let me go. I can fight if I have to,” I said with as much force as I could summon.

“You don't have to,” he said reassuringly. “Please, my good woman, don't be afraid we'd harm you.”

I couldn't be sure of that. The two men were standing close together, staring at my newly revealed face. Impulsively, I reached out and, one after the other, pulled their hoods away from their faces. At least if I was attacked by them and survived, I might be able to identify them afterward to the city authorities. When I saw the first face I gasped. I recognized this man. He was one of the two men from the market, the beardless one with the nearsighted squint. That must mean the other was—Yes! The man with the long white hair and beard and warm smile, the man I'd dreamed about for so long. I couldn't help staring into his eyes. We must have looked at each other for a full minute or more before he said, “Our offer of something to drink and eat is made in friendship.”

I knew I could trust him—why else had he been so long in my dreams?—so I replied, “Then in friendship, I accept.”

Nicholas

Up in the room, they produced jars of fruit juice—I very much preferred drinking such healthy stuff rather than wine—and some bread and cheese. Our conversation instantly bubbled over. I had never been someone who liked to talk about herself, but as soon as we sat down on the floor mats I found myself almost babbling as I recounted my childhood in Niobrara with Uncle Silas and Aunt Lodi, and how I decided while still very young that I wanted to be,
would
become, a gift-giver.

“The inspiration came from the old stories, you see,” I explained. “In Lycia, people had spoken for a hundred years about a mysterious gift-giver who came silently in the night to give gifts to the very poorest people.” The nearsighted man whispered something to the wonderful man with the white hair and beard, who sharply whispered to him to keep quiet. “Well,” I continued, “ten years ago when my uncle and aunt died, they left me the farm and some money as my inheritance. Men in my village offered to marry me, but I realized it was the farm they really wanted, not me. I mean, it's obvious I'm not beautiful.”

Now the white-bearded man couldn't keep himself from speaking. “You seem beautiful to me,” he blurted, and his nearsighted friend laughed and slapped him on the shoulder. For a moment, everything felt quite awkward. I felt myself blushing, and the white-bearded man's cheeks turned bright red, too. I thought I should perhaps feel offended—the remark had been quite forward, as we used to term such a personal comment. But instead I was pleased. Never before had I really cared what any man thought of my appearance. But now I did.

After several silent moments, the white-bearded man composed himself, poured all three of us more fruit juice, and remarked, “Do you know, we've been talking for some time and we haven't even properly introduced ourselves. May I ask your name?”

“Layla,” I said.

“Well, Layla, we are honored to meet you. This fat grinning fellow here is Felix. He has been my friend and traveling companion ever since we met in Rome many, many years ago. And my name is—”

Before the word was out of his mouth, I knew. A carved image on a tomb in Myra flashed into my mind.

“Your name is Nicholas,” I told him. “I should have known. I recognized you right away, from the likeness on your tomb and from—” I was about to add, “my dreams,” but thought better of it.

Nicholas and Felix exchanged a long look. Then Nicholas said carefully, “Well, it's getting quite late. I suggest Felix and I escort you back to your own lodgings. Will you meet us again tomorrow night? We have gifts to give; a very needy family is spending hungry, cold nights hiding in a rich man's barn. You could join us as we help them. Afterward, there are certain things I would like to tell you about.”

“It would be my pleasure,” I replied. There was a great deal I wanted to ask them, most importantly how a man who had died of old age in 343 still appeared very much alive sixty-nine years later. The odd thing was, though I wondered how it was possible, I never doubted it was true.

Felix lagged a little behind Nicholas and me as we walked back to the inn where I was staying. It wasn't a long walk and only took about ten minutes, but it seemed like much less even than that. Nicholas and I didn't say much to each other, just casual comments about the coolness of the night air and how much more bread and cheese cost in the Constantinople markets than in Myra. When we reached the inn I found myself wondering, unexpectedly, whether Nicholas was going to kiss me good night, which certainly would have been forward and definitely unacceptable upon such short acquaintance. It was only after he formally shook my hand and turned and walked away with Felix that I realized I'd hoped he would kiss me. I'd sometimes kissed my Uncle Silas on the cheek, but I'd never kissed any man in a romantic way and had never really wanted to before.

Needless to say, that night I slept very little. Perhaps I should have been awake because I was worrying. My money was all gone, I had only a bit of bread and cheese left to distribute, and after that, what would become of me? Instead, I couldn't close my eyes out of sheer pleasure. Nicholas wanted to see me again! Something special was happening.

I was right about that. The next evening, just as the sky turned dark, Nicholas and Felix came to fetch me at the inn. I met them outside the front entrance, my pockets filled with the very last bread and cheese I had. Before I had met them, my intention was to make these things last for several more days of gift-giving. Now, I brought everything that was left. Just to make certain I had been invited as a full contributing partner rather than a welcome but essentially useless companion, I informed them right away that I expected to contribute my share to the night's gifts. Both Nicholas and Felix seemed quite pleased to hear this. They led the way to an extensive property just north of the city. It was a large farm, much bigger than my uncle's. Livestock nestled in wide corrals. The bright moon silhouetted an impressive house fifty yards from a fine barn. Nicholas whispered that sleeping in this barn were a mother and father and their three young children. He and Felix had met the father two days earlier in the Constantinople market when he was begging everyone he passed to hire him for any sort of work so he could buy food for his family.

“His name is Tobias, and he seems to be a very fine fellow,” Nicholas said. “There are so many men like him—poor due to bad luck, not laziness. He is very talented at threshing wheat and shoeing horses. He learned these trades on a small farm perhaps a hundred miles from here, but when the owner of the farm died a year ago, Tobias and his family were ordered off the property without any sort of explanation. He hasn't been able to find steady work since, and some nights his children cry because they're so hungry.”

“Well, they won't be hungry tomorrow morning,” Felix added, brandishing a handful of dried fruit and handing it over to Nicholas. “You two go on inside the barn and leave your gifts.”

“Aren't you coming, too?” I asked.

Nicholas chuckled. “Felix, here, is a fine fellow with many admirable talents, but stealth isn't one of them. Our custom is for him to stand guard outside while I am inside.”

But Nicholas seemed quite glad to have me inside the barn with him. Without any prior plan, we instinctively shared the gift-giving tasks there. He left bread and cheese where the two parents slept on piles of hay. I placed dried fruit by the sides of the sleeping children. Because all five lay in a dark corner of the barn, we knew instinctively the owners of the farm had no idea their barn housed uninvited guests. Probably, the family had been subsisting on a few eggs stolen out from underneath the chickens who perched on the barn's many rafters. Well, for one morning, at least, they'd have a breakfast equal to the one undoubtedly being enjoyed by those living in the fine house a few dozen yards away.

I should have felt sad as Felix, Nicholas, and I walked back into the city. For ten years, I had loved the experience of anonymously leaving gifts, and it was over. If my two new friends now told me it had been wonderful meeting me and good luck in the future, I would be left alone with no real prospects. But I didn't think about this. Instead, I wondered what Nicholas and Felix—all right, mostly Nicholas—wanted to talk about next. It had to be something wonderful.

It certainly was. Back in their room, jars of fruit juice close to hand, Nicholas began by confirming who he was.

“By normal measure, I'm one hundred and thirty-two years old,” he said. “I'll certainly understand if you don't believe me.”

“Tell me more,” I urged, and for several hours he did. I heard about his childhood in Patara, how his parents had died when he was young and he ended up being raised by village priests. How, while still very young, he had felt inspired to use the money he had inherited to help those in need. How his first gift-giving attempts were clumsy and almost ended in disaster. All these things sounded familiar to me, because they were so similar to my own life, ambition, and experiences.

Then came memories of great wonders—how, in the year 343 at age sixty-three, he rode off from Myra in the middle of the night because too many people expected him to work wonders for them, and how, in the years following, he realized two things. First, that he could travel hundreds of miles in the time ordinary people might manage one or two. Second, that he had somehow stopped aging. He had no explanation for how these things had happened, he added. They simply did.

“And when I met and joined Nicholas a year later, I stopped aging, too!” Felix interrupted. “The magic that graces him is also extended to anyone who joins him, we believe.”