Santa Steps Out: A Fairy Tale for Grown-Ups (13 page)

Santa faltered, then laughed. "But Anya," he said, an index finger raised in gentle rebuke, "I always share a pipe with my co-workers after Thanksgiving dinner. You know that. It's a fine old tradition."

"Yes, dear," she countered, "and tonight we're going to break with tradition. Tonight you're going to see your guests to the door and then you and I are going to sit at this table and discuss our future together."

What Fritz saw in Mrs. Claus's eyes frightened him.

Max, sucking on a breadstick, seemed oblivious. He took it out of his mouth, screwed up his eyes, and said, "Pipe ud sure hit the spot."

Across from Max, Karlheinz stared down at his plate and said nothing. His hands were hidden in his lap like a little boy's.

Fritz folded his napkin and set it down. "Well," he said, "it's late and we really ought to be running along, thank you for a lovely evening, I haven't eaten this well in ages." He felt like he was fluttering too much, urging his companions out of their chairs, avoiding their hosts' eyes, moving his co-workers and himself awkwardly toward the vestibule.

"Fritz?"

"Yes, Santa?" Fritz had never seen him look less jovial.

"I enjoyed your company tonight, all three of you. It's a powerful pleasure working with you."

Fritz nodded. He ushered Karlheinz and Max to the door and together they started across the snow, stunned into silence at the strange turn the evening had taken. Halfway home, Fritz sent the others ahead and looked back at the cottage.

It sat there, thrusting up warm and fire-lit from the winterscape.

So cozy, so inviting.

But inside, something was happening that made Fritz want to shrivel up and die.

*****

Santa waited for the front door to click shut. He wiped his mouth twice lightly with his napkin, then gazed down the table where Anya sat, her face buried in her hands. "Wife," he said gently, "would you mind telling me what that was all about?"

(Oh, shit, we're in for it now.)
The intruder was back.
(The sexless crone is on to us.)

Anya looked up, her forehead resting on the palm of one elbowed arm, and gave a wisp of a smile. "I'm sorry, I just can't keep up the ruse one moment more. You see," she said, straightening up, "I know."

"You know?"

She nodded.

(What'd I tell you. Can I call 'em or what?)

Yes. Yes I'm afraid you can.

Santa stared at the crossed knife and fork on his plate, at the congealing pool of gravy out of which his fork tines arched. "How long have you known?" His initial flash of panic had yielded almost at once to shame. He also felt, oddly enough, a nearly irrepressible urge to break into a broad grin.

"Since October." She told him of her trek through the woods with the Easter Bunny. She told him about finding the hut and standing in the snow outside.

Santa listened with a growing sense of horror as she described what she had seen. "You watched us make . . . you watched us?"

Anya nodded, unable to look at him, her face fisted into a sob which she quickly stifled.

"Oh my Anya," he said, starting to rise and go to her. "My dear wife, how that must have hurt you."

(Go ahead. Try it. What've we got to lose?)

Oh, shut up. Isn't there any decency in you?

Her right hand shot out, palm pressed to the air. "Stay there," she commanded. "Don't you move from that chair." Then she brought her hand to her chest and asked softly, "How long have you been seeing her?"

Santa shrugged. "Not long. Maybe twenty years."

"I see," said Anya, fingering the ebony of her napkin ring. "In other words, when you swore twenty years ago that you would never sleep with the Tooth Fairy again, you were lying."

"I didn't mean to—"

"You broke a solemn oath."

"I tried to prevent—"

"Didn't you?"

"Now wait!" Santa slammed his hand on the table. Dishes rattled before him. "You've got to understand my position. I had been seduced, you were going all to pieces over something I had no control over—all right, very little control over—and I really meant to stop. But you don't know what it's like to be a man, to have all this . . . this copulatory energy building up inside all the time, and then to be set upon by the most ravishing seductress imaginable. My God, Anya, she's pure appetite. She wore my resolve down as if it were the thinnest veneer, and I swear to you it wasn't. My will was granite, thick and firm. But hers was diamond."

(That's telling her, that's laying it on the line. Give it to her straight. Real men need pussy. She's got no right to keep you away from an open one if she plans to keep hers tightly sealed.)

I told you to shut up, you vile piece of filth.

(Ooh, hurt me, Santa. Hurt me with the truth.)

"You lied to me, didn't you?"

Thoughts swirled in Santa's head, memories of those first encounters, of the Tooth Fairy's singlemindedness, of the overwhelming flood of carnality he willingly let wash through the calm landscape of his life. In the midst of the swirl, a golden ribbon of truth shone like sun through stormclouds. He grasped it now, felt it in his hand. "Yes, I did. I lied to you. In a moment of panic, seeing how much pain you were in, I vowed to be faithful even though I knew it was a lie. I'm sorry."

(Wrong move, fat boy. Don't budge an inch.)

Anya smiled at her hands, which lay before her on the table as if cupped over some prize. "I'm glad to hear you're repentant." Still looking at her hands, reasoning with them: "We could, of course, try to find out why you did what you did. We could poison our bliss by endlessly bickering about it. But I'm content, if you are, to let the whole sorry business recede into the past." Looking up at him now, attempting a conciliatory smile: "Maybe we can work together this time to fortify your vow, maybe we can confront the Tooth Fairy together, maybe—"

"Wait." Santa didn't like the way Anya was racing along the track of her own scenario. "I didn't say I was sorry for sleeping with the Tooth Fairy. In fact I'm not sorry for that. And I don't intend to give her up."

Anya's smile withered.

(Yes! That's my man!)

His vehemence startled him. "Not taking anything away from us, I quite enjoy the time I spend with the Tooth Fairy."

"But you just said she seduced you."

"At first," said Santa. "But I set aside my misgivings pretty quickly—all but one, deceiving you—and came to love the sheer carnality of what she offered. You know, in a way I'm glad we're bringing this out in the open. It feels so cleansing to talk about it." He was going to say more but caught sight of Anya's eyes.

"Cleansing? I'll cleanse your arse, you pitiful tub of guts." A hand went to her mouth. "Heavens, listen to me, I promised myself I wouldn't get mad, but oh you lying saint, you philandering shitwad, you . . . jellybellied slutfucker." Each phrase dealt Santa a roundhouse blow. "God forgive my language, how dare you speak of continuing to carry on with that whore?"

"Now, Anya."

(What's with this 'Now, Anya' crap? Slam into her. She's just a dumb fir nymph—)

A what?

(—she's got no right—the gall of her—to lord it over he who rules the—who rules her and the others—give one of them exclusivity and she turns possessive.)

"How dare you assume I'd put up for one second with such an arrangement? Oh sure. Old worn-out Anya's going to stand on the sidelines, wiping her hands on her apron and grinning good-naturedly, while her husband shucks off his suit and pokes away at some sleek young immortal with the sex drive of a rabbit and the morals of a rutabaga."

"Anya, you're not worn out," Santa protested.

"What chance do I have against someone with a body like hers?" Her eyes were glistening, her voice locked down tight.

(None, sweetheart. Less than zero, you white-haired old bag of used-up gut and gristle, you dusty tunnel, you inflexible sleeve.)

"It's not a contest."

"What does she give you that I don't?"

"Nothing!" he said. "It's just different, that's all. I've got enough energy for both of you. I need both of you."

(Jesus, man, will you listen to yourself? What a wimp. You don't need this sack o' shit, tubby. You need to dump her's what you need.)

Enough!

Her face pruned up at him. "Don't try to fool me, because I can't be fooled. You don't need me. I'm just a tired old woman who'd rather sleep most nights than give you the love you used to deserve. I notice you fondling yourself under the blankets while I read, don't think I don't. You want me to do that more for you, I will. You want me to mouth you more often than once a year—that's what men like best isn't it?—just say so, I'll do it."

(Ooh, maybe dumping her's not something we want to rush into.)

"Anya, please—"

"Only you've got to promise me you'll give up that homewrecking fairy slut of yours."

(Oops. Dump away, Santa babes.)

She folded her glasses and sobbed into her hands. It tore at Santa to see her go to pieces this way. But he couldn't let his love for Anya compromise his own integrity. Strange word to use, but it was right. The Tooth Fairy meant nothing to him, but she had taught him this much at least: that confining his sexual love to one woman was a betrayal of his deepest impulses, would make him less than he was meant to be. "Look," he said, "let me talk this out with her on Christmas Eve, find out how she feels."

"No, you've got to promise me you'll put a stop to it the next time you see her." Her tone grew insistent.

"I'm not going to promise that."

"Promise me right now." Her eyes pierced the air as she rose imperious from her chair.

"Don't give me orders, Anya," countered Santa with a patriarch's calm resolve.

"Promise!" she bellowed.

Anya's eyes burned into his face. Her hands groped the tablecloth. Abruptly the carving knife lifted into the air, slicing through the acrimony hanging between them. Along the table the sharp knife sailed, a flash of silver in the firelight. In the gold turnings of the chandelier above, its swift progress across bowls and dishes crusted with remnants of their feast was reflected fiftyfold.

Santa heard the
thunk
long after he felt the blade rape his chest, and it seemed to him—though surely he was wrong—that Anya turned pale and fled the room long before the steel point lodged in his heart. Through his tears he took in the bolster and web and the dark wooden handle with its three gold rivets. He gripped the handle with both hands and wrenched it out. Then he stared at his ruddy complexion in the blade, burnished red with blood.

His face seemed ancient, petulant, not jolly at all.

(Getting closer, fat boy. Looking more like me all the time. Need a few more hints?)

Had he cared to, he might have noticed the closing of the wound, the swift healing of his heart, the reweaving of immortal tissue carried on effortlessly in his body.

But Santa had other things on his mind.

He shut his eyes and wept.

*****

Couples on the outs with one another tend to confine their bickering to hostility's natural habitat, the home. To the outer world, they display the cosmeticized face of marital harmony and bliss.

Such was the case with Anya and her husband.

In her public functions—of which there were admittedly few—Anya had nothing but admiring looks for Santa and affectionate little pecks on the cheek, which drew the cheers and whistles of his helpers. But behind closed doors, all was ice and fire, tempest and inferno, badly cooked meals shared in stony silence, and nights of troubled sleep in separate beds.

For the first two weeks, Anya tried—as did Santa—to come to some resolution of their problem through a round of early evening discussions. But as much as he professed to care for her, to love her deeply and devotedly, Santa refused to commit to giving up his affair with the Tooth Fairy. He sat at the far end of the couch looking stunned or smug by turns. While the fire hissed and popped on the inner hearth, she wept and raged and cajoled and pleaded, but Santa budged not one inch from his fortress of lust.

As often as not, Anya punctuated their evenings by bludgeoning her husband or by taking razors or knives or knitting needles to him. Her violence surprised her at first, but she quickly became inured to it. Santa's acquiescence in her mayhem—thinking, she could tell, that perhaps she would work off her anger that way and come to accept his affair—enraged her beyond endurance, so that at last she threw down her weapons, stomped off to her room, and slammed the door against him.

Then came the two-week, pre-Christmas rush. Santa spent long hours at the workshop and Anya had time alone to think. And the things she thought made her blush with the wickedness of them. More and more, she grew toward a certainty that she was capable of it, particularly given her newfound surge of youth. It was so unlike her, so naughty, it took her breath away. Yet there was a connection between what she now contemplated and her past, the past she couldn't quite recall; a connection that made it natural and (dared she say it) right. Worse, she knew in her heart that the elves—as devoted to Santa as they were—would take to her proposition as if it were second nature.

By the time of her husband's departure, Anya was in a welter of confusion about what to do.

*****

After that peculiar Thanksgiving dinner, the elves kept a wary eye on Santa and his wife. At night, Fritz listened to his bearded co-workers trade gossip, craning over the ends of their beds to feed this or that twig of conjecture into the raging fire of rumor which swept through their quarters.

The work suffered. It wasn't so much a matter of not being industrious as it was a general enervation of the troops, the slightest surrender of spirit to the conqueror uncertainty. But at last, to Fritz's relief, the work came to a satisfying end and they found themselves once more in the commons, cheering as Gregor and his brothers led the caparisoned team from the stables and harnessed them to Santa's sleigh.