The Christmas Mystery

  He started running over the hills. As he ran, he muttered to himself, “No, I’m sorry, we’re full. But you can stay in the stable…”

  A certain nervousness transmitted itself to the other pilgrims. It was as if they were all rehearsing something they had to know by heart.

  Impuriel leaped into the air, beat his wings, and said, “‘Do not be afraid, for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.’”

  Ephiriel nodded, and Impuriel exclaimed, “Glorious!”

  Then the angel Evangeliel blew his trumpet, and all five angels sang in chorus: “‘Glory to God in the highest, And on earth peace, goodwill toward men.’”

  The sheep had suddenly started bleating. It was as if they, too, were practicing something they had to know by heart.

  Joshua turned to the other shepherds. “‘Let us now go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has come to pass, which the Lord has made known to us.’”

  Then the Wise Men spoke. “‘Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we have seen His star in the East and have come to worship Him.’”

  They knelt down and held out the caskets with gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

  The angel Ephiriel nodded with pleasure. “I think that’ll do.”

  Joshua rested his shepherd’s crook carefully on the fleece of one of the sheep and said softly, “To Bethlehem! To Bethlehem!”

  * * *

  PAPA had read that a certain nervousness had spread among the pilgrims as they came closer to the stable in Bethlehem. The same thing happened in Joachim’s room.

  “There must be only one Advent calendar like this in the whole world,” said Papa, “and we’re the only people to have been given it.”

  Mama nodded. “And the real Christmas night happened only once, but that night spread Christmas across the whole world.”

  “That’s because the glory of heaven spreads so easily,” said Joachim. “I think it must be infectious.”

  There was still a lot to do before Christmas. The family tradition was that Mama and Papa decorated the tree on the evening of the twenty-third, after Joachim had gone to bed. But this year they decided they would all three do it before John came. Then everything would be ready for Christmas.

  Afternoon came. Mama set the table and she put out all the good things they had to eat, including the big marzipan cake.

  The clock was striking seven when the doorbell rang.

  “You open it, Joachim,” said Mama. “You were given the magic Advent calendar, and he sent his letter to you.”

  Joachim ran to the door. The old flower seller was standing on the steps. He was smiling. In his hands, he held a bouquet of roses.

  “Please come in,” said Joachim.

  Then Mama and Papa came and John gave Mama the roses.

  “Thank you very much,” she said, “and thank you for the wonderful Advent calendar.”

  John put his hand on Joachim’s head and replied modestly, “I think perhaps I ought to thank you.”

  When they were seated, John took a sip of coffee and began to tell them about himself. “I was born in Damascus and grew up there. Some people think our family goes back to the first Christian congregation in Syria. One day when I was a boy, I found an old jar with some scrolls that were almost in shreds. My parents had the good sense to take the jar with the manuscripts to the museum. There they discovered that the jar was very old. So were the scrolls.”

  “What was written on the scrolls?” Papa asked.

  “They were various reports from Roman legionaries. Among other things, they told of something that happened in Damascus at the end of the second century after Christ. In the year 175, a curious procession is supposed to have come rushing out through the eastern city gate. A few years later, a similar procession came rushing into the city through the western gate. There were some angels in both processions.”

  Mama and Joachim nodded, for they remembered what they had read in the magic Advent calendar.

  “There are many legends and myths like that from times gone by,” continued John, “but I was surprised that the procession should have run out of the city before it ran into the city. It would have had to be running back in time, and that’s impossible, of course.

  “But my interest in myths and legend had been awakened,” John continued. “I began to read old books, and was particularly interested in stories about people who thought they had seen angels. Finally, I had a good collection of such stories, from my own part of the world and from many countries in Europe. After some years, I went to Rome to make use of the treasures in the libraries there.”

  “And that’s where you met Elisabet?” Joachim asked.

  John nodded.

  “But wait a bit. I had paid attention only to a few of the angel stories, because I thought they had something in common. They were from widely differing places, such as Hanover and Copenhagen, Basle and Venice, the Val d’Aosta in northern Italy and the Axios Valley in Macedonia. And they were from very different periods, too. The earliest story was from Capernaum in Galilee, and the latest was from Norway—that happened on a country road outside Halden as recently as 1916.”

  “The vintage car!” said Joachim.

  “Of course, there are very few people who believe such stories these days. All the stories I had collected indicated that the sight of the little girl and the angel had lasted only a second or two. But when I compared the stories from Halden, Hanover, and Hamelin with the stories from Aosta, Axios, and Capernaum—well, those stories became quite remarkable.”

  The old man sat lost in thought for a while.

  “Something that is mysterious for one second is often quenched like an empty oil lamp in the next,” he said. “Yet, if only we turn our heads in another direction, a new light may be lighted there. For we cannot take in what is sacred in the same way as we pick up stone from the ground and put it in our pocket. Angels waft down unseen; they don’t fall onto the middle of the market square.”

  “What happened to the young woman in the photo?” asked Papa.

  John sighed. Joachim thought he saw a tear in the corner of his eye; in any case, he raised his hand there.

  “Once,” he said, “many, many years ago, I met a young woman in Rome. It was a meeting which lasted only a few weeks, but I became very fond of her.”

  “Tell us about it,” said Papa.

  “She called herself Tebasile and was very secretive. She said she had probably been born in Norway but she had grown up among shepherds and sheep farmers in Palestine. She spoke fluent Arabic. And the name Tebasile sounded Palestinian … although it could just as easily have been Italian.”

  “But it’s Elisabet backward!” exclaimed Joachim.

  John nodded. “Yes, you are very sharp. People don’t usually spell their names backward.”

  “Go on!” begged Papa.

  “It might have been true that she was Norwegian as well. Her skin was fair, almost peach-colored, and her eyes were blue and sparkling. When I asked what took her to Palestine, she just stared into my eyes. She said, ‘I was kidnapped…’ I had to ask who kidnapped her, and she replied, ‘An angel who needed me in Bethlehem … but it’s so long ago … I was only a little girl…’”

  “What did you say, then?” Mama asked.

  “Other people would probably have smiled at such a pack of lies. But I thought of all my angel stories. I said that I believed what she told me … But the fact that I took her seriously must have scared her.”

  “What happened?” asked Mama.

  “We saw each other only once after that. It was on the Way of Reconciliation in front of St. Peter’s Square. She said she would be leaving Rome the same afternoon. But she let me take a picture of her. That was in April 1961.”

  “How did you come to Norway?”
asked Papa. “And why?”

  John took the top ring of the marzipan cake and said, “I came here because I hoped to find the mysterious woman, and I’ve stayed. But I’ve never found her. I’ve never even learned where she might be. But we’ll see…”

  He took a bite of the marzipan ring. “It wasn’t long before I heard about that disappearance in 1948. That was when I began asking myself whether the little girl could have been Tebasile—who had said she was kidnapped by an angel when she was a child. I didn’t know exactly how old she was, but it would fit if she had been born around 1940.”

  John was silent a long while. Then he said, “I noticed the strange similarity in the names only recently. It’s a fact that we often repeat in our minds the names of people we think about. One day we suddenly read it backward. During my early years in Norway, I thought about Tebasile almost continually. Then it struck me—like a bolt from the blue. When I read her name backward, it turned into Elisabet! I became even more convinced that I really had found the missing Elisabet many, many years later in Rome. That was when I began to make the magic Advent calendar. It took me many months.

  “In any case, it was an incredible coincidence,” commented Papa.

  “I had to ask myself whether she really could be one and the same person,” John said. “After all, it was curious that one name turned into the other name backward. This must have been just after I met Anna, Elisabet’s younger sister. It had struck me that Anna was an amusing name that was exactly the same whichever way you read it, from front to back or back to front. Maybe that was why I suddenly spelled Elisabet backward. Besides, I thought Elisabet’s little sister was very like Tebasile.”

  “Why did you make the Advent calendar?” asked Mama. “Why didn’t you write it all down in a book?”

  John laughed. “Do you think anyone would have believed this story? Who would have published it?”

  Mama shook her head, and the old man said, “I made the magic Advent calendar so that at least one person could carry the story of Elisabet and the long pilgrimage further. I hoped that the old mystery might one day be solved. After all, I don’t know how much time I have left. But now I’m not the only person who knows the strange story.”

  “Then you put a picture of Elisabet in the store window,” said Mama.

  John nodded. “To see if anyone here in town would recognize her.”

  “Why did you travel to the wilderness?” Joachim wanted to know.

  And the old flower seller explained. “Every Advent, I go out to the country and walk in the woods and hills outside town. To find peace before the Christmas feast, but also to see if I can find any trace of the little lamb, Elisabet, and the angel Ephiriel who set off for Bethlehem in 1948. I admit it. Sometimes I walk about saying the two names in my head: Elisabet … Tebasile … Elisabet.”

  “Haven’t you ever wanted to go back to Damascus?” asked Papa.

  John shook his head. “No, this is my home now. I sell flowers at the market, and that way I can help spread a little of the glory of heaven. It’s very easy for that kind of thing to spread, you know. And one day Elisabet may come back. Because there’s something else…”

  It was so quiet in the room that they could almost hear dust motes falling to the wooden floor.

  John said to Joachim, “All these years, I’ve tried and tried to find her. But I knew only her first name, or so I believed. To find an Elisabet or a Tebasile only by her Christian name—whether in Rome or in Palestine—well, that’s more difficult than to catch a sparrow in your hand. I’ve been laughed at in embassies and in census offices in quite a few countries. But Joachim…”

  Again it was completely silent in the room.

  “Joachim may have helped me to find her again. So I’m the one to thank you.”

  Joachim looked up at Mama and Papa. He couldn’t figure out what John was talking about.

  “I think you’ll have to explain,” said Mama.

  “It was Joachim who set me to thinking that maybe she had both names, one her first name and the other her last name. It’s strange how lacking in imagination we can be when we’re thinking the same thoughts year after year.”

  Joachim’s face lit up. “Elisabet Tebasile!” he said. “Is that what she’s called?”

  They could see tears in the old man’s eyes. “There’s a telephone number in Rome for someone of that name. But it’s not Christmas yet. Tomorrow you will open the last door in the magic Advent calendar.”

  John got to his feet and said he had to hurry, there was something he had to do. “But maybe I can look at the old Advent calendar one last time?”

  Joachim rushed into his bedroom and took the magic Advent calendar down from its hook. When he was back in the living room, he handed the calendar to John, who looked carefully at the picture.

  “You have to close all the open doors,” explained Joachim.

  And that’s what John did. He said, “Yes, here they all are. Quirinius and the Emperor Augustus, the angels in the sky and the shepherds in the fields, the Kings of the Orient and Mary, Joseph, and the Christ Child.”

  “But not Elisabet,” said Joachim.

  “No, not Elisabet.”

  They went with John to the door. As he was leaving, he said, “So we’ll have to see what this Christmas will bring.”

  “Indeed, we shall,” said Papa. He was obviously relieved to have heard the old man’s story.

  But John said something more. “You won’t open the last door in the Advent calendar until the bells ring Christmas in tomorrow afternoon, will you?”

  Mama looked at him. “No-o-o, I suppose not.”

  “No, we’ll have to try to wait,” decided Papa.

  When John was on the steps outside, he said, “Maybe I’ll knock on your door tomorrow as well.”

  Joachim was delighted. He felt something bubbling and fizzing deep down inside him. That was because John had said that maybe he’d look in tomorrow. For Joachim was not as pleased about everything as Mama and Papa were.

  Something was missing, it seemed to him.

  24

  DECEMBER 24

  … a spark from the great beacon behind those weak lanterns in the sky …

  CHRISTMAS Eve started out as usual. There was always some last-minute thing that had to be taken care of, some last-minute presents that had to be wrapped. Now and then, Mama or Papa would come into Joachim’s room and glance expectantly at the magic Advent calendar. They had promised not to open the last door until the bells rang Christmas in.

  Later in the day, they were preparing Christmas dinner. Before long, the whole house smelled of Christmas. At last, it was five o’clock. Papa opened a window, and they could hear the church bells ringing.

  Nobody said anything, but they went into the bedroom and Joachim climbed on the bed and opened the last, big door in the calendar. It was the one that covered the manger with the Christ Child. The picture under it showed a cave in a mountain.

  For the last time, they sat on the edge of the bed. Joachim read aloud to Mama and Papa.

  THE CHRIST CHILD

  It’s the middle of the world where Europe, Asia, and Africa meet. It’s the middle of history at the beginning of our era. Soon it will be the middle of the night as well.

  A silent crowd is moving among the houses in Bethlehem. There are a little flock of seven sheep, four shepherds, five angels of the Lord, three Kings of the Orient, one Roman Emperor, the Governor of Syria, and Elisabet from the long, narrow country below the North Pole.

  The weak glow of oil lamps streams from the windows in a few of the simple houses, but most people in the old town have gone to bed for the night.

  One of the Wise Men points up at the sky, where the stars are burning in the darkness. They are like sparks from a beacon far away. One star is shining more brightly than all the other stars. It looks as if it’s hanging a little lower in the sky as well.

  O little town of Bethlehem,

  How still we see thee lie, r />
  Above thy deep and dreamless sleep

  The silent stars go by,

  But in thy dark streets shineth

  The everlasting light.

  The hopes and fears of all the years

  Are met in thee tonight,

  sings Elisabet softly.

  The angel Impuriel turns toward the others, puts a finger to his lips, and whispers, “Hush … Hush…”

  The procession of pilgrims gathers in front of one of the town’s inns. In a moment or two, the innkeeper appears at the window. When he sees the group, he nods firmly and points to a cave in the face of the rock.

  The angel Ephiriel whispers something; it sounds like the words of a nursery rhyme.

  “‘And while they were there, the time came for her child to be born, and she gave birth to her son, her firstborn. She wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.’”

  They steal across the yard and stop in front of the cave. The smell from it tells them that it is a stable.

  Suddenly the silence is broken by the cry of a child.

  It is happening now. It is happening in a stable in Bethlehem.

  Over the stable, a star is twinkling. Inside the stable, the newborn child is wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger.

  This is a meeting of heaven and earth. For the child in the manger is also a spark from the great beacon behind those weak lanterns in the sky.

  This is the wonder. It is a wonder every time a new child comes into the world. This is how it is when the world is created anew under heaven.

  A woman is breathing hard and weeping. Not out of sadness. Mary is weeping quietly, deeply, happily. But the child’s cries drown her out. The Christ Child is born. He has been born in a stable in Bethlehem. He has come to our poor world.

  The angel Ephiriel turns solemnly toward the other pilgrims and says, “‘Unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour.’”

  The Emperor Augustus nods. “And now it’s our turn. Everyone is to take up his or her place, everyone must remember his or her lines.”