A Brief History of the Celebration
A Story By Ned B. Johnson
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A Brief History of the Celebration
The wet tarmac glistened under the airport lights as they threaded their way through the parked aircraft. Johanna's curiosity was growing moment by moment. What on earth was Peter up to? Where was he leading her? All he had said when he asked her to meet him at the airport was that there was a little surprise waiting for her. Not much to go on, but that's Peter, she thought. Finally, her curiosity was insupportable. "Where are we going, Peter?"
Pointing to a modest twin engine plane shining in the night 50 yards ahead he said, "You see that little number?"
"Yes. So what?"
"That's where we're going now. You'll just have to wait for the rest. Trust me. It'll be worth the wait."
This was the greatest day of her life and she was giddy with the thrill of it all. To be offered a one woman show at the Fontaine gallery in New York City was quite an achievement for any artist. To receive such an offer less than three years after her first touch of brush to canvas was incomprehensible. The mere thought of it propelled her into low earth orbit. The joy of sharing this momentous evening with Peter catapulted her into outer-space.
From the moment she had learned of her triumph, she had felt nothing but pure, metaphysical, levitation. Even now, hours later, she hovered as she went through the motions of walking, except that now it was beginning to seem normal.
"Do you remember that scene from the first act of Cyrano De Bergerac, where Cyrano was in the theater?", Peter asked.
"Yes", said Johanna. What was unspoken but understood between them was her invitation to tell her about it anyway, just because she wanted to hear it again from him.
"Well, as you will recall, Cyrano had forbidden the lead actor to perform, because of his incompetence. But the manager complained that he would have to refund everyone’s money. Cyrano, who was not a rich man, carried his net worth in a purse on his belt. He took the purse from his belt and tossed it to the manager with reckless abandon, leaving himself penniless. A friend audibly muttered, 'My God, what a fool'. To which Cyrano responded, 'Yes! But my God! What a gesture!'".
Johanna smiled with quiet delight at his dramatization.
Peter continued, "Did I ever tell you the story about the boilermaker?" She replied, "No. Or if you did, I don't remember."
"Well, there was a boilermaker who was called upon to repair the furnace in a large building. He walked around the furnace for nearly a quarter of an hour and at last, taking a hammer from his tool belt, struck the boiler a single blow. It resumed operation immediately. The building super was astounded and very grateful. He told the boilermaker to send him the bill, which, of course, he did. The bill was for $1,000. The super then sent a note to the boilermaker asking for an itemized bill. A few days later, the itemized bill arrived. It read:
For striking the boiler: $ 1.00
For knowing where to strike it: $ 999.00
Total: $ 1,000.00
This time she laughed aloud, for she recognized the poetry and eloquence of his meaning.
Peter continued, "Hold on to those two stories for a few minutes. Their stock is about to rise."
They were now at the steps leading into the aircraft. Ascending, they found themselves surrounded by the kind of luxury that is known only to the elite of the world of capital. Plush carpeting combined with delicate appointments to frame a portrait of opulence. The cabin lights were so dim that she could see clearly only the area into which they had emerged. Barely visible, near the rear of the compartment, was a cozy lounge.
They buckled themselves into two swivel rockers as the door closed behind them as if by magic. Moments later they were airborne. A world of lights spread out below them as they sat in the near darkness of the their sky capsule. Not a word had passed between them since their embarkation. It was Peter who broke the silence.
"I have another surprise for you." And as he spoke, the shadow of a human form lit a candle at the rear of the cabin. The candlelight revealed the table upon which it rested. On the table were three other objects: a magnum of Champagne and two exquisite silver goblets.
"Shall we adjourn to the salon to begin our celebration?", Peter said as he stood, offering her his arm. Together they walked to the table and sat down on the rich leather chairs provided. Johanna stared hypnotically at the light from the candle. "What a wondrous candle".
The stone walls of the Brightwood Monastery were as smooth as the cheeks of the baby Jesus. The sun warmed them as if from inside, which of course was not the case. Brother Michael had just come from the coolness of the cellar and the touch of the warm stones was a dramatic but somehow exhilarating contrast. It was good to be in the warmth of the sun, thought Brother Michael, and it was just as good that the cellar was so cool, even in summer, so that the candles would keep well. After all, without the income from the candles, they could not support the monastery, and without the monastery, life as they knew it would cease to exist.
He loved his life here at Brightwood. He loved the peace, the brotherhood, the spirituality, but secretly, more than anything else, he loved making the candles. They were the one material value he held above all the others. As long as he could keep making candles, nothing else really mattered.
He had never given any thought to candles before he came to Brightwood, he recalled as he moved gracefully through the monastery courtyard. It had been a revelation to him, that first time he smelled the tallow simmering in the metal vats. He had felt certain that he recognized that smell from somewhere. It must have been déjà vu he had decided.
His skill was now second to none and his candles always brought the very highest prices at market. It had taken him every moment of his 40 years at Brightwood to master his craft, but master it he had. From the first day his only wish had been to create the finest, most beautiful candles possible, and to continue to do so until he joined his creator in that other heaven, the one where he would go after his work was finished in this one.
Peter began again, "You know, of course, that we are here to celebrate your first solo show. What you don't know is that I too have reason to celebrate."
"Really? You've been holding out on me, haven't you!", she responded excitedly.
"Just a bit", Peter smiled knowingly, "Just a bit". His smile broadened.
"So what is it you have to celebrate that you haven't told me about?"
"The story of the boilermaker has been a favorite of mine for a long time. It has been an ideal for me. Not being a boilermaker, I had to adapt the meaning of the story to my own life. What I decided was that the boilermaker was really selling knowledge. And what is that if not an idea, a thought, if you prefer. I have always believed that if a single thought could be worth, genuinely worth, $1,000, why not a million? So that became my goal. To sell single thought for one million dollars."
She was laughing quietly but convulsively by now. How like him, she thought. How deliciously Peter.
"Well, today I did it.", he recited rather matter-of-factly. "Today I received a cashier's check for one million dollars in payment for a single thought."
Johanna was aghast. At first she thought that he was kidding. One quick look at his face destroyed that illusion. He was plainl
y in earnest. Regaining her composure she asked, "What was the thought?"
"I'm sorry, Love, but I am not at liberty to say. It is one of the terms of my agreement with the buyer. I can assure you, however, you will find out soon enough. It will become public knowledge in less than a week. What I can tell you is that it was one hell of a thought!" Whereupon he began to laugh like Satan himself (or was it Pan, or Shiva, or the Buddha sitting under his tree)? Johanna followed suit.
In the residue of their mirth, Peter reached for the bottle of Champagne and began to work on the cork.
The angry waves of the channel battered Henri Rousseau's little fishing boat unmercifully. It was not the right season for a crossing to England, thought Marcel, not right at all. But what choice did one have these days? What with Hitler's thugs on the march and the entire country gone berserk, any sane man would do just what he had done: leave France. Yet he was still a Frenchman. Did he not get misty eyed when he heard the strains of the Marseillaise? Was it not he who had burned his own vineyards and broken every bottle of wine, even the 1917, the finest to be bottled since his great-great-grandfather had founded the Chateaux Du Pont label over a century ago? Yes it was he who had vowed that no bosh lips would ever find pleasure in the produce of Chateaux Du Pont soil. Of course, he could not have destroyed all traces of the loving effort of generations of his ancestors. He had only destroyed that which he could not carry.
He had scoured the wharfs of Le Havre until he was satisfied that captain Rousseau's boat was the largest he could afford to bribe. Then, returning to Champagne for the last time, he had loaded a wagon with all that the boat would carry: three cases of the 1917 and enough seed to replant the vineyard in America. He left behind not only the ashes of his ancestral home and the vineyards, but 200 years of family history. It was a bitter farewell indeed. He was able to do it only because he knew that his progenitors would have done the same thing. They too would have realized that the only priority was the survival of the grape. It all seemed worthwhile, now. The plan had worked and in a few short hours, God willing, he would be in England on his way to America and freedom. He vowed that night to make America as proud of Chateaux Du Pont as he was. In the years to come, he did exactly that.
When Peter had dislodged the cork and the effervescence had subsided, Johanna said, "Allow me." Taking the bottle from him, she began to pour the fragile liquid into his goblet.
As the first pink glow of dawn trickled into his shop, Claudius was sitting at his work bench, staring at his newest, and greatest, achievement. The hint of a smile was nearly visible on his lips, but no one would have noticed his mouth. Not at that moment—even if there had been someone there to notice—which there was not. It was his eyes they would have been staring at, his eyes that would have entranced them, captured them, held them for outrageous ransom, his eyes and the emotion that expressed itself through them. It flowed out gracefully, gently, yet forcefully, like the beads of water oozing through the first crack in a collapsing dike, like the crystal reflections from the single tear drop at the corner of each eye. Anyone, perhaps even those of us who were not there, could have seen that these were the eyes of a man in devout prayer, a man who had just died well, a man who knew that he would live forever. These were the eyes of innocent worship, not those of a man in awe of a deity, but of a man in awe of himself and his own divinity. They were the eyes of inspired humility. No one understood this better than Claudius. And no one could harness it as he did, to fuel the fires of his own amazement at the beauty he had created, at the process by which it was achieved, at the price he had paid, at his boundless wonder that it had happen at all. Yet there they were, two silver goblets, six years in the making, so identical that even he could not tell them apart, so perfect in every detail that even he could find no flaw, so finished that there was simply no more to be done. These he would present to the guild as his masterpiece, his price of admission to the loftiest ranks among his peers. When the sun settled below the rooftops, Claudius was sitting at his workbench, staring.
The goblets were filled, the scene was set and there remained nothing but the toast. Johanna lifted her goblet and began, "A toast ...". Peter interrupted, "Not quite yet. There is still one missing square in this crazy quilt. What I have not told you yet is that I spent the entire million on this celebration. Half for the plane, and the rest on this toast."
Her eyes glistened like Roman silver. His exuded the serenity of monastic contemplation. The ecstasy of consummation was lifting them higher than the plane. Together.
She began again, "To the boilermaker."
"To Cyrano", he added.
"To us", they whispered in unison.
A moment later, in a single heartbeat, their lips touched the silver, the champagne and the robust living light of the candle. And thus began the celebration.
---fin---
Author’s Note:
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