Tidings, page 23
‘Okay, this will be Mary.’
She moves over a foot or two and scrapes a place on the ice with her foot.
‘The crib will be here. Do you still have that old sawhorse you used to use?’
I nod my head. It’s down in the cellar.
‘Okay, we’ll stand that upside down, packing snow around the bottom of it, to make the crib. We’ll let Mike make the baby. That’s his specialty.’
What’s she mean by that? Is this some kind of hidden message? Is that what she was talking about with Loretta up there? Is Mike pregnant, is it Geneviève? I’m spinning again. I try to shake this new one off my head. She probably only means he painted the baby in the little crèche all those years ago.
When Mike and Geneviève come back, he’s as excited with the idea as Nickie. It’s really great to see Geneviève. She’s all the best of the French rolled into one person, small, vibrant, quick eyes, quick hands, and intelligent. She and Mike made their first real contact here at the mill on his twenty-first birthday. We had a party. What a great twenty-first birthday present. Lor and I talk sometimes about what wonderful grandchildren they could give us.
We do the four-way kiss all around, her cheeks are smooth and cool. She holds on when she kisses, most French don’t. Mike goes inside with Geneviève to show her her stocking; I’m sure to see if she has a ring. I want to follow them but when I look at Lor, she shakes her head slightly, no.
We roll more snowballs, Nickie is sculpting away using a garden trowel. In about five minutes Mike and Geneviève come out. Geneviève is entranced, looking down at the ring on her finger. She’s speaking earnestly to Mike.
‘But, Michel, there is no Santa Claus, no Père Noël. That is a story for children. Who could do all this, buy such wonderful gifts? I don’t understand.’
Mike smiles and puts his arm around her. He yells to us out on the pond.
‘Poor Geneviève here doesn’t believe in Santa Claus, what do you think of that?’
Geneviève steps down onto the pond. She’s so lovely. She comes toward me. I’m just finished rolling a snowball.
‘You shouldn’t have done this, it is too much, but thank you. I love the ring very much.’
She spreads her fingers, looks down at it. It fits.
‘Don’t thank me, Geneviève, or Santa might get mad and then everything will disappear, vanish into thin air.’
Mike helps me roll my snowball up onto the other one.
‘That’s right, Geneviève, it happens all the time.’
Nicole sends Mike down to find the sawhorse. He and Geneviève pack snow around the bottom and damned if it doesn’t look like a typical manger in a crèche. Nickie has a special eye for seeing things. It must come from somewhere but it isn’t from either Lor or me; we’re both observers but neither of us is particularly aware, especially I’m not. Geneviève keeps talking to Mike in French about the gifts, about Père Noël. She just can’t figure it. Her logical French mind can’t let it alone.
Maggie and I have a great time rolling the huge balls of snow and lifting them into place. We’re both sweating like pigs and our gloves are soaking wet but we’re caught up in the whole artistic inspiration. Lor’s coaxed Ben out and even he’s involved. His specialty is faces, or at least Nicole lets him do that part because it’s the most interesting. She’s shaping beautiful figures with flowing robes. There’s Mary first, then Joseph, surrounding the baby. They’re actually somewhat larger than life-size but a bit more stubby. It’s hard to make snow hold together when the forms are too thin. Behind, Nicole’s finished two shepherds with a cow on the ground beside them. This cow is definitely life-size and takes six snowballs in itself. There’s also a donkey and two sheep. Each of them is stretched out lying on the ice with head up, facing the manger. There’s no way to make thin legs and have them stand. Actually, it makes the whole ensemble more effective with only the mother, father and two shepherds kneeling around the baby, then with all the animals down on the snow around them.
Mike’s done a wonderful job with the Christ child. He does this face himself and it’s absolutely angelic. Maybe that’s a putdown for Christ. Should it be messianic, like Rasputin? It’s the only figure with a halo. He’s made the halo from a piece of rubber tubing looped over the head and stuck into the snow ‘straw’ under the baby’s head then packed with snow.
Now Mike and Nicole insist on doing the Three Kings. Maggie, Lor and I are pooped. Lor goes in to start preparing Christmas dinner. It’s already almost three o’clock. Still, no one is moving over there at the Calvets. They must really be zonked.
Under persistent prodding, and madmanlike sculpting by Nicole, Mike, Geneviève and Ben, we do it. This has become an obsession. But it is fun; I can’t think of any time in my life I’ve been so involved with such a monumental project; it’s taken on a life of its own.
This is a Christmas I’ll definitely remember all my life; even with all the complications, the mysteries, the worries, it’s the best I can remember, even better than any in my childhood. I never would’ve believed it possible. And I know, it’s almost to the extent it’s been complicated, incomprehensible, mysterious, that it’s good.
We’ve just finished the last wise man, this final one built on the dam itself, as if he’s only now arriving, when Madame Calvet opens her door to shake out a tablecloth. She’s still in her blue housecoat, the same housecoat, or one like it, she’s worn all the twelve years we’ve been coming to the mill.
She stops as if frozen; takes two steps down the steps, staring; then turns and runs back into the house.
‘Katie, Claude, venez voir! Venez voir ce qu’ils ont fait!’
Nicole and Mike have attached the garden hose to the outside spigot at our place and are gently spraying the snow sculptures with water. The temperature’s still way under zero and as the water falls, the ice freezes, giving a smooth glasslike coating to the work. It really is beautiful. Maybe because it’s ours, something we did together, but it rivals for me some things I’ve seen in Rome or Florence. There’s a naïve simplicity, a massiveness of form, a unity of material which gives it sculptural magnificence. The light’s already beginning to wane on this short winter day and a pinkish glow from the west turns the figures to an almost lifelike pink.
Mike is pulling Geneviève with his motorcycle over the practically snow-free pond on ice skates. She’s never ice-skated before and is continually falling down. She’s being pulled along on a cord Mike now has attached to the carrier of the bike. Their screams and shouts, laughter, are in strong contrast to the solemnity, the dignified silence of the figures. What wonderful sounds, real Christmas music to my ears.
But I’m frozen, so are Maggie and Ben. Nicole seems beyond all fatigue, all cold, everything. She’s putting on the other skates to join Mike and Geneviève. I walk down the steps carefully on my skates. I go inside, sit in a rocker by the fire and take them off; my feet luxuriate in the freedom and warmth. I go over and help Maggie off with hers. We hang our coats and gloves from the cup hooks on the mantle to warm and dry. The magical stockings along with the real Santa presents are spread on our beds now. Ben hangs his gloves and coat on the hooks, too. He slides into the rocker where I was sitting. Loretta is working in the kitchen area.
‘Will, dear, would you mash the dressing and stuff our turkey? I know there’s a certain way you like it and I never seem to get it right myself.’
I wash my hands at the sink. There is a distinct way I love turkey dressing. I like it to be so mashed it all becomes unified, the bread pieces, the celery, the seasoning, the chestnuts, the apple, all one thoroughly mixed mess. There’s only one sure way to get that effect and this is by putting in both hands and squeezing, squeezing till no particles are left hard and unintegrated. It’s a gooey business but I enjoy it, probably left over from my anal childhood repression. Smashing that dressing is most likely first cousin to my need for order.
I get it properly squished and stuffed in the turkey. I sew it up with string and make a ball of some extra to put in an aluminum foil wrapping beside the turkey. There’s never enough dressing for me, especially when it’s soft and moist like this; it compensates for the dryness of turkey itself.
Soon the turkey is in the oven; potatoes are oiled, ready to go in forty-five minutes before the turkey comes out. Loretta suggests a long before-Christmas-dinner walk. She’s been simmering the real cranberries I luckily found at the Marché Aligre in Paris; with them, we’re making genuine cranberry sauce.
All we need do now is wait. I check the butane bottle but it’s still heavy with liquid gas. We won’t run out mid-turkey; that’s happened before.
‘Okay, who’s going with us for an appetite-sharpening walk?’
Lor’s pulling her coat off the hook. She has on her hat and gloves. I’m more than a little fatigued but this is another tradition, the before-Christmas-dinner walk. But we’ve never before created a whole stable full of people and animals, just before cooking. Maggie stretches her legs.
‘I can’t make it. I’ll fall asleep over the food. Suppose I stay home and baste the turkey every half hour?’
Nicole is flopped out on our bed; her face is pale but she’s flushed around the eyes.
‘Count me out, too. I’m taking a nap. Or, that is, I think a nap’s going to take me.’
Ben’s leaning over the fire, pushing sticks around.
‘I’ll stay here and tend the fire. I want to read the book Maggie and Nicole gave me.’
They gave Ben a huge book on the history of aviation. It must’ve cost fifty dollars and has hundreds of color illustrations, every major airplane since the invention of flight.
They had a crazy story to go with the book. Nicole stored the book up on the overhead rack of the train from de Gaulle Airport to Paris; it slid out and almost emasculated a young French man in the seat beside her. Nicole said you never saw a more surprised, scared guy in your life. He jumped out of his place and hobbled to the toilet in back of the train, probably checking to see if he was still intact. Then he changed his seat.
Mike is taking off his skates, sitting on the millstone under the tree, Christmas balls banging against the back of his head. Geneviève is standing beside him.
‘Geneviève and I are driving over to her place to see how things are going. We’ll be back for the big dinner. What time do you think we’ll eat?’
Loretta looks at the little Swiss cuckoo clock without a cuckoo over the thermometer.
‘It should all be ready at seven thirty.’
Nicole lifts her head off the pillow and says in a sleepy voice – she’s almost gone.
‘If you don’t make it, I eat your share.’
With that she drops her head back. Mike stands up, his shoes on. He takes the bike keys from the mantel. There’s still one hook left there without steaming clothes. I throw two logs on the fire.
‘Okay, we’ll go alone. Ben, be sure to look up from that book every once in a while to make sure the fire’s burning; it’s our main source of heat. The temperature’s going to drop from now on as it gets darker.’
‘Okay, okay. I’ll be sitting right here. You know I’ll keep it burning. I’ve never let the fire go out.’
He’s upset, all right. He’s hardly ever so touchy, is usually easy to get along with. I turn to Lor.
‘Well, dear, I guess it’s just the two of us. Which way do we go?’
‘I’d like to see some cows and lambs in a barn. Let’s walk by the Pinson place, then down that old deep-cut Gallo-Roman road and back out on the Vauchot road above Maggie’s. Okay?’
I nod and we walk out, carefully closing the door. Ben comes over and pulls one of the gas bottles in front to keep it shut. I check the temperature, it’s four below. I thought it would be colder than that.
We go up on the dam. Claude, Philippe, Katie, Pierre Rousseau and the two little girls are looking at our sculpture. Pierre comes over and shakes my hand. His voice is low, almost as if speaking in a church.
‘Ah, ça c’est quelque chose. Est-ce-que c’est vrai que vos enfants ont fait cette miracle?’
I smile and tell how Maggie, Loretta and I only rolled balls while Nicole, Mike and Ben made the figures.
The crèche is gorgeous now. The deep lowering now pink sun casts long shadows, pulling the figures into an even tighter unity. It’s a shame we can’t make something permanent out of it. It’s then I remember the camera and film I bought for Lor. I excuse myself, go back inside, pushing aside the butane tank. The new camera is still unwrapped under our tree. I suspect Lor is quietly doing the same thing as Ben, saving some of Christmas till later when it’s calmer; but she’s always been slow opening Christmas presents; nibbling away at Christmas. I come back out and give the package to her. Lor’s talking to Katie and the little girls. They’re walking around between the statues.
Loretta looks at the package, at me.
‘Do I really have to open it now?’
‘You’ll be glad if you do.’
She pulls at the ribbon, it falls away. She unwraps the box and sees it’s a camera. She smiles at me.
‘You know I can never make one of these things work, Will. But you’re right, we should have some photos of this for later.’
She hands me the box. I take out the camera, open the box of film, snap film into the camera, and explain how it works. Nothing could be simpler. To illustrate, I put the camera to my eye; there’s just enough light. I push the button. There’s the whirr of a Polaroid; exposed film slides out and I rip it off. I hand the film to Loretta and we all crowd around in the slowly dying light as the image gradually appears. The magic of this Polaroid almost outstrips the statuary. We all ohh and ahh in two languages.
It was a lucky shot. The figures are clear. There’s a mystic aura of permanence, of immutability. At the same time, there’s a sense of the basic humanity intrinsic to the tableau. There’s also an air of spiritual symbolism.
I have a hard time getting Loretta to take her eyes away from the photo and try some shots herself. She lines one up as I remind her to hold the camera still and to keep the camera level when she pushes the button. Those are the only uncontrolled variables with this camera: it does everything else itself.
She wants to watch this film come to life but I force her to take the rest of the roll, from different angles, some up close to particular figures, before the light fails; it’s dropping fast. I take each photo as it comes out and hold them all in my hand, spread out like a deck of cards. The village crowds around. When she’s shot the last picture she comes over to join us, her face animated, joyous. Some unmitigated Christmas feeling has snuck up on her. Then, as the photos become visible, each one better than the last, incredibly transcendent, we’re both entrapped in a particular moment; enveloped in the right now in an existential sense; removed, living fully in our joy. We pass the photos around, Loretta turns to me, speaks in English.
‘Will, that’s the nicest present you could’ve given me. If we throw the camera away now, whatever you paid was worth it. I’ll always treasure these photos, they somehow say something about what I’ve hoped our life has been all about. And to think, our kids, all of us, made this come to life.’
I put the camera back in the box along with the photos and leave it on the edge of our porch. Nobody will steal it. I can’t think of anybody within twenty kilometers who would steal anything from anybody.
We start off toward Huis de Bras. As we trudge up the hill, after we go over the bridge, I can feel a change in the atmosphere. It has nothing to do with the weather, although something is happening with the weather, too; clouds are building up. I’m talking about Loretta. She’s shifting emotional gears, speed-shifting, from her euphoria with the photos to something heavy. I wait. There’s nothing else to do. My experience is, you can’t hurry these things and if you try it’s almost always a catastrophe.
‘Will, I’ve something to tell you and I don’t know how to begin.’
Oh boy! Here it comes. I wait, my heart quickened. Maybe I should run away. No, I’ll have to face this finally, share it. I take a slight cushion shot; a beveled effort to distract.
‘Is it about Mike? Is Geneviève pregnant?’
She looks at me. There’s fear, shock in her eyes.
‘What makes you think that?’
‘I don’t know, I’m only guessing.’
‘It’s Nicole. This is what we were talking about while all of you were delayed with Christmas present opening. I had one of my rare periods and asked her for a pad. She started talking just then, she needed to talk. That’s what took us so long. We were both sorry to hold you all up, but there was no way to stop it.’
‘You mean Nicole’s pregnant?’
‘No, not really, but she wants to be. She wants to have a baby.’
‘Well, that’s easy. Just find the right man, do the right thing, and if she’s lucky, she’ll have one. What’s so terrible about that? Has she found the man yet?’
‘Yes, she has the man in mind, a sculptor in California; the one she wanted to bring here for Christmas. This man doesn’t want to marry her, doesn’t want to be a father. But Nicole still wants to have a baby by him.’
‘That’s nuts!’
‘She wants us to help her so she can have this child.’
‘I give up! Help her! How can we help?’
‘She’d like to live here at home for the last three months of her pregnancy, have the baby at the American Hospital where Ben was born, on our family Social Security. Then, when she’s on her feet, she’ll take the child back to America, try to make it all work out somehow.’
‘Great. And how’s she going to live?’
‘Don’t get mad at me, Will. I’m only telling you what she told me.
‘Nicole says there are a lot of single parents in California and they get help from the state; I guess welfare, food stamps, child care, MediCal; those kinds of things. I don’t really know. She says there are even communes of single parents who look out for each other, if this man won’t help her. Can you imagine our Nicole living like that?’
