21 Solitary Christmas
Even with this cheerful break and the little bag of sweets aunt left for me, that Christmas was a dreary experience. The chill of it entered my very bones. It was so much harder to accept the betrayal of an ideal than to suffer ordinary aches and pains. Even a bilious attack would have been easier to bear than the creeping coldness of a house where not a single candle burned to the glory of the Little Christ Child. True, papa had tried to offset the gloom by putting up a huge tree in the extra bedroom, which was cold, uncurtained, and empty of furnishings. After supper, which I ate alone in the kitchen, I put on my best dress, and, thus girded with the trappings of gaiety, I made a bold attempt to keep holiday vigil in that cheerless room. But, although I lit the brightly coloured candles, and sat myself, Buddha-fashion, under the festive tree, nothing remotely joyous came of it. The twinkling lights were bravely beautiful, but their tiny, heart-shaped flames were no match for the unfriendly shadows that filled the room. Even when I tried to sing Holy Night—under my breath, so as not to be heard across the hall—the darkness only deepened. The shadows assumed fantastic shapes in mocking opposition to my lame merry-making. Tearfully, I snuffed the lights, and went to the window, seeking, as I loved to do, the far distraction of the sky: that jewelled space, wing-spread above the small green stage of earth.
It was a lovely night. The ugly street had put on a gentle beauty. Feathery snow, drifting thickly through the windless air, thatched the houses in layers of shimmering down. On the slope in the foreground three squat cottages reminded me of old ladies in hoods of Iceland wool, their slits of eyes smiling goldenly upon the peaceful earth. The uneven road lay smooth and white as a winding sheet let down from the dark fastnesses of the hills in the background.
Not a soul could be seen, except the solitary dog that shot across the path, sniffing the ground, the plume of his tail hugging his flank as he bounded along. Poor dog! I hoped he was on his way to a house where laughter rang, and the spicy odours of Christmas filled the air. As for me, I glued my own nose to the black pane and, gazing upwards through the dropping snow, found the silent, silver stars.
Young and foolish though I was, I could not for long fix upon that splendid spectacle and not be quieted when I remembered the timeless history in their watchful keeping; when my mind opened like a window upon the past that was as thick with human souls as the blue above was thick with drifting snowflakes. Suddenly, I found myself thinking of the tales papa loved to tell of the great law-givers of Iceland: of sages and singers, and fearless men of arms; a mighty company, whose deeds lived after them to inspire courage in the desolate ages that lay in store for their descendants. Those tales had often bored me—they had seemed so far removed from the tiny orbit of my tiny life. Now it seemed to me that those resplendent souls were drawing near, almost I could see them in the ghostly Valhalla of the dreamy night; almost I could hear their voices shattering the silence of centuries, bridging the illusion of time and the cold chasm of dead yesterdays. A strange excitement thrilled me, for now I understood a little what papa meant by the immortality of right effort. That which people accomplished, whether good or evil, was the true substance of themselves, and could not perish. It went on and on, born in memory and the hearts of later generations.
To me, forlornly standing at that uncurtained window, it seemed a profound discovery, a revelation that clothed those historic figures in lovable humanity, that made them real and companionable. Why, thought I, how easily the years fell away, bringing us all together in unified existence, when I stopped to think that the same stars which now were my consoling inspiration had lighted those stormy souls upon their stressful ways. And how much that was terrible and splendid they had witnessed on even my ancestral heaths! Embittered Gudrid, plotting death against Kjartin, whom she loved; Olaf’s harper, singing with the arrow in his breast; dark deeds and fair, repeated over and over under these selfsame stars that shone upon our shabby little house. Oh, and, most wonderful of all, these same white lights had guided the longships of Leif Ericson over the shoulder of the world!
Tears dribbled down my cold little nose, but whether for these lofty sentiments or my own returning loneliness, who can say? It is hard to sustain majesty when one is only just turned eleven. Shivering, and sweetly sad, I scuttled down the stairs to the front room, where, for the last few days, I had been sleeping, on an exceedingly slippery sofa. I do not know when my father came home, or whether my aunt returned with him. I only know that when I wakened next morning she was out in the kitchen, cheerfully drinking coffee and telling papa, in stentorian tones, that she hoped to heaven this was the last of his nonsense. Catching sight of me, she quickly changed the subject. ‘Well, my girl,’ said she, ‘you better go upstairs and see what a fine new brother you have got. But mind, don’t touch him—you don’t look as though you could manage a mouse, let alone a baby.’
‘I don’t want to touch him,’ I said. Which was perfectly true. I have always had a horror of new-born babies. Then, duty-bound to explain such a strange phenomenon, I added, ‘I don’t think there’s much to see any way. They all look alike.’
‘Well!’ snorted my aunt. ‘Well! Well!’ And looked at me as though she really saw me for the first time—but whether in a good light or not, I had no way of telling.
