A Lot Like Christmas: Stories

by Connie Willis

  “Sleep?” I said, sitting up and rubbing my eyes. “I’m sorry, I must have dozed off. What time is it?”

  “A little after four.”

  “In the morning?”

  “Yes. Do the Altairi sleep?”

  “Yes, at least we think so. Their brain patterns alter, and they don’t respond to stimuli, but then again, they never respond.”

  “Are there visible signs that they’re asleep? Do they close their eyes or lie down?”

  “No, they sort of droop over, like flowers that haven’t been watered. And their glares diminish a little. Why?”

  “I have something I want to try. Go back to sleep.”

  “No, that’s okay,” I said, suppressing a yawn. “If anybody needs to sleep, it’s you. I’ve kept you up the last two nights, and you’ve got to direct your Sing thing tonight. I’ll take over and you go—”

  He shook his head. “I’m fine. I told you, I never get any sleep this time of year.”

  “So what’s this idea you want to try?”

  “I want to play them the first verse of ‘Silent Night.’ ”

  “ ‘Sleep in heavenly peace,’ ” I said.

  “Right, and no other action verbs and I’ve got at least fifty versions of it. Johnny Cash, Kate Smith, Britney Spears—”

  “Do we have time to play them fifty different versions?” I asked, looking over at the TV. A split screen showed a map of Israel and the outside of the One True Way Maxichurch. When I turned the volume up, a reporter’s voice said, “Inside, thousands of members are awaiting the appearance of the Altairi, whom Reverend Thresher expects at any minute. A twenty-four-hour High-Powered Prayer Vigil—”

  I turned it back down. “I guess we do. You were saying?”

  “ ‘Silent Night’ is a song everybody—Gene Autry, Madonna, Burl Ives—has recorded. Different voices, different accompaniments, different keys. We can see which versions they respond to—”

  “And which ones they don’t,” I said, “and that may give us a clue to what they’re responding to.”

  “Exactly,” he said, opening a CD case. He stuck it in the player and hit Track 4. “Here goes.”

  The voice of Elvis Presley singing “ ‘Silent night, holy night’ ” filled the room. Calvin came back over to the couch and sat down next to me. When Elvis got to “ ‘tender and mild,’ ” we both leaned forward expectantly, watching the Altairi. “ ‘Sleep in heavenly peace,’ ” Elvis crooned, but the Altairi were still stiffly upright, and they remained that way through the repeated “ ‘sleep in heavenly peace.’ ” And through Alvin the Chipmunk’s solo of it. And Celine Dion’s.

  “Their glares don’t appear to be diminishing,” Calvin said. “If anything, they seem to be getting worse.”

  They were. “You’d better play them Judy Garland,” I said.

  He did, and Dolly Parton and Harry Belafonte. “What if they don’t respond to any of them?” I asked.

  “Then we try something else. I’ve also got twenty-six versions of ‘Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.’ ” He grinned at me. “I’m kidding. I do, however, have nine different versions of ‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside.’ ”

  “For use on redheaded second sopranos?”

  “No,” he said. “Shh, I love this version. Nat King Cole.”

  I shh-ed and listened, wondering how the Altairi could resist falling asleep. Nat King Cole’s voice was even more relaxing than Dean Martin’s. I leaned back against the couch. “ ‘All is calm…’ ”

  I must have fallen asleep again, because the next thing I knew, the music had stopped and it was daylight outside. I looked at my watch. It said two P.M. The Altairi were standing in the exact same spot they’d been in before, glaring, and Calvin was sitting hunched forward on a kitchen chair, his chin in his hand, watching them and looking worried.

  “Did something happen?” I glanced over at the TV. Reverend Thresher was talking. The logo read “Thresher Launches Galaxywide Christian Crusade.” At least it didn’t say “Air Strikes in Middle East.”

  Calvin was slowly shaking his head.

  “Wasn’t there any response to ‘Silent Night’?” I asked.

  “No, there was,” he said. “You responded to the version by Nat King Cole.”

  “I know,” I said. “I’m sorry. I meant the Altairi. They didn’t respond to any of the ‘Silent Night’s?”

  “No, they responded,” he said, “but just to one version.”

  “But that’s good, isn’t it?” I asked. “Now we can analyze what it was that was different about it that they were responding to. Which version was it?”

  Instead of answering, he walked over to the CD player and hit play. A loud chorus of nasal female voices began belting out, “ ‘Silent night, holy night,’ ” shouting to be heard over a cacophony of clinks and clacks. “What is that?” I asked.

  “The Broadway chorus of the musical 42nd Street singing and tap-dancing to ‘Silent Night.’ They recorded it for a special Broadway Christmas charity project.”

  I looked over at the Altairi, thinking maybe Calvin was wrong and they hadn’t really fallen asleep, but in spite of the din, they had sagged limply over, their heads nearly touching the ground, looking almost peaceful. Their glares had faded from full-bore Aunt Judith to only mildly disapproving.

  I listened to the 42nd Street chorines tapping and belting out “Silent Night” at the top of their lungs some more. “It is kind of appealing,” I said, “especially the part where they shout out ‘Mother and child!’ ”

  “I know,” he said. “I’d like it played at our wedding. And obviously the Altairi share our good taste. But aside from that, I’m not sure what it tells us.”

  “That the Altairi like show tunes?” I suggested.

  “God forbid. Think what Reverend Thresher would do with that,” he said. “Besides, they didn’t respond to ‘Sit Down, You’re Rocking the Boat.’ ”

  “No, but they did to that song from Mame.”

  “And to the one from 1776 but not to The Music Man or Rent,” he said frustratedly. “Which puts us right back where we started. I have no clue what they’re responding to!”

  “I know,” I said. “I’m so sorry. I should never have gotten you involved in this. You have your ACHES thing to direct.”

  “It doesn’t start till seven,” he said, rummaging through a stack of LPs, “which means we’ve got another four hours to work. If we could just find another ‘Silent Night’ they’ll respond to, we might be able to figure out what in God’s name they’re doing. What the hell happened to that Star Wars Christmas album?”

  “Stop,” I said. “This is ridiculous.” I took the albums out of his hands. “You’re exhausted, and you’ve got a big job to do. You can’t direct all those people on no sleep. This can wait.”

  “But—”

  “People think better after a nap,” I said firmly. “You’ll wake up, and the solution will be perfectly obvious.”

  “And if it isn’t?”

  “Then you’ll go direct your choirs, and—”

  “Choirs,” he said thoughtfully.

  “Or All-City Sing or Aches and Pains or whatever you call it, and I’ll stay here and play the Altairi some more ‘Silent Night’s till you get back and—”

  “ ‘Sit Down, John’ was sung by the chorus,” he said, looking past me at the drooping Altairi. “And so was ‘While Shepherds Watched.’ And the 42nd Street ‘Silent Night’ was the only one that wasn’t a solo.” He grabbed my shoulders. “They’re all choruses. That’s why they didn’t respond to Julie Andrews singing ‘Rise Up, Shepherd, and Follow,’ or to Stubby Kaye singing ‘Sit Down, You’re Rocking the Boat.’ They only respond to groups of voices.”

  I shook my head. “You forgot ‘Awake, Awake, Ye Drowsy Souls.’ ”

  “Oh,” he said, his face falling, “you’re right. Wait!” He lunged for the Julie Andrews CD and stuck it in the recorder. “I think Julie Andrews sings the ve
rse and then a chorus comes in. Listen.”

  He was right. The chorus had sung “Awake, awake.”

  “Who sang the ‘Joy to the World’ you played them on the CD from the mall?” Calvin asked.

  “Just Julie Andrews,” I said. “And Brenda Lee sang ‘Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.’ ”

  “And Johnny Mathis sang ‘Angels from the Realms of Glory,’ ” he said happily. “But the Hanukkah song, which they did respond to, was sung by the…” he read it off the CD case, “the Shalom Singers. That’s got to be it.” He began looking through the LPs again.

  “What are you looking for?” I asked.

  “The Mormon Tabernacle Choir,” he said. “They’ve got to have recorded ‘Silent Night.’ We’ll play it for the Altairi, and if they fall asleep, we’ll know we’re on the right track.”

  “But they’re already asleep,” I pointed out, gesturing to where they stood looking like a week-old flower arrangement. “How—?”

  He was already digging again. He brought up a Cambridge Boys’ Choir album, pulled the LP out, and read the label, muttering, “I know it’s on here…Here it is.” He put it on, and a chorus of sweet boys’ voices sang, “ ‘Christians awake, salute the happy morn.’ ”

  The Altairi straightened immediately and glared at us. “You were right,” I said softly, but he wasn’t listening. He had the LP off the turntable and was reading the label again, muttering, “Come on, you have to have done ‘Silent Night.’ Everyone does ‘Silent Night.’ ” He flipped the LP over, said, “I knew it,” popped it back on the turntable, and dropped the needle expertly.

  “ ‘…and mild,’ ” the boys’ angelic voices sang, “ ‘sleep…’ ”

  The Altairi drooped over before the word was even out. “That’s definitely it!” I said. “That’s the common denominator.”

  He shook his head. “We need more data. It could just be a coincidence. We need to find a choral version of ‘Rise Up, Shepherd, and Follow.’ And ‘Sit Down, You’re Rocking the Boat.’ Where did you put Guys and Dolls?”

  “But that was a solo.”

  “The first part, the part we played them was a solo. Later on all the gamblers come in. We should have played them the whole song.”

  “We couldn’t, remember?” I said, handing it to him. “Remember the parts about dragging you under and drowning, not to mention gambling and drinking?”

  “Oh, right,” he said. He put headphones on, listened, and then unplugged them. “ ‘Sit down…’ ” a chorus of men’s voices sang lustily, and the Altairi sat down.

  We played choir versions of “All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth” and “Rise Up, Shepherds, and Follow.” The Altairi sat down and stood up. “You’re right,” he said after the Altairi knelt to the Platters singing “The First Noel.” “It’s the common denominator, all right. But why?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “Maybe they can’t understand things said to them by fewer voices than a choir. That would explain why there are six of them. Maybe each one only hears certain frequencies, which singly are meaningless, but with six of them—”

  He shook his head. “You’re forgetting the Andrews Sisters. And Barenaked Ladies. And even if it is the choir aspect they’re responding to, it still doesn’t tell us what they’re doing here.”

  “But now we know how to get them to tell us,” I said, grabbing up The Holly Jolly Book of Christmas Songs. “Can you find a choir version of ‘Adeste Fideles’ in English?”

  “I think so,” he said. “Why?”

  “Because it’s got ‘we greet thee’ in it,” I said, running my fingers down the lyrics of “Good Christian Men, Rejoice.”

  “And there’s ‘Watchmen, Tell Us of the Night,’ ” he said. “And ‘great glad tidings tell.’ They’re bound to respond to one of them.”

  But they didn’t. Peter, Paul, and Mary ordered the Altairi to go tell (we blanked out the “on the mountain” part), but either the Altairi didn’t like folk music, or the Andrews Sisters had been a fluke.

  Or we had jumped to conclusions. When we tried the same song again, this time by the Boston Commons Choir, there was still no response. And none to choral versions of “Deck the Halls” (“while I tell”), “Jolly Old St. Nicholas” (“don’t you tell a single soul” minus “don’t” and “a single soul”). Or to “The Friendly Beasts,” even though all six verses had “tell” in them.

  Calvin thought the tense might be the problem and played parts of “Little St. Nick” (“tale” and “told”) and “The Carol of the Bells” (“telling”), but to no avail. “Maybe the word’s the problem,” I said. “Maybe they just don’t know the word ‘tell.’ ” But they didn’t respond to “say” or “saying” or “said,” to “messages” or to “proclaim.”

  “We must have been wrong about the choir thing,” Calvin said, but that wasn’t it, either. While he was in the bedroom putting his tux on for the Sing, I played them snatches of “The First Noel” and “Up on the Rooftop” from the Barenaked Ladies CD, and they knelt and jumped right on cue.

  “Maybe they think Earth’s a gym and this is an exercise class,” Calvin said, coming in as they were leaping to the St. Paul’s Cathedral Choir singing “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” “I don’t suppose the word ‘calling’ had any effect on them.”

  “No,” I said, tying his bow tie, “and ‘I’m bringing you this simple phrase’ didn’t, either. Has it occurred to you that the music might not be having any effect at all, and they just happen to be sitting and leaping and kneeling at the same time as the words are being sung?”

  “No,” he said. “There’s a connection. If there wasn’t, they wouldn’t look so irritated that we haven’t been able to figure it out yet.”

  He was right. Their glares had, if anything, intensified, and their very posture radiated disapproval.

  “We need more data, that’s all,” he said, going to get his black shoes. “As soon as I get back, we’ll—” He stopped.

  “What is it?”

  “You’d better look at this,” he said, pointing at the TV. The screen was showing a photo of the ship. All the lights were on, and exhaust was coming out of assorted side vents. Calvin grabbed the remote and turned it up.

  “It is now believed that the Altairi have returned to their ship and are preparing to depart,” the newscaster said. I glanced over at the Altairi. They were still standing there. “Analysis of the ignition cycle indicates that takeoff will be in less than six hours.”

  “What do we do now?” I asked Calvin.

  “We figure this out. You heard them. We’ve got six hours till blastoff.”

  “But the Sing—”

  He handed me my coat. “We know it’s got something to do with choirs, and I’ve got every kind you could want. We’ll take the Altairi to the convention center and hope we think of something on the way.”

  We didn’t think of anything on the way. “Maybe I should take them back to their ship,” I said, pulling into the parking lot. “What if I cause them to get left behind?”

  “They are not E.T.,” he said.

  I parked at the service entrance, got out, and started to slide the back door of the van open. “No, leave them there,” Calvin said. “We’ve got to find a place to put them before we take them in. Lock the car.”

  I did, even though I doubted if it would do any good, and followed Calvin through a side door marked “Choirs Only” and through a maze of corridors lined with rooms marked “St. Peter’s Boys’ Choir,” “Red Hat Glee Club,” “Denver Gay Men’s Chorus,” “Sweet Adelines Show Chorus,” “Mile High Jazz Singers.” There was a hubbub in the front of the building, and when we crossed the main corridor, we could see people in gold and green and black robes milling around talking.

  Calvin opened several doors one after the other, ducked inside the rooms, shutting the doors after him, and then reemerged, shaking his head. “We can’t let the Altairi hear the Messiah, and you can still
hear the noise from the auditorium,” he said. “We need someplace soundproof.”

  “Or farther away,” I said, leading the way down the corridor and turning down a side hall. And running smack into his seventh-graders coming out of one of the meeting rooms. Mrs. Carlson was videotaping them, and another mother was attempting to line them up to go in, but as soon as they saw Calvin, they clustered around him saying, “Mr. Ledbetter, where have you been? We thought you weren’t coming,” and “Mr. Ledbetter, Mrs. Carlson says we have to turn our cell phones off, but can’t we just have them on vibrate?” and “Mr. Ledbetter, Shelby and I were supposed to go in together, but she says she wants to be partners with Danika.”

  Calvin ignored them. “Kaneesha, could you hear any of the groups rehearsing when you were in getting dressed?”

  “Why?” Belinda asked. “Did we miss the call to go in?”

  “Could you, Kaneesha?” he persisted.

  “A little bit,” she said.

  “That won’t work, then,” he said to me. “I’ll go check the room at the end. Wait here.” He sprinted along the hall.

  “You were at the mall that day,” Belinda said accusingly to me. “Are you and Mr. Ledbetter going out?”

  We may all be going out together—with a bang—if we don’t figure out what the Altairi are doing, I thought. “No,” I said.

  “Are you hooking up?” Chelsea asked.

  “Chelsea!” Mrs. Carlson said, horrified.

  “Well, are you?”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be lining up?” I asked.

  Calvin came back at a dead run. “It should work,” he said to me. “It seems fairly soundproof.”

  “Why does it have to be soundproof?” Chelsea asked.

  “I bet it’s so nobody can hear them making out,” Belinda said, and Chelsea began making smooching noises.

  “Time to go in, ladies,” he said in his choir director’s voice, “line up,” and he really was amazing. They immediately formed pairs and began making a line.

  “Wait till everybody’s gone into the auditorium,” he said, pulling me aside, “and then go get them and bring them in. I’ll do a few minutes’ intro of the orchestra and the organizing committee so the Altairi won’t hear any songs while you’re getting them to the room. There’s a table you can use to barricade the door so nobody can get in.”