by Jeff Guinn
As we walked back into the city, the first man let go of me, but I noticed he and his companion walked on either side of me, perhaps so I couldn’t get away. They began to talk in their normal voices. I kept whispering. My cloak was baggy, its long empty pockets flapping since the food I’d stored in them was gone. Apparently, these two still thought I was a man.
We arrived at the inn where they were staying, and they invited me to come up for something to eat and drink. Sensing my chance, I simply shook my head and turned to walk away, but the man who’d waited outside the nomad camp caught me and said somewhat impatiently, “What’s the matter with you? You know now we’re not thieves. If you don’t have a place to stay, you can even sleep with us.”
“I have to leave,” I whispered. “Good night.” I meant to go. I would have, but then the first man reached out toward me. I could have avoided his touch. But somehow I was frozen in place.
“At least let me see who you are,” he said, gently tugging my hood away from my face. My long hair tumbled out, and as the light coming through the windows of the inn fell upon my face, I knew it was clear I was certainly not a man.
“Let me go. I can fight if I have to,” I said with as much force as I could summon.
“You don’t have to,” he said reassuringly. “Please, my good woman, don’t be afraid we’d harm you.”
I couldn’t be sure of that. The two men were standing close together, staring at my newly revealed face. Impulsively, I reached out and, one after the other, pulled their hoods away from their faces. At least if I was attacked by them and survived, I might be able to identify them afterward to the city authorities. When I saw the first face I gasped. I recognized this man. He was one of the two men from the market, the beardless one with the nearsighted squint. That must mean the other was—Yes! The man with the long white hair and beard and warm smile, the man I’d dreamed about for so long. I couldn’t help staring into his eyes. We must have looked at each other for a full minute or more before he said, “Our offer of something to drink and eat is made in friendship.”
I knew I could trust him—why else had he been so long in my dreams?—so I replied, “Then in friendship, I accept.”
Nicholas
Up in the room, they produced jars of fruit juice—I very much preferred drinking such healthy stuff rather than wine—and some bread and cheese. Our conversation instantly bubbled over. I had never been someone who liked to talk about herself, but as soon as we sat down on the floor mats I found myself almost babbling as I recounted my childhood in Niobrara with Uncle Silas and Aunt Lodi, and how I decided while still very young that I wanted to be, would become, a gift-giver.
“The inspiration came from the old stories, you see,” I explained. “In Lycia, people had spoken for a hundred years about a mysterious gift-giver who came silently in the night to give gifts to the very poorest people.” The nearsighted man whispered something to the wonderful man with the white hair and beard, who sharply whispered to him to keep quiet. “Well,” I continued, “ten years ago when my uncle and aunt died, they left me the farm and some money as my inheritance. Men in my village offered to marry me, but I realized it was the farm they really wanted, not me. I mean, it’s obvious I’m not beautiful.”
Now the white-bearded man couldn’t keep himself from speaking. “You seem beautiful to me,” he blurted, and his nearsighted friend laughed and slapped him on the shoulder. For a moment, everything felt quite awkward. I felt myself blushing, and the white-bearded man’s cheeks turned bright red, too. I thought I should perhaps feel offended—the remark had been quite forward, as we used to term such a personal comment. But instead I was pleased. Never before had I really cared what any man thought of my appearance. But now I did.
After several silent moments, the white-bearded man composed himself, poured all three of us more fruit juice, and remarked, “Do you know, we’ve been talking for some time and we haven’t even properly introduced ourselves. May I ask your name?”
“Layla,” I said.
“Well, Layla, we are honored to meet you. This fat grinning fellow here is Felix. He has been my friend and traveling companion ever since we met in Rome many, many years ago. And my name is—”
Before the word was out of his mouth, I knew. A carved image on a tomb in Myra flashed into my mind.
“Your name is Nicholas,” I told him. “I should have known. I recognized you right away, from the likeness on your tomb and from—” I was about to add, “my dreams,” but thought better of it.
Nicholas and Felix exchanged a long look. Then Nicholas said carefully, “Well, it’s getting quite late. I suggest Felix and I escort you back to your own lodgings. Will you meet us again tomorrow night? We have gifts to give; a very needy family is spending hungry, cold nights hiding in a rich man’s barn. You could join us as we help them. Afterward, there are certain things I would like to tell you about.”
“It would be my pleasure,” I replied. There was a great deal I wanted to ask them, most importantly how a man who had died of old age in 343 still appeared very much alive sixty-nine years later. The odd thing was, though I wondered how it was possible, I never doubted it was true.
Felix lagged a little behind Nicholas and me as we walked back to the inn where I was staying. It wasn’t a long walk and only took about ten minutes, but it seemed like much less even than that. Nicholas and I didn’t say much to each other, just casual comments about the coolness of the night air and how much more bread and cheese cost in the Constantinople markets than in Myra. When we reached the inn I found myself wondering, unexpectedly, whether Nicholas was going to kiss me good night, which certainly would have been forward and definitely unacceptable upon such short acquaintance. It was only after he formally shook my hand and turned and walked away with Felix that I realized I’d hoped he would kiss me. I’d sometimes kissed my Uncle Silas on the cheek, but I’d never kissed any man in a romantic way and had never really wanted to before.
Needless to say, that night I slept very little. Perhaps I should have been awake because I was worrying. My money was all gone, I had only a bit of bread and cheese left to distribute, and after that, what would become of me? Instead, I couldn’t close my eyes out of sheer pleasure. Nicholas wanted to see me again! Something special was happening.
I was right about that. The next evening, just as the sky turned dark, Nicholas and Felix came to fetch me at the inn. I met them outside the front entrance, my pockets filled with the very last bread and cheese I had. Before I had met them, my intention was to make these things last for several more days of gift-giving. Now, I brought everything that was left. Just to make certain I had been invited as a full contributing partner rather than a welcome but essentially useless companion, I informed them right away that I expected to contribute my share to the night’s gifts. Both Nicholas and Felix seemed quite pleased to hear this. They led the way to an extensive property just north of the city. It was a large farm, much bigger than my uncle’s. Livestock nestled in wide corrals. The bright moon silhouetted an impressive house fifty yards from a fine barn. Nicholas whispered that sleeping in this barn were a mother and father and their three young children. He and Felix had met the father two days earlier in the Constantinople market when he was begging everyone he passed to hire him for any sort of work so he could buy food for his family.
“His name is Tobias, and he seems to be a very fine fellow,” Nicholas said. “There are so many men like him—poor due to bad luck, not laziness. He is very talented at threshing wheat and shoeing horses. He learned these trades on a small farm perhaps a hundred miles from here, but when the owner of the farm died a year ago, Tobias and his family were ordered off the property without any sort of explanation. He hasn’t been able to find steady work since, and some nights his children cry because they’re so hungry.”
“Well, they won’t be hungry tomorrow morning,” Felix added, brandishing a handful of dried fruit and handing it over to Nicholas. “You two go on insid
e the barn and leave your gifts.”
“Aren’t you coming, too?” I asked.
Nicholas chuckled. “Felix, here, is a fine fellow with many admirable talents, but stealth isn’t one of them. Our custom is for him to stand guard outside while I am inside.”
But Nicholas seemed quite glad to have me inside the barn with him. Without any prior plan, we instinctively shared the gift-giving tasks there. He left bread and cheese where the two parents slept on piles of hay. I placed dried fruit by the sides of the sleeping children. Because all five lay in a dark corner of the barn, we knew instinctively the owners of the farm had no idea their barn housed uninvited guests. Probably, the family had been subsisting on a few eggs stolen out from underneath the chickens who perched on the barn’s many rafters. Well, for one morning, at least, they’d have a breakfast equal to the one undoubtedly being enjoyed by those living in the fine house a few dozen yards away.
I should have felt sad as Felix, Nicholas, and I walked back into the city. For ten years, I had loved the experience of anonymously leaving gifts, and it was over. If my two new friends now told me it had been wonderful meeting me and good luck in the future, I would be left alone with no real prospects. But I didn’t think about this. Instead, I wondered what Nicholas and Felix—all right, mostly Nicholas—wanted to talk about next. It had to be something wonderful.
It certainly was. Back in their room, jars of fruit juice close to hand, Nicholas began by confirming who he was.
“By normal measure, I’m one hundred and thirty-two years old,” he said. “I’ll certainly understand if you don’t believe me.”
“Tell me more,” I urged, and for several hours he did. I heard about his childhood in Patara, how his parents had died when he was young and he ended up being raised by village priests. How, while still very young, he had felt inspired to use the money he had inherited to help those in need. How his first gift-giving attempts were clumsy and almost ended in disaster. All these things sounded familiar to me, because they were so similar to my own life, ambition, and experiences.
Then came memories of great wonders—how, in the year 343 at age sixty-three, he rode off from Myra in the middle of the night because too many people expected him to work wonders for them, and how, in the years following, he realized two things. First, that he could travel hundreds of miles in the time ordinary people might manage one or two. Second, that he had somehow stopped aging. He had no explanation for how these things had happened, he added. They simply did.
“And when I met and joined Nicholas a year later, I stopped aging, too!” Felix interrupted. “The magic that graces him is also extended to anyone who joins him, we believe.”
Felix
I couldn’t help shaking my head at the wonder of it all. Nicholas, though, interpreted the head-shaking as a sign I didn’t believe what I’d just heard.
“It seems impossible, I know,” he said. “Perhaps if you consider it a bit longer before you decide it’s not true—”
“Oh, no,” I replied. “I believe every word. I mean, I see you here in front of me, and I saw your likeness carved on your tomb, and, of course, I’ve seen you so long in, well . . .” I was still too embarrassed to admit I’d been dreaming about him for years. I sat up a little straighter on my mat, composed myself, and said briskly, “So it was you all along who did the gift-giving that inspired me to do the same, and now I’ve met you. How splendid!”
Nicholas seemed both pleased and anxious. “Then you do believe everything I’ve told you?” he asked.
“Of course I do,” I said. “No one could invent a story like that. So now you and your friend Felix, here, will spend eternity doing good, generous things. You’re more than lucky—you’re blessed!”
“But I’m lonely, sometimes, too,” Nicholas said, and I thought Felix, sitting on a mat beside his longtime companion, looked rather offended. “The challenge is so great, and so never-ending,” Nicholas continued, his eyes locked on mine. “So many people need so much, and I need your help. Will you join me?” He suddenly remembered Felix. “I mean, will you join us?”
“What exactly do you mean?” I asked. I hoped I knew what he meant, but I wanted to hear him say it.
Nicholas blushed and stammered, so Felix said it for him: “He’s asking you to marry him, so I’m going to leave you two alone for a while.” He got up and left the room. In the silence that followed, I could hear his heavy feet thumping as he made his way down the hall.
Nicholas remained tongue-tied. It was almost comical to see him try to say something, consider his words, begin to make the first sounds, panic, and have to start all over again. He sputtered for some time, and I finally lost patience.
“Look, are you asking me to marry you or not?” I asked. “It would be nice to know.”
He took a deep breath. “Yes, I’m asking you to marry me. I’m sorry to make such a bad job of it. Even though I’m a hundred and thirty-two years old, I’ve never done this before.”
“Are you certain?” I couldn’t help asking.
“Oh, yes,” Nicholas said. “I’ve never had such feelings for anyone. So, will you? Marry me, I mean. I know it’s a complicated life I’m offering, and that there’s a great difference in our ages. If you’re thirty-five, why, I’m ninety-seven years older than you. Someone so youthful might not want to burden herself with someone so, well, senior.”
“I don’t care how old you are,” I replied, feeling rather pleased that someone actually considered me to still be young. “I’ll gladly marry you, but there’s a condition. You must promise we’ll be equal partners, in gift-giving and in marriage. I will always love and respect you. Will you feel the same toward me?”
“I already love and respect you,” Nicholas said, and my heart pounded and I found myself smiling so widely that the corners of my mouth hurt. I thought he would now come over and kiss me, but instead he suddenly looked uncertain again.
“What’s the matter?” I asked, afraid that he was having second thoughts and might take back his proposal.
“It’s just that I’m still learning about special powers and this gift-giving mission,” Nicholas said. “I mean, how long will you live, Layla? Felix and I have stopped growing older, but what about you? I couldn’t stand it if we married and I lived on forever, only to lose you along the way.”
I hadn’t considered this. The possibility of living forever, or at least for a much longer time than the average person, seemed almost unimportant compared to marrying Nicholas.
“Maybe, like Felix, I’ll stop aging, too,” I said. “Maybe I won’t. No one can know the future. We’ll have enough to do giving gifts. Let’s not waste time worrying about something we can’t control.” Nicholas started to reply. Apparently, he wanted to keep talking. But I was a newly engaged woman and the time for talking was over. “Hush up and come kiss me,” I told him—and he did.
Nicholas knew a priest in Constantinople. He married us the next day. Felix was best man. After the short ceremony, the three of us immediately departed for Rome in Italy, a city Nicholas and Felix already knew well and one I had always longed to see. As a wedding present, Nicholas had told me we could go give gifts anywhere in the known world. He and Felix seemed delighted when I asked to go to Rome.
“There are plenty of needy people there,” Nicholas told me as we walked arm-in-arm to the dock where we would board a boat and begin the trip. “We’re going to be busy. You may regret very soon that you ever married me.”
But I never did.
We left those as gifts for poor children in Naples to the south of Rome. The next morning we returned to their neighborhood, and how wonderful it was to see boys and girls shouting with sheer joy as they shot their marbles or played with their dolls or rolled hoops across the meadow.
CHAPTER Four
You must be wondering when I’ll begin telling about Oliver Cromwell. I will, very soon, but first I must explain about how our gift-giving mission gradually changed. Only if you know abo
ut how toys and Christmas and America came to be part of what we did can you understand why I happened to be in England without my husband in the 1640s when Oliver Cromwell tried to do away with the holiday, and why I was so determined that he wouldn’t succeed. Things that happened as much as twelve centuries earlier had their effect—on me, on Cromwell, and on Christmas itself.
My early days with Nicholas were fascinating. I found it quite different to be traveling and gift-giving in the company of my husband and his friend. As a married woman, I was welcome in any clean, reasonably priced inn; a wife arriving with her husband was not looked on with suspicion in any community. We gave our gifts in small villages as well as large cities. And, of course, I loved traveling formerly impossible distances at equally impossible speeds.
Oh, sometimes we had to make voyages on boats or travel in carts as part of caravans, but most often we simply walked, moving at night, and though there was no sense of hurry we would still find, by sunup, that we had gone eighty or one hundred miles. I was also amazed not to feel at all tired at the end of such lengthy treks. It seemed as though the act of walking refreshed rather than tired us.
I learned that Nicholas and Felix paid for the gifts they gave by carving elaborate wooden covers for books, which were relatively new in the early 400s. Most people still didn’t read much, if at all, but those who did now wanted to protect their manuscripts from dust and decay. Every so often, Felix would announce our money was about to run out, and we would purchase a dozen small planks of treated wood. Then he and my husband would spend a few days carving designs on the planks, which were then sold to a friendly merchant they knew named Timothy. He, in turn, would bind the planks around sets of manuscripts, sell the finished books with covers to wealthy customers, and everyone was pleased.