The door shuts. The elevator begins to rise.
You don’t speak.
* * *
—
Both of you seem to sense the wisdom of this strategy.
Wordlessly, you enter the room, which is smaller than you expected, even though you were expecting it to be smaller than you’d expect. Tess takes the baby from you. She sits on the edge of the bed and tries to feed him, but he has no interest. He just keeps screaming, making the room feel even tinier than it already is.
You gingerly remove your shoes and socks and inspect your blister. It looks pink and damp, but like nothing at all really, and the gap between how it feels and how it appears seems unjust to you.
Tess sets the baby in his car seat, tries to rock him, tries to play peek-a-boo, tries pursing her lips and making funny noises. You should be helping her, you know. But how? You pull off your clothes and step into the bathroom and turn on the water in the tub. There must be a way to switch the water from the tub’s faucet to the shower nozzle, but you’re too tired to solve this puzzle, so you take the path of least resistance and close the drain and begin to draw a bath.
You can hear Tess on the phone, ordering room service, in Spanish. She has to raise her voice to be heard over the baby’s cries, and it makes her sound angry. You’re certain the two of you will find a way to reset things—you always do—but you wish it involved a less mysterious process, wish it was like rebooting a computer: a button pressed, a click, a whirring, and thirty seconds later, everything is fine again.
What is the opposite of vigorous? Weak? Feeble? Frail? Whatever it is, that’s the word to describe the hotel’s water pressure. The tub is filling slowly enough that you fear it might be leaking. You keep thinking you should get out and unpack your clothes, but then you remember that your luggage is in Frankfurt. Or London. Or possibly Rome. And each time this happens, you feel the same jump of anxiety.
* * *
—
The doorbell rings. Room service has arrived.
Tess brings a plate into the bathroom for you, then a plate for herself, then the baby in his car seat. The baby continues to howl. Tess has ordered you both turkey sandwiches. You eat yours in the tub, with the plate balanced on your upraised knees. Tess lowers herself onto the closed lid of the toilet. The baby thrashes about in his car seat on the floor between you.
When you finish your sandwich, there’s still only two inches of water in the tub. You give up on the idea of a bath, turn off the faucet. And it’s as if the spigot controlled more than the tub, because when the water stops, the baby’s crying does, too. You and Tess sit, watching your son, both of you afraid to move, or speak, or breathe. The child stretches his arms, settles more snugly into his blankets, opens and shuts his mouth in a fishlike manner, then closes his eyes and falls asleep.
Tess smiles.
You smile back.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers.
You nod. “Me too.”
This would be the moment to have that thought again—everything is going to be okay—but you’re too tired to indulge it. Instead, you climb out of the tub. Tess hands you a towel, and you pat yourself dry, careful not to make any noise, lest you disturb the sleeping baby. When you turn to leave the little bathroom for the only slightly less little bedroom, Tess bends to pick up the car seat. You give a vigorous shake of your head, and wave her off, worried she’ll rouse the child.
You lie down on the bed together, spooning, your chest to Tess’s back. You’re naked. Tess is still in the clothes she wore on the plane; there’s a faint smell of sweat to them. You’re curious about the taxi—what happened between her and the driver. You know better than to ask again, though. The time will come when this might be possible, but it’s still a long way off. You think about reaching to unbutton Tess’s blouse, weighing the prospect of sex, here in this tiny hotel room, on the day before Christmas, in Barcelona, with your baby sleeping so peacefully in the bathroom, and then you hear Tess begin to snore, and you shut your eyes, and press your face into her hair, and breathe in, and think: Everything is going to be…
Then you, too, are asleep.
* * *
—
You wake to the sound of Tess singing, softly, in the darkened bathroom. You lie there on the bed, coming back to yourself, listening:
Gone away, is the blue bird.
Here to stay, is the new bird.
He sings a love song,
As we go along
Walking in a winter wonderland.
You turn on the bedside light, and she falls silent. You can sense her watching you through the half-open door, but the bathroom is too dim for you to make out her expression. “How is he?” you ask.
“Hungry.”
“Feeding time at the zoo?”
“He’s a bottomless pit tonight.”
You pat the bed. “Bring him out.”
“Can’t.”
“Because?”
“Every time I try, he starts to cry again. You didn’t hear?”
You shake your head. “Slept right through. What time is it?”
“Quarter after eleven.”
“Shit. We’ll be up all night.”
Tess laughs—you’ve always loved the sound of her laugh. “Yeah. We’re all fucked up, aren’t we?”
“And what’s going on with our little man?”
“Not a fan of travel, apparently.”
“Maybe he sensed how small this room was gonna be.”
“Or that they shut down room service at eleven.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Afraid not.”
You close your eyes, knowing what this means. You’ll need to get dressed again. You’ll need to put on your damp socks and shoes and head out into the night, to forage for food. It’s Christmas Eve, but this is Barcelona, so there’s bound to be someplace open. You can ask at the front desk. You can get them to change your dollars into euros. You can see if they have any Band-Aids for your blister.
“Sweetie…?” Tess says.
“On my way.”
And you roll off the bed, stand up, reach for your clothes.
* * *
—
The woman at the front desk does indeed have Band-Aids; she gives you four of them. You use your credit card to get euros—three hundred—and then ask for directions to a 24-hour convenience store. The woman takes out a map of the area and highlights your route for you in yellow.
You head across the lobby and sit in one of the armchairs. You pull off your shoe and sock and apply all four Band-Aids to your blister, one on top of another. You can feel people staring at you as you perform this operation, but you don’t care. You’ll never see any of them again. This is one of the great pleasures of traveling.
The rain has stopped; the night air has grown crisp, though it still retains that faint smell of sewage. The streets around the hotel are empty, but you can hear a crowd caroling in the distance—drunkenly, it seems. You can recognize the song, even though the carolers are singing in Spanish: “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” You don’t want this tune to get caught in your head, and your desire for this not to happen is enough to ensure that it does, so you find yourself half humming it as you make your way to the store and enter what could easily be a Walgreens or a Duane Reade anywhere in America.
Tess made you a list. You check the items off as you drop them into your basket: deodorant, diapers, toothpaste, two toothbrushes, floss, more Band-Aids, crackers, cheese, a comb, a bag of carrots, a carton of milk, skin lotion, a chocolate bar, baby wipes, cornstarch.
You hand your credit card to the cashier. You say, “Feliz Navidad,” and when the cashier responds with what seems like a full paragraph of Spanish, you smile and nod and pretend you understand.
Then you’re heading
back to the hotel again, through the quiet city streets.
* * *
—
Your blister has never really stopped hurting, despite the quadruple Band-Aids, and it prompts you to make a stupid mistake. You second-guess your map and attempt a shortcut via a warren of narrow lanes, one of which turns left even though you’re certain it ought to be turning right, and when you try to retrace your steps, nothing looks quite like it did on your way into the neighborhood, so you blunder about, taking one turn and then another, confident that eventually you’ll find your way back out to the wide avenue where you began.
It’s in this fashion—meandering, limping—that you come upon the old woman.
The street has opened into a small plaza. There is a dry fountain in the plaza’s center, with a statue of what appears to be an angel, head bowed, wings folded, hands clasped in prayer. Wooden tables are arrayed around the fountain, as if for an outdoor market. The old woman is the only person in sight, though. You can’t tell if the market was held earlier today, and she’s stayed here late, or if it will begin tomorrow, and she’s arrived early. She’s dressed in a dark blue parka, with a black scarf over her white hair. She’s short and plump, and the thick parka seems to exaggerate both qualities, making her look nearly round—so much so that you can imagine her rolling off across the plaza, like a ball, if someone were to push her.
You approach her table with the intention of asking for directions, nothing more. You have the suspicion, even from a distance, that she might not speak English. But it doesn’t matter. You’ll show her the map you were given at the hotel. You’ll point to the wide avenue. If she can get you there, you’re certain you can find your way back to the hotel.
The woman is bent forward, arranging her merchandise on the table, a dozen wooden boxes. They look handmade, smaller than shoe boxes, but not by much—like tiny pine coffins. A piece of paper is taped to the front of the table, and it says: “100 Euros.”
The woman smiles as you draw near, and you see that she’s missing her two front teeth. It gives her an impish air, likable but a bit untrustworthy, as if she might tell you a funny story while she’s picking your pocket. You have your shopping bags in one hand, your map in the other. You’re about to extend the map toward her when your gaze catches on the boxes. Each one holds a different figurine. You see a bearded man in dark trousers, a white smock. You see a camel. A young woman in a coarse brown dress, a yellow shawl across her shoulders. A donkey. A lamb. An ox. A king with a scarlet robe and a golden crown. A Roman legionnaire. And a pink-faced baby.
That’s the one that triggers recognition for you: the swaddled baby.
It’s Christ, of course. These are crèche figures.
The woman watches as you bend to look more closely. The figures appear to be handcrafted, and quite old. The fur on the animals is worn in spots; Joseph’s trousers are torn at the knee. The old woman looks Middle Eastern to you, and you wonder if these boxes might be heirlooms. You picture them wrapped in burlap and straw, smuggled north across the Mediterranean from some war-torn land. One hundred euros seemed extravagant when you first approached, but now you’re not so certain. That’s how it happens, so simply, so quickly. You know you’re going to buy one of these figures from the old woman; it’s just a question of which. Because that’s another thing that has gone missing in your luggage—your Christmas gift for Tess. You can easily envision how happy she would be to own one of these creatures. It will be the perfect way to jar your visit here back onto its proper path.
You set down your shopping bags. You take out your wallet.
* * *
—
You know you’re supposed to bargain. But it’s late, and you’re hungry, and this old woman is selling things you assume she must hold very dear, and it’s Christmas Eve, and you have the money, so you remove two fifty-euro notes from your wallet and set them on the table. Then you point at the ox. “May I see that one, please?”
The woman answers in a language you don’t recognize. All you can tell is that it’s not Spanish. She senses your incomprehension and begins a complicated pantomime, pointing at her watch, gesturing at the surrounding plaza, then the wooden boxes, widening her eyes in an exaggerated expression of wonder, and gradually you start to grasp that she wants you to wait till midnight, that something extraordinary will happen then, something that only occurs on Christmas, and when Christmas is over, it will be over, too, until the following year, when it will happen again, and so on, through the unfolding years, on Christmas, every Christmas, but only then.
Or no, maybe not—maybe you’re misunderstanding her altogether. The only thing you know for certain is that she wants you to be patient. She insists upon this. She won’t be swayed.
You check your own watch. It’s four minutes till midnight. You can see no harm in waiting, though you’d prefer if she’d just go ahead and sell you one of the figures, which seem wonderful enough as they are, without the supposed intervention of midnight, a moment that you suspect will amount to nothing whatsoever, or something silly, perhaps, a joke whose meaning you will likely fail to grasp.
The old woman removes the ox from its wooden container, sets the beast on the table before you, upright on its hooves. You’re wondering what might be unfolding back at the hotel room, if the baby is asleep again, or crying…you’re wondering if you should just summon an Uber to take you the rest of the way…you’re wondering if one hundred euros is an excessive sum to pay for what after all is really only a worn-looking stuffed animal…you’re wondering if you should pick the Roman soldier instead, or maybe the camel, or the plump Magus with his gold crown, and then you hear the bells begin to toll.
* * *
—
Church bells, near and far, all across the city.
It’s midnight in Barcelona.
* * *
—
There must be a church just a street or two away, because one of the bells stands out from the rest, echoing across the plaza. You count each strike of the clapper as it rings the hour. In the silence that follows, you turn to the old woman, waiting for her to reveal her Christmas miracle. She is smiling down at the ox with an air of expectation, and you follow her gaze. The little figurine is standing there, unchanged. You’re thinking that maybe you will try to bargain after all—or perhaps you should forget the whole exchange, take back your money, pick up your shopping bags, and head off across the plaza—when the astonishing thing happens.
The ox moves.
No, that’s not it—it doesn’t merely move. It moves in a way that only a living thing would move. It moves like a creature waking from sleep. It shakes itself and snorts and lifts its head to look at you, and you can see the instant when it registers your presence in its eyes. For a long moment, you’re too stunned to react; you simply stare. Then you reach a hand to touch the thing, and it shies away from you, its hooves making a clomping sound against the wooden table as it retreats, and the old woman gives a pleasure-filled laugh. She scoops up the ox—it struggles against her grip, swinging its wide horns—and then she sets it back into its box.
All in an instant, the creature goes still again. Lifeless. The magic undone.
Yes, that’s the appropriate word: magic.
Because you know immediately that this is what you’re witnessing—you have no doubt. You’ve stumbled upon some ancient enchantment here among the narrow streets of Barcelona’s old city. Witchcraft. Sorcery. Something you’d never believe could exist. Something you’d scoff at, even, if anyone ever told you the tale. But you’re not scoffing now. You heard the creature snort. You saw it move.
And you want to see more.
You point to the figures in the boxes, and the old woman lifts them out, one by one, to set them on the table. There’s that same pause with each creature, that same feeling that this time the magic won’t take hold, nothing is going to happen, and t
hen, just when you’re falling back into a comfortable state of unbelief…the same awakening. The donkey is so vigorous in its movements that it almost gallops off the table. You catch it at the last instant, and there’s the shock of its warm body, the tautness of its muscles, its breath hot against your hand.
Alive.
Each of them: undeniably alive.
Mary looks frightened; she cowers backward, makes a whimpering sound, pulls her shawl around herself. Joseph, for some inexplicable reason, keeps sneezing. The infant Jesus begins to cry—howling, screaming—sounding eerily like your own child, crossing the Atlantic. The Roman soldier scowls and paces; he draws his sword and tests the blade with his thumb, then slides the weapon back into its scabbard and paces some more. The camel lies down and refuses to rise again. The Magus looks about with a haughty air, offers a tremendous yawn, then folds his pudgy arms across his chest.
After each demonstration, the old woman catches the figure in her hands, drops it back into its box. Instantly, the creatures resume their doll-like stillness.
The old woman does her pantomime for you again, pointing at her watch, gesturing around you at the plaza, pointing once more at the watch, and you nod—yes, yes, yes—you understand, only on Christmas, every Christmas, from midnight to midnight. You empty your wallet onto the table: three hundred euros. You hesitate over the Holy Family, feeling an obligation to choose them, but there’s the cowering to consider, the sneezing, and the crying. You think of your son, growing up with these mysterious beings. Which of them would give him the most delight, coming to life each Christmas? Which would give a young boy the greatest pleasure?
You point to the Roman solider.
The donkey.
The ox.
The old woman takes your money. She covers the three boxes with their wooden lids. Then she pushes them toward you, one after the other. She watches as you set them into your shopping bag. You thank her with passion, saying thank you and gracias and merci and grazie, and then, when this doesn’t seem sufficient, miming your gratitude for her, bowing, touching your heart, your lips, your heart again, and the old woman smiles her toothless smile and bows back and sends you off into the night.
Hark! the Herald Angels Scream Page 3