IN A CERTAIN TIME, IN A CERTAIN LAND ...
Once there lived and once there was a simple woodcutter and his good-hearted wife, whose greatest pleasure was making toys for children.
Then the miracle occurred. In a magical kingdom at the Top of the World the kindly pair discovered the secret of making reindeer fly and of bringing happiness to children everywhere, then and forever.
His reward was to be the joy that shines in every child’s face at Christmas. But one of his helpers decided he could improve on Christmas—and almost ruined it.
Now a wondrous movie and a magical novel, this story tells of the good man’s gravest threat and biggest triumph. He went on to become the Greatest Living Legend of All Time. But still you might not know his name.
Unless you too were once a child . . .
Claus smiled, his broad face filled with love. He looked around the room, at all the other children playing happily in the candlelight and fireglow with their new blocks and hoops and dolls and stilts. His handmade toys brightened their dreary winter like a thousand candles, and their happiness filled the room and the spirits of their elders with warmth and light. The joy his Christmas gifts brought to others was the greatest pleasure in his own life. Despite all the time and effort they required, he always felt, as he worked through the long year on his toys, that he was repaid in riches even a king could not possess—the shining happiness of a single child’s smile . . .
SANTA CLAUS: THE MOVIE
A Berkley Book/published by arrangement with
Merchandising Corporation of America, Inc.
PRINTING HISTORY
Berkley edition/December 1985
Copyright © 1985 by Calash Corporation N.V.
All rights reserved.
A Division of MCA, Inc.
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ISBN: 0-425-08385-3
A BERKLEY BOOK ® TM 757,375
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The name “BERKLEY” and the stylized “B” with design are trademarks belonging to Berkley Publishing Corporation.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
To Andrew and Martin with love
One
The icy wind swept over the dark pine forests, bearing on its back yet another blizzard to be dumped on the rudely built dwellings huddled among the trees below. It was midwinter in the Middle Ages, and the late afternoon sky was already as dark as night—as dark as the precarious lives of the peasant folk became when the Northlands winter buried their fields and houses under snow.
The bitter wind probed the cracks between the ill-fitting logs of an isolated, roughhewn barn on the outskirts of a tiny village. The barn was home not only to a variety of farm animals, but also to the large peasant family who owned them. People and animals occupied the space indiscriminately, sharing precious warmth and companionship as well—especially today. This was Christmas Eve, when all the people of the village put aside the problems of their daily existence for a brief time. Winter still ruled the land, but Christmas brought them a promise of new hope and rebirth, bringing spring into their hearts. It also promised a time of quiet celebration . . . and a very special visitor. Already the older children were beginning to grow restless, waiting for him, although the younger ones still sat in a circle listening raptly to one of Grandmother’s stories.
A circle of children ranging in age from toddlers to almost-teenagers, all dressed in the same drab, much-mended clothing, had gathered around their grandmother in front of the blazing hearth. Some sat straight-backed and wide-eyed on top of the woodbox, some snuggled on pillowed quilts or sprawled across a warm, patient husky or a woolly lamb while Grandmother told her traditional Christmas tales. The farm beasts gathered near the hearth, too, although whether they enjoyed the story or simply the warmth, none of the children were really sure. Grandmother was the best storyteller anyone had ever heard, and she had told them that even the animals could speak and understand on this one miraculous day of the year. Most of the young ones had heard before the story the old woman was telling now, but anticipating what came next only made it more fun.
“. . . suddenly the ice mountains cracked open, and beautiful, beautiful lights shone in the sky.” The old woman spread her arms, smiling as if she could see the wonderful lights herself, hidden inside the soft gleam of a candleflame. “And out came the vendequm, hundreds of them in their bright-colored clothes!”
The younger children gasped in amazement, seeing the beautiful lights and the great crystal mountains of ice just as clearly as the old woman seemed to, somewhere in the wonderful land of their imaginations. “Granny, what’s a vendequm?” little Else piped. She was only three, too young to remember last year, and not certain exactly what her imagination was supposed to be showing her.
The old woman drew her shawl closer about her shoulders and smiled again. Reaching down to stroke Else’s fair, downy hair where it curled out from beneath her cap, she said, “The vendequm are the little men who live in the ice mountains way up at the top of the world, under the North Star.”
“Inside the ice?” Else asked, awed. “Are they as little as me?”
“Almost.” The old woman nodded. “And they love children because they are small like them . . .” Her eyes filled with her wonderful vision again, and she returned to her story once more.
“This is the same story she told last year,” Hans murmured to himself, over by the window. He was thirteen, and had decided that he knew too much to listen to children’s fairy tales. With a chilly hand he wiped away the fantastic frost-flowers that covered the tiny, crowded windowpanes every time he breathed, and peered out again. He could barely see an arm’s length out into the yard; the snowstorm was as bad as ever. He had been sitting by the window, watching and waiting, for what seemed like hours. He turned back to his father, a tall bearded man named Axel, who sat quietly on a bench beside him, enjoying the day of rest. “When is he coming?” Hans said impatiently, his voice rising. “When is he going to get here?”
“On a day like this, he’d be crazy to come this far,” Axel said. He pulled his gray cloak closer about his neck, and adjusted his warm leather cap. The adults were scattered around the room, the women peacefully working at the spinning wheel or the hearth (for their work was never done), while most of the men huddled around the long wooden table, drinking holiday cups of hot ale and mulled cider, trying to keep warm from the inside out. They all wore the same drab homespun clothing their children wore, with here and there a leather jerkin or fur hat for the men, and a neat white cap or apron embroidered by hand and carefully saved to wear on holidays for the women.
“The road from the village must be blocked,” Uncle Viktor added, listening to Hans’s complaint from his place at the table. “Even those reindeer of his couldn’t make it through.”
Hans frowned unhappily. Seeing his disappointed face, his mother Marta shook her head in reassurance. “It wouldn’t be Christmas without him, would it?” she said, then glanced at her husband. “He hasn’t missed one yet.”
Stubbornly Hans peeped out through the thick glass panes again, squinting into the storm. This time he made out a vague, dark shape that had not been there before. He grinned, as all at once a sleigh took form in the shapeless whiteness of the farmyard. “It’s them!” he shouted triumphantly. “Here they come!”
Even Grandmother forgot about her story now, as all the children leaped up together and rushed to the window to look out.
In the farmyard an open sleigh drawn by two reindeer pulled up before the barn door. A stocky man in his late fifties climbed down fro
m its seat, and tethered the reindeer in the lee of the barn’s log wall. He had a short, full beard; its gray was already almost white beneath its sparkling frosting of snow. He wore a heavy, fur-lined wolfskin coat over peasant clothing as drab and rough as any worn by the expectant watchers inside. He had pulled his hood up high in an attempt to keep himself warm, but he scarcely seemed to notice the unpleasantness of the weather, or the difficulty of traveling through it. He turned back to the sleigh, offering his hand to its other occupant.
His wife Anya pushed aside her lap robe and climbed down to stand in the snow beside him. She was almost ten years younger than her husband, and although her form was almost completely hidden beneath layers of shawl and a fur-trimmed elkskin coat, her round, rosy face was lovely. She smiled, too, as she saw the anticipation in his eyes, but her smile was tinged with a private sorrow as she glanced toward the light spilling from the opening door before them.
Pulling a large burlap sack from the sleigh, then settling it on his shoulder, Claus started toward the barn with Anya at his side. Struggling against the wind, their heads down, they waded through the snowdrifts toward the welcoming warmth and light.
As they entered the barn the waiting children swarmed around them, laughing and shouting. Before the barn doors were even closed again, the clamoring children were hugging Claus and pulling at the bulging sack he carried. Claus smiled, and then began to laugh, caught up in their infectious delight.
“What did you bring?” Hans cried. “What did I get?”
Claus raised his free hand to silence them, still laughing his deep, hearty laugh. “Wait, wait—don’t I hear something first?”
The wave of children subsided as they abruptly remembered their manners. In a grinning chorus, they cried, “Happy Christmas, Uncle Claus!” Several of the older children moved forward to help him lower the heavy sack and carry it to the hearth.
“All right now,” Claus said as he pulled open the bag. “Everybody stand back!” Beaming with pleasure and pride, he began to take from the bag, one at a time, a wonderful assortment of hand-carved wooden toys. Soon a pile of hoops, nine-pins, balls, dolls, and animals covered the wide wooden planks of the floor, within the ring of breathless children.
The adults stood by, watching with broad smiles. Axel shook his head in wonder. “Cutting wood all day for the whole village is enough to exhaust any man. How does he find time to make all those things?”
Anya watched her husband with the children, her eyes shining. “He makes time, Axel,” she murmured fondly. “What can I tell you? It gives him pleasure.” She smiled, but there was a melancholy in it that no one but Claus would have recognized. “Tomorrow, believe me, he will begin making the toys for next Christmas.”
“How lucky you are, Anya,” Marta said softly.
Anya did not answer; the trace of sadness that touched her smile crept into her gaze as well. Lucky? she thought. To be married for thirty years to a wonderful man who loves children so, yet never be blessed with one of our own? Spending the long winter evenings making toys for other people’s children? “Yes . . . lucky . . .” she murmured, remembering herself at last. She looked back at the children again.
Most of the little ones were already scattered about the vast, beam-ceilinged room, playing with their new toys. Grandmother led little Else up to Claus as the crush of older children loosened. Claus smiled down at the little girl, marveling at how much she had grown. “Little Else,” he said, reaching into his sack again. “Here. For you. Especially for you.” He pulled out his favorite among all the toys, which he had saved especially for his favorite little girl. He handed her a carved wooden elf about a foot tall.
Else took it shyly, her eyes wide and shining with excitement. “What is it?” she asked.
“It’s the vendequm!” Grandmother said, delighted. “It’s just what I was telling you.”
Else hugged the toy elf to her, dancing with her own delight and amazement. Claus smiled, his broad face filled with love. He looked around the room, at all the other children playing happily in the candlelight and fire-glow with their new blocks and hoops and dolls and stilts. His handmade toys brightened their dreary winter like a thousand candles, and their happiness filled the room and the spirits of their elders with warmth and light. The joy his Christmas gifts brought to others was the greatest pleasure in his own life. Despite all the time and effort they required, he always felt, as he worked through the long year on his toys, that he was repaid in riches even a king could not possess—the shining happiness of a single child’s smile.
Anya and the other adults had gathered around him now, drawing him back into their company. They sat down together at the long table, laughing and talking. The gloom and chill was forgotten as the women of the household began to serve the holiday dinner they had been preparing since yesterday. On this one special day of the year, with the old year passing away and the promise of a new one ahead, they filled everyone’s bowl to the brim with warm and hearty food.
The evening passed swiftly for the happy adults and children, with much laughter and little thought of the worsening weather outside. Only Claus’s reindeer, tethered just outside the barn, were aware of the rising wind, the deepening snow. Donner, the younger and always the more skittish of the two, tossed his head and pawed nervously at the drifts rising about his knees. His companion Blitzen, older and always more stolid, rooted contentedly in the generous serving of fodder that had been put out for them, oblivious to the elements.
At last the merriment inside began to die down. The children played quietly now, some of the smaller ones already curled up asleep on the floor, clutching their toys close. Claus and Anya began to gather their things together, pulling on coats and shawls. “Well, time to go on,” Claus said, nodding in farewell.
Axel went to the window, rubbing away the frost to peer outside. He frowned, and shook his head. “Claus, stay the night,” he urged, looking back at their guests.
But Claus clapped a hand to his forehead in mock dismay. “Stay the night!” he cried. “Listen, you great fool, that little boy of Pyotor the Blacksmith, the one who broke his leg—he’s waiting for a Christmas toy just like these ones were!” He shook his head incredulously. “ ‘Stay the night,’ he says . . .” He looked at his wife.
Axel turned to Anya. “Anya, convince the stubborn man—”
Anya shrugged with good-natured resignation. “Me?” She lifted her hands. “I’ve been married to him for thirty years and I can’t even convince him to come to the dinner table on time.” She began to pull on her own coat, with Marta’s help.
Marta moved to join her husband at the window, and looked out. “You can’t see your hand in front of your face out there,” she said worriedly. “You won’t get through.”
“With my reindeer?” Claus laughed, trying to reassure her. “Donner and Blitzen can get through anything!”
“One of them already got through two bags of feed,” Axel’s brother Viktor remarked, a bit ruefully, from the doorway.
“That’s Blitzen,” Claus said, his smile turning wry. “The only reindeer in the world who’s half pig.” He put his arm around his wife. “Come, Anya, the boy is waiting for his present, and his home all the way on the other side of the forest.”
Axel nodded in surrender. “You really are a good man,” he said, smiling again.
“Good?” Claus shook his head. “Good has nothing to do with it. It’s what’s fair, that’s all.” But the compliment warmed him, and he smiled, too, letting a rare feeling of pride fill him. “But you’re right,” he murmured, considering what he knew of human nature. “As men go, I’m not bad.”
Axel shook Claus’s hand, and clapped him warmly on the shoulder, as Anya said her good-byes and gave quick hugs to her women friends. The couple left the barn, carrying with them the warm wishes of the others into the stormy night.
After helping Anya up into the sleigh and untying the reindeer, Claus settled himself on the snow-covered seat again. Donne
r and Blitzen snorted and shuddered as he tugged on the reins, turning their heads into the storm. Anya pulled her shawl across her face, and Claus felt a fleeting moment of doubt as the blizzard drove stinging snow into his eyes and whitened his beard again. But a promise was a promise . . . With a final wave to the friends still gathered in the doorway, he started the sleigh on its way down the nearly invisible road.
As they drove on, Anya huddled close beside him, sharing what little warmth they had between them. Claus smiled at her, still filled with the warmth of remembered laughter. “Did you see those faces when they saw the toys? They love their Uncle Claus, eh?” he said contentedly.
Anya’s murmured reply was lost in the gathering storm, her voice muffled inside her heavy shawl.
Claus drove on. The wind-blown snow was sweeping out of the blackness directly into their faces now. He shielded his eyes with a hand, not even certain he could make the road at all. He had driven this way so often that he was sure he could do it completely blind . . . but he admitted silently that he had never in his life tried to travel on a night like this. He slapped the reins. “Come on, Blitzen, pull harder!” he shouted, too sharply. He glanced over at Anya and tried to lighten his voice. “He’s got so much food in him it’s weighing him down—” He broke off, seeing the look on her face. “Anya,” he said, “don’t be sad.”
All at once tears glimmered in her large brown eyes. “Is it fair that you love children so and we have none of our own?” She couldn’t help herself, thinking on this happy, holy day of how many prayers had gone unanswered . . .
Claus sighed. He too had borne that same sorrow in his own heart, for more years than he cared to remember. “What’s meant to be is meant to be,” he said gently. He broke their train of thought by slapping the reins again on the white-coated backs of the reindeer. “Donner! Don’t drag your hooves! Yo!”
The reindeer lunged forward, startled, jerking the sleigh uncomfortably. They struggled on, their wide, splayed feet sinking into the powdery snow.
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