The Christmas Mystery

by Jostein Gaarder

  “I’m going to Bethlehem,” said Elisabet.

  And the market woman replied, “Hamelin? Hamelin?”

  “No, no!” Elisabet said, sobbing. “To Bethlehem! To Bethlehem!”

  Those were her words. The next moment, one of the angels of the Lord appeared in an arc of light above the market. Elisabet stretched out her arms toward the angel and cried, “Ephiriel! Ephiriel!”

  The people in the market threw themselves down to the ground, but the angel lifted Elisabet into the air, flew over the spire of the new Market Church, and was gone.

  He put her down on a country road outside the town. There the sheep, the shepherds, and King Caspar were waiting. The three men clapped their hands.

  “Isn’t that just what I was saying?” Joshua said, chuckling. “When one of the lambs is lost, the shepherd must leave his flock and find the lamb that has wandered away.”

  He struck the ground with his crook. “To Bethlehem! To Bethlehem!”

  “How far is it to Bethlehem?” asked Elisabet.

  “Not very far, my dear,” said Ephiriel.

  After a while, they came to a town on the bank of another river.

  “This is Hamelin,” said Ephiriel. “The river is called the Weser, and the year is 1304 after Jesus’ birth. A few years ago, a dreadful misfortune occurred in this town. Well … in a way, they had only themselves to blame. For they had broken a solemn promise, and that’s something one should never do.”

  “What happened?” asked Elisabet.

  “The town had been plagued by rats for a long time. But then a rat catcher arrived in town. He played on a magic pipe, and the sound of the pipe made all the rats follow him. That way, the piper led the rats to the river, where they all drowned.”

  “Wasn’t that a good thing?”

  “Yes, of course, but the people in the town had promised the man a big reward if he could save them from the plague of rats. When he got rid of the rats, they refused to pay what they owed him.”

  “What did the rat catcher do then?”

  “He began to play on his magic pipe again, and now it was all the children in the town who were bewitched by the music of the pipe and followed him. They disappeared inside a huge mountain, together with the piper, and were never seen again.”

  Elisabet realized that the woman in the market at Hanover had probably thought she was one of the children who had been lured into the mountain by the rat catcher from Hamelin.

  They were about to hurry on through Europe and even further back into history, when a sheep came running toward them along the road and joined the other sheep. Now the flock numbered five.

  Joshua struck the ground with his crook. “To Bethlehem! To Bethlehem!”

  * * *

  JOACHIM found the key to his box and hid the thin piece of paper. When Mama came in a little later, he was sitting looking at the picture in the Advent calendar.

  Mama leaned over him. “Well, look at that. A piper…”

  “He’s a rat catcher,” said Joachim. “They wouldn’t give him his reward for taking all the rats away from Hamelin, so he took all the children away with him, instead. The people in the town had broken a solemn promise, and that’s something one should never do.”

  Then Papa came in. “What are you two talking about?” he asked.

  Only then did Joachim realize that he had forgotten again to be silent about what he had read on the piece of paper.

  “I’m making it up,” he said. “It’s something I’m inventing.”

  “No, it isn’t, Joachim,” said Papa firmly. “You were talking about the Pied Piper of Hamelin, and that’s an old story from Germany. Who has told you about that?”

  What could he say? He had to come up with something clever. “Ingvild,” he said. She was his teacher. “Or maybe it was someone in the class.”

  He was lying. But wasn’t he allowed to lie about a Christmas present? Wasn’t that the only thing in the whole world that you could lie about as much as you liked?

  After school, Mama and Joachim went into town to do some shopping. On the way home, Joachim asked whether they could stop by the market square.

  There were not as many people in the market as in summer. Some stands sold wreaths and candles; others sold all kinds of crafts.

  “I wonder how they can stand here in the middle of winter,” said Mama, shivering. “There’s even someone over there selling flowers.”

  Joachim laughed inside. “That’s because part of the glory of heaven strayed down to earth,” he said.

  Mama pulled on his hand. “What are you talking about?” she said.

  “He’s selling flowers in the middle of the winter because the glory of heaven has strayed down to earth,” repeated Joachim. “You see, there’s so much glory in heaven that it’s easy for it to spill over.”

  Mama shook her head and sighed. Obviously, she didn’t like him using so many unusual words.

  John was standing behind a table with lots of flowers on it. He winked at Joachim and waved discreetly.

  After they passed, Joachim turned around. John was pretending to play on an invisible pipe.

  10

  DECEMBER 10

  … a few seconds later, what Elisabet had thought was a bird took off and flew down in a spiral toward the pilgrims …

  JOACHIM woke up the next day and opened the tenth door in the magic Advent calendar. Today there was a picture of an angel at the top of a church tower.

  IMPURIEL

  It happened at Paderborn at the end of the thirteenth century. Into the little town halfway between Hanover and Cologne rushed a frisky flock of sheep, followed by two shepherds, a black king, a little girl in a red jacket and blue pants, and an angel with outspread wings.

  It was early in the morning; only a night watchman was out in the streets. He called out sternly to the two shepherds, who were chasing their flock of sheep through the town. The next moment, he saw the angel hovering above the cobblestones. Then he raised his arms to the sunrise and exclaimed, “Hallelujah! Hallelujah!”

  Whereupon he retreated around a corner, leaving the streets to the godly procession.

  They stopped in front of a church in the middle of the town.

  “That’s St. Bartholomew’s Church,” said Ephiriel. “It was built in the eleventh century and is named after one of Jesus’ twelve apostles. It is said of Bartholomew that he journeyed all the way to India to tell the people there about Jesus.”

  Elisabet had noticed something strange. She pointed up at the spire on the church tower. “There’s a white bird sitting up there,” she said.

  Ephiriel smiled. “If only there were.” He sighed.

  A few seconds later, what Elisabet had thought was a bird took off and flew down in a spiral toward the pilgrims. Long before it landed, Elisabet realized that it wasn’t a bird at all but an angel. But it was not a grown angel; it was no larger than she was herself.

  The child angel alighted right in front of Elisabet’s feet. “Hi!” he exclaimed. “My name is Impuriel and I’m coming with you to Bethlehem.”

  He whirled around a little, peered up at Caspar and the two shepherds, and behaved very frivolously. Finally, he looked up at Ephiriel and said, “I’ve been waiting for a quarter of an eternity.”

  Caspar cleared his throat firmly. It was obvious he had something on his mind.

  “A quarter of an eternity,” he began. “That’s about 66,289 years … or about 156,498 years … or, more exactly, 439,811,977 years … or perhaps even a little more. It’s not easy to say exactly how long a quarter of an eternity lasts. First you have to find out how long a whole eternity lasts, then you have to divide it by four, but exactly how long a whole eternity lasts is very difficult to calculate. No matter which number you start with, eternity will in fact last even longer. So one can say that a quarter of an eternity is exactly as long as a whole eternity. Even a thousandth of an eternity is precisely just as long as the whole of the rest of eternity. This is extremely di
fficult to understand, for calculating whole or half or quarter eternities is a matter for heaven alone.”

  The cherub Impuriel looked offended. “In any case, I’ve been sitting on top of the church tower for hours,” he said.

  “Very possibly, but that’s not the same as sitting there for a quarter of an eternity,” said Caspar.

  To avoid a quarrel between the Wise Man and the cherub, and not just a quarter of a quarrel, Joshua struck the cobblestones with his crook, saying, “To Bethlehem! To Bethlehem!”

  They set off through the town and out along the roads and cattle trails. Impuriel leaped in front of the five sheep. So the pilgrims were guarded by angels at both ends.

  They saw many towns and villages, but didn’t stop until they came to the old Roman colonial city of Cologne on the bank of the Rhine River. Ephiriel had explained that their route through Europe had been planned so they would be seen by as few people as possible.

  “Angel time says it’s 1272 years after Christ,” he said, pointing up at a big cathedral that was being built. “They’ve started to build the great Cathedral of Cologne, but it won’t be finished for many hundreds of years.”

  Joshua banged with his crook. “To Bethlehem! To Bethlehem!”

  Impuriel turned around and said, “Wonderful countryside, isn’t it? We’re going up the marvelous Rhine Valley. There are fortresses and castles, steep vineyards and Gothic cathedrals, dandelions and rhubarb.”

  They hurried along the bank of the biggest river Elisabet had ever seen. The valley became narrower and narrower and the mountains higher and higher. They ran past small towns and villages. Out on the river floated an occasional barge.

  As they sped through the beautiful landscape, Elisabet turned toward Ephiriel and asked whether he had met Impuriel before.

  The angel thought her question was so funny he couldn’t help laughing. “All the angels in heaven have known each other through all eternity,” he said.

  “Are there a lot of you?”

  “Yes, a whole host.”

  “How can you all know each other, then?”

  “We’ve had all eternity to get to know each other, and that’s a very long time.”

  Elisabet had to think hard to understand what Ephiriel meant.

  The angel went on. “If you have a party that lasts for three hours, you shouldn’t invite more than five or six guests, so that everyone will be able to talk to everyone else. But if the party lasts for three whole days, you can easily have fifty or more guests.”

  Elisabet nodded. She had discussed this with Mama even year about her birthday.

  Ephiriel spread his arms. “The heavenly party has lasted for all eternity.”

  Elisabet wanted to know more. “Do all the angels have different names?”

  “Of course. Otherwise we couldn’t address each other. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have been people, either.”

  And Ephiriel began to recite all the angels’ names, one by one.

  “The angels in heaven are called Ariel, Beriel, Curruciel, Daniel, Ephiriel, Fabiel, Gabriel, Hammarubiel, Impuriel, Joachiel, Kachaduriel, Luxuriel, Michael, Narriel…”

  “That’s enough,” said Elisabet. “How long would you have to go on talking to name all the angels?”

  “I would have had to go on for all eternity.”

  Elisabet shook her head. “That’s pretty good going, to remember all the names by heart.”

  “With all eternity at your disposal, it’s not so difficult.”

  Elisabet felt dizzy, but she wasn’t going to give up. “Anyway, I think it’s very clever to think up so many different names all ending in -el.”

  Ephiriel nodded. “God’s imagination is just as infinite as there are infinitely many stars in the sky. No angel is exactly like another, nor are humans, either. You can make a thousand identical machines, but they are so easy to make that even a human can do it.”

  Finally, the angel Ephiriel said something that Elisabet hid in her heart. “Every person on earth is a unique work of creation.”

  * * *

  JOACHIM smiled to himself. It had been so much fun to read about all the angels. Suddenly he heard Mama on the landing. He slid the paper under his pillow.

  Mama leaned over the bed to peep in the calendar. “An angel,” she said, “on a church tower.”

  And then something stupid happened. Again Joachim forgot that he wasn’t supposed to talk about what he had read. Perhaps it was because he was trying to remember all those strange angel names. He said, “That’s the cherub Impuriel.”

  Mama stared at him. “Impuriel?”

  Joachim nodded. He thought it was a nice name for a mischievous angel. “He’s sitting on the top of St. Bartholomew’s Church. He’s been sitting there for a quarter of an eternity, but now he’s about to take off and fly in a spiral down to Elisabet and the others.”

  Mama didn’t say anything to Joachim. Instead, she called Papa. When he came into the room, she asked Joachim to tell him what the church in the picture was called.

  Oh, no! Only then did Joachim realize that he had said too much.

  “St. Bartholomew’s Church,” he said. “Bartholomew went all the way to India and told the people there about Jesus. But the church is in Germany, in Paderburg, or something like that.”

  Mama and Papa looked at each other.

  “I’ll check it in the encyclopedia,” said Papa. “Then we’ll find out.”

  When he came back, he looked as if he had met an angel or two on the landing. “He’s right. The town’s called Paderborn, and there really is an old St. Bartholomew’s Church there.”

  They were staring at Joachim just as they had done the time he ate nearly all the Christmas cookies the day before Christmas Eve.

  Papa took the magic Advent calendar down from the wall and inspected it on both sides. Then he hung it up again.

  “And how did you hear about Bartholomew?” asked Papa. “Or about Paderborn, for that matter?”

  “At school,” said Joachim.

  “Is that the truth?”

  Either you were allowed to tell lies about Christmas presents or you weren’t.

  “Yes,” whispered Joachim.

  By then, it was so late that there was no more time to discuss Bartholomew, Impuriel, or Paderborn. Neither Mama nor Papa had time to make their sandwiches for lunch.

  Joachim’s most important victory that morning was that he managed to hide the thin piece of paper in his secret box before he ran off to school. He hid the key in the bookshelf.

  When he came home from school, Mama was there. She had opened his secret box!

  She had opened his secret box. Mama had done something she had promised she would never do. She had broken a solemn promise. She had done something that was just as bad as opening other people’s letters.

  On the dining table lay the ten sheets of thin paper that Joachim had found in the magic Advent calendar.

  He was furious. He was so angry with Mama that he felt like hitting her.

  “You promised me that the secret box was mine and that you’d never open it,” he said. “So you tell lies. And you steal, too.”

  Then Papa came home. He had talked to Mama on the phone. It was he who had said she should find the key and open the secret box. They had to find out how Joachim knew so many strange names and used so many grownup words.

  Joachim said they shouldn’t have been allowed to have children. People who tell lies to their children might suddenly hit them as well, he said—and that was against the law. They could at least have waited until he came home from school and asked if they could open his box. Finally, he managed to say that he had hidden all the mysterious scraps of paper because he wanted to wrap them up and give them to Mama and Papa for Christmas. He said he’d throw away the magic Advent calendar. Then he began to cry. He ran into his room and slammed the door as hard as he could.

  He was never going to forgive them! He would never listen to them again, either. He would never belie
ve anything they said. Never!

  Joachim sat on his bed and looked up at the magic Advent calendar, but his eyes were so full of tears that the colors slid into one another and he could not pick out the angels from the shepherds in the fields. Everything was ruined. The Advent calendar had become ordinary, like every other Advent calendar. It wasn’t the least bit magical anymore.

  After a long time, something began to sing in his ears, and the song he heard was: SABET—TEBAS—SABET—TEBAS—SABET—TEBAS …

  It was such a mysterious song that he began to realize that it didn’t make any difference whether Mama and Papa knew about the scraps of paper in the Advent calendar. Perhaps the magic Advent calendar was so full of secrets that there would be enough for the whole family.

  He had still not told them that he had met John. That was something he had kept to himself.

  There was a knock at the door. Joachim didn’t answer, but after a little while Papa opened the door cautiously. “It’s true, we did something stupid,” he said.

  Then Mama came up. “Can you forgive us?” she said.

  Joachim stared at the floor. “Maybe…”

  Nobody said anything.

  “Did you read what was on the papers?” asked Joachim.

  “I suppose I did,” Mama said. “But, you see, I don’t know which piece of paper came out of the calendar first. Maybe you can show us—maybe you’d read it to Papa?”

  Joachim considered carefully. “Well, all right.”

  In a way, he was a little relieved. From now on, he had no need to hide anything. Besides, he would be able to ask Mama and Papa if he read something he didn’t understand.

  From now on, the magic Advent calendar would be the whole family’s Advent calendar.

  11

  DECEMBER 11

  … many people are terribly frightened when they see one of the angels of the Lord …