The Christmas Mystery

by Jostein Gaarder

  THE rest of the afternoon was spent poring over the scraps of paper that had fallen out of the magic Advent calendar. Joachim put them in the right order, so that Mama and Papa could read the story.

  As they read, Papa said, “That’s the strangest thing I’ve ever heard. I wonder how many calendars like this were made…”

  And Mama kept saying, “I’ve never seen anything like it … Imagine bringing home this Advent calendar, Joachim!”

  When it was evening and Joachim had to go to bed, he sat up for a long time staring at the magic Advent calendar. And it happened again.

  It happened again! On the big calendar picture, there were many angels hovering in the sky. Joachim had seen that before. But today he discovered that one of the angels was a cherub.

  He was quite sure. Impuriel had not been in the picture until Joachim had read that he flew in spirals down from the tall church tower.

  “Mama!” he shouted. “Papa!”

  Both of them came rushing into his room. They were obviously afraid that something dreadful had happened to him. He was a bit shocked himself.

  “I can see the angel Impuriel!” was all he said.

  Mama and Papa turned. Perhaps they thought he had been visited by an angel, but Joachim asked them to look at the picture carefully.

  “Can you see anything you haven’t seen before?” he asked.

  They peered at the picture.

  Papa said he might not have noticed everything when the bookseller gave them the calendar. He had been so flustered that he had left his driver’s license on the counter. For instance, he hadn’t noticed that one of the shepherds was holding a shepherd’s crook in his hand.

  “I don’t think I had noticed the little angel either,” remarked Mama.

  “Of course not!” said Joachim. “Because he hasn’t been there till now. And that’s because it’s a magic Advent calendar.”

  “Joachim, there’s no need to exaggerate,” objected Papa.

  He always liked to seem the most sensible.

  The last thing Joachim thought about before he fell asleep was that one of the angels in heaven was called Joachiel—almost the same as himself.

  * * *

  THE next morning, Joachim opened the eleventh door in the Advent calendar. He had to coax the thin piece of paper out before he discovered a picture of a horse and rider.

  He made himself comfortable under the covers and began to read. Today he did not need to be afraid that Mama or Papa would catch him red-handed, because the secret pieces of paper in the calendar were not so secret anymore.

  BALTHAZAR

  Five sheep, two shepherds, two angels, one King of the Orient, and a little girl from Norway were speeding up the Valley of the Rhine 1199 years after Jesus was born. They could just glimpse a church tower on the other side of the river. Ephiriel told them it was Mainz Cathedral.

  They paused to discuss the situation.

  “We have to cross the river,” said Joshua. “And that’s a pity, because we shall have to frighten another poor ferryman and explain that we’re pilgrims on our way to the Holy Land.”

  “We shall have to try to do it gently,” said Ephiriel.

  “I can see a boat down there,” Impuriel exclaimed.

  He flew high in the air, beating his short wings in the direction of the boat, with the rest of the procession after him. But Impuriel was already talking to a man who was sitting on the riverbank. “Can you row us across? We’re going all the way to Bethlehem, and we don’t have much time if we’re to get there before Jesus is born. We’re on a godly errand, you see.”

  Ephiriel hurried after him. When he had caught up with Impuriel, he nodded apologetically at the ferryman. Then he turned to Impuriel and said, “How main times do I have to remind you that first of all you must say, ‘Fear not’?”

  But the ferryman, who was splendidly dressed in a long red cloak, was not scared by the cherub. He turned to Ephiriel and said, “My name is Balthazar, Second Wise Man and King of Sheba. I’m going the same way as you.”

  “Then you are one of us,” said Ephiriel.

  Still, he scolded Impuriel a little. “This time, things turned out well. But you must always start by saying, ‘Fear not.’ Don’t you realize that many people are terribly frightened when they see one of the angels of the Lord, especially when we beat our wings.”

  “Sorry!” said Impuriel.

  “All right, all right,” said Ephiriel.

  “But isn’t it odd that they should be so frightened just because they’ve seen an angel?” argued Impuriel. “I’ve never so much as harmed a cat. On the contrary, I couldn’t count all the times I’ve helped a poor cat down from a tall tree. Of course, cats ought to learn once and for all not to climb too high, but when we do come and help them, they’re not the tiniest bit frightened. It’s always humans who are so terribly nervous.”

  The two Wise Men embraced.

  “It’s been a very long time,” said the one.

  “And it was a very, very long way from the Rhine,” said the other.

  “But it’s very, very, very pleasant to see you again.”

  They had their arms around each other, so it was not easy to say who had said what. But now the whole procession boarded the boat. The Kings of the Orient each took an oar and rowed across the river, which was almost as wide as a stretch of ocean.

  On the other side, Ephiriel pointed at the beautiful cathedral. It seemed a little squatter and did not have as tall a tower as many of the other churches they had passed, but it was much older.

  “The year is 1186 after Christ. Work on this cathedral began more than two hundred years ago. At that time, almost a thousand years had passed since the one seed was sown in the earth so that a field of churches and cathedrals would grow across the whole world.”

  “A whole field of churches!” repeated Impuriel. “It would be fun to work out how much stone and timber have been used to celebrate Jesus’ birth. Not to mention how many cakes have been baked or how many presents have been wrapped. Christmas is the world’s biggest birthday party, because everybody in the whole world is invited. That’s why the party has lasted for thousands of years.”

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

  The pilgrims hurried along the west bank of the Rhine. It was very early in the morning, so that very few people would be scared by them.

  But when they tumbled into the town of Worms in the year of Our Lord 1162, they met a rider on horseback. Perhaps he was a soldier who had been out on night duty.

  The angel Impuriel flew over to the man, beat his wings, and repeated, “Fear not! Fear not! Fear not!”

  Even though he buzzed around the soldier like an excited bumblebee and said “Fear not!” an enormous number of times, the poor man was extremely scared. He spurred his horse and galloped around some low buildings. He didn’t even have time to say “Hallelujah” or “God be praised.”

  Ephiriel shook his head in despair and tried to teach the cherub once more. “You only need to say it once. But you must say it in a gentle, soft, heavenly voice. ‘Fe-ear no-ot!’ you must say. It’s a good idea to keep your arms down, too. We do that to show we’re not carrying weapons.”

  Balthazar the Wise Man pointed up at a cathedral with six towers.

  “Everywhere and at all times, people have stretched their arms out to God,” he said. “The church towers point up to heaven, too, but they last much longer.”

  The shepherds bent their heads respectfully at these wise words, and Elisabet felt she had to repeat them to herself before she was quite certain what he meant.

  Joshua said, “To Bethlehem! To Bethlehem!”

  In the city of Basle, on the southern bank of the Rhine, they stopped in front of another big cathedral.

  “1119 years have passed since the Christ Child was born,” announced Ephiriel. “This cathedral with five naves has just celebrated its centenary. But for hundreds of years Basle has been an
important crossroads for travelers who journey through the Alps between Italy and Northern Europe. We are going to follow the same route over the St. Bernard Pass.”

  “To Bethlehem!” said Joshua the shepherd, striking his crook on the ground. “To Bethlehem!”

  Whereupon they set off up through the Swiss mountains.

  * * *

  JOACHIM sat in bed, thinking about the strange pilgrimage to Bethlehem. After a while Mama and Papa came in to read what was on the piece of paper.

  Yesterday they had talked about the magic Advent calendar almost the whole afternoon. Now Papa said, “We took home a small miracle from the bookstore, didn’t we, Joachim? Can you imagine how it was made?”

  “I think John made it,” said Joachim.

  “The bookseller said something about someone called John, didn’t he?”

  Joachim wondered whether he ought to tell Mama and Papa that he had met John. But he didn’t. He thought he had to keep one little secret for himself. Because there was something else as well: SABET … TEBAS … SABET … TEBAS.

  “If a flower seller has made this calendar,” said Papa, “he’s certainly inventive.”

  Mama agreed. “Yes, he is very imaginative.”

  Joachim sat up in bed. “You said I was imaginative when I told you about Elisabet and Ephiriel,” he said. “But I’d only read all the scraps of paper that were in the Advent calendar.”

  “And now we’re saying that the person who made the Advent calendar is very imaginative,” said Mama. “In a way, it’s the same.”

  Joachim shook his head. “He may not be so imaginative if the story is true.”

  Papa laughed. “You don’t really think you can run all the way to Bethlehem and far back in time as well?”

  “Nothing is impossible for God,” said Joachim.

  Nobody protested. Papa thought they should take out a large atlas so that they could follow Elisabet’s journey on the map. He had a historical atlas, a book of maps that showed what all the countries and all the places were called long ago. The same country and the same town have often had many different names, he explained.

  Suddenly Mama gasped. “Do you remember that old story from way back?” she said to Papa. “There really was a little girl who disappeared from this town while she and her mother were out doing their Christmas shopping. I think she was called Elisabet.”

  Papa nodded. “It was some time after the war. Was she called Elisabet?”

  “I think so,” said Mama, “but I’m not sure.”

  Suddenly it was as if Mama and Papa had forgotten Joachim. They were so busy talking to each other.

  “So maybe he’s remembered that old story and made up the rest,” suggested Papa. “If it is this flower seller who’s made it.”

  Joachim tried to get a word in edgewise. “Can you find out whether she was called Elisabet?”

  “Yes, I should think so,” said Papa. “Not that it really matters what she was called.”

  The last person to say anything before they had to hurry to eat breakfast was Joachim. “I think it matters a lot,” he said. “Because the lady in the photograph was called Elisabet, too.”

  12

  DECEMBER 12

  … for there’s no sense in believing what’s right unless it leads to helping people in distress …

  WHEN Papa came home from work on December 11, Mama and Joachim jumped on him as soon as he came into the hall and immediately started to talk about the girl who had disappeared.

  “Have you found out what her name was?” asked Joachim.

  “Let me in first,” complained Papa. “Yes, she was called Elisabet. Elisabet Hansen, in fact. It happened in December 1948.”

  Mama had dinner ready, so they sat down at the table.

  “I went into the bookshop as well,” continued Papa. “I went into the storeroom with the bookseller…”

  Mama looked astonished. “Why?”

  “… and there he found the photo that the flower seller had once put in his window in exchange for a glass of water. I have it in my briefcase.”

  Papa put the picture on the table. Joachim snatched it and Mama leaned over to look.

  It showed a young woman with long fair hair. Around her neck she was wearing a silver cross set with a red stone. She was leaning against a small car. At the top of the photo was a large dome. At the bottom was written “Elisabet.”

  “Hm, no last name,” said Papa. “It’s not exactly an unusual name. But it’s in Norwegian. In many countries, Elisabet is spelled differently.”

  Mama looked at him. “So you don’t think she’s Norwegian?”

  “No idea,” said Papa. “But look at the photo carefully. The dome in the background is St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. She’s standing on the street that leads to St. Peter’s Square. The car dates from the end of the fifties.”

  “I feel almost scared,” whispered Mama. “What are we getting mixed up in?”

  Papa put his elbows on the table. “Yes, it’s a mystery. But there’s no reason to believe that the girl who disappeared in 1948 is the woman in the photograph.”

  He was staring in front of him. “He wasn’t at the market,” he said.

  “Who? You’re talking in riddles,” said Mama.

  “The flower seller … John … the man with the glass of water. I’d give a lot to talk with him. There’s one thing we can take for granted: he made this strange calendar. Now he’s disappeared.”

  Joachim was thinking about everything so much that he wanted to go to bed early. Then it wouldn’t be so long before it was morning again and he’d get to know more about Elisabet Hansen and the angel Ephiriel.

  When he woke up on December 12, Mama and Papa were in his room before he had opened his eyes. That was unusual because it was Saturday, and Joachim was usually up before the others.

  “You are the one who opens the calendar, Joachim,” said Papa.

  It was obvious that he would have liked to open it himself.

  The picture was of a man in a red tunic. He was holding a large sign.

  Mama and Papa sat on the bed. Joachim began to read the paper that had fallen out of the calendar.

  QUIRINIUS

  The five sheep had crossed a ridge and were running down into fertile farmland. Impuriel fluttered around the little flock, and after the sheep and the cherub came Jacob and Joshua, Caspar and Balthazar, Ephiriel and Elisabet.

  They passed Lake Biel, and then several more lakes. The biggest and most beautiful was the lake of Geneva. It glittered so much that it looked as if a piece of heaven had fallen down to earth. Only when Elisabet looked up and saw that there was no hole in the sky was she certain that the picture of the sky in the big lake was only a reflection.

  Again they followed an old road alongside a river in a deep valley. Ephiriel told them that the river was called the Rhône and that all the water it carried with it from the Alps ran down first into the Lake of Geneva and later right down to the Mediterranean.

  They ran across an old bridge to the other side of the river and stopped in front of a monastery called St. Maurice. There were high Alps on every side, with snow on their peaks.

  “The time is 1079 after Christ,” said Ephiriel. “The monks have lived here among these tall mountains, praising God and His creation, ever since the seventh century. The monastery is built around the grave of the holy St. Maurice, who was killed here in this valley in the year 285 because he refused to worship the Roman gods.”

  He had just finished speaking when a monk walked out of the monastery. He greeted them with a slight nod. “Gloria Dei,” he said.

  “And the same to you,” said Elisabet, even though she had not understood what the monk was saying. She felt that someone ought to answer him.

  Only then did the monk notice the two angels. He knelt on the grass and said, “Hallelujah! Hallelujah!”

  Clearly, they weren’t used to angels visiting the monastery, though it was so high up in the Alps that it was almost the nea
rest neighbor to the angels in heaven.

  Impuriel rose half a meter off the ground, flew toward the monk, gently beating his wings, and said in a voice soft as silk, “Fear not, and be in no wise afraid. We are only going on a short journey to Bethlehem to greet the Christ Child.”

  Then King Caspar of Nubia strode up to the monk. He said, “Peace be with you and your monastery. As the angel has said, we are on our way to the Holy Land to pay homage to the King of Kings in Bethlehem, the city of David.”

  With those words, they set off again. They came to a little place called Martigny, where there was an old Roman theater.

  “The Romans used this route over the Alps, too,” explained the angel Ephiriel. “Much later, Napoleon crossed the Alps with his army.”

  “To Bethlehem!” called Joshua, and they sped up toward the high mountains. The air was so thin and so clear that Elisabet had to ask herself if she was on the way to heaven. A few times, they saw a mountain hare, a marmot, or an Alpine goat. Up in the sky, crows and vultures circled, and now and again a grouse started up from the bushes.

  At the top of the mountain pass stood a large house.

  “The year is 1045 after Christ,” said the angel Ephiriel. “That house is a hospice. The monks who live here are to look after people who are crossing the Alps. It’s brand-new and has been built by Bernard of Menton. At this time—and even in your time, Elisabet—the Benedictine monks live up here and organize rescue missions for people who get lost in the mountains. They are helped by their clever St. Bernard dogs.”

  “Right!” said the cherub Impuriel. “For Jesus wanted to teach humans to help one another when they were in distress. Once he told a story about a man who was on his way from Jerusalem to Jericho. He was attacked by robbers, who left him half dead at the side of the road. Several priests passed by, but none of them bent down to help the poor man, who was in danger of losing his life. Jesus thought there wasn’t much point in their being priests if they couldn’t even be bothered to help a fellow human being in distress. They might just as well forget all their pious prayers.”