The Christmas Mystery

by Jostein Gaarder

  Ancient accounts tell us that there was never so much talk of angels in Padua as during those magic years from 804 to 811. Now and then, someone or other thought they had seen something strange in the streets. Could it have been a procession of angels who had swept through the town?

  Outside the town walls, they stopped in front of a small monastery.

  “Strange to see a Roman town again,” said Quirinius. “I wonder who’s the emperor now.”

  Ephiriel looked at his angel watch. “It’s exactly 800 years after Christ. On Christmas Day this year, Charles the Great will be crowned Emperor of the West.”

  “Then we’ll soon be starting on a new century,” said Joshua the shepherd. He struck his shepherd’s crook against the monastery wall. “To Bethlehem! To Bethlehem!”

  * * *

  PAPA opened the atlas, pointed out the Po River, and found the town of Padua. Then he turned the pages backward and forward and with his finger tried to trace the long distance the pilgrims had run.

  “Here’s Halden,” he began. “Then they came down to the big lake in Sweden … That must be Vänern. From there, they hurried south through Sweden to Kungälv, Göteborg, Halmstad, and Lund. They rowed across to Sjaelland and visited Copenhagen. Yes, I can find it all. They arrived in Fyn and leaped through Odense. From Middelfart they were ferried across the Little Belt to Jutland. There they passed the towns of Kolding and Flensburg…”

  “They traveled back in history as well,” said Mama.

  But Papa went on following the path they had run, with his finger on the map.

  “Here’s Hamburg. Then Elisabet was left lying in the market in Hanover … yes, here. And here’s Hamelin, the town that had broken its solemn promise to the rat catcher.”

  “You broke a solemn promise, too,” interrupted Joachim. “You opened my secret box.”

  Papa continued, “Farther south is Paderborn; this is where the cherub Impuriel flew down in spirals from the church tower. From there, they ran to Cologne and continued up the Rhine Valley. And Impuriel was quite right: it’s wondrously beautiful there.”

  “That was during the thirteenth century,” said Mama.

  “Wait a moment,” said Papa. “I want to follow the whole route. In Mainz, they met Balthazar … Then it was Worms and Basle. Today Basle is in Switzerland…”

  “But Elisabet was there around 1100,” said Mama again.

  Papa went on searching with his finger. “Here’s Lake Biel … and the Lake of Geneva. I’ve found the little place called Martigny … This is a good map. Through the St. Bernard Pass, yes … today there are tunnels all over the place. Down through Val d’Aosta … to Lombardy and the Po Valley.”

  “Bravo!” said Mama. “But they’re traveling through history as well. I think that journey is an even stranger one to think about.”

  Only now did Papa look up from his map. “But the flower seller made that up.”

  “I think it’s true,” said Joachim.

  Mama nodded. “Yes, who knows?”

  Papa only shook his head. “Now I wonder which route they’re going to take…”

  “It’s eight o’clock!” exclaimed Mama.

  There was some quarreling and scolding because they were so short of time. That’s what Joachim called stress, and he thought nothing was worse.

  As he ran to school, many strange names were buzzing in his head. He had now seen all those places on the map.

  At school, they had started to rehearse the Nativity play; Joachim’s class would be putting it on in the gym on the last schoolday before Christmas. Joachim was going to be the Second Shepherd.

  15

  DECEMBER 15

  … “Fear not,” he said, in a voice as soft as silk …

  WHEN Joachim woke up on December 15, there were only ten doors left to open in the magic Advent calendar. He didn’t even have time to sit up in bed before Mama and Papa were in his room.

  Joachim was no longer angry because they had opened his secret box. They had done something they had no right to, but he had forgiven them. It would have been boring to sulk about it forever. Besides, it was more fun to read about Elisabet and the pilgrimage with Mama and Papa. It was almost like having a birthday every day until Christmas Eve.

  “Let’s get going,” said Papa.

  Neither he nor Mama hid the fact that the magic Advent calendar was just as exciting for them as it was for Joachim.

  Joachim sat up and opened door number 15. He carefully fished out the folded pieces of paper. The picture showed islands and reefs, with houses on them; the small islands were bathed in radiant sunshine.

  That day, it was Papa’s turn to read. He grabbed the thin piece of paper and cleared his throat twice before beginning.

  THE SEVENTH SHEEP

  Six sheep, three shepherds, three Wise Men, two angels, one Roman governor, and a little girl from Norway came to the Lagoon of Venice at the head of the Adriatic Sea.

  They paused on a little rise with a view over the lagoon, and Ephiriel began to point out all the small islands and reefs that studded the water. On many of the islands the Venetians had built houses, on some of them churches as well. Several of the islets were so close together that bridges had been built between them. There were small fishing boats everywhere.

  “The year is 797 after Christ,” announced Ephiriel. “We see the young Venice, which is what the 118 islands will soon be called. The Venetians settled here for protection from the sea pirates and barbarians who roamed the area. Exactly a hundred years ago, they all combined under a leader who was called the Doge.”

  “I can’t see any gondolas,” complained Elisabet. “I thought there would be many more bridges, too.”

  Ephiriel laughed. “But you’re not in the Venice of the twentieth century. I said the time was 797, and people had lived here for only a couple of centuries. But Venice will soon become so thickly populated that one island will scarcely be separate from another.”

  While they stood looking out over all the islets and islands, a small rowboat glided by. One end of the rowboat was filled with salt. At the other end stood some sheep, bleating at the sun, which was about to break through the morning mist.

  The man who was rowing the boat was so frightened when he saw the procession of pilgrims that he covered his eyes with his arm, took a step back, lost his balance, and fell head over heels into the water. Elisabet saw him come to the surface a few seconds later and then go under again.

  “He’s drowning!” she called. “We must save him.”

  The angel Ephiriel was already on his way. He hovered gracefully above the glittering water, seized the man when he surfaced again, and lifted him up on land. The water poured off him. Ephiriel pulled in the rowboat.

  The man whose fear had nearly caused him to drown lay down on the ground and coughed fit to burst. He gasped for breath and said, “Gratie, gratie…”

  Elisabet tried to explain that they were on their way to Bethlehem to greet the Christ Child and that he needn’t be afraid. Impuriel had begun circling around him.

  “Fear not,” he said, in a voice as soft as silk, “and be in no wise afraid. But you should not have been all alone on the sea it you can’t swim, for you can’t expect an angel to be around all the time. We only very rarely wander about, you know.”

  It didn’t look as if Impuriel’s advice was any comfort to the man. But the cherub sat down beside him, patted him on the cheek, and went on repeating “Fear not.” It seemed to be having an effect, for the man got to his feet and trudged back to his boat. He lifted a little lamb out of it and walked back toward them.

  “Agnus Dei,” he said.

  That means “God’s lamb,” and the lamb joined the rest of the flock without protest. Joshua struck his shepherd’s crook on the ground and said, “To Bethlehem! To Bethlehem!”

  They went off again. At the very end of the Gulf of Venice stood the old Roman town of Aquileia.

  As they ran, Ephiriel pointed to a monastery. “Th
e year is 718 after Christ. But there have been Christian communities here from ancient times.”

  The procession of pilgrims sped on through the town of Trieste. Then they continued south, across country, through Croatia.

  * * *

  PAPA put the scrap of paper down on the bed and opened one of the large atlases that he had placed on Joachim’s desk.

  “Here’s Venice,” he said, “and here’s Trieste; that’s on the border of Yugoslavia. I can’t find Aquileia.”

  “But maybe it doesn’t exist anymore,” said Mama. “You have to look in the historical atlas.”

  Papa went to get the other large atlas. There were many maps of all the countries in Europe, but the names of the countries and the towns were different from one map to the other.

  “Look for a map of the area in the eighth century,” said Mama.

  Papa turned the pages of the atlas. “Here it is! Aquileia! The old town was situated halfway between Venice and Trieste. This is fantastic…”

  “What is?” asked Joachim.

  “John must have used old maps like this, too. For the world changes all the time. History is like a big pile of pancakes and each pancake is a different map of the world.”

  “Pancakes?” said Joachim.

  Papa nodded. “It’s never enough to ask where something’s happening. It’s not enough to ask when something’s happening, either. You have to ask both when and where.”

  He put his hands on Joachim’s hands. “Imagine that you have twenty pancakes piled on top of each other. If there’s a black speck on one of the pancakes, and you have to find that particular speck, you must find out which of the twenty pancakes the black speck is on and exactly where on the pancake. You may have to search through the whole pile.”

  Joachim nodded, and Papa went on, “The long journey to Bethlehem goes right through all twenty pancakes. Because Elisabet doesn’t just travel around on the top pancake. She’s moving through the entire pancake mountain.”

  Now Joachim understood what Papa meant.

  “They’re traveling down through twenty centuries,” said Papa finally. “There are maps in this book that show exactly how the world looked in every one of the twenty centuries. I think John must have been reading a pancake book like this.”

  When he said “pancake book,” he and Joachim couldn’t help laughing.

  “The big question is whether there really was a man who was saved by an angel in Venice in the year 797. Do you think we could find out?” said Mama.

  “You don’t really think this story is true?” said Papa.

  “No, I guess not,” said Mama, wavering. “But if it really had happened, the man would have talked about it, to a priest, for instance. Then it would have been written down somewhere. Maybe we should search through the library.”

  Papa wouldn’t hear such talk. He said, “Let’s go and have a pizza in town and visit the market afterwards. Do you remember what he looks like, Joachim?”

  “Of course,” said Joachim. “I’d recognize him at once. He talked with an accent, but then, he probably isn’t Norwegian.”

  * * *

  THAT day, Mama picked Joachim up at school. They took the bus to town and met Papa. From the pizza restaurant they could look down on the market in front of the cathedral.

  As they ate, Papa kept asking, “Do you see him, Joachim?”

  Every time, Joachim had to answer no, because John wasn’t at the market selling flowers.

  They bought some special candles and a couple of Christmas presents. Then they went into the bookstore where Joachim had found the magic Advent calendar.

  The old man recognized Papa and Joachim at once, and shook Mama’s hand, too.

  “Here we are again,” said Papa. “We wondered whether you had seen anything of this remarkable flower seller.”

  The bookseller shook his head. “He hasn’t been here for quite a while. At this time of year he’s often not around as much.”

  “The magic Advent calendar is a bit of a mystery,” explained Mama. “We wanted to invite him to our house, to thank him properly for it.”

  They agreed that the bookseller should ask John to phone them.

  As they were about to leave, Papa said, “Just one more thing. Do you know what country he comes from?”

  “I think he said he was born in Damascus,” said the bookseller.

  In the car going home, Papa drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “If only we had found that man!” he said.

  “At least we found out where he comes from,” said Mama. “Isn’t Damascus the capital of Syria?”

  16

  DECEMBER 16

  … it was as if he was suffering from a holy hiccup …

  FOR the rest of the evening, they talked about Elisabet, John, and the magic Advent calendar. Even when nobody said anything, they all knew what the others were thinking about.

  Papa would drop a fork on the floor as he was clearing the dinner table, and say, “Too bad we can’t find him. But I expect he’s an old fox, and old foxes are very difficult to catch.”

  Mama would be sitting with the newspaper on her lap, staring straight ahead, and say, “After all, it’s a mystery in itself why that little girl never came back.”

  Joachim had put the photo of the grownup Elisabet on the mantelpiece. In the middle of the children’s program, he would look up from the television at the old photograph and say, “Maybe she was his girlfriend.”

  Mama and Papa heard what he said. Papa put his cup on the coffee table. “Yes, maybe.”

  “Because inside that tiny Advent calendar,” said Mama, “the one inside the Advent calendar that Quirinius gave Elisabet, was written, not just Elisabet and Tebasile. There was Roma and Amor as well. Amor means love.”

  Joachim turned off the TV and jumped up from his chair. “It really means something?”

  Mama nodded. “Yes. Amor means love.”

  “But that’s Roma backward,” Joachim said. “So perhaps Tebasile really means something as well.”

  * * *

  EARLY on the morning of December 16, Mama and Papa appeared in Joachim’s room.

  “Wake up, Joachim,” said Mama. “It’s only seven o’clock, but we need some extra time together these days.”

  Joachim rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and looked up at all the doors in the Advent calendar.

  He thought again that having the magic Advent calendar was like having a birthday every day. Would it be possible to make a calendar like that to last the whole year, he wondered.

  He remembered something he had dreamed. A little girl had crawled down through a giant batch of pancakes to look for something she had lost. In the end, she found it on the pancake at the very bottom. It was a tiny doll wrapped in cloth. In the dream the doll was alive.

  Joachim found the door with the number 16 on it. The folded piece of paper fell out on the bed, and Papa picked it up. Behind the door was a picture of an old castle.

  “I’ll read it,” said Mama. It was her turn.

  DANIEL

  It happened in the days when the old Roman Empire was divided in two. In both East and West, the Christian religion had taken root. But the Christian world was still being plundered by heathen peoples. They delayed the building of new churches, stole gold and silver, and pillaged whole cities.

  A decree was sent out from the Pope in Rome that the Church’s property should be defended against the foreigners who had not yet heard about Jesus. That was when a strange procession advanced through time and space on its way to Bethlehem, the city of David. They came from a distant future.

  At Salonae in Dalmatia they stopped in front of the ancient ruins of a Roman imperial palace. At first the ruins seemed abandoned, but the godly company entered by way of a small gate in the wall and discovered that the place was teeming with people. It was like tearing the bark off an old log to see small insects creeping around inside. In the middle of the old imperial palace, a small town had been built.

&n
bsp; When the angel Ephiriel saw all the people in the town he said, “The angel watch says 688 after Christ. We are standing inside the walls of the palace of the Emperor Diocletian. Diocletian was born in this part of the country about 250 years after Christ. He fought against the nomadic tribes and tried to rebuild the old Roman Empire. He closed the Christian churches and persecuted the Christians cruelly. When he died in 316, he was buried here in the great palace. But by the end of the century the whole of the Roman Empire became Christian. A town grew up inside the old palace of the Emperor. Much later, this town will be called Split.”

  While the angel Ephiriel was talking, a little boy noticed them. He was wearing almost no clothes. He pointed at them and called out, “Angelos! Angelos!”

  “What does that mean?” Elisabet asked Ephiriel.

  “It means angels. I don’t suppose he’s met very many of us before.”

  The next moment, all the people had seen them. The children stood still and gazed up in amazement, but the grownups threw themselves down, murmuring “Gloria,” “Amen,” and “Hallelujah” over and over again.

  Impuriel hovered above their heads. “Be not in the slightest bit afraid,” he said. “For 688 years ago there was born unto you in Bethlehem, the city of David, the best saviour ever. Now we are traveling from the four corners of the earth to pay Him homage.”

  A man in black clothes came toward them. “The priest,” whispered Ephiriel.

  He said something that Elisabet didn’t understand, but the angel explained that he was asking them to greet the Christ Child from this corner of the world, too.

  Joshua struck his shepherd’s crook against the old town wall and said, “To Bethlehem! To Bethlehem!”

  They hurried on down through Dalmatia. They leaped over hills and ridges and had many good views of the Adriatic Sea.

  Ephiriel pointed to a harbor town below. “The time is 659. That little town is called Ragusa and has just been founded by Greeks from the Peloponnesus. Later, the town will become an important trading and shipping center and will be called Dubrovnik.”