The Christmas Mystery

by Jostein Gaarder

  At a sign from the Emperor, Quirinius speaks. “Shepherds! Take your flock out into the fields, and never forget to be Good Shepherds. Wise Men! Depart to the desert and mount your camels. May you never cease to read the stars in the sky. Angels! Fly high above the clouds, all of you. Do not reveal yourselves to people on earth unless it is absolutely necessary, and never forget to say, ‘Fear not!’ For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord.”

  The next moment, all the shepherds and sheep, the angels and the Wise Men, have vanished. Elisabet is left alone with Quirinius and the Emperor Augustus.

  “I must hurry home to Damascus,” said Quirinius, “for I have an important role to play there.”

  “And I must go back to Rome,” said Augustus.

  Before they left, Elisabet pointed to the stable and asked, “Do you think I may go in?”

  The Emperor smiled from ear to ear. “Of course you are to go in. That is your role.”

  Quirinius nodded energetically. “You haven’t come all this long way just to hang around out here.”

  With those words, the two Romans started running back the way they had come.

  Elisabet looked up at the starry sky. She had to tilt her head far back to see the big star which was shining so brightly. Again she heard the cry of a child from inside the cave.

  So she went into the stable.

  * * *

  PAPA got up from the bed. “Well, we certainly took a remarkable Advent calendar home with us this year,” he said.

  He seemed to be finished with it all.

  Joachim wasn’t as pleased as his father was. What had happened to Elisabet? Mama sat for a while, thinking. When she got to her feet at last, she said, “Christmas dinner will be ready soon. Perhaps you could put the presents under the tree while we’re waiting. Because there are a few small surprises this year.”

  Then the doorbell rang. It was Joachim who opened it, and old John was standing outside. Today he was beaming even more than yesterday. “I’ve come just to thank you,” he said.

  Mama and Papa hurried to the door and invited him in. The marzipan cake came out on the table again. Only the top ring was missing. Papa had put a ball of red marzipan in its place. Joachim brought out coffee cups and plates.

  They sat around the table and John looked at the three of them, one at a time. He had a sly expression on his face.

  “When I drew the large picture on the magic Advent calendar,” he said, “I tried to do it so there would always be something new to discover. All God’s creation was like that, I thought. The more we understand, the more we see around us. And the more we see around us, the more we understand. So there will always be something new to discover if we only have our eyes and ears open to the remarkable world we live in.”

  Papa nodded, and John went on, “But I didn’t know that the calendar was made so that the person who read the pieces of paper would also solve the old mystery of the little girl who disappeared from town almost fifty years ago.”

  “Have you found out something more about Elisabet?” asked Joachim.

  But there was no time to answer, for the doorbell rang again.

  Mama looked at Papa, and Papa looked at Mama.

  “You’d better open it, Joachim,” said John. “I expect you’re the person who has opened all the doors in the magic Advent calendar. Now you must open this last one as well. But you must open it from the inside.”

  As he went to the door, Joachim noticed that Mama and Papa were holding hands. Surely they weren’t afraid that it might be the angel Ephiriel come to visit?

  Outside, he found a woman who looked about fifty. She was wearing a red coat and had fair hair with a little gray in it. She gave him a big smile and held out her hand. “Joachim?” she said.

  Joachim felt dizzy, but he knew who she was, and he shook her hand. “Elisabet Hansen,” he said. “Won’t you come in?”

  When they went into the living room, Mama and Papa were still holding hands. The old flower seller burst out laughing. Joachim thought he looked a little like Bishop Nicholas in the magic Advent calendar.

  Elisabet was left standing in the middle of the room with her red coat over her arm. Around her neck she was wearing a silver cross set with a red stone.

  When John at last managed to get hold of himself, he got up from his chair and said, “Perhaps I should introduce you. This is Elisabet Tebasile Hansen—one and the same. I came a few minutes ahead of her, but here she is.”

  Mama and Papa were totally confused. Just in case, Joachim stood in front of them and flapped his arms. “Fear not!” he said. “Fear not! Fear not!”

  Only then did they get up from the sofa to shake Elisabet’s hand. Mama took her coat and brought another chair. Papa went to get another coffee cup from the kitchen.

  Elisabet Hansen was speaking English. But when they all sat down again, Papa spoke in Norwegian. “I think I must ask for an explanation,” he said. “I think I must demand an explanation.”

  “And I’ll give it in Norwegian, for the boy’s sake,” said John. “Because it’s to his credit that we are all here today.”

  It looked as if the woman with the necklace understood what he was saying, for she looked down at Joachim and smiled.

  “Go on!” said Papa.

  “When I came to see you yesterday, I already knew that Elisabet was on her way to Norway,” the old flower seller began.

  “Why didn’t you tell us?” said Mama.

  John chuckled. Then he said, “You are not supposed to open a Christmas present before Christmas Eve. Besides, I couldn’t be sure whether she really would come. I couldn’t even be sure who would be coming.”

  Papa was shaking his head. It looked as if he would never stop.

  “I don’t understand,” he said.

  So John explained. “It started several days ago when I talked to Joachim on the phone. For many years I’ve tried to trace either a certain Elisabet or a certain Tebasile—I was convinced that she was one and the same. But it was Joachim who gave me the idea that perhaps Elisabet was using Tebasile as her last name. I called Information in Italy and was given a telephone number in Rome. After a few hours, I managed to get her at home. And it didn’t take long for her to remember me from those magic days in April 1961.

  “I told her the story of a mother who had lost her child in 1948. That’s how I could tell her who she was. She came to town late yesterday evening; she has not set foot here since she disappeared that December day forty-five years ago.”

  Papa jumped up from the sofa and went to the phone.

  “What is it?” asked Mama.

  “I promised to phone Mrs. Hansen as soon as I heard anything.”

  John laughed. “Elisabet stayed with her mother last night. They scarcely closed their eyes, but everything is fine, I assure you.”

  “Well, I have to call the police then,” insisted Papa, “so they can forget that old case about the girl who disappeared.”

  “That’s been arranged as well,” replied John. “You can’t have read the papers today. You can’t have listened to the radio, either. The whole country is delighted.”

  Papa sank back on the sofa. There was nothing for him to do. He could only sit and listen to the rest of what John had to tell.

  “May I ask a question?” he said.

  John nodded. “Of course.”

  “Exactly what did happen in December 1948? And don’t tell me that Elisabet set off after a little lamb. Don’t tell me she met an angel called Ephiriel, either.”

  He turned to Elisabet and asked her in English. She put a hand to her mouth to hold back an explosion of laughter, and indicated to John that he should answer.

  “She always begins to laugh when we talk about that,” explained John. “We can’t agree. I’ll give you Elisabet’s explanation first. She thinks the police in this town did a very bad job. But I think we should begin at the other end.”

  John stood up and began wa
lking back and forth as he spoke. Now and attain, he rested his hand on Elisabet’s shoulder.

  “Elisabet grew up in a little village near Bethlehem. The people there lived off the poor land they tilled, but even this poor land was taken away from them. When I met Elisabet in Rome in the spring of 1961, she had lived in different refugee camps, first in Jordan, afterwards in Lebanon. She went to Rome to plead the refugees’ cause. Well, never mind, we can talk about that later. But Elisabet really did go to Bethlehem in December 1948. She came to poor, persecuted people who needed God’s help. That’s what she meant when she said she had been kidnapped by an angel. She meant she had been kidnapped by someone who wanted to help the people in the villages around Bethlehem. She grew up there as a shepherd girl, so she was able to pet the soft fleece of the little lambs at an early age—just like Elisabet Hansen in the magic Advent calendar.”

  Papa interrupted. “So she suddenly disappeared in Rome,” he said. “Why didn’t she want to see you again?”

  “I’ve asked myself that many, many times in the years that have passed. The answer is that she had to be very careful about who she talked to. That was why she turned her name upside down and took Tebasile for her last. We mustn’t forget that there was a war in the country she came from. Elisabet was afraid of being kidnapped again.”

  “Go on!” said Papa urgently.

  “When I told her I believed her angel story, her suspicions were aroused. She was afraid I might be a dangerous person where her own safety was concerned, and for the Palestinian people.”

  “But wasn’t Elisabet Norwegian?” Mama wanted to know.

  John nodded. “Yes, she was Norwegian. Elisabet thinks she was kidnapped by some very unhappy people who were willing to do almost anything to make the world aware of the suffering of the Palestinians.”

  “All the same, it was dreadful to kidnap an innocent child,” said Mama.

  John nodded several times. “Of course, you’re right. Elisabet thinks they must have intended to take her back. Perhaps the people who kidnapped her wanted to get her father to write in the papers about all the people who were driven from village to village and finally herded into huge refugee camps outside their own country.”

  “So why wasn’t she taken back?” interrupted Papa.

  “Elisabet says she remembers very little until she was looked after by a large family in the tiny village outside Bethlehem.”

  “And what is your explanation?” asked Mama.

  “You know what that is,” said John.

  Joachim was sitting on the edge of his chair. “You think she did follow the little lamb with the bell and met the angel Ephiriel in the woods?”

  John nodded. “I do.”

  “No,” said Elisabet.

  “Yes,” said John.

  “No,” said Elisabet, and laughed.

  The others began laughing, too.

  “You mustn’t start arguing,” said Joachim. “I don’t think you should thumb your noses at each other, either.”

  “I believe Elisabet’s story,” said Papa.

  “And what about you?” asked John, looking at Mama and Joachim.

  “I believe twenty-four times more in John’s story,” said Joachim.

  “Then I’ll have to vote twelve times for John’s story and twelve for Elisabet’s,” decided Mama. “Because I think a few angels have flown to Bethlehem this Christmas. And back here again, for that matter.”

  “But Joachim is right when he says we mustn’t start arguing even though we believe different things,” said John. “That’s the message of Christmas, too. Maybe it’s the greatest of all truths that the glory of heaven is easily shared—at least, if we humans take part in parceling it out. When I wrote on those thin pieces of paper that I folded so carefully and put inside the magic Advent calendar, I had a few clues. I had heard about Elisabet Hansen who disappeared, and I had met Tebasile in Rome. And I had the old angel stories to rely on as well. The rest of it, I had to imagine myself.”

  Silence fell in the living room.

  “You managed that very well,” Mama said finally.

  John smiled shyly. “The imagination is also a tiny part of the glory of heaven that has strayed down to earth. It, too, can be shared very easily.”

  “It’s amazing,” said Mama. “We open the last door in an old Advent calendar and hear about Elisabet who goes into a stable in Bethlehem to welcome the Christ Child into the world. Right afterwards, the same Elisabet rings the doorbell here in our own house. So it seems almost as if this house is the stable where Jesus was born.”

  She stood and embraced Elisabet. “Welcome back to Norway, dear child,” she said.

  That was a funny thing to say, since Elisabet was almost twenty years older than Mama.

  “Thank you very much,” said Elisabet, and she said those words in Norwegian.

  A little later, the phone rang. Papa answered, and Joachim knew right away who he was talking to, because he heard Papa say, “We’re all overwhelmed … The Christmas present of the year, Mrs. Hansen … Yes, now I believe in angels … Here she is … and a Merry Christmas … a very Merry Christmas to all your family…”

  Papa nodded to Elisabet and gave her the receiver. She spoke English, so Joachim couldn’t understand what she was saying. But he thought it must be strange to talk to your own mother in a foreign language.

  Before long, Elisabet and John had to leave. But they would all meet again after Christmas because Mama and Papa and Joachim had been invited to a big Christmas party at Elisabet’s family’s home.

  The guests were escorted to the front door. Outside, it was snowing hard.

  Papa asked whether Elisabet could remember any Norwegian from when she was small.

  She stood under the light outside as the snow covered her red coat. Suddenly she bent down and stretched out her hand as if trying to catch the dancing snowflakes.

  “Little lamb, little lamb, little lamb!” she said.

  She bit her lip in alarm and put her hand up to her mouth. The next moment, she started running. A few seconds later, she and the old flower seller were gone.

  * * *

  LATE that evening, when Joachim was going to bed, he stood for a long time in front of his window, staring out into the Christmas night. There had been a huge new snowfall, but now it was clear enough to see the stars.

  Suddenly he saw some figures running by down on the road. It was not so easy to keep his eyes on them, for he could see them only in the light of the streetlamps, and the sight lasted only a second or two.

  Joachim thought he had recognized the angel Ephiriel and all the others who had accompanied Elisabet to Bethlehem.

  That night, they had escorted her back.

  ALSO BY JOSTEIN GAARDER

  Sophie’s World

  The Solitaire Mystery

  Translation copyright © 1996 by Elizabeth Rokkan

  Illustrations © 1996 by Rosemary Wells

  All rights reserved

  Originally published in Norwegian under the title Julemysteriet, copyright © 1992 by H. Aschehoug & Co. (W. Nygaard), Oslo

  Published simultaneously in Canada by HarperCollinsCanadaLtd

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Gaarder, Jostein.

  [Julemysteriet. English]

  The Christmas mystery / Jostein Gaarder ; decorations by Rosemary Wells ; translated by Elizabeth Rokkan.

  p. cm.

  [1. Christmas—Fiction. 2. Advent—Fiction. 3. Time travel—Fiction. 4. Jesus Christ—Nativity—Fiction.] I. Wells, Rosemary, ill. II. Rokkan, Elizabeth. III. Title.

  PZ7. G1114Ch 1996 [Fic]—dc20 96-27916 CIP AC

  eISBN 9781466804562

  First eBook edition: January 2013

 

 

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