“I’m dreaming of a white Christmas,” he starts, then begins again, changing the key. “I’m dreaming of a white Christmas, just like the ones I used to know.”
My mother carefully unwraps each ornament from its tissue paper. They are so fragile, so beautiful. One by one she cradles them in her hands, holds them up to the light. She admires especially those that over the years my grandmother has brought to us as gifts. Though my grandmother rarely left Pennsylvania after she arrived from Italy, the ornaments are from all over the world, one more wonderful than the next. Each year is accounted for, every ornament inscribed with a date. It was as if she were keeping time for us, as if without her we would have been totally unaware of its passage.
My mother’s hands tremble slightly as she picks up the eggshell-thin ornament from Germany dated 1942. “Frohe Weinachter” is handpainted with precision in an elaborate calligraphy across its center. She tries putting it on one bough of the tree, then another. She already knows that wherever it is finally placed, near the top of the tree or the bottom, near light or away from light, it will always hang in darkness. She knows that whatever creative powers she can summon, whatever aesthetic considerations of shape or color or pattern her eye or heart or imagination can come up with, it will always remain unapproachable, hanging alone, in horrendous, unspeakable shadow.
“Through the years we all will be together,” my father croons, “if the fates allow.” The melody hangs tentatively in the air. His finger reaches up for the black key but then pulls back. Each word from his mouth stands alone. “Hang — A — Shining — Star — Upon — The — Highest — Bough.”
My mother places each ornament carefully, lovingly, on the enormous tree. She steps back now and then to admire her work. She takes two glass fish from their tissue paper and releases them to swim in a piney sea. She moves a straw angel to the front. “Straw is for luck,” she smiles.
“Mother,” I say, standing next to her, “move those two blue ornaments. Let them float on opposite sides of the great tree. Let their darkness be cast in different directions.”
“No, Vanessa,” she says, “we must not touch.” And she takes my hand. “This stands for something,” she smiles weakly and she kisses my forehead.
Behind my eyes now as I sit alone here this Christmas Day in New York, one year later, a deep, red Christmas candle flowers before me, opening itself up, smelly and dark. I cannot see her anymore, I can only hear her voice, coming out of the dark. “Try not to be afraid,” she says.
Light the candle, I think. Light it now, Vanessa.
I strike the match in my mind and light the candle there in the dark. In its light I can see everything: the tree, the wreaths, the garland, the crèche; every Christmas, every guest; the china, the cheese grater, the nutmeg, the oranges, the cloves.
“Try not to be afraid, Vanessa,” she whispers. “Trust me.”
I trust her.
I do not make the candle disappear; I do not change the stroke in my mind that has brought this blossoming, bloody shape to me. I do not alter anything. I hold it now steady in my mind, hold my mother’s courage up. It grows larger. The candle opens wider. The flame reaches higher and higher. I do not stop it. There are flames everywhere. I watch my father’s piano music slowly curl at the edges and then disintegrate. I smell the charred body of the duck. The punch ignites. The tree crackles and spits. The glass fish crack open. The straw angels hiss and fold into themselves. I destroy everything — the gingerbread boys, the holly, the winter roses. The lead crystal explodes. The piano groans, collapsing in the heat. The strings pop and stretch and melt. The melody my father sings pulls itself apart like taffy. The sisters’ sweet embrace dissolves. When they dial the phone it melts in their hands as they strain to hear a disappearing voice. It all turns to ash as I watch, and I know I am responsible for this. My young parents dance into smoke. My mother’s organdy dress with wings catches fire.
“Try not to be afraid,” she whispers.
“Mom!” I shout, “Mom!” I can’t find her.
“Trust me,” she sighs, through flames.
My mother left for Maine right after Christmas. The season she loved most had exhausted her. She was like one of those exotic, flowering plants of the season that must be taken away from the light so that it might bloom again some other time in the future.
As we sat at the dinner table she had seemed barely able to lift the scrolled, silver spoon to her mouth. Now there would be time for recovery. She would reclaim the silence; she had begun there at dessert. I could see her going. I tried to detain her — anyone would have — but I knew it was already too late. She was retreating with each spoonful of Christmas pudding, with each lovely laugh, each turn of the head. She looked so beautiful in her deep-green velvet dress and pearls, sitting at the lacy table. She put her spoon down and moved her plate slightly, asked for the cream and sugar, and arranged those two pieces at an angle not far from her plate. She was setting up the rocks. She was seeing it now, the wintry coastline of Maine. Her eyes were graying. She smiled. Her hand settled on her cup like a cloud.
When I spoke to her, my voice turned into the voice of the wind and the voice of the ocean. She could not hear my words now, but she looked at me affectionately and nodded, knowing that I knew. She moved her hand on top of mine and edged it toward her scene. I wondered if I would ever get to that white house. “You’ve made us such a lovely Christmas,” I whispered.
She will meet Sabine there and the gray will give way to a pale, pale rose when she sees her. They will enter the uncluttered room, fling open the large French doors, breathe deeply, walk from room to room, collapse onto the beds, embrace. They will sit hour after hour by the fire, watching the sea, taking each other in in silence. At dinnertime Sabine will throw the lobsters into the boiling water in her delicate way, standing on tiptoe to look into the enormous pot, covering her eyes, peeking through her fingers and holding my mother’s hand.
It is New Year’s Eve. They will write their resolutions just before midnight. Sabine will resolve to be braver about lobsters. My mother is more serious. Without hesitation, it seems, she scribbles five resolutions on a small piece of paper and tucks them away in some safe place. For the changing of the year Sabine will chop up tiny pieces of herring, which she has heard is the custom somewhere. And they will feed each other twelve grapes as the clock tolls, for luck.
The last time I saw my mother she was standing under the great clock in Grand Central Station, her New Year’s resolutions pressed in her hand. She had just returned from Maine where she had spent a month with Sabine. I was on my way back to college for the second semester.
“You don’t need all this, Mom,” I said, taking jewelry from her arms, her neck.
“You’ll miss your train,” she said.
Marta was smiling and radiant and waiting for me when I got back to Vassar. Over Christmas something had changed in her, I thought. Natalie had fallen back somewhere, rising only occasionally now in her low voice.
It happens with time, I thought to myself, but as soon as those words formed I knew them to be dishonest. I had wanted to clutch to my heart the easiest explanation, the most available.
“I missed you,” I said.
“I missed you, too,” she smiled. She put her strong arm around me. She was wearing a T-shirt whose sleeves she had cut off. She was dark brown and muscled and smelled vaguely of coconut oil.
“You look beautiful,” I said. I could not take my eyes off her. She was getting better.
Her veins looked good. “Did you bring back any drugs?” I asked her.