Christmas at de’Galore’s house was a year’s waiting worth occasion. Well-dressed people, finely groomed and outstandingly well-humored would come from everywhere to visit that cute yellow house at the end of Cobblestone Street, such a fine yellow house at the end of Cobblestone Street… The host, Edgar de’Galore, was known as a gentleman, almost chivalric in his manners and public appearances, and he was married with Harriet Uldenvin, a true dreamborn wife.
They had the happiest marriage in a cute, fine yellow house at the end of Cobblestone Street. They owned few things in life, yet valuable ones – a good car, a two-stores commercial building downtown (whose rent was one of their main sources of income), two dogs and, of course, the house at the end of Cobblestone Street.
And because of this rather simple-looking life – for they had a simple life – and because of their rather faint-looking public life – for they had a faint public life – the Christmas party at de’Galore’s house was a well-known success. Each year the childless couple would host a party where many would gather – most were kith and kin, yet the number of close friends that knocked at the door of that yellow house at the end of Cobblestone Street only increased every Christmas. The event was famous on that side of the town’s suburbia and dearly-expected by most in the couple’s families or friendship circles.
So it was that in mid November people were already wondering what a pleasant time was reserved for them on the night of December 24th, when they would form up a row of cars along Cobblestone Street and head to the lights of a yellow house at its end, finding the de’Galore couple, arms stretched, at the house’s door, welcoming the guests with a sincere smile and words of cherishing and Christmastide.
And that year nothing changed. The party was being hosted as it had been hosted every year since they married and started living on the yellow house at Cobblestone Street’s end. It was not a party for the vain and enriched, neither it was a party for a family only – it was a true Christmas party, where friends and family are gathered. No politicians, no local authorities, no people of the hosts’ personal dislike (save for a few sidekick relatives that should come so as to never cripple a couple or crack a family’s continuum).
That year, however, there was something new. And truth be said, though every single soul who ever attended one of de’Galore’s Christmas parties longed for the next one, and though every part was as cozy and merry as the last one, new things were not part of them. Rarely every something new took place or was presented at the Christmas parties. And did I mention that the only party the couple would host or attend in a year was that Christmas party of theirs?
Neverminding my remarks, some light must be put on the fact that the new thing of that year’s party was something which enthralled many of the guests in a spell of delight: a golden Christmas pine, at the corner of the large room where the tables and chairs were arranged for the dinner, was immobile as a column of gold. But the pine was an old sight. The same cannot be said about the angel behind the pine, whose bust was emerging amidst the pine’s golden needles and whose arms, alabaster-pale, were holding a velvet stripe high above its saintly-chipped head, and where Merry Xmas was written in letters of gold.
Yes, if there was something sumptuous in that house at the end of Cobblestone Street was that angel holding the velvet stripe. The surety of its hands hanging the stripe high, the beauty of its outstretched, white wings, the delicate vest upon its stony silhouette – everything conspiring to visual grandeur. But the most eye-catching feature was the statue’s face: carved in the similitude of Harriet Uldenving, the hostess, young dearly-loved wife of the host, young dearly-loved Edgar de’Galore.
As soon as the guest or guests entered the house past the hugs and kisses of welcome of the couple of hosts, he or she or they would turn left, past the gleeful Nativity Scene assembled beneath the coats’ hangers. Upon turning left, the vision would reveal the square room where the tables and chairs were set in a cozy pattern, full of beautiful tablecloth, forks, spoons, knives and plates and dishes and bowls (everything in Christmastidish manner and look). But at the left corner of the room’s end, there was the not so tall golden pine, and behind, the angel holding the velvet stripe.
The angel, Edgar confessed to his uncle and father, was a gift for him as much as to his loved wife – he had it made of plaster six times until he was satisfied with the result, and the result he was satisfied with was the absolute resemblance with his wife Harriet’s face. The gentleness of the closed eyes, the head leaning to the right, the graceful smile… Everything was perfect.
And he confessed that the angel was put in a manner behind the pine not to face the newcomers at the dining room’s entrance arch, but in order to face the place where Edgar would sit, so as to keep an eye on his wife’s face as she sat by his right – yes, nothing of that old tradition of the host and hostess seating on opposite sides of a long table, the couple was always seen together, and they sat side by side during the supper. He never tired to say to everyone including her how sure he felt her company was the only one who mattered him most, at all times.
He was blessed with a life of love and comfort, plagued only by his wife’s occasional waves of silence. Harriet was talkative and ingenious, a capricious heart full of kindness and love, and they met in a theater play – he was a spectator, she was the juvenile new actress acting as one of Titania’s fairies in A Midsummer’s Night Dream. By the time Much Ado About Nothing was out, they were engaged, and they married under the popularity-raise of Love’s Labours Lost.
But just as she was inventive and full of life, sometimes she fell silent, almost mute, and she had very little words to give her beloved husband. It was almost seasonal, as Edgar noticed in the passing of years. It was almost a pattern, this coming and going of silence. Normally the first wave of silence would come in the end of January, than repeat in June, and after November it would become increasingly frequent – lasting more than the usual six days and with intervals of a week instead of ten to fifteen days.
And though at the beginning Edgar was deeply troubled by this silence, with the passage of time and his wife’s “’tis nothing”s he ended up acquiescing and reserving his concern to a secret corner of his spirit, one seldom brought to light under the hours of late or the moments of day she was not facing him with a most loving smile and dedication-doused eyes.
He hoped the angel would bring her some words, a broad smile as those she gave during most of the year… But it was in vain. She rested her eyes on the angel for a moment when it was unwrapped first in the house, days ago, gave a simple sincere smile and hugged her husband dearly – without a word.
Time passed and so there was the night of the party at Cobblestone Street’s end. Relatives and friends from the town and even other states came as usual, with gifts and happy smiles. The children were aroused, the elders were melancholic in the Victor-Hughian way, the others were in tune with the Christmas spirit.
Yes, Cobblestone Street looked a place of life and joy and love, and nothing else but good things.
The time came when the supper was on the table – helpful relatives helped the couple with the bringing of the dishes for the guests, always many, always happy. Edgar, as always, was the most exited one, but many had noticed, Aunt Marla to the point of orally expressing, that in that particular year the hostess was more silent than usual on those Christmas days. That deepened Edgar’s concern and dampened his spirit for a while, but as soon as the smell of warm butter pies caught everyone’s attention, he gave one of those wide smiles and strode to the kitchen.
Night went on most jolly and folly. Good and bad people laughing together as if year was only a matter of one day, and one night of joy this year’s concern. The thing which mattered most was if there would enough space left for the desserts.
And precisely when his wife and two aunties left for the quest of bringing in the strawberry cakes, Edgar caught himself staring at the angel’s face on the other side of the room. He was still, absorbed by his thoughts, making nothing but admiring the angel’s distant head. Leaning to the side as it was, it looked as if it was averting its gaze from the admirer, as if trying to evade the scene (I don’t know if desperately or gently), despite the lavish stripe of Xmas that caught all attentions.
Everyone in the room went silent and eyes-widened, smiling-failing, when a strong knock hit the table. Every eye turned to Edgar, which in turn realized his closed fist was aching as he used it to hit the space between his plate and a nearby innocent glass of white wine.
The frozen silence lasted for a while, until an old-looking father-in-law muttered “What is it, my boy?” but Edgar said only sorries and left the room under the eyes of his mute witnesses.
Leaving for upstairs, he halted his advance and though on turning back and heading to the kitchen. No, he didn’t want to see her. Not now.
Not now? Well, it would be the first time in ten years. Pretty confusing, the first time he felt this feeling. He didn’t want to see her. He felt it would not be right, it would not help, it would not do anything good at that moment – a moment he couldn’t understand deeply because of his fright, like a boy shaken by the unknown depths of a lake or stream after simply touching the waters’ cold surface.
He resumed going up the stairs. He headed for the bedroom. He sat on their bed. He caught himself almost producing a tear, facing the empty floor between his shoes.
Now sorry for this moment of broken flow. It’s not my habit. I try to write sincerely most of times, and most of times I write I fail miserably.
Truth be said, Edgar cried copiously and sobbed as a hurt boy, he cried like a child. Never had he cried like that, save for the time he broke his ankle when he was learning how to ride a bike and when his pet parrot, Pliny, died.
But now he was thirty, not on his eights. He raised and went to the bathroom, locked himself there and tried not to behave like a girl. Surprisingly, what he met inside the mirror was a full-grown man, unshaken and face-clean, no sign of weeping at all. Had he wept all along?
He checked his fist, it didn’t hurt anymore. He turned on his heels and prepared to leave as soon as he hear the first notes of Silent Night being sung by the guests’ choral on the room bellow. Harriet should have had the people organized and the music began, she surely was missing him, though silent-stricken.
He stepped outside the bathroom.
I must do this greater pause because what I am about to write is that kind of thing that goes unappreciated in all its extension if read without attention. Then, pay attention:
He stepped outside the bathroom. At that moment, on the comings and goings of fate, or that thing of ebb and flow people talk poetically about time and destiny, he felt a pain on his neck, and because of that sting he turned his head right automatically. A fraction of a second before the silky curtains left his eyes, his vision pierced that veil and caught something further. A black car with black windows, parked before Miss Downson’s house – and none should park there. By reasons not clearly explainable, and here made barely explained by a writers whims’ only, Edgar turned back and faced the window, the car far bellow and far. He was rooted in place by no reason at all.
Then the car’s door opened on the left side and a short pale woman left, a beautifully dressed woman with a summer-sun smile, Peaseblossom’s prank eyes, and gestures of an angel… That woman looked like the angel behind the golden pine on the room bellow. In fact, if that angel was made flesh, it would look like that woman leaving the car so blatantly parked one house distant from the yellow house at Cobblestone Street end.
Edgar’s eyes were still, yet the world seemed to spin a hundred times faster, his stomach swelled and his face was hot. Just as Harriet was about to step over her so-cherished grass, the other door of the black car opened and a tall blond man wearing a black shirt appeared, sent her a kiss through the air and smiled as beautifully and as sincerely as she.
She gave the house a concerned yet content look, as if the windows and doors would peek upon her life, then looked back to the man on the car and waved a humble goodbye, then hurried through the grass until she could reach the kitchen’s door at the backyard.
As the sound of her white high-heels was muted by night and the ongoing chorus of guests, the car was turned on and left without much sound. There weren’t any kids outside, there weren’t any old people breathing the fresh air of Christmas day, there was no one outside save for that black cat at the top of the wall of the Finngans’, its eyes gleaming with an eerie green.
Would people tell of the heavy steps given stairs down? Would people tell about a wide-eyed guest appearing out of nowhere in despair? Would people tell of his insane laugh, then of his teary eyes? Would people tell of his declaration of love outspoken at the dinner’s table? Would people tell about the gun which came from inside his tuxedo and the one shot he gave on the head of the angel behind the pine? Would people tell about the shot he gave on his own head, or about the blood and brains sprayed upon the incoming second plate with strawberry cakes?
No, people wouldn’t. People wound never tell about something that never happened.
Edgar went downstairs. Half frozen, half alive. He met Harriet at the stair’s first step, ready to go upside. She gave him a smile, a quiet one, yet almost imperceptibly wider than her most recent ones.
“Our tenth Christmas. Out tenth party.” He said, and the words sprung badly from him, as sewer water springing through a tiny crack despite the swelling flood bellow.
She simply shook her head and smiled, then went upstairs, and upon passing by his side she put her hand on his shoulder, than she was gone, hand and all.
Edgar finished going down and turned left. He met the people singing Good King Wenceslas on his favorite stanza
“Hither, page, and stand by me, if thou know'st it, telling,
Yonder peasant, who is he? Where and what his dwelling?"
"Sire, he lives a good league hence, underneath the mountain;
Right against the forest fence, by Saint Agnes' fountain.”
And so the night followed.
Who could ever wonder, on the middle of next year’s June, how did the head of an angel have been separated from its most quiet body?
---- 24 de Dezembro de 2011
