A renewal in Christmas [short story]

Media

Part of The Carolinian

Title: A renewal in Christmas [short story]
Creator: Cañizares, Junne
Language: English
Year: 1960
Rights
Fulltext: • SHORT STORDES .1 3T WAS the afternoon of a fine December 24th day when Bliss dropped in the house to alienate me from Edgar Allan Poe whom I was reading at leisure. He persuaded me to fly with him into a sociable which he described as a Christmas party, but I guessed was a mere jam session. “You know very well that I don’t have any training in dancing,” I said, holding my hand up. “But you will manage. Man!”\ My friend imitated the gesture of \ impatience of a child. “Grrrrr, 1 you’re hard to get with. Man, listen: there’s also a barrio fiesta down there. Think of anything local-color in the way of entertainments, and there you have it.” He proceeded beguiling me by singing an old country band song, and , saying bogsing! bogsing! in tween the lyrics; he next wor on his tongue and trie like a gay banjo; an pantomimed eating th roasted pig. This ex him flushed a little. While heWvas s seemed to hear say: “How ver hear it remarked, such thoughts are pass of words. I that any thbhgh called, is out oNu guage. I fancy, rather, difficulty in express\on/ j enced, there which experiences , of deliberateness or of certainly did not mean anXhfcr to my friend; we were fond o ing comiques to each other wh ever we met privately. Only at that very instant I was a bit pensive. However, my friend had at last my pity, my consent, and indeed I was ready to get dressed, but politeness told me to wait for the interesting finale of his show: Climbing the Greasy Pole. somewhat pleased, though, to observe that although the room seemed too small for us, everybody, when the four-man combo played, had always a space to kick in, quaking the body and making Come-here signs by the hands, as if they were the red wings of some fried chickens in the aparador far across the floor. Terpsichore descended upon me, and a voice similar to that of Sandra Dee’s was whispering ‘-Dance! Dance!” to me; but I tightly closed my eyes at the i(te cause when it comes to this 1$ tic, for sure even the m yond the co t believe perly soeach of lant where headdresses sprang up and down before me. The sound of big hollow logs being rhythmically knocked, and the noise of sticks came to my ears. “Shake, baby, shake!” one shouted, clapping his hands, and many followed him. I was angry, especially because I had become the witch-doctor, and it was my duty to maintain order. I rattled my wand with the skull and vulture claws on it and said, “Whazzi! Wahzzi! Wahzzi!” “Wah—. What are you saying?” the doll asked me in her very small, very high-pitched, accent. .2. It was nobody’s fault but my own that I was not social enough to enjoy the warmth of the party; I only sat in one inconspicuous corner of the parlour and talked casually with my neighbors. I was Egypt would be stiffness of my __ ____ did not abandon ne yet, so I prac ticed my feet below t’ enthusiastically staffll The exquisite doll beside me quickept her jeweled Arabian s away from peril, hej/companion and pointed/kt me. I saw her sat straight and behaved more aristocratically than before. ng which ly jollity i >rd or mer friend i|s, that one is bound to witt of surprises. I had the to learn this lesson when, tired of\the monotony of handpulling anti, whirlings, I was about to consign self to the laps of sleep, somethifig^ happened which altered the move t of the dancers. The combo pl da weird piece, the influence of perhaps too strong over thX dancers, because now they leap almost to the ceiling if they were stepping on some thumb-tacks. I did not remain long on this unpoetical appreciation; my imagination was flung wide open, and the opposite wall faded and was substituted by the awe-inspiring form of Mt. Kilimanjaro. Now ostrich feathered amazed at the legs. The muse the table Wahzzi! Wahzzi!” I said “Maybe he is the doll consulted and the two Zhariikari-wari-wah! dy starved,” e>- companion, .... . _ h their glass giggled, covering their pink mouths with their heavily braceleted hands. I called to mind the foreign dishes I read of somewhere, ah’d, humm’d, and recited, “Mousse de foie gras au porto. Paupiettes de Veau a la Grecque. Suppa de pesce. Artichauds a la Barigoule. Aubergines Farcies Italiennes.” For the first time the doll gave friendly, slightly humble mien a\jd shook her turbaned head, logizing, “Sorry, I don’t speak ian.” Alfter the moody African intermy friend walked across the towards me, as one might apAlft ludel flooi , _ proa :h a tribal chieftain to ask his prognostication. ' ’ \ beirn; prepared,” he broke the much delayed news. “The table is .3. After I had partaken of the dessert, I withdrew to the balcony, Page 2 THE CAROLINIAN SMORT STORIES • sensing that to engage myself in conversation with any of the beaus and belles would require much daring since no one who could introduce me was around. There was a tinseled-and-ribboned Christmas tree there, softly lighted by a series of tiny fruits of nameless species. The cold mountain wind blew upon the tinkling silver bells of the tree and Santa Claus beneath it, and me. I rubbed my palms against each other and leaned on the rail. An expanse of darkness, lanterns of various sizes, shapes and 3 it CHirtstmo colors, outlines of houses, looming mountains, and an enveloping wide, wide sky of brilliant luminaries, were before and above me. Bamboo guns blasted at each other somewhere. From the radio in the house nigh came the faint echo of a melody about a little town of Bethlehem. People were walking along the road silently. What a moment! How much grandeur that hour contained about nine hundred-sixty and thousand years ago! My inquisitive soul was hushed up in a sacrifice of remembrance. For a brief while I was so far from my usual self as not to discovered that a soul had joined me in the place. But when I returned from my mental excursion into the past, and was about to light a cigarette, I saw her. Then back I went, swept away by the seasons, seasons seizing me not by turns, but simultaneously as though they were a host of moods, scenes and events—and around and around. I was eddied in and out of the hourglass. Yet in all this no dizziness affected me. Rather, it was with thrill and delight that I journeyed. Now I rode on a big, big Ferris Wheel, then on some magic carpet, not in sheer expedition or adventure, but in pursuit of a meaning of life. But the music created by the seasons was not festive; it was sad, it was the history of a longing, crying loneliness, of an absence that somehow I was at times every keenly sensitive to. Yet delightful, because of the fact, that what was absent was not thoroughly vanished. And when every thing settled, I had truly arrived ! She was glancing at me in the sweetest dainty way. 0 that immortal smile! It was the same adorable countenance that challenged whatever eloquence I had of many a night and day before. Her blouse was plain green. Her right hand was changing the position of a stai- in the Christmas tree, the left hung naturally touching one of the big roses embroidered on her skirt. My eyes dropped further down at her smooth legs, then at her green high-heeled shoes. “Faith!” I uttered her name in a voice full of nostalgia. We advanced towards each other and when we met, I could not even pick up her hands. I melted before her divine loveliness, and the occasion. 1 measured her up again, and sought for words which were too slow in coming. “I don’t know if you can still forgive and accept me,” I whispered. “Why not, if you need me,” she kindly replied, "as you always should.” I took a deep breath, sighed and received the hands she gave to me. “To forgive is easy for you; but perhaps to accept is different. I was so afraid that you would say ‘And now that I have forgiven you, I am through with you’. ” “Never shall I use such language.” She squeezed back to communicate her sincereness. “I am always the guilty one! And yet you are all tenderness to me! I know that I shall die if I have to count the times that I forgot you. Oh the paradise of having you back to me.” “I shall be yours as long as you want me. You may walk away from me now and then, but I shall ever come at your call. It is written that I shall save you from other arms—from deceivers—, and make you happy.” Inside a gay tune was played again, and the dance was started all over. Now new awareness inhabited my mind, and new significances were attached to things by me. For one, I took it that all these rejoicings were held in celebration of my regained love. And who was to say I was wrong? .4. To discard her for seemingly prettiei- girls would perhaps be not more sinful, more ruinous than to doubt her, to deny altogether her handsome, handsome goodness. Only the greatest of fools would say that she is good for nothing in the presence of bewitching temptresses that walk in numbers on the earth. Yes, the greatest of fools I had been once; but that would never happen again. For now as I held her so tight in my arms, not even the stars with their strange sheen and flickerings could be made an unimpeachable emblem of my joy present and future if I shall be honorable to her. For now the bloom of life was bestowed upon me again, when before (Continued on page 9) CHRISTMAS, 1960 Page 3 MDSCELLANEA • A RENEWAL IN . . . (Continued from page 3) hoped to taste once more the purity of laughter. “How many times had I lost myself, and you found me?” I said. I gathered her hair in a handful, and pressed her head to my breast. I gently stroked her arm. She was lithe, ardent and aromatic. “Now I can brave the cruellest of winds and rains. I can command and be obeyed. For you are here.” “Yes... And it is only your notice that I demand of you,” she said. Cupping her face in the palms of my hands, I beheld her and her fairness made my soul her tributary for enraptured praises. I slowly brought my lips to hers. A shaft of moonlight hit the rail of the balcony and was directed into the artificial pond below; it bounced in several reflections that rang the leaves of the surrounding ferns, as though they were some lyres of ancient Rome. The music in the sala ceased; there was a shuffle of footsteps; then, the leave-taking. Silence next. We leaned on the balcony, and looked out, carefully viewing the portion of the world and humanity presented to us. Afterwards, we reconstructed our dreams, reformed our plans, restored our objects, all for the best. I said my resolutions and promises, to which she listened with great understanding. She smiled at me, and I asked myself how the deuce did I live the days when I missed such blessing. A shadow was cast on the balcony ; we turned around, and saw my forever laughing friend. “Everybody has gone to hear the Mass. When shall we go?” he said. “Right now!” we readily answered. And we gladly walked towards the house of prayer, the three of us—Faith and Man, and Bliss. CHAOS on Earth and HATRED to Men ... ONCE AGAIN Christmas comes and the bland December breeze shall be filled with Christmas carols with this oft-repeated phrase: "Peace on earth to men of goodwill." In these times when the whole humankind is being threatened with possible annihilation from a nuclear war, we cannot help thinking that the message which the angels sang to herald the birth of Christ may sound painfully strange and absurd, sarcastic and ironic. What hopes have this generation and the future generation for peace on earth? What could have the heavenly voices meant by men of goodwill? Has the message of the angels after all come to naught? Christmas comes, yet on the international scene the peoples of the world watch with stifled breaths as the brilliant scientists and great minds work feverishly to perfect the deadliest weapons which would butcher millions and millions of precious human lives at the press of a button. Meanwhile on the national and local scenes we witness our so-called "leaders" cutting each other's throat in their mad scramble for fame and power. Our government officials, "the servants of the people", are recklessly looting the treasury of the nation, unmindful of the widespread poverty, disease and misery among the masses. This Christmas the voices of the angels of the Lord shall become faint and their message shall become unintelligible. We can no longer appreciate the beauty, neither can we unravel the mystery of those lines, for as we look into our hearts, we cannot find the Holy Babe there. Nowhere can we find the Blessed Virgin Mary and the simple carpenter adoring the Holy Child wrapped in swaddling clothes. And nowhere can we see the humble shepherds paying their homage to the Savior. We do not have an inch of space for the Holy Family in our hearts for They are "untouchables." This Christmas we will also think it absurd to bend our knees to the King of Kings, for His crown is but a wreath of thorns. We, who someday shall scan the infinite spaces and the heavens and exclaim, "There is no God!" will also find it very embarrassing to take lessons in humility from a group of unlettered fishermen. We, in all our conceit and fake "wisdom" shall continue to be confused unless we cease behaving like heathens and infidels. Our only hope for salvation and peace on earth is to live and behave like Christians. And our only hope for goodwill is to be humble before the greatness and infiniteness of God. Then and only then can we decipher the meaning and fulfill the message which the angels sang, "Peace on earth to men of goodwill." by CHRIS G. GABRILLO CHRISTMAS, 1960 Page 9