Human for a Day (9781101552391) (25 page)

“Aw,” said Steven, the boy who wanted the train. “I
guess
.”

“Good for you! Then you will be on my good list for this Christmas!”

Steven glowed with pride.

With every child's question, Santa felt himself growing stronger and more alive. How marvelous it was to interact with the little ones whom he usually glimpsed asleep in their beds, if at all. He knew of the dreams they had and wishes they made. They were a joy awake. He loved to be with them all.

They all knew everything about him, and because they did, he knew everything about them. Glynnis had a lisp that made her friends tease her. Fridur had recently come to the United States with his parents from the Netherlands. They were poor, but making their way. His mother took in washing, and his father worked on the docks. Evelyn was from a wealthy family, but her brother had just died of typhoid. All of them had been good except Mick. He was cruel to animals. Santa regarded him with stern pity. He did not have to say anything. The boy shrank away from his bright gaze. He knew too much about Santa to imagine that his sins were hidden from him.

What did Santa know about himself? More memories came to him as he spoke with the children. He lived far away, where it was cold. They were unclear as to where, as each of them had a different idea. He drove a sleigh with reindeer. He made toys. Not all by himself. Little men helped him. They loaded the sleigh on Christmas Eve, and he drove all over the world. He brought toys for good children, and punished bad ones—no, he brought rocks and coal for bad ones. His assistants did not beat children any more. He was glad of that.

“How do you go all the way around the world in just one night?” a boy with big brown eyes asked. His name was Julian. He was ten, and his grandfather had been a war hero.

“My reindeer are very swift,” Santa said. “I have worked out the very best route possible. I am always home by dawn.” He knew in his soul that it was absolutely true. The other children nodded eagerly.

“But it's impossible to go to every house with children ! There are millions of them!

“It takes magic,” Santa explained. “You do believe in magic, don't you?”

Julian crossed his arms. “My daddy said that magic doesn't exist. Just science.”

“Isn't there room for both in your heart?”

“But you think with your head, not your heart!”

Santa tapped his own temple. “A smart person knows that he should listen to all the parts of his body.”

“Who brings you presents, Santa?”

What a good child, that little girl with long yellow braids tied with blue ribbons. Her name was Caroline. She was just eight.

He stroked her hair, marveling at the silky strands. “Why, you do, children. Every smile, every laugh, every thank you is a gift to me.”

“That's funny,” she said.

“Why do you believe in me?” he asked. “Is it because of this newspaper article?” He showed them the paper from his pocket. Caroline shook her head.

“Oh, no, I always believed in you. Daddy and Mama and Granddad and Gamma say you are real. But I know I heard you in my parlor last Christmas.”

Santa remembered; the memory as vivid in his mind as in hers. “When I left you the doll with golden braids, just like yours.”

“Yes!”

“So you was just pretendin' to be asleep!” Mick said.

“No, she was really asleep,” Santa explained. “She was dreaming. You can hear me in your dreams. Sometimes you can see me, too.” He knew that Mick had. The boy had also dreamt of those helpers that punished bad children. Mick believed, even if he didn't behave.

“Come away, sweetheart,” said a slender woman in a white shirtwaist, a tiny blue jacket trimmed with maroon braids and a graceful, long blue skirt that swept the pavement. A tiny hat made of feathers was perched upon her hair. “We must get you to school.”

Caroline didn't want to let go of his hand. “But, Mommy, it's Santa Claus!”

Mary, that was her name, detached Caroline's hand. “No, sweetheart, just someone dressed up as him.” She looked Santa up and down. Her expression was disapproving. “Good day, sir.”

“Good day,” Santa said. He watched them go, feeling his heart grow heavy.

Mary thought he wasn't real. Her mind embraced something hard that was pushing her away from the belief that she had had as a child herself. Though she stopped short of telling Caroline Santa Claus wasn't real, she . . . doubted. He felt his flesh thinning on his bones. Skepticism ate away at his very body. It hurt. He put a hand to his aching ribs. He had never felt pain before. It was unpleasant.

“Don't worry,” Evelyn said, slipping her hand into his. She looked up trustingly into his eyes. “I believe in you.”

“Thank you, my dear,” Santa said, touched.

So did her father, who tipped his hat as he came to retrieve his daughter. Peter's eyes were filled with wonder.

That abated the ache a bit more, but it didn't rebuild his flesh completely. The children drifted away, some to school, others to hang around the waterfront. They were happy he was there. They felt comfort in his presence. They did him good as well.

He lit his pipe and took a deep breath of the fragrant tobacco smoke. Life felt good. He must see more of the city, and speak to more children.

As he was turning away, an urchin on the docks who had hung back from the group ran up and kicked him in the shin.

“I hate you!” he said, fury in his filthy face. “All I wanted was a pocketknife! You didn' leave me nothin' but a dirty piece of coal. Said I been a bad boy!”

“But you had been bad last year, Donald,” Santa said. His leg hurt, but it meant that the boy believed in him. “I was disappointed in you. I hope not to be, this year.”

Donald was too angry to see the connection. He spat on the ground and ran away, but he glanced back to see if Santa was watching him. The adults went about their business, carrying loads and checking off lists. They were too busy on a work day to pay attention to what children cared about. But, truly, what could be more important?

Children looked at him and knew what they saw. They knew he existed. It was only when they peeked around the newel post and saw their parents placing gifts under the tree that they began to understand that he had not come to their house, that the presents had a much more prosaic origin. But he was here now. They could see him. All the things that they knew about him were true. He had reindeer and a sleigh and a workshop. He would get back to work as soon as he could, if only they didn't stop believing in him.

But a child had doubted his existence, because other children had told her he
wasn
'
t
real. He read the newspaper column again. His heart squeezed with regret.

No. He was real! Life was joy. Life was precious. All those rooftops, his trips around the world every year high in the sky on his reindeer-drawn sleigh never engendered fear in him. He did not fear the tight confines of chimneys, though his handsome fur suit often was the worse for all the soot. But it must be true. He had never existed before. And something was trying to push him out again now that he had been made real. Science. Science denied him.

And it was all around him. Twinkling lights that were not made of fire, encased in light bubbles of glass. Everywhere he walked, he saw fascinating new inventions, wonders in themselves. Human beings defied the darkness, pushed back ignorance, spread knowledge in new ways. They had chained the lightning. Small wonder that it had pushed from them that little comfort of someone giving them simple gifts out of love. Was he no longer relevant?

Santa did not want to go away again. He could not imagine anything more wonderful than being here among people, seeing how they lived, how they felt. Cold fear made a knot in his belly. He did not recall what it was like before he had appeared on that street corner. The thought of not existing again worried him.

It was the nature of life to want to remain alive. What did he have to do to stay that way?

As he walked through the bustling city, he saw no place where he belonged. He touched upon the lives of people only once a year. Here and now he was misplaced in time.

I'm not satisfied to exist only one day
, he thought.

Peddlers pulling carts glanced up and saw him. Women doing their day's shopping noticed him. Men in waistcoats, collars and ties peered his way. Most smiled, and then looked away hastily. A few stared openly. He greeted them with a cheerful wave. They saw, they hoped to believe, and they doubted.

The next time a man caught his eye and turned away with a sheepish expression, Santa hurried after him. He was panting by the time he caught up with the man at a busy corner. He took his arm. The man, in his late thirties, prosperous, with a lush mustache waxed at the ends to curl upward, clad in a fine wool coat reaching to his knees, a silk waistcoat adorned with a heavy gold chain and a top hat made of silk, shied like a horse at the sight of the little man in fur.

“Do you know who I am?” Santa asked. “You do, I can see it in you.”

The words came to Alfred's lips unwillingly. “You are Santa Claus,” he said.

“But you only think I look like Santa, don't you. What would it take for you to believe that I
am
Santa Claus?”

Alfred shook his arm loose. “You are nothing but a strange old man in a fur suit. You are mad. You need a doctor to help you. Good day!” He rushed off, skirting under the nose of the policeman directing traffic and a goods van loaded with clanking cans of milk.

Santa was, briefly, all of those things that the man said, but the rest of the millions of children who did believe in him dispelled the bad and left the good. Alfred did not totally disbelieve, that Santa could see in his heart, but he doubted so much that he had to deny belief completely. How very sad. The pain returned, eating the muscles in his legs. His cheeks began to feel sunken. He felt himself slipping away. He looked around for help. Few people would meet his eyes.

Doubt was his enemy. He must banish doubt, and continue to live.

One didn't have to prove an article of faith to children ; one only had to let them believe. Adults needed proof. No, adults needed to believe the child within, who still knows there is a Santa Claus.

The only proof, if proof it was, that he was worthwhile lay in the palm of his hand. He read the words again, and they filled his heart with joy and hope. That reply to a simple child's query was a complex construction. It had brought him into existence for the first time.

But who had written it? His greatest ally and savior in this city of modern wonders was the man who had penned these moving words.

He returned to the kiosk on 34th Street and held out the sheet of newsprint. “Louis, how do I find the man who wrote this?”

“At the
New York Sun
,” Louis said. He pointed down the long street that intersected with 34th. “That's Broadway. Take it to Chambers and look for the clock.”

“Thank you, my friend.”

Louis grinned. His teeth looked cleaner already. “My pleasure, Santa. He's gonna be really surprised to see you.”

 

“I would like to meet the man who wrote this,” Santa told the stout, uniformed porter at the bronze and glass door of the newspaper office.

The big man sneered down at him from his great height. “I bet you do. A lot of crazies came out of the woodwork after yesterday's editorial.” He eyed Santa skeptically. “Your outfit's a lot better than most of ‘em. You can go ahead, if you want. It'll give everyone a good laugh.”

He passed Santa along to a copyboy, who brought him to the city desk editor, who laughed hard enough to attract everyone within a three-desk radius. They all chuckled at Santa, but they agreed with the door porter, that it would be great fun to send him in to Mr. Church.

The doubters in the Sun office greatly outnumbered the believers. Santa could hardly push his way through the agony that ate away at him. It was only the uniformed black porter who took his arm who made it possible for him to get up the stairs to the third floor. His strength was in rags by the time he reached the female receptionist at the desk outside the editor's office in the busy newsroom. She regarded him with sympathy but no understanding. Margaret had always been that way, Santa knew. It would do him no good to tell her so.

“Mr. Church is in a meeting. You may wait.” She gestured to a hard backed chair against the wall.

If he had thought the streets of New York were noisy, they were silent as a winter's night compared with the newsroom. Typewriters clattered under the fingers of men and women alike. Copyboys, many no older than ten, ran up and back with their arms laden with sheets of paper. Men shouted over the din at one another. Under his feet Santa felt the thrum of the presses, the heartbeat of the
Sun
.

At last, the door swung open. Two men in short plaid jackets emerged, shoving notebooks into their pockets. They eyed Santa speculatively as they went by. Matthew felt a wave of nostalgia, but Henry saw only an old man in a red fur coat. Santa understood. Henry covered the new scientific advances. He was on his way to meet Mr. Westinghouse. Matthew wrote about baseball, so he maintained faith and hope in a way that was almost childlike. Though, he would have died on the rack before he would admit it to a living soul. He was off to see a Giants game that day at the Polo Grounds.

“Go in,” Margaret told Santa.

“Well, Mr. Claus,” Frank Church said, putting out a hand to Santa. He was a tall, spare man with bushy eyebrows. “My colleagues told me you were here.” He smiled, lifting the corners of his luxurious mustache a trifle. “Please, have a seat. I can give you a few moments. What may I do for you?”