The Christmas Tree (7 page)

Chapter Seven

Saying Good-bye

Since that day I'd been dreading her call. So when it came I was surprised at how bright she sounded. Still, after I hung up the phone I felt dull inside, the way you feel when you first realize your parents can't make your wishes come true, or keep the bad dreams at bay. Here it was, not even spring, and I had this year's tree lined up, but somehow I didn't feel like celebrating as I drove out to the convent.

It was one of those in-between days, not quite spring but no longer winter. The sun shone through the cold air, putting a much-needed sparkle on the brown and gray countryside and flocks of birds flew overhead, their calls sounding like an announcement of the warm weather ahead. I like that time of year, when the earth's in a tug-of-war between old and new.

Sister Anthony met me at the convent and suggested we take a walk. I began to head toward the clearing, but she pointed me in another direction.

“I've already been to see Tree today,” she said simply. I had the feeling she didn't want to see me around Tree. It was as if I was the messenger of doom.

Sister Anthony must have guessed how I was feeling, because she took special pains to be lively. We chatted about the spring Flower Show that was coming up, and she told me about a new rose hybrid she was experimenting with in her little greenhouse behind the convent.

We had walked quite a distance when she stopped by the edge of a little creek surrounded on all sides by trees and small hills. I had never been to this part of the property before.

“Lovely, isn't it?” said Sister Anthony. “This is the heart of Brush Creek.”

We sat down together on a couple of large rocks whose flat surfaces had been nicely warmed by the sun.

“Tell me all about it,” she said.

I looked at her blankly.

“Tree's journey,” she said. “I want to know exactly what lies in store for him. And no cutting corners. I want to know everything, good and bad.”

“Where do you want me to start?” I asked.

She thought for a minute.

“How will you get him there, to New York City?” she asked. “He's very tall.”

I began to explain. I told her how the tree travels in a special trailer that's like an accordion. It can stretch out up to 100 feet. They say it can hold a tree 125 feet tall, though I've never seen it. The tallest tree that ever stood at Rockefeller Center was ninety feet, and that was back in 1948.

“What kind of a tree was that?” Sister Anthony asked.

“I believe it was a Norway spruce,” I said.

“Hmmm,” she said, then added. “How tall do you think Tree is?”

“Why, Sister Anthony,” I said, laughing, “I think you're being a little competitive!”

She looked sheepish and smiled. My heart lightened, even though I knew this must be hard for her.

She wanted to know more. I think she wanted to make sure we knew what we were doing. Tree was her main concern and she needed to feel she was putting him in good hands.

But there was more to it than that. She had a natural curiosity about how things worked. She was interested in the mechanics of it, just exactly
how
you move a giant tree from here to there and keep it in once piece.

Once again, I found Sister Anthony shedding new light on something that had become old hat to me long ago. As I told her about the process, it struck me how amazing it really was.

“It takes weeks to get the tree ready,” I said. “Then we get about twenty people and a giant hydraulic crane to help move the tree onto the trailer and then to put it up again at Rockefeller Center.”

I was gathering momentum. “It gets really exciting on the trip into the city,” I said. “The tree travels with a police escort at night, when traffic is light, like a president or a movie star, being whisked along in the biggest limousine in the world.”

Sister Anthony was laughing out loud. “My goodness,” she said. “You certainly make it sound thrilling.”

She tweaked me. “All this from the man who hates Christmas!”

I was starting to feel relieved. This hadn't been painful at all.

Then she asked the one question I didn't want to answer.

It was innocent enough.

“How will you keep the branches from breaking?” she asked. “It's such a long way.”

My relief evaporated. This wasn't going to be so easy after all.

“We, uh, truss the branches,” I said casually.

Her eyebrows went up.

“Truss?” she asked.

I took a breath. “We position the crane alongside the tree and someone climbs up and ties each branch, one by one.”

“One by one,” she repeated. “That must take a long time.”

I nodded. “It takes weeks.”

“How tight do you tie the branches?” she asked.

I paused. “Pretty tight,” I said.

She nodded.

I dreaded what was coming next.

“Do the branches ever break?” she asked.

Bingo! There was no avoiding it.

“Sometimes” I said. “Then we fix them.”

“You
fix
them?” she said.

“We ‘enhance' them,” I said, and then immediately felt like kicking myself. “I mean, we add branches to replace the ones that get broken.”

I expected her to get upset, maybe decide to leave Tree where he was.

But I should have known better.

“I can see why you would do that,” she said slowly. “Something like fixing a broken arm.”

She paused for a long while, then said, “Tell me again what the tree looks like when it's finished—all decorated and ready for show? I know I've heard you tell the children many times, but I want to hear it again.”

I tried to drum up every fact I'd ever heard about the Rockefeller Christmas tree. I told her about how more than 25,000 bulbs of different colors were strung around the tree on five miles of electrical wire, and about the care the electricians took to wrap each branch separately.

Then I stopped. “I forgot,” I said. “You've never seen the tree. This must not mean anything to you.”

She shook her head. “No, go on. I can imagine it very well.”

So I told her about the twelve angels, that Valerie Clarebout had sculpted for the Center's Channel Gardens years before, and how when you look down the middle of them you see the Christmas tree in the distance, like a cheerful apparition.

And I told her about the star. It was made in 1949 out of a material called Bakelite, which gives off a soft white glow. “It looks like a miracle,” I said softly.

She took all of this in with a thoughtful look on her face, as if she were trying to conjure up the scene in her head. I offered to send her some photographs of Christmas trees from the past, but she didn't want them. “I think I understand now,” was all she had to say about it.

We listened to the creek bubble along; suddenly it seemed very loud.

“Melting snow,” said Sister Anthony absently.

“You know,” she said, “I've always turned to Tree when something important was on my mind. Funny, I can't go to him now.”

She stood up abruptly and waited for me to do the same. On the way back to the convent, she made it seem as if the only care she had in the world was whether her new roses were going to bloom.

❄ ❄ ❄

It snowed early that year. The fields were white the day my men and I went to get the tree. I hadn't seen Sister Anthony since spring, but my guys told me she was out there every day, watching them truss Tree's branches.

And now the time had come.

I knocked on the door of the convent. One of the younger nuns answered the door, and invited me inside to wait for Sister Frances.

I was shocked when I saw her. It had been quite a few years, now that I thought of it, since I had first met her and asked her about the tree. On my later visits, I'd generally made my way right out to the clearing.

The fullness had fallen from her frame. Her habit seemed to swallow her up. She moved very slowly, as if each step cost her something dear. I realized she must be close to ninety by now.

When she shook my hand, though, her grip was still strong.

“Good to see you,” she said heartily, though her voice was thinner than I remembered.

“Sister Anthony's told me you two have had some nice talks over the years,” she said. “I'm glad of that.”

I didn't know what to say.

“Can you wait just a few minutes?” she asked. “All the nuns want to come out to give the tree a final blessing, if that won't hold you up too much?”

“Of course,” I mumbled, holding onto my cap for dear life.

I saw the young nun who had answered the door go outside and disappear into a little stone building I hadn't noticed before. And suddenly the sound of bells ringing filled the air.

They all came.

Within minutes the yard was full of black habits. I hadn't realized so many nuns were staying at Brush Creek, though Sister Anthony told me there were always more than it seemed. In the middle was Sister Anthony, arm in arm with Sister Frances. They nodded at me and began to walk toward the clearing.

I went out front and told my men I'd meet them by the tree, then followed the nuns, staying just a little behind them. I felt like an intruder, but I couldn't help myself. I was drawn to their procession like a bird to a flock.

It was something I'll never forget, watching them walk through the fields, the hems of their habits turning white from the light dusting of snow on the ground.

The men had driven the trailer around and were waiting for us when we arrived. They were being a little rowdy, but when they saw the nuns approaching they quieted down real fast. You could see on their faces that they were moved by these nuns walking out there in the snow to say good-bye to their tree—especially since a lot of them were pretty old.

They stood aside respectifully while the nuns said a prayer and sprinkled the tree with water. There were no speeches or anything like that. They just stood still for a few minutes and then gently began to sing with voices as clear and sweet as cold spring water.

As the last note died away, Sister Frances looked over at me and nodded.

“We're going to leave now,” she said.

I saw her put her arm around Sister Anthony and say, “Let's go inside.”

Sister Anthony shook her head. “You go. I have to stay.”

The other nuns had already started to walk back to the convent. I could see that Sister Frances really didn't want to leave Sister Anthony behind. She glanced over at me, but I just shrugged. Like I said, I'm better with trees than with people.

Sister Frances stood there, looking worried and suddenly very frail. She had quite a few years on Sister Anthony. In fact, they could have been mother and daughter, the current between them was so strong.

“It's cold,” said Sister Anthony, smiling. “I'll stay by myself. I'll be all right.”

Sister Frances looked at her closely and must have seen she was telling the truth. She gave her hand a little squeeze and left.

For someone who's never seen it, the way we cut down the trees is both amazing and awful at the same time. After all the weeks of preparation, the actual sawing only takes about two minutes, but, as I realized that day, that's a terribly long time to hear something you love getting cut open. The weird thing is that you can't really tell right away that anything has happened. The tree is suspended from a tall crane beforehand, so even after it's been cut it looks as if it's still standing.

I should have warned Sister Anthony. I saw the flash of hope on her face after the saw stopped and Tree didn't fall and I saw that hope disappear when we moved the tree from its stump and lowered it onto the trailer.

It was the moment when I traditionally count the rings on the stump to get an accurate idea of the tree's age.

I told Sister Anthony what I was about to do.

“Would you like to help me count?” I asked her.

Together we counted the rings. There were sixty-two.

“Just as I thought,” said Sister Anthony. “Tree was just a little bit younger than me.”

“You've both worn well,” I said, not knowing what else to say.

Meanwhile, the men were measuring Tree's length.

“Eighty-two feet!” one of them called out.

Sister Anthony was starting to look weary, but she was still game. “Only eighty-two feet!” she said. “And I was sure he'd be the tallest tree there ever was.”

She took a deep breath. “Well,” she said, “He'll be the most beautiful, of that I'm sure.”

“No question about it,” I said. There was so much I wanted to say to her, to thank her, to tell her we would take care of Tree. I just didn't know how. So I simply shook her hand and climbed into one of the trucks. As we drove away I could see her in the rearview mirror, a small lone figure waving good-bye.