Glimmering

“Hey, no sir, you just enjoy your tree, okay? Merry Christmas!” And he spun away, whistling to himself.

The tree was heavier than it had looked, for all that it was scrawny compared to Lazyland’s trees of yore. Jack dragged it down the driveway, looking back anxiously to see if he was leaving a trail of needles. Inside he was met by Keeley and Marz and Mrs. Iverson, who exclaimed and offered advice as to how to prop it up in the dining room until the old wrought-iron tree stand could be found.

“It’s like Charlie Brown’s tree!” Mrs. Iverson poked the tree where it leaned against the china cupboard, gazing disapprovingly at the needles that littered the carpet beneath.

“It’s beautiful, dear,” said Keeley. “Hush, Larena.”

“Can I help decorate?” begged Marz.

So then he had to go up to the attic, rooting around in one of the odd-shaped closets under the eaves until he found the boxes there, each carton big enough to hide several children and stuffed to overflowing with Christmas: garlands, plastic holly, tangled strands of dangerous-looking lights, old cards that turned to dust when he touched them, waterfalls of tinsel, ancient embossed Santas with cotton-batting beards that had frightened Jack when he was small, the wrought-iron stand (hooray!), wax balls from Germany with flowers on them, pine cones, ceramic and papier-mâché and cardboard Santas, elves, reindeer, trees, bells, chapels, snowmen, angels, and wreaths, as well as four statues of crippled boys and reformed cranks.

Last of all he pulled out an enormous carton that contained box upon box of Sparkle-Glo ornaments: rubies and emeralds and diamonds of blown glass, purple grapes, grinning clowns and leering dogs, churches and fish and a sailing ship with tissue-paper mast and rigging of gold filigree.

“Oh, look, look!” cried Marzana, sitting on the attic floor with legs akimbo, her belly awash in wrappings and ribbons and pine needles. She held up an icicle of blown glass, striated silver and cobalt. “They used to sell these in Rybnik!”

Jack smiled. “Is that where you grew up?”

The girl watched the little dagger turn slowly in the air before her. After a moment she said, “I don’t remember,” her voice distant.

Jack waited, but she said no more. “Okay.” He picked up one of the cartons. “I don’t think you better carry any of these.”

“But they’re not heavy!”

“I know, but they’re big. Here, you can carry this down, okay, that’s the star for the top, just don’t drop it—”

He made five trips, pausing on each landing to catch his breath then plunge back upward. There was only a single naked electric bulb in the old nursery attic, which cast shadows over more of the room than it lit. Outside, night was chasing the sky in harlequin colors, crimson and cadmium yellow, giving everything an expectant, febrile glow. The sensation that something was going to happen filled Jack, as well; a subcutaneous anticipation of Christmas, even a Christmas as threadbare as this one promised to be. There had been no more visits from the postman, and no word from GFI as to when he might expect the money from the sale of The Gaudy Book. So Christmas would pretty much consist of what he and Mrs. Iverson could cobble together, or from the largesse of Mrs. Delmonico. He had put aside any notion of attending GFI’s party—what could he have been thinking, with Marz ready to blow like the Hindenburg and no one but Jack and two ancients to attend her?

He walked to the far side of the room, and stared out the row of attic windows, down the black slope to the river. There was a sequined scatter of lights upon the Palisades, where for so long there had been darkness, and farther south the luminous arch of the George Washington Bridge, red and green curves like slices of neon watermelon, nibbled black where lights had burned out on the spans. The sight should have comforted him. Instead it made him uneasy. It was like seeing Marzana in his aunt Mary Anne’s bed that first night she appeared at Lazyland—he felt certain that something was very wrong, somewhere, despite this brave false show. Any moment now he would find out what it was.

He shivered and turned from the window. What a way to think at Christmas. Then he hefted the last carton of ornaments, switched off the attic light, and hurried downstairs to attend to the tree.