Corpus Christmas

“Lieutenant!” came Albee’s breathless voice. “Did you hear about Thorvaldsen? The feds have arrested him.”

“So I just heard,” said Sigrid.

“This must be what he meant when he said he went back to the Breul House because he didn’t want Shambley to cause any controversy right now. Wow!”

Sigrid waited until Albee ran out of steam, then observed, “It’s certainly interesting, but I don’t see that it affects Shambley’s murder. Do you?”

There was a moment of silence, then Albee admitted that she was probably right and rang off.

As Sigrid hung up the kitchen phone, it finally registered on her that Roman was surrounded by take-out cartons, plastic containers, and green-and-white grocery bags from Balducci’s. He seemed to be arranging a long snakelike creature on his largest platter.

“What in God’s name is that?” she asked.

“Smoked eel. Neapolitans always have eel at Christmas, but I wasn’t sure what to do with a fresh one, so I got smoked. Isn’t it sumptuous? I know it should be skinned and cut it into perfect little ovals, but then we’d lose the effect.” He straightened the tail. “I thought a bed of red lettuce with strands of alfalfa sprouts for seaweed? What do you think?”

“Roman, are we having a party tonight?” she asked.

“A tree-trimming party. Didn’t I tell you?”

“No,” she said mildly.

“Oh, my dear!” he rumbled. “I’m so sorry. I was certain-” He curved the eel around a mound of tortellini salad and paused to consider the result. “It’s such a little party-hardly worth calling it a party at all-but we do want to celebrate our first Christmas tree, don’t we? I’m such a child about Christmas! See what you think of my wassail.”

He filled a glass from a nearby bowl and passed it to her across the cluttered counter. Sigrid sipped cautiously. Roman might be a child about Christmas but this was no child’s drink. She tasted tart lemon juice tamed by sugar, rum, and some sort of fruity flavor. “Peach brandy?”

“Do you like it?”

Sigrid nodded, beginning to feel slightly more festive. “Who’s coming?”

“Just family, so to speak. Oscar, of course. And, as you see, he brought along his friend. Amusing chap. A bit too fey though.”

Sigrid almost choked on her drink at this pot calling the kettle black.

“And Jill Gill and-”

“What about ornaments?” Sigrid interrupted. “I don’t have any. Do you?”

“I bought new lights and fresh tinsel.” He smeared two crackers with pate and handed one to her. “Goose liver.”

“Umm.”

“And your mother sent down that enormous box out by the tree. She said it hadn’t been unpacked in her last eight moves, but she’s sure it’s tree ornaments.”

Since Anne Harald averaged three moves per every two years, no amount of unopened boxes would surprise Sigrid. She refilled her glass and wandered back out to the living room, where Elliott Buntrock had emerged from the shubbery. He wore black jeans and a black shirt topped by a white sweatshirt that bore the picture of a large yellow bulldozer and the words “Heavy Equipment Is My Life.”

“My glass is empty,” he complained and headed for the kitchen.

Roman had decked their halls with bayberry candles but he hadn’t yet lit them, so the woodsy smell of the fresh pine tree filled the room as Nauman turned to her and, with a flat, deadpan Brooklyn accent, said, “Hey, lady, where’s yer mistletoe?”

She smiled and went into his arms.

Even without mistletoe, it was a very satisfactory kiss.

“What happens to your show now that Thorvaldsen won’t be underwriting it?” she asked.

“Elliott had already decided I’m not postmodern enough for the Breul House. He’s talking about using Blinky Palermo or someone like that to put the place back on New York ’s cultural map.”

“Blinky who?”

“Don’t ask.”

“But what about you?”

“I let Jacob and Elliott talk me into a three-gallery midtown extravaganza,” he admitted, “and Francesca’s going to line up a new set of sponsors. It’s starting to sound like a cross between Busby Berkeley and Pee-wee’s Playhouse. I may go to Australia for the year. Want to come?”

She laughed as the buzzer went off in the entry hall announcing the arrival of Anne Harald and Jill Gill at her outer gate.

The next hour was a happy jumble of untangling light cords, testing bulbs, and running extension cords from badly placed outlets, helped along with generous servings of Roman’s wassail.

Jill Gill had brought with her a selection of Christmas records ranging from Alvin and the Chipmunks and the Norman Luboff Choir to Gregorian chants; and Sigrid took a bittersweet trip down memory lane when Anne opened the carton of ornaments and lifted out a crumpled tinsel star. All at once she was three years old again and her father was holding her up in his strong young arms to place that same star on the very top of their Christmas tree.

She had been so young when he was killed that her memories of him were fragmentary, and suddenly here was a new one that she hadn’t even known she possessed.

Anne leaned over and a faint mist of familiar jasmine followed as her lips brushed Sigrid’s cheek. “I know, honey,” she whispered.

Candles glowed from a dozen different clusters around the warm room. Nauman struggled to relight his pipe, Buntrock and Roman were debating the aesthetics of icicles slung on in clumps (Buntrock’s method) or carefully draped one by one (Roman’s), and Jill brought a fresh platter of canapes hot from the oven.

Elliott Buntrock beamed as he savored the ambience. “How utterly postmodern this is!”

“Late postmodern,” Nauman corrected.

Later, when everyone else had left and Roman had stumbled off to bed, Sigrid walked out to Oscar’s disreputable yellow sports car with him. It was midnight and the temperature was frigid, but for once the air was so clear that the brighter constellations shone through the city’s reflected glow.

At the car, Nauman unlocked the passenger door, but Sigrid touched his arm regretfully. “I can’t go home with you. I promised Roman I’d help him clean up before work in the morning.”

“I know,” he said. “But I have something for you and it’s too cold to stand out here on the sidewalk.”

As soon as they were inside, Oscar switched on the engine and started the powerful heater; then he turned and gently traced the contours of her chilled face with gentle fingers. In this dim light, for a fleeting moment, the memory of other faces flickered between his hands-women he had known, women he had slept with, women he had even loved for a little space of time.

And now this woman.

For the first time, he had admitted to himself that she had it within her to be the last. And for the first time he was both awed and apprehensive by what he felt for her.

Half angered by the powerful emotions she aroused in him, he reached into the space behind her seat and drew out a flat package wrapped in brown paper. “Here,” he rasped. “Merry Christmas.”

“Nauman?” She looked at him, puzzled by his sudden belligerence.

He shrugged and stared through the windshield.

Bewildered, Sigrid undid the paper and found a cardboard folder approximately ten inches wide by eighteen inches tall. Inside was a drawing.

Silently, Oscar turned on the interior light so that she could see, and he heard the sharp intake of her breath as she realized what she held.

It was a sheet of light gray paper with a textured surface that was exquisite to touch; and on it was her own