out what was going on. There was a lot of howling and yelling outside, but I climbed quietly out of my window and made my way to the infirmary, a small, neat cottage at the edge of the village.
The door was locked and the windows dark. As I stepped off the porch I nearly bumped into Santa as he ran wildly around the corner of the building, a wine bottle in his hand. “Gustav!” he yelled. “Come with me!” And, dragging me along behind him, he went on a rampage.
He drank two and a half bottles of wine, and stumbled from building to building, department to department, shouting and breaking things. He started in the maintenance shed, went through the dining room and kitchen, and eventually made his way to the Toy Shop. There he told one of the master craftsmen that he didn’t like the face on two thousand just-completed toy soldiers, lined them up in rows, and stomped them to sawdust.
At that point, one of the apprentices tried to shoot him with a replica Winchester rifle. Santa snatched it, batting the apprentice aside. He stumbled out into the snow.
“Where’s Rudolph!” he roared. “I want to see my Rudolph!” Barely able to stand, laughing drunkenly, he found his way to the stables and threw open the wooden doors. “Rudolph!” he shouted, swaying from side to side. The interior of the stable was illuminated by moonlight. Rudolph, still in his stall, looked up and blinked, his red nose flashing. “Red-nosed bastard,” Santa said, and as I watched in horror he raised the rifle, fumbling for the trigger.
As I leapt for him, he pulled the trigger; but as he did so he fell over backwards, out through the doors. He lay laughing in the snow, kicking his feet and howling, and firing the rifle at the moon and the weather vane on top of the stable. Then suddenly he stopped shooting, gave one long wolf-like howl, and instantly fell asleep.
The moment this happened, I gave a signal, and Shmitzy and a couple of other guys ran and got a long rope. We jumped on Santa and started to tie him up, but just as we got the rope around his waist, Momma Claus burst out of the Toy Shop and came running toward us, swinging a headless doll over her head and shouting, “Get away from him! Get away!” We scattered, and from a safe distance I watched as she dragged Santa’s snoring body across the courtyard and into the house. Apparently he woke up, because a few minutes later all the lights in the house went on and I heard them laughing and breaking things.
I looked for Fritz but couldn’t find him anywhere, so for the next couple of hours I tried to organize clean-up crews and estimate the damage. For all intents and purposes, the North Pole lay in ruins. There wasn’t one building with its shingles and shutters intact, and the infirmary and elves’ quarters were burned to the ground (Momma and Santa had danced around them as they blazed). The only structures left reasonably unscathed were the sleigh shed and the Toy Shop. I had no idea what we were going to do. There didn’t seem to be any way to stop him, and I couldn’t possibly let him make his Christmas Eve ride in his condition. It was almost too late to start, anyway. It looked as if there wouldn’t be any visits from Santa this year.
As I was walking out of the Toy Shop I heard a commotion going on in the courtyard, and was just in time to see a great cheer go up as Santa walked out of his cottage. He looked like the old Santa we all knew and loved. He had a bright clean red suit and cap on, his cheeks were rosy and his beard was brushed and fluffed, his boots were polished to a high gloss and he was rubbing his belly. He even had a sack flung over his shoulder. Tough guy that I am, I almost started to cry for joy; but suddenly my eyes went dry and the cheer died in the middle when he got closer, because the wild look was still in his eyes and that twisted grin was still stuck to his face. When he opened his mouth and growled, we knew nothing had changed. He still looked like a bleached bluebeard.
“Get ready to roll!” he shouted.
We all looked at one another, mystified. Was he going to make his rounds looking like that?
“
Shmitzy stepped meekly out of the crowd. He was trembling like a leaf. “B-but Santa—”
Santa thundered, “Do what I say, or I’ll string you all up like sides of beef!”
Five minutes later I had them buffing up the sled and loading piles of empty toy sacks onto the back of it, as per Santa’s instructions. The Toy Shop remained untouched. The reindeer were groomed, the harness cleaned and rigged.
When all of this was finished, Santa assembled us by the sleigh, which had been pulled out into the courtyard. “Okay, boys,” he said, chuckling sardonically. “It’s time to make our rounds.”
Momma was laughing, too.
Poor little Shmitzy stepped out of the crowd. He was still trembling uncontrollably. He pointed at the Toy Shop and the empty sacks in the sleigh. “S-Santa, we—”
Santa reached out and picked Shmitzy up by his feet, turning him upside-down. He brought him up very close to his face, and opened his mouth wide. For a moment it looked as if he were going to bite Shmitzy’s head off. Then he put him down.
Shmitzy hurried back into the crowd.
“Gustav,” Santa said in a low, mellow voice, rubbing his hands together and smiling evilly, “get your crew into the sleigh.”
I was so scared I hustled the three elves nearest to me into the back with the empty bags. Santa threw his own half-filled sack into the front and climbed in after it. He cracked the reins.
“Ha ha ha,” he said.
The take-off was fairly smooth, given the circumstances. Rudolph was still a bit shaken by almost having his nose blown off, but we got off the ground in one piece. It was a clear night with a bright moon, and I looked down as we made our turn over the North Pole. The jolly, festively painted little village of a few days before now looked like an abandoned amusement park: wreckage and near-wreckage everywhere. None of the Christmas trees along the perimeter had been decorated; none of the remaining decorations had been polished. None of the last-minute work had been done. The scene would have made a disheartening air-photo. I shook my head and put up my collar. It was cold in that sleigh.
Santa laughed diabolically and straightened the sleigh out for the ride south. I was depressed, and the three elves huddled back there with me surrounded by empty sacks didn’t look too cheerful, either. I looked closely at them now: two shivering apprentices, and a third elf bundled up like a mummy with his face covered. I glanced up front; Santa was waving his arms madly, cracking the reins fiercely over the poor reindeer. I wondered what he was going to do.
The bundled-up elf inched over to me and pulled down the muff covering his face. I almost shouted; it was Fritz!
He motioned for me to be quiet, and leaned over to whisper in my ear. “Don’t raise your voice, my friend,” he said. “If Santa finds me here I’m sure he’ll throw me overboard.” He whispered that we should move carefully to the back of the sleigh, and we did so. We piled up empty canvas sacks to form a sort of wall.
“I’ve been in hiding,” Fritz continued. “I’m the only one who knows what’s wrong with Santa and Momma Claus, and he knows that I know. I concealed myself in the basement of the infirmary, and, after the infirmary burned down, I hid in the Toy Shop trying to puzzle this out and come up with some sort of solution. “Gustav,” he said, stroking his chin thoughtfully, “to tell you the truth, I never believed the tale.”
“Tell me everything,” I said.
He nodded sagely. “Well, in summary form, this is the story. On Christmas Eve, eight hundred years ago to this night, when Santa and Momma Claus and their helpers still lived in Myra, in what is now southern Turkey, Santa and Momma lost their minds. It happened very suddenly. According to the story, they carried on like madmen all of Christmas Eve. The elves—my great-great-grandfather was the physician at the time—tried to stop them, but could not. They destroyed the village.
I was dumbfounded. “Why didn’t I ever hear of any of this?”
“I’m coming to that. After the destruction, on Christmas Day, Santa went to sleep, and when he awoke it was as if nothing had happened. He could not believe what he and Momma had done. At that time, St. Nicholas was just a local phenomenon. He hadn’t made his Christmas Eve visits, but they were limited at that time to poor children in the area, so excuses were easily made and the local furor eventually died down. No one outside the village ever knew what had really happened. The following year, Santa moved to the North Pole. A solemn vow was taken among the elves that only the physician would ever be tainted with the knowledge of what had occurred. The story was passed down to me by my father. I thought it was just a nasty fairy tale; even my father told me he didn’t really believe it.”
“Did they ever figure out why it happened?”
Fritz sighed. “No. The only explanation my great-great-grandfather came up with was that Santa had been
