It's Christmas Eve. An angel is watching from Heaven the great colored Christmas lights that bathe the earth and the swarm of people, some cheerful others needy, but all in a special mood of celebration fuss-like. Every earthly heart beats in a more different pace than the usual one and even the war witnesses a holy truce night. It's quiet. Just for a night, because tomorrow the bombs will shoot again the air and will cool with their steeled poison the heat of the souls nested in their bodies, nerves will be strained again, screams will hurt the throats and whips will ruthlessly cut the air. But at least for one night it's quiet, gentle eyes are watching the children and the elderly, hands are caressing and offering gifts.
- God, tells the angel touched by the ephemeral spectacle on earth, tonight is really holy and people still treasure it. You have the power to do great wonders and they seem now ready to receive them. Lord, have mercy and overflow your goodness over them and make this night really magical.
- People are always asking for wonders and though these happen every day in their lives, they pass carelessly and blindly by and do not see them and then they continue to demand more and more miracles.
- I know Lord that their understanding is limited and their faith is little but never entirely lost. They keep asking again and again for miracles because although they do not see them, however, they do not lose hope that one day they will see with their own eyes something they can call a miracle. Is it not still faith? Let's do something really special for them tonight and give them something really great.
- What do you want me to give them?
- I do not know, what is most important to them? Health! Shall we heal the sick?
- I have done it for them before and I am still doing it now, but they rise from the hospital bed and go away without caring.
- God, I know what would be best: the words! You are the Word and out of it everything is born. They express in words both love and pain, can caress or kill a heart with a single word. There's nothing more important to them than words.
- You are wise, my angel! This night their words will come to life! People will be born from the words of the other people and they will have the creative fate. What they will utter from their heart tonight, that will be born and grow on earth! Go down to the earth, Angel, and say this prayer over their heads, says God giving him a papyrus. But be careful not to be disturbed in your way by the demons for they shall watch more diligently than ever in these holy nights and great is their zeal to spoil the good thing that someone is trying to do.
- I will be careful, Lord, said the angel and flew to earth.
At first, he was way down smoothly but the more he was descending, the more he felt the cold and the storm. Snowflakes were falling in thick curtains and covered the valleys and hills with a thick and bright coat. The rocky landscape was almost barren and now it was hiding its shameful nakedness under the snow that united heaven and earth in a desolate desert of snow and clouds. A white glove gleaned the cardinal points from their place and erased with its touch the horizon. Infinity had taken the form of a milky, white and confused sea that had forestalled the universe and the only movement that could be perceived was the waves of snow which were waving under the force of the wind playing them against their will in a hypnotic rhythm like a magic flute that makes the snakes dance.
The Angel's wings were beating more and more slowly hampered by the merciless claw of the frost. It was all the same up and down, wherever you looked, as far as the eye could see there was no living soul. Where to now? Only if he had encountered a human being to show him the way ...
The ice was tightening his body like a corset and he was feeling overwhelmed, almost to collapse. With the latest power he saw someone coming straight towards him. A black dot in the distance somewhere that was growing higher. A middle-aged man in a big thick black sheepskin coat firmly grabbed his arm:
- Where are you heading on this weather, traveler?
- What a fortune that I met you, I am trying to get to a house but this snow has tangled the paths and covered the view.
- Yes, what a fortune! It's an inn not far from here, I'll get you over there to warm yourself and you'll continue your way from there afterwards. I think you have a long road to go and an important mission to accomplish as you ventured outside on this weather.
- Yes, I have and I cannot delay it at all, but I can warm up just a little.
Almost carried away by the wind, our traveller came to the inn which showed up as if from nowhere and set to take the chill off.
- Take and drink this cup to warm yourself! What's this?, the one with the sheepskin coat asked grabbing the paper with the prayer from the traveller's chest.
- Give it back to me, nobody is allowed to touch it, it's my master's and it will be a big nuisance to lose it.
- Take it back then, I didn't know it's so important. He handed the missive back to the traveller, but the paper seemed thinner and darker and with a smaller and otherwise inclined kind of writing. --- Maybe you'd better go now not to be late in your mission.
- That's right, approved the traveller and stood up thanking for the welcome and the drink. He got out and closed the door, and behind him the inn and the man with the sheepskin coat disappeared in a wave of black smoke that dissipated in burned oil like trail.
Not being aware of what had actually happened, the angel unfolded the paper and read what was written there over the earthlings. He had not been as careful as he promised. The devil had deceived him and replaced the papyrus so as to spoil his plan. He had to learn only much later that instead of words, people's silences will be born. Instead of love whispers, there will come to life those stunned moments when words remain chained in the chest prison, no longer getting to the lips, those strong and painful silences which lock in their quietness a thousand words each.
*
Somewhere in the distance, thousands of kilometres away in a festively adorned city, in an apartment from a London attic, John and Angela are arguing. The same accusations that have echoed many times from their little nest of in love students can be heard all over again. This time they sound stronger and sharper than ever. Both are passionately carrying on at each other with idealistic and young souls and none is listening to the other. In the dim light entering through the narrow window only the glint of tears which occasionally are draining on her cheek can be seen. Her messy hair flowing over her shoulders in glossy sea-like waves and a wavy and silky tuft trying to comfort her cheek and wipe the tears but she always drives it away angrily with her hand. She's so young. Not even the anger and the cry have been able to create a line on her face. She crams things at random in a suitcase and her long fingernails sink deeply into the silky puzzled dresses which are flying out of the closet to the leather prison where they are cramped and locked. She gathers all her love, disappointment, uncertainty and anger in three words that she casts with the same power and apparent judgment that she opens the door:
- I'm leaving!
John is silent and an unbearable and uneasy silence is spreading like smoke across the room. His heart is beating in a crazy and dizzying pace and his temples are throbbing. His eyes are hurting him and his hands are shaking. His soul is desperately screaming 'Stay, I love you!' ', but his jaw is turned to stone and he cannot say anything, his whole body is clenched in an absent trembling, paralyzed by doubt and fear.
Angela stops for a moment in the doorway, watching at John for the last time with fear and a trace of hope. The tears in her eyes are increasing the image of his silent and expressionless, seemingly unconcerned stature just like a magnifying glass. She goes out of the room and closes the door behind her.
*
The same great night which proclaims birth and life for everyone, is for Albert, a young German in a small village, marked more by the chill of death. His heavy and black as hell boots, his military clothing and pale figure fit already to the gloomy colours of the painting that will have him as a character at the end of the journey starting tonight. The fear that floods his soul is as muddy, wet and cold as the trench where he foresees he will find his early unnatural end. He still is a child's spirit in a man's body. He feels like a scared little boy to whom the evil threat of death is the one opening the arms to the thunderous sound of machine guns, and not his tender mother singing a lullaby. His poor mother is crying silently in a handkerchief, by the almost cold fireside. But he must be strong and brave. His father learned him that and he wouldn't like for the life of him to disappoint him even now. It's his proof of manhood and he is determined to pass it. He wants to make him proud. Old father, Benedikt, is walking to and fro across the room in silence, ironically rehearsing a step that resembles a parade one. He is tired of so much life and so much death, both pointless and it's his inability against fate that revolts him. He thinks Albert's a good kid and maybe he has been too harsh on him all these years, and that maybe he forgets too often, each time, to show him how much he loves him and how much he trusts him. He sees him out to the gate without saying a word while knowing that he should tell it to him a thousand times. Now more than ever '' I'm proud of you! '' rings like a cathedral bell in his mind, but he cannot unleash this feeling resounding chime. Its strong vibration would dislodge the huge lump in the throat and would let go the dam that barely holds back the tears, a dam which is about to give way anyway. But he has to be strong for himself and for Albert. He taught Albert that men do not cry.
He would cry a while after and say out loud many times what he had not told him in the childhood or in the sad moments of good-bye, but he would only hope that his son could hear him from up there in heaven.
*
Yolanda sits silently at the table writing and apparently looking intensely to the shadow that a burning candle reflects on the white paper in front of her. The flickering flame describes a lively game of shadows and lights on the sheet of paper that seems to want to come to life and talk. But the fear from Yolanda's soul keeps the paper prisoner in the pale silence it was born from and which can only free itself by the creative breath of a hand that would carve it with a heel dipped in ink. But Yolanda's hand sits still, she only writes the letter in her mind. Every year on Christmas Eve she thinks about her old friend, Sonia, and each time sits at a table trying to write. Rows are cluttering in the mind flooded with remorse, and the words are drowning in waves of sadness and regret. She is sorry. Sorry for betraying her, for deceiving her confidence and leaving her when it was the most difficult for her. She was young and innocent, she had just let behind her childhood, believing that she deserved everything and that from that moment on her life was solely hers and about her. She would like to be able to cry on that sheet and what she feels to print so deeply and clearly in the fibre of the paper so as when Sonia receives the letter, by touching the wet and crumpled paper to feel all her remorse and to forgive her. She can try to write to her, but a ferocious fear makes her heart leap into her mouth and her doubt makes her mind unclear like a strong drink. Perhaps Sonia has already forgotten her and she will not care for her letter, or maybe she will simply not be willing to answer to her and what's most she may not forgive her. She would then receive what she feels she deserves and not what she wants. She would write only this: ''Forgive Me!', but she does not have the courage; she hides the paper and the pen again in the drawer from which she took them with this thought that has been troubling her for so long. Maybe next year…
Sonia browses the stack of letters and the Christmas cards. There are many but none from Yolanda. She has always hopelessly dreamed of that one year she will get a few words from her old childhood friend. And she would like to have the opportunity to be told that she was forgiven and that she misses her, but probably Yolanda has already forgotten her long ago.
**
But time does not care about people's struggle and goes by rhythmically turning the pages of the calendars. The years have their own mathematics and no joy or human pain, no matter how big, can make them change their course. Seven years have passed since the offspring that were born on Christmas night that I mentioned earlier were born. A both blessing and curse full night.
John was a violin professor at the Conservatory and generally did not offer private lessons. He was determined to spend his free time for his own personal accomplishment, studying, practicing and composing. But being young and very talented he very quickly became known and a full account of people was always asking him to receive them or their children as students. He used to refuse them politely and even if sometimes it was more difficult, he usually managed to escape from their insistence. Of all them he noticed a mother who not only didn't give up but also had a special son. Arthur was 7 years old, was blond and slender like a girl. He was very smart and extremely talented at music, especially the violin, but he wouldn't speak a word. Nobody had been able to realize for sure if he could not or would not speak nor anyone or anything had been found that could help him. He was a good and sensitive kid, but because he was not speaking, he often seemed sullen and lonely. The violin was his only companion, which he used to take with him everywhere. He lived just a block from John and often when this one was practicing newer or older scores in the evening, Arthur used to sit on the pavement in front of John's window and imitate the songs trying to sing in tandem with him. John was terribly bothered by the child's habit which deconcentrated and spoiled the most rehearsal evenings. He would often try to chase him, but without any result, the child reappearing every time and sitting down on the curb calmly as if he would not have cared.
*
Old Benedikt's still in his yard, on his old iron chair and works concentrated, in silence and solitude. He has been gathering from around the house and the neighbourhood for ever all kinds of wheels, truckles, nails, nuts, utensils and various special rotten things. He handles them in so many ways with infinite patience; he painstakingly polishes and fits them up until he achieves wonders. What seemed a pile of garbage and irons, lying at his feet, turns on the working table into perfect shapes: functional objects and machines, models and inventions. All are the result of days, sometimes even weeks of tireless work, of painful carefulness and sharp attention to every detail, although age makes his hands tremble and his eyes deceive him. But he does not complain on the hard work, he puts his whole soul and skill in what he makes and the things coming out at the end are like his dear sons to him. It is only that a child from the neighbors that is teasing him terribly. Markus is seven and is deaf and dumb. Thus he was born, and the doctors were unable to find him a cure. The boy is always sticking around Benedikt's house and often stops at the gate for hours and watches him through the fence boards. He keeps an eye on with the same patience the old man works and Benedikt’s insults do not enter his ears closed forever to any human sound. His eyes are large and black, deep and dark and it seems he is watching the old man with hatred and reproach. It looks like he has so many to tell him and he cannot say. As if he brings sadness from another world that he would like to make the old man responsible of. Perhaps he's the one who sneaks into the yard at night and in the storeroom and destroys everything Benedikt has built that day. He contemptuously crushes to pieces everything he finds on the working table and on the shelves and then disappears unseen and unheard by anyone. The thought that he will come again has disturbed man's countless nights and the image of his work destroyed and scattered on the floor again has darkened many of his mornings. He keeps calling him names or ignoring him, but anyway he never manages to get rid of him. This child upsets him deeply and does not understand why he is so rebelled against him. He acts as if he would feed with his anxiety and that he would find his rest only by irritating the old man.
*
Yolanda's a doctor and spends every day trying to snatch dozens of children from the jaws of diseases and sometimes of death. He sees every moment a lot of suffering but also much confidence and gratitude in the small and scared eyes of those who watch her from the white hospital bed. She has got used to them and even in the most difficult situations she manages to keep her calm and treat them with professionalism. But she has recently admitted a girl of seven years old who is deeply troubling her. She would not know to say why but she feels something special about this child. Being in the narrow and uncertain border between life and death, the child although is not able to say anything, she always seems to try and say something in Yolanda's presence. It seems as if she is addressing a silent requirement and begs her with her eyes and by her suffering to do something. This strange feeling that the little girl is expecting her to do something apart from what she normally does is bothering Yolanda day and night. All patients expect from their doctor their rescuing and beg him to help them, she saw it a thousand times and she has always been at peace with herself thinking that she does every moment everything she possibly can. But she has never made herself so uneasy as now, preyed by an endless feeling that Tamila is asking for something different and she does not know what.
*
Winters and summers come and go either slower or more rapidly, creating repeated generations of green leaves or sweeping the dried ones with a terrible wind. It is snowing quietly with big flakes and Christmas lights illuminate the streets and the souls again, giving light on the mysterious path of this night. Looking from the height of a wing in flight one can see endless rows of flickering spark on earth. There are millions of windows and behind each of them there is a life, a soul or a story which vibrates. Millions of experiences and stories the more intense the more unknown to others. Beyond each window, which seems to be just a light it is actually a whole world and there are so many, who knows them all?!
The Angel descends smoothly in flight and sits on the edge of a window looking inside: a little café lit only by candles, which spreads a pleasant smell of coffee and caramel pudding. John enters shrivelling and orders a coffee sunk in thought while sitting at a table. But he feels intensely watched and raised his eyes lazily. At the other end of the room there is the very her, Angela. She is watching him astonished, and with a shy smile she stands up and heads for his table.
Farther on, beyond a dimly lit and not too clean window, the flickering flame of the stove is scattering light and shadow games in the sombre silence of the room. It's a final tango of life with death on the rhythm of the memories that run their invisible thread for one last time in front of old Benedikt. He pursues increasingly tired their deeply blurred image and he vaguely hears their song for a second until the fire in the stove has gone out completely, leaving the darkness and the silence to fall over for eternity.
Leaving Benedikt's soul to death's care and ignoring the harsh Siberian frost, the angel resolutely follows his path and does not stop until he reaches Yolanda's sill. The lamp on her desk lights strong enough and the sheet of paper tormented by the pen's scratches, turns itself resigned into a letter. Yolanda has defeated her fears and has made up her mind not to let another year pass and to write to her friend hoping to be answered and forgiven.
Time flows from heaven and lays out itself on the ground beside the snowflakes. The quiet and misunderstood children sob easily in their sleep, turning from one side to the other in their bed and dreaming of something only they know about. Their silence lasts but for the first time this silence does not accuse time anymore, does not hurt snow or make angels return from their flight.
