Clueless, or Nothing to See Here, Folks

In a line as a straight as a sharpened pencil, a party of concerned, horrified, and exploitative individuals made directly for the chapel.  Leading the way in her black-as-pencil-lead robes was
Mother Deborah, behind her fretting and sobbing the nun who had announced the theft, then Geoffrey and Andreas with their unspoken suspicions about certain visitors to the Oh! Noel Lightfest, then a couple of holiday makers who thought that this was all part of the fun, and finally a lawyer waving her business card to anyone who would take it since there had been too much wrong-doing going on not to get in on the action.

The lighting within the chapel to Blessed Charles of Austria and the Servant of God Zita of the Exarchy of Blainesville lacked that festive gewgawgerie that was bringing in the customers outside.  Rather, a gentleness and serenity which many a modern eye could only find frightening if not terrifying pervaded the little room, making the chapel at once inmate and unbounded.  The light of so many tiny flames played about and gilded the carved and painted wood like the glow of the beginning of the world.  From tier upon tier of red candle glasses, flames like the eyes of cherubim quivered and quavered before plaster statutes, while before icons of saints with painfully serious expressions ascetic tapers in sandboxes were melting into self-abnegation.  How could anything unpleasant or criminal happen in such a serene and lovely jewelbox of a setting?

Well, something apparently had, since one corner of the shrine struck the viewer as rather empty--which was quite a feat, given that the place was chock-a-block full of pictures, candles, banners, carved wood, ex votos, and even a pamphlet racks in the back.  But this evening the front left corner (near the exit, convenient for one needing to make a quick getaway...) offered the eye a sort of black hole, or more accurately a walnut-stained square.  This was the stand on which something had been lying but was now empty, save for a border of store-bought flowers, holly, rosemary, and ivy.

The sundry players (most of whom would have fallen under et al. in a standard stage play) trailed along behind Mother Deborah and en masse swirled about the stand like an anxious tide around a rock in the middle of the sea.

"The icon is left!" repeated the nun in heavily accented wailing.  "Be looking!  Blessed Symeona is left us!"

She went on in this plangent vein for several more seconds, when Andreas, as if seizing the bridle of a runaway mare, slipped up to her, placed thick Thuringian hands tight about her upper arms (this was probably a venial sin, but as a hoary old Lutheran he probably did not believe he had any choice) and after fixing her startled eyes said, "Wodajće prošu. Kak Wy rĕkaće?"

After a momentary flutter she swallowed, "Rěkam Elisabeta.  Rěčiće Wy serbsce?"

Andreas gave her a steady, "Haj.  Wjeselu so," and a bit of back-and-forth ensued.  At the end of it, though, there came only a brief chaste embrace to comfort the poor lady, who then wandered off into the luminous darkness.  Andreas said, "She knows nothing."

"What was that about?" asked Mother Deborah, speaking for the group.

"The little sister was speaking Upper Sorbian, as the peasants around my castle during childhood spoke," and then he turned away, no doubt nostalgically remembering fields of swaying flax and sunflowers.

But Geoffrey, recognizing his longtime companion's jaunt into the long-lost past, stepped forward and muttered something, along with a few swipes of his fingers, like a hypnotist bringing a patient from a trance.

Before Geoffrey could finesse a straight answer out of him, however, Mother Deborah sidled up and said, "What do you mean, she knows nothing?"

The holiday-makers who had come along to the so-called "crime scene" said, "Oh, I get it, we're supposed to solve the crime now, right?"

And the lawyer said, "This is the time for you to get superior representation.  Let's just talk right over here."  ("Right over here" was inside the sanctuary.)

Andreas related, "She entered the shrine to initiate preparations for the revelers.  Inside this shrine, she beheld that the image had departed."

After taking a second and a half to translate this thesaurian English into everyday speech, Mother Deborah muttered oaths which probably might have landed her in hot water (or some other hot place), but the fallible folk around her were ready to forgive.  Nonetheless, rallying quickly, she ordered everyone, "Out, out, out.  The boys in blue will want this place tight as a drum."

A brief shudder rippled through a few of those present, since in Merryweather they had strategically gutted all males from the police force in a self-imposed display of embracing equity and diversity.  (They had even done a puff piece about it on The View.)  But if Andreas' multiplicity of adjectives and nouns could be tolerated, then they had to forgive the old lady her knee-jerk statements.  So, they shuffled through the carven wooden door and out into the realm of half-domesticated camels.

Angry Camel, or Burden of Proof

With a toothy Semitic braying, the small dromedary, formerly fenced behind the wooden cut-outs of Balthasar, Melchior, and Gaspar, was now charging into the holiday-makers, who screamed, yelled, shrieked, gasped, and even thrilled that this made it all worth the price of admission.

Geoffrey and Andreas were just as surprised and/or taken aback as the rest of cheer-seekers, but maintained their sang-froid--one of the blessings of advanced age.  The two Romanians that they had just forestalled from making mischief had taken to their heels, perhaps reliving genetic memories of the Ottoman domination of their land.

The beast thundered on, crashing into the food kiosks, dragging along in its wake like festive raiment a few awnings, plastic table cloths, extension cords for space heaters, and a string of blinking Christmas lights.  However, the net of this beast had also caught up many a discarded red-green-and-white cocoa cups, the tennis-ball aluminum walkers of one or two senior citizens, and--concerning to say the least--several innocent children.

No one much cared about the cocoa cups (except a few dedicated greenies), while the loss of the aluminum walkers were of concern to only a few of Merryweather's valued senior citizens.  But the innocent little children garnered much sympathy, mostly from bystanders other than their parents, who were still thinking that this all might be a complimentary amusement ride that came with the pretty steep entrance fee.

Among these bystanders who did give a thought to future generations were Geoffrey and Andreas.  Any surprise on their part at this micro-stampede having passed, they dashed after the beast, risking broken hips and delayed-onset bursitis by their exertions across the chill pavement, as the ecstatic children caught up in the blinking web of lights and debris, their gleeful cries seeming to say, Oh, if every day could be Christmas.

But as Geoffrey and Andreas closed in on the beast juggernauting to freedom, their heroism was supervened by a squat but agile shape.  Anjay Shapurian, of all people, taking a brief respite from lurking in the shadow of Jeff "Doogle" Hanson, suddenly darted through a pair of standing tubs marked Garbage and Recycling.  With the energy of a frog making for an unsuspecting dragonfly, he leapt through the air and landed atop the camel.  This display of Central Asian rodeo skill, generating from all of the people about a silent gape of admiration.  For Geoffrey and Andreas, it brought about a screeching halt, as Andreas rear-ended his housemate and Geoffrey tumbled inelegantly into a Japanese skimmia bush draped over-abundantly with little blue lights.

From his perch on the saggy hump of the dromedary, Anjay Shapurian was delivering a barrage of throaty curses in some unfamiliar tongue as he grabbed at its dangling harness, while the camel itself brayed and shook its unappealing head.  Another stream of unkind words suitable for the caravansary or a rough-around-the-edges oasis gushed out from Anjay Shapurian, who was clutching at its hide in an attempt--fruitless--to steer it along.

This action sequence from the Nativity story came to a sudden halt (to no one's relief, since this was would always bring in the customers).  A second figure was intervening: a tall, mannish women draped from stem to stern in billowing black, a nun, rather than directing her forces from behind (like Geoffrey and Andreas) or from above (like Anjay Shapurian), was making a perpendicular charge.  In a flanking move, she seized the beast's halter, yanked it a few times to remind it who had bucket of the date paste and millet, and so brought all the fun to an end.

At this dousing of the excitement, the scales fell from the eyes of several sets of young parents, who ran forward and disentangled their tots from the twiney mess behind the beast, only to hear pleas of Can we do it again?

But into this this cherubic chorus of disappointed children, another voice, high, desperate, and horrified, pierced the chilly evening.  Like the dark sail of a ghost ship, there appeared another of the sisters of the Convent of Sorbo-Ruthenian Women’s Monastery of the Blessed Charles of Austria and the Servant of God Zita Of the Exarchy of Blainesville.

Running up to the lady at the head of the camel, she cried out in imprecise English, "The icon is left!  The icon is left!  The miraculous icon of Blessed Symeona of Blainsville is gone!"

Just as the nun made her frightful announcement, Geoffrey and Andreas stepped into the scene.  The old men looked about.  Along with the miracle-working icon, they saw that the Romanians were gone, Doogle Hanson was nowhere to be seen, and Anjay Shapurian had climbed off of the camel and sunk into the crowd.  (The funnel cake stand was gone as well in the all of the hullabaloo, that was not as concerning...)  They they gave one other a more sophisticated glance, one that said, "Correlation does not always mean causation, but..."

Two by Two, or Walking with Beasts

Andreas Stackenwalter had sighted, further up the line of shivering holiday fun-seekers, another pair of fellows also waiting to pass the turnstile and take in the millions and millions of tiny holiday bulbs in riotous display.  Despite their hand-woven stocking caps and generous padding against the chill, by their profiles and poses Andreas was able to label them as Jay-Douglas "Doogle" Hanson and his perpetual appendage Anjay Shapurian.

Andreas half-nodded up the queue to signal Geoffrey.  "Should we enter, mein Herr?" he asked. "Perhaps the roof upon us will fall."

"Ah," Geoffrey said as he recognized the pair, "but this is an open-air event."

"Perhaps the small children will stampede."

"The Pied Piper would be proud.  What have you learned so far about this pair?"

"As much as I know about those two peoples there."  A second time Andreas gave a half-nod up the queue.  Geoffrey let his sight billow along like newly falling snow past the young families and the lovesick hipsters, all waiting in chilly anticipation to smile at millions and millions of small colored lights while sipping cider and cocoa.  His gaze finally settled first upon a man whose utterly bald head was indifferent to the cold and at his side an elderly woman, hunched and squinting, her jaw sealed by a well-knotted scarf in an ethnic rainbow of colors.

"I remember them from the wake for Marjorie," said Geoffrey, bringing his complimentary cruelty-free hot cocoa to his cold-chapped lips.  "Romanians.  Latter-day Phanariots.  Marthe Bibesco would not be proud.  Oh, didn't we visit her in Paris?"

"1964."  Andreas had a great memory for dates.

But interrupting this doctor-recommended power-walk through the past was the sight of Jay-Douglas "Doogle" Hanson and Anjay Shapurian arriving at the admissions booth.  Doogle Hanson, even when papoosed in high-end survivalist winterwear, moved with a pantherine grace--while Anjay Shapurian slid along in his shadow like a ray or skate just beneath the surface.  They slipped, one elegantly, one surreptitiously, past the turnstile.


A little bit after this transaction, the Romanians (Son and mother?, we might guess) had also contributed to the till to start enjoying the Yuletide light show within.  Finally, Geoffrey and Andreas had their turn at showing to the juvenile volunteer their state-issued identification as proof that they were senior citizens (the eager do-gooder did not take the word of these octogenarians that they could remember Eisenhower (never mind the Empress Zita, Marthe Bibesco, and frankly, Adolf Hitler--He had pinched Andreas' soft little cheek in 1943)).  So, they too were allowed within to partake in the Oh, Noel! Lightfest.

Within the scarcely hidden but festively decorated chain-link-fence enclosure, Geoffrey was admiring the aesthetic of a billion or so small colored lights and weighing whether "galactic" or "cosmic" was le mot just, while Andreas scanned for the movements of not only Jay-Douglas "Doogle" Hanson and Anjay Shapurian, but the two Romanians, as well.  Most of the people comprising the happy holiday masses moved about, staring and pointing, chatting with acquaintances and scrupulously avoiding the smiling eyes of strangers--no need to take the goodwill towards men business too far.

Sadly, ill-will towards men was to be found in the two Romanians.  Apparently the funnel cakes or the cotton candy or the deep-fried angel food cake on a stick was not up to par, because the bald Balkanite and his squat mother were making a noticeable fuss, not limited to critiquing the spun sugar or the proportion of nutmeg in the crunchy coating.

Now, Geoffrey, Andreas, and a few dozen others were treated to the old lady demanding a gluten-free funnel cake, not getting it, and then smashing the napkin dispensers with her cane.  The cowed volunteer started to whimper a few mollifying words, but the trollish granny wailed something and with one grand tsunamian gesture swept her walking stick across the counter, casting the sugar-and-spice condiments, the donation can, and the brochures about the miraculous icon in the convent's chapel all on to frosty pavement.  Now the volunteer found voice and hurled a few jeremiads across the counter, at which the bald son yelled in thickly-accented English, "Elder abuser!  Elder abuser!"  And rotating about to the crowd about him summoned their indignation.  "You see!  Evil!  Evil!  Abusering!"

Well, to this, the reaction from the chilly holiday-makers ran the spectrum from ultra-apathetic to the infra-indignant--Really, that this could go on in Merryweather!  It just proved what cable television said about nuns was true.

At this, Geoffrey and Andreas, elderly people nonpareil, sidled up to the head of the funnel cake queue like a couple of ancient homeopaths to stifle this conniption.  Like the last exponents of chivalry both Gallic and Holy Roman (Perceval, Parzifal, all the same) who had left their palfreys at the prune-whip stand, they sauntered into the midst of the melee and played the ancient game of divide and conquer.

Geoffrey, as young people say, "got in the face" of the semi-reptilian bald son and announced with stern voice and unwavering gaze, "Milosh."  This name should do the trick, he thought, and it did.  The Romanian turned as pale and quivery as a blancmange and his declamatory mouth shriveled to a prunish pucker.

Meanwhile, Andreas was corralling the Bucharest matron with a protracted barrage of questions in violent German about the functioning of the snow cone machine.  This was a crude technique that ostensibly was not suited to a chevalier, but he was not rescuing a blushing maiden.  This blitzkrieg demanding technical minutiae about the ice-grinder derailed the lady from whatever scheme she and her spawn were concocting and both mother and son were now looking nervously around their respective attackers at each other to understand exactly what had transpired

And then the camel broke loose.

Lights in the Darkness

With the Thanksgiving tables of Merryweather cleared of gluten, dairy, race and ethnicity, animal cruelty, and any reference to the Deity, the real distraction from the cold, wet, and gloomy parts of the year got underway: the annual Oh, Noel! Lightfest, hosted by The Strange Fruit Sisters.  (For the sake of the ignorant, the Strange Fruit Sisters is the local and colloquial moniker for a sizable band of rare Ruthenian Catholic nuns who, when not stringing multicolored lights through giant rhododendrons, hocking funnel cakes, and drugging camels so that they will be amenable members of the petting zoo, repent and pray at the--ahem--Sorbo-Ruthenian Women’s Monastery of the Blessed Charles of Austria and the Servant of God Zita Of the Exarchy of Blainesville.  These renunciants had garnered their nickname since their monastery (Eastern Christendom not having nunneries or convents, apparently) subsists in the midst of an overgrown, impenetrable, and abandoned orchard of persimmons, figs, seaberries, mulberries, jostaberries, and everything else that is not easily picked and shipped.  The previous owners (a branch of the nefarious Smiths--more of them in time) had donated it to the sisters in the hopes of a tax write-off--and a bribe to the Almighty.) 

  

The Oh, Noel! Lightfest, born a few years back, quickly became a staple event of the winter shopping season, with seniors from Helmut, Gardenburg, and Segue braving the nighttime roads in 14-passenger buses just to ooo! and aah! at all the lights.  (And Oh, Noel! was a far more wholesome Adventide outing than the Weihnachten Wine-Night-Out, which attracted the same crowd that had been watching the Christmas-movie marathon playing over and over on the Romance Channel since Halloween.) 

But not all of the seniors making the trip this year to Oh, Noel! came in a rickety lift bus operated by some non-profit.  No, a spiffy kingfisher blue Lombardia (the sole luxury vehicle produced by the Soviets), after safely navigating the black, ice skimmed to a stop by the main gate and dispensed a pair of gentlemen: the well-aged Geoffrey Durant-Dupont and his inevitable Teutonic shadow, the already familiar Andreas Stackenwalter.  These two oldsters stood a moment, both to let the blood flow to their heads (at a certain age one starts to stand with care) and to take in the scene.  As Herr Stackenwalter was scanning both the parking lot and the line of hot-cocoa holding attendees shuffling through the entry gate,  a young and devout volunteer was politely working her way up and down the queue came uip to them as they joined the line and handed them a flyer, a convenient map of the funland beyond; Andreas eyed her efficient progress up the line with care, while Geoffrey perused the offering.  "I did not know that we had an exarch," he said.  "Well, better an exarch than a heresiarch," he concluded, although not as hypocritically as in the past.  Since he had escaped the sticky clutches of Marjorie Mayfield, his religious observance--formerly standing in the back of church on Christmas and Easter--had widened and deepened.

"Did you ever meet Zita?" he asked, referring to the lady whose name graced the convent (or women's monastery, if you prefer).  Herr Stackenwalter as a German count had to have rubbed a few be-titled shoulders, but Andreas only grunted, having lost castle, his tapestries, and any feudal rights with the invasion of the Soviets.  (He had managed to hold on to his title and his posture.)   As the queue into the festival ambled on, Geoffrey did as well, but verbally.  "I did, in passing, outside of the gates of Solesmes, when mama was hiding herself there with the sisters.  She said that she was making a Lenten retreat..."

"But in truth she was hiding from..."  Andreas said, loosely recalling the story.

"Oh, those Albanians."  Now Andreas grunted significantly.  "Mama'd gotten a good deal on some of their crown jewels and the Reds thought that they should be returned to 'the people'.  That reminds me: I should break up Queen Géraldine's amethyst spray before the current regime gets wind of it."

"But Her Imperial Majesty?"

"Oh, Zita was a positive angel," Geoffrey said, taking an eco-friendly disposable cup of cocoa from the mittened hands of another volunteer.  "She would have made a lovely nun, but with eight children...You know, she dressed in black her whole life, you know, in mourning for her husband."  (The Blessed Charles who shared the billing on the marquee.)  "If ever I'd had a wife..." and as his wish trailed off, Andreas grunted again, ambiguously, and gave another scan down the line of shivering merry-makers.

But as they came to the gate, all of his watchful scrutiny bore some strange fruit indeed.