INTERVIEW WITH SANTA CLAUS
The doorbell was ringing again. The ninth time in the last hour! Today, it seemed, every doorbell lover in the city was out. Such days do occur. I shuffled off grumpily toward the door and opened it.
Who, if you can believe it, stood outside? Saint Nicholas himself! In his famed historic outfit. White beard and rosy cheeks. The sack of apples, nuts, and gingerbread over his shoulder. The stern hazel switch in his gentle hand.
“Oh!” I said. “Nicholas the stressed!”
“Nicholas the blessed, if you please. B and l.” He sounded a little irritated.
“As a boy I always called you ‘Nicholas the stressed.’ I found that more plausible.”
“That was you?”
“So you remember, then?”
“Of course! You were a cute little rascal back then!”
“I’m still little.”
“And you live here now.”
“That’s right.”
We smiled resignedly and thought on times past. Then he suddenly recalled his Christmas duties and asked, as a businesslike aside: “Were the children nice this year? Who was naughty, and how so?”
I clarified for him that I keep a childless household, and am too fond of children to over-burden them by acting as their father.
“Lazybones!” he growled, and turned to leave the landing.
“But stay awhile!” I begged him. “Drink a cup of coffee with me!” To be frank, I felt sorry for him. This wintry life of delivering packages, up and down staircase after staircase, and over and over the stereotypical, slightly foolish inquiries after the good or bad behavior of beloved children, who feared him and froze in their prayers at the thought of him—this was a job fundamentally unsuitable for a reasonably-educated, thousand-year-old man. “Do me the honor!” I continued. “There’s raisin bread.”
What can I tell you? He stayed. He deigned to stay. First he wiped his boots clean on the doormat, then he leaned his sack against the coatrack, hung the switch on one of its hooks, and finally drank a cup of coffee with me in the sitting room. With it he ate four pieces of raisin bread. Thick slices. Pola, the small black cat, had sprung onto his shoulders at the second slice, and was now lying like a fur boa around his neck and purring. The sound was like that of a gnome seated at a sewing machine.
“You keep a cozy place here,” he said. “Decidedly comfortable.”
“Would you care for a cigar?”
“I wouldn’t turn one down.”
I offered the box. He helped himself. I gave him a light. Then with a sigh of relief he pulled off his right boot with the help of his left. “It’s the support for my flat foot. It puts a cruel pressure on the bottom of my foot.”
“You poor man! With your job!”
“There’s less work these days. Good thing for my feet. These phony Nicholases shoot up like mushrooms from the ground. Wherever you look, they stumble through the streets and squares by the dozen.”
“On the other hand—one day the children will believe that you, the true Santa Claus, no longer exist!”
“True! The scoundrels damage my reputation! Most of them, who throw on a fur, hang a beard off their faces, and copy me, don’t have the least talent! They bungle it! It’s not so simple to be Saint Nicholas!”
“Not by any means! Just once I wanted to give your business a try. But the beard was scratchy, and made me sneeze. And my little nephew cried out right away, ‘Cheers, Uncle Erich!’”
“There you have it!” said my visitor and nodded, pleased. It seemed he was gradually warming up to me. He puffed out marvelous big smoke rings. Pola looked at him curiously. Then she sprung through one of the blue-gray rings as through a hoop, and made her way to her favorite spot, the chair under the old wall clock, to take a nap enchanted by its ticking.
“Since we’re already discussing your work,” I said, “I have a question for you that has preoccupied me since I was a child. I wouldn’t have dared at that time. Today it is easier. As I’ve become a journalist in the meantime.”
“Alright, then,” he said, and poured himself more coffee. “What have you wanted to ask me since you were a child?”
“Well,” I began hesitantly, “your job is in a sense a mobile seasonal trade, right? In December you have plenty of work. It’s all compressed into a couple of weeks. You could call it a ‘short-term industry.’ And now…”
“Hm?”
“And now what I’d burningly like to know is what you do for the rest of the year!”
Good old Nicholas looked at me with a fairly puzzled expression. It almost gave me the impression that no one had ever asked him such an obvious question before.
“If you’d rather not reveal anything about it…”
“No, no,” he grumbled. “Why not?” He gulped down some coffee and puffed out a smoke ring. “There’s more than enough to do in November of course, with all the work collecting materials. In some regions there will suddenly be no chocolate. No one knows why. Or the farmers will hold back their apples. And then the drama with customs control at the border. And all the traveling papers. If things go on like this, I’ll have to use up October for it too. Until now, I’ve really just spent October sequestering myself and letting my beard grow.”
“You only wear your beard in winter?”
“Of course. I can’t exactly run around all year as Santa Claus. Do you think I keep my fur coat on too? And drag that sack and switch three hundred and sixty-five days a year all over the place? Well then. —In January I draw up the balance. Horrible. Christmas gets more and more expensive, century after century!”
“I understand.”
“Then I read the December mail. Before anything else, the children’s letters. That holds things up colossally, but it’s necessary. Otherwise you lose contact with your clientele.”
“Sure.”
“At the beginning of February I lose the beard.”
At this moment the bell rang at the front door again. “Please excuse me.” He nodded.
Outside on the landing stood a door-to-door peddler selling obnoxiously colorful picture postcards, who told me a very long and very sad tale, the first part of which I listened to bravely and with ears clenched tight.
Then I gave him the loose change I had on me, and we wished each other well. Although I refused steadfastly, he forced half a dozen of the horrid cards on me as a thank-you gift. He was, in the end, not a beggar, he said. I respected his considerable pride and relented. Finally he went away.
When I returned to the living room, I found Saint Nicholas groaning and putting his right boot back on. “I’ll have to be on,” he said, “it doesn’t help a thing staying here. What have you got there?”
“Postcards. A peddler forced them on me. I find them rather atrocious.”
“Give them here. I know a buyer. Many thanks for your warmhearted hospitality. If I wasn’t Santa Claus, I might envy you.”
We went to the hall, where he picked up his tools.
“Shame,” I said. “You still haven’t told me how you spend the rest of the year.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “In truth there’s not much to tell. In February I take care of the children’s carnival before Lent. Later on I wander over to the spring markets. With balloons, Turkish honey, and cheap mechanical toys. I’m a lifeguard in summer and give swimming lessons. Sometimes I also sell ice-cream cones on the street. Yes, and then fall comes again, and now I really must go.” We shook hands.
I watched him through the window. He trudged through the snow with big hasty strides. At the corner of Ungerer Street a man was waiting for him. He looked like the peddler, that talker with his stupid picture postcards. They went around the corner together. Or had my eyes deceived me?
Fifteen minutes later the doorbell rang once again. This time it was the errand boy from the deli, Zimmerman and Sons. A welcome visitor! He brought the grilled roast chicken that I had ordered, a small tender rolled ham, and two bottles of Piesporter Goldtröpfchen, a late vintage.
I reached to pay, but my wallet was not there.
“There’s no rush, Herr Doktor,” said the messenger paternally.
“I’d bet it’s just on my desk!” I said. “But fine, I’ll settle up tomorrow. Wait a moment, I’ll bring you a fine cigar!”
But the box with the cigars was missing too.
Nor could I find them later. No cigars. No wallet. The silver cigarette case, likewise, was nowhere to be found. And the cuff links with the moonstones and the evening pearls were neither in their place nor anywhere else. In any case not in my apartment. I couldn’t figure out where any of them might be. I certainly didn’t rush to check up on my railroad stock certificates or stamp collection.
Nevertheless, it turned into a quiet, pleasant evening. The roast chicken and the Piesporter were first-class. No one else rang at the door. Behind the window snowflakes drifted down like an endless white mesh curtain. Pola woke up briefly and made woolen goulash out of a scarf. Truly a fine evening. Only something was missing. But what?
A cigar! Of course!
Luckily, my golden lighter was also nowhere to be found. For even I would admit—although I’m not easily perturbed—that to have a lighter, but nothing to smoke, could completely spoil the entire evening!
1949