The surprising silence of Christmas

I  have never really been a fan of Christmas, but there is one year in particular that sends me down memory lane.

A chopper bicycle: In 1979 it was an object of desire for a nine-year-old boy.

I was nine years old, meaning it was 1979. My brother and I knew by August that we would be getting bikes for Christmas.

My brother — just 17 months older than me, but he thought it was at least two years—answered our parents within a second of their asking what kind of a bike he wanted, right down to the colour: a red clipper with break pedal.

He was always much more prepared, decisive, than me in such things. So three months later, and my mother’s fraying nerves scorched, I delivered with my answer: “I want a chopper. I don’t care about the colour, so long as it’s not red.”

Come Christmas Eve I was unable to sleep with excitement. Because ours was a simple two-roomed house in a little town of Queenstown in the Eastern Cape, my head was facing the direction of the chimney that Father Christmas was coming through, and there was no way I was missing the chance to greet him that year.

I can remain still for hours; you would think I have turned into a statute of salt like Lot’s wife. Sometimes my mother, a professional nurse, would come take my pulse out of concern.

My stillness called my parents’ bluff that Christmas Eve. At twenty minutes past eleven (I was watching the clock, trying not to blink) they blew out the lamp, pretending to go sleep. The window curtain was left half drawn, letting in the silver light from the moon.

My parents’ silhouettes appeared shortly after midnight. I didn’t know how to react as they came dragging in the bicycles. I had never been that embarrassed for them before. I ended up crying, hiccoughing under the blankets. Luckily they never noticed.

When I awoke the following morning my brother was already riding the bike outside in the street. Problem is, he was riding my bike, not his. When I made for my mother to understand that he was doing a naughty thing by riding my bike, she told me they had decided the chopper was better off with my brother because it was a bigger bike; I could ride the clipper until I got older, then they would buy me a chopper.

I never even protested. I had waited so long, thinking, eating, boasting about nothing but that bike. Yet at the back of mind I had a sneaking suspicion the whole thing was too good to be true. I just knew it! Now I was being proven right. I went to sit outside at the pavement, watching my brother ride my bike. From then on things started getting complicated in my head.

Later on, our cousins came for Christmas lunch. It was back to bicycle riding for my brother. One of our cousins asked my mother if he could ride the other bike, which was where Father Christmas had left it. My mother cheerfully said: Of course, since its owner does not seem to care for it. She sarcastically added something about an ungrateful spoilt brat, but I couldn’t hear well, I was already out of the house.

The chain on the gate caught my hand and left a scratch. The stupid milk man was pedalling his carrier bike, on Christmas. On Christmas!

I crossed the road over to the reeds, waddling the stinking rivulet called Voyizana that gave the pejorative name to our area. Thinking it to be a stone I stepped on a rotten fish carcass—later at home I said it was shark, but I knew it was fish, a big fish perhaps, but a fish nonetheless. Its skeletal bone dug into my foot. As I crossed to the other side my injured foot felt warm. I looked down. It was oozing blood. Alarmingly.

I knew the only thing to do was to go back home, but recalling the sarcastic emphasis on my mother’s face as she said: “Of course, since the owner…”, I thought better of it and risked the wild.

I proceeded ahead until I got to a small ditch before you get to the Chinese shop. I lay there supine. My foot was starting to feel as if it was not there. I avoided looking down in case my suspicions were confirmed.

I tried guessing the shapes of clouds. One looked like a smoking pipe, but I couldn’t be sure. Nevertheless I wondered if it was Father Christmas coming to sort out the confusion, since obviously when he handed my parents the bikes they misunderstood which belonged to whom. I hated myself for making excuses for them.

I was feeling dizzy when I walked back home.

I woke up as the shadows from the mountains were thickening. My foot was bandaged and I was feeling nauseous. My mother brought me a glass of ginger ale, still saying something sarcastic under her breath about infecting my foot vagabonding instead of riding my bike “with other normal children”.

The word “normal” stuck in my head. It seemed to explain something, taking a weight off my shoulders. The problem was that I was not normal, that’s where the problem lay. I watched my anger against my mother dissipate. It was not her fault, I was just not normal.

From the outside I could hear the sounds of merriment coming from friends, cousins, brothers and neighbours. Everyone was happy it was Christmas. I was not angry, just indifferent.

The whole thing didn’t feel a part of me, and I was not interested in being part of it. I preferred the games of the mind, counting how long it would take for the fly on the ceiling to get bored with that position. Daring the fly a wager: first one who moves loses. Letting the fly off easily because a slight violent wind came through the window and scared it off.

And then silence: to surprise me, to play with me, to smile at me, to assure me I was normal that side of heaven.

Silence is the part I understand best about God.