The Julbock

The next day, the day before Christmas Eve, Kristina stood in the kitchen with flour up to the elbows, mixing up dough for gingersnap hearts. Amelie came in with the mail and said, "Looks like you have a note from another admirer."

Punching the sticky dough down, Kristina answered, "I can't open it now. Just read it to me, if you don't mind. It's probably someone from the opera who got my address."

"Dear Kristina," Amelie started.

Kristina jumped, spraying flour over the kitchen counter. "Oh, give me that!"

Amelie dodged her and moved to the other end of the kitchen, and began to read. "My return to Paris was delayed by the former tenants of my father Alphonse's house. They left me with a hole in the shed roof and a collapsed fence. As it was impossible to find workmen this close to Christmas …"

Amelie laughed as Kristina snatched the letter from her hands, smearing cookie dough all over the creamy paper in the process. Kristina read the rest to herself, while Amelie looked on, chuckling.

"… I am obliged to finish the work myself. I will be back shortly after Christmas and will call for you then. I have something for you that I think you will like.

Until then,

Alberich Niemann."

The envelope was postmarked from Rennes, but there was no return address.

Amelie said, "You looked like death warmed over this morning, after your rendezvous with the Comte last night. Glad to see you've recovered."

"You'll be even gladder to know I came back with my virtue intact." Most of it, anyway.

"Don't joke about that," Amelie said, smile suddenly gone. She rolled out dough out to cut it, and hacked at it a little too vigorously with the long knife. "You might not get away so easily the next time."

Kristina rolled her eyes in irritation, and then slipped the letter into her pocket to read again in the secrecy of her room, away from Amelie's eagle eyes. How does a person hold a letter? Right, like this, with the thumbs on either side. His hands had been on it, and his mouth, too. Her heart started to pound.

Then the conversation with Dr. Bergamos came back and chilled her all over again. That doctor hadn't told her anything she hadn't already thought about. It was that he brought it out into the open, when everyone else fights to keep it in the shadows. Just as he had mentioned the girls who asked him to play the "angel maker." It's almost as if people have more fear talking about the thing, rather than the thing itself. But Alberich is coming back around Christmas, if I'm lucky, and has something for me. I don't have anything for him.

"Amelie," Kristina called into the kitchen, "I'm going out shopping. Would you please finish the cookies?"

Without waiting to hear the answer, she headed out into the street and toward the shops. She wanted something different, but not too sentimental. He was probably like Pappa and Dr. Sibelius, men didn't like sentimental gifts. The grand magasins were full of umbrellas and cravats and all the unnecessary paraphernalia that people snap up before Christmas. Nothing seemed right, and she turned away from their elaborate storefronts to a little shop on a side street off the boulevard, tucked in between a tobacconist's and a hatter's.

A chipped sign on a worn, faded blue door said, "Open." The windows had curtains drawn over them, and through them you could barely see a hodge-podge of knick-knacks - candles, drapes, small pictures, jewelry on pedestals. Slowly she opened the door, and a little silvery bell tinkled.

The shop was dusty and dim inside, with a whole host of smells that swirled up into the air. Cinnamon and other strange hot spices competed with incense and a strong odor of roses. Underneath was the faint cooking smell of some kind of curry. A heavy, slope-shouldered man with thick black moustaches smiled from behind the counter. In the dim kitchen space behind him, a squat black-clad woman with her head entirely covered stirred something in a pot.

The dark-moustached man bowed his head slightly as Kristina said, "Good day. May I look around? I've never seen anything like this."

He nodded and said, "What does Mademoiselle desire?"

"Something special."

"For a woman or a man?"

The dark shape of his wife moved slowly in the back of the store, and his stolid face carefully trained on Kristina's eyes alone, and no other part. If he were French by birth, his wife would be behind the counter, and he'd probably be out playing cards somewhere. Instead, she hides in the back, and he faces the world. How does he stand Paris, where everything is on display? What would he think of where I was the other night?

She flushed and said, "For a man."

He came out from behind the counter, barely squeezing through the narrow space. Around his big stomach he wore a red cummerbund, and he smelled of strong tobacco. "He is a man who likes music?"

Her heart beat a little faster. "Yes, he does. What do you have in mind?"

He took a long, thin recorder from a case and held it up. It looked like rosewood, buffed to a soft glow. "From Morocco."

"He might like this. He lived in Algeria, so something from Northern Africa might do well. He was a builder there, he and his father."

The shopkeeper started forth in surprise. "Is he a tall man with a scarred face, as if lace were burned into his skin?"

"You know him?"

"He comes by to talk sometimes. I offer him good strong tobacco in the water pipe, but he won't have any of it. He shares coffee with me, though, and I keep his Arabic up to date. Sometimes we play chess. I would have recommended a set, but he bought one from me last year. So that is your friend, for whom you buy a gift."

Flustered, she said, "This flute is beautiful, but I'd like to look around some more. What else would you suggest?"

The case next to the path to the kitchen contained all kinds of knives, long and short. The shopkeeper took out a short steel dagger in a leather scabbard and pulled the blade out slowly. The steel gleamed dully, and the blade looked very sharp. In the hand it had a surprising weight, and it swished as she pulled it in and out of the scabbard.

"Do you think this suits him?" she asked hesitantly. "I hate to think he would find himself in need of it."

"The man who carries a dagger rarely has to use it. He knows it's there in his pocket or boot, and other men leave him be."

"It seems very daring. Perhaps we should continue."

"I think I have what you want," he said, and from a shelf he took a red leather-bound book, with thick ivory paper that slightly resisted the touch. The cover was tooled with elaborate flowers, and inlaid with pieces of leather in different colors. He would like this paper. Look at the kind he used for a simple note. It has weight and substance. What you wrote on here would stay for fifty years. Anyway, he said that he writes. It would also be a great surprise; I don't think he'd expect me to get him something like this.

"It's perfect," she said, and the big dark man smiled again.

"He should write poems for you, no?"

Kristina blushed. Then his wife came to the counter to stand behind him, as if half-hiding behind his solid mass. Only her two enormous, black eyes lined with paint shone out from under her veil. Her sharp nose pushed out the soft embroidered cloth forward, and Kristina saw with her mind's eye the two of them in a room with light filtered through a rose-red lattice. The woman's husband took off the sheer gauze, kissed her mouth with his thick black moustache, and read aloud to her from a fine piece of paper covered with the squiggly language of the Arabs.

He showed his wife the book and said something in his own tongue. She nodded, and her eyes smiled. Carefully he wrapped the book in gold tissue, and said, "Tell him Timurhan wants his revenge for his last defeat." His wife laughed and went back into the kitchen.

"It's a great coincidence," Kristina said, paying.

"There are no coincidences. Go with Allah," and the shopkeeper said, and he bowed again as the silver bell of the door fluttered softly.

Christmas Eve was warmer than usual, and there was no sleet or sludge on the clear streets. "There's a Julbrot over at the embassy," Anneke said to Kristina as they cleared up the tea things. "You know you're invited."

Pappa had never wanted to go to the embassy Christmas Eve festivities, because afterwards all the partygoers walked over to the Church of Sweden for midnight services. Besides, it interfered with the Christmas Eve fast. So while Anneke and her husband had Christmas ham and stuffed sausage with the other Swedish expatriates in Paris, Pappa and Kristina sat home and broke their fast with potato-leek soup. Pappa's fasts were strict and he wouldn't eat even fish on Good Friday or Christmas Eve. But that was all in the past now. "Of course I'll go," Kristina said, and Anneke smiled.

One of the larger reception rooms at the embassy had been turned into a bower of green, with pine boughs and red-beaded holly hung everywhere. A great Advent wreath covered one table, its purple candles replaced with white, and pine cones were strewn all around it. In a corner some children painted white edges on pine cones, to make it look like they were covered with snow. If heaven had a smell, it had to be that of cloves, cinnamon, cider, and Christmas ham boiling in the kitchen in its iron pot.

Anneke's friends greeted and kissed Kristina, exclaiming how they remembered her from her first and only Paris Julbrot at the embassy, when she was a girl still in braids and newly arrived. The older ladies fussed and asked one question after another, "So you're a singer at the Eclectic Theater now." "You'll have to sing something for us tonight." "Hasn't she grown into a beauty?" "I know, that's what I tell my granddaughter – you're a little ball of grey fluff right now, but just wait and you'll become a swan." "Is there someone special for you?" and that last question made Kristina blush and turn away.

The reception hall had a small dance floor, and a fiddler tuned up. The accordion player made his box squawk experimentally and jabbed the schawm player in a shared musical joke. A minister said a blessing, and even when Kristina crossed herself, no one turned their head. "That's Pastor Ambrosius, the embassy chaplain," Anneke whispered after the prayer. "His wife died last year, and everyone's looking for a new one for him."

"It's a smaller crowd than I thought."

"Even a few years after the war, travel was still hard, and the ships were slower. Now it's easier to get back home, especially if you're going to Gothenburg, or want to visit Oslo. So it's more of us older ones." She sighed and squeezed Kristina's hand. "I'm so glad you came."

A cheer went up as two stewards brought a large steaming iron pot of ham broth out to one of the tables, along with trays of bread. Each person took a piece, dipped it into the pot, and ate it. The children mostly dropped theirs, and by the end, the broth in the pot looked more like bread stew, with all the pieces floating in it.

The fiddlers began to play, the gaslights dimmed a little, and Kristina sat leaning sleepily against the wooden paneling, quiet as a tick full of blood after a busy day with the dogs in the forest. Several men invited her to dance, but she waved them off, too stuffed with ham, potato sausage, cabbage rolls, and well-being to move. Alberich's coming back to Paris soon, she mused drowsily. He'll "call for me" - does that mean he'll come to the apartment? It makes me so happy I can barely stand to think about it. I want Anneke to meet him, although I'm not so sure about Amelie.

A short, broad man with blondish graying hair bowed before her and held out his arm. "A polka, Froken Sigurdsdotter?"

"Pastor Ambrosius," she answered, debating.

"I've just come out of mourning," he said simply. "You would do me a great courtesy to share my first dance."

His manner was kind and direct, so she rose to take his arm. "I would be honored. Please accept my sympathies."

The accordion brayed as he swirled her around with a firm but gentle step. Out of the corner of her eye, across the rotating room, she noticed an odd figure moving among the children, passing out what looked like candies or raisins, wagging head in its straw goat mask at them. It was the Julbock, the Christmas goat, and she hadn't seen one since she was very little.

When they came to rest, the pastor looked at her with a gleam in his eye that was a little bit too bright. He was pink-cheeked and panting. She thanked him quickly and before he could ask for another dance or offer a cup of glogg, she headed off toward a cluster of motherly women with Anneke at the center.

On the way Kristina passed the Julbock, whose head slowly swiveled around to look at her as she passed. His horns were made of great curls of straw, and long red ribbons draped down from his headdress. The older children ignored him, but the little ones ran up to touch his shaggy fur cape. He filled one little hand after another with sweets, and then disappeared into the crowd.

Kristina reached Anneke at the center of her cluster of ladies, who were chatting about Japan and all the new things in the shops from that country. "My girl," Anneke said, "would you be so kind as to go to the cloakroom, reach into my coat pocket, and get my handkerchiefs? I want to show Fru Guttingen the Japanese embroidery - it's so fine, it looks painted on."

The fiddlers played something sweet and almost melancholy now, and across the room the good pastor forded his way through the crowd towards her, no doubt hoping to dance cheek-to-cheek. Thank you, Anneke, for the diversion, Kristina thought. The Julbock stood close by, interested in some little children cutting out their silver paper stars. Kristina's head was spinning, even though she hadn't had anything to drink except cider. All that champagne with Etienne the night before had left her queasy in the morning, a sensation which she didn't wish to repeat. But the warm glowing room seemed like some strange dream, and she was so sleepy. It must have been the fiddles, and all the candles. Sighing, she went to look for Anneke's handkerchiefs.

The cloakroom was almost dark, and the attendant gone. Kristina felt about for the knob to turn up the gaslight, but couldn't find it. Practically every old lady there had a black wool coat trimmed with velvet, finding Anneke's meant a tedious search through the rack.

The smell of goat hit her from behind, rich and tangy. There had been goats on the old farm of her childhood, and their odor had gone through everything - their hair, the milk, the cheese. Still half-dreaming she inhaled deeply, and it was like breathing in the farm all over again. Then there came a rustle, and she turned slowly around into a breaking wave of penetrating odor and heat.

The Julbock blocked the cloakroom door, huge and hulking. His straw mask covered his face and his hairy cape stank of goat. Her voice cracked with nervousness as she said, "You must have given away all your candy. Are you looking for your coat, too?"

He threw his cape back and planted his arms on his hips, hands covered with thick dark hair. He wore close-fitting red breeches, almost like tights, and Kristina turned her hot face away quickly, because his stiff and noticeable excitement pushed out the breechcloth in front. She backed away from him slowly, almost crouching into the corner. Tall he was, and very wide. There was no way to slip around him.

"I'll come back later," Kristina said. "I really don't need to get this coat now."

He moved a bit closer, wedging her into the corner. He put his arm up on the coat rack and his goat-nosed mask almost touched her face. The heat poured off of his body like an odor, and his cape was made of goatskin, a dark brown one with long wiry hair. As frightened as she was, she wanted to touch it, and against her will she grew warm and loose in the legs.

"Please," she whispered. "Let me leave now."

"Not yet," he said in a scratchy voice, muffled by the straw mask. "There's a message. From them. Well, not from them, not from her at least. Any message she would send, you wouldn't want. It's from him."

Was he drunk? "I don't know what you're talking about. Someone has a message for me?"

"I'm not supposed to touch you. He said not to. If I did, he said he'd strap me to an iceberg for a year and a day. On the bottom." The goat-man moved a little closer and reached up to stroke her hair. "Might be worth it, though." He turned his hooded head one way, then the next, as if trying to get a better look. The red ribbons on his head twisted like snakes. He pulled the pins out of Kristina's hair and it fell down in a cascade, which he ran through his fingers. "Just like Sif's. Like spun gold. And no Thor here to hammer me."

His heat and smell inflamed her with fear and excitement at the same time, and in a rough voice she said, "Did Thor unhitch you from his chariot just now? I'd think he'd want to keep you locked up."

He half-laughed, half-bleated, and pushed his body up next to hers. Oh, God, it's touching me. I can feel it through my skirt. I'm going to yell, someone's got to hear and come help me.

Then something mad came over her, even wilder than what she had felt when Etienne kissed and stroked the palm of her hand. An insanity of desire passed through her from crown to heel, something she had felt only in dreams. That mad feeling whispered, No one will come in here. All he has to do is release that fierce pulsing swelling from his britches. Just lift your skirts right now, and open right up for it. He's so big, look at those arms, he could hold you up for an hour. You wouldn't even have to lie down.

Alberich's face came before her, the last time she had seen him in the dead of that cold Brittany night with a kiss hanging ripe on his mouth, and Kristina shook her head. No. Whatever madness this was, no.

The Julbock pushed the mask very close to her face and from under the straw he sniffed a long, noisy sniff around her head and neck, almost down to the bosom. "A virgin. I can smell it. He told me she would be. Damn."

Kristina pushed at the straw head even as he backed away. The mask didn't come off; in fact, it didn't even move. The creature said hoarsely, "You're not the only girl in the world, missy. There's got to be one or two around here that'll drop their drawers for me, if I can't have you. So here's your message. He says to tell you that he's clean."

"What?" Kristina said, head and limbs still buzzing. "Who are you talking about? Who's 'clean?' "

"The one you're thinking of. He's clean. That's what you're worried about, isn't it? You can kiss him, hell, you can hike your skirts for him if you like." He leaned over and sniffed her again, then muttered, "The lucky bastard."

"Who told you to tell me this?"

"He did. My master. Now I've told you. Done my job, I have," and he headed for the cloakroom door.

"Wait! What does it mean?"

"How do I know?" he said as he crouched out, ducking to avoid the doorframe.

He's taken the hairpins, she thought as she fumbled with her hair. You've got to find Anneke's coat. You should chase him out and call for help. Then she laughed, still caught up in the madness of a few moments ago. He won't be found in the corridor. I doubt if he'll be found anywhere around here at all. Kristina reached out to the coat rack for support, and there was the coat she was looking for, with its silver and jet bird pin on the lapel. It had been here all along. She had had her hand on it the whole time. Trembling, she reached in the pocket and got out three silk handkerchiefs.

Anneke was spooning rice porridge into bowls. She took the handkerchiefs and slid them into her apron pocket, saying, "What kept you? We gave up on you there."

"Almost everyone has a black coat like yours," Kristina mumbled.

"Child, what's wrong? Look at your face, it's red as a beet. And your hair's all come down."

"In a minute, Anneke. There's something I have to do."

She went over to the table where the children had cut out their stars. A little boy of six or so in a green velvet suit sat pasting yellow candle flame cutouts onto thick white candles. In front of him was a little pile of red and yellow and blue candies. "Those are nice sweets," she said.

"Thank you, Froken," he said, and kept pasting.

"Look at that lovely one over there, bright as a jewel. Is it yours?"

He put his hand possessively over the candy, and then recovered his manners. "Would you like one?" he asked. "As a Christmas present?"

"You are so courteous. I'm sure the Christ Child himself would smile in his cradle to hear you. Yes, I would like one. Where did you get them?"

"From the goat man," he said, and handed her a red candy cut into a square like a ruby.

She bit into it, and a sharp tangy jelly flooded her mouth, like currant jam or lingonberries. Not so long ago she'd told a Breton farmwife that one could taste the summer in her cheese. That only hinted at summer. But this was like every taste of summer in the mouth all at once, every taste of home. Every berry she ever picked, every glass of currant wine she had ever sipped, rolled around her tongue. Long ago Kristina had used to stare at twinflowers with their two blossoms growing up from one stem, and she would imagine a fairy king and queen with each bloom on their head for a crown. Now the two seemed to dance inside her, swirling about in their flower crowns, as real as the taste of berry in her mouth.

"Thank you," Kristina said, dazed. "Here's something for you," and she gave him a shiny bronze centime. "God Jul." He put it in his pocket, but his look was dubious, as if a coin wasn't a fair trade for that glowing red drop of sweetness.

She drifted back to Anneke, who handed her a little bowl of rice porridge. It was thick and sweet, and she spooned it in absently.

"What happened to your hairpins?" Anneke asked.

"They're gone now," she said evasively, and then felt something hard in her mouth. She turned quickly away from Anneke and slipped it out of her mouth, sucking off the sticky porridge, and slid it into her jacket pocket to hide it. You know what this means. The almond. I got the almond. Then a delight opened up in her almost as intense as the desire from earlier in the cloakroom. "Anneke, look," Kristina said as she showed her the little brown nut. "Do I have to tell anyone?"

"It's customary, but no, I guess not."

"I just don't want everyone to make a fuss. I don't want everyone's eyes on me."

"You sing in front of a thousand people, and you don't want eyes on you? Girl, what's got into you tonight? At least eat the almond, don't keep it as a souvenir. I guess you'll have to start doing some stitching on your household linens, if you're going to be married within the year."

Kristina bit into the almond, and it was like biting into Alberich himself, with his sharp odor of shaving soap, his faint smell of the stable, the alkaline tang of the sea. The almond crunched with a dim trace of salt. Would his mouth be briny too? She never wanted anything so much as for him to come back to Paris.

"Come on," Anneke said. "Snap out of it. We're going over to church soon, and we have to do something about that wild hair. Look, here's a red ribbon left on the table here, with the paper scraps. I'm sure we can borrow it."

Kristina fingered the ribbon absently. It smelled strongly of goat.

In the powder room Anneke combed and braided her hair as if she were a little girl. "It's so nice they had a Julbock," Kristina commented dreamily.

Anneke gave a quizzical look. "There wasn't one, tonight. The man playing him was supposed to come, but he took ill and had to call it off. Kristina, are you all right?"

That's just what she didn't want to hear, although it came as no surprise. Anneke wound the red ribbon through Kristina's long braid and tied it off on the end.

That night, for the first time since her Pappa died, Kristina didn't go to Mass alone. Instead, she and Anneke sat crammed into a pew in the small, light-wooded Church of Sweden. Two older girls dressed in St. Lucia costumes lit the candles on the big pine in church. When the small choir broke into Stilla natt, heliga natt, she cried like a child, and the lady on the other side of her passed over her handkerchief. The starch scratched her nose. After the service, Kristina went up to look at the nativity scene afterwards, and she swore the Baby Jesus in his wooden cradle had winked at her.

Then Anneke and Kristina put on coats and hats, gathered up the big straw hamper full of the food Amelie had made, some thick loaves of honey bread, a ham and potato pie, and most of the cookies. Anneke and Kristina gave some of the food to the deacons to distribute, then took the rest to the homes of three different Swedish families, where Kristina appreciated Anneke's advice to not lace her corset too tight.

The snow-pearled dawn was just glinting over the Parisian rooftops when they finally said their last Yule greetings. "I'm not that old-fashioned," Anneke remarked as they turned towards home rather than the Swedish Church, where the Christmas Day service was about to begin. "I'm an old woman and need my sleep."

You're losing your mind, was her last thought as she pulled up the quilt against the morning light, but at that point she didn't really care. In dream she saw the goat-man again. This time there was no dress in between them, or shaggy cape either, and his chest and barrel belly were covered with thick wiry hair. Her hands ran up around his shoulders laced with the same coarse pelt. She felt rather than saw that fierce and frightening swelling, as over it she slid like a glove. Then one shudder after another shook her awake, and each pierced her with an arrow of sweetness until the last one faded.

Still half-dreaming, Kristina got up and rinsed her face in the washbowl. The high-risen sun said it was late in the morning, maybe even noon. A glow went through her, flowering out from the belly's very cellar, from the spot which every month flared with pain. Oh, it ached, but it was a delicious ache that lingered through bottom and legs as she unwound the red braid ribbon out of bed-frowsy, musty hair. But the ribbon wasn't red any longer. Instead, it had faded to a pale rose pink. And the powerful goat smell was gone.

Pondering, she let the ribbon idly fall onto the vanity when Anneke called. There was a late breakfast spread out on Anneke's most festive tablecloth, the one with ladies in long embroidered skirts dancing around the edges. Kristina looked at with herring, dark bread with sweet white winter butter, currant jam, and coffee with no desire whatever. "Anneke, I can't. Not after last night."

"Will you come with me to the Guttingens today, at least?" Anneke asked.

"I think I'll go back to bed. I have rehearsal tomorrow, first for that Saint-Saens oratorio which I barely know. Then I perform almost every night the rest of the week. The season's getting into full swing, and I just want to rest."

"Very well, you can come later, you know. The door will be open all through the evening."

Kristina's arms and legs suddenly felt heavy and languorous. "Look," she murmured, "I can barely focus my eyes." She crept back into bed and pulled the covers up as high as they'd go, drifting away even with eyes open.

It's funny, she thought, my arms and legs are asleep, but not my head. Then currents of warmth played over her up and down, like hands tucking her in under the comforter, and as they tucked, they lingered, patting and soothing, but stirring too, until at last she faded to the grey of sleep.

The doorbell rang, and then rang again, insistently. She grumbled to herself, Anneke must have forgotten her key. Who else would ring on Christmas Day?

Kristina stumbled to the kitchen and there was the brass key, sitting right on the table, along with the untouched spread of Christmas Day breakfast. She stared at the key for a moment, a little resentful that Anneke always complained when Kristina would knock on the door after a late rehearsal, having left her own key on her bureau.

Maybe I'll give her a little lip about it, she resolved, but only a little, because usually I'm the guilty one. What time is it anyway? Mid-afternoon, certainly, and the mantel clock agreed. I don't believe it, I've slept half the day away.

The doorbell rang again. "I'm coming," Kristina called out. "I have your key here. Try to remember it next time."

She pulled on the brass handle, and the key slipped from her hand, to clink to the floor. There stood Alberich Niemann with a package in hand, and there Kristina stood, her air flying out of a fuzzy braid. At least Anneke's gift of a deep maroon Chinese silk wrapper covered up her patched, old flannel nightgown.

"I don't remember you ever giving me a key," Alberich said with a warm smile. "Merry Christmas."

"Oh, my God. I didn't expect you. That is, I meant, I expected you later. But here you are."

His face fell. "I've come at a bad time."

"Oh, no, please come in." Then it all rushed out, "I've missed you so much. I'm so glad you're here. But you have to excuse me, I look terrible."

He set his package down on the sideboard, and said, "You don't look terrible. Your hair looks like a halo, and your face is glowing."

She flushed with pleasure at the compliments. "There's still breakfast if you want it, and I can make tea. Anneke's at a Christmas kalas, but I decided to sleep this morning instead."

"Kalas?"

"A party. A Christmas party."

She served him tea, and bread, and some herring, and then said, "Can you excuse me? I would really like to wash my face and put on a dress."

"Don't touch the hair. You really don't know how beautiful it looks, do you?"

Her face felt like fire. "Would you like a book to look at?"

"I'd like a Swedish one, if it's convenient."

"Can you read Swedish?" she asked, astonished.

"No, but that's how I'll learn. It doesn't take me long to decipher languages at all."

She gave him one of her old school primers from Uppsala, and then rushed into her room. It was early afternoon, and the slanting orange light lit her up from behind as she looked in the vanity glass, thinking, It's like a halo, alright, all around me, and what are these two red spots on my cheeks, like cherry stains? She pinned up the fuzzy braid wrapped around with the faded rose ribbon, then threw on an old dress. The water was cold in the china pitcher, and it cooled the fire on her face, just as a little mint and baking soda cooled her mouth.

"It's a lot like English," he remarked when she came back. "If you start speaking it to me, I'll learn it."

"You know English?"

"A bit."

"Why do you want to learn Swedish? No one in Paris cares anything for Swedish."

"Because it's yours. Because it's something that you know."

"Let's go back into the parlor," she said. "Show me what you brought." She sounded like a greedy child, but didn't care. "And look, I have something for you, too."

"I know this paper. You went to Timurhan's shop."

"I did, and he said to tell you that he wants his revenge for his last defeat. He said something else, too, but I won't tell you what it was until you open it."

He pulled the paper apart delicately and turned the book over in his hands, feeling the paper, rubbing the tooled leather on the cover with his finger. "Thank you," he said. "It's beautiful."

"Timurhan said you could use it to write poems for me. I think he might have written some for his wife once. She looked wise when he said it, but it was hard to tell with that face covering."

"I've never written any, but I could try." He then handed Kristina a large, long package wrapped in red tissue.

She pulled it apart carefully, and there was a portfolio full of sheet music. In wonder she turned over the freshly copied leaves. "Oh, I don't believe it. It's Pappa's cantata. You finished it."

"All five parts, just as we said. Soprano, baritone, piano, cello, and violin."

"This means so much to me. You can't know. If he could have seen this, if he could hear it, maybe it could have brought him back, if only a little. Once in awhile he did come back, you know. Look at this violin line - you've taken his basic theme, and just made it sing. Oh, thank you," and before she knew it, the music sat again on the sideboard, and she was in his arms.

Strong surrounding ropes of muscle hauled her up to his chest. If she looked at him, she thought, she would burn up, just like one of those girls loved by Zeus, and so she rested her face on his chest. His shirt had been so well-worn from washing that it slid under her cheek like silk.

She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, thinking, I was wrong - heaven doesn't smell like a Christmas ham - it smells like him, soapy and a little sharp. This is where my face belongs. It's never belonged anyplace else, and her arms went up around his shoulders. Oh, his back's like a brick wall that the sun's shone on all day, flooded with heat, and he's shaking underneath his skin.

He stroked her braid while she rested against his chest, and deep down and far away thudded the swift but steady drumbeat of his heart. He played with her braid, tugging it a little back and forth, twisting his finger in the ribbon. Then her head went back very tenderly under his guiding hand, and his other hand went under her chin, lifting her face up to him.

"Beautiful Kristina," he whispered.

"Beautiful Alberich."

Then the hand that cupped her chin covered her face, and that tough palm she'd come to know so well from that day by the sea met her cheek and caressed it softly. The other hot hand went around her waist and pulled her in to him. Her loose breasts cushioned themselves between them, and then she dared to look up, but only at his chin and mouth. There, hanging like a persimmon on his softly-opened lips was her kiss, and it must have been ripe, because into her mouth it fell.

He kept his own mouth tender and loose, inviting her in. Taste, he seemed to say, and tasting she went, licking the fruit that was his mouth, pulling its flesh into her own, biting him gently and feeling the soft flesh move and slide under her teeth. He tasted like that almond she'd bitten into last night, a little salty, a little bitter, but good, so good. Her tongue grazed his teeth.

She ran her tongue on his teeth like a cat's tongue, and he licked her lips back, just like a cat himself, and the darkness behind his lips swelled as she ran her own catlike tongue over his own, again and again.

Their mouths danced together, back and forth, first his soft flesh between her teeth, then hers between his, and deep inside Kristina's body something opened up, not exactly the mad desire of the night before. It was like it although more tender, and the dark behind her lids got redder and darker still. All through that long kiss he never pushed, never invaded, but just opened his mouth wider and softer, drawing her in as fast as she wanted to go, pulling her along gently with lips that stroked in wider and wider circles.

There was his tongue at the portal of her mouth, begging to be let in, and so she pulled him into her. He gave a great shudder, and the long warm length of his tongue slid into her mouth like the flesh of a fruit when squeezed free from the rind. She sucked its soft roughness and he returned it, and when her back went all loose, he held her up entirely with his arms. Up against her leg she felt what men have in common with the Julbock, but she didn't pull away in fear this time, because he didn't push or prod.

His tongue rested in her mouth, and he let her do with it what she may, and so she explored with her own its roughness and ridges, tasted its slipperiness. There's a world in here, his tongue seemed to say, let me find it and explore it, and she slumped under his exploration.

He caressed her waist, and she panicked a little. It's too much, too fast. It's not that I don't want to feel him. It's that he's like fire, and I don't want to burn. Because another few minutes of that, I would burn, like a torch, and everything would come down with it. Reluctantly Kristina let his tongue go, and he slipped slowly out of her mouth, then pressed her tenderly with his lips.

She opened her eyes to his face glowing like flame, the scarred top half red as fire. His hair stood up wildly on his head where she'd winnowed her fingers through it. He cupped her face gently in both his hands, anticipating another kiss, but she pulled away from him.

He softly mouthed her forehead and they stood almost confused, wondering what to do now. As his ardor cooled, the redness in his face went down. The room came back to Kristina, with its crumpled Christmas paper on the sideboard and the smell of the bayberry candle burning in front of her father's image on the mantelpiece.

"I need to sit," she said, breathless.

Together they sat on the settee, and he held her hand tightly, not wanting to break off contact, wanting to keep each other close.

"You came back early."

He collected his breath enough to talk. "The day I mailed your letter, I found a young man who wanted to buy a scarf for his girl, and I talked him into working for me. We got it done, and I caught the train the next night."

"So lucky for me." He put his arm around her, keeping up the warm connection. "I want to sing 'Lazarus' with you as soon as we can. But the day after tomorrow we perform an opera by Saint-Saens called Samson et Dalila. But it isn't an opera, exactly. The managers want to present it as an oratorio. Confusing, I know. You'll have to come and listen; there won't be many people there. Lucky for me, La Renata is in Italy over the holiday, so I'm singing Dalila. It worries me a bit, as it's all new. And funny, it's a mezzo role, but thanks to you," and she gave his hand an affectionate squeeze, "I can manage it quite well, as far as the voice goes."

"You're taking care of your voice?"

That touched her. "I'm resting a lot. Too much, actually, as I feel sluggish and lazy."

"Why not put on your boots, and let's walk."

The concierge was polishing the wooden banisters as they came down the stairs, and Kristina wrinkled her nose at the strong smell of banana oil. The woman looked up sharply and nodded to Alberich, then to Kristina as an afterthought, and resumed polishing.

"You've met?" she said to him on the street.

"On the way in. She almost didn't want to let me in; told me that your 'Mama' wasn't at home and that I should come back later. I reassured her that I was just dropping off a Christmas present, and she let me pass. Perhaps I should have thrown her a honey cake," and Alberich chuckled.

"She's not that bad; at least she doesn't have three heads. She's used to renting to theater people, and knows we come and go at all hours, but for some reason she's protective of me."

They headed northeast on Rue Feydeau and he welcomed her under his arm. "Cold?"

"Not at all. Tell me about Rennes, and what you did there."

He looked away and his body withdrew in a little kind of shiver, but not the kind she'd felt earlier on his broad back during their kiss.

"My house … that is, my parents' house was rented out to some tenants. I paid a caretaker to supervise them, but that type of long-distance management doesn't work well. When I arrived, the tenants were gone, leaving only broken windows, an uprooted fence, two trees cut down …" His face looked stricken. "Alponse built that house stone by stone for my mother when they married," he went on, and Kristina winced a bit at his odd habit of calling his father by his Christian name. "I can't bring myself to sell it, and I don't want to live in it."

They turned a corner to find a tiny park, set between two long rows of light granite apartments slanted with patterns of light sifted through the bare trees. Beside some weathered statues they settled down on an old stone bench, pitted and twisted with the little creepers of brown, dead ivy.

"Tell me about your father," Kristina said, breaking the stillness. "I've heard some about Alphonse, but I want to hear more."

He shifted again, and took her hands. Grateful for the warmth, she snuggled closer.

"Kristina," he said rapidly, "Can you meet me after your performance, the day after tomorrow? There's a chop house off of Boulevard Hausmann; the English go there. A 'pub,' they call it. They say it reminds them of home. I think you would like it, and we can talk there, about Alphonse, about Rennes, about whatever you want."

Something in his manner struck her as strange. She wanted time to think, to put this through the filter of Anneke's wits. "After Samson, then. I'd like that."

"I'll wait for you in a cab, on the corner of Rue Scribe and Rue des Mathurins."

"Isn't that extravagant? I'm used to walking, after all. I'm not like some of these Parisian girls, afraid to get a spot of mud on their boots."

He turned, face open and tender. "I already knew that. But for you, no, it's not extravagant at all."

The sun was beginning to lower in the sky. "I have to go back," Kristina said. "Anneke will wonder where I am."

They turned the corner from Rue Feydeau to Rue Phillipe de Lyon, heading back to the flat. The weight of his hand resting on her shoulder reminded Kristina that he had barely broken his touch since they first kissed. At her door, under the streetlight, he looked up at her window almost familiarly, as if he knew it well, and then kissed her delicately and tenderly all over on the mouth. A tiny flicker of the Julbock's madness flared under her skin, and she let his mouth go, crowing a little inside in triumph at the tiny flicker of disappointment which crossed his face, a disappointment that he checked at once like an unruly horse.

She started to go inside the building, but instead watched as he strode off down the street, so much faster than when his long strides were shortened to fit hers. Then he turned and waved before rounding the corner, and he was gone.

Anneke was reading a newspaper, and she looked up casually when Kristina let herself in.

"Out for a walk on Christmas Day?" she asked, a little too calmly.

The mounds of red and gold tissue and the folio of Pappa's music still lay on the sideboard.

"I didn't clean it up," Kristina stammered. "I'll get it now."

"You had company."

"I did. M. Niemann came by to give me his Christmas present. Look, Anneke, he's finished Papa's cantata. I'd like to find a trio to play it, and for us to sing it together. Then we went out walking. Did you enjoy yourself at Fru Guttingen's?"

"It was a full house. Pastor Ambrosius asked about you, as your dancing a polka with him on Christmas Eve apparently made quite an impression. He's old-fashioned and terribly shy; he desperately wanted to ask me for permission to come court you, but couldn't quite cough it out."

Kristina folded up the red and gold paper to save for the next holiday season, but didn't say anything.

"You met his son," Anneke went on. "The little boy in the green velvet suit; you talked to him, remember? His name's Eskil."

"He gave me a jelly sweet," Kristina said absently. "He didn't want to, at first, but he did anyway. Anyway, isn't it odd that a widower would be so shy?" Then a cold thought slapped Kristina. "He'll be at the embassy Tuesday, won't he?"

"No doubt. Don't be surprised if he has something to present to you afterwards."

"Anneke, that's crazy. I'm still a Catholic, on paper anyway."

"Well, who knows what he assumed?"

"And he's, oh, I don't know," and Kristina threw her hands up.

"I do," Anneke said quietly. "It's written on your face. Poor Herr Ambrosius has been lonely without his wife."

Kristina's face stiffened. All desire to talk about Alberich with Anneke left her. "Anneke," she began, but the older woman cut her off.

"Not now," Anneke said. "I would have liked to meet him, that's all. But all in good time."

It was so simple and straightforward, yet Kristina couldn't say a word. Red and speechless, she fled for the sanctuary of her room, where she bathed her burning, flushed cheeks. Lutheran. Pastor's wife. Stepmother. And why didn't I bring Alberich back to meet her? I can't think about this now. She thinks I'm in love with Alberich. I could love him. I could love him, but why does he hide from me? What does he hide?

(Continued…)