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But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round -- apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that -- as a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.
Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
The howl of wind made Vegard glance up. The sun was down, and snow skirled around the skylight in the dressing room. “We’ll make it work,” Helene promised. “I’ll tell the kids that the nissen can’t get through the storm either, and we’ll have to have presents as soon as it clears.”“Aren’t they going to notice when he comes for your sister’s kids but not them?”“She would wait.” Vegard mulled this over. “I don’t think all the kids in your entire family should have to wait for me,” he said finally. “I don’t even think our kids should have to wait. When you’re a kid, you know, it’s the day. Plus, in all those American specials, cancelling Christmas because of a storm is the worst possible thing that could happen.”“All right, the nissen comes on schedule,” Helene said, “but the presents from us wait until you can get here safely.”“That seems fair,” Vegard agreed. “I am so sorry. I never wanted this to happen.”She dashed away her tears with an impatient hand. “Well, next time order better weather, mister,” she laughed. “You and I have made worse than this do just fine, haven’t we?” Vegard thought briefly of the airport in Dubai, of playing I Spy with Mads and Emma at 4 AM while bouncing a fussy baby, and gave her a tired smile. In the screen of the iPad, he looked like he hadn’t slept in days. Well, really, he hadn’t. “We have.”
***
“What are you going to do?” Maria asked. The signal was bad, and her image froze intermittently on the screen. “And don’t just mope. If you sit around the house moping, I’ll know.”His mother’s voice sang out in the background. “If you mope, Bård, all you’re getting is socks and underwear.” He had to smile. “Not a threat anymore, Mama. I’ll probably... I don’t know. Order in and watch some television. Maybe see if Vegard wants to come over to play some video games.”“That’s a good idea,” his mother said. “There’s no reason for the two of you to be in the same city, lonely, for Christmas Eve. We’ll hold the festivities for you.”“Well--”“Your gift isn’t done yet anyway,” Bjarte shouted from somewhere.“The nissen will come like always for the kids, and dinner isn’t going to be hamburgers, but we’ll hold the rest for you.”“Okay,” he sighed.It might have turned out this way anyway--apparently the delays had started around 15:30--but the clincher was when Magnus fell. They had arrived at the studio at 14.00 for their 16.00 appearance. He’d been riding with Bård, and his legs had gone right out from under him in the parking lot. It had been funny to watch, and Magnus had laughed too, but from the first his voice had been oddly high and thin, and his smile had gotten wider and wider until it stopped looking so very smiley, and instead of taking the hand up that Vegard offered him, he had said, “I think I should probably go to the hospital.”Raske Menn had been right there in the lobby when Vegard went in to explain what had happened, and they’d offered to switch places on the program. When after some phone consultation Vegard had agreed, gratefully, he had reasoned that it would give them time to rewrite Magnus out of the performance, but he’d come back with Bård, an hour and a half later, with crutches and Paracet and news of a bad sprain. They only had to rework the bit so that it was Calle doing all the running around. And there was a flight that would take them to Bergen at 20.00. It would have worked out exactly perfectly, except for the announcement, shortly before they took the stage at their new later time, that the storm had worsened and all flights were grounded. They’d still given an excellent performance, but the news had been like a punch to the gut.Now, Bård went out into the corridor, and was about to knock on Vegard’s door when it opened. “I let Helene know,” Vegard reported. He’d changed into jeans and his red and blue sweater, and was now winding a lime green scarf around his neck. “What’s so funny?”“I can always tell when she’s away,” Bård said, plucking at the scarf.“I’m visible to motorists,” Vegard retorted. “How’d Mama and Papa and Maria take it?”“They understood,” Bård said bleakly. “I feel like the worst dad in the world.”Vegard clapped him hard on the shoulder. “No,” he said, “we’re the luckiest guys in the world, to have families that understand. What are you going to do tomorrow?”“I think I’ll just stay in,” Bård sighed. “You can come over if you want, but I’m not going to be very good company.”“I’ll bring snacks,” Vegard promised. “We’ll be as merry as we can.”Suddenly, behind the door of his own dressing room, Calle let out a bellow. “Calle?” Bård called through the door. Calle’s voice was thick with tears. “I hate this bloody holiday! I hate Christmas! I hate everything about it!”The door opened, then, but it was Magnus manoeuvring out on his crutches, a haunted look on his face. When they asked him, he only shook his head, but they trailed him out to the lobby.“He’d been talking to Kaja,” Magnus said. “I was trying not to listen. And then he hung up and just... He’s really upset. I don’t know what about.”“About Christmas,” Calle said bitterly, behind them. He waved his hands mockingly. “All these bells and lights and, and people stuffing their faces, and having to pretend to be happy when it’s cold and dark and the thing you least want to do.” He turned his back on them, shoving his hands in his pockets and making for the door. “I’m done pretending. The next person who wishes me Merry Christmas gets turned into medisterkaker.”“What are you going to do?” Vegard asked, following. “Calle, what are you going to do?”Calle turned, his hand on the door, a bitter smile on his face. “You don’t have to worry about me, Vegard. I’m going to go home, and sit in the dark, and probably drink too much, and wait to go back to work.” He slipped out, then, shutting the door in Vegard’s face. Bård watched all of this with some consternation. “Magnus, no idea at all?”“Well, it didn’t sound life-and-death serious. More like frustration. A mood.”When Vegard came back, looking hurt, Bård thumped him soundly on the shoulder. “Come to my house tomorrow. Bring ideas.”Vegard nodded, eyes still on the door.“You’re planning something?” Magnus said. “Well, we can’t leave him like that, can we?”“Can I help?”Vegard’s brow furrowed as he gestured at Magnus’ bandaged ankle. “Magnus, are you sure you’re all right to?”“Would I be better off sitting at home, making my partner wait on me hand and foot while I feel sorry for myself?”“Tomorrow, then,” Bård said. “My place. Vegard is bringing snacks.”
***
Calle awoke to the sound of his phone ringing. He rolled over and grabbed it, planting a kiss on Kaja’s forehead on the way. He thought, fuzzily, that it would be one of the brothers, but it was Anders Hoff. “’Lo?”“Are you okay?” Anders asked. “Yeah, yeah. Why?”“I got the weirdest call earlier. The Ylvis brothers were worried about you.”“Ah, well,” Calle said. He swung his legs over the side of the bed, peeked in on Knut still sweetly asleep after having gotten everyone up at four, and then padded out into his kitchen, where he put on the coffee.“And listen, how’s Magnus doing?”“Okay, far as I know. Do you want his number?” This last went up an octave as Calle yawned.“No, no,” Anders said. “That’s not why I’m calling, but all things considered I would have felt weird not asking. No, I’m calling because I’m supposed to say--ahem--‘You will be visited three times today. The first visitation will occur at eleven. Then there’s a break for lunch’--they say Klosteret, very nice. ‘The second will occur at one. And then the third at four.’ And then I’m supposed to say, ‘Look that, for your own sake, you remember what has passed between us.’”“Brilliant,” Calle laughed. “Just brilliant.” He looked at the clock. It was 10.43.He took a short shower. Damp and dressed in jeans, longjohns, and a sweater, he shoved a few slices of smoked salmon into his mouth, and chased them with a glass of orange juice. It was 11:11 when the doorbell rang. “Bård,” Calle said with a quirk of his mouth.
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It was a strange figure -- like a child: yet not so like a child as like an old man, viewed through some supernatural medium, which gave him the appearance of having receded from the view, and being diminished to a child's proportions.
Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
He went to the door and opened it. No one there, of course, although there were footprints leading up and down the stairs. The wind seemed to have eased off somewhat, but snow still fell steadily from a slate-grey sky. But his visitor had cleared off a very small patch on the doorstep, a couple of hand-widths perhaps, to enable him to see a small package, wrapped in silver paper with Gratulerer med bryllupet ditt! written in fancy script. He bent, and unwrapped it as he brought it in. It was a USB key. On its yellow silicon surface was written in Sharpie, in handwriting he was now sure was Bård’s, “Show Ideas Christmas Past.”He turned to hunt up his computer. “Bah!” he shouted, jerking back. Bård was standing in the hall, grinning. “Hello, Larsen.”“How did you get in?” Calle asked, but he knew: the back door, and sure enough, there were boots on the mat that had not been there before, sitting in puddles of snowmelt. “I’m Christmas Past,” Bård said. “I’m here to show you the error of your ways.”“Awesome,” Calle said brusquely. “And where are we doing this? We can’t exactly do it here.”Bård’s gaze darted around. “Kaffebrenneriet,” he said. “Grab your laptop and let’s go.”Kaja chose that moment to appear in the doorway, blinking, hair in disarray. “Going out?” she yawned.“Yeah.”“Has anything changed from yesterday?”“Nothing.” He blew her a kiss, and donned his coat. Bård’s driving had gotten better over the years, but Calle’s heart was still in his throat all the way to the coffee shop’s Grünerløkka location. Snow was mounded in drifts all along the roadsides, and stopping, even with snow tires, was a difficult prospect. But Bård was very careful, and they made it to Kaffebrenneriet unscathed. Bård bought Calle a Tors Hammer, and a hot chocolate for himself, and they sat side by side on the stools in front of the big front window, watching Calle’s laptop. The USB key had a single video file on it. It wasn’t even mostly Christmas; Calle recognized footage from Fana Skoleteater, and from a February ski vacation, and from Vegard’s bachelor party, and from the trip to Massachusetts, and from their antics backstage at the concerts in 2015. They had all been cracking each other up for more than twenty years now, hadn’t they? And here were assembled some of the very best moments they’d had together.Calle found himself blotting tears with his napkin. He glanced over to see if Bård had noticed. The younger man sat blinking, eyes shining, gaze studiously fixed on the screen.The video was thirty-seven minutes long, and edited hurriedly, but by someone with an eye for this stuff. When the window closed, Calle turned to Bård. “That was really good,” he said huskily. “I don’t know what else is going on, and you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, but this is a time for family,” Bård said. “You’re family, Calle.”“Yeah,” Calle said, turning away as his eyes spilled over. When he trusted his voice again, he muttered a muffled, “Thanks.”They sat in silence for a little while. And then Bård said, “Do you feel like lunch?”
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Its dark brown curls were long and free: free as its genial face, its sparkling eye, its open hand, its cheery voice, its unconstrained demeanour, and its joyful air.
Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
Vegard was waiting for them in a booth when they arrived at Klosteret at 12.20. “The driving was terrible,” Bård said by way of apology.“I saw the video,” Calle said, sliding in beside him. “It was really good stuff.”“Did it change your mind about hating Christmas?” Vegard asked.Calle let his smile die on his lips. “Not really.”“Well,” Vegard said with a shrug. “Do you want to tell us what happened?”“Not really.”The food was excellent. They discussed the contents of the video, the moments that had happened off camera, the fallout afterward. They laughed a lot. The brothers split the cheque. Then Vegard excused himself. He’d been gone for about ten minutes when Bård motioned in the direction his brother had gone and said, “I’m just gonna...” He got up, and slipped away.Calle sat for some time, playing on his phone. Finally, a weight settled on the bench beside him, and he looked up. Vegard had returned, but he wore his gold lame suit. “I’m Christmas Present,” he said with a grin. “You certainly glitter like one,” Calle observed wryly.“Come on, we’re getting out of here.”Calle followed him out to his car. Vegard was silent, focusing on the tricky driving, until he pulled over and parked on the side of a residential street. In the snow, it took Calle a moment to recognize this as Magnus’ neighbourhood. Vegard handed Calle a pair of thick rubber-coated work gloves, and pulled on a pair of his own. In a moment, Calle saw why: they were climbing the fire escape, and Vegard wanted him to be able to hold onto the railing without getting his hands too cold. They stopped outside of a window. Calle thought Vegard might have knocked on it, but Magnus and his partner were inside, and neither of them registered the two men staring in at them. Magnus’s beloved was putting the finishing touches on a couple of Irish coffees, which she brought to the little table where Magnus waited with his foot up on a chair. They sat and sipped and exchanged sweet nothings. Then Magnus said, “A toast to us, and to Christmas.” They clinked mugs. “And,” Magnus said thoughtfully, maybe projecting just a little, “another toast to Calle. He’s a good guy, and I don’t know what’s going on, but I wish he felt better. He doesn’t have to pretend to be happy for me. I just want him to know that there are people who care about him.” They clinked mugs again, and drank.“Can they see me?” Calle asked.“Wait, what?” Vegard looked genuinely mystified. “Of course! Not, I mean. Of course not. Uhh... we are but shadows to them.”Calle spent a few minutes making obscene gestures and pulling horrifying faces in front of the glass, and was rewarded with the sight of Magnus vainly trying to keep a straight face.Finally, Vegard tugged Calle’s arm, and drew him away from the window. They picked their way down the fire escape, and back to the car.“Where to now?” Calle asked, when they were back, but before Vegard could start the engine. “Somewhere that said they’d appreciate us,” Vegard said, with a smile nearly as bright as his lapels. He drove them back downtown, to a community centre. They parked. Before they got out of the car, Vegard pulled a guitar case of the back seat. “I’m going to play a little show here,” Vegard said. “I know you get nerves, so you don’t have to do it with me, but if you wanted to I would love the help.” He handed Calle a piece of paper: a setlist, mostly secular Christmas songs, with a sprinkling of children’s songs and folk songs and old pop songs, both in Norwegian and English. “I don’t know this... ‘Lama Bada Yatathana,’” Calle said doubtfully.“Just give me a beat,” Vegard said. “Sure, I can do this,” Calle said jovially, quelling his butterflies by sheer force of will. Vegard grinned, and handed him another gold lame jacket. Calle carried it under his arm until he could get into the coat room and slip off his parka.The community centre was full of people, many young. A three-year-old crashed into Calle’s knees and fell over, giggling, before being scooped up by an apologetic older brother. A printed placard read in Norwegian, English, and Arabic that this was a holiday party for newcomers from Syria. They were greeted by a middle-aged woman. There was a stage there, but she showed them to a couple of chairs in the corner, where an ancient upright piano had also been wheeled out for them. Calle’s butterflies fluttered without ever attacking properly: this was a relatively small crowd, and not awfully critical, with no cameras rolling. Vegard screwed up the lyrics to “Do You Want to Build a Snowman?” twice, and the kids shouted the right ones back at him, laughing. An old couple started dancing to “All Shook Up.” “Lama Bada Yatathana” was a hauntingly beautiful Arabic folk song, and Vegard played it on the piano as he sang, while Calle beat out a 10/8 rhythm on the top of it. Calle enjoyed himself enough that when Vegard suggested “If I had a Million Dollars,” a song that lent itself to a bit of improv, he agreed readily. The kids shouted out things that they would buy with a million dollars, and Vegard and Calle made up verses.They played for forty-five minutes, and stayed an extra twenty for hugs and cocoa and gingersnaps, and for Vegard to approach two little girls sitting silent and solemn in the corner, and teach them how to make paper airplanes. Meanwhile, Calle delivered cups of tea, doctored to order, to some of the older attendees.The middle-aged woman invited them to stay for the dinner, but Calle said, “Thanks, no, we’ve got to get going.” In the coat room, Vegard said, “You know what? I don’t want to take the guitar out in the cold again. You wait here with it.” Before Calle could reply, Vegard zipped up his parka, and slipped out the door into an Oslo night made soft and luminous with snowfall.
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The Phantom slowly, gravely, silently approached. When it came, Scrooge bent down upon his knee; for in the very air through which this Spirit moved it seemed to scatter gloom and mystery.
It was shrouded in a deep black garment, which concealed its head, its face, its form, and left nothing of it visible save one outstretched hand. But for this it would have been difficult to detach its figure from the night, and separate it from the darkness by which it was surrounded.
Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
Calle waited just inside the door until he saw the car drive up. He stowed the guitar in the back seat, opened the passenger door, and let out a yell of fright.A long, skeletal finger poked out and indicated the driver’s side. The effect of the black robes and black burlap mask were somewhat diminished by the aluminum crutches. Calle got in the driver’s side door, and pulled out of the parking lot. “Where am I supposed to be going?”“I’m not supposed to say anything at all,” Magnus said. “Is the car miked?”“Nah. But they’re right behind us.” Magnus grabbed up the plastic skeleton hand again, and pointed out the turn. “I’m supposed to direct you to Vår Frelsers Gravlund. They found the grave of a Carl Olav Gunnarsson Nilsen, and they managed to heap snow over it just right, and Bård has a bottle of Laphroaig. I told them I would just hang out here and listen to podcasts while they terrify and intoxicate you.”Calle grinned. “You’ve got a beautiful spirit, Magnus.”Magnus put the skeletal finger to what surely must be a dimple under the burlap. “You know what happens now, right?”“Right.”
***
“You think it’s working?” Bård asked, eyes fixed on the little car ahead while Vegard paid attention to traffic.Vegard shook his head. “I don’t think so. Well, I thought it was at first. But then they asked us to stay for dinner, and he was just, like, ‘No,’ like, flat like that. Bård, what if something is seriously wrong? I don’t think...”“If something is seriously wrong, it’s probably just cruel to try to snap him out of it,” Bård sighed. “But... he enjoyed that video. I don’t think I was mistaking that.”“And he was brilliant at the party.”“Maybe when we start drinking he’ll talk about it.”Vegard said a choice word. “Magnus missed the turn.”“He knows where he’s going, though. He can get the next one.”“Apparently not,” Vegard growled a few seconds later.Bård ducked his head and squinted at the car ahead. “What’s he up to?”They tailed the car through the night. It wasn’t hard for most of it; the traffic was creeping. Having been to other places in the world, one thing the brothers could say in favour of Oslo drivers was that they had the sense to pay due attention to road conditions. But then, on one of the larger thoroughfares, the car found a gap in traffic and put on a small burst of speed. “Bloody hell!” Bård said through his teeth. “Not safe for us to speed up, is it?”“Doesn’t matter,” Vegard said, putting his signal on and edging out to change lanes. “I think I know where they’re going.”Calle’s house was dark, but there were cars in the driveway. More than there should have been, really. “What the hell?” Bård breathed. They got out. The car Calle had been driving was there, empty, the engine ticking as it cooled. Vegard ran up the steps, and hammered on the door.
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He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world.
Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
The door opened with welcoming shouts from a dozen voices. Both brothers leapt back with twin cries of surprise as the lights came on, inside and out, the house blazing to life with light and warmth and colour.“Come in, guys!” Calle said, his smile brighter than any of it. Shedding boots and parkas and gloves, they entered in time to help Magnus off with his black robes. Kaja and a teenaged helper handed them mugs of mulled wine, and shepherded them into seats by a brightly lit tree. There were six stockings crowded onto the mantel. Calle and Kaja’s names, and the names of Calle’s children, were embroidered onto four of the stockings in gold thread, and “Vegard” and “Bård” were written in delicate Edwardian script on gold-bordered cards that were pinned to two others. A finger must have hit a pause button, because a choir singing “Mitt Hjerte Alltid Vanker” started up in the middle.“I don’t understand,” Bård said wonderingly. “Is... are things all right now? What changed?”Calle laughed. “It’s like I kept telling you guys: nothing’s changed.”“The phone call with Kaja,” Magnus said, “was to ask if it was all right to have you come to Christmas Eve dinner. And could she tell everyone it was going to be a surprise?”Vegard screwed up his face. “Wouldn’t it have been more practical to just invite us to dinner?”Calle smirked, and started to say something, but Bård said, “No,” and put down his wine, looking at his friend with wide eyes. “Because if you just invited us for dinner, we’d have been inconsolable last night and spent all day playing video games and feeling sorry for ourselves.”“Instead we spent last night scheming and going over old videos and picking the very happiest memories, and today we spent the day with you, having sumptuous meals and wearing costumes and making last-minute booking calls and singing songs for refugees.” Vegard frowned, but he couldn’t seem to hold it in place. “That was an awfully dirty trick, Calle. Thank you.”Calle got in between them, putting an arm around each. “Thank you, for arranging all this for me when you thought I was hurting. I thought you’d spend the day with me trying to cheer me up; I didn’t expect... everything you did today. That was above and beyond.”Behind them, Calle’s sister laughed. “Look who you’re talking to! They’re the masters of above and beyond.”“I know this isn’t where you really want to be, but Kaja and I would love for you to spend your Christmas Eve with us. And we’ll make sure you get to the airport as soon as flights start up again.”Vegard swallowed hard, brushing at his eyes with a thumb. “That sounds great,” he said huskily.“We’d be thrilled to,” Bård added.Calle gave them each a squeeze, and stood, bringing his hands together. “Then let’s make our way over to the dining room, because the ribbe is ready.”“The one as big as me, sir?” Vegard said in English, in a passable Cockney accent. “Don’t be ridiculous, Vegard,” Bård shot back. “Look at all these guests; it has to be twice as big as you, at least.”They filed into the dining room, where both leaves were in the massive table. It was set with Calle’s best dishes, and the food sat steaming on trivets. Magnus waited until the people around him were settled in before manoeuvring into place. “Before you sit down,” Vegard said, looking up at him, “you should do what we talked about.”“What?” Magnus shrilled. “But the plans all changed.”“Oh, do it,” Calle said, a wicked gleam in his eye.“I think you have to do it, Magnus,” Bård said. Magnus pursed his lips, holding out a hand. Bård laughed softly, and put a hundred-kroner note into it.Magnus raised his mulled wine mug, which his beloved had thoughtfully carried to the table with him. Others raised their glasses to him, looking up at him expectantly. Leaning on his crutch, he said in falsetto, “God bless us, every one!”