Silent Night

“I didn’t think Jews did Christmas shopping,” I said.

“More often we do Christmas selling. You do realize there’s a group of us at Harvard who gather every year and drink wine and exchange one gift each.”

“Any men in this group?”

“No.”

“Sounds like a fun crowd. A gathering of Harvard women.”

“It can get a little fustian at times,” Susan said. “But I like these women, and there’s something sort of nice about a girls’ night out.”

“Sort of like Hawk and me at the fights?”

“Sort of.”

We turned the corner and into the bar door of the Taj Boston, formerly the Ritz, for a libation at the table we liked overlooking the Garden.

“I’ll have a glass of Edna Valley chardo

“Joh

Susan smiled at me. “I like your Christmas spirit.”

“And I like yours.”

Susan sipped her wine. “Why do you suppose a grown woman, a doctor, a therapist at that, feels at Christmastime the same sense of excitement and anticipation she did when she was just a girl?”

“Perhaps we’ll need to discuss this later,” I said, lifting my glass.

“I do hope so,” Susan said, and raised her glass to me. “At length.”

I STOOD AT MY OFFICE WINDOW and looked out at the snow falling quietly onto the Back Bay and muffling the gleam of the Christmas lighting in the store windows. The snow had come often this year.

“Fa, la, la,” I said.

Pearl raised her head. She was with me on a take-your-dog-to-work day, which she spent, as she often did, on the couch in my office. I looked at her.

“La, la,” I said.

She didn’t know what I was talking about, but she was used to that. She could also sense that whatever it was, it had no co

I liked the myth elements of Christmas. The way in which its origins reach back far beyond Jesus, to the rituals of people unknown to us. The celebration of the winter solstice. The coming of light in the darkest time. And with it the promise of spring to come and begi

I went to my desk and sat down.

“Actually,” I said to Pearl, “I’ve had bad colds I liked better than Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”

I sensed movement in her look. Then she lost interest and snapped her head toward the door and made a low growl. Hospitality dog.

The door opened and a kid came in.

He looked at Pearl and said, “That dog going to bite me?”

“Not,” I said, “unless you attack me.”

“Attack you?”

“Uh-huh.”

“For crissake, I’m a fucking kid.”

“I guessed that. Have a seat.”

Still watching Pearl, the kid sat down opposite my desk. His face was pointy and his eyes were close. He was wearing gray sweatpants that were too long for him. The bottoms of the pant legs were torn and ragged where the heel of his sneakers had repeatedly caught in them. His jacket was a threadbare navy peacoat, also too big, with the sleeves turned back. Under it was a gray hoodie. His baseball cap had a flat brim, and he wore it level and straight under the hood.

“How old are you?”

“Eleven, I think.”

“You think?”

“Yeah. I was there, but I don’t remember it, you know.”

“What about your parents? You know them?”

“My old lady was a drunk. I don’t think she knew who my old man was.”

“She the one who raised you?”

“Awhile,” the kid said. “Then she didn’t.”

“Run off?”

“Wherever she went, she went.”

“So who raised you?”

“The orphanage.”

“How was that?”

“Sucked,” the kid said. “You wa

“I do.”

“I live in a place.”

“Where,” I said.

He made a looping gesture with his right hand.

“Around,” he said.

“Nice neighborhood.”

The kid frowned at me. He was so street-worn and tough-talking and life-weary that I forgot he was only eleven. Irony is not the long suit of eleven-year-olds.

“You don’t know where I live,” he said.

“No,” I said. “I was just making a little joke.”

“Ain’t fu

“No,” I said. “Probably not. What’s your name?”

“Slide.”

“Last name?”

“Slide,” he said.

I nodded.

“What do you want me to do for you?”

“I want you to talk with Jackie,” Slide said.

“Who’s Jackie?” I said.

“Jackie asked me to come here and deliver his message. He needs to see you.”

“What does he want to talk to me about?”

“He’ll tell you.”

“Why me?”

“He seen you on the TV.”

“Why didn’t Jackie come?” I said.

“He sent me. He wanted to know if you would see him,” Slide said.

“How long have you known Jackie?”

“A few weeks,” he said.

I nodded. “And before that?”

He shuffled uncomfortably in the chair. “Did odd jobs. Slept where I could. The Y. You know.”

“Uh-huh,” I said.

“Will you see Jackie?”

I took a card out of the middle drawer of my desk and gave it to him.

“You or Jackie call me when you’re ready,” I said.

“Okay,” he said.

The kid took the card and put it in the side pocket of his pants without looking at it. Then he stood up and looked at me and didn’t say anything and turned and went out.

I went to my window and watched him walk through the snow, his shoulders hunched, hands in his pockets, staying close to the walls of buildings, until he turned the corner onto Boylston Street and disappeared in the direction of the Public Garden.

WE WERE AT MY PLACE. I was making supper. Susan was at my kitchen counter. Pearl had stretched out the length of the sofa, longer than one would think possible for a seventy-five-pound dog.

“Tell me more about this boy who came to see you,” Susan said.

“His name is Slide, he’s eleven, and he lives with someone named Jackie in a place whose location is unknown.”

“That’s all?” she said.

I mixed bread crumbs and pignolis with a little olive oil and began to toast them in a fry pan on low.

“Except he’s terrified of his own shadow.” I stirred the contents of the pan, which were begi

“And who is Jackie?” she said.

“Not much to go on,” I said.

I took the fry pan off the fire and emptied the toasted crumbs and pignolis into a bowl. I took an Amstel Light out of the refrigerator and opened it. I poured it into a tall glass. After a swallow, I said, “If you didn’t know, how old would you think you were?”