Cat At The Wall by Deborah Ellis

Author:Deborah Ellis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Groundwood Books
Published: 2014-08-21T16:00:00+00:00

Thirteen

—

Christmas over here is a big deal.

Bethlehem is not a little town. It’s not anything like the Christmas carol. It’s a big city with hill after hill, and it’s not still at all, even though the song says it is. And the place where Jesus was born is not some little stable like you see in the nativity scenes. It’s a great big church with a giant Christmas tree outside and crowds of people gathering from all over the world for an “experience.”

I know all this because that’s where I spent last Christmas Eve.

Christmas was a good eating time because tourists always dropped food, but there were so many people in Manger Square that a cat was taking her life in her hands dashing from one sloppy tourist to another.

It was raining that day, and chilly. By nightfall it was downright cold. I followed the crowd into the church to get warm.

It was easy to get in. There were so many people. They had to enter the church one by one because the door was very small. People had to bend down to get through. I overheard the tour guide say that the door was called the Gate of Humility since people had to bow their heads to pass through, but really it was created by some ancient guy to keep horses or camels from getting into the church.

I wandered among the people and found some kids who wanted to pet me until their mother told them to “Get away from that stray!” I didn’t care. It was good to be inside, smelling the incense and listening to the singing. It reminded me of midnight mass with my grandmother.

At the back of the church I followed the crowd down a few steep steps into a little cave-like room. It was packed with people singing and praying.

“Jesus was born right on that silver star!” a woman said to her friend. “I can’t believe we are right here, right where it happened.”

I squeezed through people’s legs to see what she was talking about.

The silver star was embedded in the marble floor of a little nook. Curtains hung over the sides of the opening. The light was dim, so I slipped behind the curtain and hid in the little space.

No one noticed me. The parts of me that stuck out were hidden by the shadows of the candles that hovered over the star.

One by one, people knelt down at the star, touched it and said a prayer. Their faces were close to mine. Some smelled like tobacco. Some smelled like booze. Some smelled like peppermint and hot dogs.

It started to feel stuffy in there. More and more people crowded in. They were all breathing and the rain from their coats was evaporating, candles were burning and incense clouded the air.

It was all getting to be too much for a little cat.

Then I heard a clock chime the hours. I counted twelve. And when the last vibration of the twelfth chime faded away, all time stopped.

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