The Kingdom of Sweets by Erika Johansen

Author:Erika Johansen [Johansen, Erika]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-11-28T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER

25

Midnight approached, and the guests began to depart. Many of the neighborhood fathers had stayed late, drinking and fuming indignantly about the rumblings of discontent among the industrial workers, but Father, mindful of the hospital visits after my wedding reception, had kept a careful eye on both the buffet table and Charles and Deirdre, who had been forbidden access to the kitchen. So there had been no chance for guests to progress to that wild state of drunkenness in which the party might go on in the quiet corners of our house until the next morning, when the last revelers, still tucking their clothing back into place, would be poured stumbling out into the street. Our Christmas Eves were staid affairs now, and I was surprised to find myself grieving for the old days, for the way the character of the celebration had somehow diminished, shrunken from a wild night where anything could happen to an affair no more debauched than a village social, so many infinite possibilities closed off, flown forever, never to return.

Fritz had poured an entire carafe of wine over his head, then sat there giggling in his foolish way, his tongue busily lapping rosé from his chin as he pretended to wash his hair. He had never been quite right in the head since that Christmas Eve so long before, but I seemed to be the only one who connected his condition to the nutcracker; the rest of the neighborhood thought his madness sprang from a bout of brain fever, a rumor undoubtedly started by my father. Fritz was as impulsive as ever, but his impulses ran in more dangerous directions now, lighting fires and destroying furniture. He had been removed from all schooling, for he was just as likely to chew his pens to pieces as use them, and though Father Benedict still allowed Mother and Father to bring Fritz to church on Sundays, he insisted that they sit in the back pew, for Fritz had an occasional embarrassing habit of unbuttoning his trousers and attempting to urinate in the font of holy water.

Once, years before, I had asked Fritz what happened when he’d picked up the nutcracker, what he had seen. But he’d clapped his hands over his ears, making a strange cawing noise like that of a crow, and I had not pressed the matter, not wishing to upset him further. My mother defended Fritz as though he were a young child, and that seemed right, for in many ways he remained little more than a child, wanting things and reaching for them without thought, just as he had done on that long-ago Christmas Eve. Now he clapped his hands delightedly as he watched the last few couples dancing, and cheered when Marko Kashelt demonstrated his latest hobby, juggling several balls from the Christmas tree, smashing five of them before Father forbade him to continue.

Since the clock struck eleven, Conrad had been dropping increasingly unsubtle hints that we should leave. But I resisted, and finally my stubbornness paid off.

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