The Christmas Cantata (The Liturgical Mysteries) (14 page)

The third Sunday of Advent marked the advance of the Christmas woodpeckers. Two woodpeckers had gotten into the sanctuary of St. Barnabas sometime between Friday evening and Sunday morning. The sexton had cleaned the church on Friday afternoon and all was fine. The altar guild didn't notice anything out of the ordinary when they were decorating on Saturday, but then again, Joyce Cooper pointed out that they didn't bother to check the Chrismon tree.

The tree, being made primarily of green pipe-cleaners, contained no actual wood, but must have looked real enough to attract the two birds. Once ensconced in the plastic branches, they were delighted to discover that there were beetles living in the Styrofoam Chrismon decorations.

One day last summer, just after Wendy had taken care of her possum infestation, she went down into her basement and discovered wood beetles scrabbling across the floor joists of her house. She called the exterminator to have him take care of the problem. Unfortunately, when she was cleaning out the basement so the exterminator could do his job, she moved the box of Chrismons to the new storage room at St. Barnabas. The possums had gaily chomped through the top layer of Chrismons, devouring beetles as they went, but the remainder of the pests had been inadvertently transported over to the church.

The good news was that the woodpeckers had finally taken care of the beetle problem.

The bad news was that the Chrismon tree looked as though it had been hit by a small meteor.

Once the Chrismons had been pulverized to powder, the woodpeckers turned their attention to the plastic foliage. What was left were streams of sad gold ribbon, a large pile of Styro-rubble, scattered plastic pearls, pipe-cleaners strewn hither and yon, and a tree that was leaning crazily on what was left of its trunk. The two woodpeckers were sitting politely above the mess on one of the huge cross beams that spanned the roof of the nave.

Once the disaster had been discovered, a group of us gathered to survey the damage and contemplate the problem.

"How are we going to get them down?" asked Father Ward Shavers, pointing at the birds. "We can't let them tear up all the wood in the sanctuary."

"Agreed," said Bev. "Hayden?"

"Well, I guess we could call Billy and have him take care of it."

"I don't want them killed," said Gina Shavers.

"Right," agreed Kimberly Walnut. "They're Christmas wood-peckers."

A little girl and her mother wandered up. They were too early for church, but too late for Sunday School. "What happened to the church's Christmas tree?" asked the girl.

"Chrismon tree," Kimberly Walnut corrected.

The girl looked at her, confusion on her face. Kimberly Walnut, sensing a "teaching moment," was gearing up to explain to the three year old why we couldn't have a Christmas tree in church during Advent, but it was okay to have one covered in beetle-infested Styrofoam. Mercifully, Mark Wells jumped in.

"Woodpeckers got it," he said, shaking his head in mock-dismay. "Terrible, terrible woodpeckers."

The little girl turned to her mother. "Are they going to get ours, too?" she asked, worry evident in her tiny voice.

"Probably," said Mark. "Once they get a taste..."

"Don't listen to him," said Gina. "Of course they won't. They're right up there, see?" She pointed to the rafters and the little girl's gaze followed her finger. "We'll get them outside and let them go."

"Why don't we worry about the woodpeckers after the service?" I suggested. "Maybe clean up this mess. We only have a few minutes." I looked around at the destruction. "That's it for the Chrismon tree faction, I suppose."

"Another doctrinal schism prevented by woodpeckers," said Mark. "I believe it also happened in 1378 when a woodpecker killed the anti-pope and saved the church. That's why Pope Clementine the sixteenth has a woodpecker on his coat-of-arms."

"Really?" asked Gina.

"Oh, absolutely," said Mark. "I can pretty much guarantee that's what happened."

* * *

The service began and there were a lot of folks in attendance. This was typical of St. Barnabas as it was in most churches. The closer we got to Christmas, the more people showed up. So with just one more Sunday to go until the big day, I'd gone with Meg's suggestion (and the priest's blessing) and slipped a couple of innocuous Christmas hymns into the mix.
Love Came Down at Christmas
and
Of the Father's Love Begotten
might be gotten away with when coupled with
On Jordan's Bank, the Baptist's Cry
and
Lo, He Comes With Clouds Descending
. Next Sunday was Christmas Eve as well as the fourth Sunday of Advent, and we'd be singing full-blown carols both in the morning and in the evening services.

Our anthem at the offering, the first movement of the cantata, went splendidly. There was the absence of the accompanying instruments to deal with, but I covered most of the parts from the organ. The congregation sat in rapt silence as the final chord echoed through the space.

"Beautiful!" whispered Meg. I looked across the choir. Every member was grinning ear to ear.

The only disruption in the service happened during communion when one of the woodpeckers (obviously no fan of Brahms) took offense at the choir singing
The White Dove
and began to tap a tarantella on the beam on which it was resting.

"Use your gun," suggested Marjorie, as soon as the motet was over.

"No, don't!" said Rebecca. "You'll scare the clergy."

"I wasn't going to," I said. "Anyway, Billy's coming by later to take care of the problem."

We sang the last hymn,
Lo, He Comes
, with full organ, descant, and
en chamade
trumpets.

"Go in peace, to love and serve the Lord," announced the priest.

And we did.

Chapter 13

Meg started the ball rolling by telling Georgia. Georgia was in the Bear and Brew having lunch and she told Gwen Jackson, the vet, who was standing behind her at the check-out register. Gwen was going to the Piggly Wiggly for cat food, and while she was there, told Hannah and Grace, the two checkout girls. Meanwhile, Noylene had overheard the entire conversation at the Slab and conveyed it to all concerned at the Beautifery. That was all it took. Before three o'clock on Monday, everyone in town knew that Old Miss Baker was a composer and that the St. Barnabas choir would be premiering her cantata on Christmas Eve. Not only that, but she was single-handedly responsible for a woodpecker infestation, and rumored to have millions of dollars in a secret bank account in the Cayman Islands. Such was the power of the grapevine in St. Germaine.

The
St. Germaine Tattler
, never a newspaper to print an untruth if they could get to the bottom of something, called Meg to get the whole scoop. She was glad to fill them in, and on Tuesday morning, everyone knew the rumor about the bank account was unfounded, that Bessie Baker had been a world-class composer, and that the long-delayed world premiere of her Christmas work
La Chanson d'Adoration
would happen this Sunday, December 24th. No mention was made of the woodpeckers.

The paper found a picture of Bessie Baker in their files, an old one from the 1970s, taken at her retirement dinner, and they ran it with the story. Meg had added the "hook" that the paper was always after, mentioning that Bessie Baker, beloved teacher, had been sitting by herself in the nursing home for five long years. No friends, no visitors...nothing. For a town that was now hooked on Christmas, the story was all it took.

Suddenly, Miss Baker's former students were dropping by Sunridge Assisted Living bringing cookies, introducing their children to the old lady, and then bestowing small gifts on whoever they might see shuffling down the hall, since Bessie Baker refused each and every one of them. Bevies of Christmas carolers made the trip over from town and serenaded all the residents. Miss Baker made a point of ignoring them. The Kiwanis Club brought a pickup truck load of decorations and decked the halls from the carpet to the ceiling tiles. The high school band director decided that a reprise of their Christmas concert was in order. The place was a beehive of activity, and the staff, as well as most of the residents, loved it.

Bessie Baker hated it.

At least that's what she told me when I stopped by in the middle of the week.

"I hope you're happy," she snarled. "I hate this."

"What?" I asked her.

"People are bothering me all day long. I just want a little peace and quiet."

"Well, you can't blame them, really. You've had a profound influence on many of these people, both when you were teaching, and through your composition."

"Bah!"

I shrugged. "I'm telling you, this music changed the whole town. Make of it what you want. You have a gift. That cantata is something special."

"That's ridiculous. I don't care one whit about that thing. I've had nothing to do with music for the past sixty years. "

"You play the piano," I said. "That's not nothing."

"It's something to do while I wait to die," she said. "Someone donated it a few months ago. Didn't even bother to have it tuned."

"I can get that done for you."

"Save your money," she snapped. "I won't be playing anymore."

"That's a shame. Anyway, I came over because I just have a few questions about the music..."

She didn't answer.

"Fair enough. But since you don't care anything about your cantata, I guess you wouldn't mind if I made a few changes. Just a few. For instance, it's very tough to find
one
bassoon player on Christmas Eve, not to mention
two
. I think a bass clarinet might work just as well. They play in the same range, after all, and I'd keep the overall woodwind timbre intact."

She didn't answer.

I walked over to the piano, sat down, and raised the key cover. Then I put the score I'd brought onto the music stand and opened it.

"Did you mean to keep this G-natural all the way from measure 23 to measure 39? I know that's what it says, but there's a G# in the pedal of the organ part. Maybe it's a copyist error. Listen."