Bishop's Fruit, Or The Last Temptation of Santa Read online

BISHOP’S FRUIT

  OR

  THE LAST TEMPTATION OF SANTA

  by Peter Schnake

  copyright 2013 Peter Schnake

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  BISHOP’S FRUIT

  It was in that long darkness, between Christmas Eve and Morning, when our Bishop, compelled by a visceral ache, took to the streets of Myra to give gifts. If you glimpsed him between the shadows, I doubt you’d recognize him. His cloak is neither red nor fur-lined but pulled tight at the neck, concealing his cross-emblazoned stoll. He is not portly, but truly scrawny for he gives away nearly all his food and wages to those who ask. His beard, lacking fullness, permits the briny wind to pervade and chill.

  Our Bishop has no use for chimneys; nor does he command eight reindeer, nor even a sleigh, but is aided only by a simple walking staff. The satchel over his shoulder does not bulge with gifts as in our dreams but contains only three small oranges already beginning to wither.

  His other gifts, given just moments ago, were not elven-made, but scrimped and saved of his own purse. Three bags of coins, barely enough for three dowries, were tossed into Alexandros the glass blower’s window so that the man’s daughter’s might not have to live with him forever—or worse, fall into the old profession when he died.

  Our Bishop paused against the side of a dark house and sank to the street.

  It was supposed to feel good, wasn’t it, to give gifts like these?

  Our Bishop felt only discontent.

  The giving of the dowries failed to bring joy to his heart. Surely it was good to help them, but others were starving. Others were dying.

  He shook his head.

  God gives regardless of merit. To withhold a gift—or redistribute it—because of worth would go against the very definition of grace. It gave our Bishop slight comfort to believe that if he himself didn’t help those girls no one else would.

  He probed the darkness above and made a silent prayer for snow. It went something like this:

  “O God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, God who once fed five thousand with only three loaves and two fish, and who fed the entire nation of Israel for forty years in the wilderness with bread from heaven, O God who became a baby in the Christmas Manger, O God who knows how to give gifts, send down a miracle to fill Myra’s belly on your birthday, that there might be no quarreling, that there might be no need for dowries, that there might be no need for a man to deceive and cheat his own brother in the marketplace causing one family to eat and another to go hungry.” He sighed. He knew he asked too much. “And if your answer is no, send down snow to remind us of our purity in Christ.”

  “The Israelites still quarreled, you know.”

  Our Bishop gasped at the voice. A dirt-smeared boy, who wore neither coat nor shoes but a smile as wide as it was innocent, challenged his gaze.

  “I said, the Israelites still quarreled. You were praying for bread, but bread has never stopped war or greed or any strife. A man can do as much evil on a full stomach as on an empty one. May I have an orange?”

  He extended a dirty hand with confidence and expectancy. His teeth caught the moonlight.

  A barrel of oranges arrived nearly a week ago from the Archbishop with a letter indicating that ‘this time of year’ a Bishop’s health is his top priority. For of what good is an ill Bishop? He cannot preach or teach or administer sacraments. A Bishop is more important than any other of Myra’s denizens.

  Our Bishop, being a man who disagreed with the Archbishop’s sentiments, had not eaten a single fruit. He had looked at them often, held them, smelled them, but guilt prevented him from partaking. Who was he to enjoy such a rare food when the needy, who crawled to his door dying of hunger, were eager to eat even a peel tossed them and who would show such gratitude one might think he tossed them gold? So he gave from the barrel as was asked of him.

  Even in Myra, the beggars were plentiful. Not every man had the stamina for fishing, or the shrewdness for trade, or even the patience for farming. The Archbishop was right on one count: when he wrote of ‘this time of year.’ For this time of year, it seems no family ever has enough. And the cold, which drives more into the streets each day, devours the sick and the weak. It is ‘this time of year,’ when a good man feels pressured to stand taller than God built him, dig deeper than his pockets are sewed and give greater than he owns in order to make up for the bitterness of this life.

  Our Bishop knew of the man who slept in the doorway of the basilica. This man, a former shipbuilder, made a lousy beggar. He asked for neither crumb nor pity and indeed received neither, as his smile prevented either from being offered. His appearance of contentment to be crouched at the entrance to the house of God did not fool our Bishop, but since the world was endlessly begged of our Bishop, nothing was ever left for him who never asked.

  These oranges, our Bishop decided, the last three in the barrel, were his. Our Bishop’s insides ached to see this man’s face when he woke to find the fruit tucked into the crook of his elbow. What a breakfast! What a Christmas! This child didn’t seem likely to exhibit the same joy or thankfulness or surprise. It was as if he believed the oranges belonged to him already and were merely asking for one to be returned. On the other hand, this urchin was barefoot, dirty and without a coat. How could a man of God deny his request for sustenance?

  He fished an orange from his satchel.

  “How did you know what I was praying?”

  The boy shrugged and gouged his thumb under the peel. A bright sweetness bloomed between the two.

  “I heard it. Which is more than I can say for you-know-who up there.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “If you think God’s in the business of listening to old men’s prayers, you’ve got another thing coming. But the good news is, I was listening. And I’ve got an offer for you.”

  The boy bit off the top hemisphere of orange.

  “Yuck.” He grimaced and spit it, half-chewed, onto the street. “That was a little past it’s prime. Can I try another?”

  Our Bishop’s jaw clenched. His grip on his satchel tightened.

  “I was saving them for someone who will be a little more grateful.”

  “Ah yes, your good deed for the night. A waste if you ask me, all that fruit for one vagrant.”

  “All that fruit?! It’s barely enough for one meal.”

  The boy’s eyes sparkled at the Bishop’s anger.

  “Tell me Bishop, is it better to help one person, or many persons? The silent treatment, huh? Would you agree that the greatest good would be to help the greatest number of people?”

  The Bishop pursed his lips.

  “Then your answer will be simple when I tell you that I can bestow on you the power to feed not just one measly beggar, but the countless to come.”

  “You? How?”

  What happened next our Bishop could not explain. Before the boy passed his hand over the orange it was mush dripping down his wrist; after, it was whole again. The boy raised the fruit to his smile and blew. Beneath the swirl of frosted breath the peel deepened into a dewy richness with an unmistakable shine. Upon taking it our Bishop knew right away that nothing so small could weigh so much except gold.

  Facing the fruit, our Bishop saw not his own bulging reflection, which looked only more cadaverous—if that were possible—but the good he could accomplish with the costly metal.

  “Yes, that’s right,” the urchin said. “With that orange, you can
feed not just one beggar, but a dozen. You could clothe not just one orphan, but a hundred. You could even free the slaves crammed below deck of a certain ship in the harbor.”

  “Who are you?”

  The boy laughed. The echoes returned from the silent street like bells.

  “Don’t you know? I’m offering you a chance to do great things.”

  “Can you turn all my oranges to gold?”

  “I can do more than simple alchemy. I can turn you into a legend. I can see to it that your name is remembered wherever the world celebrates Christmas Day. Your name will be synonymous with the giving of good gifts. You will become more than just a Bishop feeding a single beggar. You will become Father Christmas. You will become the inspiration for countless good deeds and charitable acts. If.”

  “If what?”

  “If you bow down and worship me.”

  The fruit slipped from our Bishop’s fingers and after several tolling bounces, rolled into the shadows. At first he had thought the child might be from God. Now he knew better.

  “Do you think you can fool me so easily?” our Bishop said. “You know the scriptures. ‘You shall have no other gods before me.’”

  “As easily as I turned that orange to gold I can make it dust. Would you see your beggar starve to death rather than with one simple act feed thousands upon thousands? Would you see all of Myra’s orphans go naked rather than clothe the world? Would it please you to see the slaves in your harbor sail to a certain free-minded senator in