A Christmas Gift

“Ho ho ho! Merry Christmas!” Father John came bumbling out of the trees that border the old brick church house. The children were already stirring, his arrival pre-emptively announced by the sturdy golden handbell in his right hand – a sound all too familiar.

“SANTAAAAAAAAAA!” Screamed a younger one.

We scrambled to our places – parents, aunties and uncles to children’s sides to coax them up to the big man, children to the front of the circle prime for receiving. Aunty Say – leader of Church Activities and thus default spokesperson for Santa each year, took up her seat at his throne’s right hand. He dropped his pillowcase sack – Say guiding it safely to the ground – and plonked into place, subtly adjusting the bed pillows padding his some ten-year-old costume.

“Have we all been good boys and girls this year?” His voice boomed through the house, lovingly furnished but warmed by this many bodies only once a year.

As the kids resoundingly affirmed, I looked at my granddaughter: nine years old, ears freshly pierced, shy as ever, she simply nodded. Clutching the novel she’d carried to the party, in case she felt like reading. I could have gifted her another this year – but I opted for something more special.

***

The glass door chimed when I entered, washing me in nostalgia. The view, however, was something foreign: In the centre, a round of glass cabinets lined with shimmering fountain pens. The two street-facing sides of the shop were walled with glass to show off a plethora of leather-bound folios.

More glass here than my entire house in Lao… I had begun to think, when the shop assistant, a middle-aged falung* lady, spoke to me in English. I pulled out my prepared envelope.

*falung: The term for white people in Lao

“Oh,” She gushed in more words I couldn’t understand, delicately fingering each photo: my granddaughter using an index finger to guide her reading, my granddaughter clutching the VHS tape of a movie she loved so much, my granddaughter learning to write at four years old in an A4 exercise book too big for her. I pointed to the pen held in her tiny hand, and this falung understood.

***

“We have Christine; is there a miss Christine here?” Her name, in Santa-Father John’s jolly tone, snapped me back to the present. It was her turn. Rather than empty her hands for receiving, she only gripped her novel tighter. A nudge in the back from her mother, my daughter, had her inching her way forwards.

She rushed back hands full, atop her book a long, neatly wrapped paper package. I couldn’t afford ribbon on top of the gift. She sat and began to carefully unwrap.

“Grandma bought that for you, you know,” said my daughter. Christine simply nodded, her eyes only flashing up at me for a moment, not enough time for me to smile.

Her round, brown eyes were bereft of expression upon seeing it: a heavy, rounded Sheaffer ballpoint, black marbled body with silver accents. Neat and graceful, like my granddaughter.

“Go on, hug your grandma! Say thank you!” My daughter again. Christine stood and offered her small frame into my arms, croaking a ‘khop jai’ – thank you. I held tight.

“Use it well,” I said. She can understand, despite refusing to reply in my tongue.

***

“Why don’t you speak Lao?” I would often ask.

“She’s embarrassed,” Monica, an elder sister, replied for her.

“What’s there to be embarrassed about? If anything, you should be embarrassed that you can’t speak it,” I said.

It was a shame, really. But there was no blame to be placed. My daughter had become far too busy once the third child – Christine – arrived, to pass on our language any further.

We never could speak in life. Until the end, I watched our relationship dry like the ink in her pen – a tool I hoped she’d use to keep creating the stories she so loved. A tool I hoped would help her find her way.

I can see her now. She has found her way, but still struggles. Has admitted to being a writer, but one without the tools.

She has found herself, and she’s found my pen. Suddenly, somehow, I feel I can speak to her.

“Don’t worry,” I say, “Keep writing.”

She must hear me because she does.