The Wooden King. Thomas Maxwell McConnell

boy’s shoulder. “It’s over. You can look up now.”

      The angel held out her fist and Aleks put his palm beneath it. She placed a candy there in a bright red wrapping and before Aleks could say thank you they were gone on to another family.

      “God I wish he weren’t so timid,” Alena muttered.

      “That was better than last year wasn’t it, Daddy?”

      “That was so good, Aleks, there’s no comparison. Your practice worked very well.” He whispered, “He’s still a little boy. He’s gentle. That’s his nature.”

      “May I have it now?”

      “Ask your mother if it will undo your dinner.”

      “I suppose not.” She fixed a smile on the boy, looked up at Trn. “No, he’s timid. He’s entirely too timid.”

      “He’ll grow.”

      “When?”

      “He’s growing all the time.”

      Aleks drifted toward other stalls, trains and blue birds and a tin auto on cut tin wheels flanked by wooden tanks painted with the balken cross.

      Trn said, “At least he’s not looking at the dolls,” but Alena could not smile.

      “Has Baby Jesus already decided what I’m getting?” Aleks asked.

      A man fisting a stein reeled into the corner of the stall and shook the toys on the shelves and caromed toward Trn. The beer sloshed on the stones and the man grumbled on.

      “That was a near miss,” Aleks said.

      Trn raised his eyebrows.

      “So has he? Has Baby Jesus decided?”

      “Yes,” Alena said, “he decided long ago.”

      “That’s a pretty auto, don’t you think? The blue one.” He reached with two fingers and rolled it a short way along the plank. “But I can’t have it, can I?”

      The stall man eyed them through the steam of his cup, drank, lipped his mustache.

      “It’s very nice,” Trn said. “Best not touch it though.”

      “How many crowns is it?” Aleks said looking at Trn. “I don’t want Baby Jesus to have to spend all the money from Saint Mikulas’s church box. Or is it only for German boys?”

      “We need to find something for Grandfather,” Alena said. “Let’s look over there.”

      “Watch it,” Trn said. “Some dog has left an early Christmas gift.”

      “So you’re going to get it for him.”

      “Soon enough there won’t be any more toys made of tin. You can count on that.”

      She sighed. “You’re going to spoil him.”

      “Is that possible? In these times?”

      “He’ll have two shoes full of candy tonight and on Christmas Eve two books and a sweater and a drawing book with pencils. No other boy on the street will have as much.”

      “Some will. Some will have more. The Steinhardt twins will have much more.”

      “You know I mean Czech boys. The Steinhardts have family in Germany to send them things. The Steinhardts own the building.”

      Trn surveyed the crowd. “How many more Christmases will there be?”

      “Don’t talk that way.”

      She looked down at the cobbles, away to the farthest corner of the square where the chorus in white collars addressed themselves to “Adeste Fideles.”

      “You know as well as I do,” he said. “How many more even like this will we have?”

      Aleks was watching their whispers. A woman too was looking from the stall of carved pipes they stood before.

      “Do you think Grandfather wants a new pipe?” Aleks asked.

      “I don’t know,” Alena said. “No. He doesn’t.”

      “What about that one? That’s a pretty one.” Aleks fisted his pocket, revealed in his palm a red candy wrapper and a small coin. “I have ten hellers. Will ten hellers help buy Grandfather a pipe? I don’t know either if he wants one. I know ten hellers, it’s not much. It’s not enough.”

      “Perhaps we should try to find some tobacco to go in the pipes he has,” Trn said.

      “We need the coupons for that,” Aleks said. “Did you bring the ration book?”

      The boy pinched up the coin from his palm and held it toward them but Alena was looking at Trn. Her eyes darted over his shoulder.

      “I’ll take him by the plague column then. While you go get the toy.”

      Trn smiled. “He’s scared of the plague column, some of the figures in it, you know.”

      “It’s stone. It’s just stone.” She sighed heavily. “Then to a stall near the plague column. Come to find us there. Maybe they won’t be selling monsters.” She shook her head. “God.”

       1941

      “What besides the contact lens?” Aleks asked.

      “The sugar cube,” Trn said. “That was invented by a Czech too.”

      Aleks stuffed back a yawn with his little wrist.

      “Sugar came in loaves that had to be sliced with a knife and once this man’s wife cut herself badly so he devised a method for portioning the block by machine into cubes. Clever, isn’t it?”

      “He wouldn’t have to worry now.”

      “Why?”

      “There’s no sugar and so she wouldn’t have cut herself.”

      “There’s still sugar.”

      “Not very much. Not enough to need cutting.”

      Trn watched the face, the sleepy blink of both eyes. Eyes dark like mine.

      “In the morning,” he whispered, “you will have sugar for your tea.”

      “Mother says soon there won’t be any tea. Or coffee, or anything else. She says it is all too expensive and becoming more so.”

      He knuckled at an eye.

      “She is worried but we will have enough.”

      “You don’t have a job. Grandfather doesn’t have his pension. We all live together now. There won’t be enough sugar for Saint Mikulas to leave candy in my shoes next Christmastime.”

      “But I am paid as if I did have my work. And on his day I’m sure Saint Mikulas will find some sugar for candy.”

      Gentle with sleep the boy’s eyes gazed at the ceiling.

      “Do you understand? It is important that you understand.”

      “Why is it important?”

      “So that you won’t worry. Agreed?”

      Aleks nodded, eyes closing.

      “Good. Sleep well. I love you.”

      The boy turned to the wall.

      “Pardon? I didn’t hear.”

      “I said I don’t believe there is a Saint Mikulas.” The blanket tugged up twice over the shoulder.

      “You will when December comes again. Listen. Tomorrow night I’ll tell you of Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler. From their observatory near Prague they were the greatest astronomers of their day. There are craters on the