The Innkeeper’s Tale

(an expanded version of an improvised tale, told to the Unitarian Church of Los Alamos, 20 December 2009)

We have all heard the story of the miraculous birth, and of the man that the child would eventually become. Much of it seems hard to believe, too fantastic. To be sure, most of the tales were written by hands that had been nowhere near the stable. Whether or not they are true is unimportant to this tale. All we need to know is that long before there were shepherds or angels, long before there were mysterious men with luxurious gifts, there was a baby, and before that a weary couple, a mother in labor, looking for a place to rest.

That place was not easily found.

The innkeepers of Bethlehem were a miserable lot – sour, sad, and miserable. Odd, then, that they were in the business of hospitality, but these were the days when one’s career was handed down from generation to generation. Most, if you could ask them, would have preferred a more glamourous lifestyle. Who wouldn’t? But, no, it was innkeeping, or perhaps begging. There wasn’t much choice in the matter. If your free will had been so abridged, you’d probably be sour and sad, as well. And so they were, the innkeepers of Bethlehem, sour and sad, miserable to a man. And the sourest and saddest of them all was Samuel.

It hadn’t always been so for Samuel. As a young man, he’d taken quite happily and naturally to his father’s work. He had loved the little inn that would one day be his. He had loved meeting new and exotic travelers and listening to their tall tales from the road. He had loved the smells that blew in from his mother’s kitchen, and even the smell of the stable as he helped his father clean it.

Samuel had loved the inn just the same when it passed into his hands, had watched with pride his own family take to the work of innkeeping, just as he had. There were his children, cleaning and fetching, learning their way so that they might inherit. There was Miriam, pretty, clever Miriam, performing daily miracles in the cramped kitchen, finding ways to make the little money that rolled in last. Miriam, the wife he still did not believe he’d ever deserved.

When Miriam had died, everything began to change. He’d knelt by her side as her heart beat its last, and in that moment felt a piece of his own heart close off to the rest of the world. His business partner, his soulmate, gone. The work would be harder without her. His life, too, would have less joy.

“At least,” he thought to himself, “I still have the children to count on.”

But, children being children, they grew into adulthood, started families of their own, moved away. One by one, Samuel watched as his children married and wandered away, starting lives of their own. And with each receding footstep he felt more and more of his heart close off to the rest of the world. With each day that passed, the work gave him less and less joy. Sour and sad, now, he took in what guests he needed to scrape by, and retreated from the world as much as he could.

There were only two things that made Samuel approach anything that might possibly resemble happiness. The first was when the inn was full, and he could watch the disappointment on the faces of tired travelers as he gleefully turned them away from his door.

“We’re full!” he would cackle. “No vacancies! Buzz off!” And then he would giggle, a sound full of perverted mirth, as he watched the weary gather their belongings to look for another place to rest. This little bit of mock happiness is what he was well known for in the city.

His second bit of happiness was much more private, and no one who knew him would believe it if they saw it. Samuel was a stargazer. Each night would find him standing quietly on the roof of his inn, looking skyward, expectantly. His eyes were fixed on the stars with an unshakable focus.

No one ever saw him do this, and if they had seen, they might not ask why. And even if you were to work up the courage to inquire why he stared up at the nigh sky so, you would be hard pressed to believe the answer, so out of character was it for the usually sour bastard who spoke the words. And whether you believed him or not, his answer would still be the same.

“I’m looking for Miriam,” he’d say.

Thus went Samuel’s life, day in and day out, disappointing customers and staring wistfully into the night sky. Each day progressed just like the last, up until that fateful month when the emperor made his decree. That month, it was decreed that everyone must return to the place of their birth. The coffers of the empire were running low, and the money-counters needed to devise new sources of revenue. If it made life inconvenient, too bad. And so it was that every inn in Bethlehem was full to the brim for a month. Everyone was especially sour and sad. The guests were miserable because they’d had to pull up stakes and travel, leaving their own businesses behind. The innkeepers were miserable because they had to take the abuse of their miserable guests (and because they were already, by their very nature, sour and sad). All the while, money changed hands at a furious pace. Every innkeeper in Bethlehem grew more and more miserable, and more and more wealthy.

Everyone, that is, except for Samuel.

Oh, he was miserable, to be sure. There was never any danger of his misery subsiding. However, it was not the satisfying sourness that came from swearing at a paying customer and spitting in his stew. No, Samuel’s inn was full of his children and their families, those thankless children who had left him to fester in his own emotional mire. There was no profit to be had from this sort of misery.

Instead, Samuel searched for those moments of ersatz happiness that he needed to break his miserable monotony. The opportunity was certainly ample. Each day as the month progressed, more and more weary visitors arrived at the door of his inn, and each day Samuel took wicked glee in turning them away.

“No room at the inn!” he’d crow. “Move along. Good luck.” And then he’d flash a wicked, sharp-toothed grin as the tourists shuffled off down the street. By the end of each day, he would dole out enough rejection to warm, just slightly, the closed up lump that passed for his heart. And each night, he’d stand on the roof, looking up at the stars and basking in the glow of a bad job well done.

The day in question, the day when all the myths began, had been a particularly good one for Samuel. He had managed to tell twenty-five people to get lost in a few short hours, and was enjoying the onset of a particularly satisfying wave of schadenfreude. It was a personal record. His freeloading family had managed to squabble amongst themselves all day while leaving him well out of their skirmishing. To top it all off, it had turned out to be a spectacularly dark night, perfect for stargazing.

Samuel stood on the roof of his inn, staring up at a nearly pitch black sky, the only light to be seen coming from a small sliver of moon and the stars. An hour passed, and maybe more, before his attention was drawn away from the firmament and down towards the street below. The quiet shuffle of a closing door called his eyes toward the end of the avenue. There was the silhouette of a couple, packed for a long journey – a man, slightly stooped with fatigue, or perhaps age; a donkey, barely getting by on its four legs; a woman, sitting on the poor beast’s back. Odd to see any travelers out so late, he thought. The roads were dangerous at night, the risks were many. What fools.

Samuel watched their heads bow, tired, as the party moved down the street. He watched with some small delight as he recognized the game that was being played. Every inn had been full up for a week, now. This pair were going to meet with disappointment, no matter where they went. Samuel rubbed his hands together, delighted, and leaned over to watch the couple’s progress.

At the next inn, the previous drama repeated – closer, now, so that Samuel could hear.

“Please, sir,” the man pleaded. “My wife and I have come so far. We need someplace to rest.”

“And you have money?” queried the innkeeper.

Samuel heard the man mumble something and saw him shake his head.

“No money? No room!”

The door slammed shut, a satisfying sound to Samuel’s ears. Again, the bedraggled parade shuffled down the street.

Samuel craned his neck to try and get a better look at the pair, and what passed for his heart stopped for just a moment. Maybe it was the low light. Maybe it was his own buried longing playing with his eyes. For a moment, though, he thought he recognized in the face of this stranger the eyes of his long dead Miriam. And in that moment, he felt a long dead piece of his heart begin to open again.

He watched the pair and their pack beast move on to the next inn. The exchange between the two and this sad and sour man played out much as the last one did. Somehow, the sound of the slamming door was far less satisfying to Samuel’s ears. He watched them intently as the proceeded down the lane.

Now, in the pale light, Samuel thought he could make out a tell-tale roundness in the woman’s belly. His memory called up images of Miriam, again, pregnant with their first son. How proud he’d been, how moved to tears. And now, here was this couple, lost on the streets of the city with nowhere safe and warm. Samuel’s heart opened all the more.

Again, the man knocked at the door of another inn. The sour man inside took his time answering the door.

“Please, sir,” said the traveller. “My wife is with child and about to give birth. We need someplace where she can rest.”

“Do we look like a hospital?” the innkeeper replied. “Away from my door! I’m too busy and too full to see to your needs.” The sound of the slamming door was a punch to Samuel’s gut.

Pregnant! Imminent! Still, Samuel’s heart opened wider. Something must be done!

The travelers had arrived at the inn next door, and again the ritual played out.

“Pity, sir,” said the man. “My wife, Miriam, is about to give birth to our child. We’ve traveled too far. Some help please?”

The door slammed in their faces without even the pretense of conversation.

Miriam! With that, Samuel’s heart, closed for so long, flew wide open – so wide, indeed, that it had room for far more than one. He leapt from the perch on his roof, eager to meet his new guests, but stopped at the door to the stairway.

“It’s too dark,” he thought. “We’re too small. They might not see me. They might give up.”

Quickly, he ran down to the public room, and gathered a lantern from the common table. Fumbling with embers from the cooking fire, he lit the wick, then ran to the door. Samuel threw open the portal, and waved his lantern wildly.

“Come in,” he cried. “Come in. Here’s a place to rest. Here’s a place to bring your child into the world!”

They could not miss him, now. The couple turned to the source of the commotion, and the man led the donkey with his wife toward his door.

In the midst of his excitement, Samuel had an awful, sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.

“There’s no room!” he wailed inside his head. How could he have been so foolish. Now, they’ll think he’s only playing with them. Samuel, the sourest, meanest of them all. What to do?

Then, Samuel did something he hadn’t done in many years. He swallowed his pride.

“My apologies,” he said to the couple. “My rooms are full, but I can see how desperate you are.”

He paused for a moment, unable to look them in the eye.

“There’s a stable in back,” he continued, somewhat ashamed. “Not much for amenities, but it’s out of the elements and the hay is fresh and soft.”

The man looked at Samuel sideways. “How much?”

Samuel still could not look in their eyes, but he raised his hand and waved off the question.

“Nothing tonight,” he replied. “Take care of your wife. There’ll be time for haggling, later.”

With that, Samuel led them around to the back. He piled hay for the woman, Miriam, to lay on, and set more in the horse trough.

“You can let the baby rest here,” he said. “I’ll find something more suitable in the morning. Let me wake my daughter and send her down to help.”

And so it was that the miracle child came to be born in a stable. Later, there would be talk of angels and kings. Later, there would be all manner of questionable tales told about that night. But that was later. For now, there was just this new family and the man who opened his heart enough to give them a place to begin.

Some say Christmas begins when the tree comes into the house, or when the first batch of cookies comes out of the oven. Some say it doesn’t begin until the vigil candles are lit and we’ve all sung about silent nights. These are special moments, to be sure, but they all miss the mark – these are not the true start of the season. Learn, then, from the lesson of Samuel, no longer the sourest man in Bethlehem. When your heart has let go of its hurt, when it has opened wide enough to let the whole world in, it is then that Christmas begins.

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