Matchless: An Illumination of Hans Christian Andersen's Classic "The Little Match Girl" (2 page)

EVEN ON CHRISTMAS EVE she plied her needle. Humming sentimental melodies of the season, she stitched while Frederik washed up. As soon as she nodded off over her scissors, Frederik scampered up the ladder to his attic.

THE ROOM reeked with the salt tang of the sea and the sweet rawness of the smokehouse. He didn’t mind; this was
his
room, to which his mother in her exhaustion could never manage to climb.

HERE he was not fish-thief, but governor.

ON THE PLANKS of the attic floor waited Frederik’s secret: a town hunched on an island, a heap of netting that had washed into his path once when north winds drove the waves clear across the causeway.

The houses were made of empty boxes that he’d lifted from merchants’ rubbish bins.

Frederik cut out windows and folded the cardboard: perfect hinged shutters. He built eaves out of slates that the wind had liberated from real roofs. He planted trees by poking sprigs of balsam into dollops of boat caulking. Best was the customhouse: a gold-papered chocolate gift box sporting a porcelain dome—an upturned bowl of chipped blue china.

FREDERIK’S TOWN boasted only two residents—two threadless wooden spools with heads made out of acorns. The citizens seemed eager to invite other people to their town, but Frederik didn’t know where to find any. Until its thread was used up, Dame Pedersen wouldn’t relinquish a spool to serve as company.

FREDERIK HAD DECIDED that the residents should go sailing to hunt for more family.

So he was building a harbor out of pebbles. Next he would need a boat.

When someone pounded at the door, his mother started from her nap—“Merciful angels!

Have the seagulls grown fists?” Frederik reached the door first.

THE VISITOR SAID to Dame Pedersen, “Our Queen has ripped her cloak on her way to the Christmas Eve ceremonies. She’s to preside over prayers and feast and frolic of all varieties; so she demands you come with your supplies! She has sent her coach so I might hurry you along, but dress snug. Ice is even forming on the harbor.”

“You would think the Queen has toes of lead,” said Dame Pedersen. “She can’t see a hem without stepping on it. Still, the hungry rarely get a holiday, so I will come.”

“YOU’RE A GOOD WOMAN, to venture out in this cursed cold. Myself, I’ve had enough of the Queen’s misadventures. On Christmas Eve I’d rather be home with my wife or my grog, or both. I intend to seek other employment in the new year.” But Dame Pedersen turned to Frederik. “Dear boy, I’ve never left you at night before.

Will you be safe?”

Frederik nodded.

DAME PEDERSEN bustled away, muttering to the coachman: “One of God’s simples, that boy; can’t find his way from soap to water. I hate to leave him alone on Christmas Eve.” FREDERIK WAITED until the sound of hooves had faded, and then he wrapped himself in a scarf. His townspeople needed to sail to lonely souls and invite them to live on the island. So Frederik would locate a boat.

PART TWO

IN A LANE off the main square a small girl shivered in her threadbare shawl.

ALL DAY she had been hoping to sell the matches in her apron pocket. All day long she had sung: “Light your tapers on Christmas Eve with a new match!” But she hadn’t sold a single match, and by nighttime her voice had shriveled. “Matches, I have matches for sale.” SHE DIDN’T DARE go home without a single coin. And home held no warmth, anyway, not since the death of her mother.

She wandered this way and that—how crowded the streets were this late on Christmas Eve!

AS SHE WAS CROSSING the boulevard, a pair of horses dragging a coach raced by.

The girl dashed out of their way. The slippers that had belonged to her mother—they were too loose, but they were all the girl had left of her—fell off. A carter’s donkey claimed one slipper for its supper. “Oh,” cried the match girl, “oh!”

The other slipper might keep
one
foot warm, she thought, but as she went to retrieve it, a boy about her age was picking it up. “This will make a fine cradle for my babies!” he said, and ran off into the darkness so quickly that he never heard her voice calling after him.

THE CROWDS thinned and disappeared. Alone, the match girl tucked herself into an alley, out of the wind but not the cold.

She couldn’t go home. And she couldn’t sell any matches. So what was there left to do but strike one, to relish the light?

SHE LIT IT—warmth for the tip of her nose, at least—and the tiny blaze confused her eyes. She thought she saw a corner stove with brass trimmings, the door open so the heat could escape. She reached for it—and the match went out.