Amberville (24 page)

He started searching for more familiar names. And there they were. One by one he ran across them. The animals in whose homes he and the Cleaners had been those past months, the animals who had been picked up by the Chauffeurs the day before.

It was asserted that all of them had donated clothing on their dying day.

When Emma Rabbit finally
fell silent, he hadn’t heard a word of what she’d said the last ten minutes, despite the fact that she spoke without interruption.

“You haven’t heard a word of what I’ve said the last ten minutes,” she complained to him.

“Sure I have,” lied Eric Bear. “Test me.”

They were still sitting next to each other on the couch, he with his head against her shoulder. He put a paw on her leg and experienced how her warmth went right into his body.

“I’m not asking any test questions. Never have,” she lied.

“You don’t dare,” he declared triumphantly and slowly lowered his head down onto her lap. “That’s the whole thing.”

“I don’t want to embarrass you,” she answered, stroking him across the ears.

“It’s true,” he said. “Not being able to conceal my superiority would truly have embarrassed me.”

“What you just said you didn’t even understand yourself,” she laughed.

“I’ve never maintained that I was smarter than you.”

“But that’s what you think, isn’t it?”

She looked down at him, and her entire face smiled. She was teasing. Seen from this perspective, upside down and from below, her eyes were even larger. There was his whole future.

“Never,” he answered.

“Liar.”

“And not that, either. You and I have one of the few equal relationships that I know of.”

“Bullshit,” she smiled.

“I think I’m smarter than you, you know it’s the other way around. And I would have exposed you long ago, but I prove how much smarter I am by not saying anything,” said Eric. “It can’t get any more equal than that.”

“You’re a deeply deranged bear…”

“Which, naturally, is further evidence of my smartness,” he smiled.

And he lifted his paws and pulled her down onto the couch in a heartfelt embrace.

When Bataille gave Eric
the last piece of the puzzle, a feeling of euphoria passed through Eric. An insight so revolutionary that it caused him to feel dizzy.

They got up from the wobbly table at the same time, the bear and the hyena, and walked with silent, determined steps back west toward the ravine where the snake, the crow, and the gazelle still were.

Eric tried to take in what the Hyena had actually said: the donated, used clothing was really a way of sending a list of names—the Death List, to put it bluntly—to Rat Ruth. From the packing slip she wrote out two lists. One she sent by courier to the Environmental Ministry and the Chauffeurs. The other she gave to the Cleaners.

All stuffed animals have asked themselves questions of life and death, at some point, when young or old. Why must the factories manufacture new animals? Why must those who were already living in the city be carried away by the Chauffeurs? Why did they all live in open or concealed terror of what would happen in the next life? And who had established a system so cruel?

This day had been the longest in the bear’s life. He had seen the day dawn from the stinking mountaintops of the Garbage Dump, spent the morning in his old reality at Wolle & Wolle, and then been half torn apart by Dove’s gorillas in the afternoon. After that, this evening together with Emma. Home on Uxbridge Street where time stood still and where security dwelled.

But it would never be like before.

Now Eric Bear understood.

Everything functioned as it did for a reason.

In the same way that Rat Ruth always took in the ship
ments of used clothing that came to the Garbage Dump, Hyena Bataille had found out that the same conditions applied in a corresponding way on the other side. It was always the same person who drew up the packing slips and saw to it that the clothes were packed the right way.

Archdeacon Odenrick.

The archdeacon sat in his beautiful cathedral, untouchable and above suspicion, writing down names and dates for the animals that the Chauffeurs would pick up the following month.

So simple.

Eric should have figured it out earlier.

H
e seldom lost his concentration during a sermon. When he climbed up to the pulpit it was as though the everyday world turned pale, the words he’d chosen to proceed from seemed more significant than anything else, and his powerful voice carried unwaveringly throughout Sagrada Bastante, out to the very last row. He filled the cathedral with his presence. He didn’t leave even a possibility for doubt. In that moment his voice, even every single word, was all that meant anything. His preaching had come to be widely talked about; the pews were, as usual, filled to capacity. A feeling of calm rested over the congregation. To be able to turn yourself, and your faith, over to someone as resolute as he, was a flight from everyday demands that was not only innocent but even purifying.

Therefore a discreet sigh passed through the church when on this late afternoon he suddenly hesitated between two words. He left a pause which must have been unintentional, a pause which suggested that he didn’t really know which word should follow the one he had just spoken. When in the following second he again took up the sermon, uncer
tainty spread along the rows of pews. Had they all imagined this hesitation? The memory of the collective sigh was soon clearer than the archdeacon’s momentary mental pause, and he still brought an unctuous sermon to a successful close.

But he had hesitated.

He had lost his concentration.

Accursed Eric Bear.

Afterward he walked slowly back to the office from the sacristy. He made use of the seldom-exploited corridors that ran in all directions through the massive building. There were grand colonnades and halls in a long row which connected all the more important parts of the cathedral with one another. Why the architects had once upon a time insisted on constructing these ant tunnels alongside the main corridors remained a mystery to him.

Perhaps, he thought, it was for occasions such as this: when the world weighed like a yoke across his shoulders, and the mere thought of encountering a colleague and smiling amiably was the worst kind of torture.

He was certain that Rat Ruth had followed his instructions. Nonetheless, something had happened at the Garbage Dump which he didn’t know how to analyze. No one seemed to know where Snake Marek had gone. Without Marek he no longer had control over events, he didn’t know what the bear was planning or how he was reasoning. This was not at all satisfactory. Not at all.

What was the worst thing that could happen? he asked himself.

That the stubborn bear finds me, he answered himself in the following moment.

The worst thing that could happen was that the bear, in some unfathomable way, worked out that the trail led straight into Sagrada Bastante. True, he didn’t understand how that would be possible; he had refined the system he’d
inherited from his predecessors and no one had ever revealed it before.

But someone has to be the first, he thought.

And what am I worrying for? he asked himself. If the bear comes here, then I can take care of him.

If the bear comes here, thought Archdeacon Odenrick, he’ll never walk out again. There’s room for yet another animal alongside the cat down in the catacombs.

I
t was the last evening at Yiala’s Arch.

Tomorrow the Chauffeurs would pick up Teddy Bear and Nicholas Dove.

Tomorrow it would be over, if Eric didn’t succeed in the impossible.

Sam Gazelle stood at the stove, frying sausage. He poked at the sausages with a certain distaste and with a Teflon-coated spatula, causing them to roll back and forth in the pan without getting burned. The kitchen fan emitted a dull buzz and at regular intervals the fatty sausage casings burst with little pops. Tom-Tom Crow had just set the kitchen table, and all that remained was folding the napkins. Now it was Saturday evening and all; he thought about folding them like peacocks. It was a self-assigned task which the crow, mumbling, swore over; there was a big difference between folding linen—like he’d done at Grand Divino—and folding paper napkins.

Eric Bear was standing by the balcony door, looking out over the gloomy inner courtyard. Snake Marek’s absence filled the apartment. Where the bear’s gaze fell, he was re
minded of how the little green reptile had crawled in just that place.

Tom-Tom and Sam hadn’t said anything. Had not accused him with a word, not with a glance.

After Tom-Tom had been hoisted out of the ravine and lightly embraced Eric and Sam, he’d gone back to the edge to be watching when the dangling armchair would be lowered for Marek. But the crane stood still. And without saying anything, Eric Bear started walking in the opposite direction, back toward Lanceheim. A few seconds of confusion ensued. Sam and Tom-Tom looked at each other, and between them a grim mutual understanding arose. They followed the bear. A few minutes later all three of them could hear Snake’s cries, but the sound was so distant that it was possible to dismiss it as the wind blowing across the treacherous expanses of the dump. The bear, the crow, and the gazelle continued toward the city in a silence that remained unbroken, for the most part, the entire day.

“You can eat now,”
declared Sam, taking the frying pan with the evenly browned, although split open, sausages from the stove. “If anyone wants it.”

They hadn’t eaten the entire day, because no one had felt hungry. But finally Sam got tired of Tom-Tom’s growling belly and found a few long-forgotten sausages in the freezer. The gazelle seldom ate dinner. If his vanity didn’t forbid it, his pills caused him to lose his appetite.

Eric didn’t feel especially hungry for the fat sausages either, but didn’t want to risk an out-of-balance crow and therefore pretended to be hungry. They sat down at the table, unfolded the peacock napkins that had just been finished, and served up the sausages. The crow ate three, Eric and Sam shared the one that was left.

“It’s Penguin Odenrick,” said Eric at the same time as
Tom-Tom was spraying ketchup over his sausages as if he intended to drown them. “Only Odenrick can remove Nicholas Dove from the list.”

Sam stared at the bear. The crow stuffed a substantial piece of sausage into his beak, trying to look interested at the same time.

“How long have you known?” asked the gazelle.

“Since yesterday morning,” said Eric.

Sam nodded. That fit together with the ravine, with the rat and the snake.

“And now?”

“I have to confront him,” said Eric. “I have to get him to admit what I already know, and then force him to remove the dove from the list.”

“You don’t have a lot of time.”

The gazelle looked out through the window.

“The sun is just going down. Tomorrow morning it will be too late.”

“This evening will do,” said Eric with certainty.

“What the hell are you thinking?” asked the crow while he carefully chewed what he had in his beak. “What the hell do we do?”

The bear didn’t respond to this. He stared ahead of him, as if the question had put him into a trance of some kind. Tom-Tom continued chewing and Sam looked down at his plate, where his half of the sausage sat, sad and untouched. By the time Eric finally had an answer, the crow had already forgotten what he’d asked.

“I want you to go to Owl Dorothy,” said the bear.

“Who?” asked Tom-Tom.

“Is she alive?” asked Sam.

“She’s alive. She’s been working for the archdeacon her entire life. I believe she was his governess when he was little. Then she became his secretary. Took care of his appoint
ment calendar, his correspondence, all the daily chores that popped up.”

“And what the hell is a governess?” asked Tom-Tom, who wasn’t familiar with the concept.

“Dorothy lives in Amberville,” said Eric. “I’ll write down the address. On Fried Street. She’s lived there as long as I remember, she was living there when I was small. If you mention my name she’ll ask you to come in. She enjoys serving cakes.”

Eric smiled. The memory of the massive cake plate with its cakes sometimes too old for words put him in a better mood for a moment. Tom-Tom, whose hunger was stimulated by the sausages, waited with interest for the bear to say something more about the cakes, but that didn’t happen.

“Then,” Eric continued, “we’ll meet up at Sagrada Bastante. When the clouds disperse and you see the half-moon. You should take the back way; I’ll write down the address, too. And ‘when you see the half-moon’ means just that, not a minute before or later.”

“Finally there’s a plan?” said Sam.

It was a kind of statement, but his voice carried such clear hope that it even surprised Sam.

Eric got up.

“We have no time to go into details. But there are a few things before we go…. I’ll tell you what I want you to do at Dorothy’s….”

T
here are occasions when the most direct route is made up of more detours than you could have believed in advance. The evening when Eric Bear strolled up toward Sagrada Bastante in the Evening Storm was such an occasion. Massive cloud formations moved rapidly across the sky, but all you could see were the edges of the clouds, cautiously colored by the sun’s lingering rays. Sam and Tom-Tom had taken the gray Volga so as to have time to drive to Amberville and back to the cathedral before the half-moon. Eric was thus faced with the decision to take the bus or walk. He chose to walk. Despite the urgency, he feared the moment when he would get there. Instead of walking up to Eastern Avenue and taking the direct route over to the Star, Eric walked westward through Yok’s rainbow-colored muddle of streets and in this way gave himself time to think.

Without an end to a stuffed animal’s life, he thought, the church would not exist.

Of course it was no more difficult than that.

All the rituals and writings, ceremonies and regulations that made up the world of the church and the world order,
gained power from this simple fact: that life, as we knew it, came to an end. And that the life after this one, which for understandable reasons we would only come to know somewhat later, only existed in the form of faith and mild hope.

Long, long ago, thought Eric Bear, before the church—the church as he and his contemporaries knew it—got a hold in Mollisan Town, had animals been exchanged at all then? Had there even been a stuffed animal factory that kept the system going, or was the factory itself something the church was behind?

The thought was dizzying.

Eric stopped himself, remained standing a few moments keeping that thought alive. Then he saw the next connection in front of him, as though in letters of fire above the sidewalk. For even if the church’s entire existence rested on the idea of everything’s perishability, this idea also suited the power of the state extremely well. How else could all these millions of stuffed animals, thirsting for growth but at the same time pleasure-seeking, be kept in check?

The bear stumbled over a leek that was on the sidewalk, but managed to avoid tumbling and went on, in thought as well. In order to institute laws and rules and see to it that they were followed, it was of great help that our lives had a clear beginning and end. It was a matter of understanding stuffed animals’ inner motivations, and with a limited amount of time we were in a hurry to reach our goals. Who would long to have cubs at the age of thirty if life continued until you were more than two hundred years old? Who would get an education before the age of twenty-five, who would fight to be able to succeed the next generation in professional life before the age of forty?

Eric Bear turned right, onto a champagne-colored avenue lined with furniture stores closed for the evening. He had no distinct recollection of ever having set foot here before.
It looked more like a street up in Tourquai. Deserted and silent, with no beggars or drunks and not a wrecked car as far as the eye could see.

This made him nervous; he didn’t have time to get lost.

The cycle of life, thought Eric at the same time as he increased his pace somewhat, led to us continually repeating ourselves; we became predictable, such that the authorities could more easily manage us. We were all delivered with the same instincts for the most part. Generations before and after us are going to react in the same way we do; that’s a given. Therefore the mayor could simply decide how education was allotted, fortunes distributed, and natural resources exploited. For despite all the advances in technology and medicine, despite the fact that the material conditions of life had been transformed so dramatically during the last two hundred years, a stuffed animal continued to be ruled by its love, its hate, its empathy and its jealousy, its greed and its laziness, completely uninfluenced by progressing civilization. Our instincts caused us to act as our forefathers did—thanks not least to the fact that in secrecy we all feared the day when the Chauffeurs would knock on our door—and thereby the powers that be could control us much more easily.

The bear continued down the champagne-colored avenue.

We were forced to live as intensely as we dared, he thought further, because our days were numbered. But at the same time we lived cautiously, because the life after this in some way seemed to be related to everything we did today.

At least that was what religion and the church maintained. And the state didn’t deny it.

Eric Bear randomly turned left and the aroma of melted cheese struck him like an open door.

A compromised, predictable, and spiritual existence of frustrated restraint for the good of the afterlife, this was how we consumed our lives.

On the basis of the Death List.

In his imagination Eric saw Penguin Odenrick sitting in the mysterious dimness of his office. How he was hunched over the desk, writing in one of his large notebooks with leather covers. The flames of the candles in the massive candelabra on his desk danced in the draft from the leaky stone walls. In his eagerness a fourteen-year-old Eric Bear had run along the entire colonnade, pulled open the door to the innermost regions of the cathedral where no unauthorized person was allowed, and continued in a more and more breathless run through the dark corridors where only wall-mounted torches lit up the stone-clad floors. Farthest in and farthest off in the massive cathedral building Eric arrived at the archdeacon’s office, and without knocking he opened the door.

Archdeacon Odenrick had as usual been sitting bowed over his writing. Surprised and angry at the interruption he looked up. When he caught sight of Eric Bear, his stern look softened.

“We’re finished now,” said Eric proudly.

“And what did it end up being?” asked the archdeacon.

“Thirteen overcoats, five pairs of pants, three pairs of boots, and a large blanket,” answered Eric.

“That’s wonderful!” said the archdeacon, nodding in approval.

“We went into that deserted lot that’s over by—”

Odenrick interrupted.

“Ah, ah, ah,” said the penguin, “no details. I don’t want to know.”

“But…”

“No. This is a part of the agreement. Keep the secrets to yourselves, the big ones as well as the small ones. That’s the hardest part. The equipment is easy, keeping secrets is hard.”

Eric nodded. When Penguin Odenrick spoke it was as
though every word was carefully weighed. It had taken several days before Eric understood that what the archdeacon called “the equipment” was the used clothing.

Getting to listen to the archdeacon’s sermons was generally considered to be a privilege. It was hardly every Sunday that he himself gave the sermon in the cathedral, but when he did the church was always fully occupied. The same careful emphasis, the same seriousness and reflection that he made use of in the pulpit of the church, he used both with his confirmands and now, in his comparatively small office, one-to-one with Eric. The effect was lasting. Eric Bear would never be able to free himself from the feeling of being a chosen one created by these meetings with the archdeacon. Neither would he ever be able to lose the deep respect he felt for Odenrick, a feeling which originated in the bear’s need for affirmation. To be seen by this giant, if only for a few moments, was a triumph.

“No,” said the young bear, “I know.”

“And I’m counting on the fact that you’ve instructed the others.”

“I have,” said Eric, nodding feverishly. “No one’s going to say anything. Even if we have to yank our tongues out to keep from doing so.”

“I hope that won’t become necessary,” answered Odenrick without smiling, and Eric remained uncertain whether he was joking or not.

The bear remained standing a while in the dark room, unwilling to leave, until the archdeacon asked whether there was anything else. Then Eric was forced to admit that that wasn’t the case, and he slinked away. Slowly he returned to the packing rooms through the muffled corridors of the cathedral, and the feeling of pride caused him to smile to himself. When he once again saw his little band of workers—a crocodile and two cats who were both named Smythe—he
exaggerated the archdeacon’s praise as much as he dared without risking credibility.

“He’s going to yank out our tongues if we ever breathe a word of this,” Eric Bear concluded.

The crocodile and the cats nodded. They were all fourteen years old, and they all felt equally, marvelously special.

Eric Bear suddenly found
himself in a dead-end alley. He had turned off from the champagne-colored alley onto a violet-green street that was now cordoned off by a three-meter-tall iron grating with no openings. The buildings that lined the sidewalk were the same run-down apartment buildings that he had been seeing the last ten minutes. They appeared to be deserted, but in their moldy insides lives were passing that in one way were closely related to his: one day they would all cease.

Eric stopped a few meters in front of the grating and looked around. It wouldn’t be impossible to force it open, but he still didn’t know where he was. Perhaps it would be quicker to turn around and make his way toward the avenue along some other street?

Eric suddenly discovered that the storm was in decline. He was seized with panic. He didn’t have time to carry on like this. When he realized that it must have been his subconscious playing a trick on him and that he hadn’t gotten lost from negligence or carelessness, he started to sweat. Tomorrow morning was much too late. And here he was wandering around the streets in Yok.

He turned around and started to trot. Uncertain whether he was on his way west the last fifteen minutes, he ran all the faster without knowing in what direction. There was no one to ask either; the streets in Yok were empty. He turned to the right toward what he guessed was north, but he was
unsure. He’d never been an outdoor enthusiast; he recognized the Milky Way but no more than that. And with a pulse that continued to race faster, he ran on through anonymous blocks of run-down buildings where hardly more than a third of the streetlights were functioning, and it felt as though he were running a race with time itself.

Why Penguin Odenrick had
chosen him in particular remained a mystery through the years. The natural choice ought to have been Teddy. And at first Eric believed that the archdeacon had actually made a mistake. Up to that day Odenrick had joked many times about what a hard time he had telling one twin from the other when he was at their house for dinner with his parents on Hillville Road.

But it was Eric he’d summoned during the first weeks of confirmation instruction, and it was Eric he’d intended. Odenrick had from the start already made it clear that Eric was not allowed to tell about his new assignment, not even to his twin brother. And Eric didn’t question this, because the special position the archdeacon had all of a sudden granted him caused the bear’s young heart to swell with satisfaction and pride, just as the archdeacon had intended.

Those first weeks, however, the secretiveness remained incomprehensible. Once a week, Eric, along with the crocodile and the two cats, had the task of gathering in used clothing that kind citizens had donated to poor animals through the church. Eric and one of the cats folded the clothes while the crocodile and the other cat wrapped them in brown wrapping paper. Outside the churches in Amberville, Lanceheim, and Yok were collection stations to which Eric and his new friends took the bus. It took several hours to make their way around the whole city, but the youngsters were so filled up with the gravity of the moment that the time passed quickly. The remaining confirmands believed
that the four received special instruction from the archdeacon when they were actually collecting clothes. There was a packing room in Sagrada Bastante where they could hang out. The cubs were ordered to tell the story about special instruction, even if someone from the church asked where they were going. The first four weeks, there were clothes at one of the collection stations at least; the fifth week it became apparent why the archdeacon demanded such secrecy.

Empty-handed, they returned to Sagrada Bastante, but instead of going to the packing room Eric Bear went to see the archdeacon in his office. The cats and the crocodile waited outside.

“We have to send out at least one small package every month,” said the archdeacon. “That’s the least we can do for the unfortunate in society.”

“But there are no clothes,” Eric explained again. “There’s nothing.”

“But we don’t need much. We actually only need something, whatever. Perhaps you can find that something somewhere else?”

“Somewhere else?” repeated Eric without understanding.

“Wherever,” the archdeacon clarified.

Eric remained uncomprehending, and a few additional questions were required, and answers equally evasive and encouraging, before the bear understood that the archdeacon was actually suggesting that they should steal clothes. Still, when Eric left the room he was afraid he’d misunderstood the matter.

“What should we do?” asked the cats at the same time as Eric closed the archdeacon’s door behind him.

“We’re going to see to it that we make a package of clothes,” replied Eric. “Because nothing is as important as that a package of clothes is sent away from here once a month. That’s exactly what he said. And sometimes, he
said, you have to do something a little less good in order that something else, something more good, is able to happen.”

“Huh?”

The crocodile hadn’t understood a word, and he dared to show it.

“Should we steal the clothes?” asked one of the cats who, on the other hand, could follow that kind of circumlocution.

“Yep,” answered Eric. “Neither more nor less.”

With his heart in
his throat, Eric Bear ran straight out onto Carrer de la Marquesa, the ash-gray street, and finally he knew where he was. The wind was still blowing briskly; it wasn’t too late. He continued running up toward the intersection to dark-blue Avinguda de Pedralbes, from where it was no more than a few minutes up to Eastern Avenue. If he could keep up the pace, he would be at the Star and the cathedral before the storm died out.