Amberville (28 page)

“Twenty-five thousand,” says Dr. Bee Sharm. “But, as stated, I can’t guarantee that it will be especially successful. If I were you, I would wait a few years until the fur around the knee is a little less…lively.”

But you’re not me, you little bee, I thought. Instead I said out loud, “Okay, but I’ve heard so many good things about you, Dr. Sharm, that nevertheless I’ll take the risk. Can I schedule a time for the procedure itself?”

The doctor nodded and referred me back out to reception.

Every weekend I was off and went home to Papa and Mama in Amberville. Coming into the city from Hillevie and Lakestead was such liberation that the trip back on Monday morning was sheer torture. I whined about wanting to quit. Every weekend I whined, but Papa was rock solid. Now he’d finally gotten me a job, he said, and now I had to show that I could endure. But once, out of all the times that I nagged him and tried to describe how indescrib
ably miserable things were for me as a nurse, I happened to mention Teddy Bear’s name. And even who Teddy Bear’s mother was. That changed everything. From brushing me and my nagging aside as though I were a little fruit fly, Papa suddenly became extremely interested. At first I didn’t realize why, but later I understood. Rhinoceros Edda. A contact that led straight into Mollisan Town’s political network would open enormous opportunities for Papa. Now I would never get to quit. I cursed myself and wondered how I could have been so dense. Perhaps some of the idiots out at Lakestead were contagious? Papa drove me to the bus the following Monday himself, and he made it completely clear that I should take especially good care of Teddy.

What happened then wasn’t my fault. I don’t really know how it came about. I’m not interested in politics, I’m not interested in clever plans and long, convoluted chains of thought. Sometimes I think that’s what gets my parents to remain a couple. Each of them, in their own way, seems immensely fascinated by keeping track of such things. Figuring out that if She does this, He is going to do that, which leads to She doing that while Her Cousin does this. That kind of endless speculation in people’s futures. I don’t give a damn about what everyone’s up to; personally they can do what they want, and where it concerns the Bear twins it simply turned out as it did. I couldn’t help that both of them fell in love with me.

It was less surprising that Teddy Bear should maintain that he loved me. That was part of his disease profile, the doctors said. I didn’t really know what to do when Teddy confessed his love, so I asked the doctors for advice. They smiled with embarrassment and gave each other conspiratorial glances and asked me to excuse them but I shouldn’t take Teddy’s tokens of love seriously. It was not me, Emma Rabbit, he loved, but more what he imagined that I stood
for. He had designated me as some sort of object of goodness and tenderness, security and consolation; that was what the doctors said. The only thing to do, they advised me, was, as usual, to agree with the patient. This applied to everyone who was admitted to Lakestead House. Don’t end up in any conflicts, agree with or ignore their peculiarities. So I kept on working as usual. Made Teddy’s bed and cleaned his room in the morning. Saw to it that he took his tablets and ate his food. Listened to all of his thoughts and agreed with most of them. But not in some sad, passive way; on the contrary, I gladly took part in the conversation. Teddy had a sense of humor and was actually rather wise. But when he descended into strange arguments about evil and goodness, I tried to divert him. Often I succeeded. What I had the most difficulty overlooking was when he mixed up his own life with his twin brother’s. Then I really had to concentrate so as not to say something stupid. Eric Bear came to visit Teddy at some point every week, and often Eric talked about his job. I couldn’t help that I happened to hear their conversations, it wasn’t as though they were whispering or tried to be secretive. And when Eric left, Teddy might repeat Eric’s words later the same day as though they were his own. He quite simply borrowed Eric’s life. I knew exactly why that in particular made me so ill at ease. It was the clearest sign of how sick Teddy really was, and of course that made all my conversations with him become less interesting.

Out in reception I set up a new time with the dog, who I am now rather sure is some sort of panda. This is not a return visit, but rather a time for the procedure itself. The panda and I agree on a date at the beginning of September. I don’t see a trace of the haughty lion. But I follow her example, and when I pass by those waiting in the outer waiting room I stick my nose up in the air. I don’t see the
animals in the lounge suite or by the aquarium but rather stare straight toward the outside door. In a few seconds I’m out on the stairway and on my way down toward the street. I can’t maintain that it feels good to be mixed up with the old, worn-out wrecks sitting in Dr. Bee Sharm’s reception. It feels liberating to get out of there.

But I must complete this train of thought. It wasn’t particularly strange that Teddy Bear fell in love, nor was it something to take seriously. That Eric Bear also fell in love with me was more odd. Personally I’ve never been in love. Neither when I was little and went to school nor since. I don’t know why. There was a time when I was sorry that it was like that; I felt isolated and different in a bad way. But finally you have to accept yourself for who you are. For good and bad, as Teddy would have said. Since I’m not the romantic type, I haven’t incited especially many romantic feelings in the animals in my vicinity, either. Now and then, of course. I’m not ugly. But Eric’s courtship surprised me. We didn’t know each other, he’d only seen me when I was taking care of Teddy out at Lakestead, and I suspected that above all it was Teddy’s description of me that aroused Eric’s interest. We greeted each other, exchanged a few words when we met in the corridors up on the nursing unit, but no more than that. Nevertheless he asked if I wanted to go out with him, and when I didn’t answer immediately he flattered me so crudely that I was astonished. We were in the assembly hall one flight up, where the patients sometimes drank coffee in the afternoon. Only he and I were there. He was brazen and insistent, but at the same time rather cute, and he smelled nice. We went out a few times. It was no more than that, a way to pass the time in my monotonous, work-filled life that Papa refused to let me out of. However much I complained and swore, he sent me back to Lakestead every Monday.

At last I figured it out. I don’t intend to maintain that it was my own ingenious plan, but when Eric Bear proposed to me after only a few months—which, to say the least, came as a surprise—I realized that this might actually be my salvation. If I said yes to the proposal, I would have to leave my job as a nurse. Papa would be jubilant, his only cub would marry into the ministry, and with that I had achieved more in my life than he had ever hoped for. Of course I couldn’t foresee all the secretiveness that would ensue. Papa was sure that Eric would call off the engagement if he found out who my papa was; I was sure of the opposite. But it turned out as Papa wished, as usual. I said that my papa was dead.

I still don’t know how it happened that Teddy proposed to me two days after Eric. True, they were twins, so perhaps it was a coincidence. Or else Teddy heard what had happened and didn’t want to be worse than his brother. If there is anything I regret…or perhaps don’t regret, but if there is something I’m not terribly content with, it’s the entire charade with Teddy. It felt completely wrong to pretend. But all the doctors told me to do it, and Eric told me to do it, and, of course: Papa threatened all sorts of things if I didn’t see to it to wind up in the church with one of Rhinoceros’s cubs. The deacon wanted it, too. We fooled Teddy. Penguin Odenrick play-acted. He had a serious talk with Teddy and me for several hours, as though he was really going to marry us. And later the same day the whole procedure was repeated, but then with Eric and me. It was weird. Especially because the twins were more or less identical in appearance. Odenrick mostly seemed to think it was funny. Eric, I believe, did it for Teddy’s sake. I did it mostly for my own, and a little for Papa’s sake. I got married to Eric, I avoided working at Lakestead House, and Eric never found out that he’d married the cub of a gangster king.

I never believed that our marriage would last as long as
it has. I saw it mostly as a way of getting out of being a nurse. Can it be that it hasn’t fallen apart because I’ve never really cared about it? Sometimes when I’m talking with my friends, I think that might be so. All the others seem so filled up with their love. They take betrayal so hard—both their own and their spouse’s. Personally I could care less about either.

My life works well. And with a freshening up of my knees, there’s nothing to complain about.

T
hrough the window opening in Archdeacon Odenrick’s office, Eric Bear could see that the clouds in the sky were about to break up, and he knew he had to hurry. Soon Sam and Tom-Tom would arrive.

Archdeacon Odenrick stood leaning against the door, but he had no intention of leaving. For the past few minutes he’d been wandering restlessly back and forth on the small floor area between the door and the desk, to the right of the armchair where Eric was sitting. The penguin had let so much pent-up frustration run out into his legs that he was getting out of breath as a result. Now he was leaning against the door to gather strength. He was breathing with an open mouth; the odor of old mustard and parsley spread around the room. Eric Bear’s provocations had gone on for almost twenty minutes, and if it weren’t for Eric’s close relationship to the archdeacon, and the archdeacon’s close relationship to Eric and his family, the attacks would perhaps have been possible to shake off. But slowly the bear found ways through the pious defenses.

“This is meaningless,” hissed the penguin. “You’re still not listening.”

“It was you who taught me to let be,” Eric smiled. “But I’m making myself important, right? Isn’t the reason that you, Archdeacon, don’t need to listen to criticism is that you and Magnus are so terribly close to each other? I’m not. I ought to be humble. Between the archdeacon and Magnus there is…yes, there’s hardly any difference at all.”

Eric remained seated on the edge of the armchair before the desk; it no longer felt quite so uncomfortable. The conversation had been rancorous, but nevertheless it moved forward with an implacable logic. The archdeacon was driven by a lust for power that he would be ashamed of when it was exposed. But like all stuffed animals, he basically wanted to be loved, and if that wasn’t possible, then he at least demanded to be understood. That was his weak point.

The penguin fixed his eyes on the bear.

“What do you want? Really?”

“Remove one name from the list,” the bear answered simply. “To start with.”

He had revised his request; he had to start somewhere.

“I stole clothes that I packed as a young confirmand,” Eric repeated. “Rat Ruth checks off the names on the clothing lists. But you don’t need to be a master detective to understand how it fits together.”

The archdeacon was breathing heavily, and finally he let a hissing whisper grow into a shout. “Yes, of course it’s me!”

Now it had been said, once and for all.

“Of course you’re right, Bear. I’m the one who makes the list.”

And Archdeacon Odenrick laughed. This was the first time Eric had heard the archdeacon laugh. The sound was jerky and dry; it came from the penguin’s throat.

“This has nothing to do with me, you stupid bear,” hissed
Odenrick. “You sit there and look like it was something I thought up. Stupidities. This is a task that goes along with the office. The archdeacon of Mollisan Town has always made the lists. That is our function, we are Magnus’s implement. Justly measuring out the lives of animals can’t be turned over to anyone else.”

These were words that had waited to be spoken. The syllables followed one another, dominoes set up long ago that finally fell into place. Odenrick sat down, relieved and at the same time agitated. Eric remained silent. He knew that he’d broken a logjam. He sneaked a peek out through the opening behind the archdeacon. The clouds had still not broken up. But there couldn’t be many minutes remaining now.

Archdeacon Odenrick’s forehead creased, and smoothed out, like the waves on the sea; under them thoughts were wandering back and forth. When he finally decided to speak, he did it with a calm and measured voice which was gradually filled with greater and greater passion. He spoke as much to himself as to Eric Bear.

Odenrick told how the tradition of the lists had been inherited through the centuries. From having once been a secondary occupation for the archdeacon, over time the Death Lists had come to be the very heart of the office. And what Eric had heard was true, that every year one chosen animal was pardoned. It was the archdeacon’s responsibility and duty to do so, a reminder of the Great Mercy.

Penguin Odenrick opened wide the door to his innermost self. And the satisfaction the archdeacon experienced as he now parted with these deep, chafing truths caused him to go deeper and deeper into the details around how the Death List functioned and how the power of the church finally came to rest on this list. How its function governed and maintained the norms of society, completely in line with
what Eric Bear himself had been thinking an hour or so earlier, en route to the cathedral.

Without the promise of a life to come, the church would lose its stature, said Odenrick in a loud, theatrical voice. Without the promise of a life to come, the laws that formed the basis of society would become incomprehensible.

“Because the stuffed animals that you and I encounter every day are basically simple fools who are helplessly guided by their pathetic attempts to escape from time and death.”

Only in one point, Eric realized as he sat silently and tried to keep from being disgusted by the condescension with which the archdeacon referred to his world, was what Odenrick said a surprise, and a disappointment.

“There is an additional list.”

Odenrick nodded with feigned reflection and pointed toward his head with the tip of his wing.

“There is an additional list, which is even more significant than the one we’ve been talking about up to now. It’s the list of those who should be removed, the day their names end up on the Death List.”

His tone of voice remained droning, as if he were speaking to a large audience.

“But if you don’t want them to die, why do you write them up?” Eric asked with sincere astonishment.

It was the first thing he’d said in almost ten minutes.

“Because otherwise I couldn’t remove them,” the archdeacon laughed scornfully. “Otherwise Magnus would not be able to remind us of His mercy.”

And his laughter sounded as though it hurt. This time he laughed so long that finally there didn’t seem to be any connection between the sound and what he’d said, and Eric felt sincerely sorry on the archdeacon’s account. A lunatic was sitting on the other side of the desk. The bear looked
out again through the window opening. Sam and Tom-Tom ought to be here quite soon.

“And you,” Odenrick snorted between the convulsions that he tried to get past without succeeding, “you are never, ever getting at the list in my head.”

And the thought of the opposite was apparently so ridiculous to the archdeacon that his desperate cheerfulness received fresh nourishment. He coughed forth another laugh, and the archdeacon was compelled to scream in order to make himself heard: “Because you’re completely insignificant!”

Eric nodded to himself. Imagining that the archdeacon would insert some minor lies into the middle of this ejaculation of truth was completely unlikely. This was not the evening for circumlocutions. The archdeacon’s power included no more than a single reprieve per year. Eric would not be able to remove both of them, so he was forced to do the impossible.

He was forced to choose between Teddy and Emma.

“What you’ve told me makes me anything other than insignificant,” the bear replied quietly. “You’ve made me powerful. That’s worth more than even you can pay.”

“You know nothing!” screamed Odenrick. “Everything you’ve heard are only fever dreams. You are only one of thousands of animals who’ve tried to reveal the origin of the Death List, one of tens of thousands of animals through the centuries who’ve tried to become immortal by removing their own or someone else’s name. You know nothing, for in the same moment that you leave here, this conversation has never taken place. If you ask me, you’ve never even been here.”

Eric looked out through the window and seemed to perceive the sound of the engine of a gray Volga. Perhaps he was imagining things?

“I think neither you nor I can fathom what would happen
if this gets out,” Eric continued with a calm that stood in such contrast to the archdeacon’s theatrical gestures and outbursts that it seemed almost inappropriate. “If everything you’ve said about the list’s far-reaching significance holds up, what would happen if the animals in the city knew that it was you who arbitrarily wrote down their names on a piece of paper?”

“You cannot challenge me,” screamed the archdeacon, sounding sincerely surprised. “You cannot challenge me. Haven’t you understood a thing? Next week I’ll sit down here and write the next list. Perhaps your name will be on it. You cannot challenge me.”

The archdeacon’s laughter changed into a dry cough.

“Of course I understand,” said Eric Bear implacably. “I already said that when I arrived. I understand more than you want to know. That’s my payment. Your list, the one you have in your head, of animals to pardon, you may postpone it one year. This year you have to remove the name I ask you to remove. Otherwise the animals in the city are going to find out what’s been going on.”

“But this is…”

“Ah,” said Eric, nodding toward one of the window openings, “here come Sam and Tom-Tom. I don’t know if you know them, they’re just as insignificant as I am.”

At the same time as Sam Gazelle parked the gray Volga on one of the cathedral’s cross streets, the final clouds broke up and the half-moon was hanging up there, crystal clear, in the black sky. Through the window the penguin and the bear both saw Sam get out of the car, holding up a piece of paper.

“Do you see?” asked Eric. “Those are your handwritten Death Lists. Sam and Tom-Tom have visited Dorothy, you know. And Dorothy, she has a sense of orderliness, she saves everything. Even your original manuscripts, before she redoes them into catalogues of used clothing.”

The gazelle shut the
car door after him but continued waving the paper the way he’d been told to. Along with Tom-Tom Crow he walked slowly toward the cathedral and the unobtrusive door that Eric had promised was there, even if it couldn’t be seen from a distance.

“What should we do when he sees that this is a frigging invitation list you’re waving around?” asked Tom-Tom.

“No idea,” answered Sam.

“I should have killed the owl instead,” the crow said regretfully.

“Sweetheart, that wouldn’t have helped, either,” said Sam. “Presumably this is still just a deadend.”

“You swine,” hissed Penguin
Odenrick.

The archdeacon was standing with his back toward Eric, staring out through the window opening onto the street. He stood stiff as a block of salt. Even from faraway he could see that it was the church’s paper with his own characteristic handwriting the gazelle was holding in his hooves.

“You don’t understand what you’re risking,” the penguin hissed warningly at the bear without turning around. “These are structures that have been built up through the centuries. This is a world order that knows no alternative.”

“We’re risking nothing,” replied Eric, unimpressed by the big words. “You give me the list, I remove one name, you tell the rat, and then you’ll get your manuscripts back the day after tomorrow.”

“That’s much too short notice,” whispered the archdeacon without taking his eyes from the gazelle and the crow, who slowly continued their walk toward the church. “I can’t do it.”

“You’ll manage,” Eric promised.

“How could I rely on you?” asked Odenrick, finally turning around.

Something in the archdeacon’s eyes had gone out.

“How could you not?” asked the bear.

They remained standing like that for a few brief moments, before the penguin sat down heavily at the desk and in the same movement bent over to pull out one of the drawers. He took out a copy of the packing slip that had come with the latest weekly delivery of clothes to the Garbage Dump, set the paper on the table, turned in the bear’s direction, and pushed it over.

“I’m tired,” he confessed. “I don’t have the energy to think.”

Eric remained silent. He took one of the pens that was in the penholder on the desk and searched along the row of names.

One whose life he rescued at the cost of the other. It was the most difficult moment in his life.

“I never want to hear this mentioned again,” said the archdeacon while Eric found the name he was looking for, and drew a broad stroke through it.

“Never again,” repeated the archdeacon.

The bear pushed the packing slip back to Odenrick, set aside the pen, and got up from the armchair. Without another word he turned around and left the archdeacon’s office.

Sam and Tom-Tom stood
chatting in the street as Eric came out. He greeted them with a nod which perhaps was a kind of thanks, but he said nothing. With rapid steps he went over to the parked car. The gazelle and the crow were forced to jog to catch up.

“How did it go?” asked Tom-Tom.

But Eric Bear didn’t answer; he sat in the backseat of the car and shut the door.

“Presumably not so good, huh?” said Tom-Tom to the gazelle before they opened the front doors and joined Eric.

The gazelle shrugged his shoulders. Tom-Tom started the car.

“Eric, dear, we didn’t get hold of any manuscript,” said Sam. “She maintained that she had no idea about Death Lists and gave us an invitation list instead.”

“Where are we going?” asked Tom-Tom.

“Now we’re going home,” said Eric Bear.