Amberville (6 page)

He wanted to sort things out.

The barbarous by themselves, and the civilized by themselves.

The reliable here, and the unreliable there.

The heart knew which was which, even if the brain confused the issue with doubts.

Whatever happened, we could rely on Father keeping his promises. The ministry responsible for the Cub List had inquired as to whether our parents were really ready for a set of twins; wouldn’t it be difficult to treat the cubs alike?

Father guaranteed that on that point there was no danger. We cubs could always rely on a promise from Boxer Bloom. And by cubs, Boxer Bloom meant all the cubs that went to his school. Eric and I would start there eventually. In that respect we were no exception.

Eric’s and my room on the fourth floor was a perfect boys’ room. Our beds with their tall, white headboards, our nightstands with cute soccer lamps, and our little desks with their wheeled stools, were just about identical, exactly like us.

At first glance.

If you looked, there were differences. Small, hardly noticeable, but nonetheless undeniable differences.

I’m describing outward appearances.

Inside, an abyss was growing between us.

It happened late one evening when we were six months old; it became one of Mother’s most important memories. Mother and Father had invited some friends to dinner. It was later asserted that their many dinner parties were one of the reasons for Mother’s career. Thanks to her cooking skills, the dinner guests became eternally loyal to her. The network she created was wide-branching. Two or three evenings a week we had animals in our home. While others in the neighborhood were pottering in the garden, reading books, or being consumed by their careers, Mother prepared food for her dinner guests.

Eric and I grew up in the kitchen. In the heat from the oven that never cooled, in a throng of bubbling kettles, un-washed saucepans and bowls, recently used cutting boards and graters that smelled of garlic, parmesan, and horserad
ish left standing on benches and tables where we often discovered a lamb filet or a sliced eggplant when we picked up a plate or decided to rinse out a cup in order to fill it with hot chocolate. In the midst of this chaos stood our mother, Rhinoceros Edda, like a commander on her captain’s bridge, careful not to stir the béarnaise sauce with the wooden spoon she’d just fished out of the cauliflower pan.

Mother made no mistakes.

That evening baked cod was being served with puréed almond potatoes. The gravy was served in the gravy boat that we’d inherited from Grandmother. A silver gravy boat that was very valuable.

At the table, besides Mother and Father, sat their best friends, Mouse Weiss and her husband, Cat Jones. Penguin Odenrick was there—at that time still a deacon in the church on Hillville Road, unaware that he would soon be made a prodeacon—along with Jack Pig, whom Mother would later succeed as head of the Environmental Ministry.

It was Odenrick who heard it first.

“Excuse me,” he said in a loud voice, “but did I just hear a scream?”

Conversation ceased. Odenrick had been right. In the silence a screaming cub was heard. From up on the fourth floor a howl forced its way down to the dining room. Boxer Bloom got up. There was still explosive force in his legs after many years of soccer-playing in his younger days.

“It’s the cubs,” he said, his face pale.

He ran out of the room and up the stairs.

All of the guests, with Mother in the lead, followed.

When they came into the nursery, Father was already standing by my crib. I was the one who was screaming. I continued screaming, despite the fact that Father lifted me up and held me to him. It was silent from Eric’s bed. Nonetheless Mother took the few steps across the room in order to see to her other twin.

It was her instinct, to see to Eric first. But the suspicion that that’s the way it was—that she set one twin before the other—was, and is, the most shameful thing in Mother’s life.

Not even now will she admit it.

Nonetheless, all her friends from that time bear witness to that.

That time she relied on her intuition. Subconsciously she understood that her twins’ symbiosis was such that what one of them saw could be perceived by the other, and vice versa.

I was screaming because Eric was in danger.

Mother saw it.

“A moth!” she screamed.

Father more or less threw me down on the bed again, where I immediately fell silent. It’s unclear whether I fell silent due to Father’s brusque treatment or if I stopped screaming because I had done my duty.

With a tremendous leap Father threw himself across the room and killed the moth before anyone had time to react. With that the drama was over. It was only when the guests returned to the dining room and the cooling food that they realized what had happened.

I had saved Eric’s life.

Deacon Odenrick taught me to distinguish good from evil. The penguin was one of many deacons who worked in Amberville, but the only one with whom I came in contact.

The structure of our church is simple.

In every district of the city there are several parishes. In Amberville there are four. Working in the parishes are all-deacons, a kind of apprentice, who are paid by the church. Each parish has its own deacon who leads the organization and does most of the preaching. Among the deacons in the district, a prodeacon is chosen. In turn, the four prodeacons
of Mollisan Town have a leader, the church’s highest representative: the archdeacon in the cathedral Sagrada Bastante. No one in my surroundings would have guessed that the hard-tested Odenrick would, in time, come to be the new archdeacon in Mollisan Town.

At that time, Odenrick was completely lacking in such ambitions.

Perhaps that was why he was chosen?

The pious penguin with his worn deacon’s vestment came to visit us on our light-flame-yellow street a few times each week. Every time he came by he took time to sit a while on the edge of my or Eric’s bed and say a bedtime prayer with us. This started when we were six years old. We lay on our backs with our heads on the pillow and paws on our stomachs and closed our eyes while Father Odenrick spoke with Magnus, the creator of all things, on our behalf.

“Deliver them from evil,” the penguin prayed tenderly.

“What is evil?” I asked.

“Things that make you feel bad,” said Eric precociously, without being asked.

“So the stone I fell down on yesterday is evil?” I asked, just as impudent and precocious as my twin.

Odenrick wrinkled his gray plastic beak and became absorbed in reflection. He was sitting on the edge of my bed, and in the glow from the lamp on the nightstand I could see how his large eyes became cloudy.

“Things that make you feel bad in your heart, Teddy,” he said at last, looking down at me. “The kind of things that cause pain in your heart, inside you, are evil. The one who wants these bad things makes you sad and unhappy, and the sadder you get, the more evil the one who wishes you to feel bad is.”

As soon as he finished the sentence Odenrick heard how frightening this must have sounded to a six-year-old’s ear, and he tried at once to cheer us up.

“But thank goodness,” he said, “there are also those of us who want what is good. The church wants what is good, all believers want what is good, and with good it’s exactly the opposite. You know that someone wants what is good for you when you feel satisfied inside. When you feel well.”

“But why doesn’t everyone want to feel good?” I asked. “Why does anyone want to do something bad?”

“Because otherwise you wouldn’t know when someone was good,” said my brother Eric slyly, but his voice was trembling.

“There you’re wrong,” Odenrick smiled tenderly in Eric’s direction. “There is evil in the world, cubs. Hopefully you’ll never have to encounter it, but you should know about it. For it is going to entice you when you get older, and then you must recognize it and resist it.”

Eric had turned toward the wall. Sniffling was heard coming from his bed. Deacon Odenrick sat silently and listened. I was so surprised I didn’t know what I should say.

“Eric?” said Odenrick at last. “Is there something you want to tell?”

I felt confused. Up until that evening I’d believed that Eric and I shared everything. Feelings as well as experiences. There and then I was forced to realize that that wasn’t the case. This was at the same time a relief and a disappointment.

Penguin Odenrick and I listened together to Eric.

“It’s Samuel Pig,” Eric sobbed. “He calls me a thief. He says that I’m bad. He’s says that I’ve stolen the Ruby.”

“The Ruby?” asked Odenrick.

“That’s his red marble,” Eric explained, sniffling. “He says that he’s going to whip me. With his friends. That they’re going to give me such a whipping that I’ll never be able to walk again.”

All the cubs at preschool played marbles. For most of them it was no game, but rather completely serious. We
were cubs, but we were particularly superstitious where it concerned our marbles.

“Samuel Pig?” Odenrick repeated.

Eric nodded and tried to wipe away the tears from his cheeks.

“I know Samuel Pig’s parents,” said Odenrick. “I’ll talk with them.”

“No, no!” howled Eric, terrified. “You mustn’t say anything.”

“But Samuel can’t threaten you unpunished,” said Odenrick, and his voice was quivering with indignation. “I’ll speak with your principal.”

“No!” howled Eric again.

“But what—” Odenrick began.

“Nothing,” interrupted Eric. “It’s just that I’m scared. He’s mean, Samuel. He lies. And he fights. Promise not to say anything.”

“But I…”

“Promise?” nagged Eric.

“I promise,” said Odenrick. “We deacons have a duty to remain silent. You can count on me. I’m not going to say anything. But if Samuel so much as…”

The penguin didn’t finish his sentence. When we saw Odenrick’s threadbare appearance on the edge of my bed, we thought it was wise that he didn’t express any sort of threat.

He didn’t look as though he could live up to it.

The preschool was five blocks north. The pride of the school was the playground behind it. There we spent at least a few hours every day, most often during the Forenoon Weather.

Eric and I went to preschool because Mother wanted us to. We could have been at home, but Mother thought that the most important thing in life was to correctly
understand how to manage your social environment. We went to preschool to learn to play with others, not just ourselves.

It happened less than a week after Eric’s confession. It was a Thursday. That I know. We sang on Thursday mornings, and I liked to sing. After singing we ate the fruit we’d brought with us from home, and then it was time to go outside. There were thirty of us cubs, and it quickly became chaotic in the hall when everyone was putting on their outdoor clothes at the same time.

Eric vanished out of sight. It was not unusual; we often kept a little distance from each other. Twins have different strategies at various periods of life. At the age of six Eric and I were careful about not choosing similar clothes and keeping ourselves a little apart from each other. I used to go down to the lawn by the great oak tree where there were always a few playing soccer. I was no star. I could just as happily play defense as be goalie. This made me popular. This particular Thursday, however, I was too late. I don’t know how it happened, but when I came over to the lawn a match between two teams was already in progress. I watched for a while, but soon lost interest.

That was why I walked over toward the storage sheds.

They were a short distance away. They were simple structures where the preschool stored nets and rackets, balls and bicycles and other things that could be used for outdoor games. I knew that there were cubs who hung around behind the sheds. They could play there without the preschool staff seeing them. There were corners there where you could be in peace. But I didn’t know more than that; it was seldom that I had anything to do with cubs who had secrets.

I heard the muffled screams long before I arrived at the sheds, and I heard who was screaming.

Eric.

I started to run. When I rounded the nearest storage
building, I was out of breath. I will never forget the sight that met me.

Eric was standing upright with his back against one of the sheds. In front of Eric stood Samuel Pig, and on either side of Samuel a polar bear and an elephant whose names I didn’t know. Samuel pressed Eric against the wall of the shed with a fat fist around my twin’s neck.

“And one for Mama!” screamed the elephant who stood alongside, at the same time as he took out a marble, a little glass marble with all the colors of the rainbow, and pressed it against Eric’s lips.

Eric already had something in his mouth. When the elephant continued to press the marble against Eric’s lips, it finally had the opposite effect. Eric opened his mouth and out sprayed all the marbles the cubs had already forced in.

Samuel Pig let go of Eric so as not to get spit on his hand; Eric fell down on his knees and gasped for air like a fish. The pig showed no mercy. He kicked Eric in the stomach and screamed, “Take out the Ruby!”

Eric whimpered and sniffled. He didn’t have the Ruby, he said. This led to more kicks.

The entire course of events took no more than a few seconds. Eric was lying on the ground, crying, when I shouted, “Three against one! That’s brave.”

The elephant and the polar bear gave a start.

I’d scared them, and they took a step away from my brother. As if to deny that they’d had anything to do with him. The pig gave me a superior look.

“Go away,” he said, turning toward Eric again. “You’ve got nothing to do with this.”

“Help,” whimpered Eric.

“Two against three is at least a little better,” I continued and took a few steps forward.

I was not a champion fighter.

Actually I’d never been in a fight. I would never ever fight
again. But my twin was lying on the ground and I couldn’t do anything other than try to help him.

“Go to hell,” hissed Samuel.