Amberville (2 page)

“But I—”

Nicholas Dove interrupted him by getting up from the armchair. A terrible crash was heard. Eric guessed that it was the glass case with the crystal glasses that had fallen to the floor.

“Now we’re leaving!” shouted the dove.

It immediately became silent in the dining room, and both apes came trotting out to the living room.

Dove took a few steps toward the hall, but remembered what he’d forgotten and turned around.

“It’s actually rather simple,” he said, looking coldly at Eric Bear who remained seated on the sofa. “If the Chauffeurs fetch me, then my gorillas will fetch your beloved Emma Rabbit. And tear her to pieces.”

The dove didn’t stay behind to see how his threat affected the bear. He preceded the gorillas out to the hall. Eric was incapable of moving from the spot.

“Good luck!” the squeaky voice was heard to say from the stairway.

E
ric devoted the day to putting things in order on Uxbridge Street. He and Emma lived in a true showcase apartment three flights up in one of Amberville’s older, blue, historically registered buildings. Actually it was indefensible that Eric had settled down in his childhood Amberville. He ought to have done as his creative friends had and bought something less ostentatious—but equally expensive—in one of the multicultural neighborhoods in north Tourquai. Or, even better, remodeled a loft in Yok. That would have been in accord with his image: a rebel in the business world with a mysterious past.

From his fifteenth to his nineteenth year Eric Bear lived at Casino Monokowski, one of the illegal establishments in Amberville which had its counterparts in the other districts. He slept where there was room, in a bed or under a table, on a couch or on a toilet; he wasn’t sensitive in that respect. Most often the drugs made him pleasantly closed off; he could have fallen asleep on top of one of the roulette tables as well. He kept his possessions in a plastic bag in a cupboard in the employee dressing room. His best friend, Sam
Gazelle, carried the key to the cupboard in his vest pocket. Eric used the cupboard so seldom that betweentimes he forgot what was in it.

During that period Eric was living on Nicholas Dove’s terms. Of this he was constantly reminded. The jobs he got were of varying degrees of difficulty. The assignments never came from Dove personally, but nonetheless there was no mistaking who was making the decisions. It might be a matter of running errands—carrying sealed envelopes that contained bundles of currency, or small packages with drugs (wrapped in so much thick, beige tape that sharp scissors or knives were required to get them open) from one corner of the casino to the other. But it might just as well be a matter of helping Sam lure money from johns in the corridor or breaking his back for an entire day as a busboy, if there were many who called in sick. Sometimes he did the more unpleasant things, such as working in the john-rooms or acting as a lookout while the gorillas did their job.

In exchange he got almost unlimited credit at the gaming tables.

In exchange he got food and shelter.

The young Eric Bear didn’t complain.

But with each new marker he bought at the casino’s bank and for every white pill he rinsed down with alcohol in one of the bars, he took yet another step toward the woeful end for which he seemed predestined. If it hadn’t been for Emma Rabbit, the red pickup would have picked up Eric Bear before his twentieth birthday.

The first time he
saw her she was standing in front of a window that looked out over the sea. In her smile was a challenge he couldn’t resist. She was dressed in white. It was as though the image of Emma Rabbit was composed by an advertising designer. It was as though he’d discovered her.

It is said that love conquers all.

It does.

Starting that day, and every day since, Eric Bear had loved Emma with pain, trust, passion, and self-annihilating restlessness that he couldn’t control. When she was successful, his happiness felt no limits. When things went against her, his helplessness was painful.

She didn’t like that.

She quarreled with him and accused him of taking over her feelings. She said that he was smothering her, that he was erasing the boundaries between their lives. She said that wasn’t the way you showed love.

If he’d had an opportunity, he would gladly have loved her in some other way. But where Emma was concerned, reason was out of the running. He reacted like a little cub, instinctively and without reflection. It had always been that way, and so it would remain.

While Eric Bear was cleaning away the traces of what had happened and thinking up reasonable explanations for why the hallway and dining room furniture were missing (to gain time he thought about saying that he had loaned out the hall furniture for a photography shoot and that the dining room furniture had been sent off for refinishing), he realized he had no alternative.

He was compelled to try to find out if there was a Death List, and if such was the case, to remove Dove’s name.

He didn’t know how much time he had, but he suspected that time was short. He would not succeed on his own.

Once again on this April day in the life of the middle-aged bear his thoughts returned to the bohemian existence of his youth. None of the comfortable project managers, TV commercial directors, or spoiled marketing executives with whom he hobnobbed nowadays would be able to help him with the mission Nicholas Dove had given him. He would be forced to call together the old gang.

G
rand Divino was a paradise for anyone who thought they could afford to throw away money. Fashion, food, home decor, or culture, most everything was to be found at Grand Divino. An overabundance was offered for sale in a magnificent setting of marble, velvet, oak, and glass; a department store had been created which was at the same time welcoming and spacious. The building was salmon pink; the massive entryway stood open from the Forenoon Weather to the Evening Weather. When Eric Bear stepped into the perfume counters’ sea of glass and mirrors, he was one of the day’s first customers.

As usual, the aromas made him dizzy. Intoxicated by lavender and mint, musk and lily of the valley, he remained standing for a few extended moments of daydreams about Emma Rabbit. They were lying in the tall, green grass under a summer sky, embracing each other and saying the sort of things you only say to your beloved. It was as if he’d let himself be taken in by his own slogans. “Giselle—a scent of spring.” Or “Number 3 from Max Loya—dreams of love.” He liked perfumes and had worked with many of the major
brands. He had even worked with products he didn’t like, but actually that didn’t make any great difference. What he liked most of all was success. He realized that this was not a charming feature of his character, and tried to gloss over it as much as possible.

But he wasn’t a good liar, and Emma had always been able to unmask him. She hadn’t believed what he’d said about the furniture yesterday evening. She had accepted all his inventions for the sake of household peace, but this morning she had gone on the attack: even a cub would realize that he’d been lying!

Eric responded to the best of his ability. Hard-pressed, he nonetheless decided not to tell the truth. The truth would not make anything better.

Eric Bear started breathing through his mouth. In that way he avoided the aromas of the seductive perfumes and regained his power to act. With decisive steps he walked over toward the escalators and went up to the fifth floor. There were elevators at Grand Divino as well, but he could never remember where they were. It was the escalators, constructed of glass, plastic, and Plexiglas, that were the backbone of the department store. Their complicated mechanisms were exposed in what looked like glass drawers on the underside, and like perpetual-motion machines they kept the urge to buy going from morning to evening. Being slowly lifted up toward Grand Divino’s sky roof, where small lamp-stars sparkled against a dark-blue background, gave a sense of divinity. After that it appeared small-minded to get cold feet if a pair of boots cost a few thousand.

On the fifth floor, to the right of the beds and linens, was the sewing notions department. And farthest in, alongside the knitting needles and yarn, the massive Tom-Tom Crow sat on a stool. He was a peculiar sight. He was sitting behind a long, white table, sorting sewing needles according to eye size. The crow’s black form was hunched over the table, and
he used the long feathers farthest out on the fingerbones for this detail work. It was not least thanks to the red spot on the underside of his beak—apparently a manufacturing defect—that Eric recognized his old friend. The crow was so large that the table in front of him appeared to belong in a preschool.

There were two more clerks in the sewing notions department, a pair of sows getting on in years whom Eric didn’t notice at first. One of them was standing, unobtrusively folding flowery pieces of cloth not far from Tom-Tom; the other was over at the register, ironing aprons marked down twenty percent.

Complete calm prevailed in the department. Eric Bear placed himself at a safe distance, in the shelter of a bunk bed, and gathered courage. It seemed almost impossible that the slow needle-sorter was the same bird Eric had once known. Twenty years earlier the crow had been able to break two bricks between his wings. Back then Eric had laughed many times at the poor things who disturbed Tom-Tom by mistake when he sat absorbed in his thoughts; you couldn’t imagine a more meaningless way to have an arm torn off. Most often Tom-Tom Crow was nicer than most, but sometimes he exploded in a madness that he couldn’t control.

And now? Could the crow’s loyalty still be counted on?

Eric took a few cautious steps into the sewing notions department and carefully avoided landing in the ironing sow’s way. As Eric passed the embroideries, the crow looked up from his needles. For a fraction of a second a surprised worry was seen in his small, black eyes. Slowly he pushed the needles aside and got up from the stool.

“I’ll be damned!” he burst out.

The crow ran over, taking the bear in his arms and lifting him up from the floor in a mighty embrace that caused Eric to laugh. Above all in relief, but also because he realized how ridiculous this had to appear.

After the friends exchanged the phrases that two old friends exchange when they haven’t seen each other for a long time, Tom-Tom sat down on his stool and resumed his sorting. Eric leaned toward the table and watched for a while.

“And how the hell did you end up here?” he finally asked.

The swearword was a clumsy attempt to ingratiate himself. Nowadays Eric Bear swore so seldom that it rang falsely when he tried.

“What do you mean?” asked the crow.

“Yes…well,” said Eric, less cocksure, “how did you end up here…knitting and crocheting and…sows?”

“Josephine and Nadine,” said Tom-Tom, smiling, “are the flipping best. They help me with the embroideries. At home I’m working on a big frigging wall hanging. It’s for the bedroom. It’s going to be a fantasy landscape. Stay for lunch, then I can show you. I have the sketches here somewhere…”

Tom-Tom looked around with uncertainty. His sketches were somewhere.

“To be honest,” said Eric, “I was thinking about freeing you from lunch. For good.”

“There’s nothing wrong with lunch,” said Tom-Tom. “They have an employee lunchroom in the basement. Today there’s vegetable soup. Maybe it doesn’t sound so frigging cool, but it’s better than you might think.”

“I thought we could do a thing together,” said Eric. “You and me and Sam and Snake.”

“A thing?” repeated Tom-Tom.

Eric had a hard time reading the crow’s tone of voice. He nodded.

“All four of us?” asked Tom-Tom.

Eric nodded again.

“Snake is never going to join in,” objected the crow. “I
ran into him a few years ago, here at the department store. He pretended not to recognize me. I thought it was a frigging joke, I thought…I called him a few times, but he never answered.”

“Snake will join in,” Eric assured him.

“You guarantee?”

“I guarantee.”

“I’ll be damned,” said Tom-Tom.

The crow became absorbed in thought.

“Economically you’ll be set for the rest of your life,” Eric interjected without having any idea of how he could fulfill that promise.

“You say so?”

“I say so.”

“And if it goes to hell?” asked Tom-Tom, wise from experience.

“Then it goes to hell,” confirmed Eric.

The crow nodded as though something profound had been said, and sank into reflection. When Eric started to doubt whether Tom-Tom even recalled what he was thinking about, the crow got up from the stool. It was a slow movement, not hesitant but not aggressive either.

“What the hell,” he said. “Let’s go, then.”

“Good,” answered Eric without sounding surprised.

Tom-Tom undid the apron which everyone in the sewing notions department was forced to wear. He folded it up neatly and placed it next to the needles.

“Nadine,” he called to the nearest sow. “Nadine, you’ll have to sort the needles. I’m quitting.”

Nadine looked confused. She must have quickly found herself, however, for as Eric and Tom-Tom reached the escalators on the fifth floor their way was obstructed by a stern walrus. It was the department head. He riveted his gray eyes on the crow and asked what was going on.

“I’m quitting now,” Tom-Tom answered amiably.

“I don’t think so,” the walrus hissed authoritatively. “You can’t just leave your job like that. There is something called notice. There is something called responsibility.”

This self-importance caused both Eric and Tom-Tom to break into a smile. The memories of youthful adventures returned to them both, of days that would never come back and that the Vaseline-coated lens of time had made infinitely lovely.

“Toss him,” said Eric.

“You think so?” asked Tom-Tom.

“I think so,” Eric nodded.

Whereupon Tom-Tom took a step forward, pressed his claws down into the parquet floor to get a solid stance, and then lifted the walrus from the floor and heaved him off into the bed department, where he landed on a pile of mattresses that fell over with a leisurely crash.

“Just like before, eh?” laughed Tom-Tom, proceeding calmly to the escalators.

Eric Bear didn’t dare admit even to himself how bubblingly, inappropriately happy he felt.

“Do we have time to swing by the employee lunchroom before we take off?” asked Tom-Tom. “It would be a shame to miss out on that frigging vegetable soup.”