Amberville (22 page)

“Take him to his friends,” ordered Ruth. “And throw them out of here, all four of them. Their business is going to remain unfinished. Eric Bear, to find a treasure, the treasure has to be buried.”

And with that the bats took a rough hold of his shoulders and led him away.

At the same moment
as he stepped back out into the cool night the stench struck him. Eric Bear had nearly forgotten about it inside with the rat. Certainly it smelled of mold and slime inside the residence as well, but it was nothing compared to the stench here at the top of the Garbage Dump. Instinct caused him to start breathing through his mouth, and thereby he released an involuntary sigh. The bats’ grip on his shoulders was achingly tight, and despite the fact that he obeyed their slightest suggestion of where and how fast he should walk, they held him just as hard the whole time. He shuddered at the thought of the
long march back to the ravine where Sam, Tom-Tom, and Snake were waiting.

Then these words came as though out of nowhere: “Release him.”

The bats stopped in their tracks.

The deep voice that had spoken these words was accustomed to being obeyed. In the next second, Eric realized that they had already released him. From the frying pan right into the fire. Eric, too, had recognized the harsh voice.

Hyena Bataille.

“You can go,” said Bataille, now at an angle behind them, and the bats were gone without Eric seeing how it happened.

He stood dead still. Should he run? No one was holding him back, and the darkness might conceal him. If Bataille caught up with him? Strength, setting, and speed were in the hyena’s favor; all Eric could hope for was luck.

That would scarcely be enough.

“We have something to talk about,” said Bataille. “But not here.”

The bear remained motionless. He had no idea what the hyena meant, but he sensed that the words were intended to distract or possibly fool him.

Then Bataille was standing there, less than a meter away.

“Follow me,” he said.

He turned around and started walking.

It was now or never.

With a leap the bear would catch up with the hyena, onto him, over him. Possibly Eric could get his paws around his neck, around his throat…

Bataille turned around. “Are you coming?”

And when Eric saw the hyena’s face and it became clear to him that this truly was the legendary Hyena Bataille, not
some little mole in the schoolyard, he also realized how ludicrous the thought had been. Flee? Overpower Bataille?

Eric nodded and followed.

Bataille led the bear away from the Garbage Town, back toward the ravine where his friends were prisoners. After a little more than five minutes they passed a windmill-like propeller that was fastened to a low tower. The hyena pointed.

“This way.”

Under the propeller was a hovel in which there was a three-legged table and two gray corduroy armchairs. Bataille made a gesture toward the bear, and Eric sat down.

“I don’t know what I should say,” sighed Bataille, “but Ruth can be difficult.”

Eric nodded.

He would agree with whatever Bataille said, and he would reply courteously to whatever question was asked. Keeping yourself alive was more important than anything else. Without him, who would rescue Emma and Teddy?

“I’ve known her for…I don’t know how many years,” said Bataille in his dark, harsh voice. “And yet…I don’t know.”

Eric nodded again, then shook his head. He hoped that these were movements that were in agreement with Bataille’s state of mind and insinuations.

“If I kill all four of you,” said Bataille, “then…I don’t know. Perhaps she won’t give a damn? But, then…you two sit on some board together?”

“A Helping Hand,” confirmed Eric.

The hyena nodded. Thought about it.

“I’m taking no risks. She gave me the task of bringing you to your friends and releasing all of you. But I can’t let the snake go now that he’s finally come. I want Marek.”

Eric stared. “Marek?”

“But that’s not what she ordered me to do. So I need your
permission, Bear. I don’t intend to get in trouble with the rat.”

Hyena nodded. “Give me your blessing, say that you allowed me to take Marek. That will be enough for her, it’s you she’s interested in. Then you’ll get something from me.”

“But…I…”

“For I know who writes the Death List,” said Hyena Bataille.

I
always had time to have coffee at Nick’s on brick-red Uxbridge Street. If I didn’t do anything else when I went into the city, at least I did that. Nick steamed the milk scalding hot and baked his apple muffins with cardamom. He worked the register himself in front of shelves filled with bread loaves and baguettes. We’d gotten to know each other over the years. We said hello.

I sat in the first booth, by the window facing the street. It was always unoccupied. Other regulars preferred sitting in the booths farther in. The place was long and narrow and all the booths looked alike. A round table, fastened to the floor, with a white laminated surface. A red leather couch that encircled the table in a U shape. Tall backrests that created a sense of isolation. The regular customers came to Nick’s for isolation.

The lighting isn’t worth mentioning.

With the spoon I poked a hole through the milk foam, watching warm vapors from the coffee rise up toward the ceiling. Like a thought.

Across from Nick’s is the building where my twin brother, Eric, and my wife, Emma Rabbit, live.

Number 32 Uxbridge Street. They live on the fourth floor. The windows that face the street are from the living room and dining room. From my booth in the café I might see them walking across the parquet floor.

The day I’m going to tell about, I couldn’t see them through the windows.

The day I’m going to tell about was twenty-two days ago.

The day I’m going to tell about, a powerful red gorilla came out of the entryway to number 32 Uxbridge Street. This occurred as I took a bite of my muffin, which included a large piece of apple. The gorilla held open the door, and out onto the street stepped a well-dressed dove. After the dove followed yet another gorilla. I was certain that this peculiar company did not live in the building, because I knew who lived there. The gorillas and the dove pointed across the street, directly at me where I was sitting on the seat by the window. They couldn’t see me. You couldn’t see in through the windows to Nick’s Café. This was due to the reflectivity of the glass.

It was the café itself the dove was pointing at, and all three of them crossed the street with rapid steps.

Before the situation became clear to me, the little troika was standing inside Nick’s, a few meters from my booth, ordering coffee and croissants.

I pulled myself all the way in against the wall and concealed my face behind a dessert menu that was always on the table. Hidden behind types of ice cream, various toppings and flavorings, I heard, to my terror, that the dove and the gorillas were taking a place in the booth next to mine.

“That ought to have scared the shit out of the bear bastard,” said a harsh voice that must have belonged to one of the gorillas.

“Firewood out of the table,” laughed a similar voice that must have been the other gorilla’s.

“Shut up!” hissed a high-pitched voice that with certainty belonged to the dove. “Eat your croissants and keep your mouths shut.”

I could not marry Emma Rabbit.

I loved her. I’d proposed to her. The date for the wedding was set. My parents and her mother were happy. Each in their own way.

Nonetheless, I couldn’t.

It was unavoidable that Father’s story had something to do with it.

I think best after dinner.

When I’ve had a cup of coffee after eating. For dessert I eat dried figs straight from the bag, up in my room. Across from me hangs an enormous painting depicting the sea. Emma painted it a few months after we’d met, but I had it framed a few weeks ago. The painting must be three by five meters. Apart from a lighthouse far to the left, the canvas is filled by the sea and foaming waves. Hundreds of dark-blue nuances have been painted with a brush, giving the impression of never having been lifted from the canvas. The artist seems never to have hesitated. The technique suggests an aggressive impatience. It must have been inside her. Somewhere.

You see what you’re looking for.

You see the sort of things that are within yourself.

I must have known that there was something about Father. Intuitively I already knew that there was something about Father when I was very small. I knew it during my school years. This knowledge was no more than a twitch in my eyelid. No more than the ripples on the surface of the bathwater. I carried the secret around in the same way you constantly carry around the decisive moments in life.

You know about them both before and after they have taken place.

I knew about my father’s secrets. I knew that life is not for all time. I knew that in the end you always stand alone. I knew that my free will was my greatest enemy. How did I know?

I can’t explain that.

Our father, Boxer Bloom, the wisest and most just animal in our city.

When the secret was on its way to reach conscious awareness, like the sand that inexorably runs out of the hourglass, I turned the glass upside down again. Then I did the same thing again and again and again. But with the years I didn’t have the strength to resist.

Was it maturity? Perhaps simply fatigue? It wasn’t courage.

I had learned to see through the underlying structures of society. On the other hand, the breeze in my fur in the twilight can go right by me. I don’t perceive the aroma of boxwood or the sun’s warmth against my nose.

Shame hides when we’re not searching for it.

Shame’s best hiding place is right in front of our eyes.

Father always worked late. This wasn’t strange. It was better to correct the pupils’ papers at the office than to drag everything home. There were conferences to prepare for and carry out. A series of social activities demanded his presence.

It happened that I saw him sitting in the car on the school’s parking lot, conversing with one of the other teachers. Perhaps it was a female teacher? That wasn’t strange. A rector was no better than his teachers. A rector’s priorities must be respected.

On one occasion they got out of the car just as I was walking across the parking lot. I didn’t ask him why they’d been sitting in the car.

I never asked him.

It was my fault, and I am living with that.

There are philosophers who maintain that evil is passivity. In our secularized, transparent, and democratic city, passivity is the only kind of evil that remains. All others have been rooted out. Taken into custody. All other kinds of evil can be controlled and limited.

So it’s said.

Rhetoric. Empty rhetoric. Nothing is new under the sun.

The unwillingness to help a stranger has to do with laziness. It has to do with cowardice. The result of laziness and cowardice is passivity, but we can read about the reasons behind it in theology.

Laziness and cowardice.

I was not blind to my shortcomings. Nonetheless, I wasn’t able to confront Father. You speak of codependency with regard to substance abuse. Those who are close to the substance abuser make themselves a part of the behavior by not confronting it. That isn’t passivity, it’s guilt.

Father’s cowardice became my cowardice.

I hope that his guilt was as hard to bear as mine.

I have excuses. There are always excuses. I was forced to transform my amazing father, the unsurpassable Rector Bloom, into a cowardly wretch who didn’t dare admit that he was unfaithful. That was asking a lot. While I was growing up I had filled the image of my father with everything I respected in life. When I realized the truth, it was not just Father who fell from his pedestal.

It was my life that came crashing down.

Eric already knew. He didn’t care. He kept silent.

I did, too. Every morning my father met my mother in the kitchen with a big smile, a warm embrace, and a cup of coffee. It was my fault that her life became false and distorted in one stroke. My fault. Not because of what I did. Because of what I refrained from doing. My passivity.

My cowardice.

Never again.

I will never again be a part of such a tragedy.

I don’t intend to react. I act.

I couldn’t get married to Emma Rabbit.

There were a number of reasons.

This was just one of them.

I had become, and intended to devote my life to remaining, a good bear.

I didn’t hear what they were talking about. After the dove’s reprimand the gorillas lowered their voices. The murmuring from the next booth was impossible to make out.

I never eavesdrop.

Usually there’s nothing to hear.

It was different at Nick’s that day. If I’d had the opportunity, I would have committed their conversation to memory. But I drank my coffee, wiped the foam from my whiskers, and gave up on hearing what they were saying. Outside the window a car or two drove past. The Morning Weather was getting old and I considered leaving the place. Usually I went to Nick’s in the afternoons. Fate and an unexpected change in my routine out at Lakestead House had caused me to go into the city right after breakfast.

When she came walking up the street from Balderton Street I didn’t recognize her at first.

It was so unexpected.

She never left the studio before noon. She lived for her art and knew that the victories were in the obstacles. If the work felt empty and sluggish she understood not to give up and go away. It was a matter of suffering through it and persevering. On the other side of difficulties was the creativity that made her forgetful of time and space. Then she could work until far into the evenings. Sometimes into the night.

She never left the studio before noon, and yet Emma
Rabbit was strolling nonchalantly on Balderton Street this morning. Astounded, I watched her direct her steps right toward Nick’s.

Wearing a long, thin coat with a fur collar. She had on high brown-leather boots with suns embroidered on the calf. She carried her head high, as she’d always done. Even though she seemed to be on her way to Nick’s I was sure I was imagining things. She would go home. It did happen that I imagined things. Now I was imagining that she was looking right into my eyes through the window toward the street that I knew was impossible to see through.

Instead of turning the corner on Uxbridge Street, she continued straight across the crosswalk at the intersection. For that reason she disappeared from my line of sight for a few moments. The following second the door to Nick’s opened, and there she stood.

Emma Rabbit.

Less than five meters away.

She could not be allowed to see me. Under no circumstances must she see me sitting here.

I improvised.

My half-eaten muffin was on the plate next to the coffee cup. With a quick movement I bumped against it. It bounced toward the seat and fell down onto the floor under the table. I produced a gesture of irritation—however, not the slightest sound—and followed the muffin down under the table. From there I saw how Emma wiggled the toe of her right boot in expectation that Nick would serve her. My muffin and I remained under the table as Emma ordered a cup of tea, paid Nick, and took her small tray and carried it past my booth.

She didn’t go far.

I heard her before I’d even managed to climb up and set myself on the couch again.

“So there you are!”

She was talking to the dove and the gorillas in the neighboring booth.

I went to see Eric. I went to see him in enemy territory. We of course had no place to meet.

The external circumstances of my life had been transformed. Right before I started at Wolle & Wolle I moved away from home. I moved out to the coast and Lakestead House. The move must have occurred before I started at the advertising agency, because when I met Emma Rabbit I was living out here.

Eric and I never saw each other at home with Mother and Father on Hillville Road. He maintained that he had regular contact with Mother. He despised Father like the plague. I saw our parents once or twice a week. We never talked about Eric. Father and I were not in agreement about everything, but we agreed on the fact that Eric hadn’t been able to hold his own against evil.

He had fallen.

Father didn’t forgive him.

I forgave him.

I went to see Eric at Casino Monokowski, despite the fact that I’d promised myself never to set my paw there again. I was desperate. I couldn’t get married to Emma Rabbit, despite the fact that I loved her.

Just like the first time, I was admitted by a doorman who mistook me for my brother. The Afternoon Weather was no more than approaching, but inside Casino Monokowski it might just as well have been midnight. I found Eric in a distant corner, at a small table that was hidden behind one of the many bar counters.

He was not surprised to see me.

“What time of day is it?” he asked.

“It’s the middle of the day,” I answered.

“Doesn’t feel like it,” he said. “I’ve got to have something to wake up.”

He called to the duck behind the bar and ordered black coffee and some type of alcohol. I presume. I shook my head, I didn’t want anything.

“Tell me how the Angels are doing,” Eric asked.

In last year’s finals the Yok Gigantes had defeated our Amberville Angels in the seventh and decisive final match. We hadn’t been that close to a victory in fourteen years. It was fourteen years ago that we’d last taken home the great goblet. Until now the season had alternated between heaven and hell.

“I’ve missed it all,” said Eric.

“It’s not impossible that it’ll happen this year,” I said. “It’s not impossible at all. Harry’s form is holding up. He’s made more goals than he did in the whole season last year. He’s on his way…”

“But defensively?” asked Eric, putting his finger on the sore spot. “Are we going to manage the defense?”

While I expanded on how I perceived this year’s team lineup, animals were circling around us. We were, and always had been, an attraction. Identical twins were unusual. The most curious were the employees of the casino. Eric’s workmates. Waiters and waitresses, croupiers and bartenders, guards and stewards. Eric didn’t pay any attention to them.

When I had exhausted the subject of the Amberville Angels as thoroughly as I could, silence fell between us. It was never uncomfortable.