by Tim Davys
These thoughts left me no peace. Existence in the forest was transformed. My patience broke down, time and again. During days that over the years had been devoted to meditation, I was now pursued by restlessness and doubt.
Living out here in the forest with him was one thing, but living here with myself…
And perhaps worst of all: I believed that I would get away with what I had done.
You now understand, disappointed reader, that my capacity for self-deception is greater than you could have believed. I thought I would get away with this, that when the paper towel was thrown away, I again had interpretive priority. I did away with the evidence to the contrary, and again my reflections about the lavishing of love were undisputed.
I have been a fool.
I am a fool.
Today is the fourteenth of April.
The first time was four hundred thirty-two days ago.
The second time was the day before yesterday.
I did not write down the words; they were not identical to those he had uttered a little more than a year ago, but the essence could not be missed. He was airing viewpoints that were as venerable as the city church itself. It was almost unpleasant to hear him. Marriage was sacred, fidelity fundamental…. I do not know where this new, reactionary vein comes from.
Was it age?
The question is justified. Maximilian had turned fifty-four, we have lived in isolation out in the forest the last twenty years, and ideas can petrify under less extreme conditions than that.
Is this conservatism—musty, without a doubt—possibly the result of something new, rather than an elucidation of something old? I mean, my interpretation of the story of the miller back then may still have been correct, and now, in old age, Maximilian may have changed his conception?
Just this thought—–this possibility, I would say—I twisted and turned yesterday, and the conclusion makes me worried, to say the least. If it is true, if Maximilian has been influenced by time in his isolation, considerably more is at stake than the simile about the miller. If Maximilian, for reasons of which I am not aware, has backed up into a conventionalism…We’ve been together every day, year in and year out, and this type of change occurs so slowly that it is impossible to discover before it is…too late…
Can he take back what he once said?
The three Retinues—which still exist, but work under far more sophisticated forms than was the case during our early, tentative years—base their meetings on texts from the Book of Similes, and in the interpretations that we have agreed on after many hours of strenuous studies and, sometimes, quarrels.
Can Maximilian take back what he has said?
What would happen to all the stuffed animals who—like myself—got support and power from those words about faith, hope, and love that were Maximilian’s? We who have not let ourselves be frightened by the church’s threatening images of the judging Magnus and the enticing Malitte, we who therefore had become indifferent, until we heard Maximilian?
Or all the timid ones huddling under the dogmas and rituals of the church in expectation of the day when the Chauffeurs would come to get them, all those who, thanks to Maximilian, could finally straighten their backs and live in the present?
May Maximilian betray us?
So went my thoughts yesterday, and during the evening and the whole night I continued in the same way. I lost myself in details, ever smaller and more irrelevant the more tired I became. I could not let it go. And however many questions I still came up with, there was only one answer. An answer I did not want to hear.
I am Nobody.
I am Maximilian’s Recorder.
I have lived my life in relation to him.
He caused me to feel like a good animal.
When I heard Maria come walking along the path, the weather was still only forenoon, but I had not slept the whole night—I had hardly slept the night before either—and I could not think clearly. My instinct was to run and hide, leave the house and go off into the forest and never return. But I did not run.
I went down and opened the door as always. Maria had a walrus with her. As usual I led the guest into the library before I took off the blindfold. After that I went out to the kitchen to arrange the customary tray with tea. I pretended that everything was as usual. That I was as usual. During the few seconds that I succeeded in making the illusion real, I felt an unparalleled relief. It is difficult to explain.
I heard Maria upstairs. She had gone up to bring Maximilian down.
Maximilian always drank his tea out of the same cup. It was large, green, and chipped on the rim. I have never understood why he liked it so much, but he was a creature of habit; we both were. The poison that I put in Maximilian’s cup—this was twenty, thirty minutes ago—I actually know nothing about. I got it from my father when the forest rats were trying to chew their way into the cottage. I know that it is strong, and that is all I need to know. A few sips of tea, and then he doesn’t wake up until the Chauffeurs arrive. Even if it takes awhile, even if it takes months.
When I set the teacups on the table in the library, I did not even care to say hello to the walrus. I left the room before they had come down from upstairs. My paws were not shaking. One cup for the guest, one for Maria, and the big green cup for Maximilian.
Then I sat down in the kitchen and waited. I do not believe I was thinking about anything. Mute. Numbed by what I had done. It felt unreal. At last I sneaked over to the closed door and put my ear to it.
I heard a strange voice, it must be the walrus.
“Did I think I heard birds?” he said from inside the library.
As always, when the Afternoon Rain approached, the forest birds became restless and excited by the oncoming storm.
“Can it be right, Maximilian?” said the walrus within, and he sounded agitated. “Did I hear forest birds?”
I went back and sat down at the kitchen table. I closed my eyes. Maria just screamed.
But I intend to remain sitting here.
About the Author
TIM DAVYS is a pseudonym. He is the author of Amberville, the first book in the Mollisan Town quartet, and lives in Sweden, where he is currently working on the last two Mollisan Town novels—Tourquai and Yok.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.
ALSO BY TIM DAVYS
Amberville
Credits
Jacket illustration by Marc Burckhardt
Jacket design by Jarrod Taylor
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
LANCEHEIM. Copyright © 2010 by Tim Davys Corporation. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
First published in Swedish in 2008 by Albert Bonniers Förlag.
FIRST U.S. EDITION
Translated by Paul Norlen
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
EPub Edition © May 2010 ISBN: 978-0-06-199951-2
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.
25 Ryde Road (PO Box 321)
Pymble, NSW 2073, Australia
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.com.au
Canada
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
55 Avenue Road, Suite 2900
Toronto, ON, M5R, 3L2, Canada
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.ca
New Zealand
HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited
P.O. Box 1
Auckland, New Zealand
http://www.harpercollins.co.nz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
77-85 Fulham Palace Road
London, W6 8JB, UK
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.co.uk
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
10 East 53rd Street
New York, NY 10022
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.com