by Tim Davys
The Deliverymen drove across the Star—the golden square that was the absolute midpoint of the city—and continued along mint-green East Avenue. The carillon in the highest of Sagrada Bastante’s thirteen towers struck its cheerful melody.
There’s no symbolism to be found in those thirteen towers.
The four rectilinear avenues toward east, west, south, and north were the skeleton of our city. During the week these were heavily traversed thoroughfares. On the weekends, the east and west avenues were transformed into walking streets. In the middle, between three lanes to one side and three lanes to the other, grew massive oaks and maples. They formed a long avenue on either side of a wide gravel walkway.
The trees provided shelter from the rain that passed over the city twice a day, in the morning and in the afternoon.
In the fall thousands and thousands more lamps were set up in the foliage. The first of November every year the lamps were lit just before the Evening Weather, and the two avenues pierced the city like sabers of light.
You shouldn’t look for any symbolism in that either.
The Deliverymen drove Eric and me to Amberville, the district whose boundaries are formed by East Avenue and the beautifully sky-blue South Avenue. Here the two-story buildings stand wall to wall in seemingly endless rows. Up the street and down the street, most in shades of green or blue, with more or less identical buildings. White woodwork against dark-red or dark-brown plaster. Sloping roofs shingled with black mosaic tile. Two garrets with transom windows on each attic. Narrow ribbons of smoke rise from the chimneys in the twilight. Red and pink geraniums spiral from the flowerboxes.
Details set the houses apart. Growing up in Amberville, we often knocked on the wrong door.
“We’ve got two units to number 14,” said one of the Deliverymen to the other.
With the point of a pencil he checked off Eric’s and my names on his list.
“Two units?” the Deliveryman commented behind the steering wheel.
“Twin bears. Don’t see that often.”
We were a sensation even when we were made. Two identical stuffed animals. Indistinguishable.
The green pickup swung onto the sidewalk outside 14 Hillville Road. The Deliveryman who was sitting on the passenger side jumped out and went around and opened the back door.
There we sat. We were neither shorter nor taller than we are today. We were less worn around the knees and elbows. That was the main difference.
But we couldn’t do anything. Couldn’t talk, couldn’t think, couldn’t walk. The Deliveryman took us, one under each arm, and carried us up to the house which was to be our parental home.
Mother and Father stood waiting at the door. Our father, Boxer Bloom, was wearing his best white shirt, and a bow tie besides. Our mother, Rhinoceros Edda, had on a dress that was as big as a tent.
“Finally!” said Mother.
“Now it begins,” said Father.
I have few memories of my own of early childhood. But Mother told us stories when we got older. Funny stories about how Eric or I said something silly before we understood what the words meant. Dramatic stories of illnesses and escapes. Mother liked to tell stories as she was preparing food. She stood at the old, wood-fired stove in our narrow kitchen. Eric and I sat at the kitchen table and listened.
She told about when we drove the car out to the lake in the summer and when we ate our picnics in Swarwick Park in autumn. In Mother’s stories Eric was the initiator and I was the follower. Eric was the star and I was the audience.
I was a cub, and needed no explanations for why things were that way. It was natural that Eric was promoted at my expense.
We loved him.
I have never felt, and never will feel, envy in relation to my brother. Bitterness, it is said, is an inborn talent. Roughly in the same way as music. I’ve never been able to hold a tune. My anxiety is of a different type.
The memory of Mother’s tale changed in time to a memory of the event itself. There have been times in my life when I believed that these implanted memories might replace the real ones. That’s not the case. What Mother told and retold were situations that were especially meaningful to her. Not especially meaningful to me or to Eric. If you think about it, you might more than suspect that Mother’s stories were keys to her inner life.
The keys to my life were kept in a different drawer.
There was a time when I tried to force it open.
Then I understood that that was meaningless. Being a good bear is a constantly ongoing project in the present tense.
Eric and I shared a room. It was the highest up, on the fourth floor with the sloping roof over our beds. That early time was dizzying for our new parents. They had lived for each other, now Eric and I made our demands. There was a lot we needed to learn. Simple things like walking down the stairs to the kitchen. Or expressing the simple feelings that filled us. We were cold. We got hungry. And sleepy. One time we ate too many cookies and got a stomachache.
At this time our mother had not made a name for herself at the ministry. Like hundreds of other paper-pushers she plodded along, and her coworkers hardly sensed that she would become one of our time’s most talked-about politicians. It was both obvious and easy for Mother to go to half-time, and she continued to work half-time until Eric and I had learned the most necessary skills.
It was different with Father.
Our father, Boxer Bloom, was rector of Amberville’s Secondary Grammar School. The school building was a chalk-white fairy-tale castle, adorned with towers and pinnacles. The building was designed by Toad Hendersen, who had also renovated the city’s massive cathedral. The school’s main entry faced toward moss-green All Saints Road, but from the hill in the schoolyard at the back the forest could be glimpsed beyond the city limits.
For Father the job was a calling. Between the present day and the future there were some animals who made a difference, and he counted himself among them. He was bringing up the coming generations. If he succeeded, the city we’d known until now would be a pale prototype of that which was to come. Father was careful about describing his visions concretely, but I sensed that what he especially disliked about his own time was its lack of order.
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.
&n
bsp; 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 horseradish 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.”
&n
bsp; “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.