Amberville

by Tim Davys

  “Nothing,” whispered Snake.

  “Not us, either,” answered Tom-Tom.

  “Now let’s split,” said Sam.

  The gazelle’s entire body was shaking. It had already been shaking when, a half hour ago, they had raised the ladder against the window on the second story. That window had stood ajar since they’d starting keeping an eye on Hotel Esplanade. As the gazelle was climbing up, the ladder had shaken so much that the crow had been forced to use all of his weight to hold the ladder steady.

  “We’re not going to find any list. There is no list. We’re still alive. Let’s leave,” Sam clarified.

  Eric nodded. There was nothing else to do.

  They returned to the corner room with the open window. They had pulled the ladder up after them; now they carried out the opposite maneuver in order to make their way back down to the street.

  “Fiasco,” muttered Snake Marek as they were on their way toward Yiala’s Arch a few minutes later.

  “We’re alive,” said Gazelle. “That has to count as a success, old man.”

  CHAPTER 11

  On the morning of Tuesday the thirteenth of May, only five hours after they had returned from their fruitless break-in at Hotel Esplanade, there was a banging on the door to Sam’s apartment.

  Sam, Snake, and Eric all jumped up from their sleeping spots, as though wakened from the same nightmare. Tom-Tom Crow had forced himself to wake up less than half an hour ago, got dressed, and gone out and shopped for food. Just like for the watch shifts at night, there was a schedule for who would take care of the shopping. Today it had been Tom-Tom’s turn.

  Again there was a banging.

  Eric and Snake looked urgently at Sam, who with an embarrassed mumbling got up out of his bed, pulled on his bathrobe, and shuffled over toward the door.

  “Go away!” he shouted. “Get out of here. The store is closed. You’ll have to humiliate yourselves somewhere else.”

  This led to more determined knocks, and with a heavy sigh Sam Gazelle opened the door a crack.

  But instead of making a small gap out toward the stairway hall, Sam was pressed back into the apartment with violent force. The gazelle stumbled backwards and fell down on the floor on his side with a bang. Eric and Snake threw themselves out of their beds, but before they had time to go anywhere Nicholas Dove’s two gorillas were standing in the room, staring at them. And with a certain elegance, Dove strolled into the tumult, his glance fastened on Eric Bear, a disdainful smile evident at the corner of his mouth.

  “This doesn’t inspire a great deal of hope,” he said, continuing over to the kitchen table, where he pulled out a chair and sat down.

  The gorillas remained standing where they were, on either side of the door, the red one to the right. With some effort, Sam struggled to his feet, attempting to regain some element of dignity.

  “Nicholas Dove,” he said, giggling amiably, “so nice to—”

  “Time flies,” interrupted Dove, directing himself straight at Eric as if the gazelle didn’t even exist. “And I can’t say that I’m impressed by your progress.”

  Dove’s concentration was directed completely at Eric Bear. Sam proceeded over to the kitchen counter for the purpose of offering Dove something to drink; Snake Marek stood expectantly by his mattress, the farthest inside the apartment, observing the development of events.

  “You know,” said Dove, “time is just what I don’t have.”

  “It might seem as though nothing is happening,” Eric began in his defense. “But that’s not true, we have actually—”

  Nicholas Dove held up his wing deprecatingly; he wasn’t here to listen to the bear’s excuses.

  “It’s not the case,” said Dove, “that I don’t keep myself informed.”

  “Would you like anything? A cup of tea, water, something stronger?” asked Sam.

  “I’m assuming that you keep yourself informed,” answered Eric. “Anything else wouldn’t be you. But this is, nonetheless…”

  Eric held out his paws. The mood in the room was expectant. Only a few moments ago Snake had tensed every muscle in his narrow, short body, ready to slither in under the mattress or somewhere else where he wouldn’t be seen. But with every word that was exchanged between the bear and the dove the snake relaxed. He was not the focus of this visit. As long as neither of the gorillas moved, they mostly resembled stone statues, and Nicholas Dove was, as always, removed in a super animal kind of way. The only thing holding up the nervous energy was Sam, who noisily searched for ice in the freezer. He had decided, on his own authority, to serve Nicholas Dove a glass of water.

  “And the worst thing is,” said Dove, “I’m not at all certain that you’re exerting yourself.”

  His tone of voice was slightly absent; he didn’t look at Eric but rather his gaze swept across the room as though he were searching for something.

  “Not exerting myself?” repeated the bear, irritated. “I’m living in a pigsty in Yok, I’ve turned the day upside down in order to—”

  “You don’t understand,” interrupted Dove. “It’s not a question of what you’re doing, it’s a matter of what you’re coming up with.”

  And with an unexpected intensity, he burrowed his gaze into the bear, who involuntarily stepped back. In Nicholas Dove’s normally inscrutable pupils was a desperation that Eric had never seen before, and which he never wanted to see again. It was coal-black and unmerciful.

  “I’m forced to make myself clear, I think,” said Dove in a low voice.

  A scarcely discernible nod, and suddenly things happened.

  When both of the gorillas—as if they were guided, if somewhat slow, robots—took the few steps over to Eric Bear and took hold of the bear’s arms, the nervous Sam dropped the water glass that he’d finally filled. The sharp crash of breaking glass caused Nicholas Dove to react with surprising speed. Dove whirled around, turning his back to the others. Sam screamed as ice and glass splinters whirled around his hooves, and before the scream had quieted, Nicholas Dove had conjured an automatic weapon from his wing; larger than a pistol but smaller than a carbine. For a brief moment he aimed the weapon at Sam, but then Dove realized what had happened. Without batting an eye he put the weapon back inside his feathers and again directed his attention toward Eric Bear.

  Snake Marek had been waiting for this moment of confusion.

  In the moment that followed after the water glass struck the floor, Snake was already past the gorillas. He wriggled out through the open door and was on his way down the stairs when the dove pulled out his weapon. Eric looked after Marek. Nothing else was really to be expected of that miserable snake, he thought. Nicholas Dove didn’t even condescend to send a gorilla to bring back the reptile; that’s how insignificant he was in the dove’s eyes.

  “It’s important to be clear,” continued Dove as if this little intermezzo hadn’t taken place. “And I’m wondering if you’ve understood that there is a time factor to take into account here.”

  “Obviously I have—” began Eric, but he got no further before one of the gorillas punched him in the stomach with a force that completely took the breath out of him.

  The surprise also did its part. His legs lost all their strength, and suddenly it was the gorillas who were holding him up.

  “You don’t have much time,” said Dove.

  The next blow struck above the bear’s eye, gliding across his eyebrow and a little ways up over his forehead. Before Eric had time to feel it the next hit came, against the temple, and then he felt the pain in his belly. He coughed, not seeing the cotton coming out of his mouth, but Sam started screaming from over in the kitchen.

  “Shut your mouth, you goose.”

  It was the first time Dove had addressed anyone else in the room, and he did so in a low but determined voice. Sam became silent immediately.

  The gorillas released Eric Bear, who with a heavy thud fell to the floor.

  Eric was struggling to retain consciousness, but failed. It was a
s though Sam’s apartment gradually faded away, and instead the beach in Hillevie emerged. With a pleasurable intoxication in his body he was strolling along the edge of the beach, on his way over to the decrepit pier. Eric had experienced many of life’s best moments sitting on the worn planks on the pier at the north end of the beach.

  He carefully balanced out to the end of the pier, where he sat down with his legs hanging over the edge and his paws a few decimeters above the surface of the water. In the moonlight the sea was lying dark and endless before him, removing all feelings of time and distance.

  And he knew that this was the exact same water that had been there a million years before. The cycle of nature functioned like that. Eternity was no more terrifying than the water gurgling under the pier, time was just as inexorably sluggish. The sound of the rippling sea was unexpectedly reminiscent of Nicholas Dove’s voice.

  “It would be stupid to tear you apart now,” Eric heard the water say, “but time is running out. And I thought that if you’re having a hard time finding the proper feeling for this assignment, there are a few small things I should be able to use your rabbit for even now. What do you think? Shall we take her to the casino this evening already? Think about it.”

  If Dove said anything more before he left Sam Gazelle’s apartment, Eric never knew it. The bear disappeared back down into his unconsciousness.

  CHAPTER 12

  Snake Marek returned a few hours after Dove had taken off. He acted as if nothing special had happened. Eric was sitting, bandaged, at the kitchen table; Sam was fixing the dinner that Crow had bought.

  “Snake,” said Crow, “you know what, I…”

  But Eric silenced him. He invited Snake to take a seat at the table. All four ate in silence and, over coffee, began discussing how they should go from there. After an hour or two they were in agreement. Snake’s theory was simple. If the Chauffeurs didn’t operate arbitrarily, there must be some form of communication between them and their employer. Instead of searching for the list, which demonstrably didn’t exist, the snake, bear, gazelle, and crow should try to find out how this information reached Hotel Esplanade.

  Sam had no difficulty arranging a wiretap. Technology was one of his foremost interests and in the cellar at Yiala’s Arch he had an entire workshop. Exactly how the gazelle made use of his tools and equipment in his “work” remained unclear. Without difficulty he located the telephone cables which led to Hotel Esplanade, and in a childishly simple way he jury-rigged them so that calls to and from the hotel were routed to a tape recorder up in Sam’s apartment.

  It seemed unlikely, however, that anyone gave the Chauffeurs orders over the telephone. The risk of misunderstandings and eavesdropping would be far too great. And because there was no longer any postal delivery in Yok, the stuffed animals felt the possibility that the list was delivered by a courier most likely. This led to a decision to intensify the surveillance of the hotel. If the precision of their approach had been a little slapdash before, Eric now created a schedule without gaps. No one was particularly happy about the increased guard duty, but they all understood that it was needed. During the lonely hours of the night, Sam Gazelle used pills in a way that took a heavy toll on his hiding places and supplies. Eric brooded and agonized, thinking about—longing for—Emma Rabbit. Snake devoted the time to intellectual nonsense and soul-searching; a soul-searching which in the aftermath of the night appeared even more nonsensical than the nonsense itself. Tom-Tom Crow was, however, the one who was most tormented by sitting hour after hour, staring at the hotel’s dark brick façade where nothing happened from the time the red pickup left the building a few minutes after sundown until it returned a few minutes before dawn.

  Tom-Tom was a simple soul, but he didn’t like being alone. He didn’t like it at all.

  Over the years he had learned to distract the loneliness through a series of empty rituals. He cooked, cleaned, even watched TV according to certain definite patterns. Patterns that demanded discipline. The ambitious handiwork projects were part of that. It was a matter of taming the silence and the loneliness. When evening was over, sleep came as quickly as a sharp right hook.

  And he never needed to recall what had happened.

  But in the gray Volga, he remembered. There was nothing else to do.

  He recalled how cramped it was. How it rubbed against his wings, and how the light filtered down through the cracks in the floor.

  He remembered the pain. The terror.

  Tom-Tom stared intensely at the façade across the way, at Hotel Esplanade, trying to blot out the unpleasant thoughts by looking even more intensely.

  But he was a simple soul.

  He needed distractions.

  And nothing was happening outside Hotel Esplanade.

  He believed that the attacks were for real, all the way up to school age. It was only Papa who could hear the warning sirens, and certainly that was strange, but why should Papa lie? Papa was all Tom-Tom had. Mama had disappeared even before he was delivered. Tom-Tom was Papa’s only child.

  They were coming from the forests, Papa said. They tortured stuffed animals. They could keep at it for days. When you finally died, said Papa, you could feel content. But Tom-Tom shouldn’t be afraid. Papa would never let anything happen to him. That was why they had to practice.

  There were a couple of loose floor planks in the kitchen. When Papa heard the sirens, Tom-Tom should run into the kitchen and throw himself down into the hollow place under the floor. But because it was only Papa who heard the sirens, Tom-Tom never knew when it was time. No matter how hard the punishment Papa gave him, Tom-Tom never learned to hear the sirens. The sirens in Papa’s head.

  It was cramped under the planks in the kitchen. There was hardly room for Tom-Tom. Perhaps that was just as well. The idea of the practice was that he was forced to lie silent as long as possible. If he let out a peep, the enemy would find him. Then the enemy would tear up the planks and torture him. It was for Tom-Tom’s own good.

  He learned to lie silently for hours.

  Tom-Tom Crow stared at Hotel Esplanade, trying to think about Snake, the bear, and the gazelle. He tried to take himself back to reality and the gray Volga and the terrible Chauffeurs on the other side of the street. But after a few minutes, he was down in the cramped space under the floor again.

  The pain.

  What if the enemy sensed something anyway?

  What if the enemy sensed something anyway and started searching for a hiding place somewhere under the floor planks? What if the enemy, for example, poured boiling water over the floor, boiling water that ran down through the cracks? Would Tom-Tom still manage to keep silent? Boiling oil? Melted sugar? Tom-Tom’s papa was inventive at the stove. He was doing this for Tom-Tom’s own good.

  The pain.

  When dawn came and the first rays of the sun were climbing up over the horizon, the night of watching was over. Most often, the red pickup drove into the garage an hour or two before sunrise; sometimes the margin was narrower. The Chauffeurs would sleep through the day after completion of nightly duty, and that applied to Eric, Sam, Snake, and Tom-Tom as well. But no one found as great a relief in the hour of dawn as the crow.

  During the shift that proved to be the last one outside Hotel Esplanade for the stuffed animals, Sam Gazelle overslept.

  It wasn’t at all strange; chock-full of interacting and counteracting substances flowing around in his system, the chances of his remaining awake for an entire surveillance shift were generally nonexistent.

  Instead of soundlessly opening the car door and nonchalantly strolling back to the beautifully grass-green Yiala’s Arch as dawn was breaking, Sam threw open his eyes in surprise and noticed that the day had begun. The Morning Weather had turned cloudy, nothing more, but this would still demand an explanation. Eric would understand that Sam had fallen asleep, and Sam had no excuse.

  He wriggled out of the car at the same time as he tried to gather his thoughts. The ghosts of his nightmares had no
t yet dissipated, and they made it hard for him to produce miserable white lies.

  He shut the car door and took a deep breath. There were a few cigarette butts on the sidewalk right next to him, and only a year ago he would have leaned down and picked them up. Somewhere in the vicinity he heard the sound of an iron grate being rolled up as a shop owner came to work. And Sam was just on his way to begin the stroll homeward when the concealed garage door to Hotel Esplanade unexpectedly opened.

  Despite the fact that the sun had gone up and the day had begun.

  From out of the garage drove not a red, but a green pickup.

  CHAPTER 13

  It sounds so frigging unbelievable,” said Tom-Tom, who was standing in the kitchen, searching for rusks in one of the cupboards over the counter.

  “But I swear,” Sam Gazelle whined, wretched and irritated at the same time. “How wrong do you think a person can see?”

  “It sounds unbelievable,” agreed Eric.

  “I’m telling you, it was ChauffeurTiger,” Sam repeated for the third time.

  The crow found the package of rusks and sat down next to Sam.

  “Who had turned into some frigging DeliveryTiger?” said Tom-Tom skeptically, putting a rusk into his mouth.

  Sam threw out his hands. That’s the way it was. Without a doubt. Without the dramatic hood that the Chauffeurs wore, and dressed instead in the Deliverymen’s typical green uniform, a bit reminiscent of the bus drivers’ jackets and peaked caps, it had been none other than ChauffeurTiger who had sat behind the wheel of a green pickup, with one of the two wolves beside him.

  “Hmm,” said Snake Marek, for once markedly laconic.

  They sat around the kitchen table, Sam on the edge, all staring incredulously at him. The Morning Weather was in the process of letting up and the rain would cease any minute now. It was Tuesday morning, just over two weeks since they’d started their surveillance of Hotel Esplanade, and Eric had almost forgotten how the apartment looked in daylight. The parquet floor shone with an oiled luster, and even the sticky ring marks from beer bottles on the kitchen table looked more pleasant during the day. Sam had emptied out a carton of breakfast cereal, honey-glazed rice puffs, and Tom-Tom sat down by mistake on the chair where the cereal had ended up. The crushed puffs now spread a sweetish smell through the apartment which was not at all unpleasant.