Amberville

by Tim Davys

  CHAPTER 15

  The bedroom was bathed in the gentle daylight coming in through the drawn, white curtains. On a massive double bed, thick down comforters and a dozen shapeless pillows created a white lunar landscape with high mountains and deep ravines. Resting in this realm of softness was the delicate, unclothed body that was Emma Rabbit. She was lying on her stomach, with her legs scissored around a thick bedspread and her face turned to the right, toward the windows.

  The walls of the bedroom were white, the oiled oak boards of the parquet floor had become darker since they moved in, and the bed was the only piece of furniture in the room, besides the round, white rug and the overstuffed armchair where Eric Bear was sitting, observing his sleeping wife. In the bedroom on Uxbridge Street there was an aroma of sleep and well-being, but it had been several years since Eric had noticed that. Today, after having been squeezed in with the males at Yiala’s Arch for two weeks, the aroma was more than tangible; it broke over him, filling him with melancholy.

  He couldn’t see his wife’s face from the armchair where he was sitting, but he saw her thin body, and that caused tenderness to bubble up from his heart.

  Was Eric Bear sitting there, secretly looking at his sleeping wife?

  It couldn’t be denied.

  Thoughts were moving through his head, slowly but evasively. Memories and associations, scenes and words, all in a single incomprehensible jumble. He let it happen. His yoga teacher had taught him to let thoughts come and go like clouds passing over an early Forenoon Sky. He had never understood what she meant, but finally he did just what she’d said. And slowly but surely he fell through the years down toward his childhood, which is often the case if you simply let your thoughts be in peace. Morning and the bedroom faded away and disappeared, until the scent of a familiar breathing was all that remained.

  A sweet-smelling breath, closed-in the way a stuffed animal’s breath always is. The warm exhalations that come from the belly, that gather fragments from cotton that has never seen the light of day. From Teddy’s mouth came a breath that, to be sure, was lukewarm and stale, with a touch of honey and grass, but which made Eric secure. After the nightmares, he might take the few steps across the room and jump down into Teddy’s bed where his breath was waiting on the pillow, and the ghosts and demons that were haunting him disappeared. Or in the classroom, when Teddy turned around and whispered something in his ear, and Eric felt his breath sweeping past a few millimeters away; then it was those two against the world.

  Alone was strong.

  But two was one stronger.

  During Eric Bear’s entire upbringing he’d wanted to get closer to his twin brother. It was being close to Teddy that meant something, that gave him power to free himself from Mother and dare to revolt against Father. And with every year that passed, Teddy became more and more distant.

  Perhaps that was why the moments of physical proximity with his twin had survived through all these years. His breath of course, but also how in the evenings they’d used each other’s bellies as pillows, and how the feeling of being a part of someone else had been a shield against the reality lying in wait outside the house on Hillville Road. They used to massage each other before they fell asleep in the evening, hard with a solid grip, or loosely with the fingertips. Even the wrestling matches, which Teddy always won as he was the stronger of the two, left behind a feeling of healing nearness despite the bruises and worn fur.

  Eric had loved his twin brother. He had needed him. More than he’d loved and needed anyone else in the whole world. It was in the light of Teddy’s betrayal that Eric’s complicated teenage years should be seen; this betrayal which neither of them could truly say when it occurred. It was not a matter of open conflict. Teddy disappeared by degrees into his own world of peculiar ideas that he refused to account for. It hurt to be shut out. And in his attempts to compensate for the loneliness to which he was inescapably consigned—and which he feared more than anything else—he sought community in circles where community was offered only in exchange for something else.

  Eric loved Teddy. Eric did everything Teddy asked for. The only problem was that Teddy asked too seldom. But when it happened…when it happened…it was such a joy. However peculiar Teddy’s requests were, Eric went along. It was as though he stood, freezing, outside a shuttered-up house week after week, and then suddenly someone opened the door and asked him to come up and sit down in front of the warm fire. Coming home. Feeling secure. Not having to wonder and worry.

  When did Eric discover for the first time that everything wasn’t as it should be with Teddy?

  This question might be answered in two ways.

  The first answer is: never.

  The second answer is: at the same moment that they started school and Eric had the chance to compare his twin brother with others who were the same age. But by avoiding judging his brother’s singular manner in terms of right or wrong, life went on.

  Sometimes it was absurd. In his teenage years it was not uncommon for Teddy to do and say things that appeared patently peculiar. Eric defended his brother by refusing to react to these peculiarities, and together the brothers seemed like certifiable lunatics. Even if Eric didn’t know what would happen if it was openly acknowledged that something was wrong, the thought frightened him.

  Boxer Bloom was a fundamentalist, a conservative on the border of being a reactionary animal in all questions except political ones, where he gladly appeared to be liberal. Teddy Bear’s eccentricities became more extensive the older Teddy got. The boxer became more and more irritated. Rhinoceros Edda’s understanding for Teddy was exceeded only by her desire to smooth things over.

  “I can’t eat this,” said Teddy suddenly one evening when all four of them were sitting in the kitchen on Hillville Road, having dinner.

  The twins had recently turned fourteen and they were in the eighth grade. Teddy and Eric had spent the last weeks of summer vacation at Hillevie’s sailing camp. Since they’d come home from camp and the family had moved into Amberville again, Boxer Bloom had done his best to pretend as though everything were fine. He imagined to himself that Teddy had undergone a magic metamorphosis over the summer, and that everything would finally be…normal. Now he was getting desperate. It had nothing to do with food. The reminder that they would be forced to live with Teddy’s lack of accountability and compulsive thoughts for yet another year was more than Boxer could bear. When Teddy pushed aside his plate and awkwardly looked down at the table, something burst inside Boxer Bloom. With suppressed rage he muttered, “You can’t eat?”

  “Papa,” said Teddy, who, like Eric, heard how angry his father was, “that’s not the idea. I…I just can’t.”

  “It’s a tomato salsa, potato casserole, and veal cutlet,” Boxer informed, “that your mother has devoted hours to preparing. And which you have eaten a hundred times before.”

  “Well,” objected Mother, “perhaps not that many times…”

  “Why doesn’t it suit you just now?”

  Boxer stared fiercely at the cub.

  “If he doesn’t want to, he doesn’t have to, does he?” said Eric. “He’s eaten the salsa and the casserole. Maybe he’s full?”

  “It’s got nothing to do with that,” said Teddy.

  “Well, now,” thundered Bloom. “So what does it have to do with?”

  “It can’t be right to kill a calf,” Teddy almost whispered.

  And Boxer struck his paw on the table and got up. He appeared massive where he stood looking down at them. He held one paw pointed right at the cub.

  “And what in the hell do you mean?!” shouted Bloom.

  But in the moment following, before Teddy had time to reply, despite the fact that the tears were already rolling down his cheeks, Eric unexpectedly flew at his father.

  Mother screamed, Father cried out and staggered backwards out toward the living room. Eric was hanging around his belly in something that resembled a convulsive hug.

  “No more!” shouted
Eric. “No more now.”

  Eric didn’t care about the veal cutlet and his crazy brother. Feelings of impotence had built up for several weeks, just as long as Bloom had tried to imagine that everything would be fine, and finally here was the violent, physical release.

  It should be said in Boxer Bloom’s defense that he did not forcibly attempt to free himself from his cub. When he regained his balance he simply stood completely still until Eric released his hold. And they remained standing like that, staring at each other, the cub openly aggressive, the father more surprised. Before they recovered enough to say anything to each other, Teddy got up from the table out in the kitchen. The sound caused Eric to turn around, and he saw his twin brother running up the stairs.

  “There are limits,” said Bloom flatly. “A limit for when it’s gone too far and we can’t take care of it ourselves any longer.”

  Eric turned around again and stared into the dog’s eyes.

  “Your love ought to be boundless,” Eric whispered scarcely audibly, “but it never has been.”

  Whereupon he turned and ran up the stairs after Teddy.

  Emma Rabbit turned around in the bed.

  Eric Bear gave a start, restored in an instant to the present. He looked at her and how in her sleep she was searching for the blanket because she was cold lying there on her back. She pulled one of the large, white comforters over her, again disappearing out of his field of vision. The tears were running from Eric’s eyes without his realizing it. Soundlessly he got up. It was a little more than two weeks since he’d seen her last. But tonight, after he’d put the Death List back in its crumpled envelope, he was compelled to come here instead of to Yiala’s Arch. Compelled to see her, to carefully stroke her forehead in her sleep.

  He had intended to sneak out of the bedroom and let it be fine like that, but he wasn’t able to. Not just now. He stood up, taking a few steps over toward the bed. She turned her head, and her whiskers twitched from the dream she was having. It was strange, he thought, that he dared to love someone like this. Again. To make yourself so defenseless, to risk being wounded so terribly. Again. After everything that had happened with Teddy.

  Eric looked at his sleeping wife and smiled. But she wouldn’t hurt him. And it was this certainty, this self-assured thought that meant that he’d dared. He loved her because she was worthy of being loved, and he, more clearly than anyone else, could see that.

  Carefully he sneaked out of the bedroom, avoiding the plank in the floor right next to the threshold, the one that always creaked. He walked quickly through the living room and out into the hall, succeeded in opening and closing the door without the least sound, and only a few moments later he was en route in his gray Volga Combi.

  A Death List existed.

  It was not drawn up by the Chauffeurs.

  And Nicholas Dove was there on the list.

  The list consisted of names and dates, that was all. On certain days no one would be picked up, other days there was more than one. Such was the case the twenty-first of May.

  That was the day the Chauffeurs would pick Nicholas Dove up.

  That was in four days.

  But on the twenty-first of May there had been one more name. Yet another stuffed animal would be taken away from this life in four days.

  Teddy Bear.

  CHAPTER 16

  May I go home now?”

  Snake Marek sounded hopeful.

  Eric Bear was sitting on a barstool at a minimal bar counter; Snake found himself on the same counter. All the Springergaast boutiques nowadays boasted this kind of bar, situated in the midst of an explosion of colorful boutique furnishings and advertising posters which some advertising-agency genius—perhaps employed at Wolle & Wolle—maintained stimulated sales. The bear and the snake had each ordered a cup of coffee and a blueberry muffin. Around them packages of cookies and chips, bulk candies, soda pop labels, and even fresh fruit competed for attention. There was an aroma of fresh-ground coffee and baked croissants. Eric had chosen to move the meeting to Springergaast on Carrer Admiral Pedro, a few blocks from Yiala’s Arch, because he wanted to be alone with Snake. And few customers came to this boutique.

  “Lay off,” he said.

  “I didn’t think so,” sighed Snake with disappointment.

  Yesterday evening all their plans had been upset. When Eric saw Teddy’s name on the Death List it was no longer a question of simply saving Emma.

  His first reaction was shock. But intuitively Eric realized that he couldn’t show any weak spots with Snake in the room, and therefore he was forced to act as if nothing over and above what was expected was on the list. If Snake hadn’t been there, if Eric had given his feelings free rein? Then he would have fallen apart.

  “Have you thought about my request?” asked the bear.

  “Which one?”

  “Saving someone from a soon-to-be dead man’s death sentence.”

  “If you think I’m smart enough to figure out something like that, surely you must realize I’m smart enough to understand what this is all about,” Snake answered with irritation.

  Eric shrugged his shoulders.

  “Presumably,” he said.

  “Dove has threatened your sweet Rabbit. If the Chauffeurs get Dove, his gorillas fetch the rabbit.”

  Eric shrugged his shoulders again. This was an acknowledgment.

  “And?” he asked. “What do I do?”

  “I have no idea,” answered Snake, sounding so uninterested that Eric had a hard time not letting himself be provoked, despite the fact that he understood that this had been the reptile’s intent.

  “You could bribe the gorillas, couldn’t you?” suggested the long-tongued Marek.

  “Bribe the gorillas?”

  “Yes, what the hell do I know?”

  “You’ve worked at Casino Monokowski, you’ve worked for Nicholas Dove, and you’re suggesting that I should bribe the gorillas?”

  “Honorably stated and with all due respect, I don’t give a damn about either,” said Snake.

  Eric sat silently. There must be a reason, he thought, for it was apparent that Snake was looking for a reaction. Perhaps, he thought further, it had to do with the Death List? Perhaps Snake, who was sensitive to the weaknesses of animals, understood that something had happened in the Order Room, something that had worsened the bear’s situation? And perhaps Snake was out to reveal this through his provocations? Both of them knew that you could never have too much information when power was concerned.

  They each took a bite of blueberry muffin and pondered the next move.

  “Do you think Tom-Tom can do anything?” asked Eric.

  “What would that be?”

  “He’s a crazy bastard,” stated Eric, “deep down inside. Perhaps he’d be able to make them see reason?”

  “If you toss in the gazelle too, it’s not impossible,” said Snake.

  They each took another bite; it was a suitably doughy yet flavorful muffin.

  The gorillas had reason to fear a berserk crow. But even if Tom-Tom and Sam together might frighten away many gorillas on the way, they could never frighten them all off.

  “If I know the dove rightly,” said Snake, “he has in addition promised an enormous reward to the one who proves that he took care of your Rabbit. An accountant in some shabby office somewhere in town is just waiting, with an authorization in his desk drawer, for someone to come in with proof. And that means it’s not just the crazy gorillas you have to take care of, but the bounty hunters as well.”

  Eric sighed. That’s how it was of course, he’d realized it too.

  “And the chance of successfully completing our assignment?” asked Eric.

  “You mean removing Dove from the list?”

  Eric nodded. Actually he wanted nothing better than to tell about Teddy, but nothing positive would come out of such a confession. So he nodded again.

  “I don’t know,” said Snake. “We’ve proved that there is a list. I didn’t think we’d su
cceed in that.”

  “I knew there was a list,” said Eric.

  “You didn’t know that at all,” said Snake.

  “But removing someone, pardoning someone…?”

  “Among all the legends about the Death List,” answered Snake, “there are a few that speak of something like that. And I’m not just thinking of that story about the archdeacon.”

  While the coffee cooled and Eric ate up both his and Snake’s blueberry muffin, Snake told the story of Horse Carl and Admiral Pedro.

  Horse Carl was the hero who, more than two hundred years ago, united the four parts of the city after almost a century of civil war, temporary alliances, and betrayed promises. Today all schoolchildren read about Horse Carl, but not many knew, said Snake in a tone of utter contempt, that as a reward for his efforts Horse was awarded the opportunity to pardon one animal each year from the Death List.

  “No, wait,” protested Eric, “I’ve never heard anything about that…”

  “As I said,” snapped Snake Marek, irritated by the interruption, “this is about legends, myths. There’s nothing that’s true or false. But I can understand if the authorities try to keep this type of story from being retold. I have a hard time seeing which department would benefit from the story of Horse Carl…”

  And then he continued:

  Horse Carl soon understood that the possibility of pardoning someone could be used in the power play that had arisen among the leading animals in the four parts of the city. Carl established a new tradition. A small selection of judges, generals, highly placed politicians, and one or two truly significant landowners would get to vote each year for one of the animals on the Death List. The animal who counted up the most votes would be removed, and all those involved could enjoy the feeling of power: power over life and death even greater than what they’d had before the city’s unification.

  Everything functioned according to Horse Carl’s plan up until the year when both David Owl and Admiral Pedro were on the Death List. For many years the admiral had been in command of the rather insignificant fleet in Hillevie, but he was still young, and that his name showed up on the list came as a complete surprise, both to him and to everyone else. Pedro was seized by panic, applied for and was granted discharge from the fleet, and then devoted all his time toward attempting to influence the animals who would be voting to cast their votes for him. When the day for the announcement of the pardon came, it proved, however, that Judge David Owl had nevertheless received more votes than the former admiral Pedro.