Amberville (9 page)

T
om-Tom Crow threw down the knitting on the passenger seat and turned the key in the ignition. The little car coughed and the motor came to life with a kind of low buzzing. Without a glance over his shoulders or any warning signals, Tom-Tom swung out from the parking place, took a proper grip on the gas pedal with the claws of his feet, and pressed it to the floor. The various Volga models all went roughly the same speed—even if the GTI reached its top velocity more quickly than the others—and soon the crow had the situation under control. In contrast to most of the others, the red pickup kept to the speed limit on South Avenue.

Tom-Tom was a good driver. For several years, before he started working in the sewing notions department at Grand Divino, he had driven one of the city’s massive buses, route 3 from Rosdahl in Lanceheim to Parc Clemeaux in Tourquai. He was used to city traffic, comfortable behind the wheel.

Without letting the red pickup out of his sight, he found the walkie-talkie under the knitting on the passenger seat.
He picked up the apparatus, conveyed it to his beak, and pressed the black button.

“Contact,” he said, as they’d agreed upon.

He released the button and waited for a reply, but nothing was heard. Then he pressed the button again.

“Driving southward,” he said.

This time when he let go of the black button, there was a tremendous commotion in the walkie-talkie’s speaker. Three animals who were screaming, each one in his own way, congratulations and admonitions, advice and warnings.

The red pickup turned off the main highway and drove into Amberville. Tom-Tom turned off the walkie-talkie, set it on the seat next to him and devoted all his concentration to driving. On the side streets it would not be as easy to follow without being noticed.

Amberville was not a part of the city that Tom-Tom Crow knew especially well. Raised in Lanceheim, it was true he had worked at Casino Monokowski for many years, but during that time he had hardly left the casino. On the few occasions when the personnel had gone out and partied, they had chosen clubs up in Tourquai, where there wasn’t the risk of running into their own guests.

Immediately after the exit from South Avenue, the pickup turned left, onto a street whose creamy-white luster even the night couldn’t conceal. Uncertain as to exactly where he was, Tom-Tom didn’t intend to take a chance. At the risk of being discovered, he followed, as fast as he could, only to find an empty, sleepy cross-street with apartment houses lying desolately before him.

The red pickup was gone.

Eric drove as fast
as he could.

“Tom-Tom,” he called. “Position?”

The walkie-talkie was mute. Eric reduced his speed some
what. He was on his way down toward the golden Star, the roundabout where the four avenues ran together.

“You have to help out,” he asked the snake and the gazelle in the walkie-talkie. “We’ll meet in ten minutes at the starting point. Come.”

The “starting point” was the massive stairway up to Sagrada Bastante at the east corner of the Star, and exactly ten minutes later Sam and Snake came walking and winding, respectively, to meet Eric. The Star was illuminated at night; the golden roundabout and the small park in the middle glistened and glowed even stronger than during the day.

“There’s only one button to push in,” hissed Snake, creeping a few steps up in order to be at the same level as the others, “and that stupid crow doesn’t even get that.”

“Old man, perhaps it’s not a good idea to get surly and pout just now,” said the gazelle, immediately coming to Tom-Tom’s defense.

Eric brushed aside their squabbling.

“We have to do this more methodically,” he said. “I can’t manage this by myself. If I drive east to west, and you north to south along different streets, we ought to be able to catch sight of him at last.”

“Darling, there’s nothing that says he’s still in Amberville,” Sam said.

“There’s nothing that says he’s driven away from there,” said Eric.

“That’s the problem with fools,” hissed Snake. “They’re hard to understand.”

“The crow saw the pickup,” reminded the bear. “We have to try to find him. What’s the alternative? Stand here and chat?”

It was three skeptical companions who departed from the Star in their respective Volgas to try to crisscross Amberville like moles in pursuit of the red pickup.

Tom-Tom Crow was certain
that the Chauffeurs must have noticed him by this time.

For every kilometer he continued, he marveled at the fact that they didn’t stop and wave him over to the side. He could not recall if he had ever been so afraid.

If the Chauffeurs waved you to the side, then your life was over.

After having lost the pickup down in Amberville, he’d driven around the nearby neighborhoods without a plan. All the buildings looked alike, with their black tile roofs and small stairways up to the outside doors. He turned left and right and left again; in the darkness, all the subtleties of blue and green looked alike.

And then, suddenly, after yet another right turn, there it stood: the red pickup. And for the first time Tom-Tom saw a living Chauffeur. The Chauffeur was wearing a gray mantle which completely covered his body. His face was concealed by a large hood. He was carefully leading an older parrot out of one of the buildings. As they came down the steps, the glow of the streetlight fell such that Tom-Tom was able to see that the Chauffeur was nonetheless a stuffed animal.

It was a wolf.

Perhaps the wolf didn’t appear particularly fear-inducing, but the circumstances caused a cold shiver of terror to pass down the crow’s back. The Chauffeur and the old parrot got into the pickup, which immediately drove away, and Tom-Tom—who had still not put the brakes on during these ominous seconds—continued straight ahead, after them.

As though in a trance, the crow followed the red pickup onto South Avenue and farther out of the city. Tom-Tom had never been outside the city limits. He turned off the headlights and continued in the darkness. The red rear lights on the pickup in front of him were soon the only thing he saw.

They drove deeper and deeper into the dense forest. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of trees were dimly seen in the darkness to the sides of the narrow road. After half an hour they arrived at an enormous, hangar-like structure standing dark and deserted in the middle of nowhere. The red pickup stopped there.

Tom-Tom pressed the brake pedal to the floor, and without turning off the engine saw the door on the passenger side of the pickup open and the old parrot got out.

Quickly and simply the Chauffeurs then turned around in order to drive back.

The road was so narrow there was scarcely room for two cars to meet, and the crow didn’t know what he should do. He couldn’t reveal himself. In pure panic he threw the car into reverse. He stepped on the gas and turned right into the forest. That the little car inserted itself between two tree trunks instead of crashing against them was pure chance. Only ten seconds later the red pickup passed, and Tom-Tom waited half a minute before he returned up onto the road and followed the distant rear lights back toward the city.

He was not interested in what the Chauffeurs did with worn-out animals like the old parrot. Tom-Tom’s mission was to find out where the Chauffeurs themselves hung out. And it was obviously not in the forest.

Sam and Snake drove
around Amberville for almost an hour before they gave up.

“The crow went the wrong way, and he’s struggling to find his way back,” said Snake into the walkie-talkie. “Or else he’s still wondering how the walkie-talkie works.”

“Whatever,” replied Sam. “I’m going home and sleep now, old man.”

Snake kept him company, and they turned both of their cars and drove back toward Yok. But Eric could not give up.

The bear continued untiringly, driving from east to west and from west to east through the dark streets. However deeply this part of the city was sleeping, it was pure chance that no one called the police; seeing the same car drive back and forth during the darkest hours of the night ought to have aroused suspicion.

Finally the walkie-talkie crackled to life.

Eric slammed on the brakes in pure terror.

“Hello? Come.”

“It’s me,” Tom-Tom’s voice was heard. “I have contact. Come.”

Holy Magnus, thought Eric to himself. It had been more than two hours since the crow had been in touch. “Where? Come.”

“In Yok. Come.”

“I’m on my way.”

Eric turned east at the next intersection and drove quickly through the empty streets. Driving was something he’d devoted all too little time to in his life. He was an unaccustomed driver, but each time he sat behind the wheel he was filled with a kind of childish joy. The adrenaline again streamed out into his body and there was no trace of the tired resignation he’d felt previously.

“Passing South Avenue. Come,” he let Tom-Tom know.

Only a few blocks into south Yok, however, Eric’s frustration increased anew. The rectilinear streets in Amberville, where the cars stood neatly parked along the sidewalks and made the streets easily navigable, were replaced by a labyrinthine muddle where a steady stream of obstacles forced him to take detours. The walkie-talkie lay silent on the seat beside him; he didn’t want to use it unnecessarily and was quite certain besides that the crow would not be able to help. Tom-Tom didn’t know these neighborhoods either.

Eric swore and sweated. He backed up and turned. Accelerated and jammed on the brakes. And after ten minutes he no longer had any idea where he was.

The Chauffeurs were about
to fool Tom-Tom in the end.

After a great deal of back-and-forth on their way through Yok, the crow lost sight of them now and then in his fear of coming too close. He hesitated before he turned around the street corners, and at the last corner he hesitated longer than usual. Then he screwed up his courage, put the car in first and arrived just in time to see the pickup driving toward a building with a speckled-gray brick wall.

But the pickup didn’t slow down. Instead the wall opened, closing itself around the pickup again so quickly that Tom-Tom felt uncertain for a moment about what he’d actually seen.

He slammed on the brakes.

The building whose wall was a disguised garage door was not particularly large: three stories high, ten meters across, with no windows on the ground floor. Which, on the other hand, was not unusual in Yok. There was no door, either, but Tom-Tom suspected that there was one on the other side. On the façade was an unlit neon sign: “Hotel Esplanade.”

“They’ve driven down into some infernal garage,” Tom-Tom reported on the walkie-talkie. “I believe we’re here.”

“Where? Come,” asked Eric.

“Don’t really know,” said Tom-Tom, “but I’m checking.”

Eric turned onto the sidewalk and waited impatiently while the walkie-talkie crackled. Then the crow was heard again: “I’ll be damned,” said Tom-Tom. He sounded surprised. “They’re hanging out a few blocks from where we’re staying.”

“Where we’re staying? Come,” Eric repeated stupidly.

“I flipping believe you can see the Chauffeurs from Sam’s apartment,” said the crow.

O
ne evening I awakened with a jolt.

I was in the eighth grade and stood with one paw in childhood and the other in early maturity. I slept soundly at night and had good reason to do so.

My heart was pure.

Eric and I were still living in our boys’ room highest up in the house on flame-yellow Hillville Road. The staircase leading down to the hall passed by Mother and Father’s bedroom. It was old, creaking and squeaking when you walked on the steps. I thought it was the sound of footsteps on the staircase that caused me to awaken. In a fog I got up on my elbows. Then I saw.

Someone was on his way out through the window.

A figure crawling out of the room was outlined against the dark night sky outside, palely illuminated by the stars. I let out a sigh of despair. It was so loud that the figure in the window opening stopped dead in his tracks.

“It’s only me,” hissed Eric.

A few seconds passed before I realized that it was my twin brother who was in the window, and not in his bed.

“Go back to sleep,” he hissed.

He’s running away, I recall thinking.

The phrase “running away” came to me so immediately that I didn’t even make note of it. Eric and I had reached puberty’s subversive jumble of emotions. We were living in the midst of our childhood, among well-worn children’s books, model airplanes, and soccer balls. Opening the window and fleeing seemed equally cowardly and enticing to me.

The evening breeze caressed my brow, our thin curtain danced before the open window and from somewhere outside a faint aroma of grilled meat reached me.

This abyss that had opened between me and my twin brother.

I carried the heavy knowledge with me constantly that Eric was in some kind of trouble. I had even spoken with Archdeacon Odenrick, in a roundabout way, about lost souls. We had spoken about lost animals. Odenrick was a penguin of the church and refused to give up hope on anyone.

There is always salvation, said Odenrick. For one who feels remorse, there is always forgiveness.

I myself had nothing to regret, and my twin brother never asked for forgiveness.

What kept me awake at night was not so much the question of where Eric had gone as the fact that something—presumably a great many things—had been going on prior to this night. Without my having a clue about it. How many encounters and conversations had he withheld from me? Had it been difficult or easy, and was his other life—as I was already referring to it—present in some form, even when we did things together?

The feeling of being easily fooled and the shame at having been so stupid burned behind my eyelids. The sheets became damp with sweat. I fantasized about how Eric pushed aside the great stage set that was our mutual childhood in order
to demonstrate that behind it there had always been an abyss of solitude.

Those are big words. Big feelings. But they aren’t enough to describe what I was feeling.

He came back at dawn.

I must have nodded off, for I was awakened by quick steps against the tiles on the roof. At the next moment Eric stuck his paw in through the still half-open window, heaving himself up over the edge and into the room. It was fascinating to notice how soundlessly he did it. How routinely he did it. It was, as I already suspected, not the first time.

I showered him with indignation. I attacked him with such a cascade of questions that he wouldn’t have had time to reply to them, even if he’d wanted to. I wept. I shook him in anger and hugged him with love. After a while I calmed down sufficiently to call him to account in a more lucid manner. Where had he been?

He refused to tell.

Finally he said, “Teddy, it’s best for both of us if you don’t know.”

He said that with tenderness in his voice.

I fell silent. I stared at him. He thought he knew what was best for me.

It was not even insulting.

It was stupid.

I said nothing more, but decided to find out as soon as possible what he was up to. Therefore on the nights that followed I lay awake, waiting for him to climb out of bed, put on his clothes, and climb out through the window. But that didn’t happen. It was a refined torture. Knowing that something was going on behind my back, but not knowing what it was. I was worried about him.

I wasn’t the only one.

Archdeacon Odenrick was worried, too. Even if he didn’t say anything to me. Or to anyone else.

We’d begun our confirmation classes that fall. On Tuesdays we went down to the parish building on Chapel Street after school and learned about Magnus, Magnus’s angels, and Magnus’s works from one of the deacons in Amberville. On Thursdays we went to Sagrada Bastante, where Archdeacon Odenrick himself waited to instruct us. Exactly what his title was at this time I don’t know; he became archdeacon a few years later. He was an excellent confirmation deacon. He dramatized religion so that all of us were drawn into the stories. At the same time he was careful. There was always room for doubt and uncertainty.

I doubted.

And I was uncertain.

I could accept that there was an all-powerful Magnus. Mollisan Town had not arisen out of an empty vacuum. The Deliverymen who transported the newly produced stuffed animals and the Chauffeurs who took care of those who were worn out were not the henchmen of chance. But in the end it wasn’t a matter of believing. It was a matter of wanting to believe. That Magnus forgave the penitent and let them into paradise was not something Odenrick tried to prove. Religion was logical in relationship to its own theses.

Except when it was a matter of evil.

Why did the good and all-powerful Magnus allow evil? Why had he created Malitte as his opposite?

One day I raised my hand and asked. Archdeacon Odenrick looked at me inscrutably, posing a counter question. “Teddy, what is evil?”

I was just about to answer the same way as my twin brother had once done. That evil was something that made you feel bad. There were almost twenty of us young animals gathered in one of Sagrada Bastante’s many halls. There was a solemn, serious atmosphere at our lessons. Every utterance was a challenge to peer pressure. That “evil makes you
feel bad” sounded so childish in this context that I remained silent. I exchanged a glance with my twin brother and saw that he, too, remembered our conversation with Odenrick.

My question remained unanswered. As did Archdeacon Odenrick’s follow-up question. But I brooded intensely about the matter during the weeks that followed.

What was evil?

Every night I lay awake, waiting. Eric’s heavy, calm breathing mocked me as I lay there on tenterhooks without being able to fall asleep. I was listening for suspicious sounds from his bed. All I heard was a car or two driving along down in the street.

Time passed, and I couldn’t sleep.

But it was not only worry about Eric that kept me awake at night that fall. Unfortunately not. After only a few weeks of confirmation classes, something strange happened. As I was on my way into the classroom at Sagrada Bastante, Archdeacon Odenrick asked Eric to remain after the lesson. He did so in a low, discreet voice, but I heard it clearly.

Envy flared up in me as though I’d bitten into a hot pepper.

I had a hard time following along during the lesson. When it was over, Eric remained sitting at his desk while I was forced to go outside. It was one of the most trying moments in my life up to that point.

I lingered in the cathedral a while, but when Eric didn’t come I had no choice other than to go home alone. He kept me waiting a whole hour. At first he refused to say what Odenrick had wanted. Then it crept out of him that it was about some kind of special instruction which a few of the cubs would receive.

Eric was one of them.

And the envy almost burned a hole in my stomach. A small, black hole.

During the nights, I brooded about what this special instruction was about. Why was Eric chosen and not me? Then it struck me. As I was lying in my bed without being able to sleep, as I was lying, expecting that my twin brother would again betray our twin-ness by leaving me alone in our childhood room, then it struck me.

I wasn’t the only one who had seen what was dwelling in Eric.

For Archdeacon Odenrick there were no lost souls.

For Archdeacon Odenrick there were only wayward souls.

What he called “special instruction” was an attempt to rescue Eric from evil. But it was too late. Despite the fact that Eric was breathing softly and calmly in bed a few meters from my own bed, I knew that it was too late.

Unfortunately I had no plan. I didn’t know what I should do if he sneaked out through the window again. When it did finally happen, a few weeks after the first time, I didn’t do anything, either. During the entire fall and spring, as long as the confirmation instruction was going on, Eric disappeared through the window at night at regular intervals. I remained lying in bed. Paralyzed.

I realized that there was nothing I could do to rescue my twin brother from Malitte and evil.

That is to say, nothing that Archdeacon Odenrick wasn’t already doing.

And doing better.

I wake up in the morning, and my head is full of dream fragments.

It’s a split feeling.

I wake up at night from dreams that are pleasant. I forget them in a fraction of a second and fall back asleep. Dreams that are unpleasant I dream in the morning. They linger on. The most effective way to get them to dissipate and disappear is to consciously attempt to remember them.

When I’ve forgotten the nightmares, I get up to a new day.

With each day new risks ensue. In the evening, when I turn out the bedlamp, I experience a feeling of triumph. It’s not something I’m proud of. Neither the feeling nor its origin. During the day which just passed I resisted the temptations and fought down the demons by choosing the difficult decisions ahead of the easy ones. I resisted the whole day.

What was my reward?

Sleep.

To what did I awaken the following day?

A new day of temptations and demons.

It’s not difficult to accept my split feelings about this.

It is with a blush of shame that I confess that in moments of weakness I’ve thought that the day the Chauffeurs come to fetch me from Lakestead House, the battle against evil is finally over. Then I’ve escaped.

Escaping life through death is like resisting the temptation to scratch yourself on the back by chopping off your paw.

Being good is more difficult than being bad.

My story is a story of suffering.

When I think about evil, I have developed three archetypes for the sake of clarity. They themselves are not evil. These three include all the clichés of evil that I’ve overheard around me. In newspapers, in books, and during conversations with Archdeacon Odenrick and other thinking individuals. The archetypes are symbols. They have no living stuffed animals as prototypes, nor have I tried to caricature any of them.

First up is the Dictator. He is evil in theory, never in practice. He is intellectual and driven by conceit and self-interest. The Dictator strives for power, sometimes even as a goal in itself. More often, however, power is a means to attain
other purposes. It might be a matter of securing the most favorable parking place in the garage at work. Or filling a secret bank account to the bursting point. Large things as well as small. The Dictator archetype dwells in all too many of us. He might be the neighbor who has just been named department head. She might be our mayor who’s going to run for yet another term.

I’m not saying that it is like that. It might be like that.

The Dictator might very well have lived his entire life without a single evil intention. It is only at second or third hand that his decisions and actions result in evil.

The Dictator is the general in the army.

The Dictator is the theoretician behind the sect.

The Dictator is the philosopher behind the -ism.

The Dictator is the first tile in the game of dominoes.

The Dictator is the origin, not the intention.

The Dictator never lowers his gaze so low that he needs to see or take a position on the consequences of his self-justifying plans.

The second archetype that I’ve defined is the Sadist.

The Sadist is a stuffed animal who spiritually and intellectually knows that what he strives for is wrong. Yet he can’t resist. The actions of the Sadist have a single purpose. He is out to get satisfaction. He lives in, and for, his feelings.

The Sadist might be the bitter taxi driver who by accentuating his unsuccessful life—for example, by placing a diploma in sailing clearly visible up by the steering wheel—is out to implant guilt in his passengers.

The Sadist is the torturer in the wars of distant times.

The Sadist’s intention is not evil. Even if the Sadist has an emotional disturbance, he is intellectually and spiritually exactly like you and me.

The third and final archetype is the one which is most uncommon.

Yet he is the most-often referred to and feared.

I know why. What I call the Psychopath is the person who is seen as the most evil of the three. Nothing frightens us more than the kinds of things we don’t understand. No one knows the behavior of the Psychopath. There are theories, but no answers. The Psychopath suffers from a spiritual defect. He can be rational at times, but it’s impossible to say when or why. On one occasion he’s filled with empathy, the next time emotionally shut off. He is unpredictable.

The Psychopath is a kind grandmother who secretly captures and kills butterflies.

The Psychopath is the office rat who gnaws himself on the legs at night.

The Psychopath is the mass murderer we read about in the newspapers and who pursues us in our nightmares.

The Psychopath isn’t evil, either.

The Psychopath is sick.

It took a while before I’d gathered enough courage to follow Eric when he sneaked out through the window. By then we’d finished our elementary school studies, begun our high school education, and turned sixteen.