The child was an easy mark; his parents would barely be aware of the change. He had few friends, caused neither excitement nor alarm as a student, and was so ordinary as to be almost invisible. Ragno and Zanzara, who had taken residence in the family’s attic for months, reported that aside from peas and carrots, the boy ate anything, preferred chocolate milk with his meals, slept on rubber sheets, and spent a lot of time in the living room watching a small box that let one know when to laugh and how to schedule bedtime. Our boy was a good sleeper, too, up to twelve hours at a stretch on weekends. Kivi and Blomma reported that he liked to play outdoors in a sandbox by the house, where he had set up an elaborate tableau of small plastic dolls in blue and gray. The doleful fellow seemed satisfied to go on living life as it is. I envied him.
No matter how we pestered him, Igel refused to hear our report. We had been spying on Oscar for over a year, and everyone was ready for the change. I was running out of paper in McInnes’s book, and one more dispatch from the field would not only be a waste of time, but a waste of precious paper as well. Haughty, distracted, and burdened by the responsibilities of leadership, Igel kept to himself, as if he both yearned for and flinched at the possibility of freedom. His normally stoic disposition changed to a general peevishness. Kivi came to dinner once with a red welt under her eye.
“What happened to you?”
“That son of a bitch. Igel hit me, and all I asked him was if he was ready. He thought I meant ready to go, but all I meant was for dinner.”
No one knew what to say to her.
“I can’t wait till he leaves. I am sick and tired of the old crab. Maybe the new boy will be nice.”
I stood up from the meal and stormed through the camp, looking for Igel, resolving to confront him, but he was not to be found in his usual places. I poked my head into the entranceway of one of his tunnels and called out, but no answer. Perhaps he had gone out to spy on the boy. Nobody knew where he might be found, so I spent several hours walking in circles, until chancing upon him alone down by the river, where he was staring at his reflection in the broken surface of water. He looked so alone that I forgot my anger and quietly crouched down beside him.
“Igel? Are you all right?” I addressed the image on the water.
“Do you remember,” he asked, “your life before this life?”
“Vaguely. In my dreams, sometimes my father and mother and a sister, or maybe two. And a woman in a red coat. But no, not really.”
“I have been gone so long. I’m not sure I know how to go back.”
“Speck says there are three choices but only one ending for us all.”
“Speck.” He spat out her name. “She is a foolish child, almost as foolish as you, Aniday.”
“You should read our report. It will help you make the change.”
“I will be glad to be rid of such fools. Have her come see me in the morning. I don’t want to talk to you, Aniday. Have Béka make your report.”
He stood up, brushed dirt from the seat of his pants, and walked away. I hoped he would disappear forever.
? CHAPTER 17 ?
My long-forgotten history peeked out from behind the curtains. The questions McInnes posed during hypnosis had dredged up memories that had been repressed for more than a century, and fragments of those subconscious recollections began intruding into my life. We would be performing our second-rate imitation of Simon and Garfunkel when an unexpected Germanism would leap out of my mouth. The boys in the band thought I was tripping, and we’d have to start over after a brief apology to the audience. Or I’d be seducing a young woman and find that her face had morphed into the visage of a changeling. A baby would cry and I’d wonder if it was human or a bundle of holy terror that had been left on the doorstep. A photograph of six-year-old Henry Day’s first day of school would remind me of all I was not. I’d see myself superimposed over the image, my face reflected in the glass, layered over his face, and wonder what had become of him, what had become of me. No longer a monster, but not Henry Day either. I suffered trying to remember my own name, but that German boy stole away every time I drew near.