Amberville

Chapter 25

Eric, what a surprise!” said Archdeacon Odenrick, but there was no joy in his voice.

Eric was standing one step inside the threshold to the archdeacon’s office, not knowing what he should do. Outside the small, aperture-like windows he glimpsed reality in the form of buildings and streetlights, but he had a strong, unpleasant feeling that he would never return out there again. He closed the door behind him and tried to gather his courage.
“Come in, come in,” the archdeacon invited with a smile that was broad and warm.
Eric tried to smile back, but was unsure whether he succeeded. Slowly he walked over to the ample visitor’s armchair that stood in front of the archdeacon’s massive desk, and which he’d never dared sit in when he was little. Now he sat down, but he sat on the edge of the armchair, straight-backed, and with his paws in his lap. He still hadn’t said anything.
“Eric, that you come to visit this late…” said Odenrick.
“Yes,” the bear finally forced out.
“You were passing this way, or…?”
“Yes, exactly.”
“But no one visits a deacon so late in the evening without some purpose, do they?” said Odenrick.
Eric nodded in shame, found out.
“There’s no problem, no hurry. How are your parents? I see them all too seldom nowadays.”
Mother and Father. That was a topic of conversation to dwell on. It was solid ground. Eric told what he knew about his mother and her hardships at the ministry, and for a few minutes they helped each other choose the best desserts she’d served over the years. For once Penguin Odenrick, who was also close to Eric’s father, asked whether Eric had reconciled yet with Boxer Bloom. Eric shook his head. No, they still hadn’t spoken since…for a long time.
“That grieves your father, you should know,” Odenrick said seriously. “Even if you don’t believe it, for I know you don’t. If you knew how much pain you cause him, I’m certain you would call and put things right. You’re not a bad bear, Eric.”
The thought of Boxer Bloom irritated Eric as always, and even now, in the archdeacon’s office, where so much was at stake and so much had to be said, he had a hard time letting Odenrick’s words pass by without comment.
“As if he couldn’t call,” muttered Eric Bear.
“The two of you are equally stubborn,” smiled Odenrick mildly. “It’s terrible. It’s inherited, and that makes it doubly painful for your father. It’s his own stubbornness he encounters in you.”
“That is not at all…” said Eric with a scornful tone of voice, and immediately regretted it. Of the church’s theoretical foundations, he’d always considered the idea of genetic inheritance to be one of the most hard-to-swallow bits.
“We’ve talked about this before, haven’t we?” said the archdeacon, recognizing the bear’s hesitation.
Eric nodded.
“And if I don’t misremember, I placed the rhetorical question whether you truly believe that the Deliverymen bring the cubs out by chance. Do you believe that it was fate alone that made it that just you and Teddy ended up with Bloom and his rhinoceros? Or was it somebody’s intention? Sounds more likely, don’t you think?”
Eric wanted to nod but didn’t dare. He knew that was how the archdeacon always handled the question of original sin.
“But aren’t we all born good?” protested Eric somewhat lamely, leaping over several trains of thought to get to the point.
“We are all born with the possibility of doing good,” said the archdeacon diplomatically.
“But, Archdeacon, do you really think that stuffed animals come directly from the factory that are evil? Evil, because the animals that will become their parents, or their ancestors, had done wrong at some time in their lives?”
Eric couldn’t hold back his acid irony, and involuntarily he leaned forward a little.
“The sin which has been committed through the ages we all carry with us, collectively. Then it is the church’s task to forgive. That’s just how our roles have been assigned to us,” said the archdeacon, adding, “You take this all too literally, all too personally.”
“Is it the church’s task to forgive?” Eric repeated. “How often should that happen? How soon after my evil action does forgiveness apply? And after I’ve been forgiven, has a deacon then transformed me from evil to good?”
Eric spoke quickly, stumbling over the syllables; he had to make his way past this side track in order to get to his actual business.
“Whether you regret the evil you’ve done,” the archdeacon replied without raising his voice, “is more important than anything else.”
“Anxiety is the answer,” clarified Eric.
“Remorse,” corrected the archdeacon.
Eric got up from the large chair. His frustration over the conversation and the dogmatic penguin was so great that he could not possibly sit still.
The archdeacon misunderstood the gesture.
“Is that why you’re here?” asked Odenrick, thereby giving Eric an opportunity to refrain from asking what the archdeacon knew he was thinking about asking. “For something you’ve done? To ask for forgiveness? That’s far from—”
“No,” interrupted Eric, making a gesture with his arm as if the archdeacon were some kind of porter. “I’m not here to beg pardon.”
The archdeacon leaned over the desk, carefully observing his visitor. The humble tone that had previously concealed the bear’s actual state of mind fell to the floor like the drapery from a sprawling work of art, and here stood his true self.
“I’m here to appeal for help,” said Eric Bear without the hint of an appeal.
“I’ll naturally do everything in my power to—” began the archdeacon, but once again he was interrupted.
“That remains to be seen,” said Bear. “This is about the Death List.”
Whatever expectations Eric had had, they came to naught. The penguin behind the desk didn’t bat an eyelid. No surprise or rage, no fear or even lack of understanding. Penguin Odenrick looked just as pious as ever.
“The Death List?”
“I know how it fits together,” said Eric. “I know that it’s your list.”
“My list?”
“That it’s you who writes it, you who chooses the animals who will die.”
“You know that?”
“And I need help,” repeated the bear.
“Sit down,” said the archdeacon.
It was an order, the tone of voice was sharp, and no more than what was required to transform the self-assured bear into a former confirmand.
Eric sat down and tried to encounter the archdeacon’s gaze. It could no longer be described as mild.
“You should think carefully about what you’re planning to accuse me of,” said Odenrick, “because when the words are spoken it’s going to be difficult to take them back. I’ve learned to forgive, but I have a hard time forgetting.”
“I’m not afraid of you,” replied Eric.
And in the same moment as he said that, he knew that it was true. He was not afraid. Here sat an idiotic penguin with the power to let his beloved wife and his biological twin live. And the power to force them to die. What did Eric have to be afraid of, what more was there to lose?
“I’m not afraid,” repeated Eric, “because I know who you are, and your power consists of your secrets.”
“You think you know what power is,” said the archdeacon, “but you know nothing.”
The penguin got up from his chair, and Eric was happy that the large desk stood between them.
“The worlds where you move, where the struggle for material advantages is carried on with more or less criminal methods,” said Archdeacon Odenrick with all of his breath support, “and here I include your fancy corporate directors; that’s only the lobby. You’re so occupied with comparing yourselves with each other that you don’t see it. That someone has granted you the arena in which you fight, and that as long as you restrict yourselves to it you’re left in peace. But if you start searching for doors that lead out of there, then comes the punishment. Hard and merciless. And that, my upright friend, is power. Which you’ll continue to experience, but never taste.”
The penguin remained standing behind the desk. He looked down at the bear, and his breathing was excited. Just then he was a demonic figure, but Eric Bear still felt no fear.
“Power,” repeated the bear, nodding to himself as if he’d understood something. “Of course. That is a motivating force.”
The penguin didn’t let himself be provoked. “It’s a matter of managing it. I’ve striven for it, I’ll gladly admit that. And the reason is that I want to make use of it. Otherwise it would be meaningless. And I’m good at making use of it. Because I understand that I am a temporary servant.”
“I know what you can do,” said Eric, nodding.
“You know nothing,” answered Odenrick slowly and with such contempt that it surprised Eric.
“You’re wrong there. I know a great deal. And I won’t hesitate to make use of it.”
“I certainly believe that,” replied Odenrick, sitting down in his chair again. “You’re good at that. That’s the way you got yourself a wife.”
That was a punch below the belt, and it was just as intentional as it was painful. Eric had intended to follow through his train of thought, but completely lost the thread. The past returned to the present with violent force, and Eric was unprepared. Despite the fact that the archdeacon’s provocation was completely obvious, he couldn’t refrain from reacting to it.
“That’s bullshit,” he said in a loud voice, “and you know it.”
“Oh,” the archdeacon smiled, “there seem to be several of us here who know a few things, and who should be able to make use of that.”
“Teddy knows,” said Eric. “He’s always known.”
“And your lovely wife?” asked Odenrick amiably. “What, exactly, does she know about how the whole thing happened those days before you got married?”
“She certainly recalls that the esteemed Archdeacon Odenrick conducted the ceremony,” said Eric. “I’m sure of that. And she recalls how the archdeacon spoke with us the day before. She can probably recall the entire conversation, she has a good memory.”
This didn’t make the archdeacon’s smile any less condescending.
“But does she know that it was your idea? Does she understand that Teddy—”
“Teddy was the one I was thinking about the whole time, and you know it!” screamed Eric.
“Do I know?” sneered Odenrick. “Do I know?”
“And I know that the clothes you send to the Garbage Dump are actually the Death List!” continued Eric in the same overexcited tone of voice.
He was still sitting on the very edge of the armchair. But the reason was not respect or humility. The bear was like a pumped-up muscle only waiting the chance to be used. By revealing that he knew how the Death List was sent to the dump, he had gotten the archdeacon to fall silent. Without himself being aware of it, Eric’s upper body slowly started to rock back and forth.
“I want you to remove two names from the list,” Eric said with suppressed rage. “That’s my purpose, that’s why I came this evening. I want you to remove two of the names.”
“You’re crazy,” said the archdeacon with his gaze aimed down at the desk. “You’re completely crazy. What you’re asking for is impossible.”