Amberville

Chapter 7

Snake Marek knocked on the door to Sam’s apartment at grass-green Yiala’s Arch just as the breeze started blowing and the Evening Weather began. The friends didn’t make an event of the fact that he came. Tom-Tom Crow was standing in the kitchen, shaking an enormous cocktail shaker; Sam and Eric were out on the balcony, talking. The crow let the snake in, and after a guarded nod, Snake wriggled out through the balcony door. He made his way up onto a rusty table that had presumably been on the balcony when Sam moved in and wheedled his way into the conversation. When Tom-Tom joined the friends after a little while, Sam cleared his throat solemnly.

“It’s time to make a toast,” he said as the crow poured cocktails, “to a reunion. And to success, of course. And to time, which hasn’t made us uglier or older, simply wiser and”—Sam winked at Snake—“more cunning.”
And with his tinkling-bell giggle Sam raised his glass. The others did the same, and the cool alcohol warmed their frozen souls. As always, the evening was lovelier than it was warm.
“I’m extremely grateful,” said Eric, “that you’re willing to help. And I was thinking that we might devote the evening to trying to figure out how we should go about our task. You know what it’s about. The dove believes he’s on the Death List, and he wants us to remove his name. An impossible task, it might seem. But we’ve done the impossible before. So just let it flow. No suggestion is wrong, no associations too far-fetched…”
Sam giggled again.
“…except the indecent,” added Eric.
Everyone laughed, Snake with a contemptuous sneer.
“But, what the hell,” said Tom-Tom, stealing a glance at Sam as the laughter subsided, “is there really a Death List?”
“Darling, you’re so clever,” said Sam shrewdly. “Or what, Marek? The crow is sharp!”
Snake’s head swayed back and forth, indicating his ambivalence. He was much too gloomy to let himself be provoked. He had been forced to leave the ministry, but no one could force him to be happy about being at Yiala’s Arch.
But before anyone had time to comment on the Death List’s existence or lack thereof, the sound of a broken bottle was heard in the Dumpster down in the courtyard. Up on the balcony all four of them felt ashamed. Here they stood like rank amateurs, discussing secrets so that everyone could hear. Quietly they finished their glasses, went inside, and sat down around the deplorably moldy kitchen table.
“What do you say?” said Eric to Snake as Tom-Tom set vodka, juice, and ice out on the table. “Is there a Death List?”
“Rumors about the Death List have always flourished,” replied Snake. “You can find references to a Death List in poetic refrains written hundreds of years ago. It has been maintained that the list is depicted on each of the three frescoes of the Preachers on the ceiling of Sagrada Bastante, but in actual size so that it is impossible to see it from the floor. It is said that the Twenty-Years War was really about control of the list. It is maintained that during the entire Prohibition period at the beginning of the century not a single animal was picked up. And it is maintained that during the sixties, the lists were made in the form of concealed messages on vinyl records by well-known artists. If you played the records backwards, the names on the current list were heard.”
“But how the hell can that be true?” said Tom-Tom.
“That doesn’t matter,” Snake hissed with irritation. “The essential point is, it’s not by chance. A myth can only survive for so long for two reasons. Either because those who are in control for some reason want the myth to survive. Or because…”
“Why, why?” repeated Sam with ominous exaggeration.
“Because it’s true,” said Eric.
“Yes, damn it. I’ve always thought it existed,” said Tom-Tom, looking defiantly at Sam, who shrugged his shoulders and turned his attention toward the bottle of vodka. “There’s nothing strange about a Death List, is there? Would the Chauffeurs drive around at night and pick us up at random? But of course it’s not random. You can almost always tell who’s on their way. It’s not the case that the Chauffeurs pick up some wretch who’s young or healthy or…you know…someone who’s good…”
“That’s happened, too,” Sam interjected.
“You know what I mean,” said Tom-Tom. “It’s less damn strange that the Chauffeurs have a list to go by than that they should drive around at random.”
“And who do you think makes that list, my friend?” asked Sam amiably. “The creator of all things, Magnus?”
“No, I don’t think so. I don’t believe in Magnus. Do you think I’m completely frigging stupid, or what?”
Wise animals had done Sam more ill than stupid ones. He felt at ease with Tom-Tom Crow.
“It is sometimes said,” said Sam. He looked at Snake Marek. “What do you say, old animal, that because the Cub List is drawn up by the Environmental Ministry, it’s not impossible that there is some shady section of the Environmental Ministry that makes the Death List, too?”
“Ask Eric,” hissed Marek. “Perhaps it’s his mother who personally draws up the Death List. At least she’s dictatorial enough. The Environmental Ministry deals with so many strange things that I can’t even count them all. No one can. But one thing I can say, and that is that we at Culture would never use government appropriations to purchase artworks for our conference rooms in the way that—”
“No Death List is made at the Environmental Ministry, that I can guarantee,” interrupted Eric.
He’d forgotten how much Snake talked, and how hard it was to get him to stop.
“I know you’re thinking that the Environmental Ministry takes care of transports, and thereby has ultimate responsibility for the Chauffeurs,” he continued. “But that takes place through a type of contract. Certain logistical matters are controlled from the ministry, but beyond that…nothing.”
Conversation ceased and a few fresh bottles of vodka were taken out while everyone thought about the Chauffeurs. It was almost impossible to mention these messengers of death without darkening everyone’s mood. No animals were so feared as the Chauffeurs. Even if few had seen them, all were aware that they drove the red pickup through the town at night, in pursuit of their victims. They did what they had to do, and picked up those animals whose lives were over. But where were the animals taken, and what happened to them? Was there a heaven, a life after this one? Every time you saw a red pickup or thought about the Chauffeurs, your faith was tested. Was it strong enough to chase away your fears?
The stuffed animals sipped the vodka in silence. The alcohol had its effect, and the conversation became less structured. For another half hour or so they succeeded in keeping on the subject. Snake talked, the others listened. He attacked the problem from a series of different points of view and after considerable anguish came to the conclusion that it was more probable that the Death List existed, in some form, than that it did not.
The weather was approaching midnight. Sam left his guests in the kitchen and went into the bathroom where, in one of the hollow feet of the bathtub, he stored the green tablets he usually took along with alcohol, and which provided a dreamless sleep. When he returned, Eric and Tom-Tom were no longer responsible for what they were saying.
“Death takes us all,” exclaimed Eric gloomily.
“Lanceheim LOSERS,” Tom-Tom cried out. “They ought to be called Lanceheim LOSERS and not Lasers.”
He was talking about the district cricket team. No one paid him any attention.
“You were always a sports nut, sweetheart,” said Sam sentimentally. “You always liked sports. I remember one time…one time…no…no…I don’t remember.”
Tom-Tom broke out in violent laughter.
“There’s no way out,” Eric continued on his introverted track. “Sooner or later it ends. That’s all we know.”
“And can you turn sooner into later, that is the question,” Snake interjected.
“A question many of my customers would gladly have an answer to,” Sam smiled hazily.
“You f*cking creep,” snapped Snake.
“Listen up now,” said Tom-Tom threateningly. “You can be damn creepy yourself.”
Sam looked gratefully at the crow.
“Death,” said Eric, “is perhaps the start of the next life?”
“There’s a story,” said Snake, “of how a name was once removed from the Death List. That must be the one Dove’s heard.”
“I don’t know what story you’re thinking of,” said the bear, who if he’d been more sober would have noticed that Snake Marek—in contrast to the others—didn’t seem especially drunk.
“The one about Prodeacon…what was his name…Prodeacon Poodle?”
“I seem to think that I’ve heard it,” said Sam.
“I’ve never heard it,” said Eric firmly.
“If it’s something frigging dirty, I don’t want to hear it,” said Tom-Tom, who feared it was time to tell dirty stories. The crow had always felt uncomfortable where dirty stories were concerned.
“Prodeacon Trew Poodle lived just under one hundred years ago—he was prodeacon down here in Yok, and the story is about his goodness,” said Snake. “The three prodeacons in Amberville, Tourquai, and Lanceheim saw Trew as their spiritual leader, despite the fact that he was considerably younger and not at all as experienced as they. One night Trew called the other prodeacons to him and told them the unbelievable: all four of them were on the Death List. In just a week they would be picked up by the red wagons that were used at that time.”
“I’ve heard this story,” mumbled Sam.
“Prodeacon Trew could not let this happen,” Snake continued relentlessly.
This was Snake’s best routine, a long, morally instructive story; he’d used the story about Prodeacon Trew Poodle as a starting point in several novels over the years; it could symbolize just about anything.
“With a frenzy that astonished his three colleagues,” said Snake, “the prodeacon fell on his knees before the altar and started to pray. He prayed for their lives, he prayed to Magnus to spare them, he implored Him to remove them from the list.”
“Now I know,” said Sam. “Now I remember this.”
“Well, I’ll be damned,” said Tom-Tom hesitantly. “So it’s Magnus who writes the list?”
“Prodeacon Poodle prays and prays,” Snake continued without letting himself be distracted, “while the prodeacons from Tourquai, Lanceheim, and Amberville hurry back to their respective parishes and devote themselves to more practical details. Who should succeed them, who should inherit their possessions, who should write their obituaries.”
“Vanity,” interjected Eric, and added, mostly to himself: “Not the least bit important.”
“However that might be,” snorted Snake, “Prodeacon Poodle prays for a week at a time while the others are busy with worldly things, and the following Sunday they meet again in Sagrada Bastante. And while they are standing there, discussing practicalities, the doors of the church open and in come the Coachmen.”
“The Coachmen?” wondered Tom-Tom.
“The Chauffeurs of that time, sweetheart,” explained Sam.
“The Coachmen pick up the prodeacon from Amberville, the prodeacon from Lanceheim and the prodeacon from Tourquai,” continued Snake.
“And the point of the story is that Magnus doesn’t hear prayers?” said Eric with surprise.
“Prodeacon Trew Poodle was also on the list,” said Snake. “That was why he was praying for the others’ lives, so that all the city’s four prodeacons wouldn’t disappear at the same time. But thanks to his unselfish prayer, he was the one whose name was removed.”
“What the hell, couldn’t he save the others?” asked Tom-Tom.
“It is told,” said Snake, “that at that time only one animal could be removed from the list every fifth year.”
“At that time?”
Snake Marek would have shrugged his shoulders if he’d had any.
“It’s a morally instructive story, not historical truth.”
Snake fell silent and sipped his vodka without drinking it.
“Let’s hope that this is the fifth year, darling,” whispered Sam to Eric.


Sam finally went and lay down. Tom-Tom moved over to the couch, taking with him a giant bag of cheese doodles.
Eric remained at the kitchen table, gloomily collapsed with a mug of vodka in his paws and with his thoughts far back in time. The memory of the years at Casino Monokowski were usually pleasant, but now the usual feeling refused to make an appearance. Instead of being happy at seeing his old companions again, he felt downhearted.
“I think the crow is right,” hissed Snake in his ear.
Eric winced. Snake was standing on the kitchen counter, right behind him.
“The Chauffeurs don’t drive around at random,” Snake continued. “It’s completely obvious, of course, but it takes a stupid crow to put it into words. Our best possibility to get on the trail of the list is through the Chauffeurs.”
Eric got up from the kitchen table, realized that he could hardly stand straight, and infinitely slowly and carefully he went over to the balcony door. Cold air, he thought, was what he needed in order to think clearly. Snake followed behind. Out on the balcony Eric noted that the breeze had not yet died down. He had thought that dawn was quite near. The chill worked its way into his fur and there was a faint odor of bacon in the air.
“There’s something to that,” said Eric after taking a few deep breaths. “We have to find the Chauffeurs. If there’s a list, someone must deliver it to them.”
“That’s exactly what I was thinking,” said Snake.
“That’s why I asked you to come along,” said Eric. “To think. How do we go about this?”
“There are not an infinite number of ways to go about this.”
“I have a tougher nut to crack,” Eric added. “A problem worthy of you, I believe.”
They stood a while in the moonlight, looking into the lighted but deplorable apartments on the opposite side of the courtyard. Neither of them had mentioned a word about the letter Eric had written in his mother’s name and which had forced Snake to Yiala’s Arch.
“Let’s hear it,” said Snake without enthusiasm.
“Let us say,” said Eric, “that there was not only a reward offered if we succeed. Let us say that there is a punishment as well if we don’t succeed.”
Eric fell silent. Snake said nothing; the hypothesis spoke for itself.
“Let us say,” continued Eric along this rhetorical path, “that the threat looks like this: if Dove is carried off by the Chauffeurs, an animal close to me is going to be carried off in a comparable way by the dove’s gorillas.”
“I understand,” said Snake.
“Just as important,” said Eric, speaking more slowly than he had during the evening up till now, “as you helping us find the Death List, is that you give me an answer to the question of how I’m going to be able to save that animal close to me if we don’t succeed. And, Snake, I believe we don’t have very much time.”




TWILIGHT, 2

He turned slowly toward the skyline of Tourquai, a pincushion of the vanity and ambition of the builders. It was not by building monuments to himself that his greatness was manifested; that was not his way of defining power.

He himself was not interested in material things. He pretended to be materialistic because that gave him a kind of alibi; he owned a car he never drove and a house he seldom visited. His eyeglass frames were of the latest model, he wrote with an expensive pen and his shoes were purchased five floors up at Grand Divino. But these were disguises.
Power was not in owning, power was in directing.
He had the necessary means at his disposal, and he made use of them. He was a master of manipulation; with his words he could entice and seduce, poison and crush. It was a matter of logic. To have the ability to conceal it and then let it appear again in a manner which suited the overarching context. Nothing gave him the same satisfaction as when he succeeded in converting a resistant stuffed animal for his own purposes. Then he experienced moments of the dizzying intoxication of power, more powerful than anything else. Then life was a matter of pursuing this intoxication over and over again.


The secret of the Chauffeurs was well hidden.
Eric Bear perhaps realizes that that is where he should begin, he thought, but it’s not going to come to anything. The Chauffeurs aren’t communicative, they’re completely inaccessible; it was for their lack of animal qualities that they were chosen for their filthy occupation once upon a time.
He laughed drily at the thought. A hollow laugh, which hurt at the top of his throat. He had never been good at laughing.
If for some reason the bear should get on the trail of something—he reminded himself that humility is a virtue—if the bear were to get on his trail, well, there were occasions when the patience-testing methods of manipulation didn’t suffice. There were animals who lacked sufficient comprehension to allow themselves to be guided by razor-sharp logic. There was a quicker, more direct language of power at hand when such was required. Physical violence didn’t fascinate him in the same way as lies and treachery did, but the effects of violence produced the same results. This applied to threats, bribery, and empty promises as well. The palette of techniques he used varied in beauty, but the end was, despite everything, more important than the means.
The bear could be stopped the moment he understood anything about the secret of the Chauffeurs. The next step, the step over that boundary, the bear would never have the opportunity to take. There were animals who could easily detach a head from its body and bury the two parts in the forests on either side of the city.
He tried to laugh again.
It didn’t go any better this time.