Amberville by Tim Davys Page B

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 orderto 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