Amberville - By Tim Davys Page 0,5

fifth floor. There were elevators at Grand Divino as well, but he could never remember where they were. It was the escalators, constructed of glass, plastic, and Plexiglas, that were the backbone of the department store. Their complicated mechanisms were exposed in what looked like glass drawers on the underside, and like perpetual-motion machines they kept the urge to buy going from morning to evening. Being slowly lifted up toward Grand Divino’s sky roof, where small lamp-stars sparkled against a dark-blue background, gave a sense of divinity. After that it appeared small-minded to get cold feet if a pair of boots cost a few thousand.

On the fifth floor, to the right of the beds and linens, was the sewing notions department. And farthest in, alongside the knitting needles and yarn, the massive Tom-Tom Crow sat on a stool. He was a peculiar sight. He was sitting behind a long, white table, sorting sewing needles according to eye size. The crow’s black form was hunched over the table, and he used the long feathers farthest out on the fingerbones for this detail work. It was not least thanks to the red spot on the underside of his beak—apparently a manufacturing defect—that Eric recognized his old friend. The crow was so large that the table in front of him appeared to belong in a preschool.

There were two more clerks in the sewing notions department, a pair of sows getting on in years whom Eric didn’t notice at first. One of them was standing, unobtrusively folding flowery pieces of cloth not far from Tom-Tom; the other was over at the register, ironing aprons marked down twenty percent.

Complete calm prevailed in the department. Eric Bear placed himself at a safe distance, in the shelter of a bunk bed, and gathered courage. It seemed almost impossible that the slow needle-sorter was the same bird Eric had once known. Twenty years earlier the crow had been able to break two bricks between his wings. Back then Eric had laughed many times at the poor things who disturbed Tom-Tom by mistake when he sat absorbed in his thoughts; you couldn’t imagine a more meaningless way to have an arm torn off. Most often Tom-Tom Crow was nicer than most, but sometimes he exploded in a madness that he couldn’t control.

And now? Could the crow’s loyalty still be counted on?

Eric took a few cautious steps into the sewing notions department and carefully avoided landing in the ironing sow’s way. As Eric passed the embroideries, the crow looked up from his needles. For a fraction of a second a surprised worry was seen in his small, black eyes. Slowly he pushed the needles aside and got up from the stool.

“I’ll be damned!” he burst out.

The crow ran over, taking the bear in his arms and lifting him up from the floor in a mighty embrace that caused Eric to laugh. Above all in relief, but also because he realized how ridiculous this had to appear.

After the friends exchanged the phrases that two old friends exchange when they haven’t seen each other for a long time, Tom-Tom sat down on his stool and resumed his sorting. Eric leaned toward the table and watched for a while.

“And how the hell did you end up here?” he finally asked.

The swearword was a clumsy attempt to ingratiate himself. Nowadays Eric Bear swore so seldom that it rang falsely when he tried.

“What do you mean?” asked the crow.

“Yes…well,” said Eric, less cocksure, “how did you end up here…knitting and crocheting and…sows?”

“Josephine and Nadine,” said Tom-Tom, smiling, “are the flipping best. They help me with the embroideries. At home I’m working on a big frigging wall hanging. It’s for the bedroom. It’s going to be a fantasy landscape. Stay for lunch, then I can show you. I have the sketches here somewhere…”

Tom-Tom looked around with uncertainty. His sketches were somewhere.

“To be honest,” said Eric, “I was thinking about freeing you from lunch. For good.”

“There’s nothing wrong with lunch,” said Tom-Tom. “They have an employee lunchroom in the basement. Today there’s vegetable soup. Maybe it doesn’t sound so frigging cool, but it’s better than you might think.”

“I thought we could do a thing together,” said Eric. “You and me and Sam and Snake.”

“A thing?” repeated Tom-Tom.

Eric had a hard time reading the crow’s tone of voice. He nodded.

“All four of us?” asked Tom-Tom.

Eric nodded again.

“Snake is never going to join in,” objected the crow. “I ran into him a few years ago, here at the department