to hold on to this almost apathetic sorrow. The vodka heated him up. It was so unfair, he thought. It was as though a higher power was playing a joke on him, as if someone truly wanted to see him suffer and therefore let him discover his brother’s name on the list. Dove can go to hell, the bear thought crossly, and the anger chased away the loneliness and caused him to feel strong. Dove can go to hell, he thought again, and fate can go to hell, too.
Eric got up from the table. His chair fell over and the crash caused the others to fall silent and look up. He had absolutely nothing to say. He looked at them, one after the other, and was filled with a powerful love. They were sitting here for his sake; they were loyal. His bear heart was transformed into a cleaning sponge, soggy with alcohol and sentimentality, and tears welled up in the corners of his eyes. His friends. His confidants.
“Eric,” asked Tom-Tom, “what the hell are we doing now, actually?”
Eric Bear turned slowly toward Tom-Tom and tried in vain to focus his gaze.
“Yes, then,” repeated the crow, “I don’t get what the hell we should do.”
That swine, thought Eric, perplexed, and all his beautiful feelings evaporated. Does the big crow doubt my ability?
“I think we put Noah Camel up against the wall,” said Sam from over by the dish rack.
The gazelle was doing dishes? Eric squinted in order to make Sam out better. Indeed, he was standing there doing dishes. Wasn’t that overly zealous?
“Noah Camel?” asked Snake.
“He must have gotten the list from someone,” Sam defended himself, assuming that Snake thought badly of the idea.
“Was that camel bastard at the ministry?” asked Tom-Tom.
“You know who he is?” said Snake.
All of these retorts flying back and forth through the room confused Eric Bear. He understood that something was about to happen, something important, but he didn’t know what it was. Noah Camel?
“Noah and I…know each other,” said Sam, adding hesitantly, “you might say…”
“And you’re just saying that now?” Snake Marek almost screamed.
His irritation knew no limits.
“But this is good, isn’t it?” asked Tom-Tom.
Three days might be enough, thought Eric.
NOAH CAMEL
can’t understand it can’t understand it can’t understand how someone can want to cause such pain such pain such pain and tears don’t help because I’m freezing ’cause it’s cold, it’s always cold cold but I’m not freezing because it’s cold, I’m freezing from fear, I’m freezing down to the marrow and stuffing and this cold hurts so bad it hurts so bad
saw Sam Gazelle coming, saw him coming from the window in the hall, saw him coming from the window in the hall and it made me a little happy even because even if I knew he was dangerous we were friends he and I we were friends he and I for we’d met once long ago and I knew he was dangerous for I knew who he was and what he liked to do but I thought that was just talk because there’s so much talk and there’s too much talk and I opened the door when he rang the bell and asked him to come into the kitchen and sit down and maybe have coffee or a beer for you’re supposed to be nice to your friends
he took a fork and poked it through my leg, through cloth and cotton, the metal teeth of the fork right through my leg from one side to the other so I was stuck to the table and I can’t describe how much it hurt how horribly painful it was but still I almost didn’t feel the pain because I got so scared, so scared that my whole body started shaking but I didn’t scream even if I should have screamed but I wept silently and looked at Sam Gazelle who I thought was my friend and I didn’t understand I didn’t understand I didn’t understand a thing
he questioned me and threatened me and said that if I didn’t talk he would burn me, just like that he said that he would burn me and I saw in his eyes that he wanted to burn me whatever the hell I said and by then I was almost happy because I understood why he’d stuck the fork through my leg, he was after something, he wanted to know what I knew and that’s the kind of thing that happens all the time, it was understandable