A few days after Father had defeated the apes, Jason Horse phoned from the Ministry of Culture.
Father was offered Rector Owl’s position.
Father accepted.
The epilogue goes: Rector Owl disappeared and was not seen for several years. Later he was said to be at the university library in Lanceheim, where he was working in the archives. His cub, Nathan, is still driving bus number 6.
To summarize, in the autumn of age, a life consisting solely of good deeds is impossible. Apart from the fact that evil constantly tempts us, we are at some point placed in a situation of choice where goodness is not one of the alternatives.
My choice looked like this:
To injure the one I loved in order to remain true to myself. Or to rescue the beloved through false actions.
I could not marry Emma Rabbit.
I proposed to her in April. We set a date for the wedding at the end of August and thereby had time for the preparations. My love for Emma was stronger than ever.
The same applied to the insight that this marriage was insanity.
Both of our mothers were happy to excess about the upcoming wedding. They discussed what songs to sing, which guests to invite, and what flowers to order. Archdeacon Odenrick was spoken with, the band was booked, and dresses were sewn. Mother would prepare the food herself.
Father was more levelheaded and only intermittently took part in the planning. This worked out well, as Emma Rabbit was fatherless. It had always been painful for her to talk about her father, and therefore we let it be. But I understood that she was devoting a lot of thought to him during the wedding preparations.
I held myself at a proper distance from the planning.
I ought to have stopped the whole thing, but I couldn’t.
It wasn’t a matter of will.
I wanted to love Emma for better or for worse. I wanted to share the rest of my life with her in love and truth.
But that wouldn’t be possible.
We were no more than stuffed animals. Against our will we would come to injure one another, quarrel, and perhaps even be unfaithful to each other. Young and inexperienced, we gave our promises because we relied on love. But wherever I looked, in literature and in reality, lifelong pairing was only possible through mutual forgiveness or a similarly mutual lack of interest.
Neither the one nor the other was possible for the one who has chosen goodness.
To enter into this marriage with the knowledge that in five, ten, or twenty years I could betray my own youthful self was impossible.
I ought to have told Emma about my thoughts. But she was just as excited about the impending wedding as her mother. I couldn’t break her heart.
Three weeks before the wedding the thought came to me in my sleep. It arrived as easily as a bur in your fur. It was just as hard to get rid of.
Three weeks before the wedding. I didn’t know how I would get Mother to understand that I had to back out. I hadn’t paid any attention to Emma’s comments from the previous evening. She had said that it would be exciting to meet my brother Eric. She asked if he was older or younger.
I heard her ask the question.
I didn’t think any more about it.
But the idea came to me in my sleep.
CHAPTER 17
Blood-red Western Avenue continues all the way to Hillevie and the sea. When the developed areas thin out and the forest begins, blue South and yellow North Avenues change to small country roads which after a few miles turn into paths no one has walked on for many decades.
Mint-green Eastern Avenue leads, only a few hundred meters beyond the city limits, to a massive wooden gate. Above the gate hangs a four-meter-long board between two tall poles, and on the board someone has written “Garbage Dump” in tar. The wooden gate stands wide open from the start of the Morning Weather to the end of the Afternoon Weather. If you arrive earlier or later you’re forced to pound on the gate, or use your horn, to get someone to open it. But it’s far from certain that you’ll make yourself heard, and the garbagemen who drive the trucks are careful to keep to the open hours.
The Garbage Dump was a terrifying area. The sun never reached down between the mountains of refuse that lined the streets. Inside the gate there were three roads to choose from. No signs guided the visitor, but there