KING OF HEARTS

… the memories float further
and further away from that which once created
them …

T here were four people in the car when we headed north again, two more than when we had driven south. I thought it wasn’t such a bad trick, but I also felt as though the King of Hearts was missing.

Once again we passed the little garage with only one petrol pump, and I think Dad had a deep desire to meet the mysterious little man again. However, the little fool wasn’t to be found. It didn’t surprise me, but Dad cursed and swore.

We made a few enquiries around the neighbourhood, but the people there could tell us only that the garage had been shut down ever since the oil crisis in the seventies.

This is where the great journey to the philosopher’s homeland came to an end. We had found Mama in Athens, and we had met Grandpa in the little Alpine village. But I also felt that my soul had been wounded, and that wound branched from the depths of European history.

Only after we had been home a long time did Grandma confide in me that Ludwig had managed to bequeath everything he owned to me. She said that he had also joked about me one day taking over the bakery in Dorf.

Several years have now passed since Dad and I made the long journey from Arendal to Athens to find Mama, who had lost herself in the fashion fairy tale.

I remember as if it were only yesterday that I sat in the back seat of the old Fiat. I am absolutely positive that I was given a magnifying glass by a little man on the Swiss border. I still have the magnifying glass, and Dad can confirm that the dwarf at the garage gave it to me.

I can swear that Grandpa had a goldfish in his bakery in Dorf, because we all saw it. Both Dad and I also remember the white pebbles in the forest above the wooden cabin in Dorf. Time has passed, but it can’t erase the fact that I was given a bag of sticky buns by the old baker. I still have the pear taste of the fizzy drink in my body, and I haven’t forgotten that Grandpa said something about a drink which tasted even better.

But was there really a little book in the sticky bun? Did I really sit in the back seat and read about Rainbow Fizz and the magic island? Or did I just sit and imagine the whole thing?

As time passes – and the memories float further and further away from that which once created them – the doubt always comes sneaking into my mind.

Because the Joker stole the sticky-bun book, I have had to write everything down from memory. Whether I have remembered everything or whether I have added bits here and there, only the Delphic Oracle knows.

It must have been the old prophecy from the magic island which made me finally realise that I had met my own grandpa in Dorf. Because I didn’t realise whom I’d met until we’d found Mama in Athens. But what had made him understand?

I have only one answer: Grandpa wrote the sticky-bun book. He had known about the old prophecy since the end of the Second World War.

Maybe the greatest mystery was where we had met—in a tiny bakery in a mountain village in Switzerland. How did we get there? We had been fooled into taking that long detour by a dwarf with cold hands.

Or was the greatest mystery that we met Grandma in the same village on our way home?

Maybe the greatest mystery of all was how we managed to free Mama from the fashion fairy tale. The greatest thing of all is love. Time can’t pale that as easily as it fades old memories.

Now all four of us are living happily on Hisøy Island. I say four, because I now have a little sister. She was the one wading through the leaves and horse chestnuts on the road outside. Her name is Tone Angelica, and soon she’ll be five years old. She talks like a waterfall all day long. Maybe she is the greatest philosopher.

Time is turning me into an adult. Time is also making the ancient temples crumble and even older islands sink into the sea.

Was there really a sticky-bun book in the biggest of the four buns in the bag? No question crosses my mind more often. As Socrates said, the only thing I know is that I know nothing.

But I am positive there is still a Joker roaming around the world. He will make sure that the world never rests. Whenever possible—and wherever possible—a little fool will jump out wearing long donkey ears and jingling bells. He will look deep into our eyes and ask, Who are you? Where do we come from?

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Дата добавления: 2015-10-28