Albert was familiar with the aphorism; it belonged to Fred’s standard repertoire. What irritated him was the two periods. They stared up at him like a pair of button eyes, neither ending the sentence nor indicating something further. They sat beside each other, stubborn, disturbingly wrong. Albert licked his thumb and attempted to rub one of them away, but merely blurred them, endowing them each with a sort of tail.
What if Fred needed him now? Albert called out to him again, listened, heard no answer. He put the card back. Every child knew that when you got lost, you shouldn’t go wandering off, but should stay in the same spot, waiting, thought Albert — and set off into the dark.
That struck him as righter.
Berlin-Tempelhof
Albert ran and paused, ran and paused. The diffuse light falling at intervals through storm drains and manhole covers only ever illuminated a couple of feet, then quickly dwindled again into darkness, leaving Albert to grope on with outstretched arms toward the next source of brightness. The sewer pipe’s walls were as greasy to the touch as they looked. To begin with, Albert kept to the right at every bifurcation of the tunnel, but soon gave up on this tactic, realizing he was going in circles.
Each of his calls was answered by an echo of E-ed.
At the end of a narrow duct, he saw light. He moved toward it and discovered an exit covered with a metal grate, in which some sort of vegetable matter, looking and smelling like kelp, had gotten tangled. Beyond it, forest. Albert inhaled, savoring the fresh, cool air. For a long while now, he hadn’t heard a car above. It was possible he’d made his way out to the moor. All roads out of Königsdorf led to the moor. He shook the grate; it gave just a little, its mounting didn’t seem particularly stable. Maybe he could get it open. Albert wasn’t too keen on risking his life by ascending a shaft that emerged who knew where, maybe in the middle of some street where the locals went tear-assing around curves at eighty miles per hour. He took a step back, then kicked as hard as he could at the grate. It gave a little more. As he wound up for another kick, something stirred at the edge of the forest. A fox separated itself from the shade beneath a birch, and stood there staring at him. It hardly moved, only curling its tail a bit. Albert had never seen a fox in the wild before. The animal lifted its snout, never taking its eyes off of him.
“Albert!” came a shout from behind him. Fred arrived at a run, lugging both his backpack and Albert’s tote bag. “You shouldn’t run away!” he said, exasperated.
Albert glanced back over his shoulder. The fox had vanished. “Where’ve you been?”
“I was sleeping,” Fred said as if stating the obvious.
“Why?”
Fred passed him the tote bag. “Because I was tired. It’s very hot.”
Albert almost didn’t dare to ask, “Are we moving on now?”
After a brief pause, Fred nodded. “It’s very far.”
“I’ve noticed.”
Fred’s eyes fell on the grate. He pulled the plant matter from it. “My papa wants this to stay clean.”
“Now that that’s taken care of,” said Albert, “where to?”
Fred looked at him, surprised. “You aren’t very strict.”
“Oh yes I am strict!”
“No, Albert,” he said, grinning, “you’re ambrosial.”
“Maybe. A little,” said Albert, and smiled. “Because you’re doing okay. That’s important, understand?”
Fred nodded. “I always understand everything.”
They went back up the little duct. Fred was in the lead with his flashlight. Albert wasn’t feeling annoyed anymore, but optimistic. Soon they’d reach their goal, and then he’d be able to wash away this endless summer afternoon with a cold shower. How long could it possibly take before they’d threaded their way through the whole sewer system? It was only Königsdorf.
They made two more turns, and Fred shouted, “Ah!” They retraced their steps, made yet another turn, and ran up against a cul-de-sac. The treasure chest sitting there at the end of it did, in fact, look just like you’d expect a treasure chest to look: dark, moldy wood, battered edges, rusty lock. Fred indicated it with a sort of may-I-introduce-you gesture, and said, “My Most Beloved Possession.”
“I didn’t know you could have more than one of those,” said Albert.
“Only a couple.”
“And the gold was in there?”
“All Most Beloved Possessions come from there!”
Albert set down his tote bag, knelt before the chest, and opened it. There was a sticker pasted to the inner surface of the lid: a cartoon bear wearing red-and-white pants, sailing with outspread arms over the legend Berlin-Tempelhof.
On the floor of the chest, precisely in the middle, parallel to the side walls, lay a snow-white lily. Albert lifted it and sniffed. Bittersweet odor of compost. The blossom was barely wilted. It couldn’t have been in the chest for more than a few hours.
“Why did you put it in there?”
“It wasn’t me,” said Fred.
Albert lifted an eyebrow.
“It really wasn’t!”
Albert smelled the lily again, though the odor made him uneasy, then passed it to Fred, who promptly buried his nose in the blossom. “What kind of flower is it?”
Albert told him.
“Then it’s for me. Lilies are specially for dead people.”
Albert shut the chest and sat down on it. Fred stroked the lily’s petals with his finger as if the flower were the head of a parakeet. “When I go dead, you’ll have to come down here and open the chest. Because when I go dead, I won’t be able to open the chest anymore.”
“Do me a favor and stop saying dead.”
Fred took off his Tyrolean hat, stuck the lily into the band beside the tuft, and put it on again. “Am I chic?”
“Extremely.”
Fred’s grin was lily-white.
“Frederick, I’d like you to tell me who put the flower in there.”
“My papa.”
“Have you spoken to him?”
“No.” Fred’s head sank, then sprang up again. “But I wished for a dead person’s flower from my papa, and now there’s a dead person’s flower there!”
Albert quietly repeated the words “Now there’s a dead person’s flower there,” which from Fred’s mouth sounded so plausible, so unquestionably true. From Albert’s they seemed so insubstantial — he felt stupid just having them in his head, let alone on his lips.
“Okay then.” Albert rose to his feet, clapped his hands, and spoke loudly into the darkness, “I wish for an ice-cold lemonade!” He flung open the lid of the chest.
Fred stared at him.
“Oh. Didn’t work. Oh well. These things happen. Try again.” He flipped the lid closed with a bang.
Fred winced.
“Maybe that wish didn’t come from the heart,” said Albert, feeling his rage swell. “How about this: I wish for some sign … No, why be so modest when you’ve got a chest of wonders? … Dear spirit of the chest, I wish for my mother.” Lid up. “There you go. It’s obviously busy at the moment. Ah well. Good things come to those who …” He gave the chest a kick. “How about we ask for your papa, hmm? Or our family tree? Or a smaller heart for you?”
Albert wasn’t bothering to check the chest anymore.
“Are you angry?” asked Fred.
“What makes you think that?”
Fred opened the chest. “Albert! Look!” He reached in and pulled out the bear sticker.
“A miracle,” said Albert. And then he saw that on the underside of the lid, at the spot the sticker had covered, four words were written: My Most Beloved Possession. Again, that ornate schoolgirl’s hand.