The Great Pretend

The disturbing problem of this Saturday morning was that Emilie Jackson did not seem to remember her parents’ real names. Actually her parents had never had any other names than father and mother, or rather The Mother, because The Mother was not simply any mother. The more Emilie thought of it, the more assured she became that parents, just in general, could not have any other names. At least not any of importance. Of course they could be referred to as Mom and Dad, or if they were not your parents they might be a Mrs and Mr, but any other names like Arne or Yvonne would sound ridiculous if they were used by one’s parents.

Still Emilie could not shake the feeling of a little unease. She was never one to be good at memorizing names, or in fact memorizing anything at all. Truth be told, Emilie was what the teachers called an “empty-head”. There were no relatives, who visited at Christmas, that she ever recalled meeting before (with exception of father’s and The Mother’s parents). It actually took Emilie two whole years to learn every name of every student in her class, and that would be first names. Partly this was due to the receiving of a couple of newcomers half way through the second term and two new girls the following year. In addition there were the long summer breaks. One was expected to complete the impossible mission of recognizing each and every single classmate who had dramatically changed over the past three months. People came to school in sun-bleached hair, tanned, much taller and looking nothing like the restless vain beings that went to school at the end of spring. Furthermore, many of the students changed hairstyle and sometimes even personality over that period of time. Emilie found it impossible to remember ever having associated with these strangers.

Though there was many things Emilie could blame her forgetfulness for (like having inherited extremely bad genes for instance), it still became a fact that she undoubtedly had a terrible memory. The question that remained was how Emilie ever learned anything if she always was one to forget, especially in situations were mistakes were made, since one learns from mistakes (or so it was said). This did indeed remain a mystery for everyone hearing about Emilie’s condition. This could have been explainable if Emilie would have been far behind her age group in school, but that was not the case. In fact Emilie was a fairly good student. Rather than being driven by talent or innate brilliance, she was powered by ambition and passion, or at least so it appeared. She told everyone who wanted to listen (or was forced to) that she truly enjoyed the act of learning (this was not a matter that could be expressed through simply one sentence: it would instead be a monolog which would go on for quite some time).

Any which way, the unsolved riddle of how Emilie ever learned anything remained unsolved. Her parents theorized that she must have had a hit to the head as a baby (this theory left the question of how they came to that conclusion in the first place) or simply that she had been cursed at birth like the Sleeping Beauty. Possibly by Aunt Molitor inquired father, maybe not as a question after all but as a statement. The Mother did not answer, instead she asked Emilie if she could remember anything that might have caused this loss of memory. Emilie found the question dumb, since as previously said: she was not one to remember.

Emilie’s not so forgiving memory was useful in one aspect: less wanted memories would automatically be disposed of. It was not that these unwanted memories were repressed and painfully put away into a box locked deep inside only to be opened during therapy sessions, no they simply disappeared with the rest. Sometimes memories would bubble up to the surface, slightly distorted, when mentioned by people whom the memories were experienced together with. Other times people would mention an incident and find to their amazement (and most times to their offence) that Emilie could not recall the moment spoken of whatsoever.

It was quite horrifying visualizing a black hole in a never-ending eating phase consuming memories inside Emilie’s head. But this is what Emilie believed was happening. When questioned if this theory (which was not in fact a theory, but truth in Emilie’s eyes) was compatible with science, Emilie answered that she was aware that it was not, and she knew so since her father, who was a great scientist, had told her so. The reason why it was the only possible solution to the mystery of where her memories were hiding (because hiding they were, this Emilie was convinced of) was that no one could tell her otherwise. Emilie thought that the memories had in fact intentionally stepped into the black hole. They were very malicious little creatures playing games with her, making her look like a fool whenever she was trying to remember something. But she had a plan. Every time the topic of an unrecognizable memory was approached she was to smile and nod, not hinting in any way that she did not remember the instance spoken of. This was not lying, made Emilie sure to attest to herself, but simply volitional silence and no one was ever put in prison for staying quiet. Pretending to be familiar with a memory, which she in fact could not recall, was all part of her grand plan. This way the memories would not feel the satisfaction of seeing her look like an idiot (because watching they were, from afar) and hopefully, eventually, the memories would get bored and return home. Until now the method had not proven to be effective, but Emilie had patience, or mostly hope, that one day the memories would come to their senses.

Either way, this particular morning was unusually confusing since she was stuck pondering over whether her parents had any actual names or not. If her parents had real names then grandparents must have real names as well, Emilie realized, which was even more ridiculous. The situation was completely getting out of hand so she decided to leave the subject be, since it only would result in yet another existential crisis, which was not fit for early mornings since it was a practice left for late afternoons.

Mornings were made for priorities. In Emilie’s case there was a set ritual, which was repeated each morning (Emilie believed that customary habits were essential for consistent good health). Before commencing in these rituals, Emilie was to brush her teeth first thing in the morning to keep a good and prosperous relationship with The Mother. But after fulfilling all the actions of formality, she was free to set about the daily habits of her choice.

This particular day, the flow of the morning was disturbed by an inconvenient occurrence. Emilie’s youngest brother, who was soon to be two years old, had taken upon himself to learn how to use the loo. Without any guidance or instructions the matter did not seem to go far to well. He had gotten himself stuck in the toilet and now needed help. It did not appear to be very urgent business since Ralph did not seem to mind being stuck in the toilet. Emilie wondered how long he had been there for. She fetched The Mother.

One could ask themselves, in a rather judgemental manner, where the parents, who had no names, were while their two year old child was toilet training himself. It was all very simple, Ralph was the fourth child of soon to be five children. After having raised so many parasites, one did not notice (nor care) if their child was roaming around the house alone (or in the company of other wreckers) and getting himself stuck pretty much everywhere [apparently narrow spaces and small hide outs does not only attract cats (and rats!) but also small, and occasionally quite big, children]. If you did in fact roll your eyes or snort of disapproval when you read the beginning of this paragraph you can applaud yourself, because your life is truly not as hectic as you think it is, nor do you have as many children as you think you have (including non-children beings such as husbands, dogs and that one close friend who you use your parenting instincts on since you believe they clearly cannot go on in their life without your superior guidance and micromanaging). As a matter of fact, you reading this book is the absolute proof that you have far more time on your hands than you give yourself credit for.

Intelligible for a mother of four, The Mother was found in the master bedroom sleeping. No one enjoys being woken up from deep slumber and The Mother was no exception (this was quite understandable considering that she suffered from bad sleeping habits and would had trouble falling asleep before two am). But when she was informed of the reason behind this brusque wakeup call, she understood that she would be forced to step out of bed to attend this minor emergency.

Emilie was not interested in witnessing the unplumbing of her younger brother and therefore stepped into her room until the work was done. During this time it would have been natural to dress while waiting, since that had to be done anyhow, but Emilie could not. Getting dressed was done after having used the bathroom and eaten breakfast and it would have been upsetting to disturb the sequence of the morning. The importance of the chronicle execution of the morning activities was difficult to understand even for Emilie, but it simply was one of the unbreakable laws of unforgivable order. If one were to break any of these laws, Emilie did not know what might happen, but it would be bad. Really bad.

When finally the bathroom had been evacuated from further disturbances, Emilie could continue with her morning routine as in correct order: brushing her teeth, then brushing her hair and finally staring into the mirror checking if she had aged anything during the night. This very morning no aging could be witnessed. At least not since yesterday.

Emilie went downstairs to have breakfast, but first she had to pass by the library to fetch something to read while consuming the first meal of the day.

The library was located at the east side of the first floor. It looked very much like the library at Hogwarts. Emilie had not seen the library at Hogwarts (she was not eleven yet and would not receive her acceptance letter to the school until then), but she was absolutely positive it looked the same as the one at home. Truth be told, she had not really been to any other library and therefore had no other references to compare to (she had in reality visited the public library in the city twice, but just as every other thing Emilie experienced it was soon forgotten, which made it unaccountable).

The similarities that could be found between the Hogwarts library and the one found in Emilie’s home were many. First of, they were both libraries. Maybe not a very smart remark, but essential if any comparisons were to be made at all.

Secondly they were both incredibly big. This was of course based on a matter of perspective. It was obvious that the Hogwarts library was huge. The size of Jackson’s library was based on how Emilie interpreted it and in her eyes it was the essence of huge. It was so massive that the bookshelves, made of dark coloured oak, stretched all the way up to the stucco of the ceiling and to reach the ceiling Emilie would have to stand on her father’s shoulders. Maybe even Hagrid would have been able to stand up straight in their library. Emilie would have liked that.

The room itself was rectangular with a grand window popping out in a niche. There were installed a number of various green-coloured cushions (that went with the Strindberg lamps placed sporadically in the room), which were placed on the window frame of the biggest window in the room, so that one could sit down with a good book looking out over the premises. The view did not cover the whole estate since it was a quite big patch of green land owned by the Jacksons, but it offered the sight of a number of apple trees, one enormous cherry tree and a glimpse of two pear trees, all located on one big lawn. Beyond that there was the archipelagic sea.

The apple trees contained apples named Åkerö, Transparent Blanc and Graver Steiner, though all found in separate trees. The cherry tree was named the Cherry Tree. Emilie did not think there were any other cherry trees, only apples came in different names. The pears on the other hand were slightly different coloured depending on which tree they came from, but they still remained to be only pears. Once Emilie had asked The Mother if they had any other names than pears. The Mother had answered that she did not know what kind of pears they were. Emilie did not have time to ask anything else since The Mother became vexed and walked away. There was no apparent reason for her anger that Emilie could understand, but then on the other hand, it seldom had an obvious origin in Emilie’s opinion.

The third joint dominator between the libraries was the infamous restricted section, though Jackson’s restricted section was not infamous of course (it could barely be called a restricted section since it was not strictly speaking restricted, but merely a part of the library were “children’s books” could not be found). Emilie was not exactly prohibited from reading any of the “adult books”, but her parents had recommended her not to since her reading proficiency did not really match the more advanced adult books. One could easily suspect that the content of the books could somehow be inappropriate, secret or maybe one book would contain a screaming face(?). Emilie had of course already inspected the matter, not to soothe her curiosity, but because it would not have been right letting all the inhabitants of the villa live in what might perhaps be potential danger (who knew which treats the books posed against their bucolic existence?). Upon one of the wooden tables found in the library, Emilie had once found an adult book left out in the open. She had thought the title of the book to be slightly confusing and she could make no sense of the order of the letters. When opening the book it was clear that the content was protected by a hidden language unknown by children. It was all very suspicious. Perhaps the book was from one of the foreign countries they spoke of on the television. To confirm if there were any more magic books in the library, Emilie picked a book at random from one of the “forbidden” bookshelves (it looked fairly readable considering its slender back). She opened the first pages of the green book, which had The Metamorphosis written on it in golden cursive letters. Emilie read two pages and found thereafter that there was no need to investigate any further in the issue of “Adult books”.

Continuing the comparison between the Hogwarts library and the Jacksons’ library, there was one further essential factor that served as a linking unit between them: both libraries were the breathing essence of vellichor. Thousands of years pulsated in one single room, thoughts were captured and made eternal and people were immortalized. When one breathed in the smell of glued leather book frames while slowly accepting how little of the world one would ever experience and while sensing the expanding feeling of anemoia, one could not but let a tear fall realizing that however much time spent, one would never be able to read all the books of the world. For this depressing awareness there was no consolation. The only thing that left the slightest feeling of purpose was relocating life into the library of one’s choice and dedicating every waking moment to reading in eternal solitude. However tempting this might have seemed, anyone with a mother would fail to succeed such plans, since it was an act considered unhealthy both for the mind and the heart.

In this sanctuary told of, Emilie would spend her days tending to her favourite activity: word hunting. It was as easy as it sounds, a game with a very simple concept: browsing through books to discover a new intriguing construction of letters. In periods there would be words that would be more favoured than others and thus much more frequently used. In the dictionary, Emilie had found two words to serve as her favourites at the moment: occhiolism (n) – the awareness of the smallness of your perspective, by which you cannot draw any meaningful conclusion, and defenestration (n) – the act of throwing someone out of a window. The first word explained a feeling, which Emilie had had trouble with understanding for a long time. She felt like she lacked perspective on things: she was but only a product of her own experiences and interpretation and would never be anything else. Was this disturbing? Yes.

The latter word, defenestration, had already proved to be very useful and had been used a number of times during different occasions, though so far it had not been very appreciated by others. On one of these occasions The Mother had in response called Emilie a rambunctious logophile (“an uncontrollably ebullient word-lover”). Though not sure what it meant, Emilie found it extremely offensive: it was an expression diminishing the worth of words, or at the very least diminishing of her own worth (apparently conclusions could be drawn even when both the intent and the meaning of an action remained unclear). Of course Emilie had as soon as the words had been uttered run to the library to search for the meaning of the phrase (it was not possible to ask The Mother, such sacrifices of Emilie’s pride would not be made). Sadly the confusion that had followed after the derogatory affront had left Emilie clueless of what actually had been said (though still assured of the malevolence in the remark) and therefore The Mother never got vindicated by the offence taken by Emilie.

It was always a quest to search the library to find the one word that would purpose context and expressiveness. Words were small little treasures, which would be guarded and cared for. They came as a blessing each time they stuck to the inside of Emilie’s skull. She cherished them as they were her own children and would do anything in the world to make them stay, which in most cases they would not. But sometimes a little son or daughter would stay with their mother to help. They were very useful. Words could be used for great things. They would impress, midiate understanding, impel respect, grant recognition, create alternative truths, alter reality and sometimes effectfully sway people’s minds; that was what Emilie used them for. Of course they could serve many other purposes, but none other than those mention did Emilie find value in.

Before being able to enter the library in the house one was to greet the little ball of fur curled up in the sofa. An attempt towards petting would be made rather than a verbal address. This gesture of goodwill would be met by a low growling, rising in resonance if the creature found himself being further harassed in his sleep. The dog would sleep in tranquil all morning with exception from when The Mother woke up, then he would make the velleity to rise from his slumber, but would only succeed in a listless wave of the tail. At ten o‘clock he would make the great venture of relocating himself into the kitchen, which occurred after a long procedure of yawning and stretching. There he expected to be served a meal of rice and minced reindeer. The dog’s name was Mr Voffington and he was the son of the Devil. This was not one of Emilie’s own absurd inventions, but something agreed upon by all in the family. It was not completely obvious to tell when one first met Mr Voffington that he really was born from hellfire since he had a rather deceiving appearance.

The dog was a little black dwarf poodle with a tail that curled up over his back. He was in his later years of life and it showed: his beard had turned grey a long time ago and the rest of his fur shimmered in beautiful shades of silver and pale black. This was indeed not the first image to come to mind when one thought of the Devil’s son. When one looked into his eyes, one would see a benevolent creature’s loving charm, but do not be fooled, his innocence only lasted as long as one kept a distance.

Mr Voffington would only be wicked in the shadows when no one saw. In the presents of others he would just simply be very, very insolent. When one first met the dog, he would not care to greet. If one tried to pet him or encourage to some sort of benign contact, he would very slowly and stiffly back away in disgust. If the person of the matter, who in most cases would be a respectful guest, now had any will left to approach the dog, they would perhaps try to bride Mr Voffington with some sweets. The dog would accept the gift momentary. The undigested content would be spit out on the floor in front of the guest and the dog would once again look very displeased and disgusted, not by what was on the floor but by the unacceptable murder attempt. The sweets given were not poisoned as accused, but in fact the same sweets given by all the members of the family. Furthermore the candy was de facto very sought after when given by the right person. So it really made no sense why he each time would show such repulsiveness towards the poor strangers. These charades of unimaginable bad manners would go on until the guest had left.

There was no difference when meeting with other dogs. Mr Voffington did not find it suitable to converse with such insipid creatures as “other dogs” and would therefore completely ignore these useless beings whose presence only disturbed. The poodle was never held in a leash and could walk as he wished. As soon as another dog was spotted Mr Voffington would first become vexed at “the thing”, who had dared to enter his field of vision, then he would approach the “it” in a casual manner only to walk far around it when at meeting point (only so far that the other dog, who would be in a leash, almost barely could reach him). This uncouth display of deficient conduct would further trigger the other dog to strangle himself by the leash in the disheartening attempts to reach the uninterested party, who would strut away without looking back.

The wickedness Mr Voffington that would be perform in secret would mostly take form in thievery. He would plan his attacks with great preparation and thanks to all his years of experience he had learned how to slowly sneak around the house only being exposed by the sound of his claws clicking against the parquet floor. In addition, he had learned that many things come in pairs, therefore he would not only steal one sock or shoe (which made the crime rather obvious), but both of them, which made the victims doubt whether the real villain was Mr Voffington or if they had just misplaced the objects themselves.

Due to Mr Voffington’s lack of basic manners and ill-natured habits, he was naturally assumed to be a cat. This was not impossible considering the long mornings, favouritism of certain humans, snobbish food preferences [he would NOT eat common dog food, that was completely out of the question, he would rather starve to death – literally (not figuratively)], the everlasting attempts to attract attention as soon as one was occupied (yes, the common “I-will-lie-down-on-your-newspaper-if-you-don’t-pet-me” trick was done), never ever intentionally getting dirty (he would refrain from leaving the designated gravel walk or the trail in the woods and he would never ever in his wildest dreams step into a puddle of any kind) and then of course his all together sly behaviour. The only thing speaking against his cat nature was his appearance: he did not necessarily look like a cat. Frank, Emilie’s older brother, commented that he could be mistaken for a cat, or possibly a black lamb, from afar by someone badly nearsighted, which in turn settled the question. It was officially announced, on the basis of exchange at birth, that Mr Voffington was in fact a cat, though they agreed to continue to refer to him as a dog to avoid confusion.

When having acknowledge the existence of the resentful dog lying in the black leather couch, one was able to move on to the library. Seeing the divine content filling the shelves of the walls, bathed in the light of the golden morning sun, Emilie could not help but to grasp for air as she had done so many mornings before. She let her small hand run along the hefty volumes of history, feeling the dust settling upon the tips of her fingers and filling the air with small little pigments. She did not mind. This was a room of unimaginable possibilities and it was her choice of which direction the following hour would take. She scanned the bookshelves with an intense gaze. There were books she had read before: Whinny The Pooh, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Pippi Longstocking. Then there were books she had yet to read: Peter Pan, Grimm’s Fairy Tales (which was not in the “restricted section” but actually was explicitly forbidden to read for some unknown reason), Lord of the Flies and a number of books written by Berta Ruck. Then there were the books that were found in the “restricted section”: God of all Small Things, Gentlemen, City of Thieves, the Animal Farm and so many more.

Emilie had one school book, but she had already finished it as the diligent student she was, so she decided she would continue reading a book she already was halfway through instead: Alice in Wonderland. She carefully picked it up (since it was an original copy with a weary and fragile cover) and carried it out under her arm into the kitchen.

The kitchen’s most distinct future was the enormous red gas-stove located in the middle of the room. It had taken months to have it made and shipped to the island, but now the family had six hot plates at their disposal to feed the mouths of the still growing family. It was the most useful to father since he was the one doing the cooking in the family, though of course The Mother had been the one to initiate the purchase since she managed the family’s spendings. It seemed to be the case in most families. Emilie’s great grandfather had used to say that he was the one managing all the important decisions within the family while his wife would do all the everyday decisions. So far, in which at the time had been 50 years of marriage, no important decisions had ever had to be made.

Above the gigantic stove hung a neat collection of copper pans in various sizes and forms. There was one huge saucepan used for the traditional cooking of elk stew which would simmer for at least one day, one big wok for father’s hideous curries (they were not that hideous, just very vegetarian, which was not appreciated by the family’s picky eaters) and then there hung, in between all the pans, a grater which would give easy access for father to sneak in a little bit of grated Seville orange peel in everything he cooked. This occurred when The Mother was not looking [she had grown to detest the fruit after having received it in every single meal being served the past year (father had what people would call a small obsession, which was probably boosted by The Mother’s abhorrence)].

Above the sink and along the countertop, the walls were covered in rectangular white tiles, each in the size of a grown man’s hand. The tiles surface was glazed and slightly uneven. It was very pretty since the texture of the surface made each tile unique. The tiles were matched by white cupboards in wood.

Even though the kitchen was clean and newly renovated in an old-fashion style, it was still visible that four children lived in the family. Small things revealed it to a trained eye: the oven hatch could not be completely closed since Ralph had hung in it for play one too many times, some corners here and there of the cupboards close to the floor were worn out and torn since all children had during the phase of two to five years old enjoyed themselves with driving around the kitchen in small children’s vehicles while occasionally crashing into various objects (and people) and among them the cupboards, one centred spot of the wooden kitchen surface contained a worrying amount of knife cuts, which had taken form when Frank one day had risen early to commence in the practice of learning how to cut bread (unsuccessfully), and then of course the kitchen table which had various remains of Emilie’s many painting sessions (however many times The Mother told Emilie to use a coaster when painting Emilie could not seem to remember and even when using it the paint just seemed to find its own way to the bare table, which in turn had lead to the use of a big oilcloth which would cover the whole table when Emilie would start off on one of her paintings, assuming The Mother was around to remind her of it that is).

In the kitchen Emilie’s father sat by the main table reading the morning newspaper. The sight was very much the same as every other morning at 07:45. Father was sitting in his Japanese morning robe currently reading the leading article. He had a pencil ready in his left hand to very soon immerse himself in today’s advanced Sudoku. The Sudoku’s level of difficulty was shown by the number of circles that were filled out in black. One black circle meant: very easy (it was only in the newspaper because of sympathetic reasons) and four black circles meant: “for math geniuses only”. Naturally father preferred the last choice of difficulty.

As any other grown-up, father was not alone: he had his coffee. It was so black that no night could compare, and in such huge amounts that no Grand Canon could hold its waters. When seeing his youngest daughter entering the room, the father greeted her and acknowledged how very good this specific morning was. As suspected, he did not get a direct answer, but a nod. Emilie was too busy to participate in any formal small talk about last night’s dreams or well deserved sleep. Father had the mutual feeling and therefore did not say anything else.

A slice of unbuttered Danish sourdough was what the creativity of the morning offered. “Food as food”, was Emilie’s motto, or “eat or you’ll die”. These very inspiring quotes were the pillar stones of efficient eating: Emilie would eat what was necessary, but no more and no less. As such she conveniently enough ate anything that was served, but with dead enthusiasm. And when the time came when she was to make a meal herself (as this very morning): only the bare minimum effort was made. Bread with bread.