297. Remember Every Single Thing

 

297. Remember Every Single Thing

“How did it go, darlings?” Divina asked the Atshebies when they approached her to greet her at the Christmas Bazaar. They looked very cute, the lasses with crowns of candles on their heads and the lads dressed as Star Boys. “Has your grandfather been nice to you? He’d better have!”

“He’s taught us how to sequester people. Well, one truly evil bloke. He put him in a sack, Well, us he did put in one too, so we would know what it feels like.  But us he let go. Not the bad guy, no, him no. Right, Great.gramps?”

“¿¡Eh!? But what…are you telling me?” exclaimed Great-gran Divina. “AEternus, who are you? The Krampus?”

“Tiny tattlers!” muttered AEternus. “I should have made you promise never to tell anyone.”

“Who is the Krampus?” asked Neferclari, who always had to know.

“A real kidnapper. A genuine abductor of naughty kids. Especially those who talk too much. And he is sure to be out tonight. He always roams and roves by in December.” 

“The evil guy Grandpa sequestered wanted to prick me with knitting needles,” said Neferhari, very proudly. 

“Ah, Mr. AEternus, don’t you  frighten these children, for they won’t sleep!” protested Pedubastis.

“Not mister, no,” said AEternus, “I´ve told you many a time it makes me feel old. And you are almost my age. And give these kids some apple tea if they need to be soothed, but I think they would be more frightened if you were to tell them any old fairy tale at bedtime.”

“I’ve tried everything so they won’t have nightmares,” sighed Pedubastis.

“I’ll wager you haven’t given them a shot of this,” said the great- grandfather, drawing a flask from his jacket.

“AEternus! But how can you be so reckless? These are children! They can't have cognac courvoisier even if Napoleon did. You are going to turn them into alcoholics!” said Divina.

“Ah, ´tis only lotus juice,” protested AEternus. “It rids one of anxiety. And of a bad cough.”

“Even worse! Those who feel no anxiety become careles and indifferent. And that juice is probably addictive too."

“Certainly not! This is a weak water. Softer than what you think. It’s to have sweet dreams with. I took it daily as a child.”

“Which explains how crazy you are!”

“He was awesomely evil, the fellow we sequestered. He truly deserved to be trapped. And Grandma will hand him over to the devil on the first dawn of January,” Neferniki informed his great-gran.

“Oh, for the love of honey!” cried Titania. “That was a secret. I’ll explain this to you now, Mama.”

And Titania told her mother how she needed a prisoner so she could rescue Sherbananian Mari’s wicked son and how her father had offered to procure one for her.

“But why didn’t you say so? That is so dangerous! I would have helped you! I would never have let you go alone! AEternus, sweetheart, you should have told me!”

“You would be likely to hand me to the devil,” answered AEternus, “so you could be done and get back to your shopping.”

“There we go again! You are paranoid! You always suspect I am going to do something mean to you. Well, I would never hand you over to the devil. Poor devil, should you happen to be on his hands! He would need the lotus juice or water or whatever that is. But don’t you worry, dear, he would never have you. You aren’t that bad. Only unbearable. And impossible to keep track of. There is no understanding the way you do things!”

“Besides, if I interrupt you while you are shopping, you become enraged and stop buying and I have to find gifts for everyone myself and I can’t be bothering about what this one wants and that one needs! I’m not the Christmas-spoiling Krampus, but I’m no starry-eyed King from the Orient either.”

“Great-grandpa has told us to be good to Pedubastis, so she won’t kick us out into the garden and we won’t go pester him,” suddenly said Neferclari. “He doesn’t like to be pestered.”

“We will make our own beds,” said Neferniki.

And the rest of the kittens gave him a mean look.

“Don’t overdo it, will you?” said Nefernedi, sticking his elbow into his brother’s ribs.

“But it sure was fun to pester Great-gramps,” said Neferhari, laughing.

“Oh, yes, we did annoy him, and that is what we wanted to do, wasn’t it?” asked Neferedi.

“We annoyed two people, because the evil bloke is sure to be annoyed too. Annoyed and sequestered. Both,” said Neferviki.

“Gread-grandpa hasn’t sequestered anyone, dears,” said Titania. “He has detained a criminal. It’s not the same thing. But do stop talking about such disagreeable stuff.”

“Yes, now do go and pester the vendors at their stalls. They are dying to see some action. Look, there are your aunties, Heather and Thistle, selling sweets from different lands. Buy some jars of brandy sauce for the Christmas puddings, will you? Rhubarb always forgets to make this sauce and we have to eat them dry,” said AEternus to his great-grandkids, distributing small sacks of gold coins among them that had been prepared for him by Pérez, the mouse, tooth-fairy and banker. The coins were not made from gold teeth and they didn’t bite.

“¡YAY!” yelled the children and off they went to spend their money.

At Heather and Thistle’s stand was Arley too, just back from an almost whole year away from home learning his new trade.

“So, do you like your job?” Thistle was asking him.

“No, but I love the people I work with,” answered Arley.

“Does that mean that you are going to live with them now that you can live anywhere you please?” asked Heather. “I have heard you are finally going to claim your ideal home and that you won’t place it next to ours like you always said you would, but that you will take it to the Mnemosinite’s neighbourhood.”

“I will place it right next to yours, but it will be very much like Aunt Mabel’s house, only that it won’t have her interminable, infinite garden. But there will be secret passageways to the homes of the Mnemosinites. And to Mabel and Gen’s home, of course.”

“Then you haven’t forgotten us?”

“A Memorion can never forget anything. I have to remember everything, every little detail. That is my job.”

“So Grandpa can play golf,” said Thistle. “Well, it sounds exhausting.”

“To be honest, I only have to remember what happens in the south, for I am on the southern team. But then our four aunts unite and pass all their information, all we have gathered,  to Belvedere and that is when things start to make real sense."

“All the information?”

“Every bit of it. If not, there could be problems. One must never ignore, retain or hide information. Belvedere organizes it, but never filters it. Yes, absolutely all of it he passes on to Grandpa, who makes pertinent decisions and then returns it to Belvedere, who stores it in an archive. Grandpa only has it for a little while, so he can rest. There are two great archives, Belvedere’s personal one, and that of the dirrectional teams. Nothing is ever left out.”

“And when does Belvedere rest?”

“Never. Well, maybe a little while we are gathering new information.”

“I think Belvedere has to be utterly bushed if he has to know everything that has happened and will happen always,” yawned Thistle.

“Well, he likes what he does.”

“Can we buy brandy sauce for Christmas puddings?” the Atshebies dared to interrupt impatiently.

“Of course not!” snapped Beaurenard at the kittykids. “What made you think kids can buy alcohol?”

And the kittens glowered and frowned at him angrily. And he broke into laughter, for he was only kidding them.

“Of course you can,” said Heather. “I have placed the recipe for it on the jars. One can use vanilla instead of brandy if one is fussy about alcohol in food. There’s not enough brandy in it to affect anyone, really. I didn’t send you the recipe, Arley, because since you were going to come for Christmas, well, it wouldn’t have been  necessary, would it?” 

BRANDY SAUCE

Ingredients:

Two organic egg yolks

Four ounces of organic whipping cream.

Two spoonfuls of the best sugar to be had.

Two spoonfuls of a stupendous brandy.

Instructions:

 Place the yolks, the cream and the sugar in a pot.

Set the pot over low heat.

Whisk this mixture until it becomes a thick, smooth sauce.

Add the brandy slowly, making sure the mixture doesn’t get too liquid.

Beat gently until you have before you a thick, smooth cream and then pour it into a sauceboat.

Now you get to choose: If what you have is one great big pudding, to be shared by all diners,  you may want to pour the sauce over it and decorate the top with some holly or a large cherry. Or you can just cut the pudding into servings and pour the sauce over each piece in its dish. But if what you have are several individual small puddings, do pour the sauce over each one when in its dish. And decorate each with a sprig of holly or a smaller cherry. Or you can just set the sauceboat on the table and let diners serve themselves sauce if they wish. 

The end of this story has been told you by Little Dolphus, the Intellectual Leafy.