Manny

[Mannny, the twins' beloved babysitter, is revealed to be far more -- and less -- than they realized. Only Ellis, thought to understand little, understands Manny's true nature.]

It’s awkward to sit at the table with a guy you’re more than a little fond of…and find out you’re family.

The von Deign family, to be precise. The name kept getting kicked around, funny spelling and everything. And I was one. 

Through my mother, obviously. There was a hard limit on the number of crazy things there can be in the world. Pa, who really wasn’t all bad, simply could not be and was not part of some secret science genius clan.

But, still, not a word of explanation. 

Not during lunch, anyway. Dansker wasn’t long on table manners. Elbows on the table. Reaching across whenever he needed something. Withering under Mrs. Foster’s glare, he meekly asked for the broccoli. I thought she was going to dump on his head. 

He did offer a few explanations, but he was hyperactive or something. Couldn’t stay on a topic for every long.

Who were the von Deigns? A family. Very small one. Dansker, Mrs. Foster, the twins…and me. But not to worry, Dansker said, looking at me and Ellis. I was a very distant cousin.

“In fact, we’re all cousins,” Dansker said. “More or less.”

No one commented.

It was important for Dansker to talk about the hierarchy. Why each generation was smarter than the one before it. 

“See, I’m like a mechanic,” Dansker said. “A mere mechanic. I can make machine systems work. What’s the difference? I mainly operate on the interface level.”

“The difference between what?” I asked. 

“Well, you see, Clauds, here, is like a doctor. By comparison, So far beyond me; she intuits the physics of life. Nothing as simple as biology, no…the rules no one else knows. How life uses matter and energy in its own special way. And so intuitive…”

Mrs. Foster was giving him that look again.

“Ah, well, then Ellen. Even more intuitive…Konrad’s eyes…” Hard glares, now. “Ellen gets matter. She gets everything.”

I tried to throw some cold water on this. Doubted it would work. 

“So the, ah, little people? They know nothing?”

“No, no, listen, Ronnie, you can’t look at it that way,” Dansker said, as if I was the one going on and on. “Their scientist are, yes, behind in the theory, but we are also vastly behind the rules of God.”

That chilled me. Thinking back…even Ellen looked up.

“We are all subservient to God. All ants to Him. The von Deigns are just…bigger ants. Red ants.”

Great. Red ants.

I saw it, then, by the way he looked at Ellis. He was heading, for no reason at all, straight back to the Lincoln world.

“Ellis,” Dansker said, “you must accept this. You must. The Lincoln you saw is an ambient matter construct. He is animate, yes, and he lives and breathes. But all of that world was just unorganized ambient matter a few months ago.

“But we cannot create souls. We cannot give new lives, no matter how perfect your mother weaves the physics of life.”

We listened. We couldn’t help it. Manny maybe more than the rest of us.

“Yes, his black file was copied. Yes, it was placed in a human, mortal body. But – no one created a soul. There is only one soul, in God’s image, and that’s all we get. No matter how many worlds, a memory is not a soul. Well, say, Ellis. Come on. You of all people –”

“Oh, no,” Ellis said. “Not until you’re finished. Let me know when you’re done talking about Him, and His plan. And your role in it, of course.”

Ellis stare could have burned a hole in Dansker’s crucifix. Since our little adventure I started wearing the chai I got a long time ago. Kinda glad it was hanging there now.

“Please, son –” Dansker stopped, almost shrinking at Claudia’s glare. Dansker stopped mid-sentence. Claudia stopped glaring. 

She just looked done. Done with him.

“Dig yourself out of this one,” Manny said quietly.

Dansker spared him a little look.

“Look, Ellis,” Dansker said. “I really didn’t mean to offend you.”

“I am not offended,” Ellis said. “I think you were sincere. Taking the Lord’s name sincerely isn’t offensive even if it’s wrong.” Ellis nodded. “And I do think you believe what you’re saying.”

“And?” Dansker let a little certainty creep back in.

“You’re wrong. I’ve seen the man. He lives. He breathes. He thinks.”

“He is an imitation,” Dansker said.

“Ellis,” Manny said. “Dansker is right about this.”

“No,” Ellis said, quiet. “No, he isn’t. I do not understand the things you said, but I accept this is not the Lincoln who lived in our world. But he is still a man, with a soul, who has been given a chance to live by His grace. Not yours.”

Dansker shook his head. Manny didn’t look away from Ellis. 

“What if I could prove you’re wrong?” he said. 

Ellis stood. He placed his napkin in his chair and bowed slightly to his mother.

“Thank you for this splendid lunch, Mami,” he said. “May I be excused?”

“Schöner Junge…please. Listen to them,” she said.

As if it might matter.

“Am I excused?”

She nodded, eyes bright – but she didn’t look away from him.

Me and Ellen followed him out to the backyard. 

We walked down the brick steps that joined the four terraced levels. Past the rusting swing set—the disaster waiting to happen, where Ellis patiently pushed us and never got a turn. Past the fruit trees, we ended up – by some unspoken agreement – at the crumbling brick wall overlooking the lot line, a green-tinted chain link fence below.

Below was ivy, with its inevitable nests of snakes and other horrors. Even Ellen wouldn’t go down there.

“Well,” I said, respecting the silence for about ten seconds. “We’re all von Deigns. Even though my mother was born and raised in Mexico City.”

My mother the big firm attorney. Who actually who did not give up drinking and smoking while pregnant. So no, my brain damage wasn’t from a tragic car accident. Though there was one. A car accident, I mean. 

Ellis held up a finger. We turned.

Manny was at the top terrace.

“Can I join you?” he asked. Like it was a real question.

After the smallest pause, Ellis paused nodded.

Manny picked peaches on the way down. He used his reach to grab the ones in the shade.

“Quite a bit, wasn’t it?” he asked.

“Gee, I dunno, Manny,” Ellen said, still cranky. “My mother is a genius. She made us in a lab, right?”

“Correct.” 

Okay, I almost fell off the wall to be devoured by killer snakes.

Ellis didn’t stir. Didn’t so much as turn around.

“We knew it was someone,” he said. “Only surprise is that it was Mami.”

“Jesus!” Ellen turned on him. “Would you stop calling her fucking Mommy!”

Thought Ellis was keep sulking, but he slowly got up and faced Manny.

“So, Manny. What is your story? Now it sounds like a big part is missing.”

I grabbed his arm. “Sport, what’s wrong with you?”

Manny sighed, then gestured to a tiny picnic table. We sat as best we could.

“You know you can lie by not saying something that should be said,” Manny began. We nodded. “I never did that. And I never told you a lie.”

“Oh, and none of that counted?” I said.

“None of that’s was my story to tell. My story I told you, that was true. It was only after Mr. Barry in ’61 that I went to work overseas. I had connections there. Through my own father, who was, retiring, he said. Coming in out of the cold, which was an expression then, but he said it like it was a joke.”

Me and Ellen weren’t getting all this. But Ellis had it pegged. 

“How long have you been dead, Manny?” he asked. 

There was an uncommonly long pause.

During which I caught up. 

Manny nodded. 

“A good long time, Ellis,” he said. “The job was to bodyguard a two year old girl. Now we know who it is, right? Prettiest kid you ever saw. Quiet, didn’t trust most people, but she became attached to me.”

“For two years it was the best job I ever had.”

He paused. I was too shocked to cry. I mean, I would, but it was hard not to think this was just another trick.

Except Manny had a tear rolling down his cheek. One on each side.  

“There weren’t that many von Deigns left. Most – all but Claudia and Karl – died at once.”

“Did you rescue her?” I asked. My voice was weirdly steady. 

“No,” Manny said. “I died with the others.”

A rare breeze moved through the trees. It was cool, and you could hear the leaves. A couple pieces of fruit fell to the ground.

“My last living memory was four year old Claudia eating a Sidewalk Sundae. Next thing, she’s nine. Smiling at me. I felt just fine. Even my clothes were all the same. It was not pattern recognition. Claudia literally forced matter to be as much like life as it could be. 

“But I’m not like Lincoln and the others there. My memories are chemical, theirs are literal. They do not know one minute of their future, they do not know they died in some other world. That’s one big difference between me and them.”

I shook my head. And you thought we were ready for this.

“I know I am an animated body that looks and thinks like Manny. And that’s how I know exactly what they are.”

I wasn’t managing the not crying part very well now. 

Ellis’s lip trembled.
Ellen looked overwhelmed – no, furious.

“S-she –ambient matter!” That was all she could force out.

“No,” Manny said. “No ambient matter here. You know that.”

Ellen was just shaking her head. Making some sound I couldn’t place. 

Ellis, though, had already steadied himself.

“Manny, I am sorry for what you have been through,” he said. “But this tells me only that you do not know. I have seen Lincoln, and I know he is on his own path.”

“I’ve seen them too,” Manny said. “I also follow my own path.”

“You keep saying them,” I said. “You said others. But Lincoln was the only real person there. Right?”

Manny shook his head.

“No. He is not the only one,” Manny said. He sighed. “But…that, and the many things Karl has failed to explain…will wait. What I wanted to tell you, what you must try hard to do, is not judge your mother.”

He looked at Ellen and Ellis.

“Don’t,” he said. “Hear her reasons.”

We all snorted. Reasons.

“Hold on,” Ellen said. “Hold on! I’m not going to change the channel on this. We can do whatever we want with that world. You, Dansker – go find your own. There are thousands of copies out there, ambient matter aggregates –” 

“No,” Manny said. “I’m sorry. That was part of the deception. Matter…does not copy itself. That was a false trail…the truth is he was building that world. Then you started drawing Lincoln out of it. Tuning him.”

“That is a lie!” Ellen shrieked.

“Ellen. Almost everything else you learned it true. The ones and zeroes – the simple ones – they’re on the surface of the Core, right? The patterns, the bigger black and white patterns – all those lie beneath. Intermixed. Inseparable. Only your tuner can resolve them.”

Ellen went from red to white.

“How. How.” She shook her head again, more violently. “You can’t know that.”

Manny looked very old.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “But that is where I live. That is where I am now.”

Ellen made a low, breaking sound – higher pitched than the other desperate sound.

Ellis was holding his sister before I saw him move.

“Don’t,” he said softly. “You don’t have to say. You don’t have to tell. Not anyone.”

Not even me. Ellis didn’t know either.

The sound stopped. Ellen seemed to relax. Ellis released her.

After a few seconds, Ellen looked up. Her eyes were dry.

As always.

She never cried.
No – that wasn’t it.
She couldn’t.

Dansker said Konrad’s eyes.

“I am not Manny,” Manny continued. “But Manny – and everything and everyone else – is within the Core. Dansker didn’t understand the Core, knew nothing of patterns, but he did know all about the small files. His primitive Lokeditor – a primitive tuner, you’d say – could communicate with those simpler files. And, therefore, with me.”

Ellen listened. No emotion.

“Did he have the full picture? Of course not. But he wanted a guard at the door. That’s how von Deigns are. So he put me there.”

“You’re more than a guardian,” Ellen said.

Manny nodded.

“Yes,” he said. “I’m the interface, too. Anything Dansker wants to know, I can tell him.”

This insane discussion made all the ones that came before as complicated as backgammon. This was totally nuts, and I wondered, looking at Ellis, who would win the race to the bottom. Because this all had to be gibberish to him, too.

Ellis, though, I would swear, looking at him, he understood more than Ellen.

He looked Manny in the eye.

“He made you a slave.”

Silence, except for the wind and the leaves again.

Manny nodded. Not in agreement, but more thoughtful like.

“Never saw it that way,” he said. 

Ellis said nothing.

“Listen,” Manny went on, speaking to all three of us. “Karl von Deign is not a good man. But he doesn’t take things. I can’t say he’s taken me. It’s not his way to force people. 

“But there is one thing he wants, and he will have it. Count on that.”

We waited.

“He will keep us all safe. The family, their friends. It’s not negotiable.”

“Ah,” Ellis said. “So we’re all slaves, then.”

Manny did not answer.

A very real moment passed. Full of thoughts. 

And I had one of my own.

It wasn’t all gushy. No hearts and flowers. But it came to me right then – I loved Samuel Ellis Foster. There was no one I wanted in my life more.

All this horrible stuff…beyond my grasp and out of my control. But it was outside. Outside of us. It turned out the world was a bad place, and there really was a boogey man.

But I felt very lucky anyway.