不聞不若聞之，聞之不若見之，見之不若知之，知之不若行之；學至於行之而止矣

  (Tell me and I will forget. Show me and I will remember. Involve me and I will understand.)

- Xun Zi

„Leviathan school had one advantage and also one disadvantage“, Mr Tuniak said. „The disadvantage was that there were no real teacher. No one had the right education. That's changed nowadays, George is a real teacher for instance, but he wasn't even born yet when I went to school.”

“You said... or implied that the grown-ups did the teacher's work”, I said.

“Yes, and that meant that they were learning some of the things we learned at the same time as us”, Mr Tuniak explained. “There were even times when we pupils were preparing subjects to tell about everyone else in class...”

“Like presentations?”

“Yes, like that”, Mr Tuniak agreed. “By the way: Did you notice an important thing missing on the island?”

“Important for teaching, I guess?”, I asked and he nodded. I thought back to our walk through the temple and all the things we had seen, but I couldn't think of anything missing. But I had the feeling that it had to be something big and – theoretically – very obvious. “I don't know”, I said.

“No library”, Mr Tuniak said. “There simply isn't space for one anywhere on Leviathan. Of course, thanks to computers that's not a problem today, but back then...”

“What did you do?”

“I've got a problem”, Estevan said to Miriam and Helen. They were in his office and Miriam was holding the baby Alexander – just over two months old – in her arms. “I wanted to give the children here a good education, but I can't do it. I don't have the necessary equipment here. Simple, but important things, like books, are missing. But I don't have any space for them.”

“What about the big hall you are creating under the temple?”, Miriam asked.

“That's for the water recycling and treatment machinery”, Estevan said. “It was Ricardo's idea.”

“Ah, that's why he always appears so busy”, Helen said. “But don't worry about the books. Give us an hour and we'll solve that particular problem for you.”

As the two women left the office, Miriam asked: “Are you going to do what I think you are going to do?” Helen nodded.

One hour – and one voyage through time – later they had returned to Estevan. They put something on his desk he couldn't identify. It looked like a very thin and very flat TV screen.

“What is that?”, Estevan asked.

“A computer”, Helen explained. “A tablet computer to be precise. They are going to be invented in about thirty, forty years. And they are capable of storing the complete knowledge of a whole library.”

“The most important thing you should know about the Leviathan school is that there were no clear and separate courses”, Mr Tuniak explained. “In theory, children of the same age were always learning together, but it was not a strict rule. If you were gifted in any given subject, you could change groups. If you were really gifted, it was possible that you were teaching your friends.”

“And which subjects were taught?”

“There was no clear, defining line between them”, Mr Tuniak repeated. “A typical day could start with a history lesson, let's say about Roman conquests, and then continue to mathematics and physics – e.g. calculate the path of a catapult's projectile. Or Optics: How many mirrors do you need to set fire to a galley.”

“That works?”

“Quite well, actually. You should look up the attack on Syracuse and Archimedes' defence of the city. That's tactics and physics in one. We even built scale models to test his theories. Manh and Minh helped us with those. And Ricardo of course.”

“Who's Ricardo?”

“A young man from Peru, but he was basically one of the grown-ups of the island”, Mr Tuniak said. I could hear a note of sadness in his voice, when he said that. “I will tell you about him another time. But we were talking about class. Since the children came from all over the world, some of them didn't know where Syracuse was. So those who did, described it to them. Which, of course, led to biology: plants and animals in the Mediterranean Sea. Sometimes this also covered the subject of: which of those can you eat.”

“And in spite of this... chaos, you were basically taught the same things that I was taught in school?”, I asked.

“No, most definitely not”, Mr Tuniak said. “There are huge areas we didn't even touch upon. There was no curriculum, if you want. Except in sports.”

“Why?”

“Because sports was the only things taught exclusively by one man”, Mr Tuniak said. “Louis, Alice's uncle. Not her real uncle, they were not actually related, but she called him that and so did everyone else. They came to Leviathan together.” Louis, he continued, had acted in American vaudeville theatres before the Second World War broke out. Because of his skin condition he had been named the “Human Reptile”. After the war, most of those theatres closed down. He went to the UK, where he appeared in a few music halls, but it became more and more difficult to find a gig. That's also where he met Alice's parents, who faced the same problem. After their death, he took care of Alice and together they left the country and came to Leviathan. It was a relief for both of them: No longer were they looked down upon as freaks and swimming in salt water turned out to be very healthy for Louis and his skin condition.

“When he was young he had been working in a circus for a few years”, Mr Tuniak continued. “He made friends with a family of acrobats there. And I'm pretty sure that he copied their training program to torture us with.” He smiled as he said that, making it clear that it hadn't really been torture.

“And with the time machine you were also visiting all the cultures you learned about, right?”, I asked.

“Not that often, no”, Mr Tuniak said. “Although: I do remember that we boys were very fascinated by heroes and battles and the like. We begged our mothers to take us to the famous battles of history, because we wanted to see them.”

“Isn't that dangerous?”, I asked.

“Of course it is”, Mr Tuniak agreed. “Which is why it took some time, before they found a battle we could savely observe.” He was shaking his head at the memories. “We were stupid. Or naïve. It's one thing to read about battles and wars, but to experience them... for several weeks afterwards we all had nightmares about what we had seen.”

“I can imagine”, I said. “But your mothers should have seen that coming.”

“They did. But if they had simply refused to take us there, it would only have made us more curious”, Mr Tuniak said. “My mothers were firm believers in: Learning through experience. If you are only told about the cruelties and horrors of a battle, there is... let's call it a filter in your brain that shields you from imagining the worst. But once we saw the reality... we never read about battles in the same way... Which reminds me: I mustn't forget another.... teacher. Bill!”

The screams had lasted for only a few moments, but still long enough to wake everyone in the school.

“What was that?”, Alexander asked his room mate. But Mowgli only shrugged and together they left their room. In the corridor outside other children had already gathered, curious about the nightly disturbance. Alexander repeated his questions, but no one seemed to have an answer.

“I thought you woke up and couldn't find anything to eat”, Alice teased him. She remembered the times when Alexander was still a baby and often woke up hungry in the middle of the night.

“Didn't a new child arrive today?”, Sarina asked. “I think I saw that Russian guy from last week and he was accompanied by a child.”

She stopped when she saw that Farid has gesturing something. He, too, had seen the man and he also knew that there was some connection between him and Alexander's mothers.

“I don't know anything about him”, Alexander said. Then he saw Cate and Ricardo coming towards them. “What's happened?”

“The first month after Bill's arrival at school was very difficult for everyone”, Mr Tuniak said. “Bill never told anyone what had happened to him before he came to Leviathan but it must have been terrible. He had nightmares and he would start screaming in the night.”

I could imagine it. The temple was big, but it was not that big. It was probably quite easy to scream loud enough so that everyone on the island could hear you.

“Later, two or three months after his arrival, he started to join us in class”, Mr Tuniak continued. “But it became obvious that he had trouble concentrating. The slightest sound, the slightest... thing could distract him.”

“ADHD?”, I asked.

“I'm sure that would be the diagnosis nowadays”, Mr Tuniak said. “But back then: Any other school would have complained about his bad behaviour and that he was disrupting the lessons.”

“But you found a way around that?”

“Of course”, Mr Tuniak said. “That's what we did best at Leviathan. Take a disadvantage and turn it into an advantage. Bill couldn't concentrate, so he was excused from attending classes. He only joined us at the end of each lesson and then we had to repeat to him everything we had learned. Now, he would try to listen, but he would be distracted of course. So, every time we noticed that he wasn't really listening any more, another one of us children had to continue the recapitulation. Because that was a new stimulus, Bill would concentrate on that child for a while and once he got distracted again, another child continued.”

“And that was also good for you, because you repeated everything you had learned.”

“When we played games with him, it was quite similar”, Mr Tuniak said. “Bill was excellent at chess, surprisingly. Simul chess, to be precise. And we all admired him because he was the only one of us children who could beat Johann at the game. The Spider... sorry, Johann, was regarded by everyone on the island as the one with the highest IQ.” He leaned back in his chair. “But what I told you today, was only one part of our education. We also went on several excursions, but I will tell you about those next week.”

NEXT WEEK:

A ship in port is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.

'Normal' is a dryer setting.

- Elizabeth Moon, "The Speed of Dark"

„An Indian once told me that we see the world as a child”, Mr Tuniak said at the beginning of our meeting today. “By that he meant that whatever impressions we get of the world while we are children, they will stay with us for the rest of our lives.”

“Who was he?”, I asked.

“Just someone I met in a temple. Might have been in Tibet, I don't remember any more...”

“So, whatever we are presented with as... normal during our childhood, that's how we judge the rest of the world?”, I asked to get back on topic.

“Exactly”, Mr Tunaik agreed. “And you only know half of my childhood. The part I spent travelling with my mothers. The other part I spent at the Leviathan-school. It was not only a school. It's where we actually lived. And not only my mothers and me. The other children as well. And all the grown-ups who were also our teachers. Class, or something like it, only started for me when I was about ten years old.”

“And then you still travelled through time?”

“Of course. I usually spent a few days at Leviathan, then I went to Ancient Rome, then back to Leviathan, then maybe the Orient... But I always came back. Leviathan has been my home since my birth.”

“Alexader's here! Alexander's here!”

The news spread quicker than a forest fire. Several minutes after the time machine had landed, everyone who lived at the island, had heard about it. Alice, just over six years old, was running through all the corridors and rooms of the school to tell everyone she met the news.

“Why are you so excited?”, Mowgli asked, once she had finished her Marathon run and returned to the dining hall. He was only slightly older than her, but tried to appear calmer and cooler.

“Because I am going to be his babysitter”, Alice declared with a conviction that only a child could muster.

“I saw a birth once”, Mowgli said, trying to sound as if that was an every-day occurrence for him. “Twice actually.”

“No way”, Sarina, sitting next to him, said.

“Yes way”, Mowgli said. “I was there, when my wolf mother gave birth.”

“Wolf mother?”, I asked. “You mean an actual she-wolf?”

Mr Tuniak nodded. “Why do you think we called him Mowgli?”

“That's not the name his parent's gave him?”

“He never knew his parents”, Mr Tuniak said. “Estevan found him in an orphanage when he went to India. They called him Jamal there.” He explained that the name was meant to be ironic, because Jamal means “beautiful”. But Jamal/Mowgli had countless scars from his time in the jungle and his nose was bent, because he must have broken it and it never healed correctly. “But after seeing The Jungle-Book – you know the Disney-film, don't you? - we all started to call him Mowgli and the name stuck.”

“And before he was at the orphanage...”

“...He had lived in the jungle for at least two years. All alone. Alone, that is, if you only consider other humans. A wolf pack had adopted him and took care of him.”

“Did he tell Mr Tomez that?”

“He showed it to him. After getting out of the orphanage, Mowgli took Estevan into the jungle and they visited his old pack. They still recognized him.”

“Attention everybody!”, Miriam shouted and everyone in the dining hall turned their head to see what was happening. Alice, Mowgli and Farid, who were trying to beat Johann in a game of Nine Men's Morris, were especially interested. Helen was standing a few metres to the left of Miriam and was holding Alexander by his hands.

Miriam bent her knee and opened her arms. “Come to me!”, she said to Alexander.

The little boy laughed and started to walk. During the first few steps, Helen was still holding his hands, but then she let them go and he continued on his own. He reached Miriam with a scream of triumph.

“Bravo!”, Alice shouted and Mowgli and Farid applauded. Even Johann, who often seemed to lack any kind of emotion or at least didn't show any signs of having them, couldn't stop himself and joined the chorus of appreciation. Alexander, knowing that the clapping and shouting was for him and his first steps, clapped as well.

Alice left her place at the table and sat on the floor. “Now come to me!”, she said and held out her arms. Without hesitation but with a gleeful face he staggered towards her. He knew her well, because she had often looked after him in the last few months. He liked it, when she held him, because then he could play with her hair – and thanks to her hypertrichosis she had a lot of hair to play with.

“Now go to Farid”, Alice said, after Alexander had reached and embraced her.

To everyone's surprise Farid had turned out to be the second best babysitter on the island. Surprise, because he himself was only three years old and completely mute. But with his four arms he could simultaneously hold the baby Alexander and play with him.

“Sarina was the real reason Estevan went to India”, Mr Tuniak told me. “Her parents had given him money for his school and in exchange for that Sarina was allowed to attend.”

“Why couldn't she go to a school in India?”, I asked.

“Because her... Well, it's complicated”, Mr Tuniak said. “Sarina was born with three eyes. You saw her picture at Leviathan, didn't you?”

I remembered the photo. In the dining hall of the school there had been a wall where portraits of all the children who ever lived there had been put. Sarina's photo had shown a young girl with a third eye on her forehead.

“Do you know the red dot, the bindi, that many Indian women have on their forehead?”, Mr Tuniak asked.

“Yes. It shows which cast they belong to”, I said.

“No, it's got nothing to do with that”, Mr Tuniak said. “They wear it as a sign that they are married. Sometimes the dot is just a blessing. In that case it's called a tilaka. But the priest, whom Sarina's parents consulted, claimed that because of her third eye she could never receive a blessing and never be married. If that would have been become public, it would have been a scandal for her parents, so they tried to hide Sarina as best as they could. They never allowed her to go out or meet other children. And when they heard about Estevan and his school, they thought it would be the perfect opportunity.”

“Does she see with her third eye?”, I asked.

“Sometimes she claims she can, sometimes she says the opposite”, Mr Tuniak answered. “As a child she took great pleasure in claiming that she could see things with it that were invisible to us. At other times she claimed to have x-ray vision or that she could see our thoughts or look into the future...”

“You also mentioned a boy named Farid”, I said. “Where did he come from?”

“Egypt. But that's about all I know. He's completely mute, but has mastered sign language perfectly. Several sign languages actually.” He laughed. “And thanks to his four arms he 'talks' faster than anyone else.”

“And those four – Alice, Sarina, Mowgli and Farid – were your closest friends?”, I asked.

“Yes. Later another boy joined our little group, a boy from the United States. But that was after we started attending class. Oh, and there was Cate, of course. She was like an older sister to us all. You've met her daughter, Clara.”

Yes, I had met her on Leviathan. Mr Tuniak had explained that she, like her mother, had a very sensitive skin which had to be protected from uv-light. In practice that meant that neither of them could go out in the sun and they had to spent their whole lifes inside, mostly in darkened rooms.

“When I was born, Cate was already ten years old”, Mr Tuniak explained.

“And what did the other children say about your travels through time?”

The children were playing on the lawn in front of the temple, watched over by the two mothers who were sitting on the lowest balcony of the building. Alexander was ten years old, the same age as Alice, Sarina and Mowgli. The four were playing a ball game they had invented with three other children.

“Hello Estevan”, Miriam said, when she saw that the founder of the school had joined them. “What brings you out of your office?”

“Your son”, Estevan answered. “He's growing up a lot quicker than the other children.”

“Yes, because he spends a lot of time in the past”, Helen said. She was puzzled, because several years ago she and Miriam had revealed the existence of the time machine to everyone who lived on the island. They had also explained why travels to the past made it appear as if Alexander was ageing faster than the other children. When they first arrived on the island, Farid for instance, had been three years Alexander's senior, now it was the other way round.

“Have you thought about what is really best for him?”, he asked. “If you continue like that, soon he will be older than all of his friends.”

“You mean we should stop taking him with us?”, Miriam asked.

“Not completely, no”, Estevan answered. “But maybe you should cut back on your travels. It wouldn't do him any good either, if he saw how you became old very quickly in front of his eyes.”

Helen nodded in agreement. “I think I know what you mean...”

“And if you spent three days in the past, it would help if you returned to the present three days after you departed”, Estevan continued. “That way the same amount of time would have passed for everyone. Not like now, where you are gone for five minutes, but during that time you spent an entire week in America.”

“Did your mothers stop their travels?”, I asked.

“Not completely”, Mr Tuniak answered. “But they became fewer and several times we took other children with us as well. Once for instance – and I still remember this very well – we took the entire school for a picnic to the waterfalls of Gibraltar. And of course everyone wanted to see the dinosaurs.”

“Well, I can understand now why you must think of the world as a monotonous place. With that childhood...”

“Why do you say that?”, Mr Tuniak asked.

I hesitated for a moment before answering. “When I look at your beard, I can see that more time has passed for you than for me since our last meeting. Your are obviously still travelling through time a lot and I thought it was because you found the present... boring.”

“That's not it at all”, Mr Tuniak said. “I told you that the impression we get of the world when we are young, stays with us forever. And what I saw of the world back then... it was a place full of surprises and miracles. Every child was different, every one was unique. And that view hasn't changed one bit since then.”

NEXT WEEK:

不聞不若聞之，聞之不若見之，見之不若知之，知之不若行之；學至於行之而止矣

Lebe so, wie wenn Du nochmals leben könntest - dies ist Deine Pflicht. Denn Du wirst in jedem Falle nochmals leben!

(Live as if you would live again- that is your duty. For in any case you will live again!)  

- Friedrich Nietzsche

For some reason it felt a bit strange to return to the office today. Mr Tuniak was of course already waiting for me and the moment I had sat down he said: “I read your last post on the blog. I'm afraid there has been a misunderstanding.”

He handed me a photo of a man, probably at the end of his fifties, with black hair, a full beard and a cigar in his mouth.

“This is Estevan Tomez”, Mr Tuniak explained. “He's the founder of the Tomez school.”

“But didn't you say that Juan founded it?”, I asked.

“That's what I meant with misunderstanding”, he said. “I probably haven't explained it very well.” He smiled. “Did you know that I am always preparing for our meetings? I think about what I want to talk about, what I want to say... And then, once we start I get sidetracked and forget half the stuff I wanted to tell you. Well, you can probably imagine how it is...”

I answered that it was also possible that I had simply forgotten about it (whatever it would turn out to be). I had seen so many things on the island that I could've written a whole book about it. But I had had to cut it down to the length of one post. Of course: I may come back to some things I didn't mention last week if and when they become necessary for Mr Tuniak's narrative.

“So, Juan is not an immortal?”, I asked.

“Well, he hasn't died yet...”, Mr Tuniak joked. “But no, he was born in the middle of the 1990ies. That I know for sure.” I gave the photo back. “Estevan met my mothers because of Philip. I don't know how Philip met him. I never asked and Philip never talked about it. But it must have been sometime during the Second World War.”

“And your mothers met him before you were born?”

“Yes.”

“You look pregnant”, Philip said when he saw Miriam. “Do you know if it's a boy or a girl?”

“No”, Miriam answered, as she and Helen sat down on the table beside him. “But you do, don't you?”

Philip smiled mysteriously. Jokes like that were exchanged during every meeting between the three. It had become a sort of tradition. No one took those questions seriously. None of them wanted to know about their futures, so no one asked direct questions or expected direct answers.

“Did you watch the moon landing yesterday?”, Helen asked.

“Yes, yes”, Philip said. “Even in Shangri-La I couldn't escape the anniversary. Are you here because of it?”

“No, we have already watched it a hundred years ago”, Helen said.

“Several times”, Miriam added. “We wanted to ask you if you could recommend a school.” She put a hand on her already swollen belly as she said that. “Somewhere remote. Well, you know what we like.”

“Yes. I know exactly what you are looking for”, Philip promised.

“Estevan founded the school at the beginning of the 1960ies and my mothers went there shortly after”, Mr Tuniak explained. “At first there were only a few children there, maybe two dozen or so. The equipment there was good, but my mothers wanted better. So, they lend a hand.”

“They brought things from the future?”, I asked.

“A few”, Mr Tuniak admitted. “But not many. And they didn't bring anything that was built after... well, what you would call the present.” He went silent for a moment. “There I go again. I told you how easily I get sidetracked and what do I do? I get sidetracked!”

“You wanted to talk about Estevan Tomez”, I said.

“Exactly”, Mr Tuniak said. “What would you say if I told you that Estevan was, from a certain perspective, an egoist?”

“I don't know”, I said. “Nothing you have said so far seems to indicate that. I'm guessing there is a whole story behind that claim.”

“It's about his believes”, Mr Tuniak said. “He believes in reincarnation.”

“And you say that he only did good things so that he would get a better life when he gets reborn?”, I asked.

“Yes and no”, Mr Tuniak said. “When I say, he was an egoist, I'm not serious. But he believed in... a kind of super-reincarnation. He didn't talk much about it, but he explained it to Philip once.”

“Did you listen to Feynman's speech when he accepted the Nobel prize?”, Estevan asked his friend. He and Philip were sitting on canvas chairs on the roof of the school. Next to them there was a telescope, which they had used earlier to show the students the stars and planets in the sky. The students had already gone to bed.

“No, what did he say?”, Philip asked.

“He talked about an idea his thesis advisor had”, Estevan said. “A man called John Wheeler.”

“Never heard of him”, Philip said after thinking about the name for a moment.

“He put forth an interesting proposition”, Estevan continued. “He said that there is only one single electron in the whole of the universe. What do you think about that?”

“I'm sure that was not all he said, was it?”, Philip asked. “What else?”

“There is only one electron and it travels from the beginning of the universe to its end: Once it's there it travels back through time, right back to the beginning again... and again and again... And every time we see an electron, it's actually the same one, just at another point in its travels. You see? That way, all matter in the universe could be just one single particle. What do you say to that?”

Philip pointed to the time machine that was parked in front of the school. “Well, at least we know that the time travel part could be possible”, he said.

“Did I ever tell you that I believe in reincarnation?”, Estavan asked.

Philip nodded. “Since you went to Asia in the 50ies...”

“But it's more than that”, Estevan interrupted him. “What if there is not only one single electron that creates the universe? What if there is also only one soul? One soul that travels through time, that, sooner or later, becomes every person? What if we all are one?”

“Do you believe that?”, I asked Mr Tuniak.

“No”, he answered immediately. “But it is a nice idea. It's a good believe, I'd say, better than some... And Estevan was positively convinced of it.”

“And the thing about the electron?”, I asked. “Is that true?”

“No one can say for sure”, Mr Tuniak said. “But there are a few things that work against this idea. And Wheeler never thought of it as a serious theory. It was just a thought experiment.”

“And how did Juan learn about it?”

“That's the part that surprised me”, Mr Tuniak said. “When Estevan realised that his life was coming to an end, he left the Leviathan for a few months and basically travelled the world to look for a successor.”

“Didn't any of the other teachers want to take over his position?”, I asked.

“If he had asked them, one of them would have taken over, probably”, Mr Tuniak said. “But no one really wanted it. And when he returned the problem didn't present itself: He had found Juan. Juan was very young then, only four or five years old. He lived in an orphanage and – and this is the really surprising part – he believed exactly the same thing as Estevan. One single soul for every human. And he believed it, before he had ever met Estevan.”

I didn't have to ask, why he was so sure about that. The way he had said it, made it clear, that he had checked himself.

“Some of the children on the island claim that he does know stuff from an earlier life”, Mr Tuniak continued. “And after a time everyone just regarded them as one person, especially after Estevan's death.”

Juan was the first to leave the beach and return to the school. Although he had entered the building countless times before, it felt as if it was the first time. For a moment he went to his office. It was his, and only his, now. Then he went looking for Alexander Tuniak.

Alexander hadn't attended the funeral ceremonies. Both of his legs were broken, so he had to stay in bed. Juan didn't know how old Alexander was. He looked younger than his actual age, but he still had to be over fifty at least.

For a long time both were silent.

“I'm twelve years old and I'm supposed to head a school”, Juan said finally.

“Not alone”, Alexander answered. It was the first time that the young boy looked like the child he really was. Normally, he acted more like a grown-up, friendly but distant and he nearly never played with the other children.

“Will I manage it?”, Juan wanted to know.

Alexander hesitated before answering. “You asked my mothers, didn't you?”, he then said. Juan nodded in response. The two women, who seemed only slightly older than their son, had been present at the funeral. “And I'm guessing that they told you that everything will work out all right in the end, didn't they? Well, you'll get the same response from me: It will all work out all right in the end. Are you doubting me? Why would I lie to myself?” It was the first time that he had ever talked directly about Juan's belief.

Juan smiled. “Do you know or do you believe?”

“Both”, Alexander answered. “If I wouldn't believe it, there would be no point in getting out of bed every morning.”

Juan looked at the broken legs.

“Figuratively speaking.”

“Do you know what will happen to the school in the future?”, I asked. “Will he be the headmaster until he dies?”

“Ah, ah!” Mr Tuniak raised an accusing finger. “That's also in your future. Not you personally, but things that haven't happened yet from your point of view.”

“And you don't want to talk about that.”

“I will only say this: It will all work out all right in the end.”

NEXT WEEK:

'Normal' is a dryer setting.

Per aiutare un bambino, dobbiamo fornirgli un ambiente che gli consenta di svilupparsi liberamente.

(If you want to help a child, you have to offer it an environment in which it can develop independently.) 

- Maria Montessori

When I got out of the time machine, I felt as if I had returned to the Cretaceous Period. The air was hot, the sun was shining and a dark forest was right in front of me. But this time there was also the sound of waves braking at the shore. We had landed on a beach.

“Welcome to the Island Leviathan”, Mr Tuniak said and together we followed a small path through the wood. It quickly became bigger and then the trees stopped suddenly, as if someone had drawn a line on the ground and told them “you shall not pass”.

“The trees act as a fence”, Mr Tuniak explained. “They've been planted all around the island, so that passing ships can't see the school.”

“That's the school?”, I asked, completely astonished.

Right in front of us was an old Mayan temple. A step pyramid with six levels. But looking closer I noticed things that couldn't belong to the Mayan culture. Some steps had been turned into balconies with canvas chairs, there were glass windows, two satellite dishes and in front of the main entrance several bicycles were lying on the ground.

“Alex, how nice of you to visit!” We turned around and saw two old men coming out of the forest, carrying a shovel and secateurs. But then I looked again. It was only one man coming towards us, not two; one man with two heads.

“May I introduce: Manh and Minh. They're the janitors and gardeners here”, Mr Tuniak said. They were two separate people, I was told later. They were a special case of Siamese twins, where the twins shared the whole body except the head.

“What's going on?”, Mr Tuniak asked them. “It's unusually quiet.”

“Most of the children are on a sailing tour”, Manh explained. “They will be gone for the next several days. But Juan is here. He should be in his office. Alice is also around.”

Mr Tuniak thanked him (although I noticed that the name “Alice” seemed to have stirred bad memories) and we entered the school/temple. Even inside the building could not deny its origin. Sure, there were electric lights, carpets lying on the floor and several pictures were hanging on the walls, but every now and then one could still find the old Mayan reliefs carved into the stone walls.

“Was this really a temple?”, I asked.

“As far as we can tell”, Mr Tuniak answered. “But we have never been able to find out where it actually came from.”

We climbed up a long corkscrew stair, which was right in the middle of the temple and led from the ground floor right to the roof. There Mr Tuniak opened a trap door and we got out. A big compass was standing on the roof, at least half a metre high and suspended on two gimbles – a “Cardan suspension” as Mr Tuniak explained.

The temple was right in the middle of the island. It was surrounded by a green lawn, which in turn was surrounded by the forest. The trees were nearly as high as the temple which meant that we couldn't see the beach and only in some place I caught a glimpse of the horizon.

Mr Tuniak leaned with his back against the banister that went all around the roof and pointed with his hand to the four compass points. “That over there is the playing field”, he said. “You can see our little race track. Where you can see the dark patches of earth, that's where the beds are. They're quite useful if you're teaching biology. The part over there is used for... well everything. If there's something to celebrate or so, we do it there. And finally, there, you can see the little statues. They were all done by the children of this school.”

While we were standing on the roof, I became slightly nauseous. Although we were standing still, I couldn't shake the feeling that we were actually moving.

Next we went to the office of the director of this school.

“The whole idea for the school was his”, Mr Tuniak said. “He couldn't build it himself of course. Philip helped him a lot. But it all started with him.”

We knocked on the door and entered.

A teenager was sitting behind a desk, probably no older than seventeen. At first I thought it was the son of the director, but then Mr Tuniak introduced him as “Juan Tomez, director and founder”.

“Nice to meet you”, I said.

We talked for a few moments – which means that Mr Tuniak talked. He asked about some of the children and explained why I was accompanying him. But we didn't stay long.

“He's always very busy”, he said, after we had left the office. “He is not only the director, but basically the whole administrative staff here. Everyone tries to help out, whenever there's time, but that's not always sufficient.”

“I thought you were here in the 60ies”, I said.

“That's right”, Mr Tuniak answered.

“But how...”, I began before I stopped myself. The explanation had suddenly become very obvious and simple: Juan Tomez was another immortal. That's why Mr Tuniak had taken me to “Shangri-La” last week. And contrary to Eshe or Philip, Juan had stopped ageing when he was still a teen.

Mr Tuniak led me on a tour through most of the building. We visited various class rooms which looked like ordinary class rooms with black boards and computers, desks and chairs for the pupils. He also showed me some of the sleeping rooms which were not used at the moment. They looked pretty much exactly like dormitories all over the world. Some of them had balconies, there were posters in some, but apart from the walls made of solid stone there was nothing unusual about this part of the building. There were a few moments were I completely forgot that I was actually in an old temple.

There even was a doctor’s office. “The doctor is a student of this school”, Mr Tuniak explained. “But he probably went on the sailing tour with everyone else.”

“The whole school?”, I asked.

“Yes. It wouldn’t have been possible when I went lived here, but nowadays the school owns at least four boats.”

We met one of the pupils during our tour. It was a young girl called Carla. She showed us her room which was unique because it had no windows. I thought that Carla didn't see much of the sun, because here skin was so pale that it nearly seemed translucent.

“Michel should be in the lab, he still has to do some chemistry homework”, she said, when Mr Tuniak asked if any other pupils were at school. “Mrs Alice is helping him. Sue is probably in the kitchen... Oh, and Ari is at the beach of course.”

“That's perfect, thank you”, Mr Tuniak said and then turned to me. “Can you dive?”

We searched for Manh and Minh and together we carried the whole diving equipment – including a mask, a jacket, a wet suit, a compressed air cylinder and swim fins – to the beach. Ari, a boy whose name was actually Arturo, was already there, swimming in the water like a fish.

“Arturo will show you the secret of the island”, Mr Tuniak promised. “But you have to look under water for it. Don't worry. He's a great diving instructor.”

“You are not coming?”, I asked, while Manh and Minh were helping me to get into the wet suit and putting the air cylinders on my back.

“I'm a bit too old for that”, Mr Tuniak said and I could hear the regret in his voice. “When I was younger, I loved to dive. In open water, in caves... Once I was diving right in middle of several blue whales. It's unbelievable how gracefully such huge creatures can move.”

I was already standing in the sea, when I put on the swim fins. The air cylinder was so heavy on land that I had nearly fallen down several times. Arturo was waiting for me.

“Where's your compressed air?”, I asked him.

“He only speaks Spanish!”, Mr Tuniak shouted from the beach.

But it turned out that it wasn't a problem. Neither of us could speak under water, but we immediately understood each other's gestures. We dived.

We had only swum ten metres or so, when the sand on the sea floor stopped and was replaced by dark rock and long dead corals. And then the whole sea floor disappeared.

For a few seconds I was confused. I didn't understand what had just happened. It was as if I had just come to a deep canyon where I couldn't see the ground. Arturo pointed in the direction we had just come. There: The sea floor just stopped and dropped down in a straight line. I felt as if I was flying right next to a stone wall. We dived deeper, keeping the wall to our right all the time. I noticed that it didn't go down in a straight line, but bent back. Dead corals were everywhere, but I also saw a few white air balloons anchored to the dark stone.

And then the wall was suddenly above me. Wherever I looked – below, right, left – it was open water as far as I could see. But above me was... the island!

I nearly stopped breathing, when I realized this. I was diving under an island! It had no connection to the sea floor, which was probably a few hundred metres below me. The island was swimming.

We stayed for dinner, which was served in a long room in the temple. Sue, one of the pupils, had prepared it and was anxiously waiting for our verdict. She found the recipe during a Latin lecture, where she had had to translate it. She had then decided to use the newly gained knowledge in a way that benefited us all.

“The best way to get them interested in translations”, Mrs Alice joked.

“It was better than in Ancient Rome itself”, Mr Tuniak said, when he had finished.

“Except the desert”, Michel said. “Which one of you did that?” Sue stuck out her tongue at him as her response.

“And do you know why we call this place the Island Leviathan?”, Juan asked to change the subject.

“Because it swims like a huge fish”, I answered. “But how?”

“Pumice”, Clara said. “It's a volcanic stone with millions of little air holes in it. Because of that it's lighter than water and can swim. The same goes for the corals.”

“How does something like that get created?”, I asked. “With a temple on top of it!”

“We don't know”; Mr Tuniak admitted. “We've tried to find out, but even with the time machine it has turned out to be an impossible task.”

“And what about the air balloons?”

“A safety measure we put there a few years ago”, Juan explained. “The island can swim on its own, but we put them there to be on the safe side.”

“I did that”, Arturo said. On his head he was wearing something that looked like a headband that made sure that his gills were constantly wet. Yeah, the reason why he didn't need diving gear was that he had gills behind the ears. Mr Tuniak explained it to me before we went to dinner. “We all have gills as embryos in our mother's wombs. But we all lose them there as well. Except Arturo.”

Because of this, the Leviathan school was the perfect place for him. And now I also understood why it had been the best place for Mr Tuniak to go to school. Juan, who accompanied us back to the time machine, put it best when he said: “When I founded the school, I wanted to offer a home to everyone who couldn't find one anywhere else.”

NEXT WEEK

Lebe so, wie wenn Du nochmals leben könntest - dies ist Deine Pflicht. Denn Du wirst in jedem Falle nochmals leben!