'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