Teddy

Ever since Ber and Dor were born, they had been pretty much inseparable, much like their families, which lived next door to each other. Their two houses were merely fifty feet apart, separated by twenty feet of garden on each side, and a ten-foot pathway, which was where Ber and Dor had played for as long as they could remember.

The pathway was dotted on each side with flowers, which the gentlemen of the family tended to every once in a few days. The ladies looked after the garden once a week, usually on Sundays. They made it a family affair too, and would do so together, swapping stories of the week, and drinking home-made lemonade.

Ber and Dor were cousins; their mothers were sisters. But you wouldn’t know if you looked at them. They looked different from each other, apart from their habit of cocking their heads to the side when they thought their name was being called.

Each had an exquisite collection of toys; their parents spared them no expense, as they were each the lone child of their house.

Each enjoyed loaning their toy out to the other, and taking something in return. Often, a lot of their toys lay out in the sun all day where they had accumulated while the two played: now on one’s garden, now on the others, and now on the path.

All hell broke loose one day when the househelp of Ber’s house stole a small brown teddy from the house, for her own child, who cried often for toys. No one knew she did this, for she was a quiet person, and could turn invisible easily.

At Dor’s house, on the same day, his parents bought him a brown teddy bear at his father’s insistence. It was several shades lighter in colour than the one that was stolen in the other household. Dor loved it too.

When Ber, a little upset at the disappearance of his teddy, walked up to the path, he was greeted by Dor and his new teddy. Immediately, Ber smiled, and laughed, and danced, and thanked his cousin for bringing him his toy back. Dor was confused for a second, and tried to explain that the teddy was his, and not Ber’s. Ber disagreed, and hit him on the head. Dor smacked him back.

When the elders followed the sounds of squalor, and reached the pathway, they found, to their surprise, the inseparable duo fighting over the bear.

They tried to break the two up, but each gripped hard at one of the arms of the bear, and refused to let go.

The bear, imperfectly stitched, heaved a sigh, and couldn’t keep itself together. The children fell backwards as a result of their own pulling, with one half of the bear in each child’s hand.

The elders pulled the grumbling children away, holding a half of the bear each.

Within a day, the two were playing together again, with the halves of the bear forgotten in a corner of the room, under the children’s respective beds.

For about four months, there was peace. Ber and Dor and small squabbles now and again, but never as much again.

One day, however, quite unrelated to Ber and Dor, their families, while on one of their many visits to each other’s houses to help distract from the inevitable passing of unproductive evenings, had a falling out of the ideological kind.

Immediately, the formality of the situation presented itself to them. At the end of the evening, the families separated, quite amicably. Once the doors were locked, however, the situation was quite different. Each gentleman spoke of the other in quite rudimentary terms, while each lady held off calling her sister, almost to the point of hostile disregard.

To each other’s faces, they were overly formal. Gifts began to be returned, always with smiling faces, and empty eyes.

Each house was in disarray because the two families had gotten into the habit of sending notes to each other claiming certain chairs, books, dishes etc as theirs, such as pans that may have been lent but not returned, books that were intriguing to a person of the other house, and forgotten in a misplaced corner. Once Ber’s mother spoke a little too loudly to someone on the street about her sister never returning her a half-cup of rice she loaned her, and an apple, which prompted Dor’s mother, who had overheard her, to rush to the market and purchase half a cup of the finest rice, and the shiniest apple, and return it to her doorstep without the courtesy of ringing the bell. She did, however, watch like a hawk from her own threshold to ensure that her sister got her rice.

Ber’s mother thought to herself that the apple she had lent her had been bigger than the one returned, but decided not to speak of it.

All throughout this, the families neglected that their children continued to play with each other as they always did. A new game which they had concocted would be to suddenly stand up facing each other, dramatically cross their arms out, and turn away from each other with a frown. They had always found humour in imitating their parents.

One fine day, after all that had to be returned had been returned, Ber and Dor’s respective parents almost simultaneously realized that their children possessed each other’s toys.

Ber and Dor fought tooth and nail to not return their toys to the other, but after much arguing and threatening on both sides, the elders prevailed.

One morning, each dutifully took out all the toys that were not their own, and put in as a stack on the threshold between the two houses. The elders looked at them from windows, not coming out. They did not look continuously, but only in intervals.

Ber and Dor, one by one went to the path at the centre, and put one of the other’s toy in the centre, while retrieving one of their own from the centre that the other had already put.

This continued for quite a while, until all but one toy was left.

Now, the conundrum. The last toy was the torn bear.

They keep staring for a while at each other, and then back at the parents, who sipped tea and waited for them to do something.

Ber thought of something, but wasn’t sure what to do with the thought. For a second, Ber looked to the other side, and found Dor’s twinkling eyes looking back. Dor realized what Ber did a second ago. They were both thinking the same thing.

The two boys, in unison, took their half of the bear, and deposited it dead centre in the middle of the two houses, then returned: neither hanging their heads, nor lifting it high in anger.

The teddy remained there on the path, finally whole.