by Gary Crew
Next time they visited (was it three months or thirteen?), Augustus mustered the courage to lean down from his step, asking, ‘Are the birds for sale? Does anybody ever buy?’
‘Some do,’ the man replied. ‘If we offer them.’
‘To most we would not,’ the girl said. ‘Birds are precious.’
‘And most who ask have no cages,’ the man said. ‘How could they keep them?’
‘But you have no cages yourself,’ Augustus frowned, looking down at the willow-woven baskets. ‘Other than them …’
‘Oh, we have cages,’ the man laughed. ‘My girl makes them, if we choose.’
‘Makes them?’ Augustus asked.
They looked to each other, this girl and this man.
‘You must first choose a bird,’ the man said, and holding out his hand, flat, a dove landed upon it, nestling its breast against the mound of his thumb. The girl did likewise with a finch, waiting.
Augustus paled. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I have no money. I’m sorry, truly.’
The girl raised her hand to her silver hair, to the rainbowed ropes of raffia knotted there: crimson and emerald, purple and blue, yellow and orange, waving brilliant in the sun.
‘You are so beautiful,’ Augustus muttered. ‘Why are you here? You know I have nothing. I am nothing …’
‘Will we show him?’ the man asked.
She nodded, smiling.
‘I am sorry …’ Augustus protested. ‘I am …’
The man placed a finger to his lips. ‘Wait,’ he said. ‘Watch.’ He swept the hovering doves back into their basket and, standing, reached his hand over his shoulder to draw a bundle of willow canes from behind his back as an archer draws arrows from a quiver. The girl took them, dropping to her knees. Her fingers moved in a frenzy.
As Augustus watched, a shape grew – a construction in cane – an airy cylinder first, two hand spans in diameter, rising row after row, her fingers furious until, at six or eight hands high, a dome top appeared, closing over to complete.
‘Your cage,’ she said, offering it.
The process had taken minutes.
‘I never saw anything like that,’ Augustus confessed. ‘Your fingers. The speed …’
‘She has the dance,’ the man said, smiling.
‘The dance?’ Augustus asked, stupid. ‘What dance? She wove. Or plaited. Or something …’
‘She has the Saint Vitus Dance,’ the man said. ‘Some call it a curse. We call it a gift.’
‘She built the cage in minutes. From nothing. From the ground up. From a pile of sticks. I never saw anything like that. Miraculous, really.’
‘Not miraculous,’ the man said, laughing. ‘Just the dance, as I said. You’re the miracle-maker. You’re the one with the voice.’
‘We came to offer you a bird,’ she said. ‘A white dove, we would suggest, since that is how the pages fell. The books in the library. The poetry. Fluttering down, then beating upwards, like the wings of doves. Miraculous …’
‘I sang,’ Augustus groaned.
‘We heard,’ the man replied.
‘You heard?’
The man smiled.
‘Some birds told us,’ the girl offered. ‘Crows, they were. Very big, very bumptious. Full of tricks. And on their way to a funeral too. All very interesting.’
‘No!’ Augustus gasped
The man laughed. ‘How could we forget? And why would we lie? And there was one other. The young man. The thin man …’
‘True!’ the girl cut in. ‘Too true. The one riding the pale horse. That librarian, tall and thin and ever so pale. Pale as death, you might say …’
‘Or caught in the grip of Lethe, perhaps. In that river of dream, of oblivion.’
‘Where lovers drown,’ she added, ‘dreaming …’
The man held up his hand. ‘No more. That is a sorry tale. We will say no more, but yes, we know. Which is why we came. We want to thank you. For the return of poetry, you understand. And to offer you a gift, but …’
Augustus looked at him, his elegance. His stature. Then at her, the girl. Her silver beauty. A woman’s body that he would never know. Not as he was, unless …
‘But you didn’t speak,’ she said, breaking his thought. ‘Whenever we visited you said nothing. Not so much as a greeting. Now we are determined. We will leave a white dove.’
‘In thanks for your gift. Your miracle,’ the man said. ‘The poetry of your song.’
At that he drew a dove from his basket and, placing it in the cage at Augustus’s feet, they turned, stepping out like dancers, toes first, then heels, light, soundless, to leave the dwarf mute, as they always had.
When they had gone, Augustus set the cage in the shade at the side of the stairs. I am going mad, he thought. But they must come back. They must … and he spat on the paving, all crazy as it was.
By the age of seventeen and still minus his front teeth, Augustus had lost his fascination with all things Egyptian, yet Rosa continued to bring home books on architecture from the library. The fact that she still worked there was curious enough, considering that the others had long since left. The three Assistant Librarians, Miss Bland, Miss Blank and Miss Blotting had opened a tea shoppe, reading leaves on the side; of the Stampers Three, the huge one fell for a cooper (or possibly the barrel itself, as was rumoured), the Medium for a potter, the cadaver for a thimble-maker; and the librarian, she of the cardigan, found trembling satisfaction in the Caribbean, her houseboy proving himself a man. Such is the liberating power of Poesy.
‘So why are you borrowing books on architecture,’ Augustus finally asked, ‘especially when none is about Egypt?’
To which Rosa replied, with an arch look, ‘I can’t see what business it is of yours what I borrow – or what I read, for that matter – other than that I am experiencing a certain affinity with spiritual buildings. Of the less traditional variety, if you can appreciate that.’
Since he could not, Augustus chose to read the books himself in the hope of gaining some insight, however limited that may be, into the spiritual workings of Rosa’s mind.
One night as he satreading in bed, Augustus caught a movement outside his window. Creeping over the covers, he knelt at the sill to see. There was Rosa, sitting on the front steps, staring up, her nightdress silvered by starlight. She had let herself go since her days at the whorehouse. Not so much her body, although she was no sylph, but her hair. No longer was it bobbed to flatter. Being red and wild, it bushed, untamed, in all its Titian glory.
Putting his elbows on the sill, Augustus prepared to watch, but the movement that had first caught his eye came again: a flash – a whirr of white –and leaning out, he saw. Rosa had the willow cage beside her, the white dove fluttering in her hand.
‘You got two front teeth missing,’ she said when he sat next to her.
‘Rosa,’ he sighed, ‘they’ve been gone for months. Years maybe. You never take any notice of me. Not since that episode in the library. Not once.’
‘“That episode”, as you call it, changed my life,’ she told him, staring boldly into his eyes. ‘“That episode” affected me, Augustus. I felt something I have never felt before.’
‘Oh?’ he said, doubtful. ‘Like what?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Therein lies the irony.’
‘What? That you don’t know what you felt, or that you don’t know how to explain it?’
‘I just don’t know,’ she said. ‘And that is the spirituality of it. That is what I am seeking.’
“Well, that’s as clear as mud,’ he said. ‘I’m going back to bed.’
‘What?’ she demanded, evidently offended. ‘You wanted me to enlighten you? Did you?’
‘Well …’
‘You’d like me to quote a few lines from the Gita Govinda, would you?’
‘No …’
‘I can, you know. I have been reading:
My one Beloved, sitting by the river
Under the thick kadambas
with that throng;
Will there not come an end to this earthly madness?
Shall I not, past the sorrow, have the gladness?
Must not the love-light shine for him ere long?
‘There. How’s that?’
‘Rosa …’
‘Or were you wanting a song? A really good, stirring song, to make the poetry books fly?’
‘Definitely not …’
‘I know:
Ta rah-rah boom de-eh!
Ta rah-rah boom de-eh!
‘How about that?’
‘I’m going to bed.’
‘Why? Because I can cite poetry, or because I had the temerity to sing? Which is it? Come on, tell me.’
Watching the dove trembling in her palm, he hesitated to reply.
‘I’m waiting,’ she said. ‘Come on …’
‘You’re laughing at me,’ he said. ‘And I won’t be laughed at.’
Silence.
‘Laughed?’ she whispered, finally. ‘Laughed at?’ Softer. Duller. Flatter. ‘I’m not laughing, Augustus. I’m wondering. For the first time, wondering …’ And placing her index finger on the dove’s head, she drew it downward in one single, silken stroke to the tail, upright, quivering.
‘Wondering what?’
‘Wondering what is in your voice that can make books fly?’ She turned to him again, there on the top step, the crazy paving at their feet, the broken flags silver in the starlight. ‘What it is that made Little Donny cry, and that lot in the mess tent the time you popped out of the spittoon, and them in the big top, the night you were Caesar in your chariot, them that were too stupid to appreciate. And maybe a hundred others that I know nothing about, them under lampposts, and in shearing sheds, and wherever the hell else you let fly, except now there’s me. Because I finally heard you, Augie, I finally heard you. And I saw you too; I saw what happened when you sang. Something wonderful, something miraculous. Something happened to me too. Something I just can’t understand – no, nor express neither. Something spiritual, like I’ve been trying to tell you, and can’t. So don’t you say I’m laughing at you, because I’m not. Because I want you to sing for me. Tonight. Out here, under the stars, so something good can happen. For me. Augie, will you?’
‘Rosa,’ he said, ‘I’ve sung for you before, and you never did understand why. So I’m going to say no. Not forever, just for now. You see, Rosa, I’ve got a feeling that my front teeth are coming down. My adult teeth. And when that happens, there will probably be other changes, you know, down below … And if my voice breaks, I’m done, locked into this body: a dwarf forever. So I have to save my songs. Like athletes save their energy before a big race, you know. I have to make every song count. So I can grow. So I can be normal. You understand?’
‘No,’ she said, honestly enough.
‘Well then,’ he sighed, getting up, ‘let’s accept that. Let’s accept that we don’t understand each other and we probably never will. I’m going back to bed. The dove will be safe here. The cage is solid. We can talk again tomorrow.’
The next morning as Rosa made her way down the crazy path intent on yet another day at the library, who should appear at the front gate but the man with the doves.
He saw her hair, all fiery in the morning sun; she saw his silvery mane. I have imagined my life in silver, he thought, yet here it is in gold. And she, arrested by his appearance wondered, Is this some remnant of starlight?
Augustus saw from his window and hurried out. ‘Rosa,’ he called. ‘This is the man who gave me the dove.’
Loitering, since she hoped – perhaps also expected– Rosa turned to whisper, ‘Augustus, could this be instead of your song?’
‘Could this be what?’ he asked.
‘My miracle,’ she replied, unabashed.
The dove man heard. He stopped at the head of that crazy paving and, overcome, perched on the stairs beside the caged dove there. The bird flapped and thrashed, hurling itself against the wicker. Reaching out, he released it to soar skyward where it circled against the blue to return, alighting on his shoulder.
‘Where is the girl with the finches?’ Augustus asked. ‘Your daughter, is she?’
‘She is not my daughter,’ the man replied. ‘I found her in the bush out Helidon way. By a spring. I have a hut there.’
‘You found her?’ Rosa asked, coming closer.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Near a spring. In the bush. Years ago.’
‘She was lost?’ Augustus asked. Having been orphaned himself (well, almost), stories of other children so mislaid appealed to him. ‘What? Wandering and alone?’
The man with the dove folded his arms across his chest, the bird to his heart. ‘That was years ago,’ he said, looking down. ‘I was walking near my hut and there she was. In a clearing by a spring. So I took her in. About ten years ago. About five years old, she was. Her hair silver as the water itself. That was out Helidon way. Near a spring bubbling up from the sandstone. From way down. Deep in the earth, they say. Didn’t hardly speak, she didn’t. I tried to find who owned her. Put a sign on the track out front but nobody came. Been like a daughter to me, she has, but she isn’t. I swear …’ He sighed, looking up, first to Augustus, then to Rosa, for approval.
‘You swear what?’ Rosa asked, frowning.
‘I swear that she has been no more. But she does keep the finches. Out of the bush they came, all cheeping and peeping, as finches do. Just arrived, they did. Come down in droves, flocks, as soon as she appeared. All sorts. You saw them, eh? I had the doves, now her the finches.’ He turned to Augustus, who nodded. ‘You saw her make the cages too. In a fury. In a frenzy. When the dance comes over her.’
‘Amazing,’ Augustus admitted.
‘She dances, this girl?’ Rosa asked, confused.
‘No,’ the man said. ‘I explained to the lad here. Augustus, isn’t it? I explained to him, she has the Dance, my girl. The St Vitus’ Dance. The disease …’
‘Oh,’ Rosa muttered, none the wiser.
‘But your hair,’ Augustus said. ‘Your silver hair. It’s the same as hers. And yet you say …’
‘She is not my daughter. She is not my blood. Her hair is a gift from the spring. As my name is a gift – or a coincidence.’
‘What is your name?’ Rosa asked, looking to Augustus who might have known.
‘Da Silva,’ the dove man said.
Augustus beamed. ‘Interesting …’
‘It is a storyteller’s name. A black man’s name. Yet I am white. As silver-white as my doves.’
Da Silva lifted the dove to his face, pressing its beak to his lips in a kiss.
Rosa came closer. She stroked the hair of this Da Silva. ‘Tell me,’ she said, her voice silky as her touch. ‘Tell me, Sir, about your doves. I have had an experience with doves myself. White doves too. Spiritual, you might say. I want the truth now, not some silver-plated story. Not some black-and-white lie.’
He looked up at her, smiling. ‘The truth?’ he said, and she nodded, folding her arms across her chest.
‘Once upon a time,’ he began, cradling the dove, ‘there was a king in Haiti …’
‘Oh come on!’ Rosa protested. ‘You’re making that up. You’re telling a story. A fairy tale.’
‘No,’ Da Silva said. ‘I am not. All truth takes place in some time, in some place, among some people. So what is wrong with “Once upon a time there was a king in Haiti”?’
‘He is right,’ Augustus said. ‘Isn’t that what I sang for, in that library? Isn’t poetry what life’s all about?’
Silenced, Rosa sat.
‘Once upon a time,’ Da Silva resumed, ‘there was a king in Haiti who fell desperately in love with a woman who kept doves. Although this king wooed her, offering untold riches if she would marry him, she declined. “I have my birds to feed,” she said. “I keep silver-white doves which are used by the priests on ceremonial occasions. If I marry you, and take on the responsibilities of the kingdom, who would care for my birds?” Now
this king was a mighty man, unused to denial, so he took it upon himself to learn the names of the priests for whom the woman raised the doves and, dressing himself in his robes of office and wearing his golden diadem, he approached the priests saying, “The woman who raises the silver-white doves used in your ceremonies has fallen ill, and cannot care for her birds. Weave me a spell, I pray you, that might allow me, a stranger, to feed them without causing distress.” Aware that this was the king, and not used to being denied, the priests wove a spell that changed the monarch into a dove; a silver-white cock bird of such grace and beauty that he might strut among his peers demanding honour and obeisance. In this form, the Dove King returned to the woman. Alighting in a silk cotton tree adjacent to her garden, he waited until the afternoon when she took her leisure among the lilies, and as she reclined, drifting somewhere between waking and sleeping, which is the true realm of fairy tale …’ (here Da Silva paused to wink at Augustus; Rosa having already entered that realm in the first moments of the tale) ‘… the Dove King approached, thrusting forward his chest, strutting proud as a dancer, and the woman was won. So he eased himself upon her (in his thrall as she was), and took his pleasure. Having satisfied himself, without so much as a bill or coo, he fluttered over the garden wall, whereupon he returned to his rightful body. “Well,” he thought, brushing silver-white feathers from his kingly robes, “that didn’t amount to much. I might find more ardour in a finch,” and satiated, he strutted away.’
‘But the woman?’ Rosa whispered, barely audible.
Da Silva smiled. ‘Ah, the woman,’ he sighed. ‘Who could forget my mother?’
‘Is that the truth?’ Augustus asked, already believing.
‘Indeed it is,’ Da Silva assured him, ‘as surely as I have silver-white hair and my father is the black King of Haiti.’
‘And the doves live with you, because of your mother?’ Rosa wondered, enthralled.
