Hunting Midnight sc-2

by Richard Zimler

  “What else did you eat?” I asked.

  “Two hares. And a great deal of ants.”

  “Ants?” Mama made a gagging sound, then couldn’t stop coughing.

  With his mischief-making apparent only as a glimmer in his eyes, Midnight added with grave seriousness, “Your Portuguese ants are not nearly as good-tasting as ours in Africa.”

  “I shall make a note of that,” said Father, and feigned writing this tidbit on a notecard.

  Mama’s mouth had fallen open. Rapping her fist on our table, she said, “I’ll not hear any more of this talk of vermin! You!” she said, turning to Midnight. “Eat your soup before it gets cold. And you,” she added, facing my father, “you are to refrain from further jests. And you,” she said, staring at me, “you … you just sit there and listen!”

  “That’s what I was doing.”

  “And don’t speak to me in that tone of voice!”

  “As you wish, Mama.” While Midnight ate his soup, I nudged his arm and said, “Will you take me hunting with you someday?”

  Before he could reply, my mother snapped, “This conversation is absolutely impossible. John, I forbid you from hunting.”

  “You don’t understand what I mean, Mama. Not for four days. Just for one.” I held up a single finger, then turned to Midnight. “We could go for just a day, couldn’t we? When the sun is out. I mean, we would not have to stay in the forest during a thunderstorm and hide our clothes in trees and eat ants. We could hunt in a less … a less — ”

  Fearing a quarrel, Papa interrupted my stammering and said, “John, I would greatly appreciate it if you would allow your mother and me to discuss this matter later, please.”

  Mama frowned and said, “James, there will be no discussion of hunting in this household.”

  I decided to sulk, but none of them seemed to notice, which only infuriated me more.

  After supper, I wanted to stomp off to my room, but Papa gave me a meaningful look and said that I was not excused.

  Midnight took pity on me and said, “You know, John, while I was gone, I did see an unusual bird.”

  “What kind might that have been?” I asked imperiously.

  It is a testament to my family’s true fondness for me that they were all able to resist a good laugh at my expense.

  “One day,” he began, “when I was a lad no older than you, I stopped at a little lake to drink. It was near Gemsbok Valley, where I was born. In the water, in the reflection, I saw a great-great bird.” He spread his arms as far as he was able, his fingers fanning out. “She was all white — purest ivory carved into wings and a long tail. But when I turned to look at her, she vanished over the tops of the trees of the Forest of Night, and from that moment on I was consumed by a longing to get a proper look at her.”

  He drew in deeply on his pipe, but only tiny wisps came from his mouth when he next talked, which made me imagine that most of the smoke had been transformed inside him to words.

  “It was like love, John, this feeling of mine. So I left my people for a time to find the bird. But I was unable to. And no one I met had ever set eyes on her.” He tapped my leg with his foot. “I never did catch another glimpse of her until just two days ago.”

  He leaned back and sat there smoking as though he had said all he wished to say on the subject. Mother picked up some letters she’d recently received.

  “So what happened two days ago? What did you see?” I exclaimed, already changed in mood and eager for more.

  “It was very, very strange. You see, John, I was drinking at a lake, and I saw the white-white bird in the reflection of the water again — just like the first time.” He leaned forward expectantly and pointed the stem of his pipe at me, which had the effect of pulling me up into a kneeling position.

  “This time, John, I heard a screech when I turned.” Here, Midnight made a sharp cackle.

  My mother looked up, furrowed her brows as though she might rebuke Midnight, then sighed dramatically and said, “I can see it is useless to try keeping my mind on anything but your story.”

  Midnight grinned and said, “I followed the screeching to the top of a nearby hillside. But my beloved bird was nowhere to be seen, so I danced our Ostrich Dance.”

  The Bushman clamped his pipe in his mouth and, without getting up, flapped his hands and jerked his head forward until we could all envision the flightless bird racing before us.

  “What happened then?”

  “A voice spoke to me: ‘Look there! Look there!’ And when I turned I saw a great white feather floating down out of the golden sunset.” Midnight reached as high as he could and closed his fist around the imaginary plume.

  “After so many years, I had her feather. I could feel it beating inside my hand, as though it were alive. And do you know, I felt a peace greater than I had ever known before. All my hunger was gone. It was as if I had reached my kin after years in the desert.”

  I was trembling with curiosity by now. “So what did the bird look like? What kind was it?”

  “The kind that never lets itself be seen by anyone. No one has ever gotten a good look at it. No one even knows its name. But one feather of hers is enough to make a man content for life. And one feather placed on the head of a chief can bring happiness to all.”

  “Midnight, you’re making this up,” I declared.

  He winked. “You think so? Then get my pack, if you please.”

  I jumped up, ran to our garden door, took the pack down from its peg, and carried it to him. Reaching in, he produced a slender white feather, about a foot and a half in length. He rubbed it under his chin, then inhaled its fragrance as though it were perfume.

  My mouth fell open. I had never seen a feather so long and lovely.

  “Where did you get it?” I asked.

  “Are you not listening to me? It fell from the sky.”

  “From the bird without a name?”

  He nodded.

  “From the great white bird without a name?”

  “Yes.” He grinned and handed it to me. “It is for you, John.”

  When I took it, I, too, felt it beating inside my hand.

  “Why are you giving it to me?” I asked.

  “But who else could appreciate it as much as you?”

  *

  I chose strategic moments over the next several days to flatter my mother in order to win permission to join Midnight on a hunt. As my first bouquets of charm elicited only snorts of disbelief, I grew more poetic. One day I said she was lighter and more agile than all the stars in Pegasus. I thought this a winning observation, but Mama burst into laughter until the tears were rolling down her cheeks.

  By way of explanation, she said, “Forgive me, John, but I am not often favorably compared to a horse.”

  Though all looked lost to me, my father had learned certain techniques over the previous decade for wearing down her opposition, and in the quiet of their bedroom he soon succeeded in winning her permission, as long as I refrained from eating ants or injuring a single creature myself. This was an easy promise for me to make, as I had no intention of eating anything with six legs and antennae and I had never even once held a weapon of any sort, let alone one as difficult to master as a bow and arrow.

  As the following Saturday was blessed with sun, Midnight and I left at dawn. Within two hours we were striding through a thick, damp forest of fern, pine, and oak, several miles east of the city. We removed our shirts and tucked them into Midnight’s pack, which we hung over a branch. He also took off his breeches, stockings, and shoes. I was too shamed by my skinny frame to make such a bold gesture.

  I quickly learned that he tracked animals in three ways: through their scent, their footprints, and their droppings. So adroit was he that in examining a single print pressed lightly in the soil he could tell how long ago the creature had passed our way and what its general shape had been.

  A single whiff was enough to set him stalking on silken tiptoe. He crept and crouched with the precise care of h
is beloved Mantis — silence given purpose and direction.

  He was so agile with his bow and arrow that they might have been a part of his own body. That morning I saw him pierce the heart of a hare shrouded by thick grass fifty paces away. The arrow sliced through the air, flying to the unsuspecting creature as though guided by an electric force. With his weapon, our good-hearted Midnight was transformed into deadly fate.

  Most amazingly, the Bushman could release an arrow while running, and in this way I saw him strike a deer from seventy paces as it bounded through the trees. The wounded creature did not fall but instead bounded off with the arrowhead buried in its hide.

  “Run, John!” he called to me, gesturing me over.

  I raced to him and we took off after the deer, Midnight loping at a moderate pace to allow me to remain within sight of him at all times.

  We pursued the creature for nigh on a mile. It died at the base of a pine tree, its eyes open but no longer staring at anything in our world. I had never been so close to a deer. I would have preferred it to be alive, it is true, but even dead it was beautiful.

  “Hello,” I said to it.

  I was panting and confused by all I had experienced. The African was covered in sweat, the muscular contours of his bronze skin glistening. He patted my head and said that we would make our apologies to the deer later.

  As he pulled the arrowhead from the creature, he explained to me that he fashioned his arrows so that the head bore a poison he had concocted from nightshade, monkshood, and other dangerous plants he grew behind a wire fence in our garden. He also told me he fixed a tiny part of himself at the tip, so that he entered into the death of his prey.

  From this experience, I understood that preventing Midnight from hunting — as Mr. Reynolds had done in Africa — was tantamount to exiling him from meaning. His need to reenact the central story of our existence as mortal creatures may even have been the most important reason why he chose to escape from servitude. He could not go on without remembering — in his feet, hands, bow, and heart — the root of his being. Africa is memory,Midnight once told us, and though I have never been there, I believe he must be right.

  *

  Midnight slung the handsome deer over his shoulder and carried it back through the forest toward the city. I was given responsibility for the three hares he had also killed.

  On the way home, we stopped at a great granite boulder, nearly as high as our house, where he had drawn the animals he’d hunted on his last excursion. This was what he had meant by apologizing.

  Using reddish stones that he gathered at the base of the boulder, the African sketched the deer he had felled, using deftly executed lines to capture its swift nature. I did my best to design our three hares, with less success.

  Before leaving the forest that day, Midnight took me to gather honey, a skill I was never able to learn from him, though he tried on several occasions to teach me. He told me that day that it was easier in Africa, where there lived a clever bird called the Honeyguide, who led people to beehives. I didn’t know whether he was teasing me or not, but he promised me he would take me to his homeland one day to see this bird myself.

  XVI

  Very shortly after our day of hunting, Midnight and my family settled into a pleasant daily routine. It generally ensured that he and I were alone from two until five in the afternoon, the one exception being on Friday, when, from three to five, I had my art lessons with the Olive Tree Sisters.

  My friend and I filled our afternoons as we pleased — with reading lessons, weeding, or lazy walks in the countryside. And so it was that we reached the afternoon of St. John’s Eve of 1804. I had just turned thirteen and was now four feet nine inches in height, still — unfortunately — a few inches shorter than Mama and Midnight. But growing …

  Our African visitor had now lived with us for nearly two years. I knew little about his work with Senhor Benjamin, but he seemed generally pleased with his progress in learning European herbal medicine.

  By then we’d discovered that Violeta had disappeared without a trace. It was Mama who confirmed this rumor by secretly questioning the girl’s younger brother late one night. Distraught, she had come directly home and awakened me. “I hope to God that poor sweet lass is safe,” she whispered, choking back tears.

  In the darkness behind her I pictured Violeta’s jade eyes flashing defiantly, as they had on the day we’d met. “Safe and hidden on a ship bound for America,” I’d replied.

  The event on everyone’s lips was Napoleon’s proclamation as Emperor of France on May the Eighteenth. The political tension in Europe set Portugal coursing through a sea of apprehension about its own independent future, for it was clear that the Emperor had designs on our quaint little outpost at the edge of Europe, particularly as our paramount trading partner was England, his great enemy. There was no city in Iberia whose fate was more bound to Britain’s than Porto, since ninety percent of our exports — including a thousand man-size barrels of wine per week — headed toward London.

  For this reason it was believed by many, including my father, that Napoleon might soon launch an all-out attack on our city. Lacking even storehouses for bread, which arrived in Porto each Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday from neighboring towns, a French blockade and siege would reduce us to starvation in a matter of days.

  Midnight and I were taking tea in the home of the Olive Tree Sisters when the trouble began. At just past three on their mantelpiece clock, we heard a crowd coming down our street. A sharp cry soon pierced the air: ‘“Think not that I am come to send peace on earth. I come not to send peace, but rather a sword!’ All foreigners must be excised from the Portuguese nation. If we are to have a City of God, then the heads of the Protestants, heathens, and Jews must all tumble down our streets.”

  I recognized the speaker and rushed to the window.

  “No!” Graça shouted at me.

  But it was too late, for I had already peeled back the curtain and peered outside.

  The necromancer who had threatened me years earlier, Lourenço Reis, was standing outside Senhor Benjamin’s shop, only thirty paces away. Thankfully, he didn’t see me.

  Undoubtedly, he had chosen today for his return to Porto because St. John’s Eve was, at its heart, a pagan celebration of the summer solstice.

  “If you added up all the Jews in Portugal, what would you have?” he demanded of his followers.

  A man shouted “ten thousand beasts”; another, “a herd of swine.”

  “John, step away from there or I’ll flatten you!” Luna ordered.

  I was so entranced that I refused to move.

  “If you added up all the Jews,” replied the necromancer, “you would have lumber enough for a fire reaching all the way to God!”

  Midnight touched my shoulder. “What does he say?” he asked.

  “John, you wicked boy! Get away from there now!” Luna pleaded.

  She and her sister were staring at me in fury. I let the curtain fall but remained by the window. “He once threatened me,” I whispered to Midnight. “He does not like foreigners, especially — ”

  I was about to say “Jews,” but the necromancer gave a great wail, as though he had been stabbed in the gut. “I call upon Benjamin Seixas — ”

  I pulled back the curtain again.

  “ — the Jewish demon residing in this accursed house, to come to me and confess. I accuse him of treason against the Portuguese nation, of trafficking with the devil. And his sentence is death!”

  Luna dragged me away from the window. “You do as I say, John!”

  I turned to Graça, the less excitable of the two, who had started to cry. She rushed to Luna and hugged her. After a hushed exchange between them, Luna took my hand gently. “This is very serious,” she whispered. “Now, do as I say — we are all in danger. Be very quiet,” she told me, and she had me repeat this order to Midnight.

  When the noise outside died down, we thought the necromancer was leading the mob away. What fools we w
ere!

  “Graça and Luna Oliveira,” he shrieked, “I call upon you to come to me and confess your sins! I accuse you of treason. You must die so that Christ may live….”

  Graça clasped her hand over her mouth so as not to let loose a cry of terror.

  “I call upon the Jewish whores to come out and confess their sins. I call upon them to open their wombs to Christ and allow Him to enter before they die. I call upon them to stand ready for the burning stake….”

  His threats seemed to stab through the wood of our door, until I believed that his voice alone might unlock the latch and allow his mob to seize us.

  Luna whispered, “What shall we do if he breaks in?” Graça was mumbling frantically to herself in a mixture of Portuguese and another language I did not understand. I caught the word Adonai.

  Drumming started in Midnight’s belly and grew in intensity. “John, tell me very, very precisely what that hyena outside is saying,” he whispered.

  His use of the word hyena revealed that without understanding his words, Midnight had perceived that Lourenço Reis was evil. Before I could reply, the villain banged on our door, then twisted the handle. Graça wet herself in fright.

  “Keep praying, sister,” Luna whispered to her.

  Midnight stood up, slipped out of his shoes, and grabbed the poker from its place beside the hearth. Positioning it over his shoulder like a spear, he rushed to the door.

  “Don’t go out!” I begged.

  He nodded to me and crouched, eyes fixed on the jiggling handle.

  Lourenço Reis spoke through the door. “Graça and Luna Oliveira, you must learn of sin. You must die so that Christ may live. You must perish in the burning heart of the Son of Man.”

  Shouting rose from the crowd like screeching gulls. Then, after a time, we heard them move on. Midnight came to me and we helped the Olive Tree Sisters back to their chairs, prevailing upon them to sip their cold tea. Graça gagged, then rushed upstairs. I wished to go to her, but Luna said, “She will be embarrassed. Stay here.”