A Pigeon and a Boy

by Meir Shalev

  In places where there was no convoy they could join, they traveled at night on their own with the command car’s lights off and the engine low, so low that they could hear the jackals howling and the whisper of the distant sea and the scratching of the pigeon’s claws in their boxes as they struggled to clutch the floor of the careening car.

  The moon was nearly full. The gold of the sand faded to silver and blue. The large sycamore trees strewn across the area at that time looked like herds of dark animals. Rain fell suddenly, causing the boys to rejoice—the chance of sinking in the sand was less, the large one explained with a mouth dotted with poppy seeds —and when the clouds cleared he showed her a map of the heavens. He knew all the stars and all the mythological figures and all the astrological signs and pointed out Orion the hunter, and next to it, “the big dog,” and their neighbor, the “columba,” the heavenly pigeon in her tireless flight southward.

  “She even has an olive branch in her beak,” he said. “But you need a crescent moon to see it, and a telescope helps, too.”

  At each kibbutz their journey was not forgotten. The three visitors who appeared suddenly, a spot growing bigger and bigger from a distance, then turning into two young men in long coats—one large and limping and wearing a tattered Australian hat and the other, short one in a woolen stocking cap—and a tall girl with a faded pink kerchief on her head, and golden curls, also wrapped inside a Shinel, her face dusty like theirs. The rumor spread. By barks and gusts of wind, from beak to ear, in the mouths of cowshed pigeons. At every outpost people waited for them, the two young men and “the girl with the pigeons” from Tel Aviv

  She handed out her pigeons like a gift giver, like the bearer of verdicts or letters of love or impending death. Never before had she experienced such switches between fear and hope, between worry and security She felt she had grown up all at once and that she would forever recall this silence, which was more terrifying than the din of war that would follow, and these treacherous roads of sand, so much more pleasant and more dangerous than paved ones, and the rush of air when the two boys deflated the tires so they would not sink and become an easy target. And the two boys themselves, singing loudly to her when they could and humming softly when it was forbidden. And the kibbutz members as they filled sandbags and dug pits and prepared for war on their very homes and tried not to think about who would die or guess who would live.

  And mostly she saw and remembered the fighting units waiting at the sides of the roads. People strewn about, walking, chatting, checking equipment, polishing their weapons, sitting around tiny campfires. Some caught a few hours of sleep, others talked about what they had already experienced, and others still argued about what was soon to happen. She saw and she knew that everything she was observing she would never forget.

  And after several days she let her thoughts slip to another matter: the large number of letter writers, the ones who put their paper on the hood of the truck or on one knee or on a tree trunk or on the back of a friend, who wrote on another friend’s back in turn. More than once they stopped the command car and handed envelopes to her saying, “Put this in a mailbox when you get back to Tel Aviv” She put them inside an empty seed bag and guarded them faithfully She carried this huge message capsule as it swelled, filling up with requests and commands and fears and longings and children who would be born to some and not born to others, the delusions of returns and encounters, the hopes of parted lovers, the blessings of men about to die. And a great passion for a baby suddenly flooded her belly, along with taboo joy: her Baby was not destined for battle; he would remain with his pigeons, would await her at the loft.

  Chapter Fourteen

  1

  WHY DON’T YOU have a drink?” the elderly American Pal-machnik asked me.

  “My mother doesn’t allow me to drink with strange men,” I said.

  He laughed. “You’re a big boy already.”

  “Truth is, I don’t really enjoy drinking.”

  A Virgin Mary for the gentleman and another whiskey sour for me,” he told the waiter, indicating his glass.

  “If the Baby hadn’t been fooling around with those pigeons of his all the time,” he said, “he could have been a damn good fighter. Once we even saw him beat someone up. A few of our guys went off to Be’er Tuvia and he asked them to take a few pigeons with them and dispatch them early the next morning.”

  By ten o’clock the Baby had already begun walking about the loft slightly tense, his eyes turned skyward, watching and waiting. Homing pigeons are capable of traveling at nearly fifty miles an hour or even more, and he was worried. Even when the sun reached the top of the sky they did not return. Nor when it descended; not a sign of them, not even when it set. Nothing.

  The next day, too, the pigeons did not come back. When one young pigeon fails to return it can be chalked up to natural selection, an inevitable sifting. But four at once? The Baby’s worry turned to anxiety All four were healthy and strong, daughters of champion mothers and swift fathers, never tardy in any of their training flights. Two even had chicks of their own, an added incentive to return home. Something was amiss; something foul had transpired.

  Five days later the men returned. They came to the loft, handed over the forms with the exact time and place and weather conditions of the dispatch, then went to the Palmach tent camp. Something in their prattle aroused his suspicions. He was bothered by the fact that they took no interest in learning when the pigeons had returned and which had arrived first, since on occasion the men would wager on the results, losing a cigarette or earning a square of chocolate. The Baby followed them to their tents, intending to ask them a few more questions. From one of the tents arose peals of laughter. He drew near, listened, and his heart stopped in its place. From bits of conversation he overheard through the flaps of tarp it became clear to him that on the very first evening they had beheaded the pigeons, roasted them over a campfire, and eaten them, one pigeon per man.

  The Baby burst into the tent and began pummeling and kicking like a madman. “Murderers!” he shouted. “You fuckers, I’ll kill you!” And because there lay hidden, beneath the baby fat and the smooth skin, muscles and fury of astonishing power, several men and ropes were needed to overpower him and secure his arms and legs.

  The Baby lay on the ground like a bound lamb, writhing and spitting and shrieking. “Those pigeons could have saved your lives. You’re scum! You should have died instead of them! I hope the graves I dig tonight will be yours!”

  “It wasn’t nice to say that to us,” the elderly leonine American said. “We had enough fatalities as it was. The guys got really mad, took a few good swipes at him to make sure he knew the difference between a pigeon and a human being, then dragged him outside and left him there to simmer down.”

  After they untied him, the Baby returned to the loft to calm himself in the only way he knew how: by writing a pigeongram to his beloved. This time he added a complaint to Dr. Laufer, reporting what had happened. One of his pigeons returned the next day from Tel Aviv; so overjoyed was he that against all the rules he pounced on her even before she had entered the loft. However, the pigeon was not carrying a quill with a letter from the Girl, and the pigeongram in the message capsule had not been written by the veterinarian. It was notification of an impending military operation concerning the transfer of large supply convoys to besieged Jerusalem.

  He hastened to the operations officer, a sturdy fellow from Ra’anana, about whom there were many rumors of his bravery and coolheadedness in battle. The officer read the pigeongram and demanded to know why it had been opened. The Baby apologized, told him he had thought it was a personal letter. The operations officer upbraided him: the pigeons were not intended for the swapping of personal letters. But immediately thereafter he removed from a cabinet green U.S. Army battle dress, the kind that fighters had been wearing for quite some time, and said, “This is for you, because you’re going to take a few pigeons out with one of the convoys and we wouldn’t want you to s
uddenly catch cold.”

  The Baby put on the battle dress and the operations officer burst out laughing. “We’ll make a fighter of you yet,” he said. “The pigeons won’t even recognize you by the time you come back.” He pointed to the darker spots on the sleeves and breast, where unit and rank badges had once been sewn, and said, “This belonged to an American sergeant. We don’t know what his name was or where he fought or whether he’s alive or dead. Now it’s yours. Watch out for each other.”

  The Baby pulled the battle dress tight around his body, enjoying the pleasant, enticing feeling that enveloped him at once. Instead of rushing back to the loft he headed for the carpentry shop to get a look at himself in the carpenter’s large mirror. The anonymous American sergeant was a large man, and the Baby looked slightly ridiculous. He pondered whether he should ask the kibbutz seamstress to take it in, make it more suited to his size. It was actually the dandified carpenter who said it was not necessary: “That battle dress has already been worn by soldiers in other countries and other wars. See? It has stains that don’t come off, maybe even blood and grease, and two patches on the back and the side. Coats like these know how to fit themselves to their wearers.”

  The carpenter finished making his point and the Baby raced back through the tent camp, ignoring cries of “Looking good” and “Way to go” and “Look what we have here” from the tents, in order to prepare his portable dovecote for the operation.

  He was not requisitioned for the first or second convoys, but on April 17, 1948, two weeks before he would fall in battle, a third convoy was organized. He was ordered to bring several pigeons and join the fighters traveling to Hulda. From there he was sent to Givat Brenner, where he met Shimon, the kibbutz pigeon handler, who told him, “Your girlfriend was here a month ago. She took pigeons to the south.”

  The Baby realized that the pigeongram he had received from her then—“No and yes and yes and no”—had not been sent from Tel Aviv, a fact she had kept from him because she had not wanted to worry him. He looked at the pigeons she had left in Shimon’s loft and imagined her fingers on their wings and their breasts. He picked one up in his own hands and was overcome with passion and longing. Shimon said, “Listen, one of our commanders is taking a motorcycle to Tel Aviv and coming back tonight. If you want, I’ll talk to him about taking you with him.”

  The Baby took one of the pigeons he had brought from Kiryat Anavim and slipped it into the pocket of his new battle dress. He went to headquarters and stood by the motorcycle parked there.

  Are you the hitchhiker?” the commander asked when he emerged a short while later.

  “Yes.”

  “Have you ever ridden on a motorcycle before?”

  “No.”

  “Put your hands here and here. Got it?”

  “Yes.”

  And don’t you dare try hanging on to me.”

  “Okay”

  “Let’s go. Get on and we’re off.”

  2

  IT WAS EVENING. The zoo was already closed for the day The motorcycle stopped by the gate and the Baby alighted. He thanked the commander and they agreed on the pickup time. Then he climbed over the wall of the zoo and dropped to his feet on the other side. The Girl, he knew, would be in the pigeon loft. He hoped she would be there alone.

  All around him the animals were noisy and unstill, sounding their growls and shrieks and chirps and roars as they did every evening in every zoo. Sadness, too, prevailed in the zoo, as it did every evening in every zoo. The Baby ran between the cages feeling the curious, hopeful glances of the imprisoned and avoided glancing at them in return.

  There was light in the storeroom next to the loft. The Girl was working there, arranging sacks and filing cards and medicines. She heard his footsteps, looked behind her, emitted a cry of joy They embraced.

  “Not too hard. I have a pigeon in my pocket.”

  She thrust her hand into his pocket and held the pigeon.

  “For me?”

  “No, for me,” the Baby said. “For you to dispatch another letter to me.”

  The Girl marked the pigeon’s leg with a ribbon and placed her in a box at the side. “I’m so happy you’re here. How much time do you have?”

  “An hour.”

  “That’s all?”

  “Tomorrow we’re leaving with a convoy to Jerusalem,” he told her, “and I’m going out with the fighters. I’ve got battle dress like theirs, see? It belonged to an American sergeant in World War II.” He twirled and laughed.

  “Great,” she said. “And I got a Shinel. So what? A pistol, too, they gave me, and I practiced at a firing range and went all over the south in a command car.”

  “And the pigeon you dispatched from there was sent as if you were in Tel Aviv.”

  “I didn’t want to worry you.”

  “Shimon told me you were at his kibbutz as well.”

  “I took some pigeons from him, too. They sent me to hand them out at each and every kibbutz.”

  “And how was it?”

  “Interesting. Frightening. Sad. Full of hope, and despair, too. I saw the fighters writing home and I thought how wonderful it is that you are with your pigeons at the loft. What happened that they’re suddenly sending you out with a convoy? You don’t even know how to shoot a gun.”

  “I do too, a little, but anyway I won’t need to. There will be enough guys around me who do. And stop worrying, I’m not going to battle. I’ll be at the rear with the pigeons on my back.”

  “That’s not true. You’re like a signalman—you’ll have to walk at the head, next to the commander.”

  She brushed away a tear of acrimony flushed, kissed him, then drew back. “So, you’ve come to say good-bye?”

  “I came to see you and touch you and talk to you. And also to say good-bye. We had an hour, but because you’re arguing with me we only have fifty-two minutes left.”

  She pressed against him again, pushed her breasts into his body; his thigh found its place between hers, felt the heat of her loins. She took hold of him through his trousers. He sighed, pulled away from her, removed the battle dress. The Girl hugged him and smiled at him with eyes wide open and very close.

  “Stroke me,” the Baby said. “Touch me and say what you always do: ‘Now you touch me like that, too.’”

  They entered the pigeon loft, and while he was still unlacing his boots the Girl began kissing the hollow of his neck, between two muscles that descended to his back, and her kisses were warm and long and enfeebling.

  “I hate those monkeys,” she said. “Look at them—they’re watching us like some hooligans on the beach.”

  She pulled the cords from around the curtains and all at once the cooing of the pigeons ceased. Together they spread an army blanket on the floor and lay upon it, kissing at length. He leaned his chin into her neck and said, “That’s you. Your fingers are like the petals of a tulip. I can feel that’s you.”

  She released her grip, brought her hand to her mouth, dripped saliva into the crook of her fingers, and took hold of him again.

  “And now?”

  “Like the belly of a lizard.”

  “And now?”

  He moaned. “Like a ring of velvet.”

  “Now you touch me like that, too,” the Girl said.

  He slid his fingers in between her thighs and she squeezed, stretched, relaxed. Her scent filled the room.

  “Let’s do it,” she said. “All the way We’re not kids anymore. We are people who deliver homing pigeons to the front and who go to battle.”

  “When I get back from the war,” he said.

  “I looked at the boys down south,” she said, “the ones who gave me their letters to send, and I thought, Who’s going to make it home? Who’s going to have children, and who isn’t?”

  “We will.”

  “Come, my love, let’s do it,” she said. “Let’s make our child right now”

  “I’m afraid to do it now”

  “Afraid? Of what? What people w
ill say?”

  “No way …”

  “So then what?”

  “That if we make love I won’t come back.”

  “Don’t talk nonsense.”

  “Things like that happen.”

  She pulled away from him, sprawled on her back, breathed. “I want to take off my clothes, be naked. You, too.”

  They stripped down to their bare skin and lay upon the blanket.

  “Hold me, my love,” she said. From where was this terror sneaking in? What was this sadness in her heart?

  “When I come back from the war,” he said, embracing her. “We’ll do it then. When you have what to live for you don’t die.”

  And after a short silence and the probing of fingers he said, “I want our first time to be a reuniting, not a parting. At home, on a bed with sheets, not on the floor of a pigeon loft. We’ve held off this long, we can wait a little longer.”

  They pressed together with all their might, then pulled slightly apart so that her other hand could join in.

  “That’s nice,” he said.

  “What’s nice? Tell me exactly”

  “That you can do two different things with your hands at the same time.”

  They giggled, then fell silent, his the silence of preparation and concentration, hers that of curiosity “I love watching your semen spurt out,” she said, and the Baby’s entire body trembled, his back arched, he moaned, and he buried his head between her breasts and laughed. “And your laugh. And your scent, just like our first time together. You remember? At the Ahad Ha’am School.”

  “I remember. Even now I don’t understand how it happened.”

  “You were suddenly suckling my nipples and I touched you and your semen was so new and white,” she said, holding up her cupped fingers as if on display “We haven’t been together for a while—look how much there is … I could put this inside me and then I would have a child from you.”