A Pigeon and a Boy

by Meir Shalev

  Just like the elderly Vbgelkundkrs Yordad had introduced me to, and who had taught me the best bird-watching spots, these Dutch birdwatchers were interested in neither ethology nor ornithology, only identification. Thus, they competed among themselves about who had seen and was familiar with more birds and species. They argued, too: was this a laughing dove or a turtledove, a swamp harrier or a pygmy falcon? More than once their arguments were settled with the help of a spotting scope or a more powerful pair of binoculars, but sometimes the bird under discussion disappeared quickly, or the distinction was particularly difficult to make, as with the common kestrel and the lesser kestrel, especially when the sky was free of clouds. And then the voices rose and the arguments flared.

  Very slowly, the sun descended. The mallards lost their sheen, the water silvered, and brown ibises turned black in it. The darkness erased the gray hues in the cranes’ wings and, later, the white of the pelicans’. In the end there remained only the last glow from the water and shadows upon it. Then even those were gathered up, and I gathered my own small flock and we returned to our lodgings.

  After supper the bird-watchers stayed at the table, comparing their plunder and continuing their arguments. They even tried to get me to join in, wanted me to determine which old vulture—pun intended— was which, and quickly my ignorance was revealed, for which I was even scolded. “It is unfathomable that the guide does not know such elementary things, like the fact that the wings of the steppe eagle are longer than those of the greater spotted eagle.” But with me, the more things relate to these small matters — the length of wings, the color of walls, knobs for doors and cupboards — the more likely I am to lose interest in advance. The larger perceptions are enough for me: the height of flight, the arc of the heavens, the beeline, the full press of bodies, the air that fills space and home.

  4

  I ROSE BEFORE DAWN, turned on the samovar set up for us in the evening at the entrance, and awakened my tourists. They wished to see the fowl that had landed in the evening as they took off in the morning. While waiting for them to emerge from their rooms, I filled a large thermos with coffee, removed from the kitchen refrigerator the packages of sandwiches the guesthouse owner had prepared for us and, while it was still dark, we set out for the Hula reserve.

  A strong easterly wind was blowing in our direction, raising clouds of dust, bending treetops, and even shimmying Behemoth’s heavy nose. At the entrance to the reserve I told them the story of the reclamation of the Hula Lake and its consequences. That is what I always do, and they cluck their tongues, reciting the local words and even jotting some of them down as a reminder. In another week they will be sitting in their local cafés using these exotic words I have taught them—agur, sharkia, hula, saknai—with their friends as if they had received them with their mothers’ milk, and they will sip beer and pass around their photographs.

  The wind and dust caused us to seek refuge in the “Aquarium,” a building that is all windows and intended to be an observation point. The door was locked, but the industrious guide—that’s me, Mother, your firstborn son—circled the building and found an unlocked window I slid the glass sideways and invited my charges to enter.

  From here on, things happened as if by themselves, like the previous night’s events being screened in reverse: the rise of the wake-up cries, the fading of darkness into gray the clearing of the water so that shadows of the birds are visible on the surface, the further rise of the sun, the beginning of movement. There is no leader or ruler or organizer here, and each bird takes flight when she is ready, and on her own accord and pace. The pelicans heavily the cranes at first as if dancing in the air, the geese and ducks racing across the water, necks outstretched and clapping their wings. All are trying, failing, hovering, landing, waiting for the sun to grow stronger and heat the air and their muscles.

  Slowly, the skies once again grew spotted, filling with movement, wingspans, flapping, noises, and suddenly the mobile phone in my pocket rang, and in spite of the looks of reproach I got from the birdwatchers, I hastened to answer it because on the display screen appeared the name YORDAD.

  5

  YORDAD DOES NOT PHONE often. And certainly not at such an hour. In general, yekkes do not wish to be a burden, to make requests from others. And anyway, whenever Yordad needs something he turns to Meshulam Fried. But ever since that conversation and his terrible question—“Is Mother at your place?”—seeing his name on the display screen causes me to worry

  “I am truly sorry for disturbing you, Yairi,” he said, his voice perturbed and tired. “I thought long and hard about whether to phone you. You simply must come over here at once.”

  I excused myself from the bird-watchers and stepped outside.

  “I’m up north with a group of tourists. What happened?”

  “Someone has been trying to break into my apartment.”

  “Call the police. Right away!”

  “Not now—it’s already light outside. It happens at night, every night. Someone presses down on the handle of the door, trying to open it. I haven’t been able to fall asleep these past few nights.”

  “Is the door locked?”

  “Of course.”

  “You’re just hearing things,” I said, trying to calm him down. “Buildings always make noises. Especially apartment buildings, where there are other residents. And late at night, when everything’s quiet, it’s enough that some guy on the third floor is flushing his toilet to make you feel certain that someone is trying to break in.”

  “Excuse me, Yairi, but I am still capable of differentiating between someone trying to break into my home and someone flushing his toilet on the third floor. And in case you’re hinting in that direction, I don’t have hallucinations, either!”

  Slam. Lately he has developed the obnoxious habit that American businessmen have of ending telephone conversations without saying good-bye. I ignored this and phoned him back. I said, “We were cut off,” pretending that “the connection is poor from up here.” I tried the humorous approach: “Maybe it’s Meshulam, checking to see whether Professor Mendelsohn has locked his door before going to bed?”

  Yordad’s voice sounded pleased to hear from me, as if he had not been angry with me a minute earlier. “I’ve already asked Meshulam, Yairi. That’s the first thing I did.”

  And what did he say?”

  “He said he would send someone from the firm that provides security to his offices to stand guard outside.”

  “Agood idea.”

  “A bad idea. This is not the prime minister’s residence. You yourself said it: this is an apartment building. I don’t need some thug with a pistol in the stairwell.”

  “Have you spoken to Benjamin about this as well?”

  The birds were lifting off I was encircled by the flapping of wings; the wind roared around me. Still, Yordad’s sigh was clearly audible. “There is no point in speaking to Benjamin. He’s busy”

  “So that’s the reason you come to me? Because I’m less busy? I work sometimes too, if by chance you forgot that. At this very moment I’m with a group of tourists. Bird-watchers from Holland. I got up this morning at a quarter to four to show them the migrating birds in the Hula Valley, so I’m a little far away”

  “I’m sorry to have bothered you, Yairi. I turned to you because you are my elder son.”

  That afternoon I drove south with my bird-watchers to our next stop: the Jordan Valley I made sure that everyone was set up with a room and a meal and I traveled to Jerusalem via the Jordan Rift. At ten-thirty I parked Behemoth on Halutz Street in Beit Hakerem. I removed from the car the handle of the hoe I keep there all the time and the folding chair that has been in the car since the aborted trip with Yordad, and I walked up to Bialik Street through the darkened memorial garden. What would someone who caught sight of me think, a man in his prime carrying a club in one hand and a collapsible chair in the other? Where could he be going? What are his intentions? In fact, there would be no need to make too
much effort to guess. This man is the little boy who came down to this garden years ago with his mother. Now he is walking through it on his way to protect the father who raised him as though he were really and truly his own son.

  Just as I thought: a MESHULAM FRIED AND DAUGHTER, INC. vehicle was parked outside. I set up my chair in the garden, under the fig tree that had been transplanted there by Meshulam years earlier and that was now a large tree, and I sat in the darkness. From there, no one could see me, whereas I had a clear view of Yordad’s front door. Shortly after eleven o’clock the door opened, Meshulam called out, “Good night,” locked the door from outside, exited the stairwell, and looked around. What would I say if he spotted me? I would tell him the truth. Meshulam would listen, remove his handkerchief from his pocket, and say, “And who will watch over me since Gershon?” and he would offer to take over for me or keep me company

  But Meshulam did not notice me. He got into his car and drove off The light was on in Yordad’s bathroom. I could hear him coughing and spitting. When people were visiting him he did not cough like that and most certainly did not spit. After that, the light in his bedroom went out and only a small lamp in the kitchen remained lit.

  I was sitting like that, bored and weary when suddenly the light in the stairwell went on. I came to attention, but for naught: it was only Yordad’s tenant coming down from the second floor. He removed something from his car, held a brief conversation on his mobile phone replete with stifled giggles, then disappeared back into the stairwell. Twice, people arrived and went up to the top floor. Then all at once I grew tense, because Benjamin had shown up and was standing at the door. He listened, but he did not touch the door handle or ring the buzzer or open the door. I did not move from my hiding place, and my brother departed.

  Slowly, the air chilled and grew humid. The passersby diminished and ceased altogether. An after-midnight wind kicked up suddenly resounding lightly in the small trees and loudly in the large one. From far away came the short and terrible scream of a woman, followed by silence and then barking. Bats circled in the lamplight, catching insects attracted to its glow

  At three in the morning I left. There was light at Glick’s kiosk; Mr. Glick was already at work in the kitchen. “If you can hang on five minutes I’ll have a samwich ready for you,” he called out to me from the window “Meantime, here’s a coffee for you.”

  I drank it down. Mr. Glick asked, “Make one for Fried’s daughter, too?”

  I blushed. “I won’t be seeing her today,” I said.

  “That’s no good,” Mr. Glick said. “A woman like that, every day without her is a waste.”

  “You’re right, Mr. Glick,” I said. “All the days without her have been a waste. It was a mistake.”

  He gave me the samwich. “Don’t eat it right away Give it a few minutes so the tastes inside can mix up together. Since she’s a little girl I been telling her that. Tirzah Fried, she’s something special. She’s not like the others. Nu, if you get a move on it before I finally kick the bucket, God willing, then I’ll make the food for your wedding.”

  All the way down from Jerusalem toward Jericho I thought about Yordad, whether or not to tell him about this evening spent in the garden of his building. And then northward bound, in the Jordan Rift Valley, I thought mostly about myself, and my story, and the need for a story in general, and what a man whose story reached its climax before he was even born is supposed to do with himself. Then farther on, near the kibbutz where the Baby grew up, I drove off onto the dirt road on which he had ridden his bicycle with Miriam. I stopped by the abandoned building that had once been a pump house, and my thoughts—in spite of the independence we like to invest them with—moved logically sanely, from the first dispatch to the last. Only a few pigeon handlers were in attendance at the Baby’s funeral. The war had not yet ended, there was still so much work to do, and the roads were dangerous. The father came from Jerusalem. The aunt, the uncle, and Miriam came from the kibbutz. Premature gray was strewn through Miriam’s hair. The uncle and the father stood far apart from one another, each one crying in his own fashion, and they did not exchange a single word.

  Dr. Laufer and the Girl were there, too. The Girl had difficulty moving and breathing. Every few seconds her mouth gaped and she gulped air in spasms. But the two cells in her womb had already divided and become four, and the four were soon to divide again, later that day, to become eight, then sixteen, then thirty-two, then me, today Dr. Laufer, the only person apart from her to know, delivered a eulogy and his feminine pluralis majestatis, which never failed to amuse his listeners, this time brought about feelings of horror, because it sounded like the eulogy of a thousand mothers and daughters and sisters and lovers.

  One must take advantage of every trip for dispatching pigeons, and each of the pigeon handlers who attended carried a woven wicker pigeon basket with a handle and a lid. At the end of the funeral the pigeons were dispatched, and they soared above the tears and the mourning and the fresh grave. Dr. Laufer said, “This is both a training exercise and a beautiful sight. Perhaps we will make this a tradition at memorial services.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  1

  TOO BAD you were not here today to watch Tirzah’s all-star plastering team work on the house you bought for me: a band of Druze men from a single family in Ussefiye, all with broad mustaches and colorful skullcaps. First they built scaffolding on the outer wall of the house; then they climbed up and stood on it, two on the top level and two on the lower level. They rubbed their hands with olive oil to protect their skin, and then they plastered as one and smoothed as one, using exactly the same movements.

  “Why four men on one wall?” I asked. “Why doesn’t each man take a wall and work on it?”

  Tirzah explained that the whole wall needed to dry simultaneously and in the same sun so there would be no differences in the texture or the hue.

  They began by throwing plaster at the wall and smoothing it down, this layer intended to seal the cement. On top of that they added a second layer, which they smoothed and evened out by scraping it in circular motions with round handsaws, and then they topped it off with a third layer spread with long, fast rollers. Inside the house they would do the same with a yellowish wash, not white—Tirzah and I do not like white—and the outside plaster was to be covered with a pigmented stucco, the color of which—so Tirzah tells me—is “peach.”

  A fifth man plastered inside the house. He climbed up and worked from a low and heavy ladder, examining the metal mesh of the ceiling the way you check the strings of a harp, with pinches and tugs. The mesh hummed for him to fill in its empty eyes, and he tossed plaster at it, tossed and smoothed, and when he finished Tirzah said, That’s it, that is our ceiling, not the ceiling of someone who lived here previously, and soon the workers will depart and I am pleased to see that you have strength and desire, Iraleh, because we have a double inauguration to do: the ceiling and the stucco.

  2

  THE CHINESE WORKERS spread a layer of sealant on the foundation beneath what was to become the bathroom floor. They laid long plastic tubing in green and black, which they fastened to the floor with hand-fuls of cement. A plumber and an electrician arrived on the scene to thread pipes and cables through the tubing. And when everything was dry and attached and smoothed and rounded and sealed and fastened and examined, Meshulam turned up with Steinfeld the tiler.

  “Hello, Steinfeld,” Tirzah called out. “And hello, Meshulam. The weather stripping looks very nice.”

  Steinfeld was carrying the same old schoolbag on his back, the same bucket in his hand. This time it held a hammer, a spirit level, a putty knife, and a pillow His mouth continued to spout complaints as though only just then had he finished the stichmuss work he had begun several weeks earlier: “You see? This is the tiler’s hammer I was talking about; you’ll only see it on real craftsmen. No plastic or rubber, like today The head alone is three pounds of iron for chiseling bumps and angles, and the handle is made of p
oplar wood for pounding and straightening. The handle’s seven inches long, exactly like my shmekele, but thicker and softer.”

  “What are all these tall tales you’re telling?” Meshulam said. “They still use your tiler’s hammer for the old floor tiles—it’s the ceramic tiles they use the rubber hammer for.”

  “The old floor tiles are prettier,” Steinfeld grumbled, “and the measurements of the ceramic tiles are less accurate.” He expounded against marble flooring, too, which “makes the new houses look like the bathroom of Rothschild’s maid.”

  “You’re the home owner, not them!” he said, turning to me. This pleased Tirzah and Meshulam to no end. “Let the Frieds put whatever they want in their house. For your house, I’m going to bring you the good old-fashioned floor tiles, eight by eight inches.”

  Tirzah protested. “That makes more tiles, more work, more grouting for the eye to see, and the ceramics machine can’t cut them for the wedges at the end.”

  “Tiraleh, you forget that it’s Steinfeld the tiler who’s doing the work. There aren’t going to be many wedges, and the few there are we’ll cut with a disc.”

  “He doesn’t even use a vise when he cuts,” Meshulam whispered to me, full of admiration. “The guy’s eighty, he holds the tile in one hand and cuts with the other. You’ll see it and you won’t believe it. When he uses the disc it’s like cutting butter with a butcher’s wife.”

  An hour later a truck pulled up and unloaded the tiles. In the meantime, however, a new argument had broken out: Steinfeld insisted on using sand beneath the tiles, while Tirzah preferred fine gravel. She even shared her FOR and AGAINST with me: with sand you could mix in a little mortar powder, which would cause it to stick to the loam better, but its tiny grains transfer moisture from place to place, “and then you have to pull up half the house to figure out where it’s coming from.”