The Collected Stories of Carol Emshwiller, Vol. 1

by Carol Emshwiller

  Twilight Zone Magazine, August 1987

  Fledged

  TWO A.M You could feel the spray. You could taste salt. Sand grit in your teeth. Wind blowing miniature squalls across my toddy. I had the sliding glass door open on purpose. And talk about the “brightness of midnight”—everything wonderfully luminous: waves luminous black, foam luminous white, when (and you’d have thought the door wasn’t open that far), when, somersaulting at least twice, landing on the far side of the room, water spraying, feathers flying… something big, that’s all I knew at first, suddenly something big and birdish.

  Then it untangled itself from itself… from its gray and white and black, and I saw it was a winged woman, huge wings, naked woman, but not at all the sort you’d expect would be flying around in seabird colors. Short and plump. I guessed about sixty. I brought her a beach towel to cover herself with and then pushed her into the bathroom, where I thought she’d do the least damage, and started trying to dry her wings with the blow-dryer. A hopeless task. Afterward I noticed there were wet streaks down the hall along the walls and even all across the ceiling. I was put out by the whole thing. I’ve been told I’m a fussy man, but I was having a party the very next night and I was put out. I don’t like to make trouble myself or messes for others to clean up. I’d never be found having been blown, all wet and soggy, into someone else’s living room. I’d have taken precautions. It was just like a woman, I thought, not to have listened to the weather report, to be caught out, no clothes on, though I didn’t give a damn about that. I certainly wasn’t interested any longer in a woman my own age, winged, naked, or not. Certainly not interested in chubby little gray ones with unkempt hair and ragged fingernails. And I found I resented the fact that she wasn’t young and beautiful. I could see that in myself. I resented that she wasn’t at all what you’d expect in a flying woman, especially not one with such large, white, black-tipped wings. I was thinking she ought at least to be built like a dancer. Maybe small but well-shaped breasts, maybe short-cropped black hair or, better yet, black feathers, little ones curling round her face in a kind of cap, and a nice ring of black around her eyes. I’ve seen that on some birds. I’d have liked that. But no matter her age and that she looked as she looked, and even though she’d dripped all over my floors and rugs, not to mention what she’d done to the ceilings, I didn’t have the heart to shoo her back out onto the deck, though that was my first thought.

  Her lips were blue with cold and she was, even still, out of breath. Her feathers stuck out in all directions. I couldn’t bring myself to push her back into the storm, but I was worried about what else she would mess up when I let her out of the bathroom and she started swinging those wings of hers around. I had a lot of valuable art books and some pretty good prints on the walls, and then there was my party. I had to have everything nice for that, but she couldn’t stay In there all night. I couldn’t do that to her.

  Strange, though she was part bird, she reminded me of my cat, Pasht. I don’t even know why I keep that old cat. Came to me the same way, out of a storm not so unlike this one, and been with me ever since and I don’t like cats… and birds even less. I did like calling, “Pasht. Pasht” out the window, knowing the neighbors had no idea why I’d named her that. Perhaps if I looked up some other ancient goddess name for this gull, I’d like her better. (Is there a gull goddess? I doubt it.) But then I thought I’d not do that. I certainly didn’t want an old lady hanging around. Not one like this. She looked as though, if one could ever clean her up to that extent, she’d be the sort who’d be wearing medium heels and a flowery dress and maybe do her best to keep anybody from discovering her wings. But it was only her body that looked like that. Her face… the look in her eyes… that was entirely different.

  She wasn’t but half dry when I let her out of the bathroom and took her into the kitchen for hot milk and toast. (I’d thought of eggs first, but that seemed insensitive. As it turned out. I needn’t have worried.)

  All the time I was getting her the snack, I kept having this funny feeling that I’d known her from somewhere: the way she sat on the edge of her chair, leaning forward—she had to, of course, because of the wings, but still it seemed a familiar pose, as though I’d known someone who sat like that all the time, poised for some leap up that never came. Now her legs were crossed, rather primly, I thought, under the circumstances, and it wasn’t the best pose for her. And they looked terrible, all black and blue. Her circulation must be awful. I knew that wasn’t so unusual in a woman her age, but hers were the worst I’d ever seen. And her toenails! Black! And obviously hadn’t been cut in ages. She’d been letting herself go. I wondered if she was depressed, and then I thought. Well, with those things on her back, who wouldn’t be?

  I watched her closely, though I pretended not to, and I couldn’t get over how all her gestures seemed so familiar. I’d known that way of holding a cup, handle facing away from her as though other people’s germs—left-handed people and right-handed people—as though the only safe place to drink from was opposite the handle. Except that sort of thing didn’t fit with the look of her eyes. I thought, of her eyes, not in her eyes, because you couldn’t see in. I’d never seen eyes like that on a person. Close set. Wild. Fish-wild actually. All surface. And then there was the way she swallowed her toast. I’d never seen a person do that before.

  “Coo,” she said, finishing her hot milk. “Oh, coo.”

  Color had come back to her cheeks, but her eyes were still… well, in spite of the cooing, she looked like somebody who’d tear the wings off wrens for fun. I wondered if she had.

  Lots of birds fly up from South America this season, but I don’t know much Spanish, and I get it mixed up with Italian. And there certainly wasn’t a Spanish or Italian look about her. I tried, though. “Parlate espagnol? Italiano?… Oder deutsch?” I tried all the languages I had smatterings of. I was thinking she might look familiar because I’d met her on one of the business trips I used to take. She responded

  … or, rather, sort of responded only to my bad French. “D’ou venez-vous?” I asked, in polite form. “Ou allez-vous?”

  “Ici, ici, ici,” she said, like a bird would say it. I wasn’t even sure it was French. Perhaps it was only “Ti, ti, ti,” or maybe she meant “tea.”

  My empathy for wild things is practically nil, though I don’t consider myself a cruel person. My Pasht, for instance, has her special cushions and the best cat food I can get. I often cook up a batch of liver as much for her as for myself. I think that’s the reason she’s lived so long in such good shape. And the same goes for me. I take the same good care of myself. You’d never guess my age any more than you’d guess Pasht’s. I don’t take care of her like this because I love her so much. It’s just a matter of pride to have a sleek and handsome animal. She matches me. We go our independent ways, but there’s mutual respect. But what was happening now was… I don’t know, all wrong. It’s odd to say, but I didn’t feel philosophically ready to tackle this sort of thing, especially not right before a party. I couldn’t cope. How could I have once known a bird-person when I had never heard of such a thing?

  It wasn’t until the next morning (I was in that half-awake state they always say is the most creative) that I knew who she reminded me of—who she, maybe, was, though I wondered how In the world that could be.

  I had put her to bed in the guest room, First taken out everything breakable including the pictures off the walls, floor lamp, night table, mirror, and so forth. Took the quilt off the bed and left her a good warm blanket. Shut the door and braced it with a chair so she’d not get out without me knowing, and left her to find her own way of sleeping as best she could with those cumbersome things on her back.

  Then I went to bed myself, and it was only toward morning, half awake, that I knew, or thought I knew (though I wondered, was I making it all up out of some kind of guilt or fear or remorse, but I’d simply done what I had to do and under the guidance, actually, of a psychologist), I thought that sh
e resembled, to a remarkable degree, my first wife. I hadn’t seen her for twenty years. (I was alone again now, after a short second marriage.) She would have aged more or less this much… if I wasn’t imagining the whole thing. But if this was true, then I’d have to speak to her in no uncertain terms. After all, we’d gone our separate ways long ago, and she was not, by any means, a stray cat. Her size alone precluded that I take her in. This time, though, I’d have the sense to talk to her in English. (Why had I not thought to do that before?) This would not do, feathers all over the place, the smell of the sea permeating everything. I would not tolerate her imposing herself uninvited, and so forth, throwing herself in by the back door in the middle of the night…. And those ridiculous encumbrances! How could anyone live like that? I’d help. I’ve always been willing to help when help was really needed. I’d pay to have them removed, should it come to that—and I really felt it should come to that—I’d help out in that way, but she couldn’t stay. I had just, not so long ago, found myself—if that’s the way to put it. I needed my own space. The house is small. Living-dining area smaller even than the deck.

  It was early, but I found it impossible to sleep anymore. The storm was past. I swept the feathers out into the sunshine, where they blew away. There were an awful lot of them. I wondered if she was sick, or maybe molting, though perhaps it was just due to the storm.

  After I cleaned up, I took care to put away the breakables in the rest of the house. Party or not, this had to be done. Sculpture off its pedestal and into a corner, my best pictures into the closet, room divider up against the wall. I worried about the bookcase and the books. Also about the shelf of dishes (Mother’s old china) hanging on the far wall in the kitchen. I’m a six-foot man, and I’d have trouble knocking them over even if I tried, but she… who could tell?

  As soon as I heard sounds from the guest room, I opened the door. She sat, naked again, in the middle of the bed, her wings stretched partly up and partly out behind her at the angles that cormorants hold theirs to dry. Even half folded like that, they touched the ceiling. Her feathers still looked ragged, her hair was still a mess, but she looked a lot better than she had the night before. “Hawk,” she said. Rather disagreeably, I thought.

  It was Julia all right, you couldn’t mistake her, but really sort of magnificent. Wings even larger than I’d remembered. Nose quite grand. No wonder I’d not recognized her at first. And, actually, she did look older than she should have, though perhaps only worn down. Perhaps the stresses of twice-yearly migrations. The cold of the upper air. The outdoor life. They say being in the sun ages one, and her face did look chapped and weathered. And of course those awful legs and feet (she’d had varicose veins years ago before I’d left her, but nothing like this). Her hands, too, had suffered. The rough perches, no doubt, and cold water. No hope of keeping even one or two decent fingernails, I suppose. She had suffered. I knew I wasn’t entirely blameless in that myself. No wonder her eyes were blank and black.

  But then, suddenly, I was wondering where was Pasht! I hadn’t seen her all morning. That wasn’t unusual, but I worried just the same. The question of eggs (and bacon!) for breakfast took on significance, so I had them and it turned out they were fine with her, but then I remembered she’d always liked them. And chickens. Fish. Raw clams. I decided, however, that I wouldn’t be cowed by any of this and that it was time for a serious talk. “What about my cat?” I asked, though that wasn’t what I’d meant to take up first. What I needed to know was how long she thought she was going to stay, especially since I was having my party that night. My God, I thought, what will I do with her?

  Looking straight at me, she picked up three slices of bacon and swallowed them all at the same time in one gulp. I didn’t know whether to take it as a warning to myself or a statement about what had, maybe, happened to Pasht. And then she did just what I’d been worried she’d do: got up, turned around, and—it didn’t seem on purpose, just the turning around-knocked every single dish off the shelves across the room. “Hawk,” she said—I could tell she wasn’t sorry— “hawk,” with the self-confidence of a gull and a look of either all understanding or of no understanding whatsoever. I couldn’t tell which. “Hawk, haw, haw.”

  “Laugh away,” I said, “but you’ll have to get rid of those things by this evening.”

  I didn’t have the slightest idea how this could happen. It looked as if it would be quite an amputation. And of course it takes time to find the right doctor. I wouldn’t want just anybody, any more than I would take Pasht to just any veterinarian. But then I had the idea that I’d make it a costume party. It was hard to think that anyone wouldn’t notice even so, but I’d keep the lights low. I’d hurry and call everyone right away and tell them that I’d just thought of it and they didn’t have to come in costume but it would be nice if they could manage something because there was someone coming to the party who had a great one.

  The only way to dress her would be in scarves and veils or towels. Nothing else would fit around her wings. Of course, there were sheets. If I could find some white ones she could be an angel. Except there wasn’t anything about her that was angelic. It turned out I didn’t have white sheets, anyway. Then I thought of a sort of Renaissance avenging angel, my dark gray sheets, Harlequin mask, yellow bathrobe cord. I did have a white silk scarf-two, in fact. I could use both. I worked so hard on her costume I never did get a chance to fix one for myself.

  Strange how they accepted her, how she seemed to fit right in in spite of her occasional squawks. Her laugh wasn’t that much louder than some others, and she had that glazed-eyed, not-understanding, not-really-listening look most everybody had as the evening went on. And people liked her. I don’t know why. (But then, people had always liked Julia.) Perhaps because she said so little. (She’d always said little.) Actually she said nothing. Absolutely nothing. Laughed in the wrong places as well as the right ones. And I couldn’t believe how little they seemed to notice or care about the wings. My sheets and wrappings hadn’t done much to disguise that they were real, huge, factual wings that fluffed out when she laughed. But they did notice—on some level, anyway—because the conversation went from aviaries to omelets; from guano to condors, the demise of, or rather, the last few (it’s strange how that always happens—how one manages to mention what seems unmentionable), through Lindbergh, budgies, passenger pigeons…. Gulls, strangely—or perhaps not so strangely—weren’t mentioned at all.

  And she! Laughed a lot, said “clock” and “rack” and “gack,” “cheek,” “cheek,” “eat,” “ork,” “currr…” but they were enough. Ate more than her share. Drank. No, it was I who drank, and as I watched her, I became more and more fascinated. I admired her in spite of myself. How grand she had become. She had achieved a strange sort of dignity.

  Centered. That’s what she was. What I’d always wanted to be, though this was the first time I really knew what it meant. And, though chubby, she had a kind of grace. Swooped herself about. Guests, like Mother’s dishes, seemed swept before her, spun in and out, scattered as the feathers scattered. People picked them up and put them in their buttonholes, in their hair, or behind the ears. They were having fun. Wherever Julia was they were having fun. And there was that touch of danger. They liked that too. Some of the guests hung so close to her, leaning forward as they spoke, looking into her half-open mouth, I had to keep watching, wondering was I close enough to get there in time just in case. I had to be near… but for lots of reasons. It was as if I had been living someone else’s life and now I was back to the question… same old question as then—Did I or didn’t I love her?—had to be rethought, and who would leave who, and when, and would one of us leave? I thought I had become whole over the last few years, but now I felt halved. Humpty-Dumpty ever since she’d come.

  As I drank, warmth spread all through me, and, suddenly, I wanted her to stay. I needed for her to stay. Of course the wings would have to go, no question about that, but then, I’d be making sacrifices, too. I alrea
dy had: my walls and ceilings permanently ruined, my books, Mother’s dishes… and, after all, I’d lived alone for quite some time now and liked it, or thought I did until this moment.

  As they left, everybody said they wanted to see her again. Everybody made me promise to bring her along to the next parties. Some went so far as to hug her good-bye. I worried what she’d do, and when some gave her a peck on the cheek, she looked at them as if she’d peck them back, but she didn’t.

  When the last guests had gone, I told her she could stay, though she’d have to get rid of those things, and I said how we’d both have to make compromises, which was only right, though I did understand that hers would be the greatest, physically at least, and that maybe hers had been the greatest, mentally, too, even before, from the beginning.

  “Aw,’’ she said, and “How?” and shook herself, fluffing out her feathers and looking large. “How!” But this time it didn’t sound like a question, and it didn’t look as if a compromise (on her part) was going to come about.

  “All right,” I said, “stay any way you like, but stay. I don’t care. I don’t even care if you ate Pasht, but I want you to know that I think you did.” (Actually I did care. It was only just then that I realized I probably had loved Pasht all this time.) “But I’m willing to forgive.”

  “Grackle,” she said. Obviously she didn’t care much about forgiveness.

  She went to the sliding doors, pushed them wide open, and stepped out into the dawn. I could understand her wanting to get into the fresh air to think about it. I stepped out, too. Off on the horizon it looked stormy again, but it looked as if there would be a spectacular sunrise. I was thinking how nice it was, being with somebody, sharing the rising sun. I came up behind her and put my arm around her waist.