Hunting Midnight

by Richard Zimler

  To which I naturally replied, “But I am not yet a gentleman.” I was not jesting in the least, since I had decided that I ought not be required to conduct myself like a gentleman until I was at least sixteen.

  “A truer word you have never spoken,” Mama replied, not without humor. “But I shall turn you into one if it’s the last thing I do.”

  “So how did you stay so smartly attired?” Papa inquired.

  “As soon as I was safe in the countryside, with no houses nearby, I removed my clothes and folded them carefully in my pack, then tied them high up in an oak tree. They became very, very wet,” he laughed. “But they dried out today on my way home. Except the breeches.”

  “How did you remember where the oak was?” I asked.

  He looked bewildered. “John, don’t be silly – I could never lose such an important tree.”

  “Enough of this,” Mama ordered. “Put on something dry this instant. I’ll not have you ill again before Christmas. My heart could not bear it. And as you are to start your apprenticeship soon, it would not do for you to arrive feverish at Senhor Benjamin’s doorstep. If you cannot – ”

  Mama might have gone on like this until dawn had Papa not risked her wrath and interrupted, “You must do as she says, Midnight, or we shall have no peace. I beg you to go up with John to your room and change, then come down and take some supper with us.”

  Midnight and I raced up the stairs to his room. While changing his clothes, he began to speak of his adventures. I nearly always felt a glow of privilege warming me deep inside when I listened to him. When I once described this sensation to him, he replied that when I was delirious with fever he had fed me a lightning bug to keep my chills away. The bug was still inside me. He harbored one inside himself as well, and when the two met they flashed their light in recognition.

  Buttoning his shirt, Midnight told me how, after leaving Porto, he had sought out the heart of the storm, threading his way across farmland and forest toward the ever-darkening sky. When I asked if he’d met other people along the way, he replied, “No one. I stayed out of sight. I am clever-clever at hiding when I want to.”

  He said the rains reached him as he climbed a hill crowned by pines. He had danced there for hours.

  “To summon more rain?” I asked.

  He shrugged, then made a clicking noise with his tongue. When I insisted that he reply in English, he simply grinned. This was hardly the first time Midnight had made me settle for a clicking in lieu of an explanation, but I learned that his silence signified neither a betrayal nor even a withholding of secrets, as I first presumed. It was simply that he could not give me an adequate answer.

  Downstairs, Midnight recounted – for the benefit of my eager parents – what I thought were the mere beginnings of an epic story of perilous adventure. But he brought the proceedings to a swift close by explaining that after finishing his dance he spent the next four days hunting. Unaware of my expectation of at least an hour’s enthrallment, he picked up his spoon and began ladling carrot soup into his hungry mouth.

  “Did you … did you kill many things?” I asked.

  Mama thought this an inappropriate subject for a lad my age and tut-tutted me, but Father said, “No, May, let us hear a little of the spoils of war.”

  Midnight said, “I killed a large gazelle. A beautiful creature.” His eyes shone. “I sketched him on a great rock as well.”

  “How could you bear to take his life?” asked Mother, shaking her head. “I should be brokenhearted to see such a thing.”

  “I am a Bushman, just as he was a gazelle. I must eat or die.”

  “Why did you sketch him?” I asked.

  “I must mark the spot where he has died. So that Mantis knows.”

  “And how did you get that cut on your forehead?” Papa asked.

  “My arrow pierced the gazelle here,” he answered, pointing to his ribs, “and he ran off swiftly. I pursued him through the forest. A branch came at me – ” Here, he made a swiping motion with his hand and laughed at his own carelessness.

  “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 re
buke 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 his 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 pr
ogress 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.