Pablo and Birdy

by Alison McGhee

  Then: Birdy.

  Birdy couldn’t fly. She couldn’t squawk. She was small, with only her beak and talons to protect herself against a huge intruder. Pablo whipped around and charged toward the old suitcase, his hands bunched into fists, ready to protect his bird. “Get out!” he screamed at the intruder. “GET OUT!”

  But—

  —no intruder was there.

  There was only Birdy, still asleep despite Pablo’s shouting. He scanned the room. No strange man. Nothing. Nothing but his hammock and Emmanuel’s old Cuba suitcase with Birdy perched on it, one foot drawn up, deep in sleep.

  Dark questions bloomed inside Pablo. He considered waking Emmanuel up to tell him what had just happened. But things were too confusing already, and he didn’t want to worry Emmanuel. Had Pablo imagined that awful voice just now, and if so, did that mean he was going crazy? Or—and here he fought back the thought, because hadn’t it been proven impossible?—was Birdy, could she, was there any way in the world that . . . no. No, he told himself. Birdy was not a Seafarer.

  TWENTY

  NEXT MORNING PABLO and Birdy were slow in getting to the bakery. Pablo had woken up late to a note from Emmanuel on the counter.

  You had some bad dreams last night, mi Pablito. Sleep in and I’ll see you and Birdy at Pierre’s.

  Maybe the awful voice in the middle of the night had been only a bad dream? In the light of day, there in the kitchen with the wooden table and bowl of oranges and limes and smell of coffee, it seemed possible. But Pablo felt tired, and Birdy must too, because her grip on his arm was not as tight as usual.

  Outside the sun shone bright. The double-decker bus driver was parked in front of the flower shop, touching up the red paint and gold trim while the flower lady yelled at him to please remove his monstrosity from in front of her shop, that he was not the only one in town who needed to make a living, thank you.

  Emmanuel sat at the counter at Pierre’s, drinking a café au lait next to Lula, who was sketching out a new tattoo and drinking her mint tea. Pierre was arranging elephant ears and parrot-shaped sugar cookies on trays. The chef and sous-chef from the Parrot Café were huddled at the stand-up table in the far back of the bakery, arguing over their new menu. Shouldn’t they add a few new items, parrot-related appetizers or desserts? No, no, no, the old standards were crowd pleasers, and why mess with success?

  Mr. Chuckles, Peaches, Rhody, and Sugar Baby came flapping and strutting into the bakery. A small dove cooed her way in after them, close behind Sugar Baby, as if she were trying to fit in, but Peaches and Mr. Chuckles turned in unison and hissed at her and she turned tail and scuttled out.

  “Peaches! Mr. Chuckles!” said Pierre. “There will be no bullying in this bakery.”

  Mr. Chuckles cocked his head and looked Pierre up and down.

  “Nice threads,” he squawked.

  Pierre adjusted his hat and smoothed down his tie. A small sprig of baby’s breath poked out of his front pocket. “Really?” he said. One compliment, and Mr. Chuckles was back in Pierre’s good graces. Pierre poured himself a large mug of black coffee and clicked on the television. It was Elmira Toledo Special Report time.

  Sure enough, there she was in her trench coat, her purple glasses pushed back on her head. She was in the middle of a lecture on the Seafaring Parrot—the special characteristics of the species, an explanation of the properties of sound vibrations—and a list of the current sightings, which she one by one debunked as “piffle.” Piffle was one of Elmira Toledo’s favorite words.

  All this was familiar. No one in the bakery paid much attention. It was Elmira Toledo, after all, and this was what she did. Soon she would sign off with her trademark line: “This is Elmira Toledo, reporting on behalf of you and the winds of change, fortune lost or fortune gained.”

  Except that she didn’t. She kept right on going.

  “Today we continue our Seafaring Parrot Special Report,” said Elmira. “It was nearly ten years ago that three separate fishermen called the Toledo Tip Line with the exact same sighting: a parrotlike bird clinging to a large piece of driftwood.”

  The camera panned to an oceanlike body of water and then to a driftwood-strewn beach.

  “The fishermen were adamant about what they’d seen,” said Elmira, “and their descriptions of the bird were virtually identical. That, coupled with the geographical bearings of the fishing boats, led me to the conclusion that if a mythical Seafaring Parrot was indeed spotted not flying off the coast of Isla ten years ago, it was under duress and unable to fly. Why, you ask? That is the question. My speculation is that some sort of injury prevented the bird from taking to the air.”

  The camera cut to a photograph of a sad-eyed bird with a splinted wing.

  “In which case,” finished Elmira, “I have some questions. Did an injured Seafarer wash up on the shore of Isla ten years ago? If so, did it take shelter in the town?”

  The camera panned from one end of the beach—their very own beach!—to the other, then zoomed in on Elmira, a stony look on her face.

  “And if so, is there still, somewhere in the small town of Isla, way down there in the southernmost part of our country, a living specimen of the most elusive bird in the entire world?”

  Everyone in Pierre’s was silent, staring at the screen. Elmira’s eyes narrowed in her trademark way.

  “The winds of change are on their way,” she said, emphasizing each word. “And if there is a living Seafarer in existence, then as sure as my name is Elmira Toledo, I intend to find it.”

  The camera zoomed farther in on her face. She held up a finger, pointed it straight at the lens, and did not blink.

  “Isla,” she said, “I’m coming for you.”

  Lula was the first to break the silence.

  “Well then,” she said. “I guess we’ve been warned.”

  Pierre pointed his index finger at Lula’s face.

  “Lula,” he intoned, à la Elmira Toledo, “I’m coming for you.”

  Emmanuel held an imaginary microphone in front of his mouth. “This is Emmanuel Dominguez, reporting from the town of Isla, where residents are preparing to board up their windows against Tropical Storm Elmira, who is due in any day now.”

  Lula grabbed the imaginary microphone from Emmanuel.

  “And this is Lula St. John, also reporting from Isla, where we all await the arrival of Elmira Toledo in the hopes that she will finally produce an actual, real-life specimen of the genus Seafaringus Parrotus.”

  Everyone laughed, but it was a nervous laughter. Each of them depended on the tourists for income, but no one liked the crowds, the nosy questions, and the examination of every bird that ordinarily roamed free through the town that went along with a visit from Elmira Toledo. Besides, the focus on the Seafarers was, to use Lula’s term, nuts. They of all people would know if there were a Seafarer living among them. Not that they would mind, as long as no one else knew. In fact, it was fascinating to contemplate.

  “Think about it,” Emmanuel had said. “A bird that can reproduce all the sounds ever made? I could hear my grandmother’s voice again.”

  “And I could hear my family again, back when we all lived together,” Lula said. “My mother, my sister, everyone.”

  “I would have many questions for a Seafarer,” Pierre said. “Many, many. Mais oui.”

  But no one believed that Elmira Toledo was onto anything more than her usual nonsense. They were the ones who had been there when Birdy came floating in to shore, after all. And Birdy had been clinging not to a piece of driftwood, or a white-water raft, or some kind of boogie board, but to a child’s blow-up swimming pool. They were the ones who knew what the fishermen calling in their sightings had missed: the parrotlike bird was guarding a baby, a helpless infant cast upon the waves. They were the ones who, when word spread among the townspeople that a Seafaring Parrot was reported to have been spotted floating in to shore, explained that yes, there had been a parrot, and yes, that parrot was now in the care of the townspe
ople, but no, the parrot was not a Seafaring Parrot. Not at all.

  “It’s certainly not an African gray,” Maria had said, back then. “Nor is it a macaw. Most probably it’s a mix of mitred and monk parakeet, lacking the traditional markings of either species. That’s my best guess.”

  When, year after year during press conferences, Maria was asked about the existence of the Seafaring Parrot and whether the reports of sightings could possibly be true, she just smiled.

  “I’m a scientist,” she would say. “As such I believe only in directly observable scientific data.”

  This sounded official and impressive, and reporters and townspeople alike would nod and thank Maria for her time. What no one seemed to notice was that she hadn’t really answered the question.

  It was time to get back to Seafaring Souvenirs, but Pablo couldn’t stand the thought of sitting by the cash register ringing up mugs and T-shirts and Painted Parrot shells just now. He scooped Birdy up without even holding out his arm and waiting for her to jump on. Elmira Toledo was as annoying as ever, but today she had left him feeling uneasy.

  “No one knows what a Seafaring Parrot actually looks like,” said Pablo to Emmanuel, “so what makes her think those old sightings were real?”

  “She wants to be famous, probably. The Tip Line is her ticket to fame and fortune.”

  “Fortune?”

  “Sure. Imagine how much money Elmira could get her hands on if she actually had a real-life Seafaring Parrot to parade around.”

  Making money off the mythical Seafarer was something that Pablo had never considered. Pablo and Emmanuel and lots of others in town, including Lula and Pierre, sold lots of bird souvenirs. But they certainly didn’t sell birds themselves. The birds in Isla were free.

  TWENTY-ONE

  THE LITTLE DOG had grown bolder now that his first two attempts at robbery had gone so well. He was still bedeviled by hunger, but there was a rain puddle near the entrance to the sidewalk, and if he filled his stomach from it, then the hunger pains didn’t stab quite as much.

  He huddled in the shadows only a couple of feet from the sidewalk. It was so dark in the alleyway compared to the bright sun of the sidewalk that he was nearly invisible. Only someone who knew exactly where he was would be able to find him.

  The previous night, the dishwasher at the Parrot Café had emptied the restaurant’s trash into the Dumpster outside the café’s back door. Oh, the smells. Still-warm arroz con pollo, scraped off plates along with tortillas and beans. It was torment, those smells wafting their way out of the Dumpster and down the alley to where the dog crouched at the rain puddle. When it was fully dark and all motion on the sidewalk ceased, he had trotted down the alleyway to the Dumpster, tantalized by the smell of food.

  But the lid was shut tight. And chained.

  And it was too high for the dog to get into, even if it had been open. He had propped himself up on his hind feet, scrabbling with his paws just in case there was another way into the Dumpster, but no.

  Could he tip it over? Garbage cans were tippable. Maybe Dumpsters were the same. He scrabbled again, throwing his scrawny weight behind his paws.

  No.

  The Dumpster was built to last. It was solid and heavy and its lid was closed and all in all it was a terrible situation. The dog had given up and made his way back to the rain puddle. There was only so much puddle a dog could drink before either his stomach twisted up with pain or the puddle dried up.

  Or both, which was the case for the dog.

  Now, though, it was the next day. The dog’s nose once more filled with the familiar smell of cinnamon and sugar and butter. Irresistible. He could almost taste those elephant ears.

  Closer and closer he crept to the sunshine.

  Could he?

  Would—

  —Oh no. There was the bird again, clinging to the boy. She turned her eyes to the alleyway just as they passed by, trailed by that pack of grumbling birds.

  Silent bird and silent dog, eyes locked. But then screams and cries and laughter and songs filled the dog’s head. The dog had endured so much suffering and deprivation in his young life that his senses were keen, much keener than the placid leashed dogs of Isla. But even so, he had never been able to hear the sounds that were trapped inside another creature’s head. He retreated immediately, back into the shadows, trying to get away from all that noise. All that good noise, all that bad noise, all that noise, noise, endless noise. He would have fled if there were any place to run where the people beyond the alleyway wouldn’t see him and try to chase him down.

  If he were that bird, he would fly away. Fly as fast as he could. Fly and fly and fly, if only to outfly all that noise.

  TWENTY-TWO

  THAT NIGHT PABLO woke up to find no sleeping-Birdy-shadow on the Cuba suitcase. She wasn’t silhouetted against the window screen either. He swung himself out of his hammock and went looking for her. It was a clear night and the grotesque was visible across the street, the swallows’ mud nests dark and still underneath the stone ledge.

  The kitchen was dark and quiet. Pablo peeked into Emmanuel’s bedroom, where he was curled up and asleep under his blanket. No Birdy there. No sign of her in the living room either. Back to his bedroom he went. He turned around in the dim moonlight, searching.

  “Birdy?” he whispered, then louder, “Birdy?”

  No fluttering of wings or click-click of talons in response. Pablo went over to the window and peered out into the moonlit night, across the chasm of darkness to where the grotesque crouched on its stone ledge. The screen was pushed up a few inches from the other night, when he had spied the little dog slinking down the sidewalk. The steel cable gleamed all the way across to the grotesque’s ledge. It was a windless night, calm and clear and silent, so why was the cable moving? He followed its shimmying length with his eyes . . . and then he saw the dark shadow halfway across. Birdy!

  She was out there! She had made her way out the window, jumped off the ledge and onto the cable, and now she was on her way to . . . where? The grotesque? It didn’t matter.

  Pablo’s mind worked frantically.

  She couldn’t fly. She could fall at any moment, tumble through the air like the baby sparrows who were too small to fly. He reached out and gripped the steel cable with his hands, trying to haul it and Birdy back through the air to his side. The cable stopped trembling. The dark shadow of Birdy stopped inching out into space and stayed still. Below her, the giant silk-screened parrot hung motionless, its eyes burning in the moonlight.

  “Please, Birdy,” Pablo said. Softly, so as not to startle her and cause her to fall. “Please come back.”

  It was as if the air itself were holding its breath, so still and soundless was it outside. Pablo waited, both hands on the cable. Across the way, the grotesque was also motionless. Its eyes, cavelike in the night, were unreadable.

  “Please, Birdy.”

  And finally, Birdy turned around. She began to slide her feet one after the other back along the cable toward Pablo. She inched her way along, closer, closer, closer, until the gap between them was closed, and she was on the window ledge. Then his hands were around her and he eased her back inside, into the room, which suddenly felt stuffy and airless after the cool outdoor air.

  Pablo closed the window screen. Outside, the cable was dark and still. It had felt alive under his fingers, glittering in the moonlight, when Birdy inched along it toward the grotesque.

  “Birdy,” Pablo said. She drooped against his chest. “Birdy, what were you doing?”

  No answer.

  “You could have fallen,” he said. “You could have fallen all that way down, and I wouldn’t even have known.”

  No answer.

  “What if I woke up and you were just . . . gone? And I had no idea where you were?”

  No answer.

  “You didn’t even wake me up. You didn’t tell me where you were going. You didn’t say good-bye.”

  That got her attention. She lifted her h
ead and looked at him. He didn’t mean to, but he started to cry.

  “You can’t leave me, Birdy. Please don’t leave me.”

  Now she pushed back against him and cocked her head. She swatted him with her wing, gently, and then she folded both wings around him and buried her head in the crook of his neck. Pablo didn’t know what to do. Nothing like this had ever happened before. Birdy had never left his side.

  Last night, the horrible voice in his room. Tonight, Birdy halfway across the street, only the steel cable to keep her from falling to her death. What was happening? The image of Darren Mandible, dipping and swirling and talking about the winds of change, popped into his mind.

  He felt for his necklace under his T-shirt. Dios me bendiga.

  Maybe he should tell Emmanuel. Or Maria. But they wouldn’t know what to do either, would they? Besides, Pablo was the one who knew Birdy best. He tucked her back against his blanket, then went to the window and pressed his head against the closed screen and looked across at the grotesque at the other end of the cable. He pictured Birdy inching out on the cable, her wings slightly lifted. What if she had fallen?

  “She didn’t,” he said out loud. “She didn’t fall. Stop thinking about it.”

  But what about all the times he and Birdy had stood together at this window, watching the baby birds across the way learn to fly? Watching them fling themselves out of their mud nests right onto the thin air? She had watched them so closely, her eyes following their awkward, tumbling flights.

  Pablo thought of the questions Maria had asked him about Birdy. Had she ever flown, had she ever plucked out her feathers, had she ever talked? He had answered no to the first two questions, and he had told Maria about the muttered whisper when Birdy was asleep. He had told her about the pobrecito Pablo, but he had not told her about the man’s loud voice in his room. Then again, how did he know that Birdy had been the one to yell those awful words? He could imagine what Maria would say if he told her he’d found Birdy out on the cable.