by Jef Aerts
“It nearly worked,” I said. “Sprig followed us the whole time.”
Jadran’s fork clattered onto his plate. “He needs his family, doesn’t he? His daddy crane!”
In the video the young birds had flown after the hang glider in a tight V. They hadn’t seemed to have learned any other letters yet.
Mom shook her head. “And how much farther did you think you were going to drive?”
“To his family!” shouted Jadran. He pushed back his chair and waddled drowsily to the exit of the bar. “We’re taking Sprig to his family!”
But before he stepped outside, Mika grabbed his wrist.
She’d chosen the seat by the door for a reason.
WE GOT A ROOM WITH three beds. Mom slid two of them together so Jadran could lie close to me. Now that the medication was working, there wasn’t going to be any sleeping on the roof.
Mom helped me out of the wheelchair. I sank deep into the mattress. My brother lay stretched out on the bed and pulled the covers over his face. He fell straight to sleep.
In the middle of the night, I woke with a start. I wasn’t dreaming, but I could hear strange voices in the room.
I knew one of the voices. It was Dad, or at least Dad as imitated by Jadran. But the other one was new. It was a high-pitched woman’s voice, and she was singing. Her voice was so pure and so touching that it made me feel like I was glowing. She was singing about falling in love again.
Dad answered her straightaway, singing a line back to her.
And then they both joined their voices and sang together.
I pushed myself up and saw two adult silhouettes at the window. Mom and Jadran were singing to each other. They were dancing and acting. I was in the middle of a musical.
It was crazy to see Jadran like that. He was singing like a drunkard in love, but his acting was fantastic. And he still knew half of the script of The Blue Angel by heart. Mom only had to quote a sentence and he’d answer immediately.
“Will you come with me then?” asked Mom.
“I’ll follow you anywhere,” said Jadran solemnly.
And then they waltzed between the beds and through the hotel room. Jadran leaned over Mom and stiffly led her around. They stumbled and almost fell against the wardrobe. But they were dancing. And Mom was completely wrapped up in it.
They stopped at the chair where the blue wings were hanging. Jadran picked them up and lifted them behind Mom’s back.
“Go on,” he said. “They’re your wings.”
Mom hesitated, but then put her arms through the straps. Jadran tried to fasten the buckles around Mom’s wrists.
“You have to dance for me!” he said.
For a moment, Mom stood there like that, with her back to the window. She hadn’t danced for years, but now she stretched her neck, opened up her arms, and darted across the room on tiptoe. Jadran leaped around after her as if she was a giant butterfly that he was trying to catch.
Suddenly he dropped down onto the bed.
“Are you okay, Giant?” Mom immediately switched the light on. The blue wings hung limply on her back again.
Jadran was breathing heavily.
“It’s all my fault, isn’t it?” he mumbled. “It’s always my fault.”
“What’s your fault?” Mom slid a wing behind his back.
Jadran began to cry. It was one long succession of sobs.
“Dad was angry. He wanted to go to Russia,” he said. “That was your dream, wasn’t it? To perform everywhere. All over the world. But then …”
“… you came along?” asked Mom.
“Yes,” sobbed Jadran. “Then I came along.”
Mom held her forehead to his.
She whispered, “And you are the most beautiful gift I have ever received.”
Mom and Jadran came and lay next to me on the bed. I was allowed to be the baby in the middle.
“It is not your fault that it went wrong with Dad, Giant,” said Mom. “And it’s not Josh’s either. Things hadn’t been right between us for a while, you guys have to believe me. I don’t know how I’d have managed without the two of you.”
And then we started breathing together, all three of us at the same time, just like the old days.
Mom took the lead, Jadran followed her, and I drifted along on the rhythm of their blowing and puffing.
Every breath was a step closer together.
A step on the bridge of air that connected us forever.
AT EXACTLY HALF PAST SEVEN we got breakfast. Mom came into the room with bread rolls and fresh fruit. She slid the tray onto the bed and snuggled down between me and Jadran.
We ate lying down between the sheets. Jadran was still sluggish, and his eyes were red. But the food did him good. He’d soon be back to his old self.
When we’d finished everything, Mom put the tray on a chair. She pulled the sheets tight and brushed the crumbs onto her hand.
“Well, what are you waiting for?” she asked.
“Are we leaving already?” I said.
Mom winked. “It’s a long way.”
“I’m not going to the Space!” Jadran pushed off the covers.
“Is that what I said?”
“Yes!” shouted Jadran. “Yes, that’s what she said, isn’t it, Josh!”
Mom started stuffing all our things back into the gym bag.
“That was yesterday,” she said. “But now it’s today. And today we’re doing everything different.”
“Different and better, I hope,” I said.
Mom nodded and zipped up the bag.
“But if that doesn’t work, just different is a good start.”
Mom had done a lot of thinking that night, she told us. She’d seen Jadran as she’d never seen him before. He’d done things she never even knew he could do, like take such good care of Sprig and me, and dance with her. And she was shocked by how badly he’d been affected by Dad leaving, because he hardly ever said anything about it.
And now Mom had a plan.
“There’s still one thing we need to do,” she said. “You’re not finished yet, are you?”
After she’d rocked us to sleep with her breathing last night, she’d looked on her phone for the nearest place where cranes spend the winter. She’d studied maps and calculated distances.
“It’s not all the way to Spain,” she said. “But it’s still a good place for cranes. One long day’s drive and we’ll be there.”
Mika had stayed at the hotel too, and she told us that Jadran’s new room was all ready for him. The other residents had decorated the hallway. They’d welcome him with open arms later. She didn’t approve of Mom’s plan at all.
“I feel responsible for him,” she said. “Jadran’s just had a big explosion. Now he needs some structure and some time to rest.”
But Mom didn’t give in.
“I know you want the best for him,” she said. “But so do I. We’re going to finish this journey together.”
Mika sighed out the tension of the past few days.
“Then I’m coming with you,” she said.
Mom shook her head. “This is something I have to do with just my two boys.”
First we went and picked up Sprig in the Volvo. He was still hanging around the last place he’d seen us.
“You guys taught him to eat that junk,” said Mom with a laugh when we saw him scratching around the dumpsters outside the supermarket.
Jadran lured Sprig away with some bread crumbs and held him on his lap in the car. I opened the window and put my head out. I recognized the road we’d come all the way along with the wheelchair. The place where I’d last seen the red Volvo and had even dared to believe for a moment that Dad had come to find us.
We drove past the muddy creek, where Yasmin’s phone was now lying at the bottom. I felt bad for her. When I was back home, I’d start saving up for a new one.
Mika stopped at a gas station. Mom got out and came back a bit later with a heavy jerry can that she put in the trunk with our
stuff.
Jadran didn’t say anything the entire time. He clutched Sprig to his chest like a giant baby. And he was singing to him, I think. I saw his lips moving, even though I didn’t hear anything.
We did everything in silence. Mika poured the diesel from the jerry can into the tank of the tractor. Mom took the gym bag and her own little suitcase out of the Volvo and put them next to the folded-up wheelchair in the bucket. Then they helped me into the passenger seat.
Jadran freed Sprig from the blanket. He hung the blue wings on his back and climbed up behind the steering wheel again.
“Hey, stay chill, Jadran,” said Mika. She gave us a bag of marshmallows for the trip. “And don’t eat them all in one go!” Mom got the box of sedatives.
Jadran smiled his toothpaste smile and started the engine. The smoke made Mika cough. Mom thanked her and clambered up onto the seat opposite me.
“Are you sure about this?” asked Mika again.
We waved until the red Volvo was just a dot.
The tractor rumbled through the town. And we were attracting a lot of attention today too. Only we didn’t have to hide anymore. It was actually nice when people pointed at Sprig or called after us.
Jadran sat proud and upright and he kept his tongue in his mouth. The blue wings bobbed up and down.
As soon as we were out of the town, Sprig took off. He floated along on the wind and tumbled over the meadows like a gigantic baby pigeon. My whole body was soon cramped up again and all my bones were creaking. But I didn’t care. I was enjoying every second together on the tractor.
Mom and Jadran sang one song after another. And The Blue Angel wasn’t the only musical that Jadran still knew by heart. They sang about cats, about gangs, and about orphanages, just like they used to with Dad. And I started singing along too. I was singing made-up words to the wrong tune. But I sang at the top of my voice.
Dad hadn’t been so close for a very long time.
WE DROVE ALL DAY. THE hills became steeper and there were rocks in the grass. Jadran struggled to steer the tractor safely along the winding little roads.
Mom would rather have gotten behind the wheel herself. If Jadran missed one bend, we’d go rolling down the slope. But she stayed sitting there bravely and pressed her lips tightly together. As we drove, the robotic female voice of Mom’s phone told us the way.
Sprig had no problem with the bends. He flew higher and faster. Sometimes he disappeared from sight for minutes, and then reappeared in the sky as a tiny dot.
It’s time, I thought. Sprig’s great at flying now. He’s ready to continue his journey on his own.
The air was clammy and it was raining. Mom gave us our raincoats and pulled a plastic bag over my cast.
“Let’s get out of the rain, Giant!” I shouted.
Mom stopped me. “Leave him, Josh. If we need to, I’ll tell him. You’ve looked after him for long enough.”
After the hills and valleys we’d been through, endless fields stretched out into the distance. Twisting little rivers gave way to a perfectly straight canal. I wondered where that canal would flow into the sea. And if it was a good place for snorkeling. Jadran could be as jealous as he liked, but as soon as my leg had healed I was going to diving club.
We ate at a roadside diner and Jadran got to give his hands a good wash. He splashed soap all over the floor of the men’s bathroom.
Mom’s telephone rang twice. First Murad called, and then Mika, but Mom didn’t answer.
“Not right now,” she said with a smile. “Now it’s up to us.”
“We’re nearly there,” said Mom when the sun was low above the tops of the trees. Grapes were growing on the hills here, and there were half-timbered houses.
She guided us along a narrow road through some marshland. Gnarled trees grew with their roots in the water. After the marsh we came to a levee, which stretched as far as I could see on both sides.
We followed the road along the levee to a small parking lot. Jadran parked the tractor there. At the back a concrete staircase led to the top of the levee. He and Mom helped me up the steps. I put my arm around their shoulders and hopped on one leg.
In front of us was a vast lake with lots and lots of little islands. Across the water, boats gleamed in a small marina, and there was a church built on a strip of land in the water.
But there was no sign of any cranes.
“They’re not here!” said Jadran, kicking a garbage can. “This isn’t the south, is it? The south is in Spain. This isn’t far enough!”
I leaned on Mom’s shoulder and was about to start explaining and telling him that this really was the right place. That this had to be the right place. But Mom just let him do his thing. She turned around and helped me walk to a little white building with a climbing frame in front of it. A picnic table stood under a canopy, and there was a firepit.
“We’ll wait here,” she said. “Until the birds come.”
“Are you sure they will?”
“During the daytime they look for food in the fields, but in the evening they come back to this lake to sleep. I read about it on the website.”
Mom fetched our warmest clothes from the tractor. She gathered wood among the bushes and made a fire in the pit. Then she showed us how to roast marshmallows without burning them. We stabbed them onto a stick, one by one. Jadran dropped one into the fire and another one went completely black.
“These are so good!” he said. “These are the best thing ever, huh?”
Mom rubbed some white goo off his chin.
We held long sticks in the flames. With the glowing tips we drew shapes in the air: the wheels of the tractor, dancing birds, and a hang glider.
Jadran tried to write a word in crane letters.
I drew a smoking zombie town.
In the twilight the first cranes came flying over. They trumpeted loudly as if they wanted to say hello.
Krrroo krrroo krrroo!
Jadran started to jump up and down on the levee. Mom stood close to the wheelchair and put her hand on my shoulder. Sprig stretched his neck when he saw the other cranes. He opened his beak to call something back, but the high-pitched soccer referee’s whistle was broken. And his squeak wasn’t working very well either.
“Go on, Sprig,” I said. “You can spend the winter here safely.”
Jadran pulled a sad face, but he tried to encourage Sprig too.
“This is the south,” he said. “Not the south in Spain, but south enough. Look, there’s your family!”
Above the lake, a huge spectacle erupted. Cranes came flying from all over. They floated low before the setting sun, flew in long ribbons over the water, looking for a place to land and sleep. Groups of hundreds, maybe thousands, of birds were gathering here for the night. For some of them it was just a stop on the way to Spain or North Africa, but many of them spent the whole winter here.
Jadran spread the blue wings. He flapped and flapped, but Sprig didn’t move.
“Up!” he shouted. “Up!” And he started running along the levee.
If he didn’t pay attention, he might slip and fall into the water. But Mom and I didn’t say anything. We both watched as he ran faster and faster, trying to tempt Sprig into flying. And it actually worked. The young crane started to follow him. He stamped his feet and did funny little hops.
And all that jumping shook his voice back into his throat.
Kri kroo-ee, he went as he hopped along. This was a new sound. Kri krrroo kroo-ee! It sounded almost like a little trumpet. A small, dented, and out-of-tune little trumpet, but it still blared away.
And it wasn’t long before, blaring away, Sprig took off into the air.
The islands were grey with cranes. They shook out their feathers and rubbed up against one another on their long stilts. And they made such a wonderful noise that my ears were singing.
As Jadran came running toward us, Sprig suddenly swerved left. He zoomed over the reeds that grew at the edge of the levee and flew to the middle of the lake
.
Jadran stopped. He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted as loud as he could, “Sprig, wait a moment … Spriiiiiig!”
And Sprig answered from a thousand throats at once.
Krrroo kroo-ee krrroo krrroo kroo-ee!
“I have another beetle for you! I want to give you a hug. I …”
“It’s okay, Giant,” said Mom. “He can manage by himself from here.”
Jadran closed the wings and looked at me.
“Is he coming back?”
“Maybe,” I said.
“When’s maybe?”
Mom took Jadran’s hand and gave it a squeeze.
“You are the best daddy crane I’ve ever seen,” she said.
For a long time, we stood watching. Pretty soon we lost sight of Sprig. The water splashed against the levee. An owl called out near the little church.
“There he is!” Jadran shouted. “No! There!”
But we couldn’t see if it was really Sprig.
We didn’t leave the levee until the last cranes had landed and they were all keeping their beaks shut. Jadran picked me up and carried me down the stairs to the parking lot in his arms. Surrounded by all his feathers, I felt like a little baby chick.
“We should head home,” said Mom.
“Which home?” I asked.
“Our own little apartment.”
“Do you think Mika will mind if Giant …?”
Jadran blew his breath onto the back of my neck. “Like sparrows, that’s what she said, huh? We live like sparrows, all snuggled up together.”
Mom smiled cautiously. “We’ll give ourselves another chance. And Mika can help us.”
“Mika can do everything.” Jadran chuckled. “I’m going to marry her.”
At the bottom of the levee, he put me on the ground. In the darkness, the tractor looked like a big animal.
“Wanna get going then?” I said after Mom had let Murad know we were about to leave. He was going to come meet us in the car, so we didn’t have to drive the tractor all the way back.