Birds Without Wings

by Louis de Bernières

  Ayse put her hand on Polyxeni’s cheek, and pressed her own head against that of her friend. “Well,” she said at last, “I suppose it’s not for me to say, really. We don’t do what you people do. Our dead don’t like to be molested. But in my opinion, for what it’s worth, which probably isn’t much, you ought to do what your mother asks.”

  “I am going to do it on the day after the next psychosavato, which is only next week, but there’s plenty of time to get the food ready and tell Father Kristoforos.”

  Ayse pursed her lips and thought for a moment. “Do you really think it’s wise to do it so soon? I mean, I’m no one to have an opinion, if you ask me, but you know what everyone’s been saying. Ever since someone started that rumour about your mother, may she rest in paradise, everyone’s been saying that perhaps she made the poison that killed a lot of other people who didn’t die of poison at all. This is a filthy town for gossip. I keep things to myself, you know me, but there’s many who don’t.”

  “My mother didn’t know how to make any poison,” protested Polyxeni. “Why should she make poison to kill the family of Rustem Bey? They died of the plague that comes back from Mecca every year like a curse! She has asked me to prove her innocent, and so I will.”

  “I wish you good success,” said Ayse, with a mote of scepticism in her voice, “but I still think you should wait the full five years. And how will you send your mother a message? Can you go to her in a dream?”

  “I don’t know if dead people have dreams,” replied Polyxeni, knitting her brow in perplexity, “and if they do, how can you be sure of getting into one?”

  “She might come into one of yours, and then you can take advantage of the opportunity.”

  “It might be a long time, though.”

  “I know how you can do it,” said Ayse suddenly, tapping the side of her nose with a forefinger, in benign appreciation of her own genius.

  Accordingly, Polyxeni left her friend’s house by the back door, pulled on her slippers, blinked in the sunlight, which by now was growing pointed and fierce, throwing knife-edged shadows upon the pastel walls of the houses, and made her path through the alleyways down towards the meydan. She passed Iskander throwing his pots and perspiring in his little shelter, she passed the streethawkers whose cries of “Megla! Megla!” (made in England) were universally known to be implausible, and she passed the coppersmiths whose din provided by day the racket that was provided at night by nightingales and disconsolate dogs. She arrived finally in the meydan, where she found Stamos the Birdman, selling his wares in the shade of a quince tree. He had been called Stamos because his grandfather was from Chios, and he was called the Birdman because he sold live birds in the market from the back of a venerable handcart which had belonged to his wife’s father and who-knows-who-else before that. In wicker cages he stacked angry partridges upon ludicrous cockerels upon scruffy ducks, crowning the heap with a few cages containing pretty finches and robins that people bought to adorn the wall beside their front doors, so that their houses should be full of birdsong at dawn and even, and visitors would be greeted by bright, curious and friendly eyes, and a peck on the finger.

  “Stamo’ Efendi,” asked Polyxeni, “can these birds fly?”

  Stamos scratched his stubble and smiled slyly. “Well, sort of yes, and sort of no.”

  “Stamo’ Efendi!” protested Polyxeni, “what kind of answer is that?”

  “Give them some time,” replied Stamos, “and if they don’t die, then they’ll fly one of these days, God willing.”

  Polyxeni realised that she was being teased, and joined in with the bantering turn of the conversation. “So why can’t they fly now, and if they live, God willing, why will they be able to fly later?”

  Stamos the Birdman blinked and rubbed his nose with his hand. There was something about the sunlight of spring that made his eyes itch and his nose want to sneeze. He looked at Polyxeni and said, “Well, the mystery is a shallow one, and not very difficult to fathom, Polyxeni Hanim. I clip their wings because most people don’t want to buy a bird that might escape so that they have to sprout their own feathers in a flash and take off in hot pursuit. Most people couldn’t be bothered, you see. People make odd birds; they don’t fly much.”

  “I want a bird that flies,” said Polyxeni, and Stamos, seeing the disappointment in her face, asked, “Why?”

  Polyxeni explained, and Stamos grew serious. “Well, I could easily get one that isn’t clipped, but it would take a few days. I think it would be after All Souls’ Day, which isn’t much use to you, really. Anyway, the ideal bird for that is a dove, and I don’t usually have any. I think the best thing would be for you to find someone who can catch one. The red pines are full of them. You know, the ones where people climb up and tie rags to make a wish.”

  “Do you know anyone?” asked Polyxeni.

  Stamos rubbed his nose again, sneezed, and replied, “Little boys.”

  Polyxeni, by now a little weary of her mission, but determined nonetheless, set off in search of little boys. There seemed to be a great many, for in those days, just as in these, Anatolia was run by them. They scurried through the alleyways to borrow implements, to bear messages and to deliver brass trays laden with small cups of sweet tea. They darted like rats in and out of doorways, and they mounted resolute and incorruptible guard over packages left on camels and donkeys and in all sorts of odd places by merchants and travellers, and those who had suddenly felt the need to set off in search of a coffeehouse, a smoke and a game of backgammon—“the only good thing the Persians left us,” as people were fond of remarking.

  Despite the plenitude of small boys, Polyxeni had set her mind upon two in particular, because the thought of one thing automatically inspires the thought of another, and the thought of birds naturally gave rise to the thought of her son Mehmetçik and Karatavuk, who were more easily found than most small boys thanks to the terracotta birds that Iskander made them. She heard the song of robin and blackbird on the wild slope behind the Church of St. Nicholas, and found the two boys, plus Ibrahim, her daughter, Philothei, with her best friend, Drosoula, and Gerasimos, son of the fisherman, all running about in the oleanders and the Lycian tombs, leaping from rock to rock, and pretending, as usual, to be birds. Not far off, the Dog, all but naked, searched the bushes for insects to eat, and discoursed to himself with those inarticulate sobs and gulps that seemed to come from the back of the throat. The Dog, partly because of the horrible thrill caused by the ghastliness of his smile, had become the town’s most preferred beggar, and if he had ever entertained notions of living in saintly solitude and poverty, he must certainly by now have abandoned them. He had been forced to settle for mere squalor and inconvenience.

  Polyxeni sat nearby, panting, tired from climbing the hill, and watched the children, her heart brimming over with warmth and pleasure. Mehmetçik and Karatavuk had learned to produce a torrent of delectable noise with their whistles, and they were now jumping off rocks, flapping their arms wildly, being imitated by the other children. It looked a little mad, to be sure, but it is a child’s privilege to enact the dreams that are denied to the sane. Her daughter, the lovely Philothei, waved her arms with the detached elegance with which she did almost everything, and Ibrahim flapped and pranced nearby, always in her line of sight, hoping beyond hope that she would notice how truly like a bird he was. Drosoula, pug-nosed, heavy-browed and clumsy, fluttered her arms more out of delight in the others than in any realistic attempt to fly, and Gerasimos leaped and warbled next to her. Everyone had noticed that Gerasimos was as devoted to the ugly little Drosoula as Ibrahim was to the exquisite Philothei, and it was certainly a puzzle to all concerned, but of course God does strange things, and that was all one could say about it.

  Karatavuk began shouting, “Look at me! Look at me!” and Polyxeni saw to her horror that he was about to launch himself from the flat roof of a tomb that must have been about ten feet high, at the bottom of which was a stony patch of earth. She winced at the
thought of him landing on it, and she rose to her feet and called out, “Karatavuk! Come down at once! You can’t jump from there!”

  He looked down at her. Diminutive as he was, he seemed magnificent and angelic, framed against the sky, the sun behind him so that a halo sparkled around the silhouette of his turban and the wisps of his hair, his black shirt making him seem even darker than the shadow that he was. “I’m not jumping,” he said gravely, “I’m going to fly.”

  “You can’t fly. Come down at once, and don’t be stupid. You’ll hurt yourself!”

  Karatavuk bit his lip and frowned. “I can fly,” he announced. “I can do anything at all if I try hard enough.”

  “Come down!”

  Karatavuk began to flap his arms slowly, like an eagle, and closed his eyes. The other children stopped gambolling and watched him in consternation. Drosoula called, “Karatavuk, don’t!” and Polyxeni came forward and stood below, still crying out, “Come down! Just wait till I tell your mother! Come down at once!” Philothei ran to her mother’s side and clutched at her clothing, her mind seized by fearful apprehension.

  Karatavuk continued to flap slowly with his eyes closed, his face utterly still from concentration. He was thinking of the snow peaks of the mountains that he had only ever seen from below, and of the great warships that sailed past on the horizon, plumed with smoke and steam. He thought of the distant countries where people dressed strangely, spoke nonsense and ate outlandish food. He imagined himself soaring to the top of the red pines and looking out over the town. He aimed towards the soft clouds that he had always longed to touch, raised one leg and hopped gently from the roof of the tomb.

  Polyxeni broke his fall, but both of them tumbled over, and Karatavuk cracked a knee against a sharp stone. Polyxeni hurt the palms of her hands, and they began to sting. She frowned, and wiped them against each other to remove the embedded specks of grit. Karatavuk clutched at his knee and started to rock with pain. His face contorted slowly, and through his sudden tears he told Polyxeni, “I hate you! I hate you! You spoiled it! I hate you!”

  She gathered him in her arms and laughed. “You don’t hate me! Don’t be so silly! I just saved you from a nasty fall!”

  “I can fly! I can fly! You spoiled it!”

  Polyxeni wiped his tears with the corner of her headscarf, and asked, “Did you ever see a lion cry?”

  Karatavuk, his face streaked, shook his head solemnly, and she said, “Well then, my little lion, don’t cry.”

  “He’s never seen a lion at all,” observed Drosoula, ever the realist.

  “I can fly,” insisted Karatavuk, “I can.”

  “Arms aren’t wings,” said Polyxeni, trying to quieten and cajole him with the softness of her voice. “If we had wings, do you think we would suffer so much in one place? Don’t you think we would fly away to paradise? Anyway, it’s about birds that I want to speak to you. Stop crying and I’ll tell you.” She paused, waiting for the child’s curiosity to engage. “Would you know how to catch one of the doves in the red pines, without harming it at all, so that it can still fly?”

  Mehmetçik raised a hand, jealous of all the attention that Polyxeni was bestowing upon his friend and anxious to play the man in front of the others. He affected an air of lordly confidence: “If you give us a birdcage and some corn and some string and a very long thread, we can get you a dove. It’s easy.”

  “If you get me a dove, I’ll give you both a new knife with a brass handle and a double-edged blade.”

  Gerasimos and Ibrahim gaped in disbelieving envy, and Polyxeni added, “And you two boys … I’ll think of something important for you to do … someday soon … and then you can have knives too.”

  Gerasimos and Ibrahim scowled, but considered it beneath their dignity to make a fuss. “Who wants a knife anyway?” demanded Philothei, in genuine puzzlement, and Drosoula shrugged, raising her shoulders so that her foreneck bulged instantly with a plump double chin. Polyxeni took the little girls’ hands and descended once more into the town, leaving the boys to negotiate between themselves about who would be able to borrow the knives, and how often, and in exchange for what. “Boys are vain and stupid, and it’s very easy to get them to do what you want if only you know how,” said Polyxeni to the two small girls, confidentially passing on her hereditary feminine wisdom as they went by the church.

  The next evening Polyxeni went to the graveyard bearing a cup of oil, a candle, a scrubbing brush and a jug of water. The place was already full of the other bereaved women, tending to the graves of their loved ones, and Polyxeni’s heart was eased by the sight of them, even though they resembled so many gaunt and flapping crows in their black robes. She had made many intimate and comfortable friends here over the last three years, and she almost regretted that her daily excursions were about to come to an end. She had learned that women came here to cry not only over their dead, but because of their poverty, or because their husbands were cruel, or because they endured pains and difficulties that they could not heal or discuss, or because they suffered from futile hopes and desires. It was easier to weep when other women were weeping. Polyxeni had become acquainted with the patterns of grief, and had seen how desolation and utter despair gradually transform themselves into philosophy. A woman who firstly lays herself wailing on the fresh-turned earth and tries to embrace her husband through it, in two years’ time is cleaning his headstone in a familiar way, and telling him the latest news about the olive harvest. Later still, after the five years and its ritual, she puts on bright clothes again, and comes back across the threshold, out into the world, a woman whose ordeal by sadness has left her soul as deep and quiet as a well.

  Polyxeni squatted by her mother’s grave and poured water on the flowers. “Mother,” she said, “drink this. It won’t be long now. Soon we will all see what everyone already knows.” She scrubbed the wrought-iron railing that had become a little rusty, and very much tilted askew by the settlement of the earth, and she removed the small lamp from the glass-fronted box. Carefully she filled it with the oil, inspected the wick, and went to another grave to light her candle from a lamp that was already lit. This flame she transferred to her own mother’s lamp, and then she snuffed out the candle and sat back on her heels. She contemplated the grave, and found herself looking forward to the day after All Souls’ Day. Behind her a woman raised her voice, and began to sing:

  “Beloved, when will I see you?

  Where shall I wait, and how long?

  Until a garden grows beneath the sea

  Till the mountains meet

  Till the crow turns white into a dove.

  Beloved, when will I see you?

  Where shall I wait, for how long?

  If I knew, beloved, I would make you food,

  I would lay out a fine good meal,

  I would wash your clothes

  And you could wear them on arriving,

  Beloved, when will I see you?”

  The woman wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, and Polyxeni stole over to her and put an arm around her shoulder, because this was the painful part of the lament, and Polyxeni knew that her friend would need some help in singing it:

  “If you make a meal, you must eat it yourself,

  If you lay out food you will dine alone

  If you wash my clothes, light a fire,

  It is better to let them burn.

  I will never come back, beloved,

  Mother, I cannot return.”

  “All these tears,” said Polyxeni, gently, “all this scrubbing of stones, in the end it can’t bring anybody back. What can the dead feel?”

  The woman put the balls of her hands to her eyes and threw back her head, rocking her body as tears streamed down her cheeks. “My son,” she cried, “my little son!”

  This woman, Polyxeni knew, still made seven meals each night, even though there were only six to eat them. Each night she took the extra food out to a leper and told him, “Eat this so that my son can eat,” and she would
not leave until all the food was gone. She had buried the child with a crown of white flowers upon his head because he would never grow up to be a groom.

  “Your son has crossed a river into a fine and beautiful place,” said Polyxeni.

  “He has married the black earth,” sobbed the woman.

  “Every day,” advised Polyxeni, “bring him water to drink. The dead need water from home. That’s what I do every day for my mother.”

  “Oh, Polyxeni, what can I do?” cried the woman. “What can I do to get rid of this yearning? My throat burns with it. What can I do?”

  “Come every day,” repeated Polyxeni. “Come every day and sing, and talk with him, and pay attention to what he tells you when you dream about him, and one day you will feel your fingers unfolding and he will carry away all your pain and longing and they will be spun into yarn and made into bright clothes for him to wear in the garden across the river.”

  “I wish I were a man,” said the woman. “I could walk, and let the yearning pass.”

  “Well, we’re women,” said Polyxeni, “we must sit and let it grow until one day it leaves us because we cannot contain it. And remember, because you are a woman, one day you might have another son.”

  “I don’t want another.”

  Polyxeni patted her friend on the shoulder in a knowing way, and stood up. Her legs felt numb and tingly from so much squatting down, and for a moment she thought that she might stumble. She glanced across the cemetery with its tilting graves, its patches of dry weeds, its huddles of black-robed women, and saw Karatavuk and Mehmetçik waving to her from the far gate, reluctant to enter into a place of so much sorrow and so many women. She hurried over, washed death from her hands in the stoup of water and came out on to the pathway.

  The two little boys, extremely filthy, with their clothes torn and smelling of resin, their faces scratched by twigs, their hair full of needles, their legs and hearts tired out from scrambling up trees, exhausted by fear and danger, but triumphant and vindicated, held up the birdcage for her to view. Inside, turning circles in her bewilderment, was a restless, anxious and confused grey dove with a rose-coloured breast and a pretty black ring on her neck. They had beguiled her on the same branch where Iskander the Potter had once tied a rag after the birth of the lovely Philothei, to wish the child good fortune.