by Neil Gaiman
“Oh, they know all right,” said Zebediah T. Crawcrustle. “And these bricks weren’t part of any temple. They’ve been right here for five thousand years, since we built the barbecue. Before that we made do with stones.”
Virginia Boote returned with a filled shopping basket. “Here,” she said. “Red sandalwood and patchouli, vanilla beans, lavender twigs and sage and cinnamon leaves, whole nutmegs, garlic bulbs, cloves, and rosemary: everything you wanted and more.”
Zebediah T. Crawcrustle grinned with delight. “The Sunbird will be so happy,” he told her.
He spent the afternoon preparing a barbecue sauce. He said it was only respectful, and besides, the Sunbird’s flesh was often slightly on the dry side.
The Epicureans spent that evening sitting at the wicker tables in the street out front, while Mustapha Stroheim and his family brought them tea and coffee and hot mint drinks. Zebediah T. Crawcrustle had told the Epicureans that they would be having the Sunbird of Suntown for Sunday lunch, and that they might wish to avoid food the night before, to ensure that they had an appetite.
“I have a presentiment of doom upon me,” said Augustus Two Feathers McCoy that night, in a bed that was far too small for him, before he slept. “And I fear it shall come to us with barbecue sauce.”
They were all so hungry the following morning. Zebediah T. Crawcrustle had a comedic apron on, with the words KISS THE COOK written upon it in violently green letters. He had already sprinkled the brandy-soaked raisins and grain beneath the stunted avocado tree behind the house, and he was arranging the scented woods, the herbs, and the spices on the bed of charcoal. Mustapha Stroheim and his family had gone to visit relatives on the other side of Cairo.
“Does anybody have a match?” Crawcrustle asked.
Jackie Newhouse pulled out a Zippo lighter, and passed it to Crawcrustle, who lit the dried cinnamon leaves and dried laurel leaves beneath the charcoal. The smoke drifted up into the noon air.
“The cinnamon and sandalwood smoke will bring the Sunbird,” said Crawcrustle.
“Bring it from where?” asked Augustus TwoFeathers McCoy.
“From the Sun,” said Crawcrustle. “That’s where he sleeps.”
Professor Mandalay coughed discreetly. He said, “The Earth is, at its closest, 91 million miles from the Sun. The fastest dive by a bird ever recorded is that of the peregrine falcon, at 273 miles per hour. Flying at that speed, from the Sun, it would take a bird a little over thirty-eight years to reach us—if it could fly through the dark and cold and vacuum of space, of course.”
“Of course,” agreed Zebediah T. Crawcrustle. He shaded his eyes and squinted and looked upward. “Here it comes,” he said.
It looked almost as if the bird was flying out of the sun; but that could not have been the case. You could not look directly at the noonday sun, after all.
First it was a silhouette, black against the sun and against the blue sky, then the sunlight caught its feathers, and the watchers on the ground caught their breath. You have never seen anything like sunlight on the Sunbird’s feathers; seeing something like that would take your breath away.
The Sunbird flapped its wide wings once, then it began to glide in ever-decreasing circles in the air above Mustapha Stroheim’s coffeehouse.
The bird landed in the avocado tree. Its feathers were golden, and purple, and silver. It was smaller than a turkey, larger than a rooster, and had the long legs and high head of a heron, though its head was more like the head of an eagle.
“It is very beautiful,” said Virginia Boote. “Look at the two tall feathers on its head. Aren’t they lovely?”
“It is indeed quite lovely,” said Professor Mandalay.
“There is something familiar about that bird’s headfeathers,” said Augustus TwoFeathers McCoy.
“We pluck the headfeathers before we roast the bird,” said Zebediah T. Crawcrustle. “It’s the way it’s always done.”
The Sunbird perched on a branch of the avocado tree, in a patch of sun. It seemed almost as if it were glowing, gently, in the sunlight, as if its feathers were made of sunlight, iridescent with purples and greens and golds. It preened itself, extending one wing in the sunlight. It nibbled and stroked at the wing with its beak until all the feathers were in their correct position, and oiled. Then it extended the other wing, and repeated the process. Finally, the bird emitted a contented chirrup, and flew the short distance from the branch to the ground.
It strutted across the dried mud, peering from side to side short-sightedly.
“Look!” said Jackie Newhouse. “It’s found the grain.”
“It seemed almost that it was looking for it,” said Augustus TwoFeathers McCoy. “That it was expecting the grain to be there.”
“That’s where I always leave it,” said Zebediah T. Crawcrustle.
“It’s so lovely,” said Virginia Boote. “But now I see it closer, I can see that it’s much older than I thought. Its eyes are cloudy and its legs are shaking. But it’s still lovely.”
“The Bennu bird is the loveliest of birds,” said Zebediah T. Crawcrustle.
Virginia Boote spoke good restaurant Egyptian, but beyond that she was all at sea. “What’s a Bennu bird?” she asked. “Is that Egyptian for Sunbird?”
“The Bennu bird,” said Professor Mandalay, “roosts in the Persea tree. It has two feathers on its head. It is sometimes represented as being like a heron, and sometimes like an eagle. There is more, but it is too unlikely to bear repeating.”
“It’s eaten the grain and the raisins!” exclaimed Jackie Newhouse. “Now it’s stumbling drunkenly from side to side—such majesty, even in its drunkenness!”
Zebediah T. Crawcrustle walked over to the Sunbird, which, with a great effort of will, was staggering back and forth on the mud beneath the avocado tree, not tripping over its long legs. He stood directly in front of the bird, and then, very slowly, he bowed to it. He bent like a very old man, slowly and creakily, but still he bowed. And the Sunbird bowed back to him, then it toppled to the mud. Zebediah T. Crawcrustle picked it up reverently, and placed it in his arms, carrying it as one would carry a child, and he took it back to the plot of land behind Mustapha Stroheim’s coffeehouse, and the others followed him.
First he plucked the two majestic headfeathers, and set them aside.
And then, without plucking the bird, he gutted it, and placed the guts on the smoking twigs. He put the half-filled beer can inside the body cavity, and placed the bird upon the barbecue.
“Sunbird cooks fast,” warned Crawcrustle. “Get your plates ready.”
The beers of the ancient Egyptians were flavored with cardamom and coriander, for the Egyptians had no hops; their beers were rich and flavorsome and thirst-quenching. You could build pyramids after drinking that beer, and sometimes people did. On the barbecue the beer steamed the inside of the Sunbird, keeping it moist. As the heat of the charcoal reached them, the feathers of the bird burned off, igniting with a flash like a magnesium flare, so bright that the Epicureans were forced to avert their eyes.
The smell of roast fowl filled the air, richer than peacock, lusher than duck. The mouths of the assembled Epicureans began to water. It seemed like it had been cooking for no time at all, but Zebediah lifted the Sunbird from the charcoal bed and put it on the table. Then, with a carving knife, he sliced it up and placed the steaming meat on the plates. He poured a little barbecue sauce over each piece of meat. He placed the carcass directly onto the flames.
Each member of the Epicurean Club sat in the back of Mustapha Stroheim’s coffeehouse, sat around an elderly wooden table, and they ate with their fingers.
“Zebby, this is amazing!” said Virginia Boote, talking as she ate. “It melts in your mouth. It tastes like heaven.”
“It tastes like the sun,” said Augustus TwoFeathers McCoy, putting his food away as only a big man can. He had a leg in one hand, and some breast in the other. “It is the finest thing I have ever eaten, and I do not regret eating it, but
I do believe that I shall miss my daughter.”
“It is perfect,” said Jackie Newhouse. “It tastes like love and fine music. It tastes like truth.”
Professor Mandalay was scribbling in the bound annals of the Epicurean Club. He was recording his reaction to the meat of the bird, and recording the reactions of the other Epicureans, and trying not to drip on the page while he wrote, for with the hand that was not writing he was holding a wing, and, fastidiously, he was nibbling the meat off it.
“It is strange,” said Jackie Newhouse, “for as I eat it, it gets hotter and hotter in my mouth and in my stomach.”
“Yup. It’ll do that. It’s best to prepare for it ahead of time,” said Zebediah T. Crawcrustle. “Eat coals and flames and lightning bugs to get used to it. Otherwise it can be a trifle hard on the system.”
Zebediah T. Crawcrustle was eating the head of the bird, crunching its bones and beak in his mouth. As he ate, the bones sparked small lightnings against his teeth. He just grinned and chewed the more.
The bones of the Sunbird’s carcass burned orange on the barbecue, and then they began to burn white. There was a thick heat-haze in the courtyard at the back of Mustapha Stroheim’s coffeehouse, and in it everything shimmered, as if the people around the table were seeing the world through water or a dream.
“It is so good!” said Virginia Boote as she ate. “It is the best thing I have ever eaten. It tastes like my youth. It tastes like forever.” She licked her fingers, then picked up the last slice of meat from her plate. “The Sunbird of Suntown,” she said. “Does it have another name?”
“It is the Phoenix of Heliopolis,” said Zebediah T. Crawcrustle. “It is the bird that dies in ashes and flame, and is reborn, generation after generation. It is the Bennu bird, which flew across the waters when all was dark. When its time is come it is burned on the fire of rare woods and spices and herbs, and in the ashes it is reborn, time after time, world without end.”
“Fire!” exclaimed Professor Mandalay. “It feels as if my insides are burning up!” He sipped his water, but seemed no happier.
“My fingers,” said Virginia Boote. “Look at my fingers.” She held them up. They were glowing inside, as if lit with inner flames.
Now the air was so hot you could have baked an egg in it.
There was a spark and a sputter. The two yellow feathers in Augustus TwoFeathers McCoy’s hair went up like sparklers. “Crawcrustle,” said Jackie Newhouse, aflame, “answer me truly. How long have you been eating the Phoenix?”
“A little over ten thousand years,” said Zebediah. “Give or take a few thousand. It’s not hard, once you master the trick of it; it’s just mastering the trick of it that’s hard. But this is the best Phoenix I’ve ever prepared. Or do I mean, ‘this is the best I’ve ever cooked this Phoenix’?”
“The years!” said Virginia Boote. “They are burning off you!”
“They do that,” admitted Zebediah. “You’ve got to get used to the heat, though, before you eat it. Otherwise you can just burn away.”
“Why did I not remember this?” said Augustus TwoFeathers McCoy, through the bright flames that surrounded him. “Why did I not remember that this was how my father went, and his father before him, that each of them went to Heliopolis to eat the Phoenix? And why do I only remember it now?”
“Because the years are burning off you,” said Professor Mandalay. He had closed the leather book as soon as the page he had been writing on caught fire. The edges of the book were charred, but the rest of the book would be fine. “When the years burn, the memories of those years come back.” He looked more solid now, through the wavering burning air, and he was smiling. None of them had ever seen Professor Mandalay smile before.
“Shall we burn away to nothing?” asked Virginia, now incandescent. “Or shall we burn back to childhood and burn back to ghosts and angels and then come forward again? It does not matter. Oh Crusty, this is all such fun!”
“Perhaps,” said Jackie Newhouse, through the fire, “there might have been a little more vinegar in the sauce. I feel a meat like this could have dealt with something more robust.” And then he was gone, leaving only an after-image.
“Chacun à son goût,” said Zebediah T. Crawcrustle, which is French for “each to his own taste,” and he licked his fingers and he shook his head. “Best it’s ever been,” he said, with enormous satisfaction.
“Good-bye, Crusty,” said Virginia. She put her flame-white hand out, and held his dark hand tightly, for one moment, or perhaps for two.
And then there was nothing in the courtyard back of Mustapha Stroheim’s Kahwa (or coffeehouse) in Heliopolis (which was once the city of the Sun, and is now a suburb of Cairo) but white ash, which blew up in the momentary breeze, and settled like powdered sugar or like snow; and nobody there but a young man with dark, dark hair and even, ivory-colored teeth, wearing an apron that said KISS THE COOK.
A tiny golden-purple bird stirred in the thick bed of ashes on top of the clay bricks, as if it were waking for the first time. It made a high-pitched “peep!” and it looked directly into the sun, as an infant looks at a parent. It stretched its wings as if to dry them, and, eventually, when it was quite ready, it flew upward, toward the sun, and nobody watched it leave but the young man in the courtyard.
There were two long golden feathers at the young man’s feet, beneath the ash that had once been a wooden table, and he gathered them up, and brushed the white ash from them and placed them, reverently, inside his jacket. Then he removed his apron, and he went upon his way.
Hollyberry TwoFeathers McCoy is a grown woman, with children of her own. There are silver hairs on her head, in there with the black, beneath the golden feathers in the bun at the back. You can see that once the feathers must have looked pretty special, but that would have been a long time ago. She is the president of the Epicurean Club—a rich and rowdy bunch—having inherited the position, many long years ago, from her father.
I hear that the Epicureans are beginning to grumble once again. They are saying that they have eaten everything.
(FOR HMG—A BELATED BIRTHDAY PRESENT)
INVENTING ALADDIN
In bed with him that night, like every night,
her sister at their feet, she ends her tale,
then waits. Her sister quickly takes her cue,
and says, “I cannot sleep. Another, please?”
Scheherazade takes one small nervous breath
and she begins, “In faraway Peking
there lived a lazy youth with his mama.
His name? Aladdin. His papa was dead….”
She tells them how a dark magician came,
claiming to be his uncle, with a plan:
He took the boy out to a lonely place,
gave him a ring he said would keep him safe,
dropped in a cavern filled with precious stones,
“Bring me the lamp!” and when Aladdin won’t,
in darkness he’s abandoned and entombed….
There now.
Aladdin locked beneath the earth,
she stops, her husband hooked for one more night.
Next day
she cooks
she feeds her kids
she dreams….
Knowing Aladdin’s trapped,
and that her tale
has bought her just one day.
What happens now?
She wishes that she knew.
It’s only when that evening comes around
and husband says, just as he always says,
“Tomorrow morning, I shall have your head,”
when Dunyazade, her sister, asks, “But please,
what of Aladdin?” only then, she knows….
And in a cavern hung about with jewels
Aladdin rubs his lamp. The Genie comes.
The story tumbles on. Aladdin gets
the princess and a palace made of pearls.
Watch now, the dark magician’s coming back:
Just when Aladdin has lost everything,
she stops.
He’ll let her live another night.
Her sister and her husband fall asleep.
She lies awake and stares up in the dark
Playing the variations in her mind:
the ways to give Aladdin back his world,
his palace, his princess, his everything.
And then she sleeps. The tale will need an end,
but now it melts to dreams inside her head.
She wakes,
She feeds the kids
She combs her hair
She goes down to the market
Buys some oil
The oil-seller pours it out for her,
decanting it
from an enormous jar.
She thinks,
What if you hid a man in there?
She buys some sesame as well, that day.
Her sister says, “He hasn’t killed you yet.”
“Not yet.” Unspoken waits the phrase, “He will.”
In bed she tells them of the magic ring
Aladdin rubs. Slave of the Ring appears….
Magician dead, Aladdin saved, she stops.
But once the story’s done, the teller’s dead,
her only hope’s to start another tale.
Scheherazade inspects her store of words,
half-built, half-baked ideas and dreams combine
with jars just big enough to hide a man,
and she thinks, Open Sesame, and smiles.
“Now, Ali Baba was a righteous man,
but he was poor…” she starts,