by I V Olokita
“A man in the belly of a bird
A beak and some feathers on some stupid arse
It cannot happen elsewhere in the world
It’s only by chance that it doesn’t fall apart.”
“Tra-la-la, tra-la-la….”
Incessantly hummed the man in seat C3 of a Lufthansa flight that afternoon from Rio’s bustling airport to Miami, Florida. Just when Deus was about to ask him to stop, since it didn’t allow him to enjoy the first takeoff of his life, the stranger, as if by sheer coincidence, stopped singing and stretched a hand to him.
“Janusz Nusiant,” he introduced himself with a heavy German accent reminding Deus of that of his parents.
“Nice to meet you. Deus Esperanca,” the young man returned his greeting while mulling over the stranger’s name.
“So, what drove you to choose seat C4, of all places, on board this very flight?” the stranger asked with a wink.
“Oh, it’s a long story,” Deus uttered a sigh. “I don’t wish to bother you with it, sir,” he instantly remarked in an apologetic tone.
Laughing, the stranger bent down to his seat-fellow, as if attempting to hug him: “Trust me, Deus, this flight is going to take so long, that even if I drink myself silly, fall asleep, sober up and get drunk again, I’ll still have more than enough time to hear your story from A to Z.”
Deus burst with laughter. His greatest virtue was the easy way he always won over everybody.
“That song about the bird…” Deus asked.
“Yes, what about it?” Janusz asked indifferently.
“What did it mean?” Deus pressed on.
“Just a nice German tune, about someone who bets his life on a bird’s fate,” Janusz explained, getting sentimental: “Oh how I miss the sound of German speech! Don’t you miss it too, once in a while?”
Deus gave another laugh. “All my German boils down to a few words I picked up from my parents,” he said apologetically. “But how did you figure it out?”
“I didn’t. I just assumed it, when you knew what the German word for bird was,” Janusz explained, leaning against the window, in order to put some distance between him and Deus. “Hostess!” the stranger cried suddenly, rising. “Hostess, would you please serve me and this young man a glass of your finest whisky? It comes with a handsome tip, of course,” he asked, and then closed his eyes.
By the time she brought him the glasses, Janusz was already fast asleep, his breath betraying the drinks he already had. It felt a little awkward for Deus, so he just took the glasses from her, with an embarrassed smile, and then tipped her with a wrinkled bill. “I’m sorry, that’s all I’ve got. I guess my friend will reward you better once he wakes up.”
Frowning a little, the air hostess turned around and disappeared down the aisle, with Deus watching her while emptying the two glasses one by one, with one gulp. “I guess that drunk doesn’t expect me to hold his glass for him as well,” he excused himself. He had already felt the drink started scratching his throat and burning his chest, making his head droop and his eyelids heavier, finally putting him to sleep.
“Just as I thought, like father like son,” the stranger mumbled in German, opening one eye as if to watch over the progress of his scheme.
By the time Deus woke up, he found the plane nearly deserted, with only one air hostess hurrying him up to get out. Startled, he popped up out of his seat and got out to the arrivals terminals.
“Taxi! Taxi!” he cried and waved his hands, in an attempt to stop one of the cabs rushing by, in vain.
“Fall in line, young man, like everybody else does,” he heard a local woman’s remark.
He looked back to see a long, orderly line of people stretching on the sidewalk. Turning around, he took a walk all the way to the end of the line, apologizing to everyone standing there.
“Thank you for informing me,” he said, exhausted, to the lady ahead of him, who looked at him with a smile.
“Well, you cannot expect a foreigner to follow local rules, unless you explain them to him,” she replied quietly.
“Are you a local?” Deus wondered.
“Oh, no,” she giggled politely. “I’m from a faraway country.”
Then she turned her face back to the shortening line ahead of her, saying nothing.
Deus kept thinking for a while about that stranger whom he met onboard the plane and the pretty face of the woman standing ahead of him. All he wanted was just a quiet moment to focus on his mission in this country, but he soon spotted a taxi stopping next to him, so he stepped in while the driver placed his luggage in the trunk most kindly.
“Where would you like to go, sir?” the driver asked.
“Thirty-five Infinity Street, please,” Deus told him, and the driver drove off right away. “Tell me,” he asked while the driver crossed the city, “is it always so hot here?”
“I can turn on the car cooler if you wish,” the driver suggested, “But it will cost another dollar.”
Deus nodded in approval, even though he didn’t imagine that such an old-model car could have an air-cooler. Although he asked out of sheer curiosity, he supposed the driver had no wish for a friendly chat that moment.
“We’re there,” the driver announced, turning his head at him. “It’s ten bucks for the ride and another one for the cooling. Eleven dollars, please.”
Smiling back, Deus probed his pocket, and then popped out of his seat, probing his other pocket. “Oh no!” he yelled, overwhelmed with the bitter surprise: “my wallet! That bastard stole my wallet!” he cried in horror.
“Listen, you mother fucker!” the driver threatened, as if entirely transformed, locking the car doors. “I don’t give a fuck about you or your bullshitting! Now pay me, or I’ll drive you straight to the police!”
Seeing the driver’s eyes through the rear-view mirror, Deus realized he was one of those people you don’t want to mess with. “I guess American taxi drivers are like the faveleros of Rio,” he thought. “OK, let’s go,” Deus resigned to his fate, laying back while the driver started his short drive to the police station.
“Listen, man,” the driver told Deus while escorting him upstairs to the police. “You look OK, not like one of those trying to take people for a ride. But I’m sick and tired of unpaying folks!”
Deus nodded again in approval, despite feeling a little disappointment. “I see, sir. Still, I beg you to let me go this time, and I swear I’ll pay once I get the money!”
The driver froze still. “Seriously, man!? That’s exactly what they all tell me. Fuck, I hoped for something else this time!”
“You have the right to one phone call,” the police officer told him while locking his cell. “Tell me when you want to make it,” he added, sitting down to his desk again.
Deus surveyed the narrow cell. “Well,” he concluded, “It could have been much worse if I had cellmates, as in all the action movies.” Pacing around the cell walls, he realized he only knew the number of one person in this city. “But what might he take me for, if I call him, asking to get me out of here, just like that!?” he pondered. “He doesn’t even know me, and unaware I came all the way from Brazil just to see him!” Eventually, realizing he had no choice, Deus mustered all the courage it took and called the police officer. “Sir, could you please help me?” yet the officer failed to respond, keeping leafing through his newspaper. “Sir, I came to this country less than an hour ago, and I have nobody to call except some professor I came to meet,” he kept trying.
“Who gives a fuck?!” the officer uttered, going about his business, but then rose up slowly, telling Deus, “Call him, if you want to. If you don’t, shut up, because your bloody accent gets on my nerves!”
Deus was about to keep talking but changed mind. “Mister officer, I want to make my call now!” he finally asked after another hour, making the policeman stand up ag
ain with a heavy sigh.
“By God, if you make me stand up one more time, I’ll club you so hard you won’t remember what shithole country you got here from!” he hissed through his teeth while escorting the detainee to the phone in the corridor. “Dial up. You’ve got five fucking minutes!” the officer informed him, stopping next to him.
Deus took out the professor’s card he kept for such a case in his pants’ rear pocket. “Do you mind?” he begged the officer hesitantly, “I’d like some privacy…,” he kept begging, and the officer withdrew; leaning against the bars and hissing an abuse. Deus dialed hurriedly, knowing that his insolent request might cost him a couple of minutes’ shortening of the time allotted. Deep inside he hoped the professor was not at home or changed his number or address.
The phone rang.
“Hello?” he heard a man’s voice at the other end of the line.
“Professor Gabriel Balaguer?” Deus mumbled.
“Speaking,” a sleepy voice responded.
“Good evening, sir,” Deus greeted him and instantly switched to nearly a whisper. “It’s Captain Deus from your neighborhood police station. I would be very grateful for you coming here as soon as possible and examine two pictures I believe you will find most interesting.”
The other end fell silent. “I’ll get there right away!” the man replied, hanging up.
“My apologies,” Deus said with his head lowered before the elderly man standing before the open cell door and wondering who might be that punk who made him leave his house in such an hour.
“Young man,” Gabriel started calmly. “I came here to examine two pictures I will find interesting, as you promised me over the phone. No pictures-no release! Pure and simple.”
Deus breathed a sigh of relief, despite recalling the pictures were in his suitcase, which now rested on the station’s helpdesk. “My suitcase,” he suggested, pointing at the helpdesk, while they already walked together out of the station. “I’m Deus, and I came here following the advice of my history teacher, Dr. Loewenthal,” Deus explained while handing the pictures to Gabriel. “I guess you won’t find this one interesting, but you’ll probably recognize the people in the earlier picture.”
“To the contrary,” the professor stated excitedly, “I am very familiar with this picture, yet it is the later one that really surprised me. Who did you say gave you the pictures?” he enquired.
“My mother, just before she passed away. Both pictures show her and my father,” Deus said thrilled. Could the answer to all his puzzles lie in that elderly man’s mind?
“Are you the son of Klara and Klaus?!” the professor choked with excitement. “Are you all right, sir?” Deus startled at the sight of the elderly man growing pale. “Water! Get him water!” he shouted at the policemen at the helpdesk, trying to lay the professor on the floor.
“I’m OK,” Gabriel responded, pushing away the young man. He stood up and walked out of the station, away from the hustle and bustle around him. Deus, struggling to carry his heavy suit and nearly choking from the humid air, tried to catch up with him.
“Tonight, you sleep on this couch, and tomorrow morning, you’ll start telling me your whole story, from A to Z,” Gabriel commanded Deus while turning the lights on in his little living room.
“It’s fine with me,” Deus accepted calmly, surveying the place.
“I have never asked for your appraisal of my residence!” Gabriel told him off. “If my memory serves me, it’s you who were looking for me, not the other way around!” he stated angrily, as it is customary with old professors, turning the lights out and hiding in his room.
Deus rested his head on the couch pillow. Looking around him, letting his eyes gradually get accustomed to the dark, he saw just piles of books and maps all over the small living room. Attempting to read the titles, he found it was too dark. He just folded himself on the couch, closing his eyes in an attempt to visualize the next day, until he fell asleep.
“Good morning! Good morning!” a woman’s voice greeted him with annoying repetition, so he opened his eyes.
“Bom Dia,” he instinctively responded in Portuguese. He sat up on the couch, wiping his eyes until he clearly detected a woman’s figure sneaking through the door, leaving him all alone. Standing up, Deus sprinted with limps to the kitchen window, catching a glimpse of her back distancing from him. It reminded him of a woman from his past.
“Have you met Heidi already?” Professor Balaguer asked, upon entering the small kitchen.
“Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to,” the young man replied with courtesy.
“My Dearest Heidi,” Gabriel praised her quietly, “is one of a kind, and only arrived here yesterday, from across the ocean.”
“Oh, curious!” Deus faked interest.
“She enrolled in a postgrad course, in the history department of the university where I lecture,” he went on, proudly.
“How about coffee?” Deus asked, ignoring his words.
“Great,” Gabriel responded, “I’ll take mine with a spoonful of sugar. So, tell me, Deus, how did you get such a special name?”
Deus stopped brewing the coffee for a moment. “Well, back in the orphanage I was told mother died while delivering me…and it had been her last will,” Deus spoke, disbelieving his own words.
“So, Klara was not your mother?” The professor wondered.
“She did anything a mother should do, except conceiving me!” Deus set the record straight.
The professor smiled civilly while Deus was handing him his cup of coffee and taking a seat next to him on the very same couch he left minutes ago. “Tell me, my friend, do you, too, wish to go to university?”
Deus gave him a smile and then, an embarrassed laugh. “I’d love to, yet I have neither the means nor the skills required.”
Gabriel rose, starting to pace back and forth. “Nonsense!” he finally stated. “Pure nonsense! I can arrange a scholarship and even a long-term student visa, and you can stay here until graduation day. If you follow my advice, I guarantee that within three years you will learn what you’ve always wanted to know about your parents’ past.”
Now it was Deus’ turn to rise with amazement, looking straight into Gabriel’s eyes and stretching his hand to him. “Well,” they both said in unison, “It’s a deal!”
“It’s unbelievable!” he heard a woman crying behind him while trying to force his way to the lecture hall on his first school day. “Don’t people ever stand in line where you come from?!”
Deus giggles, recognizing the provocative speaker even without turning back. “Heidi?” he cried back, turning around.
“Hello, foreigner!” she returned his call, smiling at him from the crowd waiting to enter the classroom. “Come here!” she invited him, making enough room for him next to her. “Would you sit by me?” she made an offer, which he accepted right away.
Their first class was a tedious lecture on prewar British architecture.
“Let’s go somewhere else,” Heidi suggested when they rose from their seats at the end of the class.
“I can’t,” Deus explained, “I have another class in a moment.”
Giggling at him, Heidi dragged him by the hand along the corridor, out of the campus, where they discovered the verdant lawns. “Follow me, stranger!” she cried, rushing to a lawn, where she rolled over until she faced the sunshine.
Deus followed her with an awkward feeling, remembering that the professor granted him a scholarship that depended on avoiding skipping too many classes, yet he supposed he could probably explain away skipping one class.
“So, what’s your name?” Heidi got curious when he sat down on the lawn next to her. “And how did you figure out my name?”
“Deus,” he told her calmly, mulling a bunch of grass in his hand. “As for your name, I read it on your luggage in the airport!”
&nb
sp; “Deus? Like God?!” she burst into laughter, raising her head and placing it straight on his loins, slightly moving until he was comfortable.
“Indeed,” Deus confirmed, struggling to conceal his manly arousal.
“A rather unusual name for a mortal,” Heidi remarked, with a giggle.
“Well, my mother…,” he started telling his story, yet Heidi’s mind already strayed to other regions.
“Just to make things clear, I’m married to Professor Balaguer, Head of History Department, so abandon all hope for something to go on between you and me,” she interrupted Deus, making him fall silent.
“What does such a young and pretty woman have to do with such an old man?!” he wondered.
“We met long ago, in another country and another time, when I was still a girl and he was younger. Then we parted, until I met him again many years later, where he made his proposal. This is how I got my scholarship,” Heidi confessed, with a big smile all over her face.
“So, it’s a marriage of convenience, isn’t it?” Deus tried to squeeze a confession out of her.
“Certainly not!” she protested, raising her head from his loins and then hurling it back.
“Ouch!” Deus uttered an exclusively masculine yell of pain, making Heidi laugh.
This is how they spend their first school day, and, to be honest, the days following it, enhancing their bond. However, it was when they came back to the professor’s house every evening that Deus got his real education.
“Gabe, darling!” Heidi cried while embracing her husband affectionately one day, “I missed you desperately!”
Kissing her cheek, Gabriel pushed her off silently.
“So, what have you learned in school today?” the old scholar enquired, reminding Deus of just another song prohibited by his father.
“History,” Heidi answered, while Deus giggled.
“Couldn’t you, for once, give me an answer which makes some sense!?” the professor told her off, rising angrily.