Leena Krohn: Collected Fiction

by Leena Krohn

  “Stupid bird,” a little girl dressed in a fringed skirt tossed scornfully at him as they left.

  The pelican stood by the back wall of the cage with his tail turned to his audience, taking no more notice of the pieces of biscuit than the mocking comments. Dignity, which an animal easily loses when dressed in human clothes, had returned to his bearing.

  Emil approached the chain-link fence with his heart in his throat. No one was staring now, perhaps he would have time to exchange a couple of words with the bird.

  “Pelican!” he whispered. He didn’t dare speak out loud. Only now did he realise that he didn’t know any first name to call him by, not counting Papageno.

  The bird turned round immediately. He didn’t seem surprised to see him, but instead Emil was amazed at the change that had occurred in him during the short time they had been apart. He had become old and sorrowful and grave, and he no longer walked with a spring as he had before. His bearing had, however, remained unchanged.

  They spoke in whispers and stopped as soon as any passer-by came near the bird cages.

  “I knew you would appear here before long,” the pelican said. “Here at Pentonwood Scrubs,” he added with a brief smile.

  He spoke to Emil as an equal now for the first time, and Emil did the same to him. They had probably never been as close to each other before as they were now, separated by the bars.

  “Elsa told me you were here.”

  “Elsa, yes. Send her my greetings.”

  “She’s very unhappy.”

  “Tell her that that is unnecessary. That events here occurred just as they were meant to.”

  “Did you want to come here then?” Emil was horrified.

  “No, that I cannot say,” the bird admitted. “But I suppose that I had to experience this as well.”

  “But you can’t stay here.”

  “No, I must return to my own kind. But I cannot get out of here without help.”

  “I’ll help you,” Emil promised. “Maybe I could break in here tonight.”

  “I have considered this matter. Would you happen to have pliers or pincers at home? I think they would be enough. The wire mesh on these small cages is light, and there is only one night watchman after the gates are shut. He will not cause problems, he cannot be in all places at once and we can certainly make a large enough hole in the mesh quickly. But then we still have to cope with the fence.”

  “That’s easy,” Emil assured him. He knew a place where a large lime tree thrust a thick branch over the fence.

  “But I cannot leave like this—naked,” the bird said. “I will be brought back in an instant.”

  “I’m sure I have some jeans and a shirt, if they only fit.”

  “They shall have to suffice,” the bird said. “Where shall we find anything else to help us in this hour of need?”

  But he sounded slightly dissatisfied. Perhaps his frivolity and liking for bright clothes had risen once more to the fore, perhaps he would have wished to present himself more tastefully dressed as he passed through the city for the last time as a human.

  “Come at around midnight,” the bird said. “I will be waiting. What else can I do?”

  They said goodbye, and the boy set off reluctantly towards the exit. He stopped halfway along the path, because the pelican had begun to hum something. He saw his profile, which could not even with the best of wills be called beautiful, with his beak-pouch, his huge, pale, multi-coloured bill and his s-shaped neck which alternately straightened and bent as the creature’s muffled voice rose and fell:

  Freedom took the swallow’s wings

  The human hands, the fish’s fins;

  It entered the world as a deer, wild and fleet,

  Climbed the highest of trees with the puma’s soft feet.

  But hands grow tired and fins grow dim,

  Wings wear out and legs give in,

  And only a clanking and tightening chain

  Will bring understanding of what is to blame.

  I pity the prisoner, I pity the guard,

  And the people who come here to peer through the bars.

  The ones who condemned me to live in this cell

  Will find that fate will chain them, as well.

  Flight

  His mother wasn’t home again, but on the floor in the hall there was a letter addressed to Emil. It was from his grandmother.

  Inside was a fifty-pound note and a birthday card. It was his birthday, he hadn’t remembered, but his mother hadn’t either.

  28.8

  Dear Emil!

  Many happy returns on your birthday.

  Here is fifty pounds for you. Spend it how you like, but don’t waste it.

  I hope that you are growing into a good person. Good people are a rarity in life.

  Much love

  Grandma.

  The money would come in very handy; Emil did not have to think long about how he would spend it. Now they could travel to the coast on the train or the bus, the pelican and he. And there would still be money left for food. It wouldn’t go to waste.

  Emil bought a kilo of herring from the fishmongers, made a few cheese sandwiches for himself and some cocoa, which he put in a thermos. He wrapped his old jeans and a cotton shirt into a small bundle and shoved it into his new schoolbag, a lovely bag made of real leather, a gift from his father and Margaret.

  It was a long evening. He turned on the television and sat on the floor in front of it, but he didn’t see what he was watching. A machine gun rattled in a dark room, shining cars chased each other through labyrinthine alleyways, a beautiful woman fled, stumbling, her hair in disarray, in a rainy park.

  Emil just sat thinking, the pincers in his hand.

  Finally he took his shoes off, went to lie on top of the bedspread and left the stumbling woman to get along as best she could. He had to at least try to sleep a little before the night’s journey. For safety’s sake he fetched the alarm clock from his mother’s room and set it to go off at half past ten.

  Did he sleep? He went to some far away place, and it was the land of the Black Elephant. Nothing grew there, there was no grass, no woods, not even any water. Over the bare earth, cracked with drought, roamed an endless line of elephants, charcoal black and tall as mountains. They had nothing in common with the nursery-school song: “Nellie the elephant packed her trunk and said goodbye to the circus . . . ” Each step they took was as heavy as sin and rumbled through the dry plain like the beat of a gong. And he himself was both the land that was trampled and the elephant, whose body was so painfully cumbersome and whose progress so ponderous, and who had no knowledge of his point of departure or his ultimate goal.

  Emil had never had such a comfortless dream. He couldn’t get up straight away when the alarm clock went off, his limbs had become so heavy, almost like the elephant’s. But then he remembered the pelican’s eyes behind the bars and found the strength to get up and put his shoes on.

  His mother had come home by that time, but now she slept in her turn. She was breathing heavily, her mouth open, and moisture had broken out on her forehead; she hadn’t yet changed into her nightdress, but was sleeping in her slip. Emil had not seen it before, it was black and silky and had a wide strip of lace down the front.

  ‘Mum,’ Emil wrote on a piece of greaseproof paper. ‘I’m going to be out tonight on an important errand.’ Then he remembered the end of his grandmother’s letter and added it to his own: ‘Much love, Emil.’

  He had never been out in the city so late in his life. There were a lot of people on the move, coming from the cinemas and going to the pubs, in pairs or in larger groups, rowdy and lively. The bus took him almost to the gates of the zoo. No one got off at that stop; the whole street, bordered by lime trees, looked deserted. There were no restaurants or theatres there, it was a place where evening chased the visitors away, inhabited only by the imprisoned animals.

  Emil had no difficulties getting to the top of the wall, but once there the barbed wire rippe
d a hole in the knee of his new trousers. He had already thrown his satchel over the wall to the other side, but the park was so dark that he had to grope around for a moment before his hand brushed against it. Nevertheless, the paths that wound between the cages and enclosures were lit up by widely spaced lamps. He kept to the edges of the circles of light they cast, in fear of the night watchman, until he got to the area where the birds were kept. His own steps crunched on the gravel paths, but sometimes he felt like someone else was walking behind him, almost on his heels, so that every now and then he glanced over his shoulder. It was only his own fear that was following him, but he had to drive that away too—it could ruin everything.

  He could make out the pelican’s pale form when he was still far away. His cage was in shadow, in the gap between two lamps, but the cells on either side were brightly lit. From the signs attached to the chain-link enclosures he could read that the Caucasian Snowcock (Tetraogallus caucasicus) and the Demoiselle Crane (Anthropoides virgo) lived in them, but neither was visible. They obviously slept in the nesting boxes built against the back walls of the cages.

  The pelican had already heard him coming and moved right up to the fence.

  “Work quickly!” he whispered. “Did you bring the clothes?”

  Emil dug the bundle of clothes out of his satchel and showed it to the bird, who nodded, relieved. Emil was already working on the cage. He cut the wire with the pincers, forming a square hole big enough for the bird to get through in the mesh. It went surprisingly easily, and the pelican stepped out of it as though through a door. He began to dress without delay. How strange he looked in the tight jeans and the red cotton shirt, but a tweed suit would not have suited him better.

  They moved quickly off the lit path into the shadow of the trees and to the foot of the wall. From the cells, behind the bars, they could hear the sounds that the animals made in their sleep, heavy breathing and, from the area were the nocturnal animals like the tiger were locked up, the restless pacing of endless circuits.

  “Pelican,” Emil whispered. A new, dangerous thought had entered his head. “I’ve got pincers.”

  “You have pincers? And what of it?”

  “Couldn’t we think about . . . ”

  “No. Put it out of your mind. Remember that this is not just a prison, this is a preserve. As prisoners of humankind these animals are also protected from humankind, from poison, bullets, homelessness, which would have been the fate of many of them in the decimated forests. Where could they go, here, in the city? Only a fraction would find their way back to their homelands; the rest would perish in terrible ways.”

  Emil sighed. He supposed the bird knew what he was talking about. Besides, his pincers would not have had any effect on the bars of the tiger’s or the bear’s cage. And many of the animals were probably already so used to prison life that they would no longer be capable of finding food if they were free.

  They were now outside the wall, in the street. The pelican grasped Emil’s hand with his smooth wing and said in a trembling voice:

  “Farewell, Emil-human. You are a rarity among humans, you do not really seem human, as I think I said when we met for the first time. You are good.”

  Emil blushed. He remembered his grandmother’s letter—she had also spoken of the rarity of goodness. He also remembered the innumerable occasions when he had acted wrongly, had thought bad thoughts and said bad things quite consciously, because he wanted to act that way, be that way, think that way.

  “But I’m coming with you,” was all he said.

  “You, coming with me? No, you are going home to sleep, I shall begin my journey to the coast.”

  “But I’ve got food with me, and money for the journey. We can go on the train.”

  “There are no more trains at this late hour. I will certainly reach my destination, sometimes I shall fly and sometimes I shall walk.”

  Then Emil’s face creased in disappointment. The pelican put his wings on the boy’s shoulders and peered searchingly into his eyes.

  “Do you really want to come with me? It is a long and burdensome journey, it will take the whole night if we walk, and there are no other ways that we can travel now.”

  “Of course I want to go,” Emil muttered.

  “Well, good. Let it be so,” the pelican concluded, and Emil brightened. “But let us go, we can dawdle no longer.”

  Midnight was at hand and the lime trees rustled heavily, the leaves that had fallen from them crackled on the pavement like paper when the north-east wind brushed them.

  They chose a road that led out to the countryside, and little by little the city lost its grip on them. Their steps became lighter, for they had both been strangers there.

  The Sands of the Shore

  Thunder, ocean, deep, blue

  Thunder with black waves!

  The Flock

  They walked rapidly and silently along the edge of the many-laned motorway, but as soon as the last houses of the city had been left behind them, the pelican stopped.

  “Now you may have your clothes back. After this I shall no longer need them. Now I shall fly.”

  “Oh.”

  Emil looked miserable. Couldn’t he accompany the pelican to the coast? He would have liked to say goodbye to him only there, and to see his family and friends. Above all, he would have liked to see the sea, for it was still quite unknown to him.

  The bird undressed in the shelter of the bushes and brought the bundle of clothes to Emil. He examined him from head to foot, as he was shoving the bundle into his satchel.

  “How much do you weigh?”

  “About six and a half stone, why?”

  “I am just thinking . . . But didn’t you have food with you? Now we must have a short rest.”

  They walked still further from the big road along the edge of the fields. The moon had risen and the haystacks threw sharp-edged shadows. They sat down on the moonlit side of a haystack and opened the package of food.

  “Are you sleepy?”

  Emil didn’t answer, although he heard the question: he didn’t have the energy. It was already the small hours of the morning, and they had been walking for a long time. A half-eaten sandwich was in his hand, and his head had sunk down onto one of his shoulders.

  “Sleep,” the pelican whispered.

  Now under Emil’s head there was a real feather pillow; he sank even deeper into the down.

  Under the wing, in the warmth of the feathers, he could have slept late into the middle of the day, but soon after the sun rose the bird woke him.

  “Listen now,” he said emphatically. “Do you really want to accompany me to my destination? We still have a long road ahead of us.”

  “Of course I’ll manage,” Emil claimed, although his eyes burned from too little sleep. “But you can fly ahead, you don’t have to walk any more, now you can be a bird without any fear. I suppose I’ll be able to follow you, if you fly a little more slowly and low enough.”

  “I intend to fly,” the bird said, “but I thought that you would fly too.”

  “Where am I going to get wings from out here?”

  “You shall get them from me. I have such large ones that for this sort of journey they will suffice for two. And you are light, but I am strong.”

  Emil was doubtful of the whole idea.

  “But what if you’re not strong enough and we crash?”

  “Let us try at least. It would make the journey faster, and I miss my family and the sea so much.”

  It did work, although Emil with his satchel was rather heavy. With the boy on his back the pelican was not able to glide at all, but had to use his wings all the time and fly rather low for safety’s sake.

  At first Emil was afraid, but soon he began to enjoy the journey. A fresh breeze blew in his face from the far, unknown sea, and the trees swayed far below like grass.

  It was late in the day when they arrived at the coast. They were on the southernmost tip of the land. Before them was only water, and beyo
nd the water strange lands.

  The wind blew chill there, and the sea was restless and ash-grey, the beach deserted. Between the yellowish islands the horizon was visible. Emil had read about it and seen pictures, but only now did he see it for real. When he had been little, he had felt that the word ‘horizon’ had meant an unimaginably great deal. Now it was there, before his eyes: just an imagined line that divided the air and the water.

  He was freezing.

  “That is where we came from,” the pelican said, and gestured with his wing towards the line. “And that is where we shall return once more. We are children of a gentler region.”

  “Can’t I come with you?” Emil asked. He didn’t want to go back yet, alone. “Humans can learn to do anything, maybe even live like birds.”

  He looked pleadingly at the pelican, who stood, facing the sea, not saying a word.

  “I’m sure raw fish doesn’t taste that bad when you’re used to it,” Emil said, but now he was less certain. The pelican still did not speak.

  “There in the south the sea must always be warm. It must be wonderful to wade in the surf when the sun is rising.” The boy’s voice trailed off, and there was no sound anymore but the thunder of the waves, pierced by the cry of a tern.

  The pelican shook his head so that the curly feathers on the back of his neck swayed.

  “As a bird and as a human I say to you that it would not work. And I know it best of all. I tried to become human and I was wildly unsuccessful. Now I shall strive to become a bird once more, but I do not know if I will succeed. I shall have to forget so much . . . Among your kind I have heard it said: ‘A leopard cannot change his spots.’ I was a bird, and I should have stayed that way. You, on the other hand, are human, do not let that go to waste.”

  Although it was cold, the boy had taken off his shoes, because the beach looked so inviting. They walked along the water’s edge, and two rows of tracks sank into the sand, webbed feet and human soles. But they did not stay there long, only for the time between two waves. Then the sea came again and filled them up, and when it withdrew it smoothed the sand once more.