by Sarah Kassem
Suddenly he saw, out of the corner of his eye, movement at the window. As it was a warm night, all the windows were open, and he looked to seek the source of the movement. At first he thought it might be a moth that may fly into his room. In such a circumstance he’d have to go and get his mother in order throw it out. Moths, butterflies – Viktor was creeped out by them all. He had once touched a moth only to find his hand become covered in dust from the moth’s wings. Add to that the thick body and the whole thing was quite disgusting to him.
The flutter of movement persisted; even though Viktor couldn’t quite make out just what the creature was until it suddenly flew into the room and sat itself down on top of his wardrobe. Viktor stared at it anxiously, especially when he saw that it was not a moth at all but instead a bird.
It was a very small bird, with a long, thin beak and feathers in fluorescent blue with flecks of pink and neon green. As it was a bird he had never seen before, Viktor had no idea what to do. He wanted to scream for his mother, but was afraid that the bird might flutter up and attack him with its long pointed beak the second he moved. Oded had once told him that one should never make any sudden movements in the presence of animals as, when they smell fear, they become aggressive and their reflex reaction then is to bite whatever threatens them.
The bird gazed down from the cabinet at Viktor and Viktor stared back up at it. Time passed. The wind blew softly into the room. It was already dark outside and the curtains fluttered gently in the night breeze.
The bird shook itself, pressed its mouth against its chest and puffed its feathers up until it looked like a tiny, fluffy ball.
“I’m cold and I’m hungry! I need to eat something now or else I’ll staaarve!” The bird exclaimed, hyperventilating as it did so.
Since Viktor did not respond and instead simply remained staring up at the closet, the little bird jumped up and down a few times before asking, “Do you have anything to eat?”
Viktor thought for a moment, nodded to the bird, and ran to his school bag where he took out his sandwich from lunch, broke a piece off and put it carefully on the floor in front of the wardrobe. He then hurried back to his bed and watched the bird as it flew down to the food.
“What is it?” asked the bird, pecking at the salami in disgust before throwing it away.
“That’s salami,” said Viktor.
“Sa-la-mi,” repeated the bird. “What is it?”
Viktor kneaded his hands together nervously. “Meat.”
“I do not eat meat!” proclaimed the bird, pecking instead at the bread.
“What’s this?” The bird asked, scratching his beak on the butter, before wiping it on the carpet in disgust.
“Butter.”
“What’s butter?”
“It’s made from milk,” Viktor replied.
The bird sighed unhappily and ate the bread without any real enthusiasm. “Do you have anything sweet?” it asked before adding, “And what about something to drink?”
Viktor went back to his school bag and took out both his water bottle and a Snickers bar. The bird hopped closer and Viktor sat on the floor opposite. He opened the bottle, poured some water into a cup that had been next to his bed, and set it down in front of the bird. The bird instantly jumped into the cup and turned a few circles in the water, like a sailing ship. It then stuck its head under the water, raised it up, and dunked it under once more. Dripping wet, it then he came out of the cup and stood expectantly in front of the still wrapped Snickers bar. Viktor opened the wrapper and the bird pecked gently at the chocolate.
“What is it?”
“Snickers.”
The bird ate for a while, then flew up and flapped its wings extremely fast and turned a few quick laps around the room. “I love Snickers,” it shouted as it increased its speed, its wings beating so fast that they were almost invisible. Viktor was creeped out by that.
The bird came back, ate more of the chocolate and studied Viktor closely. When it was finished, Viktor had to close the windows because the bird was cold. It flew to the foot of the bed, perched itself there and solemnly announced:
“My name is Cristobal. I’m a hummingbird and I’m already nine days old!” He hopped up and down a few times.
Viktor did not know what to do but, because his mother had always taught him to be polite when strangers were present, he replied:
“My name’s Viktor and I’m seven years old. Next month I’m eight.”
“I know,” the bird said with a mischievous sense of pride as it puffed out its feathers so that it looked like a fluffy ball again.
They looked at each other for a while. Viktor was fascinated by the bright colours of the bird’s plumage. Cornflower blue harmonised beautifully with pink and green, the light of the night lamp reflecting on it and therefore wrapping the bird in a golden shimmer. The bird constantly turned its head from left to right in order to inspect Viktor in detail using each eye. Its beak was very long, thin and pointed, its tail feathers an iridescent fan, which, depending on how the light fell on them, kept changing colour. The bird was so tiny that he could almost be mistaken for a butterfly.
After a while Cristobal flew a few leisurely laps around the room. He flew up to the lamp and examined it closely, then he flew around every other piece of furniture and, in order to check every nook and cranny, he flew from every height, depth and width of the room. He inspected each and every soft toy, every piece of Lego, looked at the fire truck and the excavator and drove a few laps around the room with the tractor. Then he intensively consulted with a Batman figure, recoiled from the snapping jaws of a Crocodile Dentist board game, and finally busied himself inspecting every figurine of both the toy soldiers and the plastic zoo. When he was finished, he flew a few slow exploration rounds once more around the room to make sure all had been seen, then sat down on the end of the bed and looked at Viktor, doing so again by taking turns with each of his tiny eyes.
“Want to see my sticker album?” asked Viktor, suggesting it because it was the only thing not yet examined by the bird.
Cristobal flew to Viktor willingly, who flinched and shrank back from the close proximity. The bird, however, simply sat gently on one of his knees, a perch so delicate, light and weightless that Viktor was able to form the consensus that death was not about to be doled out, and so instead took out his album and, turning the pages slowly, showed the hummingbird his various stickers.
“Who’s that?” Cristobal asked, pointing a quivering wing at a sticker.
“Jar Jar Binks,” answered Viktor.
When the album was through, Viktor asked whether Cristobal also wanted to see his football album. When the bird nodded willingly, Viktor picked it up, flipped it open, and proudly showed him his full collection.
Cristobal was most excited at the sticker of Diego Maradona, revealing such excitement by hopping up and down several times before flying a few exuberant laps around the room and crying out, “I know him!”
When he had finally calmed down he returned, somewhat out of breath, back to his perch on Viktor’s knee and elaborated on his exclamation: “I know him! That’s Diego Maradona! I was with him the day before yesterday. He bathed me and combed my hair and gave me some hot water with honey to drink.” While retelling this happy memory, Cristobal had puffed himself up and had a blissful and dreamy expression on his sharp beaked face. “He’s the hand of God,” he added with tones of wonderment.
Viktor was both impressed and speechless. He looked humbly at his Maradona sticker.
“Would you like some water with honey?” he asked.
Cristobal made a few exalted jumps and screeched “Yeah!”
They then went to the kitchen. As it was dark and Helena was apparently already in bed, Viktor did not turn on the light, fearing that doing so would wake her and cause a scene of rebuke for his being up so late. He knew where he could find a glass, filled it with warm water from the tap, then ran to his room and came back with a flashlight. He clambered onto the
counter and searched slowly and quietly in each cabinet till he found the jar of honey. He took a spoon out of the drawer, then led Cristobal back to his room where they both sat down on the floor. Cristobal was buzzing around the honey jar and Viktor read aloud what was written on it: “Real wild honey from pine, spruce and silver fir. Strong, spicy aroma. High in fructose.” Cristobal nodded excitedly and gave him a thumbs up. Viktor took a spoon and stirred some honey into the water. When he offered Cristobal the glass, the bird fluttered excitedly up and down and demanded “More!” Viktor did as he was told and heaped another three spoons into the cup, stirred it, and guessed when Cristobal drank the whole glass and beamed with happiness that the result was satisfactory. The hummingbird flew across the room again, and his quick, hyperactive movements were becoming contagious, Viktor too began to fidget and hop up and down on his bed.
Cristobal moved to Viktor’s school bag where he buzzed and asked what it was. Viktor had to take each item out of the bag in order to let the little bird satisfy his curiosity. Cristobal wanted to see every single book, pen and school supply, even taking a moment to perch himself down on Viktor’s rubber while Viktor had to leaf through his biology book to reveal its contents to the inquisitive hummingbird.
“I go to school as well!” Cristobal said proudly. “Next time I’ll bring my school bag, then you can see my things too.”
“Will you come visit me again?” Viktor asked.
Cristobal nodded.
“I’ll always come to visit you now. Four times a week. On the other evenings I have to attend training sessions or see to other people, but four times a week you’re on my schedule.”
“What kind of training sessions?”
“Well, I have school during the day and in the evenings I always have training.”
“What you learn there?”
“I’ve been there five days so far! This morning I had LRRS Part 1 and then I had to come to you, that was the practical part. Now I have to report back.”
“What’s LRRS Part 1?”
“Long Range Reconnaissance Scout training part 1. There are 30 parts.”
Viktor nodded knowingly, though in reality he had little idea what the bird was on about. “And who else do you visit?”
Cristobal flushed and puffed himself up proudly. “Twice a week I go to see Monica Bellucci,” he stated, breathlessly proud and blushing deeply.
“Who is Monica Bellucci?” Asked Viktor.
Cristobal jumped up and down and screamed, “I have no idea! But she is sooo pretty! Yesterday she caressed me and said that I have wonderful feathers.” He staggered back and forth dizzily. “Tomorrow I’ll visit her again! Do you have any more Snickers? I’m terribly hungry!”
Viktor gave him the rest of the Snickers.
“And why are you coming to visit me?” He asked.
Cristobal chewed, thought, looked intently at the ceiling, chewed again, and then shrugged.
“I don’t know,” he said finally. “It’s in my schedule that I’m to visit you three to four times a week in the evening. I won the aptitude test you see” – he flew up and performed a pirouette – “and that means that I’m doing the training and so will always visit you. When my training finishes, I’ll show you something very important. I still don’t know what, but it’s very important.” He made a couple of loop-the-loops and stressed once again proudly, “Very important.”
Viktor nodded and was quite excited. “You wanna play?” he asked. Cristobal wanted to play with the plastic soldiers, so they split the game pieces and lined them up in corps. Viktor called his commander ‘General Garibaldi’ and put him in a remote control car, Cristobal named his ‘Pius the III’ and put him in the passenger seat of the tractor while he took position behind the wheel. He drove off, and Viktor drove his car with the remote control. The aim of the game was to circle as many of the opposing player’s soldiers as possible. Viktor’s army won and Cristobal did a few laps of honour in the tractor around the room until he went under the bed, hit a wall and the vehicle tipped over. He then crawled out quite covered in dust and Viktor had to help him pick the dust bunnies out of his feathers.
Cristobal looked at his wristwatch and saw that it was very late and he had to go as he still had to file some reports before sleep.
He flew to the window, sat down on the sill and looked at Viktor. “Thank you for the honey! See you soon,” he cried before flying away. Viktor watched him go, a tiny, vibrant thing that flapped its wings so fast that you could only see what looked like dreary little fog around the bird’s tiny body.
Androecium
The next morning Viktor sat at the kitchen table, eating Froot Loops from his Spiderman breakfast bowl.
His mother was sitting opposite him and talking on the phone to someone about some material deliveries. She was dressed very neatly, as was her habit every morning. Today she wore a peach-coloured suit. Her reception room in the studio was also very peachy – from the counter, carpet, couch and wallpaper, to even the decorative items. Helena had been counselled when setting up the studio that the colour peach was a soothing, harmonious, elegant and accordingly promotional colour. As such she was always careful to ensure her dress matched the colours of the reception room, doing so to such an extent that she had even sewed her own array of costumes in endless variations of beige, coral, salmon, sand, sienna, sahara, isabell, chamois and ecru. Viktor had seen from the colour charts in the tailor shop that there were many different names for almost the same colour, and he saw no big difference between sienna and ecru, though he did find the name beautiful. Sometimes Viktor found that his mother looked naked because her peach-coloured costumes were so often the same colour as her skin. Even her high-heeled shoes were the same peach. As her skirts often ended just above the knee, exposing her muscular calves, and her shoes were near enough the same colour as her skin, one could easily be mistaken into thinking that the shoes were actually some part of her feet and therefore that she was even bigger than she already was. Her muscular upper body, huge chest and broad shoulders were framed by an eggshell-coloured blouse and peach blazer. To compliment all this uniformity, the pearl necklace around her neck was made from apricot-coloured South Sea pearls, and the leather strap of her watch was also a peachy beige. In fact, the only things to break through this chameleon-like tone-on-tone harmony were Helena’s reddish hair and her dark red lipstick.
Helena absentmindedly stirred her coffee with a spoon as she listened intently to what the person at the end of the line had to say. Viktor knew that in a few months there was a fashion show that a man had hired Helena’s studio to prepare some items for, and therefore that there was much to do at the moment: sewing machines rattled incessantly, big boxes were constantly being delivered, the phone was continuously ringing, and strange people were ever walking in and out. Viktor was creeped out by that.
When she had finished the call and hung up, Viktor put his spoon down, cleared his throat, and announced:
“Mom, I want to play the harp!”
His mother glanced up, looked at him blankly, looked back down at a few notes in her diary and murmured: “Ok, Viktor.”
He took his spoon in his hand again, took another spoonful of Froot Loops, chewed hard and focused, swallowed and repeated: “Mom, I want to learn to play the harp.”
Helena looked up from her busy schedule with barely hid irritation, laid her pen neatly in the middle of the page, folded her hands on the table, and looked at him piercingly: “What?”
“I want to learn to play the harp!”
“Harp?”
“Yes.”
“Harp, the instrument?”
“Yes.”
“Do you even know what a harp is?”
“Yes. It’s an instrument that you pluck with your fingers, like a guitar, but better. You sit next to it and it makes music.”
Helena looked at him intently. “Are you serious?”
Viktor took another spoonful in his mouth, chewed carefully, thoug
ht about it and then nodded, “Yes.”
Helena closed her schedule, gathered up her other papers and stood up.
“Well, this afternoon you’re with your father so why don’t you share with him your good news. Right now come on, it’s late and you’ve got school.”
Viktor spent three afternoons a week with his father. Immanuel Abies was the owner of Bresolino Views, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of electron microscopes. It was based in the small town of Hedera Helix and had other branches and factories in Helsinki, Abu Dhabi, Shanghai and Caracas. Viktor loved the company because, firstly, its office was the tallest skyscraper in Hedera Helix, secondly, all company employees were very nice to him, and thirdly, the canteen had the best crème caramels he’d ever tasted and which were not only free for him, but also of unlimited supply.
Something else Viktor loved was that his afternoons there were always structured in the same way. Nothing unexpected ever happened and there were no sudden surprises; instead, everything was always both uniform and predictable. His father picked him up from school then they went to the cafeteria and ate lunch. Today, Viktor had schnitzel, fries and a small salad. His father always cut his schnitzel for him and made sure through careful observation that Viktor ate his whole salad, even the lettuce leaf and the parsley that were merely meant to decorate the plate.