“Marvelous. Double cuffs would be wonderful!”
To the pitying gaze of the two sales ladies, Levadski did a twirl in front of the mirror in the new dark blue suit. Without hesitation, he kept the suit on – the style was called Dandy. While the two ladies packed his outfit from the ornithological conference into a suit box like a corpse, dexterously and to the sound of rustling tissue paper, he envisaged how he would step out onto the street in a minute, where the wind, upon catching sight of him, woud leave everything else untouched – leaves, newspaper shreds and empty plastic bottles – the wind would rush towards him with an insane pleasure and before the eyes of the world, it would air Levadski’s delicate pink secret, the jacket lining.
Levadski bought the shirts with mother-of-pearl buttons and double cuffs in the branch on Frantsusky Boulevard. He was allowed to fish a complimentary pair of cufflinks out of a big round bowl. In a hat shop a few streets up he spent an hour trying on headwear. A bowler hat made Levadski look like an emaciated Churchill; mortified, he put it back on the counter. A homburg with an upturned rim didn’t suit him either. The design made Levadski look like a wrinkly youth who had gotten drunk after failing an exam. Finally he let himself be persuaded by a style called Dreamer, a home-grown version of the Borsalino.
“Imposing,” said the hat seller with a click of his tongue, “very distinguished.”
“Where can I get a walking stick with a silver handle?” After five hours on his legs he felt more dead than alive. “Or better yet, where is the nearest pastry shop?”
“Just around the corner, right in front of the Memorial to the Orange Revolution. There’s only one place you’ll find the silver walking stick, at 5 Victory Avenue.”
Levadski dragged himself to the pastry shop and ordered a piece of chocolate cake. As he was not wearing his dentures he swallowed the alcohol-dipped cherry decorating his cake without chewing it. Am I not a moving sight? thought Levadski. A bee landed on a carnation that was leaning against the rim of a vase. Strange, thought Levadski, you can keep a dog, a cat, a goldfish, a parrot, a trained thrush or a blackbird, some people keep a snake or even a spider at home, but you can’t keep a lone bee. The bee dies without its folk. Oh, it is going to die anyway! Levadski put the fork down on the saucer and leaned back. The bee flew from the carnation onto Levadski’s cake. Impertinently it showed him its behind.
Levadski watched the animal and remembered how he had ignited a dry bush in the Carpathians when he was a student of ornithology between the wars in order to attract the beee-ater. He had hoped that a little posse of these birds would appear in order to snap up the insects escaping from the fire, which is precisely what happened. With a short sharp “whoop” the red-eyed birds made the air around Levadski whirr. It was his first successful experiment. With bated breath Levadski watched as one of the birds caught a bee and crushed it against a branch in order to squeeze out its poison.
“Check, please!” The large behind of the waitress who was placing empty coffee cups on a tray at the next table reminded Levadski of one of his resolutions from this morning. When the waitress brought him the check Levadski patted her hip with a shaky hand. “A bee,” he apologized, paid and left.
A taxi stood in front of the Memorial to the Orange Revolution. Levadski got in. “Victory Avenue, please. Number five.” The taxi driver spit his cigarette butt out the window and drove off. “You know,” Levadski said, hugging the shopping bags and suit box to his ribs, “I don’t understand what the Memorial to the Orange Revolution is about. There was such media hype when it was inaugurated last year. There is a pedestal, but where is the memorial?”
“Modern art,” replied the taxi driver and switched on the radio, from which the last note sung by a male choir was fading away. The taxi driver must have been embarrassed at having to talk to a toothless old man, although he was well over sixty himself. Or, he understood something about modern art and found the idea of an invisible memorial extremely fascinating.
“The same old story, like everything in this world,” Levadski said dismissively. “This kind of provocation occurs every ten years. Always the same. If they had planted a tree on the pedestal, as a symbol of hope, let’s say, the memorial would make much more of a statement.”
The taxi sped towards Victory Avenue. “Number five,” Levadski shouted in to the rear mirror, “did I already say that?” The taxi driver turned his radio down a little.
“Did you say something?”
“Number five,” Levadski repeated, and with a groan lifted his behind in order to get to his wallet.
In the cane shop Levadski was shown a collection of high-quality walking sticks made of different materials. Several models in 925 sterling silver and a few silver-plated ones were among them. He admired the timeless elegance of Derby canes, appraised several handles in the shape of elaborate animal heads, was amazed by folding sticks with soft rubber grips, and finally decided on a black polished drinking stick with an eagle-throat handle in sterling silver and a built-in glass tube for liquids of his choice. Levadski was thrilled. What cancer, damn it, the cancer can eat itself! When he stepped out of the shop and onto the street, instead of laughing his heart out, he traced a jaunty half-circle with his drinking stick.
During the night Levadski dreamed of two arguing male hawfinches. One of them called out sharply “tzee-tzee,” the other one a tinkling “tzaa-tzaa.” Both of them stood in front of a pile of half-ripe peas in Levadski’s mother’s vegetable garden. “Shove off!” Levadski shouted out the window of his nursery and threatened the birds with a watering can. The birds carried on arguing with each other, feathers flew through the air, but the pile of peas remained untouched. “Shove off, you scoundrels!” Levadski shouted. The birds did not listen to him. He let his watering can drop and fluttered out the window. The birds froze and in amazement tore open their powerful beaks. As he couldn’t think of anything better to do, he started juggling the peas. The birds forgot their quarrel and clapped their wings. Levadski was pleased and juggled faster and faster, clockwise. Then the two male hawfinches fluttered up and pecked at the peas with their beaks until there was nothing left to peck.
In the morning, still half asleep, Levadski remembered the telephone conversation with his family doctor and became sad. So it had not been a dream after all, he would die soon. But he had always known this, it was nothing new. If his mother were alive, he would have called her and asked whether he should submit himself to chemotherapy or not. His mother had always sworn by herbs, good deeds and thoughts, she wouldn’t have batted an eyelid at the diagnosis and would just have baked delicious pastries until her death, Levadski thought, sitting up in bed. But perhaps she would have advised me, her only child, to do something different, considering the advancements in medicine? Oh, to hell with the cancer!
The stranger from the day before, the old lady with the book on bees, sprang to mind. That he was still capable of marveling at people was a good sign, a sign that he was not lost to himself or to the community. Thank goodness! Levadski thought, if I had not noticed the book, or if the lines on bees had no longer moved me – that would have been bad! Dear God, I thank you. Levadski folded his hands. For a number of years now he had been saying his morning prayer out loud, partly to reassure himself that he was still here and partly to exercise his vocal chords.
I have woken,
the sun has risen laughing,
peaceful was the night.
God our father,
you protected me.
Only you know
what the day may bring;
yet whatever that may be:
You will be with me.
Levadski wiped away a tear and in a faltering voice addressed the mark left by a bloodthirsty mosquito on the ceiling:
I will write it into my heart and mind,
That I am not alone unto myself on earth,
That I will pass on the love that sustains me to others.
After breakfast he called his bank. Hi
s savings turned out not to be exorbitant, but quite substantial. My god, have I lived frugally! Levadski was pleased. He thought of his account in Vienna, to which royalties owed him for his articles in the Konrad Lorenz annual magazine had regularly been transferred since 1975. He had never withdrawn any, how could he have? The last time Levadski had been in Vienna was in 2002, at the Conference for the Advancement of the Mobility of the Northern Bald Ibis. He had not gotten around to withdrawing any money, he was much too busy, too much in demand. The Konrad Lorenz Institute welcomed him with open arms. He was a guest of state and had been invited by the Republic of Austria, had traveled first class, was served a hot meal on the plane and was collected by a black limousine. The chauffeur wore white gloves, like a waiter. The suite in the Hotel Imperial, where he had been put up like a king at the expense of the institute, had five crystal chandeliers. Levadski’s neck ached from admiring the pomp. He liked to recollect this journey and the night at the Imperial. The northern bald ibis to whom he owed all this had already been wiped out across most of central Europe in the seventeenth century. The Konrad Lorenz Research Center set itself the task of making the ugly bird a native in its old home again. It worked, but the northern bald ibis no longer knew that it was meant to set off to Italy in the winter. At the conference Levadski suggested driving all the young birds south in the winter and when they grew older, flying ahead of them in light planes as a means of instruction, so that later they would be able to find the way themselves. The idea landed on fertile ground. Soon afterwards a flock of northern bald ibises set off for their Italian wintering grounds and returned safely in spring. Levadski was sent numerous newspaper articles: Paving the way ahead, Ukrainian ornithologist breaks all barriers – Professor Levadski from Ukraine (born 1914) gives the northern bald ibis wings – Off to Italy! An enterprising idea changes the world of an exotic animal believed extinct – Foster father in a light plane: A Ukrainian sends the northern bald ibis on holiday – Away with the borders! Reintroduction into the wild project unparalleled in the history of wildlife conservation.
Levadski put the kettle on the stove to make tea. He sat himself down on a kitchen stool. He stared at the gas flame. I will let the cancer be cancer, he thought, I am not wasting a single kopek on it. Instead, I will fly to Vienna. I will fly to my wintering grounds like a northern bald ibis. Into the eternal sun. One way with a tailwind.
The water boiled and hissing spilled over the rays of the blue gas sun. Levadski got up and turned off the gas. “Decided,” he said and poured the water into his only unchipped china cup.
III
LEVADSKI WAS BORN THE ONLY CHILD OF A FATHER WHO was a forester in a count’s woodland and a mother who was a Viennese ornithologist in East Galicia. The year of his birth was not a promising one for the world. In an American zoo, on the day of his birth, the last passenger pigeon died, a beautiful bird with red eyes and a black beak. That of all possible days, it was precisely on the 1st of September, 1914 that the bird drew its last breath, on the very same day that Levadski, smeared in blood and blind, mewing softly, announced his arrival, was something he learned only as an accomplished man, shortly after being conferred a doctorate. From that day forth he thought of Martha the passenger pigeon once a year, and of how lonely she must have been in captivity. Of course she had known she was the last of her kind. You just knew something like that. Irrespective of whether you were a human being or an animal. Things like that were whispered to you on thin air, straight into the heart. It was sheer mockery – of all birds, the passenger pigeon, a particularly social species, had to disappear from the face of the earth like this.
When Levadski’s mouth was almost full of milk teeth, his father, who had lost his job, shot a bullet through his head beneath a spruce tree. The old count sent the widow a telegram from Vienna via the war post. DEAR MADAM STOP MY THOUGHTS ARE WITH YOU STOP A SHAME ABOUT YOUR HUSBAND STOP BE BRAVE STOP
When Levadski was able to sketch a bird on four legs, the Tsar abdicated in Russia, his personal cook poisoned himself, the Provisional Government was formed, Lenin, watched by ten thousand pairs of drunken farmers’ eyes, dispatched big words into the frosty air, the landed gentry were dispossessed and churches were ransacked for the good of the people.
When Levadski’s last milk tooth surfaced, the Bolsheviks brought down the Provisional Government. Little Russia declared its independence from Big Russia. “Why did you bring only me into the world?” Levadski asked his mother, who said to him: “So that you could become something special, my little one!”
But in reality it was the untimely disappearance of his father from the forest stage that allowed Levadski to become something special. “He loved the forest, till the very last!” Levadski’s mother enthused. “The forest was his office he stepped in and out of at will, strode through for hours on end, in which he was permitted to shoot and spit on the ground. He would have withered away in the city,” she said time after time, tearfully wiping her nose.
Of all the animals, Levadski’s father loved birds the most. After his death, his young widow inherited a barely overseeable quantity of folders containing bird sketches. The deceased had drawn mallards, waterfowl and little grebes, wagtails, green woodpeckers and collared doves, buzzards, falcons, sparrowhawks, hawks and kites, tree pipits, meadow pipits and tawny pipits, as well as mistle thrushes, redwings, song thrushes and fieldfare. He hadn’t shunned the great white heron, the night heron or the small white heron, either.
Before he sketched them, Levadski’s father would fire a fine-grained shot at his models. He used minute pellets so as to cause as little damage as possible to the bodies. Then, with the use of wire, he would arrange the carcasses in a natural or dramatic pose and sketch them. A stork devours a frog at sunset was for the common people. A stork with hair combed in a revolutionary manner across its brow gazes into the sky and is struck by lightning on the beak – that one was intended solely for Levadski’s father, for his own aesthetic pleasure. It was for this reason that Levadski’s mother called her husband a Neoromantic. “In rejecting the natural, he braved it,” she sighed. “He even spit in the face of the drawing tradition of the 18th century. Your father,” she said to Levadski, wiping a tear from her widow’s eye, “looked far back to the origins of animal worship, hoping for its rebirth. Look!” His mother solemnly grabbed one of the folders and pulled out a sketch.
“A stork,” Levadski instantly remarked.
“A stork for you, a stork for me, a stork as such. But to your father,” she wagged her finger, “it was a stork not struck by lightning, but kissed by it, yes, kissed by it. Suffused with light, the felicitous bird soars above the world in order to clack a delightful song – a representative of the genus of striding birds and at the same time, an angel. Both were not out of the question for your father, may he rest in peace …”
My father was not a bad man, thought Levadski. The sharper his ornithological insight grew, the more this belief took root in him. When he started recognizing the birds that his father had painted out in the wild, he would have spit in anybody’s face who said a bad word about the dead man. Levadski examined the bird sketches conscious of his father’s gaze hiding behind every bird’s eye, the face of a vibrant man, which without a doubt he must have been. “A person who observes birds knows the joy of living,” Levadski’s mother swore, scrunching up her slightly yellowed delicate handkerchief in her withered hand.
“My father was happy, he knew the joy of living!” Levadski shouted to the children in the village, when he believed he was met with a pitying look. Their fathers were farmers, blacksmiths, bakers and butchers, some, in the worst cases, had died in war, were crippled or missing. These children were to be pitied, not him, for his father had known the joy of living. In the evenings their mothers sent them to the tavern to fetch their fathers home from drinking. Levadski would linger close by, leaning against a wall. He was more proud than sad that his father was unable to stagger out of the tavern. He knew the joy of living
, he shouted in his head at the children clutching their fathers’ arms, Oh yes, he knew it.
“One day you too will know the birds,” Levadski’s mother promised. And one day this really was the case. Levadski knew them all, and he knew: the joy of living had nothing to do with the bullet his father had fired into his brain. This joy of living conjures up a space for a candid, totally unimpeded joy, smack in the middle of human destiny. This space floats within us like a bubble, and pleasure, its contents, absolves us from everything – our sins, our mistakes, it even pardons the most wretched end. One day Levadski was familiar with the birds and understood: once you have given yourself to the inhabitants of the sky, you are doomed to happiness. You can then happily fire a bullet into your brain.
In August, shortly before the fateful Battle of Amiens, Levadski could brush his teeth with tooth powder all by himself. The young widow decided to lock up the forest warden’s house and to return to Vienna aboard a hospital train. Levadski watched as she took her axe and lopped the heads off all the hens and the old cock. The only reason why the birds had not landed in the stomachs of the marauding fighters in the interest of the right cause was because they had been kept in deep bunker-like cellars during the war years and not in the stable. Only at night, if you held an ear to the cold kitchen floor, could you hear them softly lamenting in their sleep. Singing, Levadski’s mother loaded the carcasses of the birds onto the wheelbarrow and wheeled them, to a melancholy warbling tune, into the village to exchange them for gold with the neighbors. “Eat and remember us,” Levadski’s mother said at every threshold. Levadski wanted to say “Eat and remember us” in front of the last door, but nobody opened. So Levadski said it in front of the closed door.
“Died of starvation,” explained Levadski’s mother, who knew to interpret the sweet smell of decay as the old Jew’s last greeting, “the poor little grandfather.” They headed back. The last hen reproachfully puffed up the sack in the widow’s hand. The old man was dead. Levadski wanted to know why.
Who Is Martha? Page 3