Delicate Edible Birds

by Lauren Groff

  When she at last returned to the car, when the first bats began swooping over the fields, she wiped and wiped at her cuff where a small coin of the boy’s blood had darkened it. She moved close to Parnell and looked up into his face and he saw the kind of searing look she gave him when she wanted to take him into a corner and have her furious way with him. As always, he was taken aback, though he would have complied, had there been any real chance, but he looked around at the boiling mass of humanity, at the others in the car—poor Viktor, he tried not to be so obvious around him—and shook his head, just slightly.

  Disappointed, Bern turned away and said, I have four stories just dying to be published. And no fucking wire to send them.

  That is why we are going to Tours, darling, said Viktor.

  That’s our problem, said Bern. People out there told me. The wires are cut in Tours, too, the government’s fleeing to Bordeaux. Nowhere to sleep, even the barns forty kilometers out full of people. No food. No water. General panic. What have you.

  A long silence, broken at last by Lucci, saying, So what is it we’re to do?

  And Frank unfolded the map, whistling “La Marseillaise,” as he was wont to do when he wanted to calm himself. There’s a road, he said, three miles to the east, that’s smaller than this one. Takes us to Bordeaux, looks like, if in a bit of a roundabout manner.

  Bordeaux, said Parnell, thinking of good wines and soft beds. He hadn’t eaten in a day and his hunger had been replaced by a dull ache. How he longed for the buttery melt of pheasant in cream sauce on his tongue. How fine it would be to take a warm bath, to sleep and sleep without awakening to the sound of artillery. So Parnell said, Oh, yes, let’s go on to Bordeaux, and he wondered if he spoke more strongly than usual, for Bern looked at him, a smile flickering across her face, and Lucci made a little noise of approval.

  It’s decided, said Viktor. On we push. He turned into a cart path through the nearest field. When that path dead-ended in a long, lush field of barley sprouts, he drove through the young crops. The jeep left a path of broken plants in its wake. Parnell felt sorry for those small broken plants, he did. But when he was about to mention this to Bern, he felt foolish for it, and said nothing, after all.

  THEY MADE THE ROAD by the time the sky had immolated itself in sunset. Bern would never admit it to the chaps, but she was beginning to shake with hunger; always a bad sign. When she began to shake, she needed to eat soon or suffer fits of nasty temper. The jeep pressed on valiantly until the moon had risen, but presently it began to make a coughing sound and slowed to a crawl. There was an electric light glimmering through the trees. Though they urged the engine along, the jeep died before they reached the light. Parnell got out, uncomplaining, and Frank got out, complaining, and together they pushed until they reached the settlement.

  There she saw a group of three stone buildings that, in the thin wash of moonlight, seemed to have sprung up organically from the ground, as if a natural geologic formation or a mushroom ring. In the hard-packed dirt courtyard, two skinny dogs skulked and rattled their chains. One weak bulb hung over a door, which was thrust open when Viktor honked, and an immense, bullet-shaped body filled the light pouring from within.

  Oh, he is very large, said Lucci. He will be sure to have food.

  Our savior who art in hovel, said Frank, his sharp good humor returned.

  When they saw, however, that the man had the unmistakable silhouette of a rifle in his hand, and that he spoke to two other creatures who came outside behind him, also with what appeared to be rifles, the reporters did not climb out of the jeep, as they had been about to do. They waited, still and quiet, in the car, until the man came up and pointed a flashlight at their faces, one by one. When he reached Bern, he paused, and she winced in sudden blindness so that she didn’t notice that he was fondling a lock of her hair until he tugged on it. When she batted at his hand he had already pulled it away and she was left clawing air.

  Excuse me, sir, said Viktor in his impeccable French, but we are hungry and tired, and would gladly pay for some food and a place to rest. And some gas, if you’ve got any.

  The man, still invisible in the darkness, grunted, and the soft voices of the two others murmured behind him. Yes, he said in an earthy provincial French, yes, we’ve got all that. Come inside and bring what you’ve got.

  Now they all slowly slid from the jeep and walked behind him, the two other strangers dark shadows at their backs. And when they were inside the cottage all Bern saw at first was a tiny old woman paring potatoes in a dark corner, a fairy-tale grandmother who smiled, though her eyes watered, rheumy. Bern’s eyes adjusted in a moment, and only then did she see the small photograph of Hitler over the mantel, one plucked daisy and a guttering candle before it, as if the Führer were some syphilitic-looking saint.

  Bern spun toward their host and found him grinning down at her with his dark eyes and his oily but handsome face. His arm was jutted out, his hand upraised, and on his great biceps there was an armband embroidered with a crude swastika. Heil Hitler, he boomed. Today is a great day, is it not, my friends? Please, sit. Are you hungry? Call me Nicolas.

  She didn’t know how she bore it, but in the next moment she was eating, and to her surprise it was good. A smooth white wine, hot bread, potage of carrot, even a small tin of potted meat. She scowled. It would do no one any good if she were to starve to death, but she didn’t have to enjoy it. Viktor sent her warning glances from his side of the table, and Parnell kept his hand on her knee, for good measure; not as if she were really so stupid as to open her mouth and let fly; they were just making sure. By the fireplace at the far end of the room sat the two creatures who had come outside with their host to greet them, and now Bern had a hard time seeing any threat in them: they were two teenaged boys with guns in their arms, but so skinny, and cringing, they may as well have been girls cradling their dolls.

  My sons, Nicolas had said, gesturing at them. My wife died many years ago. The boys kept their eyes averted, and on one of them Bern noticed the blue-green stamp of a fading black eye. The watery old woman kept peeling her potatoes, nodding and smiling vaguely.

  For his part, their host was leaning back in his chair, watching the reporters eat and smiling his approval. When they had finished and Frank had speared the last hunk of bread with his knife, Nicolas spoke again, softly. I am so glad my meal was to your liking, my friends. Now that you are satiated, I hope, we can come to an agreement, can we not? You mentioned that you could pay for my hospitality, did you not?

  We did, said Viktor. We can. We have money. Francs, pounds, dollars. For supper tonight, of course, plus a roof over our heads, plus provisions for tomorrow. And enough fuel to get us to Bordeaux. Perhaps fifty francs would be a good deal. That is, if you please.

  I do please, said Nicolas, smiling his charming smile. I do, indeed. I will give you all that you want, the food, the gas. But I do not, most unfortunately, accept currency from those places. Those countries will presently be crushed, and all that will be worthless. Just paper, a few tin coins. Now, if you had reichsmarks, that would be something, he said, and sighed a voluptuous sigh. How I am glad that I share this day with you, he said. I must admit that I have been dreaming for this day, my friends, for years.

  Since the last war, said his mother from her potatoes. He has not let up about it. Germany this, Germany that. Takes a correspondence course. German. All sorts of books. Always a very smart boy.

  I was a prisoner of war during the last one, Nicolas said, but, really, I was kept better there than here: they valued me more there, where I could not at first speak the language, than they do in my own country. We had schnitzel for luncheon every day. Schnitzel! A marvel of precision, the German mind. These boots here, he said, rapping his vast foot on the ground, are German-made, given to the prisoners, and they’re still as good as the day I got them. I lived among those people and knew they were superior. The Germans rise, he said, dreamily. And with them a better race of man.

  Oh,
Christ, spat Bern, feeling herself flush with rage.

  Indeed, said their host. Bern saw his eyes drop to her lap, where Parnell’s hand was clutching her thigh too tightly, too high on her leg. Nicolas raised an eyebrow and gave her a private smile. Bern was not prepared for the pretty dimple in his cheek.

  Viktor rushed in. Well, we have other goods. I’ve got a gold watch, he said, and put his father’s watch on the table, looking sternly at the others. I’m sure we can rustle some more up.

  Parnell gamely took the photographs of his family out of the silver frame, tucked them back into his pocket, and put the frame beside the watch. Then he added to the pile two diamond cuff links (What, Bern thought, amused, even now, does he imagine he’s doing with cuff links in a war?), his engraved cigarette case, and a still-wrapped bar of Pears soap.

  It’s unused, he said with a significant glance at Nicolas.

  I don’t understand what’s going on, said Frank in English, but he can have my flask if he wants it, and threw into the mix a horn-and-silver flask that he had kept hidden from all the others until now. Parnell gave him an odd look; Frank only shrugged.

  Bern threw in her gold bangle and it made a furious jingle on the pile.

  Lucci fumbled, and found a pair of clean woolen socks in his pocket. All I have, he said cheerily in French. The watery old mother by the woodstove creaked out of her chair and hobbled up and took them, muttering how nice the wool was, how soft, what lovely socks they were, worth a lot, she was sure, and she patted Lucci on the head like a good child. The boys by the fireplace watched the pile hungrily, their eyes large in their faces.

  Ah, sighed Nicolas. A pile of riches. Surely more than this family has ever seen in one place before. He played his hand around in the pile for a moment, moving this bit, then that, but shook his head, and pushed them back toward the reporters, save for the socks, which the old woman stroked in her lap like a kitten. Alas, said Nicolas, this is not what I want, either.

  Well, what in bloody Christ’s name does he want then? said Parnell in English. But Viktor shushed him, and it was only when Bern saw the face of her good, strong Viktor pale, as if washed with bluing, that she began to feel cold. Frank gave a small whistle, like a kettle releasing the pressure of its steam. In the wake of this sound, Nicolas looked at Bern.

  Her, he said.

  Into the vast, frigid silence came a snicker; Nicolas’s boys, eyes like darts.

  Never, Bern said. Never, never, never.

  Not forever, no, Nicolas said, seeming not to understand her. I’m not a sadist, young lady. For a night. No more. Then you will be on your way tomorrow. Plenty of gas to get you to Bordeaux. Plenty of food, my mother’s delicious chicken. I have been far too long without female companionship, and I am a man with strong desires. You remind me of my wife, you know. Same hair. Same, excuse me, behind. Lovely behind. Now tell me, my cabbage; I know you’re American, but is there a chance your people were German?

  A sharp blow to her ankle: Lucci kicking her, and she knew he meant to remind her that this man was both bats and had a gun. So she said, grimly, Oh, in a way.

  I knew it, he said, sitting back with his charming smile. You are the purest Aryan I have seen for some time. I knew it when I saw you.

  Oh, did you, said Bern, and couldn’t help herself, saw herself telling this story to a whole dinner table of guests, saw herself shrieking one day with laughter, saying, My God, he was telling a Jewess she was the most Aryan creature he’d ever seen; even now, she gave a high little bleat of delight. Viktor, she noticed, had grown huge, was sitting up in his chair as if ready to spring; Frank was gaping, red, having apparently understood; even Parnell’s handsome brow was knotted and black. Lucci’s eyes were bowed to his lap, as if in shame.

  Your answer is no, Bern said. I would rather gnaw off my own foot.

  Very well, said Nicolas, making his mouth twist painfully. You may soon be doing so. I am sorry, but I’ll have to keep all of you fine foreigners here until the Germans come, won’t I. Prisoners. And who knows what they’ll do when they find you.

  You can’t do that, said Viktor. We’re reporters.

  Oh, can’t I, said Nicolas and it was not a question. Now, boys, he said to his sons. Lock them in the barn.

  He stood and nodded at them all, thoughtfully, and said, Good night, and after he climbed the stairs they heard his footsteps on the boards above them, so heavy they feared that great rocks of plaster would fall down on their heads. Then they moved, one by one, into the night, Lucci kissing the hand of the old woman in thanks for the meal.

  The barn was one of the buildings of stone, dark and chill, more a cellar than a barn. Inside was a great mass of hay and a mound of potatoes and one ugly old donkey that bit at Lucci when he tried to make friends. The boys shoved the reporters inside and made a great to-do about running the chain through the handles outside and locking them in sturdily, and when the reporters were alone, with just a chink in the roof for a weak light, they settled into the hay in silence. But Parnell stood up presently and began to pace between the donkey and the door, and at last spat out, How disgusting, really. That delivered, he sat down again.

  There was another long silence, then Bern burst out, Filthy. Filthy, filthy. I would commit hari-kari. Spectacular fucking brute. Never in my life would I sleep with a Fascist.

  From his corner, Frank cleared his throat. No, Bern, he said. No question. I would shoot you myself if you did it. For the principle of the thing. If there’s anything we Americans know, it’s principles. His voice in the darkness held a tremble, and Bern, who was never quite clear where she stood with him, felt a small easing inside her.

  No, said Parnell. Nothing of the sort can happen, of course. Barbaric, really. So what, old chaps, do we do?

  Bern said, Well, we sure as hell can’t wait for the Germans, and they will be here sometime soon. And even if this old barn weren’t a fortress we couldn’t escape, not without gasoline.

  I say, said Viktor, so quietly they could barely hear him, we murder the son of a bitch in his bed. And his two whelps. And leave the mother trussed outside for the vultures.

  Wonderful, wonderful, murmured Parnell, standing, then sitting again. Your fury, Viktor, it’s wonderful. In his agitation, he fumbled for a cigarette and failed to light it three times before it glowed a sudden orange in the dark.

  Yes, but, said Lucci. But how is it we escape this place?

  And you forget, said Frank, that there are three of them, and they all have guns.

  After this, a black silence enveloped them. They sank deeply into their thoughts. Without conferring with anyone, Lucci eventually rose and made a thick bed of hay, and they lay down together for the warmth. Bern was in the middle, between Viktor and Lucci, Frank and Parnell on the outside; and when Frank began to snore and Lucci’s nose let out a sleeping squeak, Viktor turned to Bern, and put his arms around her. There, safe against his smell of body and sweat and his own clovelike undertones, she realized how unsurprised she was.

  Even as she was now—unbathed, unkempt, exhausted—Bern knew she had it, that same old something. She’d had her first great love affair at sixteen, was still notorious because of it. The man in question had been three times her age, the mayor of Philadelphia, but even so they blamed her, a child. The father of a schoolmate, he had given her a ride home from school one day in his chauffeured car, and that was that. Over the year she was involved with him, his wife grew skinny and sour, his daughter turned the entire school against Bern, and her lover took her to Montreal for a week while her parents were visiting family in Newport News. She was enraptured; she felt free. She took it as her due when her lover fed her vast meals and put her in bespoke lingerie and took her to burlesque shows and, the last night, to a dinner party given by the kinds of friends who would be amused by a sixteen-year-old mistress. In that gilt-and-velvet world of closed curtains and secrets circling like electricity, there was another girl there not much older than Bern, but uncertain and clumsy wit
h her hands, her face in painted roses like a porcelain doll.

  Bern had still been vibrating with her strange new joy when the butlers set the silver domes in front of them. The lights had dimmed, and the lids were whisked away. There, on the plates, Bern saw the tiniest bird carcasses imaginable, browned and glistening with butter. There was a collective gasp: L’ortolan, a woman murmured, her voice thick with longing.

  A bunting, whispered her lover, bathing her ear in his wine-warmed breath. Caught, blinded, and fattened with millet, then drowned in Armagnac and roasted whole. A delicacy, he said, and smiled, and she had never noticed until then that his eyeteeth were yellowed and extraordinarily long.

  With the gravity of a religious ceremony, her tablemates flicked out fresh white napkins and veiled their faces with them. To hide, someone said, from the eyes of God. The porcelain girl held hers like a mantilla for a moment before she dropped it over her face. Bern did not: she watched, holding her breath, as each person reached for his own small bird, and made it disappear behind the veil. For a long time, at least fifteen minutes, there were the wet sounds of chewing, small bones cracking, a lady’s voluptuous moan.

  A stillness came into Bern as she observed this, a chill, as if she were watching from a very distant place. Later, she would read of what the others tasted just then: the savory fat, representing God, followed by the bitter entrails, which is the suffering of Jesus, followed by the bones, which lacerated their mouths so they tasted their own blood. All three tastes commingled became the Trinity. Bern, to whom Christianity was a gorgeous myth, like literature, saw then the barbarism at the heart of all the beauty.