by Meir Shalev
But the Baby wanted more than anything to reach the central pigeon loft, for it was the central pigeon loft about which he could not stop pondering and wondering. From so much pondering and wondering he imagined it to look like one of the large marble palaces from the fairy tales his uncle would tell him, and like the pictures in the French picture book, filled with hundreds of glittering blue pigeons and shiny white pigeons pecking at golden grains in alabaster troughs and drinking water from ivory basins and taking their naps on beds made of ebony embroidered pillows, with the finest linen beneath their heads.
However, when they reached the central pigeon loft he saw that it was a completely ordinary loft, with the windows and the screens and the pigeon dung and the landing shelves and the trap doors, just a lot larger than the kibbutz pigeon loft, and it had separate compartments for pigeons from other lofts and many laying compartments because here, Dr. Laufer told him, “At the central pigeon loft, we also lay eggs and we raise most of the chicks that are sent out to new lofts around the country”
On the wall of the central loft he saw the same two placards that hung in his own loft—the characteristics of a good pigeon handler and the work schedule in the pigeon loft—and then there appeared in the central loft a girl, a serious girl with fair and curly hair who was older than the Baby by half a year and taller than he by half a head.
Dr. Laufer introduced them to each other. “Just as you are the youngest boy working for us as a pigeon handler,” he told the Baby, “so is she the youngest girl. She is very familiar with our work in the loft, and she will tell you what to do.”
The Baby glanced at her and felt he would like to extend his stay by many days, so that on every one of those days the girl could tell him what to do, and he was already imagining himself leaving and returning to her, not just there and then but from every time and every place. Because he wished to make a good impression on her, he said, “I was sent all the way from the Jordan Valley specially to dispatch pigeons from here.”
“You shouldn’t talk about that—it’s a secret,” the Girl said.
The Baby was perplexed. “I thought I was allowed to tell you.”
“It’s a secret pigeon loft of the Haganah,” the Girl said. “You’re not allowed to tell anyone anything.”
“So why did you tell me just now?”
They both blushed. “There is no need to argue,” Dr. Laufer said. “Among ourselves we can talk freely It is only forbidden with strangers.”
The Baby waited a moment, then asked, “What time do you take them out for their first flight?”
The Girl said, “Just after sunrise. I have to get up really early to make it here in time; then I go straight to school from here.”
The Baby said, “I have to get up before sunrise to go to work, because our school is far from the kibbutz. How long do you keep them out for?”
“That depends,” said the Girl. “The older ones fly farther away, but the younger ones are frightened.”
“Do they let you catch the birds and hold them in your hand already?”
“Sure, for a long time. I even take baskets of pigeons for dispatch on my own. Two days ago from the horse paddock and sometimes from the Yarkon River, too.”
“I’m allowed to catch and dispatch, too,” the Baby boasted. “And today I dispatched from here all the way to the kibbutz. But sometimes I can’t help myself and I look them in the eyes.”
“What’s the name of the guy who handles the pigeons on your kibbutz?”
“She’s a girl, and I don’t know if I’m allowed to tell you that, because maybe that’s a secret, too.”
“I can ask Dr. Laufer,” the Girl said. “All the pigeon handlers and all the pigeons in the whole country came from here.”
“What do you want me to help you with?” the Baby asked.
“What do you know how to do?”
“Everything. Except whistling with my fingers.”
She burst out laughing, then grew serious. “I can’t let you touch our pigeons because maybe your loft isn’t clean and you’ve brought diseases. But you can clean up the area.”
“And what are you going to do?”
“I’ll feed the chicks that are weaning.”
The Baby was forced to admit that Miriam had not yet entrusted him with such a delicate job, and the Girl passed victorious into a neighboring compartment where the more mature chicks were housed, the ones deemed ready to be weaned from the “pigeon milk” fed to them by their parents.
The Baby cleaned troughs, his eyes all the while on the Girl through the screen. She mixed seeds that had been left to soften in water for several hours, sprinkled a bit of powdered seashell and ground minerals, then sat down with a chick in her lap. With her left hand she opened its beak, and with a tiny, narrow spoon she placed several seeds inside. She repeated this procedure a number of times, until the baby pigeon’s craw was full, and then she added a small amount of water to the spoon and fed it to the chick.
“It’s not complicated,” Dr. Laufer said behind the Baby’s back, “but it is the type of job best left to the regular caregivers and not guests. Don’t worry though—there will be chicks at your loft, too, and you will learn how to do this soon enough.”
4
JUST BEFORE DUSK the uncle returned to the zoo, peered at the Baby working with a tall, curly-haired girl, and felt a certain something strange: the flock of words that soar about at all times in people’s minds, without any order or discipline, suddenly arranged itself in his head into the structure of a sentence. And that sentence whispered itself to him: that in the future these two would be bound in love. Just like that.
He called to the Baby, who turned his glowing, happy face toward him and whispered, so as not to upset the pigeons, “Just a minute, Father. I’m almost finished.”
The uncle asked Dr. Laufer if his young guest had not been a nuisance, and the veterinarian said, “On the contrary! He helped us and made himself very useful. You are always welcome to send him to us for a few days. We ladies sometimes need assistance, and he is a professional and eager worker.”
The uncle said, “We wouldn’t wish to impose” and then “Where would he sleep?” to which the Baby was quick to respond. “I’ll be fine,” he said, and Dr. Laufer added, “There is space in the monkey cages.” Then he laughed that guttural laugh of his that commanded the attention of his listeners. Haw haw haw haw! The Girl suddenly whispered in the Baby’s ear. “That’s the way yekkes laugh. Just so you know”
The warm air from her mouth fluttered at the edge of his ear. Don’t stop, don’t move away, he called to her in his heart. Stay And the Girl murmured softly: “That’s how my father laughs. It’s how yekkes announce that what they just said was funny”
“Thank you very much,” the uncle said, while the Baby— still woozy from being so near her—prayed that not only Dr. Laufer but the Girl herself would invite him to visit again. She, however, regarded him and said nothing. A reddish tint descended from her brow to her cheeks and the Baby found this mix of hues beautiful—pink and blue and gold: her skin, her eyes, her hair.
“Before you leave, there is just one more small matter to arrange,” Dr. Laufer said.
He wrote something on a slip of paper, rolled it up, and inserted it into a narrow cardboard tube, then said to the Baby, “Your hand, please.”
The Baby held out his arm. While he tied the tube to the Baby’s chubby hand with a thin strip of cloth, the veterinarian chanted to himself an ancient ditty: “‘Dispatch a herald dove / And if she recount-eth nothing / To her wings a tiny missive do append and place it as a frontlet / Upon your arm, affixed.’”
“Too tight?” he asked.
“No.”
“Wriggle your hand a bit. Very good. Now straighten and bend it.”
The Baby did as he was told and the veterinarian said, “That’s fine. Now you can fly Haw haw haw haw! And what will you do when you reach the loft?”
“I’ll give this to Miriam.�
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“Don’t give it to her! Simply enter like this,” said the veterinarian as he spread his long arms, “with the letter on your hand. Not too quickly though, all right? Don’t frighten the other birds.”
And then what?”
“Just like every time a pigeon returns to the loft: Miriam will retrieve the letter and give you something good to eat,” said Dr. Laufer, and, turning to the uncle, he asked if he could send a few Tel Aviv pigeons back to the kibbutz with him so that Miriam might dispatch them to the zoo.
“I’ll dispatch them!” cried the Baby
This time the uncle agreed willingly, and Dr. Laufer placed three pigeons in the wicker basket the Baby had brought with him, along with a sack of message capsules and ribbons and bands and forms to be given to Miriam.
The sun set. The zoo filled with noises. The Baby understood that these were the shrieks and roars and growls that Miriam had told him about, and the Girl, who escorted them to the entrance of the zoo, smiled at him and said, “I really love this time of day ”
The Baby and his uncle parted from her and walked to the central bus station. “That was a very nice girl,” the uncle said to the Baby
The Baby wondered whether he had taken his leave of her properly and whether she had understood that he wished to meet her again, and the uncle said, “Do you know what you can do? Write a little something to her and send it with one of the pigeons that Dr. Laufer gave us for dispatching from the kibbutz. Women love to receive letters, and getting one by way of a pigeon must be very nice indeed.”
5
MIRIAM HAD ALREADY gathered the pigeons in from their morning flight and had fed them by the time the Baby appeared, his hands waving and his feet raising dust.
She smiled; it seemed she was not unfamiliar with this game. She served him a few shelled sunflower seeds and embraced him warmly from behind and said, “And this is for me, right?” as she removed the cardboard tube from his hand.
“Did the pigeons come back?” the Baby asked.
“The two blue ones returned,” Miriam said. “The younger blue one took an hour and a half, very good time. The other blue one took an hour and forty-two minutes.”
“And how long did the light-colored one take?”
“She hasn’t returned.”
The Baby felt disheartened and guilty Perhaps he should have dispatched her along with the other two and not before them?
“You did an excellent job dispatching them,” Miriam said. “Maybe she’ll show up in the next few hours.”
But the Baby was not appeased. Images of talons piercing and bullets whizzing and feathers flying passed in front of his eyes. He expressed his sorrow to Miriam again, and she said that if this had been a veteran pigeon that had proven herself there would be something to be sorry about, but since this was a young pigeon that had failed to return from her first serious dispatch, this was a sign that she would not have made a good homing pigeon and it was better this way
And then the uncle appeared, carrying the pigeons that Dr. Laufer had sent them. Miriam transferred them from the wicker basket to a spacious box, served them seeds and water, and said, “We’ll dispatch them tomorrow morning, after they’ve rested from their travels.”
The next morning the Baby recorded the details of the dispatch on the appropriate forms. He gave one copy to Miriam to keep and inserted the others into the pigeons’ message capsules. Then he and Miriam added two more small messages in separate quills. Miriam had written something to Dr. Laufer, and the Baby had written to the Girl: “I want you to take a pigeon of mine and I want to take a pigeon of yours.”
Chapter Eight
1
AT SIX O’CLOCK in the morning I was awakened by a loud noise. An old tractor was circling the house, a mower in tow It lifted and lowered, went round and round mowing the thorns and weeds with great fanfare. I went outside. The tractor operator cut the engine and removed his earmuffs.
“You the owner?” he asked.
“Not yet. And who are you?”
“Me? I’m the guy they hired to clean up the weeds around here.”
“Who hired you?”
“Your contractor,” the man said, chuckling. “Your contractor’s a woman, did you know that?”
I informed him that indeed I was aware of the fact. He returned to his work and I followed after him like a stork following a plowman, my eyes lowered to the damp ground, observing the lizards and insects and centipedes fleeing their ruined home. Even the large skink emerged suddenly, along with two thin and frightened snakes, and scorpions too, their stingers raised in fear and to threaten. There were all sorts of archaeological findings as well, proof and testimony to earlier life: a broken kitchen knife, a doll missing a leg, a faded pair of shoes — the left one a brown work boot, the right a white baby shoe.
The tractor operator finished mowing, lit a cigarette, and remained standing in the yard.
“What are you waiting for?” I asked him.
“My money. She said she’d be showing up here soon.”
And that is how I was informed by an anonymous tractor operator that I was about to reencounter the love of my youth. I thought to fetch my shaving and showering equipment from Behemoth, but it was too late: a white pickup truck with the MESHULAM FRIED AND DAUGHTER, INC. logo in green pulled up, the low, early morning sun silhouetting two images inside it. Meshulam Fried stepped out from behind the wheel and his daughter, inc., from the passenger side. Meshulam let her pass in front of him. Tirzah is short of stature, just like me, but her legs are long and her body erect. Like me and like her, her father, too, knew the charm of her gait.
I tented one hand over my eyes and glanced at her, a cut-out shadow against the low sun. What would I do when her face came into view? What would I call her? Tiraleh? Tirzah? And what would be my first words? “Hello, how’s it going?”
And Tiraleh, Tirzah—my love in the distant past and luvey in the near future—took a few steps forward and stopped. I knew that while the sun was darkening her face and making its features disappear, it was lighting up my own and exposing it.
“Good morning,” she said.
“Good morning,” I said, pouncing on the opportunity How had I not thought of such a simple opening?
“Here we are again, Iraleh. I knew we’d meet up sooner or later.”
I walked toward her and leaned sideways, her face coming into view all at once. Here she was. Her lips were only slightly thinner, her hair shot through with gray Her eyes had remained yellow-green, a few small lines gathered at their corners: Which of you were etched by time? Which by laughter?
Meshulam moved away, toured the area that had been mowed. Tirzah extended both hands and I took hold of them. We drew our faces close to one another to kiss each cheek, and like former lovers we did not smack the air with our lips but, rather, we allowed ourselves to plant them firmly on the other’s cheeks, near the corner of the mouth.
“I’m glad you came,” I said.
“Me too,” she said, smiling. “Congratulations on the house, and even more on the decision. Show it to me and tell me what you want to do with it.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, slightly embarrassed.
“What for? The place is nice.”
“Not about the house. About us. About all the time that’s passed.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry about. I guess that’s the way things were meant to happen.” She called to her father: “Meshulam, stop messing with the guy and give him his money.”
Meshulam paid the tractor operator but the man remained in the yard, watching what unfolded. Tirzah and I entered the house. “Show it to me,” she said. “Explain to me what feels right about it.”
“Me,” I answered suddenly, surprised at the existence and truth of my diagnosis. “What feels right about this house is me.”
Tirzah laughed loudly The mummified brothers of her laughter awakened in my memory, stretched, and responded with joy The air filled with hope and excitement
. She looked out all the windows and said, “You did a great job with the view” She turned her attention back to me and asked, “So what do you want to do here? Renovate or build from scratch?”
“Renovate.”
“Very good.”
“But your father already managed to frighten me. He said this place will fall on my head, that it needs to be bulldozed and rebuilt.”
She laughed. “Did he only say that or did he give you the whole performance? Did he yank faucets out? Did he pound on things? Did he listen to the walls and interpret what they were telling him?”
“Yes,” I said, happy, “he gave me the whole performance. He yanked and he pounded and he listened to the walls.”
“Meshulam likes to make an impression on people. And he likes things to be new, right up from the foundations. Who does the house belong to?”
“The village.”
“So first of all, buy it from them. It’s a good place.”
“Your father said so, too.”