by Meir Shalev
“We brought you a surprise!” he shouted to the Baby and from inside the pickup truck emerged the Girl, tall and serious and curly-haired, just as blue-eyed and pink-cheeked and fair-haired as she was in his dreams and his memories.
“I came to give you a hand,” she said, a blush creeping across her face, her eyes joyful.
His heart stopped. In Dr. Laufer’s presence he did not dare touch her, but the Girl leaned her head over his. Their faces drew close, touched, caught fire. Their hands folded and unfolded, did not know where to land.
The carpenter arrived from the carpentry shop and attached the trap doors that had been brought in their frames. Dr. Laufer inspected his work and said, “It is good” and “It is very good,” and then, as was his custom, he searched the loft for splinters and nails that might cause injury and slits through which a snake or a mouse could infiltrate. He sealed and tightened and banged with his little hammer and exclaimed, “You thought we didn’t see you!” which is what he said when he inspected every new loft.
The Baby and the Girl unloaded the boxes containing the chicks and bags of seed and all the regular loft equipment from the pickup truck. Dr. Laufer dispatched several pigeons he had brought from the central loft, went to pay a visit to the Haganah loft in Jerusalem, and brought pigeons from there—young ones to dispatch from Kiryat Anavim and experienced ones to dispatch from Hulda and even more experienced ones for dispatch from Tel Aviv
“Every trip must be put to good use,” he said, then wished the Baby good luck and disappeared.
The Girl stayed on for two days at Kiryat Anavim. They arranged the bags of seed on raised strips of wood, covered them with dense chicken wire to keep them out of reach of mice, and prepared the identification bands with the month and year of banding—which was also the birth date of the pigeon—and the first letter of the name of the pigeon handler, since it was not safe to write the name of the place or the unit. They fitted the bands to each pigeon’s three front toes gathered together, pulled them over the back toe—which had been pressed to the leg—and let go.
After that, the Girl organized the individual file cards of each chick and the breeding cards, which would be filled in when the chicks had matured and were paired off, and she entered the initial information in the flock log.
In the evening, the Baby went to the dining hall and brought back bread and olives. They sat and ate next to the loft. It was a late-summer evening, hot and dry, and, as happens in the Jerusalem hills, cool caresses were woven in with the warm breezes. When they had finished eating they spread a wool army blanket on the ground near the loft and lay down upon it, side by side.
From Abu Ghosh they could hear the first evening calls of the muezzin, the jackals competing and overtaking him as they did every night. The Girl breathed into his neck. “They’re so close,” she said.
“They’re farther away than they sound,” the Baby told her.
Several shadows passed by, slipped down to the ravine, disappeared.
“Who were they?” she asked him.
“Guys from my unit. They’re on their way to an operation.”
They awakened together before dawn. From the wadi below there arose a metallic sound of digging, hoes hitting rock, pickaxes raking stone rubble and clumps of earth.
“What’s that?” the Girl whispered.
He hesitated. He thought to tell her it was members of the kibbutz digging planting holes, but instead he told her the truth, that these were his comrades digging graves for those who would not return. He grinned. “I usually dig, too, because I don’t go out on operations, but tonight they let me skip duty because of you.”
The next day the Girl returned to the central loft. In the Baby’s loft there were only the new chicks, which had not yet undergone domestication or training, and he had no pigeon of his own to give her, but she left one of hers with him before climbing into the truck that would bring her back to Tel Aviv
When the truck disappeared from view the Baby felt more alone than ever before. Suddenly he recalled his mother, who had left him and returned to Europe and was killed in the Holocaust—by this time he understood what the adults had assumed and whispered—and he thought, too, about his father, how he had come to visit him at the kibbutz but could not look him in the eye. And about his father’s wife, who had glanced around and said, “What a beautiful place—I wish I could live here …” And he recalled himself as well, the day he had said, “Don’t bring her here again. If you do, I’ll kick you both out.”
His heart tightened and grew sad. He went back to the pigeon loft, wondered at how such a bad start had turned so good: had his mother not left his father and returned to Europe, his father would not have remarried and he would not have been banished to the kibbutz and would never have met Miriam or Dr. Laufer or the pigeons or his beloved. Then he shook himself free of these thoughts and consoled himself that from here on there would be no more ups and downs and setbacks, only love for the Girl and the routine of the pigeons. This was good: a daily schedule, a work program, regular chores. These calmed and healed the heart, and he yielded to them gleefully
He awakened each morning, released the pigeons of his flock for their first flight—which grew longer and longer—and gathered them back to the loft with flags and whistles, then fed, confined, and washed them. At night he dug graves, and the hours he was required to give to the kibbutz he spent in the cowshed and the carpentry shop. Some of the fighters looked down on him, even scorned him: he lost neither friends nor blood, he added no sticks to their bonfires nor took part in their convoys to Jerusalem, and, as they used to joke back then, he neither killed nor was killed even once. The more soulful ones among them, however, regarded him with curiosity because there was something captivating about this short, chubby boy who caused pigeons — even transient ones—to swoop down to him and hover about his head and land on his shoulders.
Dr. Laufer once said at a conference that pigeons never look as fast or determined as when they return home, and they never look as bad-tempered or vicious as when they are fighting for their nest or their mate. The Baby, too, gave a mistaken impression. He still had the small, rotund body of his youth but his self-confidence had grown, and beneath the dimpled elbows and knees and hands that every baby has, his muscles had hardened. He had grown slightly thinner—just like me, when Tirzah had me building my new house—and people who know how to interpret the angle of someone’s lips and the expression on someone’s face saw on his direction and determination.
And still he maintained his old desire to teach pigeons—which know to fly to only one location—to fly back and forth between two points. Such homing pigeons, the experts told him in wonder, could be found only in India and America, the former thanks to thousands of years of pigeon expertise and the latter thanks to an unending flow of funds.
“And along comes our Baby,” Dr. Laufer exclaimed at the pigeon handlers’ conference that year, “and succeeds, with no assistance or budget, in training two-directional pigeons, which now maintain regular communication between Kiryat Anavim and Jerusalem.”
How had he done it? Well, he’d selected young pigeons whose wings were ready and whose flying feathers had sprouted, and after they completed basic flight training, he taught them that they would receive food at the loft in which they resided but water only at another loft, a portable dovecote marked with a bold color that stood out. This dovecote he gradually moved until the pigeons were eating in Kiryat Anavim and drinking in Jerusalem. And since only six or seven miles separated the two lofts if traveling by air—in other words, only about ten minutes of flight—the pigeons traveled back and forth twice daily, eating here and drinking there, and they transferred reports and instructions from command to command.
Even the dove that returned to Noah’s ark, he told his audience, could be seen as a homing pigeon returning to a portable dovecote, one that stood out in its solitude. And he began to plan a large portable loft that could be pulled behind a vehicle and hou
se many pigeons to escort armies into battle. However, at that time he had neither the budget nor the vehicle for such an enterprise, and the roads were unsafe, and the training would be impossible. The matter remained a dream, and the Baby carried on caring for the regular homing pigeons, the ones whose home was with him and the ones from the Jerusalem loft or the central loft in Tel Aviv, and these pigeons waited with longing, thinking of nothing but the screen on their prison and the great skies beyond it and the home beyond that, and they did not know what they were carrying in their wings —a love letter or commands.
3
IN THE MEANTIME, the training of a new and especially large group of chicks had been completed at the Tel Aviv zoo, and Dr. Laufer explained to the Girl that these were destined for an important task. War would be breaking out soon and the outposts in the south would be the sole obstacle standing between the Egyptian army and Tel Aviv, so it was necessary to pay visits to all those places and provide them with pigeons that would help maintain communication with central command.
“You will travel to Negba and Ruhama,” he told her, “to Dorot and Gvaram and Yad Mordechai, and if possible, to Kfar Darom and Nirim and Gvulot as well. You will need to leave pigeons in every one of those places so they can let us know if, God forbid, they are under siege. And don’t forget to tell them absolutely not to let the pigeons out for a flight, because if we are released we will immediately fly homeward, here, to our home in Tel Aviv”
All by myself?” the Girl asked, astonished.
A command car has been acquisitioned for your use, along with two young men from the Palmach, which is a lot more than other actions are receiving. One is an excellent driver and the other was wounded in battle, but he is a very good scout and knows the south well. They are responsible for bringing you to all those places and for returning you to Tel Aviv, and you are responsible for handing out pigeons and explaining to people what they must do. In Ruhama and Dorot we have pigeon handlers and proper lofts and you will bring several of their pigeons back with you so that we can send them pigeongrams, and in other places try to catch pigeons in the cowshed. If the distance is not too great there is a chance that an ordinary pigeon will return home. We’ll paint two of its feathers yellow and green so they’ll know if she has returned.”
They prepared the supplies and the equipment; they selected and marked and recorded the pigeons in two identical notepads, one that would remain with Dr. Laufer and the other that the Girl placed in her knapsack. The next morning she woke up, took leave of her parents, and left for the zoo. Her mother cried—“Where are all the boys? Do they have to send girls?”—and her father said only that “they’re counting on you out there. Take care of yourself and of the birds.”
“Each outpost will receive six pigeons,” Dr. Laufer told her. “Four of our own and another that you will get from Shimon, the pigeon handler at Givat Brenner. You surely remember him from the conferences. We’ve asked him to mark his pigeons with red bands so that at the outposts they will know which should return to each place.”
He was silent for a while, then said, “This is a slightly dangerous mission. Please watch out for the young men traveling with you—don’t let them get up to any nonsense. And don’t forget to take one of the Baby’s pigeons so he won’t worry about where you’ve suddenly disappeared to.”
The sound of a whistle came from the street. The fat man from the zoo opened the supply gate and a command car carrying two Palmach men entered and moved slowly toward the storeroom. The driver was short, dark, and stocky and reminded her of the Baby but with a tougher, more aggressive look than his; the scout was swarthy and large and walked with a limp. They brought the Girl a long Shinel woolen army coat—the nights were still cold, they told her—and a pistol.
“I don’t know how to use this,” she said.
“It’s really easy,” the large one told her. “You put your arms in the sleeves and button the buttons all the way to the top. Like this.”
The short one added, “And if you’re still cold, pull the collar up.”
The Girl grew angry and reddened while the boys shrieked with laughter that frightened the animals. “Don’t worry” they told her, “at Givat Brenner we’ll take you to a firing range.”
Cartons full of equipment and mail were piled into the command car; the fat man from the zoo heaped and tied the boxes containing the pigeons and the feedbags on top. The Girl said good-bye to Dr. Laufer and climbed into the vehicle, sitting on a bench fashioned by the boys from boxes and blankets.
The command car left the zoo and traveled south through the streets of Tel Aviv That war was impending could be felt everywhere: sandbags stood like fortifying walls at the entrances to buildings. Here and there they passed barricades and barbed wire. Silence prevailed. People in khaki walked purposefully their faces drawn and contemplative.
At the exit from the city they joined up with several vehicles loaded with supplies that had been waiting for them, and at the first opportunity the little convoy left the pavement and made its way through vineyards and orchards on yellowish-red dirt roads. Here they could see nothing remarkable but signs of spring: wildflowers sparkled, fruit trees gave off sweet scents, birds chirped over their nests, lizards dashed about, butterflies fluttered in the air. An unusually beautiful April reigned supreme, but the boys were constantly busy watching the sides of the roads. The dark, short one who held the wheel had even placed two hand grenades in a small box on his lap, and the large, swarthy one held his Sten gun with two hands while his eyes skittered between the road on the map and the road on which they were traveling. When one of the vehicles in their convoy sank in the sand he commanded his people to lie low in a circle around them, watching and guarding, until the command car could pull it out.
They reached Rishon Lezion, and after passing the winery they parted from the rest of the convoy The others were traveling to Hulda, while they were heading to Givat Brenner by way of the fields. Shimon, the pigeon handler at Givat Brenner, was happy to welcome the Girl and asked her whether she still managed to meet up with the Baby
“Whenever possible,” she told him.
“Nice young man,” Shimon said.
“We ladies would agree,” the Girl said, and Shimon laughed.
“Let’s just get this war behind us and there will be time for those matters,” he said. Then he apologized. “I’m probably sticking my nose in where it doesn’t belong. I’ll shut up now”
His pigeons were already marked with red bands and waiting in their boxes. Shimon said, “Dr. Laufer thinks only expert pigeon handlers can take proper care of them, but he shouldn’t worry The folks at the outposts won’t need to tame or train them—all they need to do is feed them, give them water, make sure they’re not sick. All the people down there are farmers; they know how to raise fowl. There’s not such a big difference between chickens and pigeons.”
“Just don’t say that at the next conference,” the Girl said. “Dr. Laufer would be very offended.”
“I’d recommend that at every one of your stops you find a responsible kid to take care of them,” Shimon said. “A kid like that is better than any adult. We know that because we were just like that. You should teach that responsible kid how to send pigeongrams, so that if the children are moved out when it gets too dangerous, like it already has in other places, then they can send messages of encouragement to the parents, who will stay behind to fight. So now, good-bye to you, and good luck.”
They passed among broom shrubs snowy with the potency of their blossoms, alongside endless rows of almond trees that had finished blooming, by vineyards soon to flower. The red loam yellowed, the temperature of the air rose, and the boys told her of villages and towns whose inhabitants they needed to beware of, names she was familiar with from headlines in the newspapers: Bureir, El-Barbara, Majdal, Beit Daras.
The short one was a driver nonpareil. Once, a roving band approached from a ravine, shouting and shooting in their direction, and he hasten
ed to get them out of there, sailing the heavy command car over the dunes in a most amazing manner. The large swarthy one was a master of navigation and, more than that, at guessing the right direction to take at every junction. In his knapsack he kept a jar filled with hamantaschen pastries. “My mother’s,” he explained. “I eat them all year round, not just on Purim.”
4
AND SO THEY TRAVELED, from dry riverbeds to hillocks, from furrowed fields to watermelon patches, from fallow fields to orchards. They drove then stopped, from outpost to outpost, in a journey that she would never forget. And so they pushed southward, she and her two escorts, who did not cease to amuse her with riddles and stories and songs and with strong, unsweetened coffee, even after they had watched her dispatch a pigeon from the side of the road and knew her heart was given to the one in whose loft the pigeon would land.
“He’s probably tall and blond and handsome like you,” the short one said.
She laughed. “In fact, he looks like you: small and ugly and dark. But you’re already a young man, while he’s still a baby”
“What does he do?”
“Like me: he misses me and waits and takes care of pigeons for the Palmach.”
At each outpost she left behind pigeons and taught what she could in just a few hours. At each outpost she reminded them that it was forbidden to let the pigeons fly since their home was in a different location. At each outpost she explained to the carpenter how to fix up an old shed or shipping crate, one that would be large enough for the pigeons to fly about so their muscles would not atrophy and they would not grow weak. At each outpost she recommended that they catch a few stray pigeons around the cowshed and transfer them to a nearby kibbutz, just to be sure. And at each outpost she found and worked with a child whose eyes widened and reminded her of herself and the Baby