A Pigeon and a Boy (19 page)

“This has to be uprooted,” Meshulam said. “The trunk’s infested and the tree isn’t giving fruit. Get it out of here before it falls on someone’s head.”

“I’ll try and save it,” I said.

“What’s with you?! The house is falling down, the fig tree is disintegrating, and both of them you want to keep? Build a new place! Plant a new tree!”

After bringing Meshulam back to his office in Jerusalem, I left a message for Liora about some trip I was making up north with an Austrian television crew and returned to the house I had found for myself I drove in silence at a constant high speed. Nothing slowed me down or stopped me; nothing diverted me from my path. All the other cars made way for me. All the intersections I passed through shone green faces at me. After getting off the main road I drove in a straight line through the fields, all the way to the house I had found for myself

Once again I removed the planks from the boarded-up windows and climbed in through the same window Once again I said, “Hello, house,” and once again the house answered. I took off my clothes and bathed myself in the pleasant April night, the month you loved so well. It’s when the first khamsin mixes with the final days of winter “like trilled keys on a piano,” that’s what you said: “hot and cold.” I lay naked on my camping mattress, the sleeping bag rolled up for a pillow I felt the house surround my body The man inside it was me.

And one other feeling was inside me as well, a feeling I did not understand at its inception but now I know was the anticipation of Tirzah’s arrival, the knowledge that she would come, the realization that a new chapter was opening, different and similar and old and new

Chapter Seven

O
N THE WALL
of the loft, Miriam the pigeon handler hung two placards. The title of the first read:

And below this it was written:

1. The pigeon handler is moderate in his disposition. A reckless pigeon handler frightens the pigeons.
   

2. The pigeon handler is loyal and responsible and carries out his tasks in an orderly and punctual fashion.
   

3. The pigeon handler is kindhearted and cares for each and every pigeon.
   

4. The pigeon handler is patient and devoted.
   

5. The pigeon handler is tidy and attentive to cleanliness.
   

6. The pigeon handler is strong-willed and maintains discipline over the pigeons.
   

7. The pigeon handler is sensitive in observing and discerning the character and condition of each and every pigeon.
   

8. The pigeon handler is industrious. There is always work to be done in the pigeon loft.
   

9. The pigeon handler is considerate of others.
   

10. 10. The pigeon handler is adept at learning and knows all there is to know with regard to the traits, eating habits, flying exercises,
    and care of the pigeon. Further, it is incumbent upon him to know how to compose short, clear pigeongrams.
    

On the second placard that Miriam hung the title read:

And below this it was written:

1. Upon entering in the morning: a general overview of the pigeons and the loft.
   

2. First flight exercise.
   

3. Scraping and sifting of the floor. Addition of clean sand. Burial of waste in the pit.
   

4. Cleaning of troughs and drinking vessels and changing of drinking and bathing water.
   

5. Pigeons return— serving of a light meal.
   

6. Updating of loft logs.
   

7. Examination of each pigeon in turn.
   

8. Special missions: banding, crossbreeding, food testing, long-distance dispatching.
   

9. Late afternoon flight exercise.
   

10. Evening meal.
    

11. General overview
    

12. Lights out.
    

“These two placards you need to learn by heart,” Miriam instructed the Baby, and told him what Dr. Laufer had told her when she worked for him as a child: that the first nine characteristics of a good pigeon handler are important for all human beings, even those who do not raise pigeons, but the tenth characteristic is important only for pigeon handlers.

“I don’t know how to whistle to them like you do,” the Baby said. “I want you to teach me how to whistle with my fingers.”

“That’s not urgent,” Miriam said. “There’s time for that.”

Several days later he watched as she tied colored ribbons to the legs of three pigeons. She summoned one of the guys from the Palmach, gave him a notepad and a pencil, and explained to him what she wanted him to do. Then she placed the pigeons in a wicker basket, shut the lid,
secured the basket to her bicycle, and rode past the cowshed and the fields. The Baby ran after her for a way but Miriam left the grounds of the kibbutz without looking back.

He returned to the loft and the guy from the Palmach standing there. “You’re too close to the trap door,” he told him. “The pigeons will be afraid to enter.”

The Palmachnik said, “Buzz off, kid.”

The Baby fell silent and moved away from him. He looked skyward and waited. After about half an hour he called to the Palmachnik. “Here they are, they’re back!”

“Where? Where are they?” the Palmachnik asked, taken aback.

“There. Here. Don’t you see them? They’re getting closer. What are you waiting for? Raise the flag and whistle.”

The Palmachnik, nonplussed by the Baby’s surprising aggressiveness and his hawk eyes, raised the wrong flag. The three pigeons were startled and ascended over the loft.

“The blue flag,” the Baby called out to him. Then he shouted, “Come, come, come to eat.”

The pigeons landed, and the Palmachnik got confused again. He scattered a few seeds on the landing shelf instead of on the other side of the trap door. The pigeons ate a little, then flew off again.

When Miriam returned, sweating and huffing on her bicycle, the Palmachnik announced, “They all returned!” and handed the notepad to her. Miriam looked inside it and said, “You didn’t write a thing!” and the Baby could not control himself and shouted, “The blue one came back first!” and “He scattered their food outside.”

Miriam was furious. “They have to know they’ve got to come inside; otherwise you can’t remove the message capsules from their legs. Now I’ll have to repeat the whole thing.”

The next day she tested the Baby to see whether he would manage to fill in her forms legibly and informed him that from then on he would greet the returning pigeons.

“This is very important,” she told him. “It is not enough for the pigeon simply to come home. Every rock pigeon knows how to do that. We have to record how long it took her and what she does when she gets back. Does she meander outside or does she come right into the loft through the trap door?”

“So when are you going to take me with you?” the Baby asked several days later, to which Miriam replied that pigeon handling is learned one
stage at a time and that now had come the time to move him up from pigeon greeter and trough cleaner to cook.

“You’ve got a lot to learn before you dispatch a pigeon on your own,” she said, placing the notepad and the pencil in his hand.

He wrote: the pea, the lentil, and the vetch provide protein. Sorghum, rice, corn, and wheat—carbohydrates. Linseed, sesame, and sunflower seeds—fats. Miriam taught him the secret to mixing the seeds, and how important it was to sniff them in case they smelled of mold, and to smash one or two of them with a hammer. If the seed was appropriately dry it would crumble, and if it was too moist it would mash.

A hungry pigeon is more attentive, more efficient, she explained to him, and livelier and lighter for flying. That was why they were fed a small meal in the morning and only after their late afternoon flight did they receive their main meal. And don’t forget: pigeons like to drink immediately after eating.

She opened the canister containing the mineral mix, which she called “gravel,” in which there were crumbs of basalt, which aids the pigeon in grinding the hard seeds she eats, and powdered ferric oxide, which purifies her blood, and coal, which keeps her digestive system clean, and crushed seashells and lime for strengthening her bones and eggshells, “just like they give the laying hens in the kibbutz chicken coops.” She added that “homing pigeons need stronger bones than common pigeons. Stronger and lighter.”

“And,” she said, “this mixture has salt in it, so you cannot give it to the pigeons before a long flight.”

“So they won’t get thirsty,” the Baby said.

“Very good. What happens if a pigeon gets thirsty?”

“She dies on the way”

“No,” Miriam laughed. “She’ll descend to drink and then in the best of cases, she’ll simply be waylaid a bit and in the worst of cases, someone will catch her or eat her.”

The Baby gathered his courage and asked what were the tiny smooth, dark seeds that she only rarely gave to the returning pigeons, and she told him they were hashish seeds, which the pigeons were wild about. A few were added to their daily meals, but a little more than that became a special treat, a prize.

“And twice a week,” she said, “we feed them from our hands.” This, she explained, is time-consuming but pleasant and useful, a chance to check on the pigeons and deepen their affection and affability Animals
fear human eyes, the scent of their bodies, the cunning of their fingers. The way to overcome all these is by teaching them to eat from a human hand. That way they grow accustomed and draw near and become loyal friends.

“The pigeon is not intelligent or sensitive or complex, like a dog or horse,” she said, “and in spite of what people say about her and how she looks, she has a difficult character. But even she understands loyalty and friendship. You don’t need to write that down. With some things it’s enough to hear them and remember.”

“Y
OU’RE TERRIFIC,
” she told him a few days later. “One day you’ll be a true
duvejeck.
”

“What’s a
duvejeck?”
the Baby asked, concerned.

“When you’re a
duvejeck
you’ll know”

“So when are you going to take me to send off the pigeons?”

“Not ‘send off! Dispatch! Before that you have to learn one very important thing: how to catch and hold a pigeon in your hand.”

Never catch it in midair, she taught him, and never outside the loft; only after the pigeon has landed and entered. The hands should be visible to the pigeon as they approach her, nothing stealthy and not too fast or hesitant or slow And always from above, so that if she takes off you can catch her. And lastly, there is the catching itself: palms hold the wings, fingers point downward and grasp the feet. “Gently Everything gently Their bodies are not simple like ours; theirs are complex and delicate, built to fly

And never look them in the eye!” she said, repeating that to animals, eye contact is an act of aggression. “Pigeons’ eyes look sideways, while ours look forward. So to them our gaze seems like that of a predatory animal or a bird of prey ”

The Baby’s hands drew near a pigeon, lowered to her, grasped her, and felt the quick agitation of her heart. His own throbbed in response. “Not too tight,” she said, and he grew anxious. “Very nice,” she said, and joy coursed through his body “Now take hold of another one—they’re very different one from the other,” she instructed, and he practiced and learned and became familiar with them, cautiously, gently, and with increasing confidence.

Several days later Miriam told him to get hold of a bicycle so that he could accompany her on one of her outings. He was short of stature and had not as yet managed to ride a “comrades” bicycle, so he asked to borrow his aunt’s “comradettes” bicycle instead.

His aunt hesitated. “That bicycle belongs to the cowshed,” she said.

“Please, Mother, please,” the Baby said. And when she heard that “Mother” and saw the hope and the desolation skittering across his brow, she consented, on one condition: that he would not ride too much and that he would practice before going off with “the young woman from the pigeon loft.”

He tried and fell, tried again, practiced until he gained his balance. Bruised and scraped, he rushed to the loft and was grateful when Miriam asked no questions, just instructed him to hurry and wash his wounds with soap and water. Then she smeared veterinary ointment on them and told him which three pigeons to catch.

They pedaled first on a dirt lane that ran parallel to the road, she effortlessly, he by pressing his full weight and breathing heavily but forgetful of his wounds and his fear and enjoying the whisper of crunching tires and his excitement at what was about to happen. Near a certain tall electricity pole they turned down a row of cypress trees and cycled toward the fields, bars of light and shadow hitting their eyes, the scent of blooming acacia trees caressing and yellowing their noses.

Several miles on, near the pump house, Miriam stopped, leaned her bicycle against the trunk of a cypress tree, and took the pigeon with a red ribbon on her leg from the basket.

“Take the notepad and the pencil,” she said, “so you can write down the color of the ribbon and the date and the hour and the place, each in the proper order.”