Richard Zimler - Hunting Midnight

Daniel, stymied by his fork and knife, used his hand to lift a gargantuan piece of cake to his mouth, dripping custard on the table. I was about to divert Mama’s attention from him with a volley of questions about cake recipes, but she must have thought I was about to criticize him. She caught my attention by tapping the table, warning me with her stern eyes not to shame him. He remarked our coded glances, however, and grew self-conscious, biting his lip and placing his cake back on the plate. Then, for the first time in history, Mama picked up a piece of cake with her fingers and placed it in her mouth. To my utter astonishment, she proceeded to lick her fingertips.

“Yummm,” she said. “My, that is good, isn’t it, Daniel? You can have more when you finish that piece. So eat up.”

He smiled, then pulled his turtle face, which made Mama laugh.

I suggested that the time had come for us to begin painting.

“Not in those clothes, you don’t,” Mama warned, wagging her finger. “You, my son, are to wear your old smock. And I will fetch something for Daniel from the Lookout Tower.”

“The Lookout Tower? Are you sure you wish to venture up there?”

It was our storage room, up an ironwork spiral staircase from our second-story corridor. It boasted a huge octagonal skylight of red and yellow glass, through which there was a glorious view of the rooftops of Porto, but several panes leaked piteously. Recently, I’d discovered a dead lizard lying in a puddle.

Mama folded her arms over her chest and glared. “You know, John, you must think me made of lace. I’ll have you know that when I was your age I was often just as filthy as you.” At that, she stuck out her tongue at me and laughed.

I ought to have been pleased that she felt so at ease with us, but children tend to be shamed by singularity in their parents. When Daniel and I were alone, I apologized for her. He smacked me in the belly and said, “Your mother is the best, you idiot!”

Mama watched us for a time from the back door while we painted our carved birds on the patio. Blessedly ignorant of Daniel’s plan, she was relieved that we were not up to mischief. Luckily, I knew nothing of his strategy myself or I’d have been tempted to own up to our proposed wickedness.

I had never previously believed that I could be capable of making something lovely with my hands, but after a few hours we had crafted startling likenesses of a falcon, two goldfinches, and a wren.

We applied ourselves happily to this work every afternoon until the evening of the Twenty-Second of June, the night before our secret dawn rendezvous at the Douro Inn with the bald birdseller, by which time we had twelve likenesses. Mother came into the garden to inspect our creations when they were nearly complete. She beamed with astonishment, her hands to her mouth, and made not a single mention of the streaks of paint covering our smocks and hands.

“You two are the cleverest lads I believe I shall ever encounter,” she said proudly.

“Only one problem, Senhora Stewart,” Daniel observed. “They have to be able to perch.”

Mama suggested we hammer two short nails into each belly as feet, then tie a clasp fashioned out of wire to them. Upon receiving our approval, she rushed out to purchase these materials for us.

When we were finished, we tested a jay on her index finger. It gripped perfectly. We gave it to her as a gift, reducing our lot to eleven. She kissed me, then Daniel. From a moment’s hesitation, I sensed the lad’s soiled face and fingernails rankled her. That his presence might have reminded her of a sorrow in her past never entered my mind for a moment. In any event, it was too late for her to hold herself back, for she was most fond of him already.

The next morning, just after dawn, I slipped into my father’s study, took out his inkstand and quill, and wrote a brief note informing my mother that I needed to leave early for my tarn and not to worry. Scripted as adultly as I then knew how, full of elegant curls and loops, I was hoping, of course, to be given credit at the very least for good penmanship. The things I did as a nine-year-old to test Mama’s patience … Suffice to say that she could surely have had a winning argument for chaining me permanently to a metal standard in her bedroom, just as the witch had done to my father after he’d been turned into a toad.

I left the note on our tea table, then dashed outside to meet Daniel at the Douro Inn. Ten minutes after my arrival, I spied him trudging up the street, carrying our flour sack of painted birds on his back.

“Hey, there you are!” he hollered when he saw me.

Joy rose up in me, and though he motioned for me to stay put, I could not help myself from running to him. He smacked the top of my head playfully, and when I yelped, he did too.

The hot scent of onion was radiating from him; for breakfast, he sometimes ate one boiled and sliced onto a piece of stale bread. I insisted he eat an apple I’d pilfered from our fruit bowl, but he shook his head. “My stomach’s all grumbly,” he said, frowning.

Making a circle with his mouth, he blew onion breath in my face. While I held my nose, he began to explain his plan to me in a hushed voice. I immediately had grave doubts, since I believed my parents would be furious, but I didn’t speak of them; I was unwilling to spoil things. Then, while I was on the lookout, the birdseller’s covered wagon appeared. With a shout, he brought his horses to a halt by the inn, and he and his wife ventured inside.

“Now!” Daniel whispered to me.

We ran to the back of the wagon, where we untied the knots of the canvas flap and jumped inside. The cages were piled one on top of another. Feathers flew as the birds began flapping and chirping, rankled by the disturbance. I was frightened that the parakeets and other exotic species might die if we carried out our plan, but Daniel declared, “Better a death in the forest than jailed.”

One by one we opened the doors to the cages and coaxed the birds free. A good many were reticent, and others were plainly fearful. It took much cajoling, but soon fifty-seven birds, by our count, had flown off to their new lives. Daniel’s expression was one of fixed determination throughout. He worked with the swift, assured movements one might expect of a wood-carver. Only when all of the birds had been freed did he permit himself to smile and raise his fist in triumph. “Good work, John,” he whispered.

Covered with feathers, feeling the golden weight of freedom in my hands, I smiled back. Yet a pulse of worry was throbbing at the back of my head. If we were caught, the birdseller would cane us to our knees, and my mother would never live down the shame. I could already hear the lecture my father would give me upon his return: I thought that anysonof mine would know better …. I’d likely never be allowed a dog.

The astounding thing was that I truly did not care a damn. I didn’t regret my rash behavior, even if it meant my demise.

Though the birds were now free, we did not rush away, for there was still the last part of our plan to bring to fruition. Daniel handed me five of our painted birds, keeping six for himself. We began placing them in the cages, twisting the wire feet of each wooden creature around its perch so that it posed in a lifelike position.

Most people would have considered it a waste of time to carve and paint our birds only to give them away, but gift-giving was Daniel’s unspoken motivation; he wished not only to right a terrible wrong but also to create for the world something beautiful.

As he was fixing the last carving in place, we heard the birdseller and his wife coming.

“Hurry!” I said.