Orson Card - Heartfire

Jean-Jacques looked up. The goose was still there, not posed anymore, but still on the ground, gazing intently at Arthur Stuart. "I'm finish with the goose, you can let it go." He turned back to his work.

"No!" Arthur Stuart shouted.

"Arthur," said Alvin softly,

"He's got to watch," said Arthur.

Sighing, Jean-Jacques looked up. "What am I watching?"

The moment Audubon's eyes were on him, Arthur clapped his hands and the goose ran and clumsily staggered into the air. But as soon as its wings were pulling against the air, it changed into a beautiful creature, turning the powerful beats of its wings into soaring flight. The other geese also rose. And Jean-Jacques, his weariness slipping from him, watched them fly over the trees.

"What grace," said Jean-Jacques. "No lady ever dances with so much beauty."

At that Arthur charged at him, furious. "That's right! Them living birds are prettier than any of your damned old paintings!"

Alvin caught Arthur by the shoulders, held him, smiled wanly at Jean-Jacques. "I'm sorry. I never seen him act so mad."

"Every painting you ever made killed a bird," said Arthur. "And I don't care how pretty you paint, it ain't worth stopping the life of any of them!"

Jean-Jacques was embarrassed. "No one say this to me before. Men shoot their guns all the time, birds die every day."

"For meat," said Arthur. "To eat them."

"Does he believe this?" Jean-Jacques asked Alvin. "Do you think they are hungry and shoot the birds for food? Maybe they are stuffing it for trophy. Maybe they are shooting for fun, you angry boy."

Arthur was unmollified. "So maybe they're no better than you. But I'd rather cut off my hand than kill a bird just to make a picture of it."

"All these hours you watch me paint, you admire my painting, no? And now you choose this moment and tout coup you are angry?"

"Cause I wanted you to see that bird fly. You painted it but it could still fly!"

"But that was because of your talking to the bird," said Jean-Jacques. "How can I know such a boy as you exist? I am oughting to wait for some boy to come along and make the bird pose? Until then I draw trees?"

"Who asked you to paint birds?"

"Is this the question you wanted to ask me?" said Jean-Jacques.

Arthur stopped short. "No. Yes. The way you stuffed them birds back in the shop, that showed me you know the birds, you really see them, but then how can you kill them? You ain't hungry."

"I am often hungry. I am hungry right now. But it is not the bird I want to eat. Not goose today. What beautiful gooses. You love them flying, and I love them flying, but in France nobody ever sees these birds. Other birds they see, not the birds of America. Scientists write and talk about birds but they see only sketches, bad printing of them. I am not very good painter of people. Most of the people I do not like, and this makes my paintings not pretty to them. My people look like they are dead-- etouff‚-- avec little glass eyes. But birds. I can paint them to be alive. I can find the colors, I see them there, and put them on the paper. We print, and now the scientist know, they open my book, voil… the American bird they never see. Now they can think about bird and they see them. God lets you to talk to birds, angry boy. He lets me to paint them. I should throw away this gift of God except today, when you are here to help me?"

"It ain't your gift when it's the bird as dies for it," said Arthur Stuart.

"All creatures die," said Jean-Jacques. "Birds live the lives of birds. All the same. It is a beautiful life, but they live in the shadow of death, afraid, watching, and then, boom! The gun. The talon of the hawk! The paws of the cat. But the bird I kill, I make it into the picture, it will live forever."

"Paint on paper ain't a bird," said Arthur Stuart sullenly.

Jean-Jacques's hand flashed out and gripped Arthur's arm. "Come here and say that to my picture!" He forced Arthur to stand over the open sketchbook. "You make me look at flying gooses. Now you look!"

Arthur looked.

"You see this is beautiful," said Jean-Jacques. "And it teaches. Knowing is good. I show this bird to the world. In every eye, there is my bird. My goose is Plato's goose. Perfect goose. True goose. Real goose."

Alvin chuckled. "We aren't too clear on Plato."

Arthur turned scornfully to Alvin. "Miz Larner taught us all about Plato, lessen you was asleep that day."

"Was this the question you had for Mr. Audubon?" asked Alvin. "Asking why he thinks it's worth killing birds to paint them? Cause if it was, you sure picked a rude way to ask it."

"I'm sorry," said Arthur Stuart,

"And I think he gave you a fair answer, Arthur Stuart. If he was shooting birds and selling them to a poulterer you wouldn't think twice cause it's nature's way, killing and eating. It's all right to shoot a bird so some family can buy the carcass and roast it up and eat it gone. But iffen you just paint it, that makes him a killer?"

"I know," said Arthur Stuart. "I knowed that right along."

"Then what was all this shouting for?" asked Alvin.

"I don't know," said Arthur. "I don't know why I got so mad."

"I know why," said Jean-Jacques.

"You do?" asked Alvin.

"Of course," said Jean-Jacques. "The gooses do not like to die. But they cannot speak. They cannot, how you say, complain. So. You are the interpreter for birds."

Arthur Stuart had no answer for this. They walked in silence for a while, as the road led them to the outlying buildings and then quickly into the city, the ground turning into a cobbled street under them.

"I think of a question for you, King Arthur," said Jean-Jacques at last.

"What," said Arthur, sounding far from enthusiastic.

"The sound you make, no goose ever make this sound. But they understand you."

"Wish you could have heard him when he was younger," said Alvin. "He sounded just like any bird you want."

"He lost this when his voice change? Getting low?"

"Earlier," said Alvin. He could not explain how he changed Arthur Stuart's body so that the Finders couldn't claim him. Though Jean-Jacques seemed a decent enough fellow, it wouldn't be good to have any witness who could affirm that Arthur really was the runaway slave the Finders had been looking for.

"But my question," said Jean-Jacques, "is how you learn this language. You never hear this language, so how to learn it?"

"I do hear the language," said Arthur. "I'm talking their language right back to them. I just have a really thick human accent."

At this, Jean-Jacques burst out laughing, and so did Alvin. "Human accent," Jean-Jacques repeated.

"It ain't like the geese talk in words anyway," said Arthur. "It's more like, when I talk, I'm making the sound that says, Hi, I'm a goose, and then the rest of it says things like, everything's safe, or, quick let's fly, or, hold still now. Not words. Just... wishes."

"But there was a time," said Alvin, "when I saw you talking to a redbird and it told you all kinds of stuff and it wasn't just wishes, it was complicated."

Arthur thought about it. "Oh, that time," he finally said. "Well, that's cause that redbird wasn't talking redbird talk. He was talking English."

"English!" said Alvin, incredulous.

"With a really thick redbird accent," said Arthur. And this time all three of them laughed together.

As they neared Mistress Louder's boardinghouse, they could see a burly man bounding out into the street, then returning immediately through the garden gate. "Is that a man or a big rubber ball?" asked Jean-Jacques.

"It's Mr. Fink," said Arthur Stuart. "I think he's watching for us."

"Or is it Gargantua?" asked Jean-Jacques.

"More like Pantagruel," said Arthur Stuart.

Jean-Jacques stopped cold. Alvin and Arthur turned to look at him. "What's wrong?" asked Alvin.