Rodrigo Rey Rosa - The African Shore

“If I had the power,” he told him, “I would make you the honorary consul of Colombia.”

Attup smiled faintly.

“B’slama,” he said.

“See you later.”

Photos taken, temporary identification arranged with the police, chicken guts purchased for the bird, he went back in the afternoon to the pension. The owl was asleep in its cage. He was tired, and his face was covered with grease and exhaust — it was just like walking the streets of Cali, he thought. He took his toilet things from the suitcase, put on some plastic slippers, and went out in search of the bathroom, which, as a sign in French indicated, stood at the end of the hallway on the other side of a small patio. The tiles, covered with a greenish film, were dangerously slippery, and the barely lukewarm water fell lazily from a rusted pipe. It was possible to wash up: the thing was not to let any part of your body come in contact with the walls and not to let the bar of soap fall on the floor.

Back in the room, after getting dressed, he opened the little door of the cage to let the owl out. It was still growing, he thought, seeing it hop up to perch on the radiator. He noticed that its left wing had slightly fallen, but he wasn’t worried. He unwrapped the loosely packed bundle of entrails while he kept his eye on the owl, which stared back at him and opened its beak.

He threw a piece of chicken liver at its feet and it jumped to the floor.

“What happened to your wing?” he asked, seeing the owl was dragging it. He drew near, took the wing softly by its point, and extended it. The owl, with a sudden jerk, pecked him hard on the knuckle.

“Hey!” He drew back, surprised, but he knew it was a reflex: its wing was hurt. There was a blood stain on the feathers near the joint. He took a step back and sat down on the edge of the bed.

Wrapped in a cloud of kif smoke, seated in a lotus position on his bed in the pension, his back against the cold, damp wall, he invented a Moroccan future for himself. He wouldn’t go home for a long time. He’d learn Arabic. Maybe he’d become a Muslim. He’d buy a Berber wife. He had been alone a long time, after all. How many weeks had it been since he came to Tangier?

All at once he felt hungry. After counting his money and seeing with alarm how little was left — a hundred and twenty dirhams — he took his bank card and left the pension toward Boulevard Pasteur, where he knew there were teller machines.

He tried to withdraw money several times, from three different ATMs, but had no luck. His wife hadn’t made the deposit he’d asked her to make. This was a tight spot, but he wasn’t going to panic. He turned his back on the last ATM and set out for the Place de France.

The young woman in the ragged uniform was begging among the tables on the terrace of the Café de Paris. When he walked by her, she stopped begging and watched him. He smiled and she put out her hand. Without thinking, he put his hand in his pocket where he had a twenty-dirham bill, and, with a recklessness that surprised him, gave it to her.

“God be with you,” she said. She pressed the bill to her lips and walked off, crossing the plaza toward Fez Street.

He turned up another street, suddenly full of conflicting energies, happy at his own unforeseen generosity but confused, even alarmed, at the insecurity of his situation. “It must be the kif,” he thought.

It was just a matter of time until one of the ATMs would function, but the fact of being without money had an almost physical effect on him. He felt light. Now he walked very fast, uphill or downhill.

“This is nothing,” said Rashid. “My friend will cure it.”

He put the owl in the cage.

“Your friend — what kinds of animals does he cure?”

“Mostly cattle and sheep, but sometimes people take dogs and cats to him.”

“I wonder if he knows about birds.”

“He’s bound to know something. They take chickens to him too.”

The veterinarian’s office was out in Achakar, a small plateau overlooking the Atlantic, south of Cape Spartel. It was a square house, surrounded by a vegetable garden with a pergola and a well.

A dog sprang out of a tipped-over oil drum and started to bark, yanking the rope that held it. The wind was blowing and some dry thistles scratched against the rusted side of the drum and made it squeak. Telling Rashid he would wait for them there, the taxi driver got out of his broken-down Mercedes and walked over to look at some camel tracks in the dry, sandy earth by the roadside.

Doctor Al Rudani was seated behind a white desk in a parlor with green walls and a gray floor. He was tall, dark, big-nosed, and his smock was neatly pressed. The place smelled of chloroform and ammonia.

“Let’s have a look,” he said. “What have you got there, Rashid?”

Rashid spoke in Arabic with the doctor. Then the doctor turned to him, greeted him in Spanish, and asked about the situation in Colombia. He leaned over to look at the owl.

“May I?”

He took the cage, set it on a metal table, and put on latex gloves. He turned on a powerful lamp and, carefully but firmly, took the owl out of the cage. Holding its head with one hand, he pulled open the wounded wing with the other. The owl turned around sharply, stretching out its claws and flapping its good wing, then fell completely still. The doctor did not seem to like what he saw. He cleaned a bit of blood with a ball of cotton. “Tch, tch.” He lifted up two feathers between his fingers and released them; they fell slowly back in place.

“Poor thing,” said the doctor. “I don’t think she’ll fly again.”

Without releasing the owl’s head, he held it by the legs and put it back into the cage.

He turned off the lamp. “There’s nothing I can do.”

“You mean there’s no cure?”

“I’m afraid not. If you like, you can leave it with me — I’ll put her to sleep.”

“To sleep?” he asked.

“Yes. You know, the big sleep.” The doctor smiled.

“No, by no means.”

Rashid shrugged his shoulders, as if excusing himself.

“You should have sold it,” he said. “Now it’s worthless.”

He took the cage.

“Thank you, doctor.”

“It won’t fly again,” the doctor repeated. “It will suffer a lot, that’s all.”

He lifted the cage and looked at the owl, which seemed startled.

“I hope you’re wrong. But thanks anyway.”

At this moment two women entered the clinic. The older woman, about fifty, cradled a black Pekingese, which appeared to be either dead or unconscious, in her arms. She walked straight up to the doctor. The other, twenty years younger, waited by the door.

“Ah, Mme. Choiseul,” exclaimed the doctor, who promptly left Rashid to take the Pekingese.

“Look at it, would you?” the woman said in French.

The doctor set the little dog on the metal table. He turned on the lamp again and with two fingers opened one of the dog’s eyes.

“Let’s see now.” He began to examine the dog, touching its abdomen, while Mme. Choiseul caressed its head maternally.

The younger woman stared at the owl. She gave its owner a smile and said in French:

“Pretty bird.”

“Thank you.”

“Is it yours?”

“Yes.”

She drew near. Although she was slightly cross-eyed, he found her attractive.

“Did something happen to it?”

“The doctor thinks it’s got a broken wing,” he answered in French.

“Oh, what a pity.”

“Yes, he says there’s nothing he can do.”

“Look at those eyes! How did it get hurt?”

“It’s a long story.”

Rashid stood in the doorway. “Shall we go?” he said. “The taxi is waiting.”