Stanley Elkin - The Dick Gibson Show

“‘I don’t know, Lieutenant.’

“‘You said they’ve got some stuffed dodos at the museum.’

“‘Representations, cunning dolls.’

“‘Let’s take a look at them, see what all the fuss is about.’

“We went to the museum. Collins treated. I knew the collection pretty well by now and I started to take him through. He wasn’t really paying much attention; he barely glanced at the glass cases. ‘We could still be in London, you know that? You had to go haywire.’

“‘No excuse, sir.’

“‘No, hell, water under the bridge. Boy, it sure spooked me when I learned you were so highly connected. What did you have on that general, anyway?’

“‘I once took a burr out of his paw.’

“‘Yeah. Ha ha. You know something? I don’t think this war can last much longer. You going back into radio when it’s over?’

“‘Yes sir.’

“‘Not me.’

“‘No sir?’

“‘Television.’

“Oh.’

“‘That’s where the money will be. Radio’s had it.’

“‘I’ll stick to radio.’

“‘Will you?’

“‘Yes sir.’

“‘Well, it’s all a matter of what you’re comfortable doing, I guess.’

“‘It’s been pretty good to me,’ I said.

“Soldiers had been talking this way for hundreds of years in the respites before big battles. I don’t think Collins saw me, but I began to cry. A chill went through me. Something about our voices, the sound of our dropped-guard friendship, told me that something terrible was going to happen. As he spoke hopefully and confidently about the future, I expected to see Collins die, to be hit by a grenade, his head torn off. Before long, I thought, he’ll be dead at my feet, his neck broken. I wanted to tell him to hush, but of course I couldn’t.

“Then something odd did happen. We were in the picture gallery. All about us were the dark oils of the early settlers — pictures of dodo hunts, the excited Dutchmen ruddy and breathless from the chase, the dodo cornered, maddened perhaps by its ordeal; other paintings, still lifes of Mauritian feasts, tables spread with the island’s fruits, halved cuchacha melons white as moonlight, tangled wreaths of the fruit vines that trellis the cones of the volcanoes, the dodo birds prepared for cooking, split, the guts, like long, partially inflated balloons, tossed into a slopbucket, their long necks limp, the beaks open in death and their bare, old men’s cheeks flecked with blood. I had thought we were alone, but suddenly I heard a low bark of heartbreak. We both turned. It was the captured Japanese civilian, sitting on one of those benches that they put in the middle of picture galleries. There was a strange rapt expression on his face, and he was weeping. Probably he didn’t see us.

“‘How did he get loose?’ the lieutenant whispered. I shook my head. Collins drew his service revolver — since that time in Broadcasting House when he’d placed me under arrest he always wore one— and pointed it at the man. ‘Hands up,’ he commanded. The scientist appeared not to have heard and Collins walked closer. ‘I said hands up.’ Still the fellow did not acknowledge us. ‘Hands up and stop crying.’ At last the Japanese turned to Collins. He seemed very tired. He raised his arms wearily.

“‘What are you doing here?’ Collins demanded. The Japanese just stared at him. He looked like someone in touch with something really important who was suddenly forced to deal with the ordinary. I was glad I wasn’t the lieutenant and didn’t have to ask the questions. ‘Come on, fellow. You don’t have to speak our language to get our meaning,’ Collins said. He waved the pistol at him. He shook it in his face. ‘Move out smartly … I said move!’ The man merely looked away from Collins again and stared across the room at a large painting of a dodo bird. He rubbed his eyes. ‘And you can cut out that sniffling,’ Collins said firmly. ‘We’re not barbarians. We’re American soldiers and you’re a prisoner of war, subject to rights granted you under the Geneva conventions. You’re our first prisoner and we aren’t exactly sure of what those rights include. We’ll have to look them up, but anyway we’re not going to hurt you. You have to come along with us, though.’

“‘I am not afraid,’ the Japanese said calmly. ‘And I will go with you. But first, can you please give me one moment alone in here? As you can see, this is the last gallery. Obviously I have no means of escape.’

“I must confess something. I was very excited at the prospect of taking a prisoner. ‘Don’t do it, Lieutenant — it’s a trick,’ I said.

“The man looked at me contemptuously. ‘Please, Lieutenant,’ the Japanese said, ‘you can see that there is no escape.’ He patted his pockets and opened his palms. ‘I am unarmed.’

“‘How come you talk such good English?’ I asked threateningly. He seemed disappointed in me. I didn’t blame him; I felt my sergeant’s stripes sear themselves into my arm.

“‘I am a scientist,’ he explained coolly, looking at the lieutenant. ‘English is the official language of ornithology.’

“‘Hmph.’

“‘Please, Lieutenant, I will go with you now. My meditations’—he looked at me—‘are over.’

“He rose, his eyes downcast, his body just visibly stiffening as we went by each of the paintings. In the gallery showing the environments of the dodo birds he would not look up, and once, when his hand accidentally brushed against one of the glass cases, he jumped back as if flung. ‘Pretty odd behavior for a so-called scientist, wouldn’t you say, Lieutenant?’ I whispered in Collins’s ear, regretting my style even as I spoke. My stripes lashed me, driving me to feats of clown and squire.

“Once outside the museum the Japanese seemed more comfortable. We took him back to the garrison and let ourselves into the guardhouse.

“‘How did you escape?’ the lieutenant asked our prisoner.

“‘I didn’t. I was abandoned. They forgot about me.’

“‘What were you doing at the museum?’

“‘I’m an ornithologist.’

“‘You’re the one who discovered the dodo.’

“‘No. I identified him.’

“I was still smarting from all the things I’d said up to now. ‘Listen, Lieutenant,’ I whispered, ‘I think there’s more going on here than we appreciate yet. Give me a few minutes alone with him.’

“‘Why? What good would that do?’

“‘I think I know some ways of getting him to talk.’

“‘He’s a prisoner of war, Sergeant.’

“‘Yes sir, but our buddies are out there. I think this gook knows more than he lets on.’ The scientist rolled his eyes.

“‘Many hundreds of years ago—’ he said.

“’ Talk,’ I hissed.

“‘Many hundreds of years ago, during the dynasty of the Emperor Shobuta—’ the man said.

“‘That’s it,’ I said lamely, ‘keep talking.’

“‘ … there suddenly appeared in Japan, on the island of Shikoku — your Indian word “Chicago” derives from this — a single specimen of the genus Raphidae Didus, what you call dodos. How it got there is unknown, for Japan — this was in the thirteenth century, three centuries before the discovery of Mauritius — was an insular nation which had no dealings with the rest of the world. The bird was flightless. Ceramics from the era show that its wing development was even less than the Mauritian representations. Naturally, the bird was a curiosity. The curator of the Shikoku Zoo — we are not barbarians either, Lieutenant; Shikoku had a zoo long before one was ever dreamed of in Europe — did not know how to classify it and was inclined to put it with the animals rather than in the aviary.