Patricia Ratto - Proceed with Caution - Stories and a Novella

Putting it in a box and beginning to think about what to do, how. Not knowing where to seek help, nor what sort of creature the thing is, which, on closer examination, seems to be a pigeon chick, gangly and rustic. Surfing the Internet and coming across a couple of videos that explain everything, or nearly everything. Realizing that he urgently needs to go out again, to the pharmacy seven blocks away, to buy baby cereal, a syringe to feed it, and iodine solution to clean the wound. Once more braving the cold—more intense now because it’s almost nighttime, walking, wondering why this thing had to fall from the sky, walking, arriving at the pharmacy, asking for the baby cereal and seeing how the clerk smiles at him the way you smile at a father who’s good to his son and who goes shopping for his wife, but he has no son, no wife, no girlfriend, no family, nothing but that creature; wondering why he hadn’t just left it where it fell so that the chimango might carry it off again; then asking for the syringe, and the iodine solution after that; and explaining, as if making excuses for himself, that it’s to feed and heal God-knows-what kind of a chick that he found in the park; the clerk looking at him indulgently, the way you look at an idiot who’s trying to revive some dumb bird; noticing that the clerk is pretty cute, but at that moment unable to summon any feeling but hatred toward her; forcing a goodbye, paying with the last of his money for the month; walking; and wondering what he’ll find when he gets home; weighing the possibility that he might find it dead; inexplicably hoping he won’t; picking up his pace; opening the front door; reaching the kitchen in two steps; peeking into the box and seeing it there; still vibrating, like the tuning fork he uses to tune his guitar. He goes back on the Internet, turns on the video and follows the instructions: first the iodine solution and a speck of cotton that he dips in it and gently swabs on the wound, wondering if it burns, and if in any case that burning isn’t life itself. Finally he prepares the food, places it in the syringe, opens the bird’s beak, introduces the paste little by little so that it won’t choke, taking care not to cover its nostrils, the creature’s round eyes as wide open as can be. And then a sleepless night, sleeping just a little; rising at dawn, running to check on it, watching it stand and secretly, internally, celebrating; going to the University so as not to give up the vices of the chronic student; returning home, eating something, drinking water because there’s no more juice or wine; feeding the creature, and giving it water, too; having a mate , then a sandwich for dinner, sleeping, getting up, going to check on it, feed it, rejoicing at its hunger and how its wound is healing, going to the University, getting home, eating—both he and the creature—playing the guitar, the creature spying over the edge of the box, then sleeping, getting up, going to check, taking it out of the box, watching it suddenly move, eat, shit, drink water, growing unbelievably fast, and suddenly thinking that what fell out of the sky is something like a ñandú , and one day shooing it out to the little square of grass on his tiny patio, drinking, eating, sleeping, shitting—he and the ever-expanding creature that looks more and more like a ñandú ; noticing one day (but he’s already losing sight of which day it is) that a strange, hard thing is growing on its head, and one afternoon seeing some black feathers pop out, silky and fine as hairs, and noting that the protuberance on its head is turning into something like a bony crest, and beginning to imagine that it’s not a ñandú , that it has to be something else; and consulting with a veterinary student who says no, no idea, but he’ll try to find out; and getting up in the middle of the night, after a murky nightmare, and going over to the counter for a glass of water, looking out at the little patio, determining that the creature’s face and part of its neck are completely covered with minuscule rainbow-colored feathers, and standing there, staring, the creature, in turn, with its now enormous feet, staring right back at him. Becoming aware that by now it must come up to his knees, and realizing, after surfing the Internet, that what he has in his house is a cassowary, an Australian bird, huge and solitary, flightless and potentially very aggressive, with its sharp talons and rigid crest, even to the point of causing human deaths. Wondering again and again where that Australian cassowary might have come from, thrown to his feet by a chimango , in any case a local species; wondering, incidentally, why him, and beginning to doubt everything, the chimango , the entire episode, his memory, his eyes, which now contemplate the oversize creature, strange and lovely, curled up in one corner of the patio. And unable to feel fear or fright, but only sorrow for it, a cold, blue sorrow; deciding then to find a more appropriate home for it, asking here and there, taking it to a neighbor’s farm, but it doesn’t last long there, having kicked against the wire fence with its talons and frightened the dogs, the chickens. Discovering, when they return it to him, that the creature recognizes him, producing very strange, but friendly, sounds—as if communicating with one of its own—and lies down at his feet. Receiving offers, then, from people who want to buy it, fearing the intentions of some of those people, finding out that there’s a vedette in Buenos Aires who wants to make herself an outfit from the exotic plumage of his cassowary, seeing it plucked alive, to prevent its plumes from losing their shine and to allow for the possibility of their growing back; becoming aware, also, of clandestine animal fights, fights to the death, on the outskirts of the city, and feeling nausea and disgust at the mere idea of having saved the creature just to hand it over to its death or to a hellish life in exchange for a few pesos; trying to get in touch with environmental associations to return the cassowary to its habitat, but finding it too expensive and impractical; allowing it to enter the apartment, so as not to confine it to the territorial meagerness of his patio; knowing that this decision is like resigning himself to chaos and the unforeseen; sharing spaces, being invaded, becoming even more disorganized than he was before; looking it in the eye one day and realizing that things can’t go on like this and once again not knowing what to do. Finding himself one afternoon in the midst of his turmoil, peeling an orange and hearing a gut-wrenching screech coming from the patio and going outside just like that: startled, with a half-peeled orange in one hand and a knife in the other; seeing it come toward him, and suddenly, without knowing how, understanding that the knife blade has disappeared and lodged itself in the dense black plumage beneath its maw; detecting a bit of blood spurting out; suddenly managing to kneel and receive the cassowary’s head, which falls, like an offering, against his chest, the serene eyes fixed on him, and all the turquoise of the head and neck feathers spilling over his hands.

When he looks backward, that is what he can see: a living thing, which turned out to be a cassowary, falling on him from the sky, and he, no longer knowing where to go, now sitting in that church, hearing a talk about the end of the world, his hands tinted a blazing, iridescent turquoise that he hasn’t been able to remove, no matter how hard he’s tried.

SUDDENLY I STOP, my bicycle between my legs, my feet resting on the sidewalk, in order to look through the window of the Neko Café. A blonde server waits on a couple sitting beside a cat on one of the long sofas in the place. The boy, his body tilted slightly forward, pronounces a phrase that I can’t quite hear because of the distance, the thick glass that stands between them and me, and also because of the incessant noise of cars in the street, but no doubt he’s ordering coffee for both of them and something for the cat. The girlfriend leans against the back of the sofa and caresses the enormous animal, fascinated: she runs her fingers through its soft fur, both of them with eyes half-closed; you can tell that both the animal and the woman are enjoying it. The cat is a Ragdoll, characterized by its extremely docile character. I’ve always been a big fan of cats, curious about the various breeds, which I’ve read about, and still do, all the time.