I leaned against my grandfather's leg. I was growing a bit sleepy from the closeness of the clubhouse and the inactivity after so much bustle getting there. Da placed his hand on my shoulder, sensing my weariness. He often knew my moods before I was fully aware of them. The murmurous sound of so many voices was enough to put nearly anyone to sleep. "How many are you flying, Baudoum?" someone asked. "Three. Jenny, Moonbeam, and Hugh's own, Dickens." "Why are you flying so few?" "We've had quantity," Da smiled. "Now we want quality above all else." "I'm tossing twelve birds," a fancier said. "That's all well and good," Da grinned, "but will they fly?" There was general laughter at his sally. Pleasurable and respectful. I was pleased to know that breeders and trainers with more money and bigger lofts, twenty times the birds and ten times the means, still looked to my grandfather in matters concerning the science and sport of pigeon racing. "Baudoum!" The name was called from the long table where the club secretary sat. Da jostled me and sent me off to watch the examination of our birds for disease. "That's a good fellow you've got there," I heard someone remark before I was out of earshot. "I didn't have all that much time when my own boy was that age. It's one of the few pleasures of growing old to have a second chance with a boy like that, " I heard Da say. I checked in at the secretary's desk, paid the fees, received the countermark slips, and signed in on the entry sheet. "Is Dickens fit?" the secretary teased. I considered that for a time. "If Dickens doesn't win, he'll have done his best," I finally said. I went back to stand in companionable silence with my grandfather, knowing I'd answered as he would have done. After a bit our name was called again. We went to retrieve our birds in the small wicker baskets and took them to another long table. The clerk checked each bird off the entry sheet, assigned it a countermark number read off a rubber leg band, and placed the band on the bird. The numbers were noted on the slips of paper I'd been given. A time clock, set and sealed, was handed over to me along with three capsules. As each bird arrived back at the loft, the countermark and the slip of paper were to be placed in a metal capsule and cranked into the clock which marked the time on it. Three signatures of club committeemen crossed the seal to guard against any tampering. I watched everything with a sense of greater vividness than I'd ever felt before; wide awake now. It was no ordinary race we were to have but a six hundred mile Concourse. Something very special. The birds were placed in shipping baskets and chalk marks numbering them put on the top of the wicker lids. Moonbeam fussed a little at the handling by strangers. Jenny was placid as always. At the last moment Dickens appeared to look right at me. He murmured throatily. I reached out a finger and touched my bird on the head, ruffling, then smoothing the feathers a bit. I looked at my grandfather. Did he think me foolish? "He'll do," Da said. "He was true in the egg," I replied. I remembered the mating of my pigeon's parents. The cock and hen had been chosen in the hope that they'd produce long flight racers right from the very start. They were betrothed amid the soft conversation between an old man of seventy and a boy nearly six. Da's hands, stained and carved with time to the color and texture of oak tree bark, carefully and slowly spread Lady Valiant's wing. His fingers were as tender and gentle as a girl's. They found little resistance in the wing. "Do you see, Hugh? She gives way without a fuss. That means we should pair her with a cock that will resist the opening of its wing." "Starcross don't open so easy," I offered. "Indeed," Da said, "but he's long and rangy. Our Lady Valiant's short and squatty. It's not good to mate bodies so much different." "How about Angel?" "Better," Da smiled. "In fact he might be well nigh perfect. He likes the long flight. Let's look him over." We found the next suitor and gave him a look. "His eyes are dark and Lady's are dark. Do you hold to the view that dark should be bred to light?" Da asked. I considered that for a time. Da was never hurried when asked important questions and neither would I be. "I don't hold with it," I said finally. "Neither do I," Da said. He examined Angel and pointed out to me that the bird's nose wattles were small and the eye ceres light, a good match to those of the hen. His old man's big fingers explored Angel's chest, confirming what he already knew. He was making a show of weighing matters for the value of instruction in it for me. I knew him pretty well, you see. "Breastbone seems straight enough to me. What do you say?" My small fingers probed in the path ruffled through the feathers by my grandfather's touch. I raised my eyes to the sky for the benefit of the concentration in it. "He's not crooked breasted, " I agreed. "He's not, " Da said. I think he's a proper mate, don't you?" "Indeed," I said. I watched fascinated by the courtship that followed when Angel was put into the nest box with Lady Valiant. The cock addressed his fine intentions to the hen, confident in his manner, prepared to be persistent in the event the lady proved to be timid before his ardor. He approached her. She stood very still, looking him over with an eye that might well be described as wary. He bowed to her courteously. It was a stately introduction, quite old fashioned in human terms, dignified and strangely intense. Spreading the feathers of his tail and wing, he danced little pirouettes, charming her with his delicacy and good manners. Growing bolder, he tried to press his body against her. She gave way slowly, but with some reluctance. Her demurrer was not meant to be a rebuff or refusal of new advances. As he danced he wooed her with sweet murmurings and mutterings. All at once Lady Valiant returned his crowding caresses. Angel stood erect and became still. Lady's eyes sparkled, her neck swelled and began to pulsate almost imperceptily, then with greater vigor. She spread the feathers of her tail and thrust out the primary feathers of flight from her wings. She clearly, meant to surrender aggressively. Nodding and bobbing, she retreated invitingly a pace or two, then suddenly renewed her advances with new fervor matching Angel's ardor with her own. She attempted to place her beak into his. They kissed. She closed her eyes a bit in the fullness of the moment. Angel's head and neck pumped and shook. Lady seemed to feed upon some sweetness within his beak. They disengaged for a breath. She turned and crouched, offering herself. Angel mounted her. Their ani touched fleetingly. The sperm was transferred without need of penetration. The marriage was consummated. They would remain mated for life unless forcibly separated. Angel and Lady Valiant left the nest box and sought the reaches of the sky in which to soar and dart, tumble and cut figures in rapturous nuptial flight. Two days later Lady Valiant laid the first egg of a clutch of two at six o'clock in the late afternoon. The second my special bird arrived at two in the afternoon of the following day. I stared at the egg that was to batch into my bird; my own special bird. It was true that all the pigeons belonged to Da and me, share and share alike, but children are sensitive in the knowledge that such partnerships are really too much the gift of the older to the younger. They think more of that thing or creature which is made a special gift: a designated responsibility. I looked at my egg. It was pearly white, smooth as buffed ivory. I was certain that it was a good deal bigger than the other in the clutch. Not too much larger. Just enough to hint at its superiority. I think, had I been asked and if I hadn't been too much afraid of being laughed at, I would have admitted to the fact that I was quite sure that my egg glowed a bit, that it was touched with magic.  He was eight and nine during the two years of the Franco Prussian War, already a raiser of pigeons, interested in everything about them. The newspapers were filled with stories of the siege of Paris. Before the Germans had arrived beneath its walls, eight hundred birds belonging to societies of northern France had been brought into the city. They had settled to the lofts and would home to them. The people of Paris were isolated from the world, without means of communication, ignorant of whether or not attempts to lift the siege were afoot. On a morning in September, 1870, a balloon, the Neptune, left the city carrying official and civilian dispatches. But there was no way of knowing if it had managed to land safely beyond enemy lines. It was proposed, therefore, that the next balloon, the Ville de Florence, should take pigeons with them that could fly back with any message of success. The sixty balloons that followed carried over two hundred pigeons out of Paris to be fitted with messages and returned when needed to impart information and lift the morale of the citizens. During the severe winter of that year the ground was usually white with snow, obscuring the landmarks below and adding to the confusion of birds often liberated, against the advice of the pigeon fanciers, in fog and intense cold. Many were lost to weather, some to predator birds, and some to the guns of peasants who, ignorant of the use to which the pigeons were being put, shot them down for the stew pot. I cried when the story was first told to me. I tried to stem them or, at least, conceal them as best I could, believing tears to be a sign of weakness. Who cried over the frustration of courage that had happened seven of my lifetimes past? Da had placed his hand on my hand and reached out his clean handkerchief to me. "It's all right, Hugh," he'd say. "A fine tribute to brave hearts." In such ways Da made the birds quite human to me. I believed, ceased to credit it but, sitting here in this moment, believe again that the pigeons fly in answer to more than instinct. They race for honor every bit as real as that which governs men. I feel lifted by the thought, refreshed and strengthened in spirit. I'm young again in the certainty of such magic truth, alive to a world in which all things are possible. |
