Leena Krohn: Collected Fiction (77 page)

I began to envy humans. I thought: since I cannot live in peace as an animal, then let me be a human. They have the upper hand, and I wish to join them.

Among the birds in my area I was the only one who dreamed of something like this. I had already been investigating the lives of humans for years: I had hidden in the safety of bushes to hear the conversations of sun-worshippers on the beach, and I had followed them silently when, as the sun set, they returned to their homes.

I had been spying on them. I had watched them in secret from behind the glass as, when darkness had fallen, they turned on bright, cold lights and gathered to dine in their handsome nests. I saw that they surrounded themselves with innumerable objects, the purpose of which I could not guess, and which remained behind when they themselves were gone. I learned the beginnings of their language; I learned that a name could be given to almost everything in the world.

I have always had an excellent head for languages, the best of those among whom I was brought up. I can speak the dialect of gulls fluently, and can even exchange a few words with cormorants. But the language of humans is the most charming and complex of any that I know. I fell in love with it, I savoured its vowels and consonants in my beak and they tasted delicious; my passion for them grew and grew. When the shore was deserted, I would cry them aloud into the wind; I remembered them at night in my dreams, and to those of my children who still lived in the nest I gave human names: Ursula, Serendipity, Lionheart and Apollo. Of the dazzling light I said: “That is the sun,” and of the sea: “That is water,” and the whole world became different from before, it dissolved into its components and was built anew.

Human language and human hands! I adore hands, naked nimble hands with their five projections, each tipped with a small sliver of mother-of-pearl, and with which one can grasp, pull, push, turn, press, slap and caress. I would exchange my wings for them at any time, and I learned how to use my quill feathers as if they were fingers.

Day after day I followed humans, imitating their gestures and customs, listening to their speech and envying, envying. I became isolated from my family and friends. I ceased to be a bird, and I decided to become a human among humans.

My wife and my friends were horrified to hear of my decision. They tried to persuade me to stay and wept bitter tears, but I remained firm. I intended to go north, to the place where I had heard that a large city was situated, and live as humans lived. My youngest son begged: “Take me with you.” But I refused: “Not yet. One day I will return and take you all with me. One day we will live together again, but then we will be humans.”

Then the fateful day arrived, the day which turned my life in a completely new direction.

On the beach, day-trippers sprawled on bath-towels and drank yellow lemonade. Without further ado I stole a young swimmer’s clothes and walked without haste to the road which led to the city. This was my first attempt, and my trial by fire, but I succeeded. No one saw past my disguise, no one stopped me and tore off my stolen clothes. I melted, unnoticed, into the stream of day-trippers that flowed towards the city as the light of the summer’s day began to fade.

I did as I saw many young humans doing: I positioned myself at the side of the road and signalled with my wing the direction in which I desired to travel, and before a great deal of time had passed someone picked me up. In the car were a young couple who had also spent their day at the beach, and they enquired politely which way I was going.

I became confused, and tried to dig the name of some place or street from my memory, but my mind could recall only one word: Opera. I had no idea what Opera was, but I had snatched the word from a discussion between two young girls on the beach.

“You must be going to see
The Magic Flute,
” said the driver of the car. “We tried to get tickets too, but they were sold out.”

I did not have the slightest idea what he was talking about, but I nodded my head as if I knew everything about magic and flutes.

And then! Let’s go! I’m holding on tight!

The road, which was marked with white lines, rolled back underneath the car. The woods and fields, stained by the sunset, the chewing cows, the human dwellings, the fences, the electricity pylons—they all flew past. Everything was new and wonderful to me, ideas awoke in me of a life which was brighter and broader than the past that I had left behind at the coast, and I regretted that I had not left it long ago.

Gradually more and more buildings began to appear at the side of the road; they began to join together and become taller. The roads branched into new roads and became streets, the greenery disappeared, the daylight faded, but the bright electric lights illuminated the car’s journey. Now we travelled as if in a deep ravine, along the narrow channel left between the walls of the stone houses. Before us, behind us and on either side sped vehicles similar to the one in which we ourselves were travelling. The new lights and sounds began to frighten me, but it was too late to turn back, and at that same moment we stopped.

“This is the Opera,” said the driver.

I looked at the great, brightly lit building; elegantly dressed people hastened in through its doors.

“I hope you enjoy the performance,” the woman said. “I’m jealous that you’ll get to hear La Sambina.”

I thanked the couple for the lift, and the driver opened the door for me. I myself was so clumsy and inexperienced that I was unable to get it open.

There I stood on alien soil, stones as a matter of fact, which were cut into regular shapes and set closely side by side. I was away from my loved ones for the first time, and I suddenly felt as if someone had bitten into the side of my heart and tried to tear a large piece off. Since then my heart has ached continually, ceaselessly, and I know the name of that disease: homesickness. But it is too mild a name, since it is not simply sickness, but pain, which at times becomes agony.

The stream of people pulled me along with it. I was carried to an illuminated staircase and into a spacious lobby. The stream became narrower there and flowed towards a smaller doorway, where a man dressed in gold and red stood guard. A beautiful woman who was walking in front of me, at whose throat glittered a string of droplets, handed him a slip of paper. The man tore it in two, kept one half and returned the other to the woman. I noticed that other people who were approaching the door had similar slips. Only I was without such a thing.

I was jostled forward, and by chance my wing slipped into a small hole which was sewn into the clothes that I had stolen. (It was a trouser pocket.) Something rustled inside it. I took it out, and saw to my joy that it was a piece of white paper. Unsure, I handed it to the guard, who tore it in half indifferently with a practised air.

I still have a piece of that important paper. It was a mere bus ticket, and only the man’s carelessness or his inconceivable good nature meant that I found myself, on my first day as a human being, at the opera.

I had come into a high-ceilinged hall, whose walls were crowded with long balconies, and whose entire floor was covered with comfortable-looking chairs upholstered in red cloth. Pleasant-smelling women with bare arms and shoulders sat there, along with gentlemen who were clothed in black and white. For the first time I noticed that my own clothing differed markedly from that of everyone else present, and also that people were giving me surprised, even disapproving glances. I could not be sure if these were occasioned only by my costume or also by other aspects of my appearance, and so I sat stiffly in my chair amid the restrained hum of conversation with a lump in my throat, unable to relax.

All the chairs were pointed in the same direction, so that we were all watching heavy curtains that extended from the ceiling to the floor. It occurred to me to get up and go to see what they were covering, but at that moment the lights began to dim and a wonderful voice began to be heard from somewhere. I had never heard anything like it in my life; neither the sea, nor the wind, nor any kind of bird nor, based on my experience up to that point, even a human was capable of creating such a sound.

I forgot my surroundings and my fears about my clothing. I felt as if I had gained a new pair of wings, broader and stronger than the single pair that I had possessed before. The gnawing homesickness in my breast ceased, and although I had closed my eyes bright pictures danced beneath the lids. All of this was caused by the sounds, which went on, swelling, rising and falling. At times they lamented, at others they rang and laughed.

For the first time in my life I had come into contact with music.

It was a great evening for me. Everything that happened on the stage was living reality. The evil of the Queen of the Night and the goodness of Sarastro, the betrayal of Monostatos, the tests which Tamino and Papageno underwent and their love for Pamina and Papagena. I liked Papageno best, as he was dressed in feathers like myself, and he was lively and joyful, although not as wise and handsome as Tamino.

Those marvellous sounds! Who could believe that such things could be heard by living ears? They came from trombones and trumpets, stringed instruments, woodwind, Papageno’s glockenspiel and the throats of humans, but to me they all represented the grandeur of humanity, its nobility and beauty.

I was filled with bitterness towards the fate that had given me the wrong body. I had been given a shapeless beak, lead-grey legs, webbed feet and huge wings rather than a small, pretty human nose and a human mouth which could warble like a nightingale or argue wisely and amusingly; I did not have long, muscular legs like Tamino, or human hands that could do things that an animal cannot even dream of. But the music gave me the feeling that I was strong, that I could shape my own fate and take my life into my own wings. It was true that I had not been born human, but I could still become one.

When Papageno sang:

Oh, if I were a mouse

How I should wish to hide

A voice inside me moaned:

Oh, if I were a human

How I should create the world anew

But then I completely forgot my own body, what I had been born as and what I must become. I was a great ear filled with joy and the richness of hope, I was a member of a choir of slaves that sang:

What marvellous music!

What miraculous sound!

Never in my life have I heard

Or seen its like before.

But in due course it was over, and I stood once more in the street. The effect of the music evaporated, the homesickness returned, and when it attacked my heart once more it felt as though it had been away somewhere sharpening its teeth. But now a new feeling was gnawing at me from inside: hunger.

I knew that a river ran through the city; we had crossed it at some stage, but the lights and sounds had confused me, so that I had lost my excellent sense of direction. But I had to find the river, because rivers mean fish.

I began to wander aimlessly around the streets, and every now and then I raised my beak into the air, the better to sense the scent of water. The air which I drew into my lungs was a mixture of fumes and smoke, soot and dust. When I looked at those parts of my snow-white feathers that were not hidden by my clothes, it seemed to me as if the air had already caused them to lose their pale gleam. But through the smoke I now felt the gentle breath of water, and I quickened my pace, imagining that I would be able to drink, bathe and fish.

The river was a bitter disappointment to me. It was not a real river, but rather an open sewer which transported the city-dwellers’ rubbish to the sea. It lapped pleasantly against the stone-lined bank, but the cold gleam of the electric lights on its ripples revealed a greenish film, mixed with all sorts of rubbish, covering its surface. There were rotting food-scraps, shredded paper, bottles and cans; I could not even think of washing, let alone drinking. Fishing would also have been a waste of energy, as I did not know any kinds of fish that would be at home in the waters of a sewer.

No, loitering by the banks of the river was simply a waste of time, and I turned away, even more hungry and tired. It was already late: the streets were beginning to empty of people and cars, the lights in the windows of the houses were going out. Before that night I had never known loneliness; after that night it was my constant companion.

I arrived at a square. It was a market square, where during the day people sold all kinds of food, although I did not know it then. However, I could smell rotting vegetables, even fish, and my beak led me to some barrels and waste bins that stood at the edge of the square. They were tall, and I had to use some packing boxes to help me before I could get my hands on their contents. I dug around in the rubbish with my wing, and the smell rising from the barrels turned my stomach, but I found many herring-heads, which satisfied the worst of my hunger.

Now I was tired. The images of the beach and the reed-beds rose before my eyes; it was as if I could hear the soft breathing of my children—the reeds rustled, the moon glided into the centre of the sky, and the glittering of the stars was hidden behind its veil of light. My wife had covered her head with her wing. Alas, unhappy fool, what had I done?

I continued my wandering mechanically, searching for a safe place where I could sleep for a moment. I drifted into a park, the same one where we met yesterday. There was a fountain there, as you must remember, and the tinkling of clean water was like the music of the Magic Flute to my ears.

I threw my stolen clothes onto a park bench and waded into the basin. I drank from the glittering fountain, I wallowed and splashed, refreshed for a moment, completely forgetting my unpleasant experiences and the teeth that had gnawed at my heart, as the Magic Flute warbled to me with the voice of the dancing water.

Having cleaned myself thoroughly, I withdrew into the shadow of a tall lime tree to rest, and, exhausted by the taxing day, sank immediately into a dreamless sleep.