Leena Krohn: Collected Fiction (78 page)

An angry man dressed in blue with a peaked cap on his head woke me up.

“You can’t sleep here,” he said. “You can’t even lie down. And the rules say that you count as lying down as soon as one of your legs is on the bench. Come on, move it. Go home or go to work.”

“I do not have a home, or any work,” I said innocently.

“Oh, you don’t, do you?” asked the blue man. “In that case I’ll have to arrest you for vagrancy.”

“What is vagrancy?” I asked.

“It’s when you sleep in the park because you haven’t got a home or a job or any money.”

It was true, I was a vagrant. I did not have two pence to rub together, but I had often heard humans talking about money.

“What do you mean when you say you will arrest me?”

“You must be pretty simple,” said the blue man. “And you’ve got an odd way of speaking. Where are you from?”

“Over there, very far away.” And I indicated with my wing the direction in which I knew the sea foamed, salty and cold.

“From abroad?”

“From abroad,” I said, for at that point I still did not quite understand the borders between lands and nations, and I thought ‘abroad’ was the opposite of “inland.”

“Right. Show me your passport,” the blue man said.

“What is a passport?”

“Look, stop messing about or there’ll be trouble. Passport, now.”

I fumbled anxiously in my clothes in the place where that evening I had found the scrap of paper which deceived the Opera attendant, and hoped that an equally happy chance would save me this time. My wing grasped something that rustled; I pulled it out hastily and slapped it into the large, outstretched palm.

But the blue man’s face became enraged, he threw my offering to the ground with an angry gesture and grabbed me by the collar.

“Right, we’re going to the station.”

He dragged me behind him through the empty morning streets, as the rising sun glittered in the topmost windows of the houses and the morning breeze whirled the tatters of yesterday’s newspapers before it.

Then we came to the “station,” as he called it. Behind some tables sat more blue men. They were yelling into odd-looking gadgets, which from time to time rang shrilly. They were telephones, I know that now. Others were talking sternly to people whose escorts were holding them by the arm, just like me.

“What’ve you dragged in off the streets this time, Henderson?” someone asked my escort.

“This gentleman’s a foreigner, but he doesn’t seem to have a passport. And d’you know what he had the nerve to do when I asked for his ID? He put a used tissue in my hand! Used!”

“I see, so we’re a comedian, are we?” said the blue man who was sitting behind the desk. “And your name is?”

I did not reply. I could not reply. It had come to my notice that all humans had names, but I myself had not yet acquired such a thing.

“Name? Occupation? Address? Place and date of birth?”

Anxiously, I said the first name that came into my head: “Papageno.”

“You from Italy then?”

Once more I did not reply, and he clearly took this as a confirmation, as he wrote something on his paper.

“I suppose you’re a musician, are you?”

I did not understand the word, but I nodded anyway.

“What instrument do you play?”

I still was not sure what the man meant, but he continued: “Violin?” He raised one of his hands to the level of his shoulder and made sawing motions with the other. “Piano?” The fingers of both hands drummed on the table-top. “Flute?” He pursed his lips and exercised his fingers in front of his mouth.

Now I understood, and I nodded enthusiastically. The magic flute! I was Papageno, and of course Papageno played the magic flute. For a moment I believed it myself, although of course everybody knows that an individual who has wings instead of hands cannot play any kind of flute at all.

The man who was questioning me looked a little more friendly now. He bent towards me and continued confidentially:

“My daughter plays the flute as well, very lovely. But her flute teacher’s ill and we haven’t been able to get anyone else. How would it be if you took her on, Mr. Papageno?”

I had fallen into a trap. I tried to stammer out some objections, but he leaned even closer and whispered:

“This could be very advantageous for you, you understand. Passport and work permit and so on . . . ”

So that was how things were. I remained stubbornly silent.

“But if you can’t see your way clear . . . Well, in that case, you’re free to go. But you can’t live here without a passport and work permit. You’ll be deported back to Italy.”

I did not know where Italy was, or what it was like, but I knew that I did not want to go there. I could not become any young girl’s flute teacher either, but there did not appear to be any other options. The blue men waited for my decision. I looked anxiously around. The window behind the men was open: the sounds and smells of the waking city wafted in through it.

Wings! I had broad, powerful wings. When I had begun to become a person I had learned to use them like hands, and I had forgotten their original purpose. Now I felt them rising and spreading. Before the astonished eyes of the peaked-cap wearers I leapt onto the table, from the table to the window, and from the window I glided down into the open space formed by the back yard. Half-flying, half-running I sped through the gateway into the street, but once there I could no longer take advantage of my wings. Humans could pass by beaks and feathers with nothing but a glance, but even a city dweller would be startled by a flying man.

I walked quickly, glancing behind me, but I did not notice anyone following. Perhaps the blue men considered me too insignificant to pursue. When all was said and done, I was not a criminal, I was merely a vagrant, and in the big city vagrants were probably innumerable.

The Pelican’s Story 2

My first job

For the first time I understood how constrained humans were, and how free I had been in my life up to that point. I had not had any walls that I could call my home, nor had I had a workplace other than the sea, where I fished to keep body and soul together. But there no one had demanded a passport or work permit, nor had anyone called me a vagrant or forbidden me to sleep where and when I desired. I saw, as if in a mirage, the sand dunes undulating once more before me, the sea stooping before them and spraying them with its salt, the tops of the pines swaying and the south-westerly wind ruffling my feathers.

But I gritted my beak and continued my journey. I could not turn back yet, not yet, for there was so much in the city that I wanted to find out about, so much which excited my curiosity. I did not wish now to hear the flurry of the wind, I wished to hear the sound of the magic flute, which called me to adventures in the world of humans, and assured me of its mystery and richness.

But my stomach cared no more for the wind than for the magic flute: it required fish. Therefore I directed my footsteps towards the market square, and I found it without further delay; the city was beginning to become familiar to me.

Now it was completely different from how it had been on the previous night. People swarmed among the stalls, and the stallholders cried the day’s offers. On the tables were spread every kind of food imaginable: tomatoes, carrots, potatoes, parsley, berries and fruit from the South. But I was only interested in the fish-stalls, above which gulls called and dived.

“I would like some herring,” I said to a plump lady, in front of whom lay a whole mountain of silver, but to my disappointment already dead-looking, fish.

“How many kilos would you like?” the lady asked.

“No, no kilos, I would like herring,” I said, louder now.

She must have thought I was joking, since she burst out laughing. But at that point I had not mastered measures of weight or volume, and I really did think that a kilo was some kind of fish. I still had a few things to learn.

“Is one enough for you, sir?”

“Dear me no, I shall certainly need at least fifteen.”

“Fifteen!” The lady looked astonished, but began to pile herring into a large bag. According to my calculations there were a lot more than fifteen, but I didn’t dare to make any further remarks. When the first bag was full, she began to fill a second, but then I said: “Thank you, that will be enough,” and I took the bag, intending to go on my way without further ado.

“That’ll be twenty pounds then,” the lady said.

Twenty pounds! I had completely forgotten about money. I had forgotten that the humans’ city was built on spinning coins, and that it was not possible to take even a step there without having to deal with pieces of metal or green paper notes that had pictures of haughty men on them. I did not have five pounds, or even one, but in their place I had a hunger that was growing sharper at every moment.

The lady waited, her hand outstretched, as I dug in my pockets as I had twice before in slightly similar situations. But this time they were empty; and so they remained.

I glanced despairingly around; people were beginning to notice me. For some reason I also turned my gaze upwards, and I saw a large black-backed gull, which was wheeling over the stall.

From time to time my linguistic studies are of notable benefit to me. I knew a few words in the language of gulls, which, by the way, is rather ugly-sounding, and in this hour of need they returned to my memory. I will translate them for you:

“Dive, dive,” I shouted and at the same time pointed to the stallholder, who was looking more and more stern. “You will get your share.”

And the gull dived. The woman cried out in fury and covered her face to protect herself from further attacks. I took advantage of the opportunity and disappeared. I ‘melted away,’ as I have heard it said sometimes. But I hugged the bag of herring tightly under my wing.

So now I was not only a vagrant but a thief as well. Fitting in with human society looked as though it was becoming much more troublesome than I had supposed.

I came to a busy main street, slowed my pace to a walk, and tried to melt into the crowd. Once again it seemed that I had nothing to fear from pursuers: only the gull followed my escape without difficulty, in order to get his promised reward.

I arrived once more at the banks of the river, which lazily transported the filth that had been thrown into it towards the sea, to those shores that I had once called my home and where my family still lived. Tired, I set up camp on a jetty and the gull dropped down beside me. We divided the herring, of which there were plenty, without argument, but we made no attempt at closer acquaintance. When the meal was over, the gull rose once more on his wings and I was left alone with my thoughts.

I reflected that I would need to get money from somewhere in order to live as a human. And as far as I knew, people got money by doing work. There must have been other ways, easier as well, but I did not know about them. These days I know that doing work is not the way to get one’s hands on the largest sums of money; for that, one needs pedigree, connections and ruthlessness.

So, I had to find myself a job. With my illiteracy and poor grasp of human language, I did not think I would be able to find any light indoor work. On the other hand, I was also short and weak, and I did not have the strength to lift very heavy weights or dig ditches; besides, I did not have any hands, only wings, which were rather impractical on land.

I walked along the river bank pondering my employment problems. Two women were walking in front of me; one of them was pushing a pram. Their conversation was carried to my ears.

“It’s really difficult these days,” one said, “you don’t seem to be able to get a trustworthy nanny anywhere. The last one only lasted three days, the tart, she didn’t do anything all day except do her hair and talk on the phone.”

“You can’t trust that sort of girl,” the other one said. “You’d really be better off with someone older.”

A sudden impulse spurred me to action. I hurried in front of the women and politely raised my cap. They looked at me suspiciously.

“Excuse me, but I happened to overhear what you were just talking about. And the fact of the matter is, I am accustomed to children and I am very fond of them. It happens that I am currently out of work, and I would gladly accept a position of this kind . . . ” My voice became more and more unsure; the women were eyeing me with such unfriendly, even offended expressions.

“But you’re a man,” said the one with the pram finally.

Yes, I admitted that I was a man.

“Well, of course I was looking for an older woman.”

What could be done about that? I couldn’t turn myself into an older woman, and so I raised my cap again dejectedly. But my gaze fell on the pram, in which the true employer was sitting. He stared at me with bright, curious eyes, and said suddenly:

“Mummy, bird.”

The women laughed, and I laughed too, though rather artificially to tell the truth. The one who had been addressed as mummy patted the top of the boy’s head, looking contented.

“Billy has such an active imagination.”

You are the one with the imagination, I thought, if you think that everything that wears trousers is a man or a human, but to please the women I joined in with their admiration for the little boy.

“What kind of work did you do before?” the mother asked.

“Mmmmm . . . I was in the food business.”

I thought that that was quick thinking, nor was it a complete lie, since fishing is certainly included within that field.

“But you’ve also looked after children?”

“I have eleven of my own.”

“Dear God in Heaven!” the women were amazed. “Do people these days still have such large families? Your wife must have been busy.”

“I took care of them right alongside my wife,” I boasted.

“Just think! My husband’s never even changed Billy’s nappy once.”

The women’s glances were now considerably friendlier. Billy extended an arm towards me and yelled,

“Want beak! Want beak!”

Why not? I offered my beak to him to experiment with and he stroked it and my beak-pouch gently, and even rubbed his cheek against my neck-feathers.