Pictor's Metamorphoses (18 page)

All his life, Schalaster had had a special relationship with Bird. He had seen him more frequently and observed him more closely than others had; he belonged, if one may say so, to those who believed in Bird, who took him more seriously and who ascribed to him a higher significance. Thus, the proclamation pulled him violently in several directions at once. At first, he felt just as old Nina and the majority of the elder citizens who followed the old ways did: he was shocked and indignant that, at the request of outsiders, his Bird, the treasure and trademark of the village and the region, was to be turned in as a prisoner, or else killed! How could it happen that this rare and mysterious guest from the forests, this fabulous being known from time immemorial, through whom Montagsdorf had become both famous and ridiculed, and about whom so many different stories and tales had come down—how was it that now, for the sake of money and knowledge, this bird should be sacrificed to the cruel inquisitiveness of a scholar? It seemed scandalous and absolutely beyond belief. One was being asked to commit a sacrilege. And yet, on the other hand, if one weighed the matter carefully, putting each thing now into one, now into the other, pan of the scale—wasn't an extraordinary and radiant fate promised to the man who committed that sacrilege? And wasn't the capture of the exalted Bird presumably a task that required a special man, one chosen and predestined, one who had lived in a most secret and intimate relation to Bird since childhood, one whose fate was entwined with Bird's? And who could this chosen and unique man be, who else but he, Schalaster? And if it was a sacrilege and a crime to take Bird by force, a sacrilege comparable to Judas Iscariot's betrayal of the Saviour—hadn't even that betrayal, hadn't the Saviour's death and sacrifice been necessary and holy, predestined and prophesied from the most ancient times? Would it have, Schalaster asked himself and all the world, would it have availed in the least, could it have altered or hindered in the slightest God's decree and His work of salvation if that same Iscariot, on moral or rational grounds, had shunned his role and failed to go through with the betrayal?

Such were the paths Schalaster's thoughts took, and they upset him enormously. In that very same orchard behind his house, where once as a small boy he had seen Bird for the first time and had felt the tremor of joy of that adventure, he now paced back and forth in agitation, to the goat stall, to the kitchen window, to the rabbit coop and beyond, his Sunday coat grazing the hayrakes, pitchforks, and scythes hanging on the back wall of the barn—upset and confused, almost intoxicated with thoughts, wishes, and resolutions, heavyhearted, thinking of Judas, a thousand heavy dream-ducats in the bag.

Meanwhile, the excitement continued to spread through the village. Since the notice had been posted, practically the whole community had gathered in front of the Town Hall; from time to time, someone would walk up to the notice board and take another hard look at the poster. All came equipped with their own opinions and, using a few well-chosen words from personal experience, common sense, and the Holy Scriptures, they forcefully aired them. The proclamation had split the village into two opposing camps; there were only a few people who did not, immediately upon reading it, make up their minds one way or the other. No doubt there were those who, like Schalaster, considered the actual hunting of Bird a frightful thing, but who, nonetheless, would have liked to have the ducats, and not everybody was capable of carefully sorting out this complicated contradiction. The young men took it least seriously. Considerations, moral or conservational, could not in the least curb their spirit of adventure. In their opinion, if traps were set, someone might be lucky enough to catch Bird, even if there was little chance of it, since no one knew what bait to use to attract Bird. And if someone managed to spot Bird, he would be well advised to shoot on sight, because, after all, one hundred ducats in one's wallet would be better than one thousand in one's imagination. Loudly they agreed among themselves, and looked forward to what they were going to do, but they quarreled over the particulars of the bird hunt. One of them cried out for someone to give him a good rifle, he would put down one half ducat on account, he'd be ready to start out at once and willing to sacrifice his whole Sunday to the task. The opposition, however, whose ranks included almost all of the old people, found the whole thing shocking. They cried aloud or muttered words of wisdom and maledictions on the people of today, to whom nothing was sacred any more, who had lost all fidelity and belief. Laughing, the young people retorted that this was not a matter of fidelity or belief; rather, it was a matter of marksmanship—of course, all virtue and wisdom would continue to reside in those whose half-blind eyes no longer could take aim at a bird, and whose gouty fingers no longer could hold a rifle. And so it went back and forth, with brio, and people exercised their wit on this new problem, so much so that they almost completely forgot to eat. Passionately and eloquently, they told stories of good and bad times in their families, stories more or less relating to Bird; urgently they reminded everyone of holy grandfather Nathanael, of old Sehuster, of the fabulous pilgrimage of those who made the Journey to the East; they quoted verses from the psalm book and relevant passages from operas, found one another intolerable and yet could not leave one another's company, called upon the mottos and dicta of their forebears, delivered monologues on times gone by, on the dead bishop, on illnesses survived. A seriously ill old farmer, for example, who lay on his sickbed, looked out of his window and caught sight of Bird, only for a moment, but from that instant he began to recover. They spoke, partly to themselves—addressing an inner vision—and partly to their fellow villagers, imploring or accusing, concurring or deriding; in discord as in accord, they had a pleasant feeling of the strength, the endurance, the endlessness of their solidarity. The old and wise came forward, the young and clever came forward, teased one another, ardently and rationally defended the good old ways of their fathers, ardently and rationally questioned the good old ways of their fathers, boasted of their ancestors, smirked about their ancestors, celebrated their age and experience, celebrated their youth and their arrogance, let it almost come to blows, bellowed, laughed, assayed their common goals and disagreements, every one of them seemingly up to his neck in the conviction that he was right and that he had said something clever to the others.

In the midst of these verbal exercises and all this taking of sides, during which the ninety-year-old Nina adjured her blond grandson to heed her forebodings and not ally himself with these cruel and godless people in their dangerous hunt for Bird, and during which the young people disrespectfully acted out a pantomime of the hunt before her hoary countenance—placing imaginary rifles to her cheeks, squinting their eyes and taking aim, screaming pop! bang!—something quite unexpected happened, and young and old alike fell dumb in mid-sentence and stopped, as if turned to stone. Old Balmelli cried out, and all eyes turned to follow his outstretched arm and pointing finger, and—suddenly amid deep silence—they saw Bird, the much-discussed Bird himself, soar down from the roof of the Town Hall and land on the edge of the notice board, rub his wing against his round little head, whet his beak and chirp out a brief melody; batting his agile little tail up and down and trilling, he ruffled up his crest. And he—known only by hearsay to many of the villagers—groomed himself a little while right before everyone's eyes, showed himself, and bent down his head, as if he, too, were curious about the proclamation of the authorities, wanting to know how many ducats were being offered for him. He may only have paused there for a few moments, but to everyone present the visit seemed solemn and like a challenge; now no one cried out “pop, bang”; instead, they all stood and stared, as if spellbound, at the daring visitor who had come flying to them and who had chosen to appear at this place and this moment with the sole intention of making fun of them. Astonished and embarrassed, they stared at him who had taken them so by surprise; with delight and satisfaction they looked at the fine little fellow, about whom there had recently been so much talk and because of whom their region was famous, he who had been witness to Abel's death, or who had been a Hohen-staufen or a Prince or a Magus, and had lived in a red house on the Hill of Snakes, where even now vipers lived, at him who had aroused the curiosity and greed of foreign scholars and governments, at him for whose capture a reward of one thousand gold pieces was offered. They all loved and admired him, even those who just a few moments later would curse and stamp their feet in annoyance, because their hunting rifles were not at hand; they loved him and were proud of him, he belonged to them, he was their honor and their glory; batting his tail and ruffling his crest, he sat very close by, above their heads, on the edge of the notice board, like their prince or their coat of arms. And only now, when he suddenly disappeared and the spot everyone had been staring at was empty, did they slowly awaken from the spell cast over them. They laughed at one another, cried out “bravo,” sang Bird's praises, called out for their rifles, asked in which direction he had flown, remembered that this was the same bird that had healed the old farmer, the one the grandfather of the ninety-year-old Nina had known, felt something strange, something like happiness and the desire to laugh, but at the same time something mysterious, magical, awe-inspiring; and suddenly they scattered in all directions, went home to their soup, at last to make an end of this exciting assembly in which the intense emotions of the whole village had been raised to the boiling point, emotions over which Bird obviously reigned king. In front of the Town Hall it grew still, and a while later, when the midday bells began to toll, the square lay utterly empty and lifeless. On the whiteness of the sun-lit poster, a shadow then began to fall, the shadow of the molding of the notice board, on which not a moment ago Bird had been sitting.

In the meantime Schalaster, lost in thought, was pacing up and down behind his house, past the rakes and the scythes, past the stalls for the rabbits and the goats; his steps gradually became less agitated and more uniform, his theological and moral ponderings coming closer and closer to equilibrium and stasis. The midday bells aroused him; startled and sobered, he returned to the present, recognized the call of the bells, knew that in a moment his wife would call him to the table, was a little ashamed at his self-absorption, and stepped more firmly in his boots. And now, just as his wife's voice was raised, confirming the call of the village bells, all at once something seemed to swim before his eyes. A whirring sound whizzed close by and went past him, something like a brief gust of air, and in the cherry tree sat Bird; light as a blossom on a branch he sat and playfully batted his feathered crest, turned his little head, peeped gently, looked into the man's eyes—Schalaster had known Bird's look since childhood—and already he hopped away again and vanished in the branches and the breezes, even before the staring Schalaster had time to properly perceive the faster beating of his own heart.

After that Sunday noon when Bird appeared in Schalaster's cherry tree, only once more was he ever seen by human eyes; and, in fact, on that occasion again by that very same Schalaster, cousin of the former mayor. He had firmly made up his mind to seize Bird and get the ducats; and since he, the old bird specialist, knew for certain that Bird would never be captured, he had readied an old rifle and procured a store of shot of the finest caliber, the kind known as bird shot. If things went according to his plans and he were to shoot at Bird with this fine shot, it was plausible that Bird would not fall down dead, and blasted to pieces, but rather that one of the tiny little grains of shot would wound him only slightly and that he would be stunned with terror. In that way it would be possible to take Bird alive. The prudent man got everything ready in advance, including a little songbird cage in which to lock up the prisoner, and from that moment on he tried his utmost never to be far from his perpetually loaded rifle. Wherever he could, he took it with him, and where he could not take it—to church, for example—he was loath to go.

In spite of all these preparations, when the moment came and he met up with Bird again—it was in the autumn of that same year—he did not quite have his rifle at hand. It happened very near to Schalaster's house. As was his wont, Bird had appeared without a sound, and after landing, he greeted Schalaster with his familiar chirping; Bird sat cheerfully on the gnarled stump of a bough of an old willow tree, a tree from which Schalaster always cut branches to use to espalier the wall fruit. There Bird sat, not ten paces away, chirping and chattering, and his foe once again felt that strange sensation of joy in his heart (blessed and wretched at once, as if he were being asked to live a life he was not yet capable of living), even while the sweat ran down his neck, for he was worried and anxious about how he could get to his gun in time. He rushed into the house, came back with his rifle, saw that Bird was still sitting in the willow, and now he stalked him; slowly and stepping lightly, he came closer and closer. Bird was unsuspecting, worried neither by the rifle nor by the strange deportment of the man—an agitated man with a fixed stare, ducking movements, and a bad conscience—who evidently was taking great pains to pretend disinterest. Bird let him come closer, looked at him confidingly, tried to cheer him up, gave him a roguish look, while the farmer raised his rifle, squinted one eye, and took a long time aiming. At last the shot cracked, and scarcely had the cloud of smoke dispersed than Schalaster was on his knees searching under the willow. From the willow to the garden fence and back, to the beehives and back, to the bed of beans and back, he scoured the grass, every handsbreadth of it, twice, three times, for an hour, for two hours, and again and again on the next day. He could not find Bird, he could not find a single one of his feathers. Bird had taken to his heels, things had gone off too clumsily, the report of the gun had been too loud, Bird loved freedom, he loved the peace and quiet of the woods, he was no longer happy here. He was gone, and on this occasion too, Schalaster had not been able to see in which direction he had flown. Perhaps he had returned to his house on the Hill of Snakes, where the blue-green lizards would bow down to him at the threshold. Perhaps he had flown even farther back in space and time, to the Hohen-staufen, to Cain and Abel, into Paradise.