I was a bird. I could not be brisket.
But Moishe was my family, my mishpocheh. The only family I had, Oy Gotenyu. God help us.
“Sit,” the rabbi said.
Moishe sat.
“We are not Israelites, or Hebrews,” the rabbi began. “We are Jews. We are Jewish wherever we are and with whatever we have. Do you know when the first time this word—Jew—was used?”
Moishe did not.
“The Megillah. The Book of Esther. You remember in Persia, the Prime Minister—“
“Haman,” Moishe said.
“He who convinced the king that all Jews should be killed.”
“But they were saved,” Moishe said. “By Esther.”
“Yes. The Jewish queen. Since the beginning, they have tried to kill us Jews, but ha-Shem—God—gives the story a little, what you would call, a drey, a twist, and then somehow, we aren’t destroyed. Until the next time.”
“And each time,” Samuel added, “we make a new holiday to remember.”
“Purim,” Moishe said.
“Soon the calendar will be filled up with festivals,” the rabbi said. “Adonai will have to forge us another year. A whole year just for these days of remembering.”
Samuel shrugged. “We remember, but then we eat.”
“And so we survive,” the rabbi continued. “Though we must hide. One of the stolen books was the Book of Esther. They tried to destroy us then, but did not. Perhaps they will fail again.”
Rabbi Daniel’s plan. Moishe would lead them to where Diego had taken the books. They would try to buy the books back. One who speaks for money, listens to money.
Then Moishe would be hidden in a house where he would be safe. When the Inquisitors became less inquisitive and thoughts of Moishe and the books had faded, he would leave Seville.
Of course, if they couldn’t find Diego, or he had already taken the books—and the letter—to the Inquisition, then the story would be different.
The world could be a dangerous library. For a book or a Jew.
“And Moishe,” Samuel said, “We’ll give you new clothes. You need a disguise.”
“So get rid of the bird,” Rabbi Daniel said.
Nu, they didn’t have a disguise for a bird?
Feh.
They can take the bird out of the story, but the story stays in the bird.
They gave Moishe a long brown cape, green leggings, and a red hood. He put on the leather boots that belonged to one of the cathedral Jews. To look like a gnome, that was his disguise?
But his right shoulder—my shoulder—was to remain unadorned.
“What else can I do?” the shoulder shrugged.
Zay gezunt. Be well.
We’d meet again.
I knew it was right. Moishe had to go alone. Together, it was like waving a talking, grey-feathered African flag.
They didn’t leave the cellar all at once. First, two climbed the stairs, speaking quietly to each other. Next Moishe, the rabbi, and Samuel. And then a few more. They blew out the candles, extinguished the torches. I was left alone in the dark, save for the dim light coming from the ceiling of the first room.
How many parrots does it take to change a light bulb?
That’s okay. You go out and enjoy yourself. Who needs light? Just leave the door a bisl open. Don’t worry about me.
I waited, wondering what to do.
They would return.
Eventually.
I tried my wing. Gevalt. It didn’t hurt like hell. It hurt like much of which happens before that.
But I could still take to the air, if only for short hauls. I didn’t need to fly to heaven. Just into the cathedral. A Christian way station.
The light in the first room came from a chimney shaft in the ceiling. It led either outside or into another part of the Catedral. I emerged from this stone cloaca, smoke, a farshtunkeneh cloud, a pipe dream with claws.
Now what?
It was to be Parrot vs. World.
The world that I was now born to was small, musty, and bounded by shadows: I was in some kind of cloakroom. Dark red capes lined the walls; above them, like a butcher shochet’s wet dream, hoods hung from hooks.
Some Hebrew letters at the room’s dim far end. Hebrew books of some kind.
Since I was invited out of Africa, I have learned many words from the pretty, poxy, scurvy, or sweet mouths of mariners, princes, brigands, maidens, nebbishes, shlumpers and shlemiels, but nothing from their pens.
Nu, what words would I have had if I’d not been snatched from my parrot life in the scintillation of leaves high in the African forest? I was but a fledgling taken straight from nest to mast and knew little beyond the nutritive regurgitations of my parents—halevay if only, what would they have been like? I would have learned but a beakful of words for rotten fruit and cloacae, for a thousand shades of green and the little wings of my pinfeathered offspring.
I’d have been a different bird.
Still with holes in my head, but different holes. In a different head.
And still, I’d have wanted to get out of this room. And to find Moishe.
There was a door. Plain as the nose on my face. Azoy, as the breathing holes in my beak.
But it was locked.
A broch.
But then I noticed a small window.
Open.
Escape.
Chapter Eight