“She must want some of this lovely bread,” the woman said.
Why is it that people think some animals are male and some are female, as if we don’t come in both flavours? So was I going to explain my noble ambitions regarding procreation and the love of a good parrot maiden?
Not yet. I had found it best to wait until you really know someone.
The woman broke off some crust and offered me a nosh. Really, I’d had plenty at the market, but I received her kindness with what I considered a manly grace and delicacy.
“Thank you,” I said.
“Miguel,” I said. “Miguel.”
“Miguel! How pretty!” the woman said.
The man broke off some more bread. “Funny name for a girl parrot.”
“Why don’t you bring Miguel to the painter? Maybe he’ll put her in the new portrait of Do?a Gracia?”
Likely the painter was closer to the action than these two crusty bread breakers, so I was quick to jump at the opportunity. I hopped onto the offered forearm of the man and we walked further into the house.
House. It was more like a galleon planted in the ground. A palace.
We walked down many halls, up countless steps, past innumerable rooms.
It was a small world but who would want to paint it?
We entered a hall lined with colourful tapestries depicting seas of curling waves, great ships balanced on the foaming cowlick peaks. A man in a spattered red smock, his white beard itself like ocean foam, had rolled out many painted canvasses on the floor and on the dock-sized oak table in the centre. He was speaking solicitously to an impressive lady dressed in furs and a fine brocade robe.
Do?a Gracia.
Tall, dark, full, her hair plaited elaborately above her, like the dark red leaves of an autumn tree.
The painter pointed at the canvases. “My Do?a, the hills of Tuscany behind this prince, the Grand Canal behind this Pope’s nephew. Each painting tells its story not only in the faces of these noble people—a small curve of the lips, the stage play of the eyes, the angle of the nose and forehead—and not only in finery of their dress and jewels, but also in the landscapes behind them, stretching out over the unreachable horizon of the canvas.”
Do?a Gracia examined the paintings dispassionately.
“Do?a Gracia, I would paint you before an ocean teaming with boats, the wind bulging full in the sails, the barques sunk low with the rich prizes of your trade.”
She remained impassive.
“Do?a,” he said, suddenly quiet, whispering conspiratorially, “you would appear so strong and beautiful, so haughty and so rich, that the King and Queen of almost-all-the-Spains would wet their Catholic britches and despair.”
At that, Do?a Gracia smiled broadly, the bright sparkle of a diamond twinkling where an incisor once was. And then she began to laugh, which made her appear all the more strong, beautiful, haughty and rich.
“Se?or Fernandez,” she said, “you paint a pretty picture with your tongue, and more than a portrait of me, I would rather relish this picture of Their Almost Spains in their sodden bloomers.”
She then caught sight of me and clapped her hands together. “Se?or painter, is this your ghost-grey Polly? Something flown out of a painting? Speak, Polly!” she said to me.
As I have said, I know on which side of the brain the bread is buttered.
“Do?a Gracia,” I said. “My gracious greetings, Do?a Gracia, hello. Hello. Howaya?”
She nodded gracefully at me and then turned to the painter and smiled wryly. “You’re a sly old brush slinger, canvas-monkey,” she said. “You’ve brought me a courtier to speak pretty as if I had my own court. To make me puff like a sheet in a gale.”
“Miguel,” I squawked. “Miguel.”
“Indeed, painter-Polly,” Do?a Gracia said. “I had that thought also.”
She turned back to the kitchen servant, on whose forearm I rested.
“This will keep the boy busy until we make arrangements for him,” she said. “Take the bird to Miguel and tell him to teach it to pray. When we are all gone, at least the parrot will remember our prayers.”
The servant bowed once, then together we walked through a neighbourhood of hallways and down a hillside of steps. Eventually we arrived at a large wooden door that led from a courtyard, in the middle of which was a fountain in the form of a fish.
The man opened the door with a large and rusty key attached to his belt by a rusty chain. We walked into the room.
Moishe.
He stood up, beaming. I flew from the man’s arm onto his shoulder. My shoulder. The light shone in from a high window and so my shadow fell where it should. Across Moishe’s skinny chest.
A bookmark without a book doesn’t know where it is. Moishe was my slim volume, my scrawny story. My shoulder.
And he radiated joy and relief. If he could have hugged me, he would have.
“Whips. Sinking ships. The Inquisition. Someone doesn’t want me to have a parrot.”
He scratched my neck and it was pure delight. I became an idiot chicken.
“Pretty girlfriend you’ve got there,” the bread man said.
“Thanks,” Moishe replied. “His name is Aaron.”