Again Ana Laura half circled, ending up with the sun, which was almost overhead, a little more behind her than it was behind him.
Why did you choose birds?
I have no wife to make tamales. I know nothing about medicine or shoes or catfish from the lake. Birds are lighter than chairs and tables. I know where I can buy them a bajo precio. Económico.
What have you got in your bag?
Very little. A flute.
A flute. Can you play it?
The young man drew the flute from his bag of woven grass and swallowed, perhaps to draw some moisture. He raised the flute and, without pause, played a melody Ana Laura had never heard. It was only near the end that she noticed the birds had stopped their song of release, of liberation; that all, without exception, eyed the man with round eyes. At least as well as they could from their confinement.
It reminded Ana Laura of trying to read the minds of her students. Did the birds think the bird man knew and understood their fate? Did they think he was one of them?
He did have a beak-like nose, but that didn’t make him a bird. He was indigenous, that was all. He could speak an idiom he wouldn’t share with you or the birds. Unless, when alone, man and birds communicated in a tongue they alone understood. Perhaps, when they had traveled on, when the talk turned to Pueblo Nuevo, and at their ease in a lost language, they would speak of her.
When he had finished, Ana Laura applauded. It had been a nice melody. Looking at the flute, she wondered if the melody might reside in it and not the man.
That’s a lovely instrument. May I hold it?
Ana Laura held out her hand and the bird man, without hesitation, placed the flute in it. It was a simple wooden tube. Nearly weightless. Like the birds, she supposed.
Very nice. Did you make it?
It came with the birds.
Part of the deal.
Yes.
Ana Laura had the urge to raise it to her lips, yet the mouthpiece glistened, which didn’t appeal. Well, she would never know if the melody made its home in flute or flutist. That’s the way it was. Mechanically, she returned it, remembering all she had to do before her class.
Which bird would you like, señora?
I do not have a cage.
I can sell you the cage too.
I do not know if I want a bird. Unlike your flute, your birds are very loud. Will you sell me the flute?
The flute is not for sale.
Why not?
It is mine.
It came with the birds.
Yes.
Then, like the birds, it can go.
I have made it my own. If you will excuse me, señora, I have many kilometers before me.
Where are you going?
That way. This way. I hope you will excuse me.
Why not?
Adiós, señora.
The bird man, nodding graciously, was moving away. Ana Laura realized she was standing in the street, that Jesús would be passing soon with aguamiel from the agaves that lined the backroad between Pueblo Nuevo and Pueblo Viejo, that Gabriel’s son with pony and empty milk cans would be headed the other way. It was time to get out of the sun.
What else have you got in your bag?
My music.
Your music. Can I see it?
El vendedor de pájaros, still moving away, drew a book of sheet music halfway from his bag. Again, the rough concord of the birds seemed to rise in volume.
Can you read music?
SÃ, señora. Adiós, señora.
You must have plans for yourself. Ambiciones. Will you sell your book of music?
No, señora.
The young man, nearly walking backward, nevertheless was gaining speed.
Will you sell your bag then, your bag of woven grass? It is very nice, very simple. I will pay more than you paid for it. I…
Ana Laura knew her voice was rising, becoming harsher, shriller, but the bird man had turned his back to her now, hitting a stride designed to cover kilometers between here and there, between now and then; and his birds, calming themselves, preparing themselves for the road, seemed to have no need of their song of release and liberation.
Of flight.
Sometimes, Ana Laura remembered, when she was back behind her grillwork and her door, when they went out to the one tolerable restaurante in Tamazula, and ordered the one dish suitable for eating (if only with several glassfuls of tequila and Squirt), she and her colleagues had the feeling they were doing something. Really doing something. At other times, alone in the unfamiliar town, under its blanket of probably poisonous and never to be improved bad air, Ana Laura had been sure that asesinos from the sugar company, heavies in shiny cars, were eyeing her, targeting her, that if she weren’t careful her life would be over before it began.
Michael McGuire’s stories have appeared in The Kenyon Review, The Paris Review, Hudson Review, New Directions in Prose & Poetry, etc. His plays have been produced by the New York Shakespeare Festival, the Mark Taper Forum of Los Angeles, and many other theatres here and abroad, and are published by Broadway Play Publishing.
