I Live With You (19 page)

I wait so long I’m hungry again. I open the bundle he brought. There’s a man’s red shirt. Man’s blue pants. A dress … a real dress, also blue. A white bonnet with little flowers on it. Where in the world did he get these things? Has he been saving them for an escape? Was he already preparing to leave but didn’t know how or what to say?

Desire breeds nothing but more desire
.

Was he full of desire?

I sit. I wait. Numb. I don’t know how long but I see the sun is low. If I’m to cross the ledge I have to do it now.

I put on the dress and bonnet. I cross and head up, higher yet, into the snow. There’s no path. The sunset has spread all across the sky. Everything looks pink. Everything glows. Even me.

T
HEY LIVE, AS WE DO
, by the shadows, by the warmth of stones on sunny days, by fissures in rocks. They scramble, skulk, and skitter—as we do. They die, as we do, by the sky, by the trees. Live by black brush, prickly poppies. Die by the drop and dive and skim of the masters from the air.

You’ll be right in among them, doing everything their way. You’ll be trying to like their kinds of food. You’ll be spitting out pinfeathers. In spite of yourself you’ll say, Oh, oh, oh. And you’ll have to sing their songs of self satisfaction, but don’t forget you’re one of Us.

Find the ins and outs of their warrens. The windings and dead ends, the escape hatches. Know their ditches, the views from their hills….

They call themselves
The
Creatures, as if we weren’t. They call their section of the land,
The
Place as if our place wasn’t as much a place as theirs. They say they live at the center of the world as though we don’t.

That’s all right, let them think what they have to think.

Love your enemies. You’ll
have
to. Hide your distaste. But you won’t have to kiss them unless you want to. Though sometimes our kind does fall in love with their kind, so soft and pink, so thin, so close at hand, as they will be to you. Our kind always thinks such love is a mistake, but I say, all the better. (You’ll be thinking your new babies will take to the air along with theirs. Don’t count on it.)

Though they keep calling it that, remember they can’t fly. It’s only gliding. And their wings … They aren’t really wings, just a few feathers, in with their fur. But they’re the big problem. Or, rather, the problem is us … that we have none. In all other ways we’re exactly like them. They crawl around just like we do. Rush from hideout to hideout, all the time looking up to investigate the sky. They squeak out warnings just like we do. We might as well be them though they wouldn’t have us.

Bring a sharp knife. Not to kill—of course not—but to…
you
know. Be sure to get them just before they’re fledged. After that, success will be unlikely. Every single one you cut will be a blow in our favor.

It all depends on them, everything depends on them, it always has. Though now everything depends on you.

We can’t imagine what our nubs are for except to show we’re kin with them. We never fledge. Maybe we haven’t tried hard enough—haven’t spent enough time dropping out of trees or leaping after grasshoppers. But who, among our young ones, hasn’t broken a leg from trying something foolish that those others can do without even thinking.

Perhaps it’s all in the mind and we’re not thinking the right thoughts. Or perhaps it’s fear of falling that forces them to fledge. Maybe they push their little ones off lower branches—pry their toes up one by one and then push. Or break the branch out from under them. If they fall and keep on falling, they’ll fledge soon enough. They’ll have to. Being harsher on our own young might be the only way.

Nubs are ugly. Wings… so delicate, so optimistic… are lovely. Even so it’ll be easy for one of us to hide among them. Wear a vest or hang a scarf over where your wings ought to be and you can pass for them. Go!

They have no trees! That’s my first shock. Hills and valleys… mounds of loose dirt next to entrances, yes, piles of rocks just like home, and bushes…. You’d think they’d have trees. I wasn’t told the most important thing. Perhaps they have gnawed them all down as a safety measure—which it surely is. Perhaps they don’t ever say, Die by the trees, as we say.

But then I see they do have…
one…
just one huge tree off in the middle of their compound. It’s the largest I’ve ever seen. They must take great care of it. Keep it watered. We had no idea they lived like this.

I wear a vest that hides my nubs. Thank goodness there are some of them that are of our bluish color. We’re larger than they are, but not by much. Perhaps that’s why we can’t glide. Though why don’t we fledge? And why have these ugly nubs in the first place?

I had skittered along with others of their kind. I joined a hunting group, bringing back voles, locusts, beetles…. I had nothing hanging from my belt, but many others didn’t either. Since I’m bigger than most of them, I thought to wrestle something from one of the smaller ones, but then I thought better of it.

Now, through the gates and into their treeless… almost treeless compound. I hope I don’t look too surprised as I enter.

It’s neater than ours. And in spite of having no trees (except that one) they’ve made plenty of places for shade and to hide under. Little lean-tos and platforms, prickly poppies are growing right on top of some of them.

Handsome though I am (and especially so in my red vest—or so my own kind tells me) right away they squint at me. Some clack their teeth. Perhaps I remind them of Us. I puff up so as to look even larger though I lose some of my shine that way. I know that’s not a good idea, considering I’ll look even more like one of Us, but I want to scare them as much as they’re scaring me. I become myself. Or, rather, I become Us.

I hum a tune I know is theirs—I
think
is theirs—we always said it was theirs, but what do we really know of them? By the looks of their one-tree land, even less than we thought.

It must have been the right thing to do because a large female evaluates me carefully. She has a reddish cast, pink eyes, lashes as long as her whiskers. Each eyelash and each whisker has three colors, brown, white, and pink. Even though she’s one of theirs, she’s superb.

With my own, I’d chitter or some such but I don’t know what works with them. And I don’t want to spark any jealousy among their males or attract attention to myself. But I do clack my teeth a few times.

Females are larger than males, and she is one of their largest. But they’re not fighters. They’re no good for anything but having children. If cornered or if any little ones are in danger, even if not their own, they become much worse than any male could ever be, but I doubt that fighting will be called for if, when I cut, I do it out of sight.

We, I and the hunting group, advance towards the center of the compound. When we’re not far from their tree, I leave the group and enter a burrow—up the lookout mound of loose dirt at the doorway and then down, down, down. Just like home.

Soon I hear singing coming from below. Female singing. When I get deeper and closer I stop and listen. You have to be born to their kind of music to understand it. Same with their kind of dancing, (head bobbing up and down—exactly like a lizard trying to attract a female). Bla, bla, bla goes their poetry. But as I listen to the song I can tell there’s a pattern to it, and the voice is delightful: squeaky, and shrill. Were it used as a warning signal, there’s none who’d not hear and obey. I feel shivers up and down my spine.

They told me, go ahead, love. Might be the best way to hide. And the best way to find out whether it’s our only way to survive. They said, “Some of us, as you are, are handsome and bold. Do whatever it takes. Become them as best you can.”

Almost all our compounds have gone over to their side. It may be that we have nothing else to do but pretend we’re them, except we don’t know how. The how, is my job. (Along with the cutting, which will make them more like Us.)

I step closer and around the corner so I can see. There’s a large room hollowed out and the floor covered with glittery jay feathers. What a singer she is! I can hardly believe her high notes. Higher than I’ve ever heard. Out in the open air her song would carry for miles. I don’t doubt but that I may have heard her screeches as far away as from our own land. And what a remarkable size to her! Except for her pink, you’d think she was one of ours. Her wings lie, folded under her arms. They glisten in the glow of the burrow. I wonder, at her size, can she really glide? We’ve heard that sometimes their females get so big they can no more glide than we can.

I flatten my fur to give it more glow. I enter boldly. Everyone has squatted down but I stand in the back—and stare. I can’t help it. Even if I didn’t want to, I couldn’t not stare—her legs so delicate, her feet so small, the bulk of her, her front teeth that peep out as she sings. I wonder if how I feel shines out from my eyes. But then it’s in the eyes of all of them, males and females alike.

I try to approach her after the performance but of course everybody else wants to, too. We do look at each other, both of us half a head above the others.

I think how good we’d look, her pink next to my blue. She must know that, too.

After a bit I see I’m not going to get near her with all those admirers crowding around. I leave. I explore the burrow. There isn’t much more to it but the escape hatches. And I feel the need for air after all that emotion.

But just as I come out, the call comes. Almost as beautiful as their singer’s high notes. Some other singer on guard duty. Sky alert. We all rush back in. After a moment we peek out to see what’s going on. Striped neck, striped tail, speckled underbelly…. Quite beautiful actually. Sky folk always are. Already high, the flap, flap, flap. A baby shrieks—and shrieks and shrieks. Somewhere a mother calls out her goodbye—calls out her love. The shrieks get farther and farther away though the mother keeps calling out long after it’s useless. But it isn’t as if we don’t all expect this.

It’s over. Everybody comes out. Not a one stays inside. Back with my own we do the same. I mill around with the others. We squeak and pat each other. We clack our teeth. It would be a perfect time for another of the sky folk to get us. They would have to take a big one now that the little ones have all been pushed back inside. Though if they’re like our own, there’s always one or two who find a way to sneak out some back door.

She’s there of course. They’re still crowding around her. I wonder if I’ll ever be able to get close. I ask her name. “Lee-ah of the far North holes.” “Ah, the far North hole’s Lee-ah.” A name equal to her bulk, her poise, her tiny feet.

Everyone is still looking up. I step around them, working my way closer, patting shoulders as I pass the others. I make sure my vest hides where my wings should be. Closer. Then close at last. I whisper. “Lee-ah of the far North.” She smiles—her beautiful smile, gnawing teeth showing in the front. I can see she’s glad to see me.

I say, “Except that I’ve met you and heard and seen your brilliance, a sad time.”

“A sorrow.” She raises her head as though to bare her throat to me. A good sign. Then says, “And you, from where?”

I bare my throat, too, but I had hoped she wouldn’t ask the important question so soon. If they’re like us, I have to come from far enough away from her north and yet not be from my own North. I say, “Also the North, but the east of the North.”

That’s the truth. One step farther up from their North and I’d be at home with my own.

It must be all right because she says, “I do love those from the East North.” I know what she means by that.

She shakes her shoulders and spreads her wings a little bit as though to show them off.

I shake, too, and hope my vest still hides my nubs. “I say, “Glorious.” I show my front teeth.

She asks if I sing. I say, “No,” She says, “It doesn’t matter. Not at all.” Then, “Will you join the contest? Please.”

I don’t know what she means and it must show on my face.

“The contest!”

I squint and clack my teeth, not from choice but from nervousness.

“The mating. For all of us. And for me! For me!”

“Of course I will.”

“Until then,” she says and moves away, magnificently—swaying side-to-side on purpose to lure me.

But I’m too anxious to be tempted to the extent she wants me to be right now. I have to find out what she’s talking about without seeming to ask. I worry. We have contests, too, but I already suspect what theirs might be.
Of course
would be. Gliding! Probably from higher and higher branches. That’s what that tree is for. Once you really look at it you can see worn spots and claw marks, branches flattened out into platforms. I can’t be seen doing that. Or even trying to do that. Besides, I’d break every leg—at the least. I don’t have to join the mating contest but I want to.

If I don’t do it, I can just hear it. “Lost your wings? An accident? The punishment for some crime? What crime is that, to make you one of the Lesser? Go up north where you belong.

Until I came here, I had no idea they call us the Lesser. Though that makes sense. Except we’re so large and strong, and we have such a beautiful iridescent blueness.

For the next few days, as I wait for the contest, I show off by lifting things none of them can. I carry heavy loads for long distances. I feel superior to all of them. And I have managed to get three young ones who can’t yet squeak out to their mothers what I’ve done, and removed their first hints of feathers. That leaves no scar, and leaves them fledglings who will never fledge.

I have an entourage of admirers. Young ones who want to be just like me. Several females want me to glide for them when the time of the contest comes, but I’ll stay true to my exquisite pink singer.

I remember when I was small and had heard about these others. I couldn’t believe that I was Us and not them… I was sure I could glide. A group of us climbed a tree and jumped, squeaking out our triumph. One died, two broke legs as did I. All of us bruised and chastened. Almost all our young males try it. After that we stick to our own contests, broad jump, high jump, skittering….