In the Land of Armadillos Read online

  “How is our luftmensch today?” he asked. The Jewish meaning of this word, a man whose existence was so airy that he might blow away in a strong wind, described the artist perfectly. Toby’s spirit was so fragile, it seemed to be in danger of evaporating into the air altogether.

  Adela made a seesaw motion with her hand. So-so. He handed her his coat and hurried up the stairs two at a time.

  The day after his beating, Toby’s eyes had displayed a sensational combination of hues, all the colors of a peacock’s plumage. The sight of the purpled eyes and the gouge across the cheek gnawed at Max, made him feel bad. It wasn’t like him to feel this way; he couldn’t explain it.

  In the days since he’d received the news of his sister’s death, Toby had grown even thinner, his fragile connection to life more tenuous. Which was why Max was so glad Toby had hit it off with Adela. There was a strength to her, a solidity, that he found immensely reassuring; this was a woman with both feet firmly on the ground. Though he was not normally an imaginative man, he harbored a vision of Toby as a kite bobbing restlessly in the sky, Adela holding tightly to the end of the string.

  It was from Adela that Max finally learned the source of Toby’s despair. He had assumed the most obvious reasons: fear, uncertainty of the future, the loss of his family and friends, the dissolution of his nice, comfortable life. But the truth was more insidious. It was Toby who had found the hiding place outside the ghetto, Toby who had sold the last of their valuables to buy his sister’s way in, Toby who had insisted that she go. Aliza had begged to stay with him, to share her brother’s fate, but he alone had made the decision that she would be safer in the bunker. If he had relented, she might be alive right now. He felt completely and irredeemably responsible for the girl’s death.

  All of which was incomprehensible to Max. Fate had a way of playing havoc with the best-laid plans. It could just as easily have gone the other way, with Toby shot dead, the sister safe in the bunker. How could a man hold himself so overwhelmingly culpable?

  The radio was tuned to a banned station. The music was very loud; Max was sure they would have heard it all the way over at the Gestapo headquarters if it weren’t for all the shooting and shouting going on in the streets today. At the top of the stairs, he pushed open the door and switched off the radio.

  Here, the smell of turpentine prevailed over the delicate trance of cinnamon that bewitched the rest of the house. Sunlight filtered through the apothecary jars of linseed oil, turpentine, and varnish that Toby lined up like soldiers on the windowsill, filling the room with an ambient amber light. In a corner, the heap of rags he used to wipe his brushes clean climbed ever higher, resembling a snowy mountain range. The surface of the desk had disappeared under disciplined rows of paint with evocative, Old World names, verdigris, malachite, aureolin, madder lake. It was like visiting an alchemist’s laboratory.

  Hunched on a tall stool in the center of the room, Toby sat with his legs crossed, surveying his work. “Well, boss,” he said, taking a drag on a cigarette, “it’s finished. You can kill me now.”

  “Why do you have to say things like that?” Max complained.

  The indefatigable armadillos marched up and down the perimeter of the room. Blue cockatoos filled the artificial skies in their flight, evolving seamlessly on the next wall into businessmen with homburgs and suitcases, flying like miniature airplanes over Paris. Toby had a memory for faces, and his choices were quixotic. Among the customers at the café, Max recognized the miller; Reinhart’s pretty girlfriend; Hammer, the tailor; and of course, the lovely Adela.

  Elated, he turned around and around, drunk with the crazy sensation that if he sat down at one of the tables, Bianca would waddle over on yellow claws to take down his order in her little receipt book. He clasped the edge of the desk for support, overcome with the unaccustomed emotion of unalloyed joy. “Sorry to disappoint you, Toby, no one’s going to kill you. You’re just too good.”

  Toby got up and drifted toward the window. While the characters in the paintings grew more vital, their creator’s strength seemed to ebb with each passing day. “I’ve been hearing a lot of shooting,” he said.

  “Yes. Big Aktzia today, most of the Jews. We’re just keeping essential workers.”

  The artist paled. In a strangled voice, he uttered something in a language Max didn’t understand.

  “What did you say?”

  He shoved his hands into his pockets and stared down at his town. It was some time before he answered. “I said I can see my house from here.”

  “Where?” Max got up, went to the window.

  With a long, skeletal arm, Toby gestured at a pretty white eighteenth-century townhouse trimmed with elaborate carved architectural details. Wisteria vines climbed the walls, bare this time of year. A stork’s nest sat on top of the chimney pot. A denuded apple tree stood sentry in the front garden among the ivy. The facade glistened with a fairy-tale charm. “That one, at the corner of the market square.”

  “You live there now?”

  “Oh, no. We had to leave it to move into the ghetto. That’s the house I grew up in. I don’t know who lives there now.”

  “It’s pretty,” Max said. “Maybe you’ll live there again someday.”

  Toby faced him with weary incredulity. “Don’t you know, Max. They’re going to kill us all.”

  “You’re being melodramatic,” he objected, but the words sounded weak even to him. Late at night, he had seen the flames shooting from far-off chimneys, he had smelled the greasy stink of burning fat. Max sighed, dropped heavily onto the bed. “Look, Toby. The important thing is, you are safe, Adela is safe. I can’t save everybody.” He opened his jacket, kicked off his boots. “Anyway, don’t give me any grief today. I had a rotten morning.”

  “What happened?”

  “Lilo. My horse.” His voice cracked a little. “She fell and broke her leg. I had to put her down. I know, I know. It’s not like she’s a human being. But still . . .” He bent his fingers over his eyes, then looked at his hand in surprise. He was crying.

  But Toby was distracted, looking out the window at the crowds of people being herded through the narrow streets by soldiers with guns. “Why do they shoot horses, anyway?”

  “Oh . . . they’re so big, their legs are so thin . . . you can’t tell a horse to stay off her feet while she recovers. And the truth is, they’re in so much pain . . .” He was wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. “Please. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

  They sat a little while in silence. Outside, there were more gunshots. Far in the distance, a woman screamed.

  “I had a letter from Gerda today,” Max remembered, breaking the mood of quiet contemplation. “She’s coming in the spring. You’ll like her,” he said, cheering himself up as he went along. “She’s not an artist, but she has very good taste. And Peter. You can give him art lessons.” The stripe he had made across Toby’s face with the muzzle of his gun was still visible. He averted his gaze. “You’re getting to be very popular. Standartenführer Gruber wants you to paint some naked ladies for his girlfriend’s boudoir. Very tasteful, I’m sure. Oberführer Rohlfe wants you to do something for the Gestapo headquarters. Kommandant Reinhart was asking about you, too, some frescoes for his castle at Adampol. But none of this happens until I’m finished with you. I’m thinking of frescoes in the dining room, too . . . maybe a border. Fruits, flowers, that sort of thing.”

  But Toby was frozen at the window, riveted by the madness convulsing the streets of his town. Max could see the points of his shoulder blades through his shirt, as sharp as knives. If Adela was bringing him all these treats, why was he still so skinny? “Listen, Toby,” he said, sitting forward on the bed. “When is the last time you wrote anything?”

  The artist turned to stare at him, honestly perplexed. “I don’t even remember . . . before the Germans came, I think.”

  There was a knock on the door. Adela entered, bearing a tray. On it was a teapot and the plum cake that
had smelled so heavenly. “I thought you might like some tea, Sturmbannführer,” she demurred.

  When Adela was in the room, Toby’s bereaved eyes came to life, there was color in his cheeks, he even straightened up a little. Max was delighted.

  “It’s Haas,” he rebuked her mildly, then took a bite of the cake. It had the texture of pudding, tasting of butter and plums, of childhood, reminiscent of a bracing walk through autumn leaves, sitting around a good fire. He cut a wedge and offered it to Toby, who refused it with a terse shake of the head. “You’ve got to live, Toby,” he reminded him.

  “Those are your rules, not mine.”

  Max grimaced at Adela, arching his eyebrows and tipping his head to one side, See what I have to deal with? She bent a fierce, tender look at Toby, then left the room. Together, they listened to the sound of her slippers scuffing down the stairs until it disappeared.

  “You have feelings for her, don’t you,” he said jubilantly.

  Toby glanced at him, fear stuttering to life in his eyes.

  “Why are you looking at me like that? I couldn’t be happier for you. You need a woman in your life, Toby. I don’t know what I’d do without my Gerda. For me, my family is an island of peace in a crazy world.”

  “I have no peace,” murmured Toby, leaning his forehead against the glass. “I will never have peace again.”

  “Toby,” he said gently. He quelled the desire to put his arm around the drooping shoulders, to ruffle the unruly hair, to make shadow animals, anything to distract him, as if he were Peter, from whatever nightmare had sent him into tears. “You can’t go on like this. The world is a harsh place for someone as sensitive as you. You need to be more like me. You have to learn to let some things go. Otherwise, how could anybody go on living?”

  Toby closed his eyes, thrust his head away. A small, choked sound escaped his throat.

  “I know it hurts you to talk about these things, but someone has to say it. A man like you needs a man like me. Believe me, Toby. You have to get back to work.

  “I want you to write me a story,” Max continued. “A children’s book. A present for Peter.”

  Toby pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. “I know you mean well, Max,” he said dully. “But I can’t. I just can’t.”

  “I’ll help you,” he said, encouraging him. “You tell me the words. I’ll write it down.”

  “I’m clean out of ideas, Max. There’s nothing left.”

  His fingers drummed on his uniformed knee. “How about this. A good German story with a knight in it. Maybe he has to slay a dragon . . . rescue a princess . . . there’s a treasure.”

  “Knights and princesses?” Toby was half dismayed, half amused. “I don’t know. I’m not Walt Disney. It’s not really my style.”

  “Well, you’re the author. Do it in your own style.”

  Toby breathed on the windowpane. With his finger, he drew a forlorn little house in the fogged glass, a square with a triangle for a roof, a chimney with smoke coming out of it. “What do you have against dragons?”

  “Don’t be silly. Dragons steal sheep, ruin crops, burn down the town. They have to be destroyed. Even children know that.”

  The artist sighed and bowed his head. Max waited. Just when he was beginning to think that Toby was purposefully toying with him, the dark rumpled head snapped to attention, the pouchy eyes narrowed. The wisp of light in his pupils kindled into flame. “Once upon a time . . .”

  “Now you’re talking!” Max said enthusiastically, rubbing his hands together. “Is Peter going to be the knight?”

  “Patience,” Toby said. He closed his eyes, repeated the four words as reverently as if they were a prayer. “Once upon a time, there was a little boy.”

  “Wait a minute! I need to write this down.”

  “Here, use this.” Toby pounced on his portfolio, slipped out another drawing. A clown and a skeleton flanked the wings of a dark stage, peering out of furled theater curtains. Below them, a naked beauty sat astride a prancing white steed with a flowing mane. A drawing for a theater poster advertising a play whose curtain had rung down long ago.

  “Toby, this is beautiful. I can’t.”

  “Of course you can. This is important.” He swept away the tubes of paint with the side of his arm, slapped the drawing facedown on the desk. Then he returned to his post at the window, wrapped his bony arms tightly around his scarecrow body. “As I was saying . . . there was a little boy who loved birds more than anything in the world. When the boy was little, he begged his mother to leave food outside their window for the pigeons, and colored strings for the sparrows to build their nests. The year he turned ten, his grandmother gave him an illustrated book of birds with large, colorful plates. Instead of playing with the other boys after school, he would go home, climb upstairs to the attic, and study his picture book. In this way, he learned about big birds and small birds, swimming birds, flightless birds, drab birds, and birds that looked like they had been painted by madmen. He studied the faraway lands they came from, their individual calls, their diets, and their habitats.

  “It was inevitable that one day the birds would communicate with him. The first bird to speak was the white stork, of the kind you can see nesting in tall chimneys. ‘Peter,’ it said in the voice of someone old and wise. ‘You who admire us and are loyal to us, you who have been a true friend to all birds, upon you we have bestowed the gift of flight. Go to the window. Flap your arms, and you will see you can fly.’ ”

  There was a loud slap as Toby flung open the attic window.

  “Peter threw open the windows,” he continued in a thrilling, powerful voice. “It was a warm evening in late spring; a cloudless sky beckoned him. He spread his arms, closed his eyes, and jumped.

  “The birds were true to their word: The boy could fly. Flapping his arms, he swooped over the roofs of the town. In a delirium of joy, he soared over the school playing fields, he made loop-de-loops over the church’s bell tower.

  “Meanwhile, in the town square, a crowd was gathering. What was it? ‘A bird,’ someone ventured. No, it was judged to be too large. ‘An eagle is large,’ said someone else. ‘That’s no eagle’ was the reply. Someone shouted that they saw horns. Another, sharp teeth. A third, a whiplike, pointed tail.

  “One of the boy’s classmates picked up a loose paving stone and let fly. The stone struck the creature’s head and bounced off.

  “It seemed to hang in the air for a moment, dazed by the blow. Now each villager reached for a missile. Under a barrage of pebbles, bricks, and stones, it plummeted to earth.”

  Toby’s voice changed now, dark, fluid, impassioned, like a tune played on the Pied Piper’s flute.

  “When the citizens of the town gathered around the corpse of the demon they had stoned out of the sky, they saw only the broken body of the dreamy little boy who had lived in the house on the edge of the square. One of his classmates recalled that he had loved birds. Also that he had been good at playing marbles.

  “Just then Peter’s mother came out of her house, drawn by the crowd in the market square. The throngs of villagers parted guiltily before her. ‘What happened?’ she cried, cradling her son’s lifeless body.” Toby thrust out his arms as if reaching for the boy himself. “There was a long, drawn-out silence. And then the mayor spoke. ‘He jumped out from there,’ he said, pointing at the open attic window. ‘He thought he could fly.’

  “The boy’s blood ran between the cracks of the paving stones. As it soaked into the earth, a sapling shot up out of the ground at the very center of the market square. While the people watched in awe, it grew into an enormous acacia tree, towering over every building in town. Stranger still, upon each branch sat a bird: strange, exotic birds, of every shape and color, birds that were not native to the town or even to the continent of Europe. The birds stared down at the townspeople; the people stared up at the birds. As if someone had given a sign, the birds all rose up with a deafening cacophony, their wings flapping, each bird cawing
or clattering its bill. The birds flew around the town square once, then disappeared.

  “All at once, nature went silent. No nightingales sang, no mockingbirds. No doves cooed, no hummingbirds flew, no starlings, no sparrows, no wrens, no owls. The storks abandoned their nests, the pigeons, the square. Even the crows deserted the town.

  “After burying her son, Peter’s mother hurriedly moved away. As if by agreement, no one spoke of the shameful incident.

  “Years passed. In the summer, the tree gave shade. In the spring, racemes of tiny heart-shaped flowers. In the winter, its bark was a beautiful collage of silvers and grays. But in the fall, the leaves flamed a bloody red, and the people would remember the boy who had loved birds, and the atrocity they had committed together in the name of fear and superstition.”

  Here, Toby paused, aiming a sideways glance at Max. Max grew impatient. What was he waiting for? “Go on,” he urged. He wanted to know how it ended.

  Toby shot him a look of incredulity before going on. “No one knows who left the first note,” he said. “But one day there it was, lying in the tree’s roots, pinned to a red poppy. It read, I remember.

  “By the next day, there were twenty notes, by the third, hundreds.

  “I’m sorry, they said. I missed you at school. I missed you at aviation club. I think of you every day of my life. I never meant you any harm. My father made me. Everybody else was doing it. I am ashamed of my behavior on that day. Forgive me. Forgive us. By the end of the week, an avalanche of notes and flowers spilled over the plaza, the flowers sanctifying the air like incense.

  “Finally, a cry was raised. The townspeople mourned for the boy who dared to fly, and atoned for their terrible crime. At that very moment, a great swarm of birds blackened the sky, descending on the town in numbers never seen in recorded history. Flamingos and egrets, starlings and macaws, peacocks and sparrows, cranes and canaries, the rarest exotic birds of the world could be seen roosting side by side on the enormous tree in the middle of the marketplace; you couldn’t see the leaves for the feathers.”