‘God in heaven,’ lamented Stefa as she stared at the poor creature, ‘what the hell are we going to do with a crippled budgie?’
Gloria limped into the far corner of the box, gamely trying to put some distance between herself and my niece. The bird was pale blue, with a bright yellow beak and slender black and white wings. She’d have been pretty, but her breast was gouged with raw-looking empty patches.
‘She can’t fly,’ Adam informed us glumly. ‘One of her wings doesn’t work. So I’ve adopted her.’
‘She’s going to leave droppings everywhere!’ Stefa declared, her hands on her hips.
‘She can’t leave anything if we don’t feed her,’ I joked.
The boy glared as if I was a traitor, then stuck out his tongue at me.
I stuck out my tongue back, then tried to pinch his ear, but he ducked away.
‘Adam, my darling,’ Stefa snapped, and her
My niece had begun to rely on run-on sentences to outduel her son. Hoping to broker a truce, I said, ‘I’ll build her a cage.’
‘Oh, like you built those lopsided bookcases of yours!’ Stefa observed, pointing to my rickety constructions. She showed me that sneer of hers that was like a boot on your chest.
‘We’ll
‘Where’d you get those?’ his mother demanded, certain he’d become a criminal.
‘Gambling on horses!’ he shouted. His true wish, perhaps.
‘How really?’ I asked.
‘I do maths homework for Feivel, Wolfi and some of the other kids.’
A few days later, Gloria moved into a conical cage that Izzy made for us out of a wood base and wire spokes. He soldered a swastika to the finial, since provoking Stefa was the key to the vaudeville routine they’d developed over the years.
‘Izzy, that’s not funny at all!’ she told him, which made him grin in triumph.
‘What you don’t understand, Stefa my sweetheart,’ he told her, ‘is that madness and magic are inseparable. The swastika will prevent the Nazis from confiscating Gloria when they pass a law against Jewish pets.’
By then, Adam was in love. Gloria’s repertoire was limited to eating, chirping, defecating and tearing out her breast feathers in a neurotic frenzy, but my nephew would put her on his shoulder and carry her around as if she were the bewitched form of a princess. When Stefa wasn’t home, he’d even sit her on his head. Gloria seemed to enjoy riding on a bouncy perch made of blond hair and smelling of our last bar of lavender soap, but does anyone know what a budgie is really thinking in between meal times?
For Adam, joy had feathers. And after a while, I realized there was something affecting and encouraging about Gloria – maybe because her total, irremediable uselessness was proof that we could still afford at least one luxury.
Adam’s chorus gave its first concert on 28 January, at Weisman’s dancing school on Pańska Street. A water pipe had burst that morning, and despite some frantic mopping by the organizers, puddles were still scattered around the room.
In the audience were a few friends and acquaintances, including the renowned jazz pianist Noel Anbaum, and Ewa, whom Stefa – ever the matchmaker – had hooked up with Rowy after sizing up the young man at a chorus rehearsal. According to my niece, the two had already had three
Soon, the lights flickered for the audience to take its seats. Eight girls and four boys filed up the stairs at the side to the stage, fidgeting and pushing, which made me fear a descent into musical hell. Under Rowy’s raised baton, however, the children’s faces grew serious, and they harmonized their Bach chorales like brothers and sisters. Closing my eyes, I felt as if I’d stopped hurtling through my own displacement for the first time in months; I was just where I wanted to be. I’d landed.
The first encore was Rowy’s own solemn arrangement of ‘
As he took his bows, my nephew looked at me with such adult earnestness that I was overwhelmed with admiration. For the first time, I had the feeling he’d accomplish magnificent things in his life, and I knew then that protecting him was the most important job I could have been given for my time in the ghetto.
