Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [331]
Madame Leclerc seemed to be preparing another sally, but before she was ready, the green parakeet hopped down from her shoulder to her wrist and spoke to her: “Comme tu es belle.”
“Ah,” said Madame Leclerc. “My pet is always complimentary. Unlike some.” She shot another glance at the two men, then turned her pretty shoulder to them, drawing herself in on the bird. Paul was staring frankly now. He had heard of birds that talked but never met one.
“Come here, boy.” Madame Leclerc had not appeared to be looking at him, but she had certainly been aware of his eyes. Paul glanced quickly at his mother, who almost imperceptibly nodded. Madame Leclerc was beckoning to him with a graceful curve of that languid arm; a triad of silver bracelets tinkled on the wrist unoccupied by the parakeet.
“Just put your finger behind his feet . . .” And the lady’s soft fingers were on his forearm. Paul was perplexed by her touch and the sweet scent of her and the close focus of her attention. It was easier to concentrate on the bird.
“Yes, like that,” she said. “You see?”
When Paul touched the back of the parakeet’s scaly legs, it took a neat backward step onto his forefinger. He smiled. The little claws were tickling him.
“Don’t show him your hand from the front,” Madame Leclerc warned. “He will peck it. And his beak is quite sharp.”
The parakeet screwed its head around and blinked one eye at Paul.
“Comme tu es belle,” it declared.
Madame Leclerc began to giggle. Isabelle and Elise tittered along with her; Nanon looked up briefly from her basket of sewing.
“It may be that he is a little indiscriminate,” Madame Leclerc said. “But he is unfailingly determined to please.”
She turned to Isabelle. “As for his singing, well—” With a jingle of bracelets, she clapped her hands sharply. “Moustapha!”
The man who presented himself was not named Moustapha at all. Paul had known him as a porter on the waterfront and he knew very well that his name was Baptiste. Today he was not so easily recognizable, though, for he had been costumed in a Chinese silk robe that strained at his shoulders and stopped short at his knees, and crowned with an ill-balanced turban fastened in the center of his forehead with a large red glass brooch.
But Paul was more struck by the thing he was carrying: a box of a silvery metal set with brass inlays representing songbirds on ornamental sprigs. A crank stuck out of the side, as if it were some kind of a grinding machine, but on the top there was a bird cage.
“Go on,” Madame Leclerc told him. “Put him in.”
Paul hesitated. He didn’t want to see the talking bird ground into sausage.
“Well, it won’t hurt him!” Again, the chiming of her laughter. “It hasn’t seemed to help him much, but it won’t harm him.”
Baptiste was smiling encouragingly from beneath the ridiculous turban, so Paul put the bird into the cage and latched the door. The parakeet hopped up onto the small swinging perch and sat there, shrugging its shiny green shoulders. Baptiste balanced the engine upright on its post and turned the crank. Out came a fragile, metallic melody, one which Paul had heard Madame Isabelle singing to Héloïse from time to time: “Ah, what shall I say, Maman?”
Rapt, he reached to touch the yellow inlays on the box. Baptiste smiled more broadly and shifted the machine, presenting the crank handle to Paul’s hand. Paul turned it, shyly at first, then with more vigor. The music played fast or slow according to the speed of the cranking. But the bird was unmoved by the tune at any tempo. It swung on the perch, closing first one eye and then the other.
“Perhaps he is not musical,” Pauline said, still laughing, throwing back her head. “Or perhaps he needs a better music master—one who knows the birds of this land.” A new thought seemed to come to her, and she leaned forward to tap a finger on Isabelle’s arm.
“Do you know?” she said. “Another curiosity—a band of musicians were found alive in the fort at La Crête à Pierrot. Frenchmen all, and the only survivors. Four or five of