Songbirds(3)

I’d filled up the first bag and begun to remove the feathers and berries from the lime sticks with my lips so I could reuse them, when I heard the crunch of leaves.

Shit. I froze for a moment and held my breath. I scanned the surroundings and there it was, in a clearing between the bushes. The mouflon was calmly staring at me. It stood in the long shadows of the trees and it wasn’t until the light shifted that I saw the most extraordinary thing: instead of the usual red and brown, its short-haired coat was gold; its curved horns, bronze. Its eyes were the exact colour of Nisha’s – the eyes of a lion.

I thought I must be dreaming, that I must still be asleep by the fire.

I took a step forward and the golden mouflon took a small step back, but its posture remained straight and strong, its eyes fixed on mine. Moving slowly, I removed my backpack from my shoulders and took out a slice of fruit. The mouflon shuffled its feet and lowered its head so that its eyes now looked up at me, half-wary, half-threatening. I placed the slice of peach in my palm and held out my hand. I stayed like that, as still as a tree. I wanted it to come closer.

Seeing the beauty of its face, a memory came to me, sharp and clear. Last March, Nisha and I had gone to the Troodos mountains. She loved to go for long walks on Sunday mornings when she wasn’t working. She’d often come with me into the forest to pick mushrooms, wild asparagus, blue mallow or to collect snails. On this day, I had wanted to see if we could spot a mouflon ovis. I hoped that we would see one in the depths of the woods or the verge of the mountains, at the threshold to the sky. We were so high up and she slipped her hand in mine.

‘So, we’re looking for a sheep?’ she’d said.

‘Technically, yes.’

‘I’ve seen plenty of sheep.’ There was a mocking smile in her eyes.

‘I told you, it doesn’t look like a sheep! It’s a magnificent creature.’

‘So. We’re looking for a sheep that doesn’t look like a sheep.’ She was holding her hand over her eyes, scanning the area around us, pretending to look.

‘Yes,’ I said, matter-of-factly.

This made her laugh and her laughter escaped into the open sky. I felt in that moment that she had never been a stranger.

We’d been walking around for hours and were about to turn back, as the evening was closing in, when I suddenly spotted one standing at the edge of a steep cliff. I could tell it was female as it had smaller curved horns and no ruff of coarse hair beneath its neck. I pointed so that Nisha could see.

The mouflon saw us and faced us straight on.

Nisha stared at it in amazement. ‘It’s so pretty,’ she said. ‘It looks like a deer.’

‘I told you.’

‘Nothing like a sheep.’

‘See!’

‘Its fur is smooth and brown . . . and such a gentle look on its face. It’s like it’s going to speak to us. Doesn’t it look like it wants to say something?’

I didn’t reply and instead watched Nisha watch the animal, her face bright with curiosity.

There was a flash in her eyes, as if the colours of the forest shone through them, as if some secret energy, some nimble animal hiding amongst the trees, had suddenly come to life. She let go of my hand and took a few steps towards the mouflon. Strangely, it stepped away from the edge of the cliff and came slightly closer. I had never seen one approach a human before. Nisha was so gentle in the way she stretched out her hand, in the way she waited for the animal. But there was tension in her. This was all in her eyes: they burned with an emotion that I didn’t recognise.

In that moment, I felt such a distance from her and the animal, like they shared something I couldn’t understand.

However, in the next moment she turned to kiss me. One soft kiss.

*

Now, dawn in the forest, and the memory of that day brought a sharp pain to my heart. The mouflon ovis gazed at me, transfixed, tilting its head slightly, making a sound which was like a question. A question of a single word.

‘I won’t hurt you,’ I said, and realised suddenly how loud my voice was in the woods, how it disturbed the peace. The Ovis shook its head and took another step back.

‘Sorry,’ I said to it, this time softly.

For the first time, it broke its gaze. It seemed to rest its eyes on the bucket of birds beside me.

‘Sure,’ I said. ‘I don’t blame you. I’m basically a murderer offering you a peach.’ I laughed a bit, at the irony of it, as if the Ovis might share the joke.

I threw the slice of fruit on the ground, and this time I walked backwards, retreating into the shadows and the trees. I continued to watch the mouflon from there for a while, this incredible animal, strong and beautiful. It was very still, then it looked at something over to the left and turned its back to me and walked away, into the forest.

I removed the rest of the birds from the lime sticks as quickly as I could, so I could return home and find Nisha. I couldn’t wait to tell her what I’d seen. I was hoping that perhaps this story about the mouflon would make her shine again.





4

Petra

I

WOKE UP IN THE MIDDLE of the night because something broke. I heard a crashing noise, loud and clear, like a window smashing or a glass dashed on the floor with force. The sound had come from the garden, I was sure about that. The clock on my bedside cabinet showed 12 a.m. Could it be the wind? But the night was still and apart from the sound I had heard, there was a deep silence. Maybe it had been a cat?