The WWII Collection. William Wharton

anyway, it’s only what he calls him. I ask, ‘What is the secret name?’ Birdy says he doesn’t know. He tells me he doesn’t know enough canary talk to ask him yet. Yet! he says and he doesn’t blink, just wiggles his crazy eyes. He isn’t smiling and I know he’s not kidding.

      It’s hard to figure if somebody like Birdy is crazy or not.

      Next morning I decide to take the risk. I open the door to Birdie’s cage. Then I go out of the aviary and sit behind my binoculars. I can always go in and rescue her if it gets too bad.

      Birdie hops out right away. Alfonso is up on the top perch. Birdie sees I’ve put in new bath water, so, after a few inquisitive queeps, she hops down to take her bath. She’s completely ignoring him. He stands up there on his perch menacing. I’m expecting any minute he’ll swoop down.

      Birdie goes through her whole bath routine but he doesn’t move; he doesn’t take his eyes off her, either. It’s the last thing I expected. Birdie flies up to the top of her little cage and starts preening her feathers.

      After some minutes of watching her, the dive-bomber zooms down, has himself a few seeds and a little drink. He hop-flies around the wet places from Birdie’s bath. He hops up onto the edge of the bath, wiggles his face around in it as if he’s going to take a bath himself, then decides against it. He goes over and has a few more seeds. I’d put in some treat food too, and he gobbles some of that.

      Then he does his straight-up jump and with a few wing flips re-establishes himself at the top of the aviary. He perches there and stretches his wings a couple times, trying to look bored. He wipes his beak about ten times on the perch to show what a big shot he is, then does that kind of bird gargle where they open their beaks wide and wiggle their tongues around. He flips his tail up and takes a couple quick pecks at his asshole. I’m getting bored myself, especially when I’d been expecting an attempted murder, at least.

      Then, seemingly for no reason, he starts to sing. He starts quietly enough, going through a few bars just slightly more powerful than before, but gradually increasing the volume and the emotional content. A certain harshness begins to dominate. Meanwhile, he’s started rocking back and forth on his thin legs and agitatedly moving the length of the perch. He sings leaning forward with his throat fully extended. His wings are slightly lifted from his body and his stomach is pulled taut. Altogether he’s damned impressive. He impresses me, that is, but apparently not Birdie. She’s just finishing off the last little soft feathers on her back.

      Now, Alfonso starts holding notes. He holds the same note till I think he’s going to fall off the perch. It seems as if he doesn’t breathe. He’s in a regular frenzy. Suddenly, he pounces down to where Birdie is basking. He lands about a foot from her, continuing his song during the drop and while he’s standing there. Birdie looks over at him. He begins his pursuit immediately. Birdie jumps up and flies to the perch he’s just abandoned. He’s right after her, in full song. His whole body is quivering.

      It gets to be a regular WWI dogfight with Birdie finding no place she can land without his swarming all over her. He even manages somehow to harry her in midflight. It’s obvious he wants to mate but equally obvious that Birdie is totally unprepared for his cave-bird tactics. At last, she makes the mistake of flying into her cage. He goes right in after her and there’s such a scramble, I hurry into the aviary and put my hand in the cage to rescue Birdie. He’s got her trapped so she can’t escape. She doesn’t resist but I get a few good pecks on the back of my hand from the tiger himself. I intend to close the door and keep him in there, but before I can do it, he’s flown out and is up on the highest perch menacing me, with his wings lifted and his beak open.

      I go out of the aviary and close the door to keep him in there, at least. I let Birdie loose. She flares her feathers, gives me a queep, a QReep and a couple peeps, then flies over to the wire of the aviary. Now, she’s flirting. She knows she’s safe so she’s going to tease him.

      She flies to one spot and Alfonso, singing madly, swoops over to her, then she flies a foot or so away from the wire and lands in another place. He flies to meet her there. This goes on for about five minutes. Then he flies up to his perch again. I guess he’s pooped or maybe he’s tired of having her make fun of him. Birdie hangs on the wire and queeps at him, very plaintive, very demanding.

      After a few minutes, he starts singing in a normal tone. We listen. He really can sing. Then, gradually, he gets all worked up again; it’s as if his own singing turns him on. This time he flies down to the floor. He stands there on the floor and sings up to where Birdie’s hanging. He looks like an opera singer; standing in the light on the white sand, turning left and right and taking short steps backwards and forwards as he sings. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen a canary do something like walking.

      Birdie flies down to the floor on the outside of the aviary and looks through the wire at him. He keeps singing and slowly struts over to her, giving her the full tenor treatment. She doesn’t move. He gets to the edge of the wire and they aren’t an inch apart. He’s singing wildly. Birdie looks and listens then starts giving her little whimpering ‘feed-me’ signal. She squats and flips her wings quickly, opening her mouth and pressing it through the wires.

      Alfonso stops singing and looks at her. He can’t seem to figure what this is all about. He cocks his head and looks down into her mouth, listens to her and starts singing again. Poor Birdie. He begins rocking back and forth, leaning down till his throat is touching the floor. He lifts his head up and down with the power of his passion. When, at last, he can’t bear it anymore, he throws himself against the bars of the aviary.

      This frightens Birdie and she flies away. He climbs up the bars of the aviary trying to watch her. She flies over to the mirror on the dresser and looks at herself. He hangs there for a while, then flies down onto the floor again and takes a drink. All that passion must’ve made him thirsty.

      This whole ritual happens over and over, all day long. At the critical moment, Birdie wants to be fed and Alfonso can’t bring himself to do it or doesn’t know how. Frustrated, I put Birdie back in her cage and leave the room.

      That evening, I let Birdie out while I’m drawing a new design for my wing. I’m at my desk, my desk lamp is the only light and it’s practically dark in the aviary. Still, there’s enough light so I can see Alfonso hanging on the side of the cage. He starts singing, low, smoothly. When he stops, Birdie begins whimpering again, fanning her wings. At last he does it. He feeds her through the bars. It sounds so satisfying. He throws back his head to bring up food from his crop, then gently puts it into her open beak. With each beakful, there’s a rise in tiny peeps from Birdie, and then, a moment’s pause while she swallows. He keeps it up till he’s given all he has. Birdie continues her insistent peeping and shimmying around so he flies down for more food. He comes back and does it all again.

      After this, he flies onto the top of her cage and sings. He sings as if he’s trying to say something. There’s all of asking in his voice and not the ‘Come here, Baby’ sound he’d been giving us up till now. Birdie sits perfectly still and listens. I do too. There’s tremendous variety in the paths of his singing. There are certain kinds of things he does well; these he repeats but at different volumes or different tones and in all kinds of variations.

      There’s open air in his song, the power of wings and the softness of feathers. He’s telling how it will be if she’ll only let him put his little dong into her little hole. It’s clear as any love song. He sings of things he could never have seen or known in the aviary at Mr Lincoln’s. These things must be memories in his blood carried through in his song. There’s the song of rivers and the sound of water and the song of fields and seeds in their natural places. It’s a song I’ll never forget. It’s with this song I began to understand something of canary. Canary isn’t a language like ours with individual words, or words put into sentences. In the singing, you let your mind go, not think, and it comes to you, clearer than words. It comes as if you’d thought it yourself. Canary is much more feeling, more abstract than any language. Listening to Alfonso that night I found out things I knew must be but I’d never known. It was the song of someone who knows how to fly.

      The next day’s Sunday and after mass