Zema wanted a bird.
Zema wanted, not just any bird but a talking one, one she could teach simple words and watch as it screeched them back at her. The bird would become her companion and closest ally as she had no siblings and no one to tell her stories to. Zema told her mother her plan as she soaped clay dishes in the sink. Zema’s mother was Kafi, a country woman having been raised amongst board and zinc in the rolling hills of St. Mary. Kafi respected, above all else, two things; the divinity of His Majesty Halie Selassie the first of Ethiopia, (the never trimmed dreadlocks trailing her back and black and white portraits of the Emperor throughout her home a proclamation of this) and balance of the natural world. These two simple truths governed her existence, her only desire now to pass them on to her youth. She gave her child a name in Amharic, a tribute to His Majesty for His divine blessing as she carried Zema in her fortieth year. She rolled Zema’s hair until it was thick and matted, washing her child’s roots only in river water, squatting on the land by the river until she was able to obtain papers for it.  She smiled with pride upon her child’s tresses which had grown thick and knotted like the great roots of an old cotton tree however she feared her reverence of nature was vacant; as empty as the hollow inside of a cave. Zema spent too much time indoors on a device she had been gifted. She lost interest in their river baths, in creating kingdoms with mud and twigs and leaves, in the cycles of the moon that her mother had taught her since birth. She had grown resigned and withdrawn from school and her teachers warned Kafi of deep sadness within the child. It worried Kafi and it was in this state of agitation that Zema found her mother rinsing the clay dishes.

“Mummy, I want a bird,” she said.

Kafi drenched in the weariness of the day, her troubling thoughts swarming like locusts within her mind, let loose a deep sigh and washed her arms of the soaped water. She carried Zema outside where the sun shone, the mango trees rustling in the May wind. She held her hand in silence as they trekked through the underbrush. They arrived at the river and Zema raised her eyes in confusion, wondering if her mother would subject her to a spontaneous bath. The river was cold and murky and she did not like it.

“Look pon di tree dem,” Kafi said. “Look pon the birds in de breeze.”  Zema raised her eyes to the intertwined branches overhanging the river to see a spattering of brown wings as birds leaped from branch to branch, a white egret steeping over the tall river grass.

Zema had no real awareness of its beauty as she had been borne of it. She nodded at her mother impatiently.

“Look how the birds fly free,” she insisted.  “You see cage a hold dem?”

Zema’s impatient bewilderment was not lost on her mother. She bent down to Zema’s height and held her palms in her own.

“Bird nuh make fi inna cage,” she said in a low voice. “Bird have wing so dem can fly ‘bout the place wid not a worry in dem name.” Zema was unconvinced and her mother continued.

“Look pon you two-foot dem, you woulda want shackle ‘round dem? You woulda want put up inna cage fi look pretty pon people porch?”

At this Zema protested. “Ole’ Man Ras Uma have bird, he have nuff bird and him feed ‘dem and ‘dem happy.”

The mother shook her head solemnly. “Him might feed ‘dem but ‘dem not happy.”

Zema stared at her mother blankly, the loneliness she felt as a sole child clawing away at her heart.

The mother felt disappointed by this and hung her head in shame at the failure of her teachings. She prayed by full moonlight requesting the guidance of Jah. When she arose at day break, she felt the warm feverish glow of Deliverance within her breast and smiled. The mother walked across to the yard of Ole’ Man Ras Uma, calling gently at his gate.

“Greetings elder,” she bowed her head gently.

Ole’ Man Ras Uma recognized the mother and nodded. “Greetings Empress.”

“I need a bird from you,” she said.

“Two five for a bird empress.” Ole’ Man Ras Uma said.

The mother swallowed, “I have three pounds of Julie mango and a few dozen ackee I can give the I for a bird.”  She lifted the bag in her hands.

Ole’ Man Ras Uma did not ordinarily exchange animals for goods, but he knew of Kafi and her young daughter Zema. He recalled the disbelief in the community of her pregnancy, many in the community placing bets that at her age, she would bleed the youth out, but Ras Uma had lived many years and had seen greater miracles. He knew the child would live and swore against all those that would wager on such sensitive matters. The mother and her daughter lived by the river alone, bothering hardly anyone for anything. He was also a solitary man, growing yams by day and ganja by night, flowers of the latter always wrapped in thin paper and placed behind his ear. He sold his yams at markets and his ganja went on boats under the cloak of night. He caught birds and sold them along the road and to the Chinese haberdasheries that would have him. The government began cracking down on catching birds; parrots were endangered, and the police did not know the difference between parrots or any other winged creature. Ole’ Man Ras Uma had plenty of birds that could not be sold, flighty in cages and shitting in his grass. He would have better fortune taking the goods to market.

“I will give the I the bird.” Ole’ Man Ras Uma said.

Ole’ Man Ras Uma went behind his shed and pulled from his makeshift cage, his finest remaining bird; feathers the colour of young breadfruit, the wings tipped blue. It was a large bird, larger than Kafi anticipated. The bird pecked at the wires of the small cage, a crude thing made of chicken wire, a small branch thrust in between the openings, operating as a stand for the bird.

Kafi swallowed “Will this bird speak?” she asked.

The bird was large and olive breasted resembling closely one of the banned parrots. He convinced many Chinese vendors that the bird would talk before police shut him down. It was a parakeet and would never speak.

“Yes I, the bird will speak.”  he said, hand outstretched for the bag of goods.

Zema returned home from school and when she entered her room, she saw the bird in its cage, resting on her dresser, glancing up at her with cool intelligent eyes. Zema was elated by this and found her mother again in the kitchen, rinsing soap from clay dishes.

“Is it a talking bird?” she asked.

“Yes I,” Kafi said.

Zema squealed and embraced her mother, her joy and gratitude profuse. The excited steps of her feet reverberated through the boards of the small home. Zema decided the bird needed a simple name; one that could be repeated easily and a gender. She mulled this over seriously for many days until she settled on Jerry, deciding that with such a name the bird must be a boy.

Every evening after school Zema sat by the cage. Jerry usually blinked at her and stretched his wings. She was mesmerized by his colours, his shining beauty. She repeated his name to him in syllables.

‘Je” she paused “rry.”

Zema did this several times after school for many hours and the bird only watched her disdainfully, flashing its wings and picking its feathers. He screeched many times at her, but they were never words and she grew more and more disappointed as the week came to an end.  At the end of a fortnight, in her distress she sought her mother who was scaling a fish when Zema approached her.

“Jerry won’t speak mother.”  she said disappointedly.

Kafi sighed. “You must be patient Zema, dese t’ings take time. You did never speak in a week.” Kafi placed the gutted, scale-less fish in a pan of cool lime water.  “Take your school books and dictionary to Jerry, read to him slowly the words your teachers tought you in class, the sentences you learn.”

Zema was discouraged but she followed her mother’s direction.  She placed the dictionary on a cushion in front of the bird and skimmed through it, picking out words randomly.

“Speak” Zema read from the dictionary “To ut-utter words or ar, ar-articulate sounds.”  “Speak” she looked up at the bird, who twitched his blue tipped wings on the makeshift bird stand.  “Speak, Jerry.”

The bird’s eyes were rimmed with gold, the irises black and, seemed to Zema, bottomless. White skin surrounded the eyes. Zema felt as though the bird’s gaze was soft and light, she felt if she looked deep enough into his gaze, she may be able to will the creature to speak. The bird’s eyes began to close into fine slits. Zema admired his feathers which were the most brilliant green she had seen, with their shimmers of yellow and blue. She felt a sudden urge to touch them and reached her fingers within the cage. As she felt the fine hairs bristle against her skin the bird’s eyes flew open, curved beak raised until it clamped down on her outstretched finger.

Zema cried out in pain and yanked her hand back from the cage. The bird screeched violently, jumping around what small space was available in the chicken wired cage.  The bird pulled at the wires with its beak, picking and pulling on the bent cage.

Zema ran to her mother and showed her, her dented purple fingers. Kafi hissed and carried her child to the well to dip her fingers in the chilled water.

‘Me never tell you that no rhatid bird wants to be in a cage.’

“I don’t think Jerry will speak mummy.”

“He will, be patient.”

“I don’t think so mummy, he will not!” Zema cried.

“He will child. Stop forcing words to be, allow them to come naturally. I could not force you to speak just as you cannot force Jerry.”

Kafi patted the swelling of her finger with rum, wrapped a banana leaf around her fingers and turned back to her basin of laundry.

Zema continued to thrum through the dictionary and recite to the bird words. She spelled each word out carefully, placed them in sentences and repeated them slowly in hopes that the bird would repeat them back to her. She exercised patience that was steady and unchildlike with the bird. When Zema grew weary of words she began to tell the bird about her day. Zema told him of her loneliness with just her mother by the riverside, her isolation from the other girls at school who all had traditional mothers with straight hair and Christian faith. She told him a word she learned from their dictionary sessions. The word was, resentment. R.e.s.e.n.t.m.e.n.t. She resented her mother for their isolation by the river and what she saw as their queer faith. Her resentment felt like a rope that had been tightened and tied around her heart.

Zema told him about her sadness; sadness she did not really understand the origins of but knew it had created a dent within her. She showed him the device she had been given, a device that had once been spattered with fingerprints but had since Jerry’s arrival been off, dark and silent in her cupboard having been replaced by Jerry who was far more interesting with his attentive golden eyes and flashing wings. The device had been replaced too, by her school books and the dictionary that she turned page by page, reciting words to Jerry. Of all the things she said and the secrets she shared, Jerry blinked at her and ruffled his feathers and she interpreted this to mean that he agreed with what she said. When he screeched loudly, she saw understood that as his anger and she softened her voice or stopped speaking altogether until he fell silent.

She carried him many seeds for his attentiveness, she dried the pumpkin seeds from the garden and the sunflowers from the neighboring gardens until she held palmfuls of seeds that she could give to Jerry. She picked wild callaloo and washed it in salt water and Jerry picked at the leaves. Zema always feed Jerry from her palms so that he could grow used to her hands. He still did not allow her to touch his feathers, but he had become tamer, allowing her to rest the tip of her finger along his beck when his eyes dimmed to slits. Jerry was most content when she brought food to him and she bought a large bag of bird feeding from the hardware store and she mixed them with the seeds she dried, placed them in her palms and feed him.

She knew he was beginning to enjoy her presence, he seemed to ruffle his wings happily when he saw her, and he ate the seeds from her palms vigorously. When she spoke to him, he chirped happily at her. Zema’s life soon revolved around Jerry’s; the seeds she had to source to feed him, the books she had to share with him, the cage that became too small that she soon replaced with a larger one, a proper cage from the Chinese haberdasheries, white wired with two small bird doors that one could slide up easily with one’s finger. No matter how many seeds Zema gave Jerry, no matter how large the cage had become, nothing seemed to please him more than when she placed his cage outside. He jumped on his man-made perches excitedly and screeched loudly at the surrounding trees.

Zema noticed, after some weeks, birds coloured like Jerry, hovering in the nearby trees.

“Mummy,” she pulled on her mother’s arm excitedly, “Look, other Jerrys are in the trees.” She whispered conspiratorially.

Her mother nodded wisely, ‘yes, they hear his cry, they are curious to know which one of their flock lock up in cage.”

On those afternoons that Zema could hear distant responses from other birds Jerry would flutter in a frenzy until she placed him back inside where he grew quiet and unresponsive, not even seeds drawing his beak near her. It was during these times that he would pick at his new cage again, as he did the old makeshift one and she noticed too; a flick of his beak upward to lift the sliding door. Zema would read to him her favorite words from the dictionary but nothing seemed to console him during this time, and he lifted and lifted the doors of the cage, each time the door shutting quickly as though the weight was too heavy for him to sustain with his small beak alone.

“He is unhappy.” her mother said. “He knows what freedom is, he was caught by Ole’ Man Ras Uma so he knows flight, he knows a cage is unnatural.”  Her mother always said this as Jerry lifted the doors with his beck and pulled at the wires. “He does like you little Zema, but he is not happy.”

Zema refused to believe that Jerry did not want to remain with her and her resentment for her mother only strengthened. Zema avoided her and continued to read dictionary words to Jerry and feed him seeds and fruit, willing him to speak. She felt if she feed him enough, he would grow to love her more than he loved this freedom her mother spoke of or those other birds who taunted him from nearby trees. If Zema could get Jerry to utter one word, she would prove her mother wrong, prove that Jerry loved her and her seeds and the words she repeated to him patiently. Jerry grew fatter, accepting of her probing fingers however he continued to go into a frenzy when she placed his cage outside. He remained wordless.

On a cool evening Zema brought him to the river and placed the cage along the mud and watched him dance about the cage.

“Je” she paused. “rry” she said.  “Speak.”

Jerry fluttered about in his cage. She realized that she now knew many words, words that floated around her head constantly. Zema glanced at the river. The water was opaque which meant that she could not see it clearly. The river grass was green, and she knew now that this green pigment was because of chlorophyll within the leaves. Zema had learned many words over the past few months, all in attempt to teach Jerry yet Jerry had repeated to her none, trilling and fluttering as wordlessly as the first day that she saw him in her room. It was then that she knew that he would never speak, not while he was with her in his pretty white prison. Zema looked at the overarching trees above her and noticed as she did some weeks ago, birds that looked like Jerry, jumping from branch to branch. Within his golden eyes she felt she saw a flash of longing. He grew silent at her approach and seemed to fold and slump in defeat.

“Love” Zema said, touching the white cage. “I love you Jerry.”

Jerry’s chirping grew into a frenzy, his wings fluttering wildly. The small jar of water overturned in the cage, the seed jar falling to the bottom and scattering, the clanging of fallen seeds like the incessant patter of rain against a zinc roof.  Zema looked at the canopy and felt all the birds closing in around her until their sharp trill raised into an erratic crescendo. She felt a peace she had not known in many months with the haphazard shrieks of the birds. Without a second thought, she placed her hand along the small door and raised it with one finger.

Jerry shot out, a flash of green and blue along the murky sky until he disappeared into green.  Zema looked at the empty cage and felt the heat of her tears.  She wailed into the daylight and soon heard hurried footsteps land by her ear. Kafi glanced at the empty cage and immediately understood, she sat beside a collapsed Zema. Her heart swelled with pride, but she remained quiet, sending silent thanks to Jah and placed Zema’s small head within her lap.  Kafi’s calloused hands sifted through Zema’s thick tresses, she muttered prayers into her temple.

Zema’s wailing stopped and she saw, through a haze of fervent prayers, among the branches, Jerrys, dozens of them, picking along her Jerry’s wings. He was talking now, sharing her words and stories with them.
Zema grew silent and felt the rope of resentment around her loosen and fall.

© Noelle Bird