Free Hunting Midnight by Richard Zimler

the lad.”
    But the birdseller was not about to release me without more of a struggle. Hence, the merchant brought his cane down against his back again with a cruel thwap that promised broken bones.
    The birdseller fell forward and avoided a kiss to the cobbles by thrusting out both his hands. I was free. And the first thing I did was stumble forward, bend over, and vomit.
    “Return to your wagon and leave the lad be,” the merchant advised the birdseller.
    “But this little bastard was the one who imitated a thrush so we would think there’d been a miracle,” he pleaded in reply. “I saw him myself. Very likely he’s the one who stole all my beauties.”
    “Is this true?” the merchant asked me.
    As the birdseller got to his feet, Violeta rushed to testify on my behalf. “Sir, I have been with him for an hour or more, and he uttered not a single call.”
    With those words, she earned my eternal allegiance.
    “She is lying to protect me,” I confessed, wiping my mouth with my sleeve. “I am guilty as charged.” I took a mighty breath into my lungs and imitated a thrush.
    “Extraordinary,” the merchant said. “Sing it again, lad.”
    And so I did.
    “More!” a woman exclaimed.
    Over the next few minutes I created warbling and whirring renditions of goldfinches, jays, canaries, sparrow hawks, and gulls, culminating in an animated rendition of two kingfishers in friendly conversation.
    “Astounding!” The merchant smiled.
    At the risk of blowing my own trumpet, he did, in fact, seem to speak for everyone in the crowd. It occurs to me now that given more encouragement in this direction, I might have ended up as a performer at circuses or touring monster shows, the kind that feature bearded women and two-headed goats.
    After I was finished, the birdseller said, “That is all very clever, son, but you have hoodwinked me out of my stock.”
    “Hold out your hand,” the merchant commanded the birdseller .
    But he feared a caning and would do no such thing.
    “Please, I shall not hit you again, my good man. And I believe that these” – he reached into his waistcoat pocket to take out two large silver coins of one hundred reis apiece – “will compensate you for your loss. I ask only that you give me the wooden birds as a fair trade.”
    He tossed the shining disks of silver to the birdseller, who, with his newfound wealth firmly clenched in his fist, walked off to complete the transaction. The merchant then inhaled a pinch of snuff and suggested, between sneezes, that I imitate a nightingale . A greater crowd gathered as I displayed my talents – more than two hundred souls, according to the counting done by Violeta, who was to become our greatest friend. Today, when I picture her as she was that day, standing right up front, alternately biting her lip out of concern that I might fail and giggling in wonderment, I cannot help but laugh along with her. Daniel was standing next to her, of course, his raised fist punctuating the cadences of my calls, watching me with such wild and generous enjoyment that I felt in some way that my imitations were truly only for him and Violeta. As for the wooden birds, all but one were given to the merchant; the jay that the birdseller’s wife claimed to have been transformed to wood in her hands she insisted on keeping, as proof of St. John’s intervention in our earthly affairs.
    It is to her more than anyone else that we owe the continuing belief that a miracle took place that particular morning, June Twenty-Third, 1800. Indeed, the entire affair was later recorded in the chronicles of Joaquim Rodrigues, a city alderman, under the title “The Transfiguration of the Birds of Porto.” In this account, I am erroneously referred to as João Stewart Zarco, my two family names reversed. Daniel’s name is not given, but he is nicely described as a lithe older accomplice to young Zarco. It is also noted that a pious and pretty lass by the name of Violeta was the first to