CORVUS CORONE. PASSER MONTANUS. Motacilla alba. Mother told me their names, idly at first, the Latin an afterthought to the common terms: crow, sparrow, wagtail. But the scientific nomenclature appealed to me. The clean, satisfying structure of the language. The idea that I possessed knowledge others did not. I was mystified, believing, mistakenly, that I had learned the truest, oldest words by which to call the creatures I encountered.
For a time, I clung to this knowledge with an obsession and an energy typical of young children. Our mongrel found himself addressed more frequently with the words canis familiaris than with his own given name.
‘Canis familiaris,’ I said to him. ‘Felis catus,’ I said to Grandmother’s old tabby. And to the mirror I said, ‘homo sapiens.’ The words rolled off my tongue.
‘Canis familiaris,’ I said to him. ‘Felis catus,’ I said to Grandmother’s old tabby. And to the mirror I said, ‘homo sapiens.’ The words rolled off my tongue.
*
MOTHER STRUGGLED WHEN I WANTED to know the names of plants. The edible dandelion, yellow as butter, then white and light and able to grant wishes; the tangy bird cherries; the aromatic poplars. She was an ornithologist, but I demanded answers. She took me to the library. She called a friend whose brother was a botanist. Taraxacum officinale. Prunus padus. Populus suaveolens. I repeated their names under my breath, kicking the dust under the monkey bars. In those moments, I was the picture of loneliness. Mother, keeping an eye on me from the window of our ground-floor flat, immortalised one such moment in a picture. I can see it now: poorly framed, grainy, vague. The sunlight reflects off my hair, bleaching it. Such photos would have us believe that sunlight in the nineties had a washed-out, yellowish quality.
But the picture this photograph paints is untruthful in more than one way, giving life to a fictional child, one who is lonely, and downcast, and shy. It is obvious from the tensed shoulders, from the bent neck – even the halo effect of that blinding yet sullen sun suggests an outcast. I would not have waited much longer, after Mother put down the camera, before my friends joined me on the monkey bars – the numerous friends who occupied my childhood days, and whose names I cannot now recall.
But the picture this photograph paints is untruthful in more than one way, giving life to a fictional child, one who is lonely, and downcast, and shy. It is obvious from the tensed shoulders, from the bent neck – even the halo effect of that blinding yet sullen sun suggests an outcast. I would not have waited much longer, after Mother put down the camera, before my friends joined me on the monkey bars – the numerous friends who occupied my childhood days, and whose names I cannot now recall.
*
‘COLUMBA LIVIA.’
The words startled me when they parted from my lips. I was with three other children when we came upon it, wings spread out, neck at an unnatural angle, and those pretty, copper-coloured eyes, looking through everything. Two of the children gasped at the sight. The smallest wept a little. The shock of being confronted with the corpse had sent my blood pumping, but my reaction was confined to speaking the bird’s name with the breathlessness of a short benediction. It did not go unnoticed.
‘What did you say?’
I did not answer at first. This impressive array of names was mine alone – my secret knowledge. I did not want to share it with the others and was angry at myself for the slip. But my inquisitive friend was persistent. A hand tapped my shoulder, and the question was repeated, louder this time.
‘What did you say?’
‘Columba livia.’
‘What’s that?’
I turned to the three of them, the smallest rubbing the tears into his eyes. An idea had come to me, and its execution required some drama.
‘Her name.’ My voice trembled. ‘Someone killed my pet pigeon!’
There was a pause, in which the children exchanged glances. Little smiles appeared on their faces. They said, without words, we’re not falling for this. But the oldest was looking at me, and the smile on her face had a different quality. She was somewhat of a maverick, older by a few years. She was a schoolgirl, while we were kindergarteners. At the time, we were proud that she had chosen to play with us, but now I feel a little sad when I think of this girl, rejected by her own age group.
‘It’s true,’ she lied without taking her eyes off me.
‘No, it’s not,’ said the smallest – but he did not sound so sure.
‘Yes, it is,’ the schoolgirl insisted. ‘I’ve been to her house. I’ve seen the pigeon. She used to do tricks.’
‘Oh yeah? What’s the pigeon’s name again?’
The schoolgirl hardly missed a beat.
‘Columbalivia.’ She put a comforting arm around my shoulder. ‘Are you going to be okay?’
We decided to hold a funeral for the bird. Since ‘Columbalivia’ was my pet, it was I who carried her, holding her cold, leathery foot. The others looked on with a quiet respect.
We dug a shallow grave with broken sticks and laid the animal in the dry earth. The schoolgirl disappeared, returning after a few minutes with a piece of cardboard on which, she said, she had written the bird’s name. We took her word for it – we could not read. We piled rocks on top of the burial site and pushed the piece of cardboard between them.
It was with a sense of urgency that my friends met me emerging from my building the following morning. The smallest was weeping again – he had not yet mastered control of his emotions.
‘She’s gone! Someone dug her up!’
I examined the area around the desecrated grave. Shoeprints in the dust. We followed them in circles, wasting an hour before giving up. (It occurs to me now that the prints were our own.) When we did find her, it was by accident – although she had not travelled far. She was only around the other side of my building, roughly where we had first found her.
One of us said that a dog must have brought her here. Another, that it was the work of our enemies – a pair of tween boys who lived across the road and sometimes crossed it to plague our days with gruesome pranks. Finally, the smallest of us suggested, before bursting into tears, that Columbalivia had been alive when we buried her – but was now certainly dead. This morbid suggestion was dismissed, and the bird was returned to her resting place. The next day, she was gone again. The grave was torn up. This time, we could not find her.
The words startled me when they parted from my lips. I was with three other children when we came upon it, wings spread out, neck at an unnatural angle, and those pretty, copper-coloured eyes, looking through everything. Two of the children gasped at the sight. The smallest wept a little. The shock of being confronted with the corpse had sent my blood pumping, but my reaction was confined to speaking the bird’s name with the breathlessness of a short benediction. It did not go unnoticed.
‘What did you say?’
I did not answer at first. This impressive array of names was mine alone – my secret knowledge. I did not want to share it with the others and was angry at myself for the slip. But my inquisitive friend was persistent. A hand tapped my shoulder, and the question was repeated, louder this time.
‘What did you say?’
‘Columba livia.’
‘What’s that?’
I turned to the three of them, the smallest rubbing the tears into his eyes. An idea had come to me, and its execution required some drama.
‘Her name.’ My voice trembled. ‘Someone killed my pet pigeon!’
There was a pause, in which the children exchanged glances. Little smiles appeared on their faces. They said, without words, we’re not falling for this. But the oldest was looking at me, and the smile on her face had a different quality. She was somewhat of a maverick, older by a few years. She was a schoolgirl, while we were kindergarteners. At the time, we were proud that she had chosen to play with us, but now I feel a little sad when I think of this girl, rejected by her own age group.
‘It’s true,’ she lied without taking her eyes off me.
‘No, it’s not,’ said the smallest – but he did not sound so sure.
‘Yes, it is,’ the schoolgirl insisted. ‘I’ve been to her house. I’ve seen the pigeon. She used to do tricks.’
‘Oh yeah? What’s the pigeon’s name again?’
The schoolgirl hardly missed a beat.
‘Columbalivia.’ She put a comforting arm around my shoulder. ‘Are you going to be okay?’
We decided to hold a funeral for the bird. Since ‘Columbalivia’ was my pet, it was I who carried her, holding her cold, leathery foot. The others looked on with a quiet respect.
We dug a shallow grave with broken sticks and laid the animal in the dry earth. The schoolgirl disappeared, returning after a few minutes with a piece of cardboard on which, she said, she had written the bird’s name. We took her word for it – we could not read. We piled rocks on top of the burial site and pushed the piece of cardboard between them.
It was with a sense of urgency that my friends met me emerging from my building the following morning. The smallest was weeping again – he had not yet mastered control of his emotions.
‘She’s gone! Someone dug her up!’
I examined the area around the desecrated grave. Shoeprints in the dust. We followed them in circles, wasting an hour before giving up. (It occurs to me now that the prints were our own.) When we did find her, it was by accident – although she had not travelled far. She was only around the other side of my building, roughly where we had first found her.
One of us said that a dog must have brought her here. Another, that it was the work of our enemies – a pair of tween boys who lived across the road and sometimes crossed it to plague our days with gruesome pranks. Finally, the smallest of us suggested, before bursting into tears, that Columbalivia had been alive when we buried her – but was now certainly dead. This morbid suggestion was dismissed, and the bird was returned to her resting place. The next day, she was gone again. The grave was torn up. This time, we could not find her.
*
MOTHER WAS PROUD OF ME. I knew the Latin names of every living thing around me – I knew them better than she did. I would be a scientist, or perhaps a medical doctor. She misunderstood me. The names were a collection, not unlike an album full of foreign stamps or even a pile of stickers extracted from hundreds of packets of bubble gum. I wanted the names, but the details of the creatures’ lives were less important. I did not know that the bird I buried would never have found itself in this part of the world without human interference, that it had once been the pet I claimed it was, in that it was descended from the escapees of domesticated pigeons. I did not even know that the name I so treasured was incomplete, that I was missing its third part: domestica.
*
THE FOLLOWING WINTER WAS COLD. When temperatures fell to minus forty, Mother opened the kitchen window to throw birdseed to the pigeons. She screamed briefly when one, misreading her gesture, or just wildly, blindly desperate to get out of the freeze, flew into our flat, scattering a few feathers on the linoleum. It landed on the table and sat there quietly. It allowed itself to be handled. Mother got me to hold it. She picked up the camera and snapped a picture. Then she took the bird from me and threw it, gently, into the cold.
I can see the photograph now. The bird looks natural in my arms, as if it had returned home. My back is to the window, and my face is darkened, but my smile is wide, almost manic. Behind me, on the other side of the glass, the world is bleached white.
I can see the photograph now. The bird looks natural in my arms, as if it had returned home. My back is to the window, and my face is darkened, but my smile is wide, almost manic. Behind me, on the other side of the glass, the world is bleached white.
Olga Kolesnikova lives in Brighton with their partner and their dog. Find them on Twitter @Kolgasnikova
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