Kezia had closed her eyes, and I was wondering why.
“Vincent, I wonder if you have ever done this,” she said. “Have you ever shut your eyes sometimes, like I am now, tight shut, and heard a memory, seen a memory? I only have to do this, and I can still see this happening in my head.
“The giant Caporal is there in the barn the same day the flamingo flew, all of us with him, and he is walking around and around on our newly finished carousel floor, stamping on it, testing its strength, enjoying his every step.
Then he stops and says this to us: “It is good to know that what is broken can always be mended, a flamingo wing, a carousel, and friendships too. I have two wishes. I want to be here long enough to see this carousel finished. I wish to see it turning once again in the town square, to hear the music, to see the children riding, laughing. But, on the other hand, my second wish is for this war to be over soon, even before the first of my wishes can happen. I would not be here to see the carousel, of course. But to know it will happen one day, that is enough for me.”
None of us knew what to say, except Lorenzo. He used a word then that I had never heard him say before.
The Caporal was passing us on his way out of the barn when Lorenzo reached out and grasped his arm. As they touched foreheads, Lorenzo whispered to him: “Capo Capo. Trust, trust.”
Now it was the Caporal who did not seem to know what to say. It wasn’t until we followed him outside and he was walking away from us that he turned and spoke to us again.
“In German, it is Vertrauen. Trust. And remember what I said, about the Milice. Be watchful. Be safe.”
Lorenzo would not let him go without a proper send-off. As the Caporal walked away, Lorenzo became flamingo, flamingo walking, flamingo dancing, taking off, flying, wings beating, neck stretched out, honking exultantly as he flew.
“Fly, flamingo, fly!” I cried, and we all echoed those words together.
I think it is likely we would have been left alone and untroubled, that no one would ever have bothered us, hidden away as we were out on the farm. It is ironic, but in a way it was the flamingos who were our downfall, who in the end brought the Milice to our door. Or rather, I should say, it was not the flamingos themselves, but their eggs.
Hardly anyone came to the farm these days, perhaps a neighbor with a sick calf for Lorenzo to heal, or a horse for Henri to shoe, though these were all good friends, trusted neighbors. But it was April, springtime on the farm, the time when all of us had to be especially on our guard against egg-robbers. This was the month the flamingos gathered on the island, crowding together, and laid their eggs, and bred their chicks.
The egg-robbers would come in the early mornings or at dusk, and wade out over to the pink lakes, to the breeding islands, to steal the eggs from under the sitting flamingos. It happened every year—occasionally, as I told you, Vincent, it still does. So, morning and evening, someone had to be there on lookout.
Usually, it was Henri and Lorenzo together out there, watching the island, sitting on the upturned rowing boat by the lakeside. Nancy thought the egg-robbers might not come this year. There were still roadblocks everywhere, and a curfew too. No one would risk it, she said. Henri, though, was quite sure they would come. People were going hungry now in the Camargue under the Occupation. There was very little food, and what there was was very expensive too. The Germans were taking for themselves all the food they could get. So there were plenty of people trying to survive on very little, especially in the towns, but also in the countryside around about. Just three flamingo eggs made a good meal for a family. So flamingo eggs would be especially sought after this year, he said. Sadly, it was Henri who turned out to be right.
It was the first and only argument I ever heard between Nancy and Henri. He was hammering away at his forge, shaping new horseshoes for Cheval. Cheval was standing there, wreathed in smoke, ears back, hating it but putting up with it—Cheval, so unlike Honey, put up with everything. Lorenzo and I heard them arguing between the echoing hammer blows, and listened unseen from inside the hospital shed.
“And I tell you, they will come this year whether we like it or not,” Henri was saying. “And I say we should let them come and take the eggs. There are people starving. They need the food, Nancy—you know that. The flamingos will breed again next year. Who are more important, people or flamingos?”
“Flamingos!” Nancy retorted. “Do flamingos make wars? Do they make guns? Do they make slaves of people? Do they take gypsy people away, and Jews like Madame Salomon, and put them in camps, or worse, because they are different? No, flamingos live only to feed and to fly, to lay their eggs and breed. You know that every year we see fewer of them, and there are fewer islands where it is safe for them to raise their young. The foxes take them. The wild boar take them. The badgers take them. And if we take their eggs as well, steal them and eat them, what chance do they have? And, anyway, what would Lorenzo think if he knew we were not out there morning and evening, protecting their eggs, keeping the thieves away? We have always done it, every year. He does it—we all do it!”
Lorenzo had heard enough. He left the shed, and I followed. He walked right up to his father, and said in a trembling voice: “Fly, flamingo, fly, Papa. Fly, flamingo, fly.”
Then he took him firmly by the hand and led him away from his anvil across the farmyard to the edge of the lake. There the flamingos were, crowded onto their island, in their hundreds, incubating their eggs. Lorenzo sat down on the upturned fishing boat at the edge of the lake and pulled Henri down beside him, holding his arm fast.
“Renzo stay. Papa stay.”
There was no more argument. Early every morning and evening two of us were always there, sitting on the upturned boat, watching the nesting site for intruders, whether fox or badger or wild boar or human. The water level, Nancy told me, was high enough in the lakes this year to keep most predators away, but it was still shallow enough for the egg-robbers to be able to wade out. And come they did, not at dusk or dawn as everyone was expecting they might, but in broad daylight.
The flamingos raised the alarm themselves, lifting off in a cacophony of urgent honking. Maman spotted the thieves first from the steps of the caravan. Half a dozen men were wading out across the lake, some of them already on the island. By the time we were all there at the lakeside, Henri with his rifle in hand, the egg-robbers were already busy raiding the nests, filling their sacks with eggs, while above them the flamingos wheeled and soared, helpless to do anything about it. But we could.
The egg-robbers ignored our shouting, but Henri’s rifle was enough to make them pay attention. He fired one shot in the air. That stopped them collecting. The next shot sent them scurrying in a panic off the island, splashing through the lake, making their escape, some leaving their sacks behind them, all except one, and I recognized him. He was from town, the father of Bernadette, my old tormentor at school. He stood his ground, sack over his shoulder, and was hurling abuse at Henri and Papa as they came wading out toward the island.
Lorenzo and I wanted to go with them, but Maman and Nancy held us back. Across the water, we couldn’t hear every hateful word he was yelling at them, but we could hear enough.
“We know about you, Henri Sully! You have gyppos for friends! You wait, I have a brother in the Milice, and I promise you he will hear of this!” Henri fired another shot into the air as they neared the island. “You will regret this, Henri Sully, I promise you!” Then he turned, jumped down into the water and waded away to join his friends on the far shore where they stood, shaking their fists, yelling expletives and curses at us.
By then we had joined Henri and Papa on the island, and were already busy emptying their discarded sacks and putting the eggs back onto the nests. Above us the flock of flamingos circled, waiting for us to complete our task and be gone. Their triumphant honking sounded to us like a battle cry of victory and freedom. We had seen off the enemy, retaken the island and saved at least some of the eggs. We were soaked through and chilled to the bone by the time we got home afterward, but the raiders had been repulsed, the flamingos were back on their island, and we were exultant. We should not have been.”