A FLOCK OF PIGEONS

Ours weren’t the showy white kind with tails like ruffled fans, the kind Picasso and Matisse made into a cliche image of southern France. Ours were the common ones found in every African village and even in the back yards of city dwellings. Dingy birds, tan or gray mixed with white, they seemed dull in a landscape of tropical birds, flame trees and poinsettias growing wild in the bush.

One day while sitting on the veranda (or khande, as they called it in southern Africa) about the time the shadows fell on Mt. Mulange, I watched the homecoming of my neighbor’s flock. Two or three at a time, they flew in, circled, then touched down. One could see this sight all over Malawi in the late afternoon. Nearly every family kept pigeons to supplement the food supply. They were flying protein.

I had no interest in pigeons as food, but I came to love seeing them winging unerringly home night after night. I started thinking about getting a flock too. “Weston,” I said to my cook not long after, “I think I’d like some pigeons.” He began to tell me that he could get them at the market the next morning and prepare them for dinner. How many guests would I be having?

“No, no,” I said. “I just want some to watch.” He looked mildly surprised, and I was mildly embarrassed. In a country where so many people are just one step ahead of serious hunger, it seemed frivolous to say I wanted them for my pleasure. He was probably thinking, “These crazy Mazungus! What next?”

Then an idea formed as I was speaking it. “Weston, if you take care of the flock now, I will give them to you when I leave. When I’ve gone, you can do with them as you like. He said, “Don’t worry, Madam. I will see to them.”

The very next day, Weston and Maki, the garden boy, went to the market to buy the materials to build a pigeonniere. With Weston supervising and Maki doing the construction, the little pigeon house was up on its pole in the middle of the back garden by nightfall. It must have been a traditional design because it looked like all the other pigeon houses I had seen, down to the the umbrella shaped roof and the rickety ladder leading up to the door. All we needed now were the birds.

When Weston and Maki returned from the market with six birds in a crate on the back of the bicycle, I peeked inside to see them. Six pairs of startled and startling red eyes stared back. Weston scattered grain at the base of the pole while Maki stood on the ladder and stuffed straw into the house. Weston kept the birds in the crate for several days, feeding them every morning and evening. Then he put them into the house and shut them up at the time when the birds usually fly home and tuck up for the night.

The next morning, the entire household assembled to witness their release. Miriam, Weston’s wife, stood with the children, who were dressed in their school uniforms. Even the day guard, Wilson, who had just reported for duty, was present for the historic occasion. The birds came out, one by one, perched on the little sill, and flapped off without a backward glance. I wondered if we would see them again.

The work day seemed endless because I was in a fever of anticipation to get home to await the arrival of the flock. We waited, Weston, Miriam, and the children, on the khande. Maki had gone for the day by this time, but Wison (not to be confused with Wilson), the night guard, was watching the skies from his post at the gate.

The pigeons next door were already coming in, but ours were nowhere to be seen. We waited an agonizing fifteen minutes more. When Wison spotted the first one winging in, he shouted, “Madam, they are coming home.” A lone bird, a gray one, circled and landed briskly and began pecking the grain at the foot of the pole. I was worried about the rest but then two more, then a third arrived and landed.

When it became apparent that no more were coming, Weston said, “Don’t worry, Madam. They have gone back to the market. I will fetch them home in the morning.”

Early the next day, the lady next door sent her gardener to say that her flock had returned accompanied by a strange bird. Weston went for it and brought it back. That evening, it failed to return; so Weston retrieved it again and shut it up in the crate. That night at pigeon bedtime, he put it up with its fellows. The following evening, it came home with the rest.

By now, it was clear that we had lost one. A check of the market and a visit to the neighbor proved fruitless. Weston was philosophical. “A cat, probably.” I took care not to register too much disappointment. Malawi had, after all, one of the highest infant mortality rates in the world, and I thought that excessive concern over a pigeon would be unseemly. And, I concluded, five out of six ain’t bad.

We never replaced the one that was lost and continued with a flock of five until the pigeons began their family. Because the pigeonniere was high up on the pole, we couldn’t see from the ground if their constant courtship activities had produced results.

When Weston reported that there were eggs in the nest, I wanted to know how many. Weston said we shouldn’t disturb them at this critical stage. I had many unanswered questions. Were all the hens laying? How many hens did we have? Did the whole flock go out every day, or did one or more stay back to sit on the nest?

One day Maki reported that he had heard “chip chipping” from above, but Weston would not let anyone go up to see. A week or so later, he himself crept up the precarious steps to investigate. He came back down and announced, “There are six.”

About a week later, I was sitting on the khande after lunch with Katie sleeping at my feet when suddenly she bounded off the porch and into the garden. I didn’t see the chick fall from the nest but she obviously had. Katie, the Silver Streak, killed it in one swift motion and began carrying it around the garden in her mouth, looking proud of herself. She didn’t maul it or try to eat it. I was annoyed with her until I remembered that Weimariners are bird dogs; she had done as her nature required.

I called for Weston. He took in the situation in a glance. He patted Katie on the head, and she dropped the tiny naked thing at his feet. He picked it up and said the children would bury it when they came home from school, which they did with all due ceremony but no discernible grief. They were used to death.

There were no more calamities after that. The babies learned to fly and were soon coming and going with the flock. More little ones hatched and the pigeons were in continuous production mode after that. I lost track of how many we had, but Weston always knew and could report the number immediately if I asked.

Six or 8 months later, not long before my term of service was scheduled to end, I was obliged to move to new quarters because the Indian gentleman who owned the house I lived in wanted to sell it. I hated to leave because I was happy where I was and moving meant that Weston and his family would be dislocated. The children were settled in their school and would have to transfer to a new one.

Another perturbing thing was that my successor had written to say that she did not intend to employ Weston. She didn’t want a man with a family on the place. She preferred a single woman. When I told Weston the disappointing news, he said, “Don’t worry, Madam. I will find another situation.” He asked if in the meantime, he could move the pigeons to his brother’s village. I had hoped that my successor would move into the house, continue to employ Weston and allow him and his family to stay on the place. I assumed that the pigeons would remain there too. Nothing would change. Like so many of my schemes to make life better for the Africans I came to admire and love, it was not to be.

Weston and Maki captured the pigeons the next morning and put them into a crate, packed up the pigeon house, the stairs, and the pole, and took them to the village where Weston’s brother lived. The brother was happy enough to be their custodian because Weston had agreed to share the eggs.

The night before the the pigeonniere was to be dismantled, I sat on the khande one last time and watched the flock swoop home through the amethyst twilight. Weston shut them in their little house where they would stay until the brother came with a truck to take them away. Early in the morning, he climbed back up the steps with a small cardboard box and extracted a pair to give to Maki.

I was surprised at how desolate I was to see them go. They would be well cared for, and I was happy to be making Weston a pigeon baron. And surely I wasn’t attached to those birds. I hadn’t tended them, hadn’t named any of them, and can’t see any of them clearly as I write this ten years later.

I realized later that I was grieving for a time of peace and comfort when I could sit and enjoy the lawn and the flame trees and the frangipani. I could forget the frustrations and uncertainties of the day and throw a ball to Katie, who never missed, not even once. The pigeons captured the essence of these brief periods of repose at day’s end. Their soaring flight home every evening meant that I was home too. I had made a home of a rented house, tacky government-issue furniture, a flock of village pigeons, and a servant and his family. The sense of being at home that I felt during those evenings on the khande was an unexpected blessing. I never experienced it again in Africa.

I didn’t cry when the pigeons were driven away in Weston’s brother’s borrowed truck, or later when I said good bye to Weston, to Miriam and the children, to Maki and Katie. I was rational about the whole thing, knowing that I had come for a limited time and would be leaving. I protected myself from the pain of good-bye. But now, I cry while writing, while reading over what I’ve written, while looking at pictures of those beautiful African faces, especially those of the sturdy African men who knew how to do everything, even pretend that a flock of pigeons was cause for great excitement. When I feel really sad and my memories of them tear at my heart, I sometimes hear Weston say, “Don’t worry, Madam. Everything will be all right.”