Ladislaw and the Spirroo

Tuesdays, I shoot pool at the Tir Na Nog. Through the park, over the footpath on the railway bridge. One day there was this old fella, short and stooped, raggedy three piece suit, worn checked shirt, crooked bow tie. Face wrinkled, I mean wrinkled like an elephant’s hide, wonky nose, bushy eyebrows, deep set china blue eyes. He was standing on the bridge, holding a brown paper bag, talking into it.
On the way home, he was still there, walking towards me. I passed him and heard a cry. I turned around, he’d fallen over. I went back, helped him sit up. His head was grazed, but he wasn’t worried about that, he was more concerned about the bag on the floor. And the bag was wobbling. He reached out for it, talking, it sounded Slavic. I gave him the bag, he sat whispering into it, then showed me. There was a small bird in it, jumping about, looking up, shiny eyes, beak opening and closing, but no sound coming out.
‘It’s a sparrow!’
‘Yis, spirroo, spirroo!’
‘Is he hurt? Can’t he fly?’
‘Spirroo not fly. I say, fly, choosh, choosh. Spirroo not fly. You say. Maybes now he fly, whoosh.’
He gave me back the bag. I took the bird out, set it on the footpath. It just stayed there. The old guy took a lozenge tin from his pocket, opened it, put it down. The sparrow hopped in, started eating some biscuit crumbs in the tin.
‘Yevry day I come on bridge. Choosh, choosh, choosh, he not fly!’
‘Is his wing okay?’ I crooked my arm.
‘Wing is good, one wing good, two wing good. In room, always he fly, hup, hup, so. Hyappy bird, fly yevry day!
‘Listen, you have to clean that cut. It’s starting to bleed.’ I pointed to his head. He brushed his hair back, blood ran into it. He looked at his hand, but he wasn’t too bothered, and started talking Slavic again, it sounded like my old fiddle teacher, Hungarian. The bird was still in the tin, so I picked it up and put it back in the bag, looked down and found myself talking to it.
‘Ha!’ the old man started chuckling.
I helped him up, he winced and drew a sharp breath. He’d hurt his leg.
‘Where do you live? I’ll help you home.’
‘Trens, I lif by trens.’ He waved his hand towards the station just the other side of the bridge. So we shuffled along, him holding my arm for support and hobbling, me holding the open bag in an upturned hand.
We met a large woman in the tunnel, bouffanted, rinsed blond hair, sixties pastel dress, slippers.
‘There you are Mr. Zivich. Oh my goodness, whatever have you been up to?’
‘He fell over on the bridge.’
‘I went out at midnight last week and found him sitting on the bench up there.’
‘With the bird?’
‘Him and that bird, I don’t know what’s got into him.’
She took the other arm, we walked through round the corner, she pushed the front door open. We took him indoors, up to his room, eased him into a big high back faded floral armchair. He was breathing heavily, it’d all been too much for him.
The place was musty, everything in it, the furniture, carpet, wallpaper, seemed ancient, like stepping through a dim doorway to the ration years.
‘Let’s get you cleaned up.’
He grumbling at her, trying to motion her away, but she was having none of it.
‘My nem is Ladislaw!’
The old man looked at me and saluted.
‘Hello there, Ladislaw!’
She came back with a bowl of water, bathed his head and wrapped a bandage around it.
‘Hn-hn!’
He put out a hand, I gave him the bag. He took the sparrow out. It flew around the room again and landed behind him on the back of the armchair.
‘It’s flying! Nothing wrong with its wings. Seems to be doing fine, at least in here.'
The woman kneeled on the floor and took Ladislaw’s shoe and sock off, the ankle was swollen and bruised.
‘We must get you a doctor!’ .
‘No, no, doctor, no!’
‘He’s so stubborn. I’m going to get one anyway. By the way, I’m Mrs. Wilbury.’
She went to change the water, came back and put mustard in it, then lifted his foot and put it in the bowl.
‘What is?’
‘Mustard. Mus-tard.’
She showed him the tin.
‘Very good for the bruise.’
Ladislaw looked at me, shook his head. Then he counted in slow English, touching each finger with his chin.
‘Dez!’
‘Eight days?’
‘This spirroo, you say it spirroo, in window, et dez.’
‘The bird flew into your window. Was he injured?’
‘You say him bird, how my room!’
Mrs Wilbury explained.
‘I took up some toast and marmalade left over from breakfast. My Phyllis doesn’t eat a lot. The window was open. He came right in, started pecking the toast. Bright and bold as you please. Nothing wrong with him at all. And he’s been here ever since. Mr. Zivich takes the bird out to the bridge every day, but it won’t go. I think it quite likes our Mr. Zivich’.
‘Yes, yes, Zivich he like, he like. Nows he must have big sky. All bird have big sky.’
‘Listen, I have to go.’ I tapped my watch.
‘Thenk-you, thenk you! You come other day, you come. We have trink? Wodka, you like?’
‘Sure, I’ll have a vodka with you’
‘Is yis?’
‘Yes.’
‘Wery good!’
‘Mrs. Wilbury, can I do anything?’
‘No, no, we’ll be fine, my daughter will be home soon, she can help, we’ll keep an eye on him.’
‘Has he any relatives?’
‘I don’t know, we haven’t long been here, we’re just getting to know him ourselves. I’ll ask the landlord.’
So I dropped by the next day. Mrs. Wilbury let me in.
‘The doctor came yesterday. He’s got to go to hospital for an X-ray.’
The old boy was sitting close by the window. He greeted me with a wave, and again the salute. His head and foot were even more bandaged.
‘A-ha-ha, Mr. Shoe, you come.’
He wagged a finger at my natty Reeboks and laughed.
‘Not same!’
‘Well, no, not the same as yesterday, I like different shoes.’
‘Is crezi shoe, like clown! Good, good!’ he laughed.
‘Well, you look a little better.’
‘Ladislaw okay, Ladislaw leg boom boom boom!’
‘Put it up, here, put it on this.’
There was a stepping stool in the corner, I put a cushion on it and lifted his leg onto it.
‘A-ha, is good!
‘It just takes the weight off it.’
He waved his hand towards the kitchenette in the corner of the bedsit.
‘You trink, I trink.’
The sparrow was flapping in a sandbox, shaking itself and ruffling its feathers in the way small birds do. In the kitchenette there was just about room for the gas cooker, sink and a small rusting tabletop fridge. On the sideboard was a bottle of vodka. I found two chipped green tumblers, put them on the window ledge and poured.
‘Egészségedre. How you say? In my country, egészségedre.’
‘Here’s looking at you!’
‘Lukinatchu? What is lukinatchu?’
‘Humphrey Bogart. Casablanca? De-dah-de-da-de-da-de-dah, as time goes byi-ay.‘
‘Yis, yis, I know Hyumfy Bogd. Casblanc, this I see, this....’
‘Film?’
‘This filum I see in my Hungary, many year. Rus not come.’
‘Rus not come? Oh, before the Russians invaded.’
‘Ah! Katya like wery much Casblanc!’
‘Katya?’
‘Katya was wife. Ladislaw wife.’ He tapped his wedding ring. ‘Fifaty year! I was marry fifaty year! Katya like wery much this filum. Many time Katya look this filum! Mr. Hyumfy speak Hungary.’
‘Hmm! Dubbed! Humphrey Bogart says....here’s looking at you.’
‘In Hungary filum he say egészségedre!’
‘Rick and Ilsa are in a Paris attic, the German's are at the gates of the city. Rick drinks a toast to Ilsa. He says .....egészségedre? OK, egészségedre!’
‘Lukinachu!’
‘You got it! ! Fiery stuff! Good, though!’
He leaned towards the open window. A train had stopped at the station. He waved and smiled at the passengers.
‘Many, many friend, I have!’
He pointed to the train and saluted out of the window. Some people sitting in the train waved back at him. Then the train pulled out. They ran every half-hour on the line, I knew that.
‘You say you, boy, mama, papa, you country!’
‘Tell you about me?’
‘Yis, yis!’
‘Sure!’
I felt like one of these people you meet on journeys who tell you their personal history, you don’t even know their name and care even less. But every time I stopped he waved his hand for me to continue. I kept talking until the next train came by. He leaned towards the window, waved and smiled, and again a few people waved back. He showed me one old lady in a blue coat and tapped on the window ledge. She recognised him, grinned back and lifted her basket.
‘You know her?’
‘Mizas Batnd. She buy for me plum.’
‘Ladislaw, tell me about you. Katya, Hungary, mama, papa, boy!’
‘Hch, hch, hch.’ He shook his head. ‘I speak not good.’
‘Well, speak Hungary.’
He sat back in the chair. I poured him another glass. He looked into the far distance out the window and started talking Hungarian. The old fella could rabbit, but strangely intriguing. He got so intense at times I had to calm him down and give him more vodka. Two trains came and went, he did the routine each time.
Then he stopped, we both laughed and shook hands. He knew I hadn’t understood a word, even less then he’d understood me. He pointed to the shelf. There was an old hardback book, written in Hungarian. I opened the front cover, on the face-plate was a photo of the young Ladislaw, looking like Ronald Coleman, slicked black shiny hair, confident, clear eyed, smooth-shaven, waistcoat and bow tie. In the book was an envelope with some sepia photos in it. A house with the young Ladislaw standing on the steps, Homburg in hand. A group of laughing people sitting at a sidewalk cafe on a sunny day, a tram in the background. Then several taken in a sequence, by a lake. The writing on the back was Hungarian, I couldn’t read it, but it was perfect copperplate. '1938' was added later, in pencil. Ladislaw rowing a small boat, a woman and a child opposite him, smiling as if the terrible brooding war lurching to ravage Europe was just some mythical Wagnerian demon from a Gothic tale. Another photo was in between the pages as a bookmark. An older photo of a boy in a collarless suit, very serious, sitting at a desk, other children in rows behind him.
‘Is that your son?’
He tapped his chest.
‘Is Ladislaw!’
‘Not your son! You! That’s you! And this book? You wrote this book?’
‘I write, I write, book, yis! yis!’
I showed him the photos.
‘Your wife and child, your friends, your house?’
He looked away, blinking through the watermark of hidden tears.
‘You were a writer?’ I wiggled my fingers, like typing.
‘I write, my country, nuzapape!’
‘You were a journalist?’
‘War, war, no more nuzapape.’
‘Tat-tat-tat-tat-tat!’ Fists closed, hands out like a machine gun.
Mrs. Wilbury knocked and came in.
‘It’s the ambulance. They’ve come to take Mr. Zivich to hospital to x-ray his foot.’
The two ambulance men came up the stairs with a stretcher.
‘Good afternoon, sir.’
‘He doesn’t speak much English.’
‘It’s alright, I’ll talk to him. Mr. Zivich, these men are taking you to hospital. Hos-pi-tal, do you understand, your foot, they want to look at your foot. X-ray, you know what an x-ray is? You’ll be back later.’
Ladislaw seemed to understand what she was saying, but was reluctant to go.
‘I sleep?’
‘No, no, you won’t sleep there, you’ll be back in about two and a half hours.’
‘Five trains.’
‘Hch!’
The sparrow was flying around in a panic at all the people in the room, it flew out the window, came back and perched on the edge of the empty window box.
The next week, I was away in Polperro. To be honest, I didn’t give the old fella a thought. Except on the last night there, Casablanca was on late TV. Well, I had to chuckle when Bogart raised his glass to Ingrid. Then I got to thinking about Ladislaw and Katya, sitting and watching in some smoky little Hungarian cinema all those years ago, the film flickering to an end, and she wants to see it again and again. The image sort of stayed with me, I found a postcard the next day, a miniature of the film poster, and sent it care of the train station. I figured they’d know him.
Anyway, back in the city, on my way to Tir Na Og a few days later I thought I’d pass by, check out how he’s doing.
There was a wide yellow skip in front of the house with a big shark painted on it, and the logo ‘Jaws’. I looked in, it was full of rubble, old saucepans, clothes, broken crockery, a window frame, Ladislaw’s rusty little fridge; all sorts of stuff from his bedsit. I rang the doorbell. Mrs. Wilbury opened it, looking pale and tired.
‘I’m sorry! You don’t know, do you?’
‘Know what?’
‘You better come in. There’s dust everywhere. I could do without this, my asthma is playing up like anything.’
‘What happened?’
‘Well, our Mr. Zivich is no longer with us.’
‘He moved out?’
‘Mr. Zivich....Mr. Zivich has passed on.’
‘You mean died? As in.....dead? How?’
‘Mrs. Buttonwood found him.’
‘Mrs. Buttonwood?’
‘The lady who brings him plums every week.’
‘Found him where?’
‘Slumped in his big arm chair.’
‘And?’
‘Well, the ambulance came very quickly, but it was too late. He was dead. Just slipped away. Like you’d go out for a pint of milk. What a sorry business it all is.’
‘Did the landlord find any relatives?’
‘Not a one.’
‘How did he die?’
‘They said it was his heart.’
‘And the funeral?’
‘Council cremation. Yesterday.’
‘That’s it?’
‘It’s all so sudden.’
‘You could say. Who was at the crematorium?’
‘Well, I was surprised actually. The couple from the antique shop on the corner, me and my Phyllis, Mrs. Buttonwood. Now who else? Mr. Walkingshaw from Meals-On-Wheels. Mrs. Tolani from the newsagent, Hortense from the station, it was a nice little send-off, as they go.’
‘As they go? You seem used to these things!’
‘Over the years, so many. You have to be cheerful, don’t you? By the way I’ve still got one plum left. I put them in the fridge. It needs eating very soon. He used to enjoy a good plum, did Mr Zivich. Would you like to eat it? They are ever so sweet.’
‘Maybe not.’
I noticed there was a dark cloth covering what looked like a tall cage in the corner.
‘You still have the bird? Does it make a noise?’
‘No. I’ve never heard a sound from it since the day he died.’
‘It is that. Why d’you cover it?’
‘Only at night. They say it makes them sleep better. I left it on. I like to listen to Alistair Cooke’s Letter from America, on the wireless. I couldn’t be doing with all that flapping about.’
‘Have you taken the bird outside?’
‘He won’t go, and I can’t let him whizz round the room. He can’t really stay here. I only borrowed the cage from G’old Times on the corner, they kept a stuffed kingfisher in it. Someone pinched it.’
‘Funny the things people take.’
‘Well...It was Mr Zivich actually, he would often go and sit in the shop to pass the time of day. After he died the builders threw the kingfisher away. I took it back.’
‘Did you give it back to G'Old Times?’
‘No. They liked him, I wanted them to remember him well. Very curious, I must say. He was so keen for the sparrow to be free. I think he had been in prison in Hungary. I would have thought seeing a caged bird would upset him, even if it wasn't alive.’
‘Maybe it did upset him. Maybe that’s why he took it.’
‘People are strange!’
‘They certainly are, Mrs. Wilbury. What happened to the kingfisher?’
‘I buried it.’
‘Buried it? You buried a stuffed kingfisher?’
‘In the garden.’
‘Uh-huh!
‘I couldn’t think of what else to do with it.’
‘Of course....listen, what I don’t understand is where has he been since the war? How did he get here in the first place? Whatever happened to his wife and child?‘
‘Perhaps they died in the war.’
‘His wife certainly didn’t. He told me they saw Casablanca together. That wasn’t shown anywhere in Europe until the late forties. I mean what’s the story? This is someone’s life!’
‘The landlord took a small box of his things, he’s sent it to the Hungarian embassy. Will you be taking the bird?’
‘Well....sure, I’ll take it with me. Maybes now he flying, whoosh.’
‘Whoosh?’
‘It was just something the old fella said.’
I took the black cloth off the cage, the bird was resting in some woodchips. It was listless, eyes dull. I lifted it out and held it snug in cupped hands, head and beak peeking out in front of my thumbs. It perked up, but didn’t try to struggle or escape, just kept bobbing its head.
‘There’s just one more thing. Hold on a minute.’ She went upstairs, came down and gave me the postcard.
‘He got it?’
‘Oh yes, he just kept chuckling and chuckling, I think he sat looking at it most of that morning.’
‘The day he died?’
‘It must have been, it was on the floor by him when they found him.’
I walked slowly up onto the old Victorian iron bridge in the early summer evening. I let the Casablanca postcard go, watching it flutter and twirl down to land face up in the water. The outgoing tide carried it away, a small stamp of colour on a big envelope of river. I walked out to the middle of the bridge, away from the tall leafy chestnut trees, and opened both hands. In a quiet heartbeat the sparrow was gone, arcing upwards and backwards. I had to turn around to follow its steep flight as it vanished into the sky.
The big sky that all birds have.

* * *