At Flórián Square we got into a bad traffic jam because they were repairing and widening the road and traffic was being redirected so there was a long line of cars idling between the reinforced concrete elements in the construction zone and waiting there started to eat away at me it made me think of all the other things I could be doing instead at times like this I always feel as if some sort of higher power were stealing time from my life because minutes and hours pass when you have to wait a lot and once again life is one day shorter and so is captivity I said quoting the famous poet Radnóti but Vera corrected me which made me furious why does she have to correct me this is not a literature class and that made us fight but finally at quarter to ten we arrived at the weekend house where it was obvious that the meteorologists tricked all the other homeowners as well and they too thought that today would be the perfect day for an outing to their weekend houses because spring has arrived
I parked our Trabant on the gravel road across from my mother’s small wooden house which could be called a shed without a shred of remorse since it only has a tiny room bathroom bedroom nothing more and the entire structure was made by Erdért Wood Manufacturers which also produced the myriad of others that are in this area between the main road and the river which is home to numerous small plots with countless wooden houses next to each other row after row like a sea of sheds which some people might find unpleasant to look at but for example my mother couldn’t have afforded this plot of land if it had been any larger and the same goes for the house but in my opinion poor people have the right to have a weekend house too and it is because of them that these types of shed communities have sprung up but they are still better than nothing and we had spent many weekends here and it is possible to sunbathe or shower or play badminton on a small plot of land too because with a bit of goodwill we can find enough space to accommodate everybody
Unfortunately it was unusually cold that day and the Zimmers who are the neighbors behind us on the left side began to hammer because they were fixing the roof of their house and on the right side Dr. Magyari was mowing the lawn with his homemade diesel lawn mower that sounds like a tractor and across the street Mrs. Telcs was burning the dry leaves that fell on the ground and the wind blew all the smoke and the stench toward us and destroyed the clean air which is not really clean anyway due to all the cars on the roads around here where roughly one car belongs to each lot since people tend to purchase a car first then a weekend house and from then on they’re endlessly tinkering drilling chiseling putzing around the house and I will never understand what’s so fun about that but supposedly physical work calms the nerves anyway behind us on the left side bam bam bam on the right side brrrrrr grrrrrr zrrrrrr across the street smoke and stench too bad we didn’t bring a gas mask with us I said and earplugs Vera said and Valerian pills I said and frostbite cream Vera said
I managed to turn on the water which was not easy but Vakulity the neighbor behind us on the right side helped me with the screws of the shut-off valve unfortunately they always get rusty in the underground water meter box during the long winters and after that I also turned on the electricity then Vera and I took a stroll along the river and had lunch at Vadász Restaurant and the afternoon somehow passed and we went to bed early because we were both exhausted
At night in the middle of a crazy dream I was woken up by the sound of someone walking on the roof and when the sound jolted me out of my sleep I could clearly hear footsteps what an absurdity I thought the house has a thin aluminum roof it’s not strong enough to support a person not to mention it’s slanted furthermore it made no sense for anyone to walk on our roof for example if a robber wanted to come in he would just use the front door so the whole thing seemed insane but at that second Vera also sat up in bed and said that someone was rummaging around above us I laughed at her and said that is nonsense but then what could it be she asked and I had no idea how to answer her so we just listened in the dark perhaps it’s the wind rattling the roof I said somewhat hesitantly because it didn’t really seem like the wind was rattling the roof and we had spent many stormy nights out here before and the roof never creaked
Perhaps it was the drop in temperature yes it had to be because metals do shrink in the cold and as a result of the change in temperature the self-movement of the material may cause the creaks but Vera listened to me with a doubtful look and I could tell she didn’t believe it and to be honest I didn’t really believe it either I got up and put my terry cloth robe on and went outside to look around but there was nothing to see except the cold darkness nevertheless I inspected the roof with my flashlight but of course there was nobody up there which was maddening so I crawled back into bed and then it started again pitter-patter above us pitter-patter so mysterious it sounds like a child is walking up there Vera said but I just leaned back and said whatever let’s just go to sleep but we couldn’t sleep partly due to the noise and partly because
Partly because a bad feeling was brewing inside me and only later did I realize it was fear but it made no sense to me how a burly person like me could possibly be scared of cracking roof noises especially after having already checked and determined that it was impossible for someone to be walking up there and if god forbid someone was up there I would yank him off the roof and punch him in the face twice so hard that he would not know what hit him however I still had no idea where the noise was coming from and that made me feel uneasy actually I was scared and increasingly so as time went by and I couldn’t sleep a wink all night and sweat was running down my spine even though it was cold inside
Finally morning came at last I crawled out of bed and did a thorough inspection of the roof but as might be expected I found nothing I was upset worn out sleep-deprived and also nauseous because I lit up a cigarette before I had a bite to eat which was a big mistake in any case I kept looking around and noticed a bird on a utility pole which made me assume something that proved to be true the next moment when the bird swiftly flew onto our roof and the aluminum panels made a cracking noise now that’s all there is to it hence it was unnecessary to worry because sooner or later there is an explanation for everything I thought and called Vera outside but by the time she came out the bird flew away but we still kept hearing the cracking noises yet they no longer bewildered me the bird must have hidden under the roof I said and carried the outdoor table over placed a wicker chair on top of it and stood on it to peek through the small openings between the aluminum panels but the chair was wobbly and no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t reach up high enough needless to say it’s dark under the aluminum panels I called out to Vera and asked her to bring me a stick or a broom but instead she handed me the antenna of an old portable radio which had broken off earlier so with that I poked inside one of the openings and clumps of hay and cotton-like fuzz fell out and then two birds flew out of the hole I continued to poke and finally a nest appeared then it fell down on the grass
Vera looked at it and said my goodness there are baby birds inside at that exact moment I was on my tippy toes trying to look under the roof and managed to do so for a second and saw kilos and kilos of dry bird poop grass leaves and weeds in the semi-darkness and that’s when Vera’s comment about the baby birds reached my ears and it almost made me fall down because it didn’t even occur to me that there could be baby birds in the nest perhaps we should put it back said Vera and I thought the same thing but the thin aluminum panel that has been giving them shelter was somewhat misshapen from all the poop and pee and if we do put the nest back then the pooping and the peeing will continue and in the end the entire panel will erode and guess who’s going to suffer the consequences yes me of course and it will also be me who is going to have to buy a new piece or call a repairman or a roofer or god knows who because my mother always nags me about everything so there is no way I can put it back as a matter of fact I must remove all the dirt from under the roof and nail a piece of wood in front of the openings so that the birds won’t be able to inhabit the holes again I explained to Vera and I didn’t understand why she was so upset
But when I climbed down and looked at the hatchlings I became really upset too given that I have never before laid eyes on such tiny birds or hatchlings that is truth be told it would be an exaggeration to call them birds when they were just three featherless wet yellow living beings sitting in their nest and only their beaks bore any resemblance to a sparrow yet as it as it turned out the two birds I chased away were indeed sparrows and they were now hopping on the utility pole chirping excitedly as their children kept opening their beaks and cried weakly emitting a sound similar to a very quiet meowing of a cat which is funny isn’t it considering that cats are enemies of sparrows
We just stood there dumbfounded towering over the naked little beings and my throat felt dry as though I had a cold it could be that I got sick from being exposed to a draft when I was running in and out of the house at night in my robe but it wasn’t a cold it was my guilty consciousness telling me that I should have taken the extra step to bring out the ladder from the tool shed and if I had done that I could have first looked with a flashlight to see what was under the roof but oh no I had to stick the antenna in right away and the poor things plummeted to the ground and it’s a miracle they’re still alive
Let’s put the nest on top of the aluminum roof suggested Vera hmm we could try that I said and carried the ladder over and placed the nest next to the lightning rod meantime the sparrow parents continued to chirp more and more anxiously on the utility pole thinking that we wanted to hurt their babies so I climbed down and waited for them to fly to their nest but they stayed on the utility pole perhaps they were afraid of us so we moved further back then the birds flew up in the air and circled above the house this is it we thought but they did not land after all and kept flying in a zigzag pattern four or five meters from the nest what the hell are they doing mumbled Vera the nest is right under their nose we waited and waited but it was in vain the sparrows just kept circling near the roof but neither of them landed on the nest have they lost their minds or what
They’re probably not landing because they know they can’t carry away their hatchlings from here said Vera why couldn’t they when all they have to do is carefully pick them up one at a time with their beaks but I sensed that Vera was right and we should tell the sparrows to build a new nest somewhere else and offer to transport their little ones to the new location I tried to use hand motions to make the sparrows understand that they had no reason to be afraid we had good intentions and this whole thing has been a big misunderstanding but we can’t let them live under the roof because the panels will rot however we would be glad to help but by then all the neighbors were watching me stand there swinging my arms around and they must have thought that I had lost my marbles good god just what I needed so I marched inside the house to think besides the sparrows didn’t want to understand my hand motions and they kept circling above the house chirping frantically which made me blurt out you dumb animals I lit up a cigarette my heart was beating really fast and a vein was pulsating on my temple
A little later we ended up placing the nest back under the roof temporarily though I would’ve been fine with leaving it there forever and letting the aluminum panels rot but instead I slid the nest back because the wind really started to pick up and we were worried that it would blow the nest off the slanted aluminum panels and Vera said they don’t need to fall down again as hard as they did when you scraped them out oh so suddenly it’s all my fault and if you must know I’ve had it with these sparrows of which there are as many as there are stars in the sky why do we even bother with them but I could not calm down and continued to look around to see when the parents would fly to the nest through the opening but those idiots kept flying back and forth near the lightning rod and showed no willingness to get back to their hatchlings even though the quiet cheeping that sounded more like wailing could be already heard inside the house and Vera kept finding lots of other sparrow nests in the eaves of the neighboring houses and in the trees out on the street how strange that until now we have never noticed them but now we started to observe the other sparrow parents and saw that from time to time they all flew to their own nests obviously to bring food to their little ones except for our two birds whose hatchlings must be on the verge of starvation mumbled Vera you don’t say of course they must be because their mother and father have lost their minds but that’s not my fault at all
I removed the nest once again at Vera’s request and we showed it to the sparrows here you go come here friends I placed it on the grass with a grandiose movement and went inside the house so that we wouldn’t disturb them but they still wouldn’t fly to their desperately cheeping hatchlings and my gut was telling me that the situation was irreparable I had a hunch that Vera was thinking of our one-and-a-half-year-old little girl Julcsi who was presently with my mother but back when we brought her home from the hospital she was also a helpless and naked little being though somewhat larger maybe the size of a grilled chicken and she looked like one too but of course our child is a human being and can’t be compared to sparrow hatchlings what now oh there is no need for you to give me the evil eye you could’ve warned me that a nest means that there must be hatchlings but you didn’t say a word so why are you making faces at me now
She went outside and left me behind I kept taking a drag off my cigarette I couldn’t sit still for long I peeked through the open window and saw that she was trying to feed the hatchlings by throwing breadcrumbs on the nest what a stupid idea where did you hear that sparrow hatchlings eat white bread Vera shrugged and challenged me to come up with a better idea but of course I didn’t have a clue maybe milk but how she fumed when they can’t drink from a glass but I couldn’t care less and plopped back on a camping chair and thought she can do whatever the hell she wants to do I could see through another window that the sparrow parents were still circling above us and I wished they would just go to hell
Vera placed a plastic straw in her mouth and with that tried to put droplets of milk into their tiny mouths to be exact their beaks now this should be interesting I thought as I walked outside and watched the gaping animals that were smaller than my thumb visibly choking from the liquid rushing down their throats in my opinion they should be getting smaller droplets I said and took the straw from her I took a sip of milk and realized that it was easier said than done this method will not work they will undoubtedly die so we stopped
I placed the nest on top of the gatepost hoping the parents might be brave enough to approach it there but then Dr. Magyari from next door yelled over and told us we were wasting our time because birds never return to their nest after another animal touched it and in that sense humans are animals too I shot a furious look in his direction assuming he wanted to annoy me because we’ve been on bad terms ever since last year when I asked him not to mow his lawn on Sunday mornings and he got upset but he didn’t seem to have any animosity toward me now as a matter of fact he was explaining that he heard this from his brother who’s a vet and he’s the one who told him
Vakulity came over and suggested we might as well drown the hatchlings to put them out of their misery Mrs. Telcs also came over and said we should let the kids play with them next came Zimmer and he thought we should try to raise them in a birdcage suddenly it became apparent that they had been watching us the whole time from the back from the right from the left which means it’s just an illusion that you can be alone on you own tiny lot when in fact we are all on top of each other and there is no escape and everyone was arguing back and forth in our yard and the throng of neighbors was driving me nuts to say nothing of the fact that nobody invited these people who think that they have an answer for everything I looked at Vera who was still standing next to the nest staring at the little ones while the parents were determinedly circling above us but were no longer chirping just zigzagging quietly and it was all just too much
I had no idea what hatchlings ate or if they could be kept in a birdcage or how we could lure their parents to them and I wasn’t sure if Vakulity was right whether drowning them was the more humane option now that we found ourselves in this situation and to sum it all up I felt completely helpless as if every part of my body was itchy and I just kept smoking cigarettes one after another waiting for the whole thing to be over
We left the nest on top of the gatepost and got into our Trabant although originally we planned to have lunch at Vadász Restaurant Vera suggested that we should head straight home given that she wasn’t really hungry I agreed right away because we could at least avoid the usual traffic jam which we only partially avoided because when we got to the half-complete viaduct we found ourselves in the middle of a terrible traffic jam and from there it was stop-and-go all the way to Flórián Square where Vera murmured maybe they will fly to the nest but I didn’t reply I could barely wait to get home to see Julcsi and when my mother left we had an ugly fight because of a broken glass and at night I had to take a sleeping pill so that I could sleep without having any nightmares
Since that day we no longer have peace between us something definitely snapped but we don’t talk about it besides I can see it in Vera’s eyes and she can see it in mine that we are scared yes scared because what would happen if a giant force poked its pole into our house and dragged the beds the bookshelves the writing desk the rugs the armoires our clothes the vases the pots and pans the ashtrays all our documents basically everything we have amassed over the years outside and we would somehow escape but Julcsi would fall down below and the monstrous forces would gesticulate but we could not understand them they would blather on and on but we could not understand them they would want to help but we could not understand them and with some sort of thick tube they would try to feed our daughter but they would not succeed and that tube would be the very last straw we could grasp at so that it could save us but something suffocating would be dripping from it and the forces would friendlily say to us brrr grrr zrrr and we would just fly in circles above the ruins of our lives in a half-crazed state of mind
I know this is stupid because sparrows are harmful animals after all according to Brehm’s book about birds where a sparrow is named Passer Domesticus in other words a winged parasite that lives off crops and it doesn’t deserve our mercy the book claims but the biggest problem is that Vera blames me and even though she never talks about what happened I can see it in her eyes I can feel it and I also read in Brehm’s book that a city without sparrows makes the same sad impression as a childless house and I’ve been watching our street for days looking for sparrows but there are only pigeons large fat pigeons and I simply don’t understand where the sparrows went tell me where they went when they don’t even migrate to Africa during the winter but stay here with us well then where did they disappear can anybody tell me
