“Yes. I’d very much like you to stay with me for a time. We have birds there that are beautiful-beautiful, and they have been waiting for you to imitate them for many years. I should not like them to wait forever.”
“Have you suggested this to Mama and Papa?” I asked excitedly.
“Not yet. First we must see about England, then we shall talk to your parents.”
“My mother will not let me stay long. She probably won’t even let me go.”
“You will come for a few months every year or two. And I shall visit Porto every other year as well.”
“But it is very far to southern Africa.”
“No, not so far,” he laughed. “Just halfway around the world!”
“And dangerous.”
“Less dangerous than Europe. The French will shortly cross the mountains into Portugal.”
“Do you think so?”
“Napoleon is a hyena who thinks he is a lion. He will try to devour Portugal. I, for one, would prefer to be elsewhere when he comes. There will be much suffering and death. Perhaps I shall propose that your parents come to Africa as well. Your father might make a vineyard there, after all.”
He motioned for me to sit with him on a great log by the river. Once we were settled, he said, “There was a year, John, when a drought fell over all the land. It was a very, very bad time.” He took out his wee clay pipe. “Mantis was away in a distant desert, for he grew ill from his life among men and women from time to time, and he needed the sweet nectar of the white flowers that grew there to replenish his spirit. But when Bee flew to him to tell him of the good people dying everywhere in his homeland, he risked his own life and didn’t hesitate to climb onto his friend’s wings.
“Discovering many already dead from hunger, Mantis prevailed upon Ostrich to give them some of her honey or at least lead them to her hives. But the great bird refused to do so. Mantis chided her, of course, but she just ruffled her tail feathers at him. And then that silly bird tucked all her honey under her wing and flew away. So Mantis began to consider how he might steal it so the First People might survive. But without his nectar he was growing weaker every day.”
Midnight leaned toward me and patted my leg. “One day he crawled slowly to Ostrich and said in his frail voice, ‘I have found a tree with the most scrumptious plums on it. You would like them very, very much.’
“The gullible bird asked to be taken to the fruit tree quickly-quickly. So Mantis led her to a tree heavy with yellow plums. Ostrich picked joyously at the bottom branches, for the fruit was delicious.
“But Mantis said, ‘The ones up higher are even better. If you coat them in your honey, no delicacy will ever be able to equal them.’ And so the bird strained its neck to reach further up.
“‘You silly thing,’ the insect told her. ‘Not there — right at the top!’” Midnight pointed with his pipe into the sky and squinted. “‘That big one there, on the crown, it’s the sweetest of all.’”
My friend stood now, shaping his thumb and forefingers into a greedy beak. “The bird stretched her neck as far as she could. And just as she snared the topmost plum” — here, Midnight snapped his fingers shut — “Mantis used the last of his strength and reached under her wing, stealing all but one of her honeycombs.
“Since that day, John, Ostrich has never flown again for fear of losing her very last comb. As for men and women, as you know, we have the wisdom of honey to sustain us through all manner of misfortune.”
“But what happened to Mantis when he used up the last of his strength. Did he die?”
The African’s eyes shone with delight. “No, John, he did not die. For the moon, crying over him, shed her tears of softened light upon him, and when he licked them from his lips, he recovered. Having some of the moon’s eternity in him, he was never ill again.”
Midnight winked at me to signal the end of his tale and puffed contentedly on his pipe.
“But what does it mean?” I asked.
He kissed my brow. “There is nothing that Mantis and I might ever be doing in the distant desert that will prevent us from coming to you and stealing you a treasure if you ever need it.”
Three days before Father and Midnight were due to leave for England, I was awakened at dawn by a strange noise. At first, I thought it was Fanny whimpering. Wrapping my blanket around my shoulders, I followed the noise down to our sitting room. There, by the cold hearth, I found my father doubled over in his armchair, sobbing convulsively. I was just retracing my steps to spare his embarrassment when he called my name.
A candle flame illuminated his eyes. They were so full of misery that I thought he must have received some terrible news. Perhaps Aunt Fiona had died.
Starving for my touch, he held out his trembling hand to me and I rushed into his arms. His distress was overpowering. “Papa, what’s happened?” I asked.
“A dream,” he whispered. “I was all alone in an empty house. No heat. No light. Your mother was dead and you were gone — I had no idea where. I was all alone in the dark. And I would remain alone forever.”
“I am here,” I said, gripping his shoulders, “and I shall not leave you.”
Wiping his eyes with his hand, he said, “You are kind. And I shall be well now. It was just a silly dream. Go back to sleep. I’m sorry to have frightened you.”
“I shall take you to your room. Come, let me lead you. As you used to do when I was a wee lad.”
“No, no. Let me stay here. I don’t want to wake your mother.”
“Then I’ll stay with you.”
“Yes, sit with me. It will do me good to feel you next to me.”
His eyes fluttered closed, and he began to breathe more easily. For a time, he caressed my hair and began to whisper a story to me, about an elf who fell in love with a mermaid, but he never finished it, for he soon fell asleep. Shivering in the cold air, I waited until I was certain he would not wake, then climbed back upstairs, each footfall seeming a step into a strange world where my father was forever alone and weeping.
We never spoke again of his nightmare.
On the day of departure, I accompanied Father and Midnight to the wharf. Mama stayed in her room, too distraught to join us.
The sun was resplendent in the blue sky, casting light over the new bridge that had been built over the river, linking Porto on the north bank with Vila Nova da Gaia on the south.
“The city is growing,” Papa said. “Just like my son.”
He smiled affectionately at me and we embraced, for the last time in complete and true friendship, I think. He told me to obey my mother in all things, since even though I was several inches her senior, I was not yet her match in good sense and intuition.
He promised me he’d be home for Christmas.
I then hugged Midnight fiercely, which made him grin. He told me that upon his return he would tell me the story of how Gemsbok was wed by Mantis to Honeyguide, which I believe was his way of letting me know that he had noticed my newfound interest in lassies.
“Go slow,” he warned me, and we kissed each other on both cheeks.
“You go slow too,” I replied.
We continued to wave to one another even as they reached the deck. Midnight and I shouted sillinesses about Fanny for some time, simply to keep greater emotions at bay. Then, as the ship pulled anchor, we sang our favorite song: “The Foggy, Foggy Dew”:
