New Short Fiction: Bahaa Taher’s ‘I Did Not Know Peacocks Could Fly’

 This short story comes from a collection of the same name, لم أعرف أن الطواويس تطير, by the late Bahaa Taher (1935-2022).

I Did Not Know Peacocks Could Fly

By Bahaa Taher                                                    

Translated by Karam AbuSehly

The watered green lawns stretched out all around me like a dewy carpet that spread throughout the spacious park. In the middle, there were a few scattered blades of long grass that the lawnmower had apparently missed, only the tips of which shone like golden spearheads.

“How I then desired to kiss the [spears], for verily they…”

Hello, Mr. Past! Hello, school days, the golden odes of Arabia, and Mr. ‘Antarah!

And hello, me, present in the past, sitting in the park, which I have enjoyed for the many years of my elapsed lifetime. The park is still as beautiful as it has always been (and perhaps even more beautiful?), surrounded by lofty trees, which are tended with care; they stand at the center of its jazzy lawns and shade its paved pathways. Trees of all sorts have been brought here from all the continents of our earth, and yet they get along harmoniously with the native species.

Although palm trees are absent.

As the hard sun creeps up onto the wooden bench on which I sit, I shift a little, toward the part protected by the shade of a chestnut tree. It shakes off white leaves that are as brittle as carded cotton as it ushers in the approaching autumn. I focus my gaze on the trees, as if trying to recognize them. What do I keep of my memories of this park, of this place in which I once wandered, year after year? There’s nothing in my visual memory; it’s as if I’ve never seen these trees before. What do I remember of the long years of work in that solemn international Organization in this European country?

The least of the least. Everything evaporates.

But wait!

I do remember her, the one who is striding toward me, coming out of the Organization’s white building. I remember her lovely face and dimpled cheeks. And I remember her everlasting smile, which was a truly infectious one. Yet I do not remember her name.

She said “good morning” to me as she sat beside me on the sunny part of the bench, to which I replied the same.

In this country, the morning greeting continues until sunset.

She was holding a pack of cigarettes and a lighter; as soon as she sat, she lit a cigarette, and said, as if blaming me, “We haven’t seen each other for a while.”

“For years, you mean,” I said, laughing. “I retired long ago and returned to my country. I’m just a visitor now.”

She laughed with me and said, “Really! All that time? It could’ve been yesterday. Time flies, really!”

She kept silent for a moment and went on smoking. Then she said, as she quickly took a greedy drag on the cigarette, “Even so, I envy you. I wish my years of hard labor here would pass quickly, so that, like you, I’d enjoy my freedom.’

“Don’t envy me and don’t wish for this freedom. It’s nothing.”

Waving her finished cigarette at me, she asked, “Why? Do you know, for instance, that a few days ago, they issued a decision that prohibits smoking on all floors and in all offices, even if you’re alone? Where are the human rights? Why wouldn’t I wish for such freedom?”

She added, as she looked at me with a consoling smile, “Plus, each age has its own beauty.”

I laughed again and said, “I, too, have learned this phrase by heart!”

Then suddenly, as she was looking at me, I remembered everything. How could I forget? We were working together on the same floor. We often had our coffee at the Organization cafeteria, together with her boyfriend and other colleagues. I could smell the beautiful aroma of coffee that would greet us as we walked up to the cafeteria during the afternoon break. In the middle of that noisy crowd, various groups of ninth-floor staff would form spontaneously. We usually sat together, the same people at nearly the same tables, for half an hour out of every workday. We would gossip about the people sitting around us, as they certainly  gossiped about us. Half an hour, and then we’d disperse, go back to work, and forget each other until the next day. These casual encounters continued day after day and year after year, but now I don’t remember her name. I remember Mr. ‘Antarah and forget the name of someone I worked with for years. I wonder if she remembers mine!

I blurted, “How is Nikola?”

I felt pleased with myself for remembering his name. I only realized my mistake when her everlasting smile retreated before she said, indifferently, “We broke up a while ago…”

“My apologies,” I mumbled. “I didn’t know, of course.”

Yet, with her usual smile back on her face, she carried on jokingly, and said, “The bastard! See? After everything I did for him!”

I was silent. I knew, as a lot of the staff did, that the handsome blond Nikola had a wife and children back in his country in the Eastern bloc, back when there had been an Eastern bloc. But he also had this cheerful Englishwoman here, who adored him. They were a distinguished couple; he, with his fit body and curly blond hair, was as handsome as a Roman statue; his eyes emitted a dreamy, plaintive look, which was certainly among his weapons, as it had attracted so many before he settled on this smiling beauty. Their relationship seemed the most enduring and was taken for granted back in my day.

I thought she would leave when she finished her cigarette, but she opened her pack, drew out another, lit it, and said, as she turned her gaze at the sky, “The sun is wonderful today.”

“It’s hard.”

“You think so?”

Her face had turned red and tiny drops of sweat glittered on one eyebrow, but she seemed to be enjoying the sun. Then, without looking at me, she said, “Excuse me for asking, but you have experienced more of life than I have. Tell me, are all men . . . are all of them like that?

“How like ‘that’?”

She waved with her hand and repeated, “Like that! You know what I mean.”

“No, no, I don’t. You, for instance, knew from the very beginning that Nikola would someday return to his country and his family.”

“Yes, of course, but I didn’t know that he would run after another skirt! Just like that, all of a sudden and without warning. Besides, he broke up with his wife. And just so you know, he’s never ever going back to that country.”

“Won’t he?”

“No! He won’t.”

I asked myself, Was he right or wrong? Perhaps after such a long absence from one’s own country, one in fact no longer had a home country.

“Why don’t you answer my question?” she asked.

“How would you like me to answer? All I know is that all men are like all women!”

“You mean they’re all bastards?” she laughingly replied.

“I mean they’re all miserable.”

She continued laughing and repeated, “No, no, no! I said you have experience, but I didn’t mean that you should make me listen to your sermons!”

“Who said I know any? You asked me about my experience, and all I wanted to say is that, in my life, I have been wounded by women, and I have wounded women. When I remember all these old stories, I can hardly believe I was so weak at one time and so cruel at another. Why? What’s the point?”

After that, I kept silent. She stood up and crushed her cigarette against the ground before she said, with her beautiful farewell smile, “Maybe when I retire, I’ll think like you. As for now, I prefer the way I understood it the first time, about men and women both being bastards. As for you, don’t be so sad! Perhaps you should try something new. It’s not too late to make use of everything you’ve learned from your experience.”

“Definitely, every age has its own beauty!” I answered her smile and gestured at my hair.

At that moment, as she was preparing to leave, a flock of peacocks ran across the grass right in front of us. The peacocks were flapping their wings and dragging their trains in a way that made them look like panicked turkeys fleeing a predator. They quickly passed in front of us and disappeared behind the building.

She followed the peacocks with an exasperated gaze. “And now that, too! These beasts will gather under my office and start howling. Their screams drive me mad!”

“You know the stipulation.

“To my misfortune. But they’ve aged a lot. Why don’t they just leave?”

“They can’t be always the same peacocks. These must be new offspring.”

“They’re old peacocks,” she insisted.

“But a little while ago you were talking about the beauty of all ages.”

She smiled and said, “The ages of humans, not peacocks!”

All those who work here know the stipulation that was made by the benevolent rich man who gave that beautiful park as a gift to the Organization, back tens of years ago. The gift was on the condition that the peacocks always be kept alive and allowed to freely roam the park. Why was he so fond of peacocks? They are beautiful birds; I’m enraptured by their colors. The gleaming blue neck, the brown-and-white chest and wings, the long trains with their shades of blue and green studded with roses in white and golden circles—it would be impossible for a painter to combine colors in such a splendid harmony as they were in these domestic land birds. I used to spend long periods standing near them, contemplating this living painting, so extravagantly colored, as their colors glowed, glittered, and changed, depending on whether they were under shade or full sun, while the male peacocks, full of pomp and show, moved their heads, crested with tufts of creamy feathers, and showed off their mottled trains off by dragging them along behind them. Or they would decide, for reasons of which I am ignorant, to spread the fan of that bewitching, gorgeous arch and sail.

That rich man was right, then, to fall in love with this daily festival, sparkling with its eye-catching colors. But was he also right in insisting on allowing them to roam freely in the workplace? He could have simply demanded that a corner be assigned to them, and that be it. Because nothing, in fact, surpasses their beauty—except the ugliness of their voices. The caw of crows is more merciful than the peacock’s ugly screech when they gather and the flock begins to scream! They have but one monotonous cry, loud and disagreeable, that they keep exchanging, from one bird to another, in monotony and unceasing insistence.

I remember the times when they happened to gather under my office window when I was at work and began their horrible song. I had no idea why it began or when it would end. I remember that I would close the window and put my hands over my ears; but in vain, as I c’uldn’t focus on any work until they decided to stop screaming or go somewhere else in the park. Still, I was not ready at any moment to sacrifice the pleasure of the eyes for the comfort of the ears. I also don’t think my jesting colleague has always hated them, as she claims.

She was only a few steps away from me when the fire engine’s bells clanged through the park, even before we saw the truck speeding down the park’s main road and headed toward the building entrance, opposite where I sit. I spontaneously stood up, and hurried to catch up with my ex-colleague, and, together with a few people who were walking around the park, we followed the fire truck. We had nearly broken into a run when she said, in a tone of fake rejoicing, “See? A fire in the building that has nothing to do with smoking!”

Yet, when we arrived, the building wasn’t on fire. The staff were looking out from the building’s nine floors of windows; like us, they gazed at the fire engine that had stopped at the front entrance with its sporadic red lights, trying to figure out what was going on. For my part, I had forgotten all this, and my heart beat faster as I returned once more to that corner of the park at which I used to gaze from my office.

It was a small grass-covered hillock, in the middle of which stood a huge cedar tree surrounded by two pyramid-shaped spruces that were even taller than the cedar tree. I had befriended these trees and used to spend long hours at my window, following all their states. I would contemplate their bright greenness, which never faded, not even when the leaves of other trees withered and fell. In winter, I used to watch them embrace the snow, drawing white palms from the cedar’s broad parallel leaves, which looked as if they were stretching out in prayer to heaven each time they were moved by the winter wind. I’d see the snow puff itself up on the branches of the conical spruces in the form of small flowers before it fell heavily to the ground, making big silver bells all along the inverted cone of the tree. I’d say to myself, No wonder this tree is a symbol of Christmas, since nature has given it all these shiny white bells as glad tidings of joy.

I was so overwhelmed by the memory that I even forgot my curiosity about what the firemen were doing; but my colleague pulled my arm and eagerly said, as she pointed up, “Look!”

Following her gaze, I saw to my surprise a peacock alighting calmly on a big branch of the cedar tree, with its blue train dangling off the green branch, tight and in good shape.

My friend asked in astonishment, “How did that old bird get up there?”

With similar bewilderment, I answered, “How would I know? I didn’t even know peacocks could fly.”

A few firemen were standing under the tree, listening to instructions from the crew commander, who was holding a megaphone in his hand, as well as from a person in civilian clothing, who I guess is the park’s gardener, or perhaps the peacocks’ caretaker. He was looking up in concern at the bird. Eventually, they moved a turntable ladder from the fire engine toward the cedar tree and started to raise it up. When the ladder reached the branch on which the bird perched, the crew commander ordered one of his men to climb the turntable ladder, after he and the park’s gardener gave him final instructions. The fireman carefully climbed the ladder, with a hunting net in one hand. When he was level with the peacock, the audience down on the ground and those gazing out of the windows clapped as he threw the net over the bird.

But at the very moment the fireman was throwing the net, I saw the convulsing peacock rise, swiftly stretch its wings, and fly towards a higher branch on the same tree.

“See?” my companion said. “It does fly!”

At that moment, many of the people on the ground and in the windows applauded with a “Bravo!”

The fire brigade officer, who was following up his colleague’s actions from the ground, held the megaphone and addressed our crowd a little nervously, “Calm down, please! Noise makes the bird more anxious and puts it at risk of falling, and we are as keen as you are to save it.”

Some of the audience encircling the fire engine laughed. The audience kept growing as we were joined by the staff coming out of their offices. The voices of some others rose in reproach, asking for quiet. My companion returned to her jesting: “Are you team fire brigade or team peacock?”

I laughed. “I’m with the one who’s old like me, of course.”

One of those streaming into the audience approached me and shook my hand, saying, “You’re back? Why haven’t we seen you?”

“Hello, Nikola,” I cautiously replied.

He was as fit and attractive as he’d once been, although his blond hair had been invaded by white tufts. He turned and said casually to my companion, “Hello, Marilyn.”

At last! Marilyn! I should have remembered her name from the start; this name was unforgettable for my generation. How could I forget it?

Marilyn did not react to his greeting except with a nod. She repeated her question to him in passing, “Are you team peacock or team fire brigade?”

“Peacock, of course,” Nikola said.

“Like your friend,” she said. “Like all men! I’m with the fire brigade. Come on! A victory for the fire brigade!”

The firemen had already raised the turntable ladder, and the peacock was now shifting nervously on a high branch opposite to the ladder.

But the scene was repeated in every detail. As soon as the fireman got closer and was about to throw the net, the peacock flew toward a yet higher branch on the other side of the tree, and the applause and laughter grew louder.

The audience, at least most of them, stood with the peacock. The fire commander’s anger grew more apparent as he repeated his call for calm. But he was busier with the task of instructing his men to move the turntable ladder to the other side of the tree, the one facing the spruce, all in consultation with the park’s gardener.

Nikola gradually drifted away from me to stand beside Marilyn, who stealthily stepped ahead of us. They did not exchange a word, yet I noticed that Marilyn had raised her head slightly and pulled herself up, as if preparing to take a defensive position. As for Nikola, he stood still, gaze fixed on the distant bird.

But he finally told her something I could not hear, then reached a hand toward her shoulder. She gently moved his hand and pulled away.

Then things moved quickly. Several police officers arrived and moved in among the staff encircling the fire engine, repeating the phrase, “Instructions from the Director-General.” After this, a retreat toward the building’s entrance began. I also noticed that, at a crucial moment, the staff looking down from the windows had disappeared. And even before the turntable ladder had moved to where the peacock stood, the peacock, in a mighty burst, stretched its wings and jumped toward the spruce. It remained for a moment floundering among the tree’s short-needled branches, which, unlike the broad leaves of the cedar, gave it no shelter. But it eventually found its way to an interwoven block of branches. There, the peacock swayed as the tree moved beneath its weight. But the bird managed to keep its balance as it looked down at us from its high hiding place, before it let out, for the first time, a loud warning cry.

At that moment, Nikola and Marilyn walked right past me as part of the crowd returning to the building. They didn’t notice me, but I heard Nikola insistently saying, as he leaned toward her, “Maybe if.” And I heard her decisive reply, “No! No maybe if! No maybe at all!” before she walked away from him, nearly running toward the entrance of the building. He stood looking in her direction for a moment before, head bowed, he walked toward the entrance.

Now, there was no one left except me and a few others, who, like me, didn’t work in the building. The firemen were consulting with the park’s gardener concerning the next move. The park’s gardener was anxiously telling themthat perhaps, just as it had gone up by itself, perhaps it would go down by itself, and the fire brigade officer said insistently, “We must not leave it like that; we must try.”

I was listening to this otherwise simple conversation when a heavy grief suddenly broke open inside me as I watched Nikola walking back, hanging his head, and thought of all that had happened: about this helpless adventuring peacock; of myself and others in this place; of the confusion of those who returned to their home countries and the confusion of those who stayed as strangers, away from theirs; of time that elapsed and would never be regained; of unrequited love and the loss of love; of our deliberate cruelty and the cruelty that was unintentional; and of old age and loneliness, especially loneliness.

I, however, also witnessed the end of the story. The opinion of the fire brigade officer gained ground and the turntable ladder was moved again to the spruce. The officer chose another one of his men, who climbed the ladder, ghost-like, and stopped a little before reaching the side facing the peacock, which remained motionless and still. “Move!” I muttered. “Resist! Fly!” Yet, when the hunter reached the bird and threw his net at it, the bird did not move. As if it had been waiting. As if it had chosen to cast itself into the net.

I saw the hunter coming down the ladder, carrying the coiled bird in the white bundle of the net in his left hand and leaning with his right hand on the ladder as he slowly made his way down.

I looked at the captured bird. Some of its brightly colored feathers stuck out, trembling, from the holes in the net. As I left, I told myself, “O my old bird, alike are our sorrows.”

Bahaa Taher (1935-2022) was born in Cairo. He was active in the country’s left-wing literary circles of the 1960s and in the mid 1970s was prevented from publishing his work.  After many years of exile in Switzerland, he returned to Egypt. Taher was the author of four collections of short stories, several plays, and works of non-fiction, and six novels: East of the Palms; As Doha Said; Aunt Safiyya and the Monastery; Love in Exile; The Point of Light and Sunset Oasis, which won the inaugural International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2008 and was longlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2008. I Did Not Know Peacocks Could Fly was published in 2010. (Review in Egypt Independent.)

Karam AbuSehly is an Egyptian academic and translator who works between Arabic, English and German. He is an associate professor of Critical and Cultural Theory at Beni-Suef University, Egypt and a former guest researcher at Freie Universität Berlin.