PIGEONS’ AFFAIR By Hugo Hanriot Mohammad came to the United States when he was five and grew up in Brooklyn. Upon arriving in New York, his family was met by old family friends from their small Pakistani village. They helped Mohammad’s parents get settled in Brooklyn, and taught them their trade: street food vendors in Manhattan’s financial district. Mohammad’s parents were smart and hard working. Despite any knowledge of English, they ran their business with a crash course from their friends. They learned to say “hot dogs, how many?, ketchup, mustard, onions, sauerkraut, soda, 50 cents, one dollar, change for five bucks, good day, thank you” – and, only for his father, to shout, “You S.O.B!” Mohammad’s mother would take the food cart early in the morning from her employer’s storage basement, and push it to her assigned street corner five miles away. Mohammad’s father would relieve his wife after lunch and stay selling hot dogs until almost midnight. His parents used a traditional way to keep in touch – the way they communicated in their village – whoever’s turn it was to sell hot dogs would carry a homing pigeon, and release the bird with a written note whenever they needed to send a message. The pigeon would fly over the skyscrapers of Manhattan, cross the East River and find the Brooklyn residential building where they and other Pakistani families lived. The parent taking care of Mohammad at that moment would go up to the rooftop of their building every now and then to check if the pigeon had returned with a message. The pigeons belonged to another family. The Pakistani birds were thinner and had bigger wings and feathers than city pigeons; they were a special breed used in competitions. They could stay aloft in the air up to eight hours and fly up to 500 miles in a day. Mohammad was fascinated by them, and helped their owners feed the birds with seeds and a special mixture of flour. Mohammad’s parents, after years of hard work and savings, bought the building and the coop of pigeons. They also provided Mohammad with a college education. By that time, the coop of pigeons had multiplied rapidly and there was a surplus of birds. Mohammed’s family sold them to pigeon racers, providing the family with extra income. It was through the pigeon sales that Mohammad first saw Ghizala, the daughter of a well-to-do Pakistani family. She was born and educated in America. Her father, a prominent university professor, came to buy some pigeons. He had heard, through some of his students, about the competition birds Mohammad’s family had been raising in Brooklyn. While their parents discussed the price of the birds, young Mohammad took a pigeon and released it to show Ghizala their elegant flight. “When you watch them fly free, surging upwards toward the sky, it transmits a special feeling of freedom,” he said to her. “Are you sure the bird will come back?” She asked him while watching its flight for as long as she could see, until the pigeon disappeared in the sky. “They always do.” By then their parents were enthusiastically talking about the country they had left behind. Mohammad and Ghizala were involved in their own conversation. “I don’t think your pigeon will come back,” she smiled playfully. “He will” he shared her smile. “What would happen to the birds my dad is going to buy if we let them loose?” “They will return to our coop. But the chicks born at your place will always come back to your house.” “If that happens with the ones we are buying, how would you know they are ours?” Mohammad used his ingenuity, “If you tied a message for me to the bird’s leg, I will know the pigeon is yours and I gladly will take him back to you.” Tears came out of Mohammad’s eyes after remembering how they had met. Time had silvered his long hair and beard, his walk had slowed down, but in his memory he kept fresh the first time he saw her. Every time he went to the rooftop to feed the pigeons, his mind would swell with memories of Ghizala. Her parents had already approved the engagement of their daughter to a young wealthy Pakistani man she had never met. But the young American-raised couple had sealed their destiny otherwise. Disobeying Ghizala’s parents’ wishes, but respectful of their parents’ traditions, they married in a simple ceremony. The fact that Mohammad’s parents were uneducated and Ghizala’s highly educated never became an issue between them. After Mohammad’s parents passed away, without hesitation she had followed Mohammad to the old Brooklyn building to care for the birds. There they raised their family and grew old together; two daughters and a son – all of them now middle-aged and raising their new young families. Ghizala had passed away a few years ago. Mohammad, feeling lonely, opened the box he kept with the messages Ghizala had sent him when they were young. The messages and the collection of old photos of their children made him realize how lucky he had been, sharing the best years of his life in the company of the woman he loved from the first time he laid eyes on her. I’ll see you next week with a new story. 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Posted on: Sat, 18 Jan 2014 17:31:30 +0000