Read Online Silent Bird by Reina Lisa Menasche - Free Book Online

from about twenty feet apart: six men, three in each, confidently raising their long poles. Then, as trumpets blared, spilling long brightly striped streamers, the rickety boats attacked. Poles clacked and pushed; the boats rocked and tipped, and the canal jostled like water in a glass. One player on the red team staggered and—to the whoop of catcalls—fell. Splash!
    “ Allôns-y-Louis !” Monique screamed.
    Little Louis echoed “ Looey ,” his face shiny and exuberant. And though I noticed Jeannot grinning at the child, I also noticed that he didn’t try to chuck the baby’s chin or stroke his fat little hands or silky hair or whatever else adults thought they had the right to caress just because they felt like it.
    He continu ed to surprise me, this man, though I didn’t trust it. How could we ever know what dwelled inside a man’s heart?
    “ Le bleu, le bleu ,” called one section of the crowd.
    “ Non…le rouge !” cried another.
    Louis Senior, the scrawniest on his team, grasp ed his pole with smooth, cat-like movements and pushed hard. The other player had foolishly taken the time to smile at a girl—and staggered and tumbled unceremoniously down.
    Splash!
    The crowd screamed and hooted, especially when the guy bobbed his head out of the water and sheepishly waited for the musical boat to quit tooting and drumming and come fetch him.
    The Blue Team had won the first round.
    “Oh dear,” Monique said in my ear. “My husband must play nice, yes?”
    “ Look, a problem. The Red Team needs a new player,” Jeannot said, pointing.
    The men in white and red were huddling in a circle as a guy in black—the referee?—gesticulated wildly.
    “ The captain is from my village,” Jeannot muttered. “I should help.”
    Before I could respond, Jeannot called out something across the crowd. The man heard him and nodded and beckoned, and then called something to an old guy in an idling motorboat. I didn’t know who the hell that old guy was but suspected he was from Jeannot’s village too. Friend or family?
    I really knew nothing about my “boyfriend ,” did I?
    “ Wait,” I said to Jeannot. “You’re playing?”
    “ Yes, wish me luck, Chérie. I am not the best swimmer, but the water is not so very deep.”
    “ Can you use a life…coat?”
    “ For the Canal? No.” A rueful smile and he was gone.
    A few minutes later, to the vigorously chee ring onlookers, Jeannot accepted a red sash from the captain. Jeannot tied the sash around his own waist and, already appearing wary, stepped onto the team’s rocking gondola. He was not dressed in pristine white, but he would do.
    As long as he did n’t drown.
    “ You haven’t to worry,” Monique said lightly in her quaint fashion. “He plays against my husband and I am fine, yes?”
    “ Rouge !” I screamed suddenly.
    She looked at me, startled, and then hollered: “ Bleu!” We both laughed.
    I switched to blissful, comfortable English: “Go, Jeannot, go ! You clobber that Blue Team!”

VI
    Jeannot did go. Into the water, that is.
    Leaning to one side like a Carnival ride, it took only a few minutes for the Red Team’s gondola to unceremoniously dump my sweetie face-front into the Palavas Canal.
    Slap!
    I winced. The water couldn’t be that deep, not so close to shore. Right? Plus everyone was watching. Jeannot would be fine.
    To my annoy ance, the crowd went nuts again, yelling, whistling, stomping feet; calling for the drums, for the ongoing clamor of trumpets. They were eager for Jeannot to show his soaking face. I found myself squeezing Monique’s arm.
    “ Pilar, you haven’t to worry! This is the Palavas Canal. He may catch a virus; that is all.”
    I leaned forward, holding my breath, waiting for him to pop up, hair illogically shaped and dripping like a sea sponge.
    Nothing.
    The drums, still thumping, slowed down a bit. Streamer-spewing trumpets continued to blare.
    I moved closer. Jeannot?
    The sun was in my eyes; I could barely see