Hunting Midnight by Richard Zimler Read Free Book Online Page A

quarter prior to the Inquisition. My father was present for this explanation and puffed on his pipe without saying a word.
    *
    It was atop these slanders and fanciful images that the necromancer’s accusation of my being Jewish now found awkward footing. Giving in to my worst fears, I begged Daniel to search my head and nether regions for indications of unsightly growths of any telltale sort. He took to this task with admirable solemnity. We must have looked a sight with my breeches down and him squatting to gaze at my hindquarters. To my solemn relief, he soon dismissed my fears.
    *
    While hunting with Daniel for discarded bottles and trinkets on the riverbank that afternoon, I began to think that a life without close friends was not an inevitability for me. I remember being quite literally shaken by this knowledge when he grabbed my hand without warning and said, “I’ve found something, John, hurry!”
    He raced ahead, shouting that he’d spotted a tabletop sticking out of some mud and that it was perfect for carving. “Run! Come on! Faster!” His green eyes were aglow with the pleasure of having me share in his discovery.
    So excited did he become when we had safely unearthed his treasure that he began flapping his hands as though to brush away bees. A year or so later, he would offer the tabletop, intricately carved with the mischievous faces of children hiding in trees, to a young girl called Violeta. He would place me right at the center, replete with a beaked nose and gaping mouth.
    I understand now that Daniel, more than anyone I ever met, saw through the surface of objects to what lay hidden beneath. Would it be an exaggeration to say that he was capable of seeing the potential in me, as well, and that I loved him for it?
    I remember when we first pulled the tabletop out of the mud that afternoon, he stomped around as though seeking to create footprints so deep they could never be washed away by the river. Perhaps what he most wished with his carving was to offer a permanent impression of himself to the world.
    We were too young to know that he had already – in only a few days – created deep and lasting marks in me. And even if we’d known, I do not believe we’d have spoken of it.
    *
    At the stroke of four o’clock we returned to New Square, to follow the bald birdseller to his home. It was nearly an hour later when he and his wife loaded their cages into the back of their wagon and headed off. On the far side of the Gate of Oaks, they turned toward the town of Valongo and soon stopped at the Douro Inn, a grim-looking establishment. When they resumed their journey a half hour later, we continued our eager pursuit. But the birdseller now lashed his mares into a gallop and we were soon left shielding our eyes from the dust they threw up in their wake. Daniel turned this disheartening situation to our advantage by returning to the Douro Inn and making inquiries of the innkeeper , who told us that the birdseller and his wife were in the habit of stopping there for a drink every Tuesday and Saturday, prior to the market and occasionally afterward. The lad made a point of asking about St. John’s Eve, and we were told that they generally came to the inn early that morning.
    Outside, Daniel put his arm around my shoulder and whispered conspiratonally, “Kidnapped, wrapped, and delivered … Now, listen, John. We’ll have to come back here at dawn on the Twenty-Third. Which means we have only” – he counted by tapping his fingers on the top of my head – “five days. So starting tomorrow, we paint.”
    *
    I later discovered that Daniel, on returning home, placed the dead woodpecker on his bed, sat on the floor beside it, and got to work with his tools and pinewood. His goal was to create at least ten carvings before St. John’s Eve, which he estimated would occupy him from sunup to dusk on each of the next five days.
    That afternoon, Senhora Beatriz interrupted his feverish work with a knock at his