Sparrow Read online

  They were both kinder, more attentive to me in the days that followed than they had been since I was little. And at school I discovered that Marie Duval was no longer my only friend. Perhaps my essay had earned me some respect; or maybe it was through my losing that I had gained everyone’s sympathy. Either way, I basked in it. So it wasn’t a complete disaster after all – that was what I kept telling myself anyway. Telling myself was one thing, believing myself another.

  The picture above my bed was, for me, no longer of my Joan of Arc, but of Marie Duval. It was too painful a reminder. I took it down and put it in the back of my cupboard. Out of sight, out of mind, I thought. I wasn’t angry at Marie. She had been kindness itself. Not a bit of it. I was angry at Joan. I felt she had misled me, abandoned me; and, talking to the cupboard one night, I told her so.

  The river, the only place I could be alone and away from it all, had now become my place of tears. The faithful Jaquot was always there, always waiting for me. Every day now, after school, I would go and sit on the river bank and cry until I had no more tears left to cry. I poured my heart out to Jaquot, and he stayed and listened – providing I kept feeding him.

  As May 8th came closer, Marie was ever more fêted at school, and preparations for the great day were becoming increasingly evident not just at school, but throughout the city – bunting everywhere, flags in the streets, and images of Joan of Arc in every shop window. There were reminders around me everywhere I looked. Worst of all was having to smile through it all at school, having to hide my misery. With Jaquot I didn’t need to hide anything.

  On the night of May 6th I made the decision. I would simply miss school the next day. I would go down to the river and spend all day there with Jaquot. I went off to school at half-past seven as usual and made quite sure I was out of sight of the house before I doubled back and made for the river. Jaquot wasn’t there, but then I was early, earlier than I’d ever been before. He came soon enough though, hopping up on to the toe of my shoe to ask for his breakfast. I fed him and told him what I’d done and why I’d done it. I had the distinct impression he didn’t approve.

  “Be like that, then,” I said, and I lay back in the sun and closed my eyes, soaking myself in the warmth of it. For a while I could hear Jaquot pecking busily around my feet. But when I opened my eyes again he was gone, and nowhere to be seen.

  That was when I saw the light, a glowing light as bright as the sun, in among the branches of the trees above me. Then it was brighter still, and whiter, enveloping me utterly, until there was nothing to see except the light, and nothing to be heard either. The city had hushed to silence all around me.

  The voice came from deep inside the light, deep inside the silence, from far away and close by. “Talking of sparrows,” it said, “there was only one creature on this earth who really knew Joan. She called him Belami. He was a sparrow, just an ordinary sparrow like Jaquot; and he stayed with her all her life, almost from the very beginning, and right to the very end. He was her best friend on this earth, maybe her only friend, too. I could tell you more, if you’d like it. I could tell you her whole story, and Belami’s too. Would you like that?”

  I didn’t say yes. I didn’t say no. Because I couldn’t say a word.

  “I’ll tell you anyway,” came the voice again, “because I want to, and because I think you should know all of it, as it was, as it happened.”

  I felt myself drifting into the light, into the voice.

  He was born in the little grey house in Domrémy, the same house Joan had been born in, but fifteen years later – to the day. There was an old nest hole high in the thatch, a safe enough birthplace for a sparrow, you might have thought. This sparrow, though, was still a fledgling, still too young to fly, but did not know it. To him flying must have looked a simple enough business – both his parents did it after all, and with little apparent effort. Lots of birds were doing it, all the time, all around him. He was determined to do it before his brothers and sisters, very determined.

  So, one morning, standing on the very edge of his nest hole, and looking out on to a world of white cherry blossoms, the soft sunlight slanting through the green of the beech leaves, he made up his mind to take off and explore this wonderland. He would aim, he thought, for the great spreading apple tree at the bottom of the garden. He fluttered for a few brief seconds on the brink, and felt the lifting power under him for the first time. He let his wings take him and float him out on the air. But at once he was falling. However hard he tried, his beating wings simply would not keep him up. The landing was bumpy and uncomfortable, though not disastrous; but he was still some distance from the apple tree.

  He was hopping and flapping his way towards it when he caught sight of the cat stealing through the long grass, slinking low, his tail twitching this way and that. Every bird, however young, knows about cats. The sparrow crouched and was instantly still, still as death. By the time he decided to make his escape, he already knew he had left it too late. For all his wild flapping he could manage little more than a few frantic stumbling hops. At the last moment he cried out, but there was no help, no escape. He was caught, caught and held fast. Death was warm darkness, and mercifully quickly over.

  When the hands around him opened, he found himself blinking up into Joan’s smiling face. “Don’t worry,” she was saying, “I promise I won’t hurt you. And I won’t let Minou hurt you either. I promise. A white sparrow! I didn’t know sparrows could be white.” There was something calming in her voice, and the sparrow lay still in the bowl of her hands, his heart still pumping with forgotten fear. A judiciously aimed stick sent the disappointed cat scampering away back towards the house. “See?” she laughed, and she settled the sparrow in her lap, talking to him all the while, till she felt the heartbeat stop its racing. “You’ve got brown eyes,” she said, “like me. But I think we’ve a lot more in common than that. We shall be friends, I know we shall.”

  One of his claws became entangled in the thick red wool of her skirt. Joan freed him carefully, gently, and stroked his head with the back of her forefinger. “They said I would find a friend,” she went on. “My voices told me so, and they never lie to me, never. Because you are beautiful and because you are my friend, I shall call you Belami. Do you like that? Belami – yes, it suits you. They told me you would come. I needed a friend, Belami, someone I could tell everything to. I wanted to tell Hauviette – she’s my best friend – but they said no. They told me to be patient – the blessed St Margaret is always telling me to be patient – and here you are, just as they promised. They promised me a friend to keep me company, one who would never betray me, and therefore not of humankind, they said. I never understood them, not until now. That’s the trouble with my voices, Belami, sometimes they’re so difficult to understand. They will speak to me in riddles and I wish they wouldn’t. And sometimes, it’s so difficult to believe what they say, even when I do understand them. Oh, Belami, the things they say I must do! Of course, I didn’t believe in them at all at first. I mean you wouldn’t, would you? After all, it’s only saints who hear voices, only saints who see visions – or witches. That’s what I thought, Belami, that’s what everyone thinks. But it’s not true. I’m no saint, but I’m no witch either; and I do hear my voices, Belami, I do see my visions.”

  She pushed her finger underneath him and felt the tentative grasp of his claws. “Dear Belami, it’s so good to have someone I can tell at last. I think my voices were right. If I’d told Hauviette she’d have thought me mad in the head, or worse. But here I am, talking on and on about myself, when I expect all you want is feeding. Bread and milk, with worms mashed in – how would that be?”

  So Joan carried Belami into the house cupped in her hands. She scooted the cat out, and fed Belami for the first time. A few days later and he was flying free. As weeks passed and he grew stronger he was able to fend for himself more and more, but he never strayed far from her and liked to keep her always in his sight. It was on the day of his first exultant flight
up towards the sun. he was gliding back to earth when he saw Joan so small, so alone on the ground below. It came to Belami then that he would not be as other birds were, that he would live his life with her, come what may. She had saved him, fed him, and cared for him. Best of all, she needed him. So he would be her friend for life. He would not leave her. He would never leave her.

  It was a common enough sight around the village now, Joan with her white sparrow flying above her. Any catapult jokes met with a very frosty response. They were scarcely ever apart. Hauviette said to her once that she never knew she could be jealous of a sparrow, but she was. Wherever Joan went, Belami would follow, and more often than not it was to the spreading apple tree at the bottom of the garden. Here he would sit on her shoulder and listen to her, with half an eye on the aphids and grasshoppers in the long grass below him. When temptation got the better of him he would dart down and help himself; but he would try his best to be attentive because he knew how she loved to talk to him, how she had to unburden herself. He was there for that, there to listen.

  Often she’d tell him the same story. It was so miraculous a story that Belami never tired of hearing it. “To tell you is to remind me it was true,” she told him, “that it really happened. It helps me to make sense of everything they’ve told me ever since.” She stroked his wings – she always seemed to do that whenever she wanted him to stay with her and listen. “It was here, Belami,” she began, “right here under this tree that I first heard them – over two years ago now. I should have been out guarding the sheep and the cattle with my brothers, Pierre and Jean, and Hauviette and the others, I know that. But, to be honest, any excuse not to be there and I always took it. You watch sheep long enough at their grazing, you watch cows long enough swishing their tails in the sunshine – I’m telling you, Belami, it’s enough to bore anyone half to death. Anything to pass the time, and races are best because I’m good at races. But that day it wasn’t even my idea. Down to the river and back, that’s what Pierre said – a long way, that is. I think they thought they could beat me over a longer distance. Hauviette hates running, it hurts her legs. So she stayed to mind the sheep and the cattle. Off we went, and I won – by a mile. They weren’t at all pleased, as you can imagine. I’m just a fast runner, Belami – you’ve seen me. I can’t help that, can I? And besides it was a race and I’ve always liked winning better than losing.

  “Anyway, the race was over and I was lying there in the sun still trying to catch my breath when Pierre – my own brother! – came up and said that Mother wanted me back at the house. I didn’t think, I just went. He made it sound really urgent, the pig. When I got home I found Mother busy at her spinning, and of course she knew nothing about it. You should have heard her. ‘Why have you left the cattle?’ she said. ‘Do you think they look after themselves? Well, do you?’ And she boxed my ears and sent me back off to the fields.”

  Belami flew down and perched on her knee. He knew Joan would be crying. She always cried when she got to this part of the story. “She was so angry with me, Belami, and it was so unfair. I sat down here, right here, and cried my heart out.” She brushed her tears away with the back of her hand. “I remember there was a sudden rush of wind through the leaves above me, and I remember thinking that was odd, because until then there had been no wind that day, no wind at all. Then there was a silence and strange stillness all around me, as if the whole world had stopped breathing. Over there, just by the well, I saw a white light amongst the trees, and bright like the sun is bright. Then I seemed to be surrounded by it – like being cocooned in a white mist, it was. And out of this mist came a voice calling me – not from inside my head, Belami, I promise you. It was a real voice, a man’s voice. He spoke very slowly, as if he wanted me to remember every word he said. I did remember, every word of it.

  “‘Joan,’ it said, ‘Joan of Arc, of Domrémy. You have been chosen by God, by the King of Heaven, to drive the enemy from the soil of France for ever. You will set the rightful Prince of France, the Dauphin, on his throne and see him crowned at Reims. To do this you will have to become a soldier. You will lead the French army into battle, and you will be victorious – that you must never doubt. You will save France, Joan. These things you will accomplish by the grace of God, and in His name. I am the Archangel Michael, Joan. After me will come many voices, many visions, all sent by God to help you and to guide you. Listen to them, Joan, listen and always obey them. Speak to no man of me, and of your voices, until the time comes. Meanwhile be good, be strong, have courage. God bless you, Joan. God bless you.’

  “I saw him, Belami, I saw the Archangel Michael. I heard him. He was there, and then he wasn’t there. When he had gone and the bright light had gone, I just sat here quite unable to move at first. I was so scared I thought I’d gone mad, Belami. I thought the devil was in me. I got up and I ran. I ran and ran, to the chapel of Notre Dame at Beaumont, my favourite place in all the world, my sanctuary. I always feel safe there. To get there you have to go through Oaky Wood – there’s no other way. You know that, Belami, you’ve been there. There are wolves in that wood and wild boar. And there are supposed to be fairies in there too. I don’t believe in all that fairy nonsense, but it’s what people say. Anyway, I wasn’t frightened of wolves or wild boar or fairies, not that day. It was the devil in me that I was frightened of. I’ve never run so fast in all my life. Once I reached the chapel I threw myself down on the floor, and I prayed and I prayed and I prayed for the devil to come out of me. My voices answered me almost at once. ‘Joan, dear Joan,’ – a woman’s voice this time – ‘Your voices come from God, not from the devil. You must believe that. I am St Catherine and I will speak to you often, I will be with you whenever you need me. So do not fear your voices. There is no devil in you – that is why you have been chosen. Have no fear, have no fear.’

  “Ever since then, Belami, ever since St Catherine spoke to me that first time in the chapel, I have had no fear of my voices, only of what they ask me to do.” She held out her finger to Belami and he hopped on. She brought him close to her face and looked into his eyes. “Why me? Why me, Belami? Why would He choose me to do this thing? I’m just Joan, plain Joan. I can sew and spin well enough, though not as well as my mother. I shepherd sheep, I fetch water, I herd cattle. But I am no soldier to go and defeat the English.” There were tears running down her cheeks. “How can I be expected to save France? I know now that I must, but how? How?”

  Belami pecked at her tears, and she laughed at that. She set him back on her knee. “I ask them how, and they do not tell me. I ask them when, and they do not tell me. ‘Be patient, Joan,’ they say, ‘the time will come.’ And I do try to be patient, Belami, I do try. But I’m not good at being patient. They should know that, shouldn’t they? They should know everything. And meanwhile we hear news that the English and their Burgundian friends triumph everywhere. Their soldiers have only to bark and we French cringe in fear and run off to hide in our castles, our tails between our legs. Every day I am made to wait our enemies become stronger, and we become weaker. I know I shouldn’t, but I hate them, Belami, I hate the English. Why don’t they just go home and leave us in peace? I hate the Burgundians even more though. They’re of our blood, they’re French, and they ally themselves with the English, parcelling up the country, my country, as they see fit. English, Burgundians, they raid and rob wherever they want, and we have no power, nor any will, it seems, to stop them. There’s hardly a village left in France that’s truly French any more – that’s what Father says. Even here in Domrémy there are some who speak openly in support of the Burgundians. And Maxey, our next door village, just down the valley, is all Burgundian. You saw them, Belami, those boys from Maxey who set up on us in the fields only a couple of weeks ago. I longed then to stand and fight, but my brothers sent me and Hauviette off home so we wouldn’t get hurt. How many more times do I have to stand by and watch my brothers and my friends come home bloodied and beaten?” She was on fire with rage now. “And last year wh
en those Burgundian soldiers came – there were only a few of them – did we band together to drive them off? No, we ran. We took our animals and ran for the safety of the Château d’Ile, and the soldiers came and pillaged and burnt the village just as they pleased. And my voices told me then to be patient. They tell me now to be patient.

  “I asked Mother once: ‘Why do we always have to run?’ Do you know what she said, Belami? ‘We do as your father says, as the village council says. It is not for you to question his commands nor their decisions. It’s nothing to fret over. The soldiers have been before. They will come again. They are like the storms of winter. When they are gone, we rebuild, make good. There has been no war in this land for a hundred years. Why should it stop now? Life goes on. We just keep our heads down and keep out of the way – it’s all we can do. You think too much, Joan, you always have. Just stick to your spinning and your shepherding and your praying, and with a bit of luck you could make a good wife one day and devout mother. Girls these days,’ she tutted at me and shook her head, ‘I don’t know.’

  “So you can see, Belami, even my own mother has long since given up the fight and will not listen to me. I cannot even persuade my own mother. And my voices say that I have to persuade all of France to rise up and drive the English out. But how will I make them believe it can be done, when I do not know myself how it can be done? Oh, Belami, I only wish you could talk. Do you believe I can do what my voices say? Do you? Do you? Oh, talk to me, Belami, talk to me.”

  As time passed Joan went less often to the fields with the cattle. She might drive them out to graze with the other children, but would always find some excuse to go off. She told Hauviette she needed quiet, that she was going to pray. And it was true, she would spend every hour she could wandering the Oaky Wood alone, or praying in Notre Dame at Beaumont. She was never really alone, of course, for Belami was never far from her side. Sometimes, particularly when she was at her prayers, he would keep his distance, knowing how she liked to be on her own with her voices. He stayed close by though, always hoping for a glimpse of her saints – St Margaret or St Catherine perhaps – but to his great disappointment he never saw nor heard anything of them. He could see she was often deeply troubled and upset by what they told her, so much so that sometimes she couldn’t bring herself to speak of it, even to Belami.