I hit a crisis spot somewhere around the age of seven. The catalyst for this was a cuckoo and the protagonist an ancient righteous school mistress. I heard it on my way to school. It was a May morning and the sun beat down its warmth. The invisible cuckoo excited like nothing I had heard before. Entranced by the call I dropped my satchel and went in pursuit of the haunting sound. Though I ran all the way I failed to make up time lost and was late.
She wasn't impressed by my gasped explanation. She looked at me over her glasses, and with her untidy bun shaking with age and indignity she trebled: "And I suppose you know that that bird builds no nest?" I didn't, but it didn't reduce him in my estimation. If I could make a sound like that I wouldn't be wasting my time building nests either.
"And do you know why that bird builds no nest?" I passed on that one.
"Because, Paddy, he is late and lazy, just like you." This was not turning out the way I had planned.
"He was late for the Lord. When the Lord called all the birds together to show them how to build their nests, the cuckoo was late, so he never learned how to do it. That is what happens to people who are late. They miss out on the important things in life." It was very pointed criticism. Personal, even. A challenge could only make things worse, so I played for touch.
"But teacher, why was he late?" I asked, faltering somewhere between a cry for mercy and a thirst for knowledge. She interpreted all questions as a challenge. This one she interpreted as my argument in favour of tardiness. It was fuel to her fire.
"Because he was proud and stopped on his way to show off his voice to the flowers and the insects. Stopped on his way when he should have been rushing to his instruction with the Lord. Just like you stopping on your way when you should be rushing to your religious instruction. And the Lord punished the bird by making two of its toes turn backwards. Did you know that the cuckoo to this day has two toes pointing backwards . . . because he was late . . . and lazy." Terrorised, I stole a glance at my feet.
"The cuckoo is a parasite. Do you know what a parasite is?"
"No ma'am."
"A parasite is someone who lets others do the work for him. The cuckoo lets others build his nest. He sneaks around the hedges in this month of May looking for a nice comfortable nest built by some other hard-working birds. He lays about 10 eggs in 10 different nests belonging to other birds. Ten hardworking birds have to sacrifice their own family to feed and care for the intruder."
She was in full swing, but I couldn't let it go. I lived on a farm and knew a thing or two about the facts of life. "He" didn't lay eggs.
"But ma'am, it isn't the `he' bird that lays the eggs." This was really risque stuff. I knew I was way out on a limb. She stared hard in judgment of my motive, then with eyes made beady with the glasses, and the hint of sin, she venomously let me know of the freewheeling promiscuous life of the male cuckoo.
`NO indeed it isn't the he birds that lay the eggs. The he bird does nothing only turn up late for his lessons and listens proudly to his own voice. It is his poor wife who is reduced to finding a home for her chicks by laying her eggs in the nest of the good birds who were in time for their lessons. The `he' bird is even lazier than the `she' bird. He does nothing at all."
Though only seven, I knew this was an exaggeration. We kept hens and I had seen the cock in action. I had already guessed the consequences of his activity. I thought she might not have tumbled to the same conclusion, so I kept it to myself. Anyway, she was on a roll.
"And when his poor offspring are born they have to throw the other little birds out of the nest to make room for themselves and force the innocent rightful owner of the nest to feed them. And then without ever worrying about his wife or his children, he goes off back to Africa to the heat of the sun."
My heart took flight with the mysterious bird and I thought if I had the opportunity I'd advise him not to return to an ungrateful country like this that gave no credit for making wonderful sounds.
I did ask her about the "she" bird and the little ones and she reluctantly confessed that they too went off to the sun for the winter, but she made it sound as though they did it for altogether altruistic reasons or were forced into it by his quest for pleasure. She wouldn't survive today's legislation against sexual discrimination. But I must admit she knew her cuckoos. She got a little carried away about how the little cuckoos find their way unaccompanied and undirected to the winter home of their parents. even though they had never been there. It filled me with awe, and my mind turned to magnets and stars, but she said I was all wrong and it was the Lord who guided them.
"He didn't hold it against them for their father's sin of not being in time for his lessons. The Lord is all-merciful," she sang out triumphantly. But her scowl at me held no promise that she had learned anything from his example.
The following year I chased the bird across fields and finally caught up with him. His size and colour disappointed me. I didn't expect such a haunting sound to emanate from a modest thrush-like grey body. He did have a pert white tip to his tail, but he was nowhere near what my imagination had manufactured. Until I grew up and went away to the city I heard him at the same place and at the same time for a dozen years. Then a dozen years of silence. But this year he came back, or maybe it was one of his descendants - and the mystery of how he did it is compounded by the long absence.