Migratory Bird

My homeland has many palm-trees

and the thrush-song fills its air;

no bird here can sing as well

as the birds sing over there.

The first thing Thomasin Alves noticed as she stepped out of the airport into the dense, burning air of January in Rio was the pungent smell of sewer that soured her nose instantly. The second was the absence of palm trees. She’d been reading this particular poem non-stop since embarking on the plane, still unable to pronounce its author name correctly, or so the old man sitting right next to her had said, and Thomasin for one believed him. Her Portuguese had always had a strong western Canadian accent, no matter how many times her dad had tried to smooth the hard edges and teach her to roll her ‘r’, it never sat right on her tongue. She couldn’t help but wonder if her pronunciation would improve at all now that she’d be surrounded by the language, the thought of which felt suddenly overwhelming, like the coming of a great wave ready to grind her bones into dust.

She gripped the paperback copy of The Best Brazilian Poems firmly in her hands, its first page a mishmash of different colors and fonts that read Jacob, Anneleise, Danika, Chao, and Zoe.

‘So you won’t forget our names! You forget everything!’ they had said presenting the parting gift motivated, no doubt, by the notebook she carried around, filled with her own poor attempts at sonnets and haikus, a shamefully stereotypical hobby for a 14-year-old girl. Thomasin thought back on that last afternoon with her friends after the funeral, the thick layer of snow covering the entryway of her family’s home, soon to be sold. Her parents had passed away in the manner all her family seemed to do: fast and tragic. The police had said it was a robbery gone wrong, in a place where such crimes were almost unheard of, a freak of nature, really. She was familiar with these terms, they were the same used when the uncle on her mother’s side was stabbed in a parking lot, and when her two cousins had found early graves, one in a car accident, the other in a heroin needle. Now it was Thomasin’s time to bear the mark and take it with her across the continent, to her new home. Her friends had all come to say their goodbyes and pay their respects to her late parents but, in a sense, she felt like it was her funeral too. Their hugs felt final, a confirmation of the end of her presence in their lives, and now, as a walking-dead girl in a plane to the other end of the world, she had trouble remembering the details of their faces. They blurred together, mixed, a monstrous being of five mouths, uncountable eyes, and cacophonous voices saying everything was going to be ok without meaning the words.

‘Well, whatever happens’ she thought to herself ‘at least there would be palm trees.’

Getting up and ready to leave the in-between state of the plane, Thomasin imagined what uncle Gabriel, his father’s twin, and her legal guardian now would be like. She knew they were not identical, and that her dad didn’t like talking about him. It was only when the lawyer had come that she’d discovered her uncle was a history professor at a university in Rio. He was married and had a son around her own age, he spoke English and would be waiting for her at the airport, and he’d take her to live with him in a neighborhood called Laranjeiras, which the lawyer didn’t know, meant orange orchard. What both she and the lawyer knew, however, was that uncle Gabriel was a stranger, but a stranger willing to take her in, which was more than she had in Canada at the moment. Picking up her backpack, she followed the herd of people into the lobby. Already things seemed to change, people here came in hues she wasn’t used to seeing, wore clothes with similar cuts but unfamiliar fabrics and brand-names, almost recognizable, almost familiar, but not quite. Maybe she really had died and this was what came after, a wave of uncanny, of almost understood.

The border security was lax, it didn’t take long for her to leave and find her place among piles of luggage and a small crowd of people, all with expectant eyes that seemed disappointed at spotting her blondish hair and large frame. The women were so little here, it made her self conscious enough to pull her hoodie tighter into herself, wishing to disappear among the crowd of tanned, lean bodies instead of standing out like a blob of white meat. Finally, she saw it, a small paper where bold, red marker letters read ‘TOMASIM’, apparently to the delight of strangers who giggled and pointed at the misspelled version of her name, she wasn’t really sure why. Carrying it was a man with thick light-brown hair and dark eyes that shone like beads under the fluorescent light, he was dressed casually, with the kind of shirt her father used to wear to bed, nothing like what she had imagined. Uncle Gabriel rushed to her, he called her dear and gave her a big hug, as one would with a deeply missed child. He did speak English, as the lawyer had said, but she had trouble understanding him at times, especially his ‘th’s. She didn’t try to say much back, but he didn’t seem to care, he smiled, openly and frankly, and she felt her eyes burn.

We have fields more full of flowers

and a starrier sky above,

we have woods more full of life

and a life more full of love.

They had to take a cab back to her uncle’s place, his car was at the shop this week. The ride to his house was dream-like, almost surreal. After leaving the airport, they crossed a sea of grey-green nothingness that smelled strongly of raw sewers, and every now and again her uncle would glance back at her as if to make sure she was really there. A couple of minutes later, the path gave way to a strange landscaped of unpaved roads and brick houses, messy power cables, and dirty chickens pecking at random in spilled trash. Kids were flying kites, most of them wearing only shorts and flip-flops, running to catch up with each other, while in the horizon a strong orange color imposed itself announcing the end of the day, even though it was just past 6PM. The boys and girls glistened in the dark, progressively becoming shadows in the distance, like dancing silhouettes against a burning fire, a maniac dance that she felt compelled to join but could only stare from the glass.

In the background the radio buzzed with some type of sports newscast, her uncle talked animatedly with the cab driver about the game, both exchanging words with a speed that was uncanny like they themselves were playing a game of their own. At some point, they sang a couple of verses she guessed had swear-words based on the way the pair giggled and looked back at her to be sure she couldn't understand. She wondered if they’d met before, but decided against it when the game was finished and the silence returned. Thomasin though back to the poem, trying to remember its words. She had not seen the woods yet, and there were no flowers to be found but in the dresses of the women at the airport. It was too soon to see the stars, but something in the air, in people's eyes, spoke of love, of an unyielding, burning love for life and each other like the strange instant friendship between her uncle and the cab driver. It was a kind of feeling she was anxious to know, to understand by herself. One more turn and they were now in a busy, bustling cityscape, surrounded by impossibly high glass and concrete, the air conditioner at the cab wasn’t strong enough and Thomasin wiggled out of her hoodie, fine hair sticking mercilessly at her damp forehead. Uncle Gabriel chuckled with a knowing nod:

‘You’ll get used to it, the summers here are brutal, and it’s always summer.’ which she found odd but nodded vaguely in agreement, it was less reassuring than she'd expect.

When they’d finally reach her uncle’s place, an apartment in a neighborhood full of trees and heritage buildings, it was already dark. She had only brought one bag with her, the rest was being dealt with by a moving company, which proved good since her uncle’s building had no elevator, only a marble and iron staircase.

‘The place is old, but I hope you’ll like it! We enrolled you in the British school but you’ll have until February before the classes start. Hungry?’

His maniac way of speaking, jumping between ideas and contexts was confusing, all she could do was nod shyly, while he marched inside calling out for his son and wife to come and help while Thomasin was left behind. There were many things about this place, this life that she didn’t quite know yet, the change had been so abrupt, but then again, such was the working of things. It didn’t matter if slowly or all at once, there was never a good time to leave or an easy way to arrive, just a path forward that changed her as she took it and that would continue to do so all her life. However short or however long it ended up being.

Sitting alone at her uncle’s couch, hearing the approaching footsteps of his family, her family now, the last stanza of the poem came naturally to her lips as she murmured in her last minute alone:

‘Lonely night-time meditations

please me more when I am there;

my homeland has many palm-trees

and the thrush-song fills its air.’