A Pigeon and a Boy

Chapter One

1

And suddenly," said the elderly American man in the white shirt, "suddenly, a pigeon flew overhead, above that hell."

Everyone fell silent. His unexpected Hebrew and the pigeon that had alighted from his mouth surprised all present, even those who could not understand what he was saying.

"A pigeon? What pigeon?"

The man stout and suntanned as only Americans can be, with moccasins on his feet and a mane of white hair on his head pointed to the turret of the monastery. Many years had passed, but there were a few things he still remembered about the terrible battle that had taken place here. "And forgetting them," he declared, "is something I'll never be able to do." Not only the fatigue and the horror, not only the victory "A victory that took both sides by surprise," he noted but also the minor details, the ones whose importance becomes apparent only later: for one, the stray bullets--or perhaps they were intentional that struck the bell of the monastery on occasion "Right here, this very bell" and then the bell would ring sharply, an odd sound that sank, then abated, but continued to resound in the darkness for a long while.

"And the pigeon?"

"A strange sound. Sharp at first, and high-pitched, like even the bell was surprised; then it got weaker, in pain but not dead, until the next shot hit it. One of our wounded guys said, 'Bells are used to getting hit from the inside, not the outside.'"

He smiled to himself as though he had only just understood. His teeth were bared, and even those were terribly white, as only elderly American teeth can be.

"But what about the pigeon? What kind of a pigeon was it?"

"I'm ninety-nine percent sure it was a homing pigeon, a Palmach carrier pigeon. We'd been fighting all night, and in the morning, two or three hours after sunrise, we saw it suddenly lifting off."

This Hebrew he had unleashed, without prior warning, was good in spite of his accent but his use of the term homing pigeon in

One of Israel's most celebrated novelists, MEIR SHALEV was born in 1948 on Nahalal, Israel's first moshav. His books have been translated into more than twenty-five languages and his honors include the National Jewish Book Award and Israel's Brenner Prize for A Pigeon and a Boy. He died in 2023.

Evan Fallenberg (www.evanfallenberg.com) translates fiction by well-known and upcoming Israeli writers. He teaches creative writing at Bar Ilan University in Israel and is the author of Light Fell, a novel.

"Shalev creates a world that has the richness of invention and the obsessiveness of dreams."
The New York Times Book Review

"Shalev has deftly layered Yair's story in such a manner that a refreshingly nuanced picture of Israel emerges."
The Miami Herald

"Vivid characters and sharp dialogue... By working stories in the past and present against each other, Shalev brings into questions the validity, and the reliability, of memory."
The New York Times Book Review

"In homing pigeons, Shalev has found a motif that is replete with symbolism and scriptural allusion that he uses expertly, with maximum layered effect."
Ottawa Citizen

"Brilliant... Universal in its scope and examination of human longing for a sense of roosting."
The Jerusalem Post

"An exquisite creation, a work of quiet language tat needs no shouting to attain its impact."
Chicago Jewish Star

"Stunning... This gem of a story about the power of love, which won Israel's Brenner Prize, brims with luminous originality."
Publishers Weekly (starred review)