“Hawks are predators—their instinct is to kill.”
“Right.”
“Falconry is an ancient art. That’s how people put food on the table before they had guns.”
“What’s the difference, exactly, between a falcon and a hawk, then?” she asked nonchalantly.
“Both are raptors,” Ivo replied, his eyes still fixed on his bird. “Difference in size, wing shape, beak, flight pattern. Beginners can’t really tell, but with time, one can tell at a glance.”
“Of course,” Diana said. She wanted to make sure Ivo knew she had done some homework, and that she was ready for anything.
* * *
—
Queen landed on the edge of a roof right across the street. The sky was completely clear.
“Wow,” Diana whispered, almost to herself.
“Yes, she’s a good hunter. One of the best I’ve ever had.” Ivo was standing with his arms crossed over his paunch and legs slightly parted.
The bird remained still, like a guardian looking out for enemies. Her profile, the sharpness of her beak, was clear cut against the sky.
“Do you actually go hunting with her?” Diana asked.
“Yes, of course. I have to.”
“Where do you take her?”
“It depends. Sometimes I drive just half an hour out of town. But I’m not the hunter, I’m only her assistant.” Ivo flashed a grin. “My job is to scare a rabbit or a mouse out of the brush so she can kill it. That’s the beauty of training a hawk.”
“It must be amazing to see her catch prey,” Diana said, although she wasn’t sure why she thought so.
Ivo’s face lit up.
“It’s incredible. When hawks approach their prey, you hear it before you see it.” Ivo made a loud wheezing sound, like a sharp whistle that ended in a crash. “The shape of their beaks is designed to snap the vertebra and it kills them instantly.”
He suddenly became even more animated.
“To have a relationship with an animal that recognizes you as its partner—it’s a miracle. I don’t know how to explain it. It makes you part of something bigger.”
Diana nodded, entranced. She looked up at the sky. Some of the gulls seemed to be returning. A few of them were circling again, not too far from the terrace, as though they were inspecting whether their enemy had left. “They’re back. What happens now?”
“I’m going to fly her a few more times today, and we’ll keep repeating the flights at least three times a week until the gulls understand that she’s taken over their territory. Only then will they move for good. I told you, it may take up to a month—it depends.”
“Really? That long?”
“Yes, this is a long procedure. Animals learn by repetition. You’ll have to be patient,” he added with a tinge of reproach.
Diana immediately rushed to justify herself.
“Oh, no, I’m not impatient at all, quite the contrary….Actually, I’m interested…actually thrilled to be watching what she does. I was just curious as to what…”
But Ivo wasn’t really listening. His eyes were on Queen, who was still perched on the roof across the street, preening. He called her name once, twice, his voice sharp as a bird’s call, and she swooped down, landing on his glove like an arrow on target. She began to peck at something bloody that Ivo was holding between his gloved fingers.
“What’s that?”
“A chick.”
Diana winced.
“Are you serious?”
“Yes,” Ivo said, unconcerned. “Hawks are trained to eat from our hand—food is what bonds them to the falconer. That’s how they learn to fly back to the fist.”
“Where do you get them? The chicks, I mean.”
“In the city I have to buy them in batches in a pet shop and keep them in my freezer,” he said, then patted a large pocket on his hunting jacket. “This is full of meat. When she’s eaten enough we’ll stop flying her, because when she has a full belly it’s harder to get her back on the glove.”
Ivo flew Queen a few more times. Each time the gulls attempted to return but the minute they saw her circling over the terrace, they scattered away again. The hawk always responded to Ivo’s call and flew obediently to his fist whenever he called her. He kept pulling out lumps of meat from his vest and hiding them inside the folds of the glove. A feathered chick, a chunk of turkey neck. His fingers were smeared in blood. Whenever Queen flew back to his fist and began to peck at the raw meat, Diana saw something primal, a sort of telepathic connection between the man and the bird. Ivo’s gestures were ancient; they had a certain nobility. He told her that hawks could be trained but not domesticated, they were truly a wild thing. The hawks that he flew today were trained in exactly the same way they’d been thousands of years ago.
“What if she doesn’t come back? Did that ever happen?” Diana asked.
Ivo smiled. He seemed genuinely cheered by her questions.
“Every time you release a hawk for a hunt, there’s a chance you’ll never see it again. A few times I had to spend hours in the woods begging Queen to fly back to me. She had eaten too much and just wanted to go to sleep on a branch. Sometimes, if it was getting dark, I had to go home and come back at daybreak to look for her with radio tracking.”
“That must’ve made you pretty anxious.”
“Well…falconers do lose their birds, you know. It’s part of the risk you take when you handle a wild bird. Every hunt could be your last, so you pay attention. It’s all about trust. If they want to fly away, they fly away, and there’s nothing you can do. It’s always the bird’s choice to come back.”
Something about this phrase resonated deeply with Diana. It was all about trust, a risk one had to take.
“Did you ever lose one?”
“It happened,” Ivo admitted wistfully. “And yes, that was tough.”
It was beginning to get dark and the air was cooling off. Ivo called Queen back for the last time, and after she flew to him, he patted her wings.
“Good girl, good girl, time to say good night now.”
He slipped the hood back on over her head and Queen immediately went still and hopped inside her metal box. Diana caught a sour whiff as she escorted him to the door.
It was Ivo. He smelled of raw meat.
* * *