The Human Stain

This far out on the mountain, once the autumn leaves were over, visitors were rare enough on the first of November, and she wasn't about to turn away someone who happened to show up at ninefifteen in the morning, even this woman who wasn't quite dressed for the outdoors in the middle of fall in the Berkshire Hills but seemed to be wearing, above her gray sweatpants, the top of a man's striped pajamas, and on her feet nothing but backless house slippers, those things called mules. Nor had her long blond hair been brushed or combed as yet. But, all in all, she was more disheveledlooking than dissipated, and so the girl, who was feeding mice to a snake in a box at her feet—holding each mouse out to the snake at the end of a pair of tongs until the snake struck and took it and the infinitely slow process of ingestion began—just said, "Hi," and went back to her Sunday morning duties.

The crow was in the middle cage, an enclosure about the size of a clothes closet, between the cage holding the two saw-whet owls and the cage for the pigeon hawk. There he was. She felt better already.

"Prince. Hey, big guy." And she clicked at him, her tongue against her palate—click, click, click.

She turned to the girl feeding the snake. She hadn't been around in the past when Faunia came to see the crow, and more than likely she was new. Or relatively new. Faunia herself hadn't been to visit the crow for months now, and not at all since she'd begun seeing Coleman. It was a while now since she'd gone looking for ways to leave the human race. She hadn't been a regular visitor here since after the children died, though back then she sometimes stopped by four or five times a week. "He can come out, can't he? He can come just for a minute."

"Sure," the girl said.

"I'd like to have him on my shoulder," Faunia said, and stooped to undo the hook that held shut the glass door of the cage. "Oh, hello, Prince. Oh, Prince. Look at you."

When the door was open, the crow jumped from its perch to the top of the door and sat there with its head craning from side to side.

She laughed softly. "What a great expression. He's checking me out," she called back to the girl. "Look," she said to the crow, and showed the bird her opal ring, Coleman's gift. The ring he'd given her in the car on that August Saturday morning that they'd driven to Tanglewood. "Look. Come over. Come on over," she whispered to the bird, presenting her shoulder.

But the crow rejected the invitation and jumped back into the cage and resumed life on the perch.

"Prince is not in the mood," the girl said.

"Honey?" cooed Faunia. "Come. Come on. It's Faunia. It's your friend. That's a boy. Come on." But the bird wouldn't move.

"If he knows that you want to get him, he won't come down," the girl said, and, using the tongs, picked up another mouse from a tray holding a cluster of dead mice and offered it to the snake that had, at long last, drawn into its mouth, millimeter by millimeter, the whole of the last one. "If he knows you're trying to get him, he usually stays out of reach, but if he thinks you're ignoring him, he'll come down."

They laughed together at the humanish behavior.

"Okay," said Faunia, "I'll leave him alone for a moment." She walked over to where the girl sat feeding the snake. "I love crows.

They're my favorite bird. And ravens. I used to live in Seeley Falls, so I know all about Prince. I knew him when he was up there hang-ing around Higginson's store. He used to steal the little girls' barrettes.

Goes right for anything shiny, anything colorful. He was famous for that. There used to be clippings about him from the paper. All about him and the people who raised him after the nest was destroyed and how he hung out like a big shot at the store.

Pinned up right there," she said, pointing back to a bulletin board by the entryway to the room. "Where are the clippings?"

"He ripped 'em down."

Faunia burst out laughing, much louder this time than before.

"He ripped them down?"

"With his beak. Tore 'em up."

"He didn't want anybody to know his background! Ashamed of his own background! Prince!" she called, turning back to face the cage whose door was still wide open. "You're ashamed of your notorious past? Oh, you good boy. You're a good crow."

Now she took notice of one of the several stuffed animals scattered on mounts around the room. "Is that a bobcat there?"

"Yeah," the girl said, waiting patiently for the snake to finish flicking its tongue out at the new dead mouse and grab hold of it.

"Is he from around here?"

"I don't know."