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Stavros Panther was
waiting for me in the dry storage room—a big, windowless room at the back of
the kitchen, and you go there to fetch flour, sugar, salt, spices, coffee;
well, everything that needs to stay dry in a restaurant kitchen. I was going
to get flour, and he almost scared the life out of me.

“Shh,” he hissed. “It's
me, Stavros Panther.”

Because it was dark in
the storeroom and the panther was completely black, I could see nothing but
his eyes glistening in the pale light from the kitchen. The fear ran out of
me. The bad speller, I thought.

“I'm taking a big risk,”
he said. “But it's worth it.”

“And you're exposing me
to great danger,” I answered. “You're like all other males, only thinking
about yourself.”

Stavros became
desperate.

“I promise,” he swore
solemnly, “that you, Beatrice Cockatoo, the darling of my heart, will never
be disappointed in me again. If you want I will get out of your life from
this moment, you only need to ask for it.”

“Get out,” I answered
coldheartedly, but also to tease him.

I saw him blink in
desperation, as if what I'd said was impossible, and he immediately broke
the promise he had just made.

“But . . . you
must give me a chance!”

Obviously I gave him a
chance. I'm not mean. I can't keep from feeling a little sorry for all these
pining males who are fascinated by me in one way or another. Is it my white
feathers? Or is it the yellow comb on my head? Presumably it's neither-nor.
Presumably it's because I'm unapproachable. That my daddy is dangerous and
I'm his finest trophy. That makes me, in some eyes, exciting. I believe that
was the case with Stavros Panther.

When I read this passage I could not keep from
comparing it with Cockatoo's first encounter with Fox Antonio Ortega, and the
similarities were striking. Obviously she had made it a habit to entice and
seduce males, and whether her intent was only to tease, or if her naiveté was
born from the same murky well of understanding from which Ortega had drunk, I
will leave unsaid. This is how the story of Beatrice and Stavros Panther ended;
this note was penned a few days later.

Stavros Panther got
caught, of course. He wasn't the first, and won't be the last. The next time
he was going to make his way into the dry storage room to meet me he hid in
a barrel of flour and was secretly carried in there. If you're a panther,
it's hard to shake off all the traces of flour when you're in a hurry.
Stavros was in a hurry. And Daddy found him out. I don't even want to know
what Daddy did with him. I said of course that I didn't know who Stavros
Panther was, and Daddy believed me. Maybe. But maybe not. That's why he
locks me in now in the evenings. In a few weeks Daddy will have forgotten
Panther, and then I'll ask him if the door can't be unlocked
again.

Beatrice Cockatoo really did make contact with Fox
Antonio Ortega the day after he sneaked into La Cueva through the greenhouse.
She called his cell phone right after the Breeze picked up in the morning, and
they spoke for less than a minute. Then she hung up in midsentence, and called
back a couple of hours later during the rain to apologize. It was hard for her
to talk because her daddy didn't allow her to have her own phone in her
room.

Whether this inaccessibility, this obstacle in the
path of young love, contributed to making Ortega's longing even more intense
shall remain unsaid. But during the weeks and months to come, every day became a
struggle to outwit Dragon Aguado Molina, who kept his daughter under constant
surveillance. The telephone calls were the loving couple's primary means of
communication. Beatrice could talk on the phone for hours if she wasn't
interrupted, and Fox could listen just as long. Neither of them cared what
Beatrice said, love traveled freely through copper wires and radio waves and was
greater than any single topic of conversation. On the few occasions they met in
reality, they were struck mute by each other's beauty, and hardly talked at all.
Fox was an old-fashioned gentleman and would never have thought of touching the
beautiful Cockatoo. Beatrice was, I assume, more experienced, but felt that it
was not a female's place to take physical initiative. His waiting aroused her
respect and curiosity. He was different, and this incited her.

I cannot refrain from quoting a section from
Beatrice's diary that describes the effort the lovers put into stealing a few
short minutes in each other's company during this period. It is not difficult to
realize that the love they were experiencing grew and turned into something
stronger and more powerful than any normal stuffed animal can understand.

Beatrice tells it like this:

It was Vasko Manatee
who drove me. I knew it would be him because it's Thursday. We have a black
Volga Deluxe with tinted bulletproof windows and lead doors that are so
superheavy I can't open them myself. The interior was made especially for
Daddy, with leather seats and a bar cabinet and a tinted glass window that
can be raised between the backseat and the front so the driver doesn't hear
what's being said.

Grand Divino is on the
other side of mint green East Avenue, up in Lanceheim. I'm not particularly
well traveled, it's like there's no reason to bounce around in the city, I
think. Most everything is in the vicinity of our saffron yellow Puerta de
Alcalà, but Grand Divino is an exception. I confess that I love this
department store. I love it much, much more than shopping. Sometimes I come
home without buying anything, even though I've spent hours in all the
departments. Above all, the ground floor, with the perfumes, is completely
unbelievably awesome. What I really want to say is that I KNOW Grand Divino:
every floor, every dressing room, every box room.

Vasko Manatee drove into
the parking garage. Daddy has a spot on the fifth floor, close to the
elevators. Vasko opened my car door and then followed me to the elevators. I
was used to that. I didn't think about it anymore; not even when I was
looking at underwear and Vasko—or someone else—made everyone in the
department feel uncomfortable.

I led Vasko through the
store up to the third floor. I took it easy—not as easy as I usually do, but
much easier than I really wanted. I went between different designers and
picked up a garment here and there. Two dresses. A coat. A jumper. A pair of
shoes. A hat. A pair of stockings. Two sweaters. And the whole time I was on
my way to the fitting rooms that were almost at the rear of the department,
between Missonno and lingerie. Without a glance at Vasko Manatee, even
though I REALLY wanted to see whether he realized what I was up to, I
vanished with my mountain of clothes behind the curtains, where males are
not allowed. Vasko and I had been here many times before. He knew the rules.
With a heavy sigh he sat down in the armchair placed outside the curtains,
where he always waited.

I quickly went into the
next cubicle and changed. New dress, new shoes, new coat, but above all: new
hat. And it was this amazing hat that gave me the courage. I had seen it a
few days before in an ad. It had a veil that completely covered my
beak.

Without hesitating, I
came out of the dressing room. I had practiced a style of walking that was
different from my usual gait, with swaying hips, and I walked much more
slowly than usual. And now the question was, would Vasko Manatee recognize
me?

Of course I thought
about what the punishment might be. IF Manatee exposed me. IF Daddy saw
through me. IF I was caught red-handed. Of course that scared me. Daddy
would never hurt me. I know that, I'm sure of it. But he usually locked the
door to my room at night, and there was a room down in the cellar that
. . . I didn't like. I knew that he took stuffed animals down
there sometimes. I suspected what he did to them. He would never do anything
to me, but he might make me SIT there. A pretty long time. Maybe.

So I was swaying my hips,
and slowly I pulled the curtains to the side. I turned directly toward
Vasko. I stared at him through my veil. I NEVER would have done that if I
was me. Then I walked slowly away through the department, without looking
around. Was he following? So far it wouldn't matter; I could simply start
picking out clothes and return to the fitting room.

When I came to the
escalators I finally turned around. And when I discovered that there was no
stupid manatee behind me, my heart started to race. Until now it had mostly
been a game. Until now I could have changed my mind. But IF I got onto the
escalator there was no way back.

I forced myself to stand
completely still on the way up between the third and fourth floors, but when
I got up to the fifth floor I more or less ran.

The tea salon L'Express
was arranged like a train. I had never liked it: ceiling too low, colors too
dark, too claustrophobic. Along the wall small compartments had been set up.
With doors and curtains and everything. Just like on the train to Hillevie.
And in the third compartment counting from the headwaiter's station he sat,
Fox Antonio Ortega, the most beautiful stuffed animal I've seen in my whole
life.

Hearing what he said,
thinking of something reasonable to say myself . . . was
impossible. But I know that he said that he LOVED me. No one else has said
that. Well, that is, not like that. Not like Fox Antonio Ortega said it.
THAT I remember. I don't know how long we sat there, I was nervous the whole
time. I could barely listen, I could barely talk, and at last I had to
leave. I think I left in the middle of a sentence. I don't know if it was
one of his or one of mine.

I ran through the fifth
floor to the escalators. I had the hat on. I ran down the escalators. And
then I walked in my pretend way over toward the fitting rooms. I have NEVER
been so afraid in my whole life.

When I saw Vasko Manatee
I almost started to laugh. The dumb cow was still in the chair, and when I
got a little closer I saw that he had fallen asleep.

I sneaked in behind the
curtain, into the fitting cubicle, and quickly changed, put on my own
clothes. Only then did I realize what I had experienced.

True Love.

In brief, stolen moments the love between Fox
Antonio Ortega and Beatrice Cockatoo grew to the bursting point, and I hereby
intend to leave her and her diary in peace. The point was to show how well the
cockatoo suited the beautiful but less intelligent fox, and I am certain this
has now become clear.

B
ack
to the moment when Fox was courting. The whole thing was absurd. Crazy. Picture
it, and you can't help but smile. The dragon sitting with his wineglass after
having judged an innocent nightingale and an equally innocent vole to
indescribable pain, the bodyguard Vasko Manatee standing next to him with the
wine bottle ready to refill, and before them the dumb Fox Antonio Ortega, asking
for Beatrice's claw.

It was absurd to the point that Dragon Aguado
Molina got distracted. If he had not just been drinking that good wine, and if
Fox had not been so blindingly beautiful, Molina most likely would have asked
Vasko to escort the hopeful suitor down to the cellar along with the others, and
nailed him up against one of the walls intended for nailing up stuffed animals.
There Fox would have been hanging alongside the nightingale and the vole, all
while the criminal element of the kitchen personnel at La Cueva slowly burned
them, hair by hair. Or else Aguado Molina himself would have retrieved the oil
from the deep-fat fryer in the kitchen—in which the city's best deep-fried
onions were prepared—mixed it with honey and then poured it over the suitor. In
this way he had blinded others with eyes of plastic or glass so that they would
never be able to cast their loathsome glances at Beatrice again.

But the situation caught Dragon Aguado Molina by
surprise.

“What the hell?” he exclaimed.

“I am Fox Antonio Ortega,” Fox hastened to clarify,
as he approached the booth where Dragon was sitting. “And I do not know your
daughter. Yet I know that I am right for her, and that she is right for me.”

Molina was speechless. He stared at the beautiful
fox, who was now standing within reach, and turned toward Vasko Manatee, still
holding the wine bottle in his forelimb.

Vasko shook his head slowly, but could not conceal
an amused smile. And Molina could not keep from smiling himself. First
carefully, tentatively—was this a joke?—but when he saw Ortega's surprised
expression, he realized that this was not the case. This made the situation even
funnier. He let out his restaurateur laugh, and Vasko joined in.

“Daddy, what's so funny?”

Suddenly she was standing there in the door to the
kitchen, the beautiful Beatrice Cockatoo, and the laughter ceased. Dragon, fox,
and manatee, all three of them, stared in surprise at the white apparition. Her
father gathered his wits first.

“Beatrice, honey, have you seen this fox before?”
he asked.

“Never,” Beatrice lied.

“He has come here to ask for your claw,” Dragon
revealed, and could not hold back his laughter. “As if this was some damn fairy
tale. Who the hell behaves like that nowadays?”

Beatrice did not reply. Fox Antonio Ortega had
caught her gaze with his, and the suitor did not intend to let go.

“Listen, you joker,” Dragon Aguado Molina chuckled,
“you're not right in the head, are you?”