She returned the next day and the next, but remained undecided about her strategy. She was sitting quietly beside the vegetable market, enjoying the scents from the meat market. It was a sunny day for so late in the year, and the doors of both shops were open. Ladies with bags and baskets had been going into and out of the vegetable market, but now the traffic had slowed. The proprietor stepped into the street, his arms crossed over his chest, and regarded her. Frida straightened up, as if she’d been ordered to “stay” by her owner, and tried not to look at this man. He was tall, with a big nose and big feet. He wore a long white apron. He stepped closer, and his eyebrows lowered, as if he were wondering about her. He looked one way up the street, and then the other, and the street was empty. Just for the moment, there was no one to pretend that she belonged to. He came toward her, leaned down, stretching his hand out as if to grab her.
Frida knew that there were some dogs who would have snarled and maybe bitten the man’s hand, but she was not that sort of dog. What she did was offer him her paw and look him in the eye, then look away. The man laughed, shook her paw, and said, “Bonjour, mademoiselle.” After a moment, Frida politely removed her paw. The man stood up, smiling, and went back into the shop. He returned and tossed her a small roll, which, of course, she caught neatly and gobbled down. Then she rose and trotted away, very dignified, back to the Champ de Mars, where Paras was curled up for her afternoon nap and the mallards were floating in the water the way they always did, Sid in the lead and Nancy just behind him. Raoul was nowhere to be seen.
Frida took a drink from the pond, which stank terribly of duck.
It was the sight of a plastic bag filling up with a puff of air and lifting itself out of a garbage bin that reminded Frida of what Jacques had taught her about money. When it drifted to the ground and skidded off, she ran after it, secured it with her paw, and took it between her teeth. Here she had spent the entire summer scuttling about, pretending to be owned by someone, and losing lots of weight, when what she really had to do was perform a few tricks. Humans were pushovers for tricks. They always laughed and gave you a treat. How many times on the street with Jacques had she rolled over, or covered her eye with her paw, or put the toy in the guitar case, or balanced the piece of bread on her nose and then tossed it and caught it? Jacques, of course, did tricks, too—playing songs and sometimes singing. Tricks got you money, and then you took the money and exchanged it for what you wanted. The thing she must do was put some of the money into the plastic bag, then carry the bag to the meat market.
It could not be said that the bag was easy to manage in the breeze rising off the river, but she did uncover the purse, nose it open, and take a bill in her mouth. She then scratched at the bag with her paws, and, when the edges came apart, pushed the bill between them. She picked the whole unwieldy object up in her mouth, then kicked the loose dirt back over the purse. She looked around. The only humans she could see were running ones, rushing away through the trees. Running humans never looked at a thing, Frida thought. Perhaps they could not do two things at once, which was why she had never seen even the fastest ones catch a pigeon.
But the meat market was not open. The succulent offerings in the windows were dark; the lights were off. Even the fragrance had dimmed, though it was quite rich and varied just at the base of the door. Frida felt her haunches sag in disappointment. And then she saw that the proprietor of the vegetable shop was standing in his doorway, his hands underneath his apron. He smiled and said, “Mademoiselle!”
There was a table just inside the door. Frida trotted over to the proprietor (she felt that the trot was a dog’s most self-possessed and dignified gait), stood up on her hind legs, put her paws on the table, and spit the bag onto its surface. The man looked at her, then picked it up and saw the note inside. He laughed. There would be no chicken, Frida thought, but there would be a roll, and maybe cheese. She went farther into the shop. She stood on her hind legs and looked into every bin. The man, Frida thought, was actually rather intelligent. If she paused at the bin, he put something from that bin into the bag. As a dog of the streets, she had eaten plenty of vegetables, and though it was true that she had no use for a raw potato (fried potatoes were quite a different matter), she didn’t mind green beans or carrots or even a leaf or two of romaine. And her bill didn’t go very far—a bread roll, beans, carrots, romaine, another bread roll. The man took her bill politely, smoothed the handles of the bag into a circle, and held them out. Frida opened her mouth, and he gave her the bag. Then she left the shop, heading briskly down the street as if her master were waiting for her. She could hear the man laughing as she ran.
Paras was still lying down when Frida returned, but she was awake. Raoul was perched on her rump. He had just finished telling her what he knew about the word “perestroika,” which wasn’t much, something about either always making plans or letting things turn out as they would and making the best of that. (“If that wasn’t horseracing,” Paras thought, “then what was?”) Now he was telling her about an argument he was having with another raven, who claimed the head of Benjamin Franklin, which was immediately below Raoul’s nest. “Everyone knows that a raven’s territory is spherical,” said Raoul. “It is widest around the nest, and then diminishes outward. I have almost no claim to the hillside below my nest, but the head of the statue is well within my territory, and I could make a case for the lap, too—”
Frida dropped the bag in front of Paras, and it fell open. Paras nosed out a carrot, bit it in two, and munched it down. She said, “How delicious! I’d almost given up hope. You’d think they’d plant a few of these in such a large park, but I haven’t found them.”
“I bought it,” said Frida.
“Ah, commerce! A concept, I must say, that we Aves have given the world.” Raoul flapped his wings, but it was only a flourish of self-congratulation. He didn’t fly away; rather, he sidestepped over to the bag and helped himself to a green bean. This drew the attention of Sid and Nancy, who walked out of the pond and stared. Paras took another carrot and bit it in two. Frida ate the second half, then one of the small rolls. It was fresh and delicious. “No apples?” said Paras.
“I don’t quite know what an apple is,” said Frida.
“Malus domestica,” cawed Raoul. “A waxwing will eat an apple.” He coughed as if this was an unusual affectation. “I have tasted apples.”
Sid and Nancy waddled closer, then sat down. No screaming or quacking. Frida took the second-to-last piece of bread out of the bag, carried it over to them, and dropped it. Jacques had never minded sharing his food with others. Sid ate part of the bread; then Nancy ate the rest. Sid said, “We’ve eaten apples. A child tossed us some bits just a few days ago. They’re all right.”
“I love them,” said Paras.