With the first signs of March, when the snow starts to melt and meltwater torrents cut through the ground, there comes a breeze much softer than winter frost. Locals call it the spring zephyr. When the zephyr blew, my grandmother used to open the balcony doors, which were sealed shut all through the winter. She would gaze around for a short while, holding up her head, her sunburnt auburn hair touching the cool air. Then she would begin to carry all the mats and pillows to hang them on the balcony. I helped her carry smaller things. I used to live with her and go to a nearby school. Of all the things that belong to my childhood, the most vivid memories are of my grandmother’s birdcage. ‘Bring it out’ she would say to me. I would bring it from the library, and grandma would hang it on the balcony, too. I wonder to this day. I never asked my grandma why she hangs an empty and open birdcage on her balcony. I only knew that there was a bowl for food and a saucer for water in the cage and even a bar, where a bird could sit. The cage was fully equipped to keep a small bird in it. Yet, there’s never been a bird. The balcony was not too large, but you could sit and sunbathe. When alone, my grandma used to read there sitting on her silverberry tree chair. She would read to me too. I would hang on the balcony rails and watch the passersby. The vacant birdcage always hung above our heads. My grandfather passed away early. It felt like all that was left of him was a room full of books and this birdcage. In the winter grandma would clean the cage and bring it back to the library.

Half a century has gone by since. Now I run my own household. My older children also have their own. The younger ones are abroad. They study. Its been a quarter of a century since grandmother passed. Whenever I think of her, for some reasons, I still see that balcony. I feel that the old cage is still hanging where it has always hung. Although strangers have been living in her apartment for a long time, in my mind it remains unchanged.

I was in a café talking to a friend. He was an old friend, and we carried our friendship through a myriad of years. Our student years brought us together. We got married at the same time. Our families are close. Despite all that, once in a while we ‘escape’ from our wives, who over the years have gotten so close to us, we’ve merged into one being, and meet each other in a café like this. We don’t talk of our career achievements, the heights we’re about to conquer, or the companies we keep. We don’t even talk of our children, whose lives diverged from our own so long ago. We talk of us. The long forgotten and long neglected us. The conversation we kept that day suddenly led me to the depth of memory, and I was back in my childhood. In between thoughts and phrases I told my friend about the birdcage. He was eager to entertain my bird-related nostalgia. He said that keeping birds is an old custom in the East. He had a treasure-trove of facts and fables about it. He told me a story that took place in one of those bird keeper countries. Once upon a time two friends made a wager. The first one said ‘if you hang an empty birdcage by your house, you will end up keeping a bird’. The second friend did not believe this, and wanted to test his companion’s suggestion. So, he found a birdcage and hung it by his house. Then his neighbors started noticing the cage, and one of them asked ‘Do you keep a bird?’ ‘I’ve never had such intentions’ responded the man. Another neighbor asks ‘Why is your cage empty? Has your bird died?’ The man gives the same answer. After a while people start urging the man to adopt a bird. The man refuses vehemently. One day a friend brings him a pair of nightingales. ‘I brought them for you’ he says, ‘don’t keep your cage empty’. The man ponders a bit. ‘I have a birdcage. People think I keep a bird. So why wouldn’t I keep one?’ he asks himself. Thus, it is said, the man lost the wager, and ended up keeping a bird.

When I got back home, my friend’s story lingered in my head. I had a dream that night. My grandma was on the old balcony, reading a book. I was right next to her. However, the birdcage was not there. The next morning, my wife said that I mumbled in my sleep. ‘I couldn’t make out any words’ she said. ‘I only heard ‘Is it true, grandma?’ A doubt lay heavy in my heart. Something told me that the birdcage still hangs there. After breakfast, I got into my car and drove to grandma’s old apartment. I made a turn on the familiar street and looked at the balcony from my childhood. Everything was left untouched, but the cage was gone.