Le Temps des Cerises by Zillah Bethel

him like a little pet dog. One of them even offered him a cookie which, to Eveline’s surprise, he declined with a solemn shake of the head. He was full of facts and figures about the whole process.
    â€˜One balloon can carry four people and twelve hundred pounds of mail,’ he told them, ‘which is equivalent to one hundred thousand letters.’
    Eveline wondered if he were making the figures up as he made up excuses to evade the washing up or making his bed and she stared at him suspiciously, on the look out for the telltale twitch of the left eye; but he seemed innocent enough, his pupils bright and steady.
    â€˜The guvverment pays four thousand francs to the factory for every delivery and three hundred of that goes to the pilot of the balloon.’
    â€˜Blimey!’ cried Alphonse, scratching his head and ignoring the interested glances of the more youthful postmistresses. ‘I’m in the wrong job!’
    Jacques grinned and suddenly put a finger to his lips. ‘Can you hear that?’ he demanded, pointing to the small blue door at the back of the room.
    What? They all strained their ears but nobody could hear anything except the hustle and bustle of the women.
    Jacques gestured for them to come closer and they followed him to the door and pressed their ears against it. ‘Can you hear it?’
    What?
    â€˜That!’
    Then they heard it – a soft gentle cooing sound like the babbling of brooks or faraway lullabies.
    â€˜Those are the pigeons that will go tonight,’ he explained in an excited murmur. ‘They come from the Jardin des Plantes and wait here for the midnight flight. I will ask Monsieur Pagini if we may see them. He doesn’t usually like them to be disturbed before an important mission.’ He knocked softly on the little blue door then disappeared inside. They heard muffled voices for a moment and then he came out again. ‘You may come in but you must take your shoes off.’
    It was like entering an Indian temple where the laws and customs were very different from their own. What would Monsieur Pagini have them do next? They slipped off their boots and shoes, Eveline hoping desperately there weren’t any visible holes in her stockings; and crept in through the small blue door. It took a while for their eyes to get accustomed to the light because the manager’s office (for that was what it was) had been blackened out with crêpe paper and only a tiny portion of light trickled through a gap in the window. It was warm and stuffy with a faint musty odour; but quiet and strangely peaceful as the birds cooed and rustled in their straw-filled boxes. The figure of a man could just be seen perched on a stool in front of the window.
    â€˜Monsieur Pagini,’ Jacques began, ‘these are my friends Alphonse and Laurie and my sister, Eveline.’
    â€˜Good day.’ Monsieur Pagini greeted them in a low, gravelly voice. ‘May I ask first of all if any one of you has a cat, mouse, lettuce leaf or bar of chocolate upon you. Any or all of these will send Alice into a flap.’
    No one wanted Alice (whoever she was) to go into a flap and they all vehem­ently denied having any such thing in their pocket; though Alphonse joked he’d give anything to have a bar of chocolate in his. A burst of nervous laughter greeted this, followed by a slightly embarrassed silence.
    Jacques proceeded to tell them about the pigeons. They went out as cargo with the balloons and flew back with letters and messages from the rest of the world. These messages were reduced in size so that each bird could carry up to thirty thousand of them tied to his tail feathers.
    â€˜Old Neptune,’ Monsieur Pagini interrupted proudly, ‘brought back the news that Gambetta had arrived safely. It was his first successful flight. He is a bird of noble lineage. That night I got him his favourite dish of worms and honey.’
    Everyone aahed and uummed with