《The Bird Painter in Time of War》作者： - Carol Emshwiller 【EPUB】

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THE BIRD PAINTER IN TIME OF WAR by Carol Emshwiller Carol Emshwiller takes a painful look at the collateral damage sustained by innocents like... I paint birds in enemy territory. I risk my life to paint them. My people are desert people. They think I’ve made the birds up—that I’m painting fairy tales just so I can sell them to the gullible. I don’t think I could invent such fancy birds by myself. So far I’ve only been able to smuggle some feathers to prove to my own people that there do, indeed, exist birds of a beauty they’ve never even thought of. The enemy farmers know I’m a foreigner but they don’t guess where I’m from. I ask, with some of their words and with drawings, if such and such a bird is around. I pay them in pictures. I don’t have any of their kind of money. I don’t even have my own kind. That would be a sure giveaway. If their soldiers catch me, they’ll take me for a spy. They’ll think my paintings full of secret messages. Who cares about birds? they’d say. And they’d be right. Who does? Not very many in any country. I doubt if I’d have the energy or the will to defend myself. I stutter. Even more so when I’m nervous. The birds don’t care. I can imitate their calls. I can whistle, squawk, quack and squeak. I’m good at those, no problem. I eat what comes to hand