Custody of Klaus

The pigeon arrives at 7:40 every morning and the dispute is about what happens next. On the third floor, Ines puts out sunflower seeds in a saucer. She has named the pigeon Klaus. Klaus is grey with one white wing feather and a way of standing with his chest out that she finds dignified. He eats, he sits on the railing for exactly as long as it takes her to drink a coffee, and then he leaves. He leaves, it turns out, to go one floor up. On the fourth floor, Tobias puts out crushed oats. He has named the pigeon Herr Doktor. Herr Doktor is grey with one white wing feather and a way of tilting his head that Tobias finds intellectual. He eats, he sits on the railing for the length of a cigarette, and then he leaves. This arrangement had gone on for four months before either party knew about the other. It was discovered, as most things in a Berlin Altbau are discovered, in the stairwell. "Your pigeon," Ines said, "is my pigeon." "I don't have a pigeon." "Grey. White feather. Comes to your balcony at eight." Tobias paused with his keys in the door. "Herr Doktor?" "Klaus." A long stairwell silence, the kind with a lightbulb on a timer ticking in it. "He comes to me first," Ines said. "He stays with me longer." "Because you're feeding him oats. Oats are heavy. He's sleepy afterwards. That's not preference, that's carbohydrates." "And sunflower seeds are, what, a balanced diet?" The timer clicked and the light went off and they stood there in the dark, two adults in their forties, arguing about a bird. The next morning Ines put out the seeds at 7:30, ten minutes early. Klaus came at 7:40 anyway. He was not a bird to be rushed. He ate, sat, left. At 8:00 Tobias, who had been standing at his window since 7:45 with his arms folded, watched Herr Doktor land and eat oats with what he chose to interpret as relief. It escalated the way these things do. Ines bought a small terracotta dish, then a bird bath. Tobias bought a proper feeder from the garden centre and then, in what he later admitted was a low point, a small wooden pigeon house that Herr Doktor ignored entirely. Frau Becker on the second floor complained to the Hausverwaltung about "the bird situation" and was told there was no policy.

It ended, or didn't, in the courtyard, in May. Ines was hanging washing and Tobias was fixing his bike and the pigeon landed on the wall between them, and looked at them both, and did nothing. "He doesn't care," Ines said, eventually. "No." "He doesn't know he has a name." "He has two names." "He doesn't know he has two names." They looked at the pigeon. The pigeon looked at a crumb. "Klaus Doktor," Tobias said. "Doktor Klaus." "That sounds like a dentist." "Klaus Doktor sounds like a rapper." The pigeon left. Neither of them saw which balcony he went to. It was, they agreed later, in the stairwell, with the light on, possibly for the best. He still comes at 7:40. He still goes up at 8:00. Frau Becker has started putting out breadcrumbs on the second floor and calls him Peter, and neither of the others has the heart to tell her.