Alive and kicking

“Daddy! Daddy! Can I have a dodo for my birthday?” the child asks. “I want a dodo! I want a dodo? Dodos are funny.”

The father watches the child run across the room. She knocks a Kentia palm off the side table, trips over a Lego train, and bumps into the armchair. But just as quickly, she scrambles back up.

“A dodo! A dodo!” she says. Jenz shakes his head. He decides to continue reading the book on his lap. The Brothers Karamazov. He doesn’t get the chance. Freya throws herself onto his legs like a kamikaze pilot. She pushes the Russian author’s book from his defenceless hands. She turns, twists, swivels and whirls.

“Don’t you think that’s a great idea, Dad? A dodo?” He feels her warm hands around his neck. She smells of cookies and cola.

“A dodo?” Jenz asks. "Are you sure? Don't you want a new bike? Or Lego? Last week you wanted an iPad. And the week before that, you were completely obsessed with roller skating."

"Roller skating? A new bike?" Freja asks. She laughs at her father. "Are you serious? Those are boring things. A dodo is real fun."

Then she jumps off his lap. "I'm getting a dodo! I'm getting a dodo for my birthday." She sprints to her table. There are markers, coloured pencils, drawing sheets, library books. It takes a moment to find what she's looking for. Then she hurries to her father. Patiently, he puts the book down next to him. He knows the drill.

"Look! Look!" she says. "Here's a dodo!" She shows him the picture in one of the library books. A drawing of the now-extinct bird. Jenz looks at the wide beak with the curved tip, the plump body, the small wings. She’s right. It’s the Mauritanian bird.

"Don't you think it's cute?" she says. "Alma loves dodos too. But Alma's birthday isn't until next month. I'm here first."

Jenz strokes Patricia's warm cheeks. Her eyes are shining, the hair on her narrow head is loose, wild. She lies down on the floor and caresses the drawing of the bird with her tiny fingers.

"She's been talking about the dodo all week," says the mother. "It's driving me crazy. She's no longer interested in dolls, YouTube movies, playing outside, or Lego. It's just dodo, dodo."

It's nine o'clock in the evening. Freja is finally in bed. After drawing twelve dodo pictures, asking endless questions about what dodos eat—whether they lay eggs, who their natural predators are, where they live, what the colour of their eyes is —she's fallen asleep.

"Maybe we should tell her." says Jenz. "That dodos are extinct. That the bird is dead, no more, gone. Just as …”

“Her little brother, our son,” the mother adds. She stares listlessly at the remote control. He shifts uncomfortably in the chair. Her hands are trembling. Neither of them is looking at the photo on the mantelpiece. A sweet little boy. Two months old. At most.

“She was so proud and happy when Bendt was born,” she says. “She couldn’t be torn away from his crib. Remember how she invited all her classmates? Without even telling us. One afternoon they showed up on our doorstep. All those toddlers.”

They can’t help but burst out laughing. Thin tears roll down their cheeks. The guffawing sounds spontaneous. Hysterical.

“Even then, she couldn’t stop,” says Jenz. He wipes the tears from his chin. “She drew pictures for Bendt every day. And photos. When she figured out how to take pictures with a cell phone, there was no end in sight. Bendt in bed, on the carpet, in bath.”

Their thoughts drift back to the day they found Bendt in his crib. Silent, pale, limp. Immediately, they were alarmed. They rushed to the hospital in the car. While driving, they ignored every red light, every zebra crossing. Once they arrived at the clinic, Bendt was operated on straight away. It turned out to be too late. Meningitis.

"Freja couldn't stop crying after we told her the bad news," says the mother. She rubs her hands on the upholstery of the sofa.

"It took three months before she didn't fall asleep in tears at night," Jenz recalls. He gets up and sits next to his wife. She rests her head on his shoulder. They are holding hands. Stare into the darkness.

"What does a dodo cage look like?" Freja asks. Although they usually play some kind of game on Saturday mornings, Lenz's daughter isn't in the mood for it right now. She's gathered some loose pieces of wood from the neighbourhood and is standing with handfuls of the natural material in front of her father in the garage.

"Can you help me with this?" she asks. "I don't think I have enough wood to build a dodo cage." She drops the different pieces onto the concrete floor. Lenz is about to explain to her that the dodo is an extinct animal. They don't exist anymore. Dodos are dead.

But Freja's shining eyes, her infectious enthusiasm, her spirit, her determination, her passion. Who can resist to that?

"Does a dodo cage looks like a chicken coop?" Freja asks. "Why don't we go to Alma's? She lives on the farm. Alma has a lot of chickens. More than ten, she told me. And They lay eggs."

When Lenz and Freja get out of the green Subaru, Freja's girlfriend runs towards them. Without Lenz being able to get a word in edgewise, Freja explains the plan in great detail. They are building a coop for the dodo, the bird she's going to get for her birthday. Can they see the henhouse? To use it as an example?

With his hands in his overalls, Alma's father shuffles over to Lenz. The two men are standing in the yard. Puddles reflect the farmer's boots, Lenz's shiny loafers. They watch the kids run to the birds.

"Did the two agree to meet today?" the farmer asks. Lenz shakes his head. How is he going to explain this to Alma's father?

"Freja wants to keep chickens. She's got her heart set on it," Lenz explains. "She doesn't talk about anything else anymore. In two weeks, it's her birthday and she's expecting the chickens. As a present. And now she's thinking about how to build a coop for them. That's why we're visiting. To see how it is built.”

The farmer takes a cigarette. He offers one to Lenz, who makes a dismissive gesture and sees Alma and Freja rushing toward them.

"I've made a drawing for the dodo coop," Freja shouts.

"The dodo coop?" says the farmer. And he looks at his guest

"We can't put it off any longer," says the mother. "We'll have to tell Freja that the dodo doesn't exist. That the bird is extinct. We can't fool her any longer. The longer we wait, the harder it gets"

They lie next to each other in bed. It's almost midnight. Outside, a blood-red moon hangs in the sky. The birds, the dogs, the neighbours. Everything is quiet. Except for their room. The TV blares. A reporter tells them about a minke whale, washed ashore.

"You'd think she'd finally had enough of the dodo," says Jenz. "Nothing could be further from the truth. It seems to have the opposite effect on her. We pay as little attention as possible to her questions about the dead bird. She, on the other hand, is becoming increasingly interested. This afternoon I heard her talking to the librarian. Asking if they had more books about the dodo."

Meanwhile, the journalist reports that the fin whale has been found on a beach near Bournemouth. The six-meter-long animal has been pushed back into the sea three times. A fourth attempt is underway.

"What if we offer her something else?" asks his wife. "A trip to Disneyland Paris? Legoland? Adventure Island?"

"Maybe we're avoiding our own pain, our won wound?" says Jenz. "We think we have trouble with Freja, but isn't our own grief, our own emptiness, and our own desperation getting in our way?"

They listen to the TV reporter's bleating. Any words are now more welcome than their own sense of loss, sorrow, and silence.

A beam of light falls into the bedroom. A door opens. Freja quietly creeps over to them. She throws back the duvet, and lies down between them. Her body feels warm, close, safe, familiar.

“Next week is my birthday,” she says. “And I want a dodo. But according to Alma, dodos are extinct. They don’t exist anymore.”

Jenz and his wife tense up. They squeeze each other’s hands.

“Have you thought about another present?” her mother asks. Her voice sounds weak. “A new bike? A trip to Disneyland?”

“How about an elephant?” Freja says. “They still exist. They’re very much alive. Can I have an elephant for my birthday?”