There is a little grey bird that sits on the window ledge of the stained Gorbachev apartment that I share with a cat.

Sometimes the little bird asks to be let in and when Mischa is talking to the landlady I’ll unlatch the window and clear a spot on the bedside table.

We’ll talk of the difficulty of exams and language and sigh and the little grey bird will shake his head, click his beak, and say wisely: Ah, but be glad for the window ledge! and I laugh to myself and say: You are right.

Even though I don’t exactly know what he means by it.

And when Mischa’s tail comes up the stairway, I’ll let the little grey bird out and he’ll sit on the ledge again and watch Mischa lick the droplets of milk off his face.

He talks sometimes of flying over the square and the trees and never coming back to the city and he ruffles his wings and stands very still with the thought. I have never seen him fly.

I think he is a Ukrainian bird for he is always sad and when he laughs to himself, his eyes shine very blue.

Today he is standing with his tail to the window and singing a soft little song about belonging to a girl with a blue shawl.

Perhaps I will buy myself a blue kerchief tomorrow and put it in the window for him to see. It would make him sad probably.

I watch him on the window ledge and Mischa sleeps and then the little grey bird spreads his wings and hops up and flies and he looks like a leaf in the blue sky.

And I turn so I cannot see where he goes.