At that time the area around the pond was frequented by One-Eye, the Lady from Tinos and The Cripple. The leader of this small flock of pelicans was One-Eye. Roz was sent from Samos - they had held him hostage there for two years, chained to his little house, and every day they would take him for a walk to the fish market where he would gulp down a bucketful of fish. Where he was born we don't know - probably at the Small Prespa, which would make him Greek, but he could also have been a Rumanian from the delta of the Danube. He had by now forgotten what other pelicans were like. In any case, pelicans have such a great need for companionship and communication that when they don't have other pelicans to be friends with, they keep company with humans. They are so intelligent that they identify themselves with us, very convincingly and effectively, and in the end they come to resemble us, however different they are from us in appearance. They can do the same with almost all species of animals. They are specialists. They enter into the psychology of the other species, rapidly assimilate it and succeed in communicating as equal members of any grouping of creatures of another kind, immediately ascertaining who is who, what each one is after and what the score is generally, so that often they are able to get their way. So it was that Roz firmly believed he was a human being, a belief which he maintains to this day, despite the fact that over the years the natural characteristics of his species have asserted themselves in him too. To be more precise, not only did he believe that he was a human being but he took it for granted that it was his right to be considered a human being and to share in human rights - though not in human responsibilities - and he was prepared to go to any lengths to defend this claim. At first he was restrained - what he wanted essentially was to come into the house to get away from the other pelicans because he was afraid of them. They sent a representative - usually One-Eye - to reassure him that there no hostile intentions on their part, that they were even prepared to make him their leader if he would only condescend to being one of them. In any case, all of them could see that Roz was the biggest and strongest and pinkest and most beautiful of all of them - and possessed all the gifts of leadership. He looked like a huge, soft, bloated, fluffy blancmange. But he avoided them. He may well have forgotten their language, something which happens even with human migrants, especially if they happen to leave their native land when they are very young. Perhaps he was ashamed, perhaps afraid. Perhaps he considered them inferior and unworthy of his attention - at any rate in retrospect it became clear that he had other plans in mind for his life. His boundlessly expansive personality couldn't be confined to the world of mere pelicans. He was destined for grand achievements that would leave their mark in history. And so the inhibitions of the first days rapidly became a thing of the past. His first plan, once he got over the shock of the change of environment and learned the ropes, was at all costs, disregarding all prohibitions and obstacles, to get into the house. He knew perfectly well what was allowed and what not. For example the huge grey droppings on the floor which smelt like ten fish markets were strictly forbidden, on pain of a severe beating, as were "beakball" with the kitchen utensils, raids on the detergents and toilet paper and taking naps on divans and beds. Needless to say, the purpose of all his molestation was inevitably one of the above or all together, culminating in a nap on a soft bed. Quite simply, the more an activity was barred, the more attractive it became to Roz. With manic determination, he checked the doors to see if he could open them, searched for windows that had been left open, wormed his way in when we weren't looking, or simply appeared, large as life, to confront us insolently (mean, contemptible flunkies that we were), demanding that we should admit him, or attempting with assumed indifference or innocence to slip through our guard so as to get in, if only briefly, if only for a few minutes, until we grabbed him, gave him a scolding and threw him out again. He knew that sooner or later we would catch him red-handed or napping. It didn't bother him - let us throw him out as often as we liked - at the next opportunity he would be in again, gleefully occupied with one of the forbidden sports. The house, which was old, with numerous entrances that could not be properly sealed, gave him plenty of opportunities. Some time passed, other pelicans came - the flock grew. In the meantime not only did Roz's relations with his fellows improve but he finally assumed leadership. It was obvious that the others admired him. He taught them genuinely to have fun and enjoy their lives, engaging in every imaginable type of subversive activity. He led them into the house where within three or four minutes they were capable of flattening everything. They had become a gang of utter hooligans - they derived satisfaction from sadistically ruining and dirtying things, from wreaking havoc, with indescribable malice. Every available object, animate or inanimate, could be made to serve as a football. Five, six, ten big beaks grabbed it and flung it away, and they would all charge to see who could grab it again and throw it farthest. How many times did we find the courtyard covered with lengths of unrolled toilet paper mixed up with huge splodges of pelican droppings? How many times did we rush in alarm to save helpless ducks they were tossing to each other with those monstrous great beaks? On the other hand, whenever visitors came to see the animals at the Hellenic Wildlife Hospital, Roz, sporting his halo, would be the very first to parade in front of them and impress them with his size, his beauty and his cacophonous grunting. And he wouldn't go away until he had finished his show. If anyone ever thought he was the hub of the universe, that was Roz. Who knows, perhaps he is. No one can prove the contrary. When things came to a head, not being able to lock up the pelicans, I was forced to do the opposite, to surround the house with an enclosure so that they could no longer get in. We would be able to enter by opening and closing a gate. While I was building it, Roz hovered around and at times would look at me pityingly as if he was saying: "I know what you're up to, swine", and at others seemed to be examining it with a view to detecting flaws which he would be able to exploit in future. Building the enclosure required two days' work - but Roz in the space of a few minutes had found a way round it. From the depths of the yard he would start his run and he would take off and fly onto the roof. From there he would go down the stairs and then waddle back onto the veranda on his great flipper-like feet. Sometimes he flew as far as neighbouring houses. He liked to patter around in the yards and observe the activities of the tenants. I remember one day the inhabitants of a neighbouring house raising their eyes in trepidation to see a large pink figure observing them from their balcony with its eye glued against the window-pane, just as they were sitting down to their Sunday dinner. He didn't seem to want to do anything more than study them. Who knows what conclusions he drew. At other times he would pay visits to stables and hen houses where he quite liked to consort with the goats and chickens. The only animals he disliked were cats, and they disgusted him. As soon as a cat came up to him, something which they tried several times to do, to rub themselves against him, Roz reacted as we would if we were approached by a cockroach: he recoiled in disgust. Once or twice he went as far as the harbour, but in general he avoided the sea. He flew across it, though, once when he summoned the courage to go as far as Hydra to punish us for the way we were oppressing him. His companions were disconcerted, unnerved, dumbfounded. They fell into a depression. Eventually, a few months later, Roz was sent back on the ferryboat. Such, in general outlines, was Roz's public life. But his private life followed a similar pattern and was indeed even more turbulent and disruptive of all established values. His first love was a goat - a beautiful white goat. But before long he had forgotten the goat and fallen in love with a donkey. Needless to say these love-affairs were one-sided, but that meant nothing to Roz. It was no obstacle. It was enough for the goat frequently to be tied up - so that she wouldn't eat all the plants - and Roz could then stand beside her and stroke her tenderly with his beak for as long as he liked. It was enough for the donkey to be so old that it could hardly stand on its feet, much less escape. Eventually these erotic partners ended up - willy-nilly - tolerating his attentions, simply because of Roz's astounding persistence. But the love of his life - his one unique and unrepeatable passion, which lost none of its intensity and profundity through three long years of going unrequited, was the third: It all started more or less like this: Though a bounder in most ways, Roz was excellent at public relations. Of course he knew perfectly well that he had no hope of fooling, and so winning the favour of, those who had really got to know him. So he tried by all possible means to get into the good books of every person who came for the first time. Often he would strike up a friendship with the new voluntary workers, who then performed their duties with a pelican as an escort for the entire duration of their stay. He kept them company, entertaining them, though also making a nuisance of himself by disarranging everything and dirtying again whatever had been cleaned. But one day a new voluntary worker arrived who had a very special haircut: he was a punk and had red hair. So delightful was this for Roz that he seemed to have become entirely infatuated. Not only did he not leave the volunteer's side for a second. He would not let anyone else come near. Whenever the object of his desires went into the house, Roz would sit outside in miserable resignation until he reappeared. Roz's passion knew no bounds and the volunteer didn't know how he should act towards him. Too shoo him off because he was being a pest? To encourage him because it was quaint and amusing? To ignore him in the hope that he would get over it? None of this seemed to have any effect at all. Soon came the unpleasant but unavoidable day of departure. When Roz was prevented from getting into the car, he almost threw himself under the wheels to kill himself. Three of us had to hold him to make sure he didn't do something silly. We had to lock him up in a room for quite a few hours until he had assimilated the fact that he wasn't going to be following the car, so risking a collision with another oncoming car. What followed was black depression, despair, misery, gloom and doom, etc. Until something unexpected happened to snap him out of it. A beautiful, proud, colourful rooster. Its red comb was just like the haircut of the volunteer, but higher and more impressive. As soon as he set eyes on it, Pinkie immediately forgot his unhappiness. A new love had been born and it surpassed all precedents in intensity and duration. From the very first moment he became the rooster's shadow. With stubborn jealousy he drove away any hens that dared to approach his chosen partner. He tried to feed the rooster with fish to win its heart. When he realised that the rooster wasn't much interested in fish, he himself took to eating grains of corn so as to reduce the emotional distance between them. Naturally, whenever the rooster was eating he would keep any potential competition at a distance, standing sentry until the rooster had eaten its fill. In the three years that the relationship lasted, he constructed countless nests at every possible spot in the yard in an attempt to lure the rooster into living with him. Wherever the rooster stopped, no matter how briefly, Roz gathered twigs and arranged them, and then vigorously defended the territory of the nest. If the rooster decided to move, Roz would abandon that nest and throw himself into the construction of the next one at whatever spot the rooster happened to perch. If the rooster went up into a tree, Roz waited patiently below. His intentions were obvious. Pinkie, a male pelican, had decided - at all costs - to acquire a family with a rooster. In short he meant business and every move he made was aimed at persuading the rooster to accept his love and devotion. If any shameless and impertinent creature should approach his sacred companion, beware! It would have to reckon with the mighty beak of the pelican protector. Let us look at things from the other viewpoint, from the viewpoint of the rooster. The rooster at first seemed to be trying to avoid his huge pink shadow, who for some - for him - obscure reason was forever hanging around. The rooster soon became aware that his efforts were fruitless, but for all that he continued struggling and insisting on remaining a respectable rooster. What he wanted from life was to live like every normal rooster, being the boss among the hens. But whenever a hen came up to him and he prepared himself for the relevant duties, a huge beak would intervene and drive her away from him. In time he began to despair and stopped trying. He seemed to decide that this was his fate, and he accepted it with resignation. He gave up. He wandered around idly with the pelican following him. To all appearances his life had lost its meaning. This story doesn't end well. Roz, true disciple of Marquise de Sade as he was, at some point decided that his relationship with the rooster should no longer be merely platonic. At the same time the rooster, despairing of his life, no longer found the energy to say no. Unfortunately, the difference in weight between the lovers did not portend well for the survival of one of them. So Roz was alone again. After this adventure Roz decided to behave like a pelican and renounce the follies of his youth. We don't know if he fell in love again. From all appearances he has not.