An Inconvenient Elephant (20 page)

“Oh God, what have I done?” I choked out.

He put his arms around me and held me close to him. I
could feel the warmth of his body through his shirt. “You haven't done anything yet,” he said. “I know you meant well. I know that your heart is in the right place.”

I couldn't answer him.

“Neelie?”

“I'm just sorry,” I finally choked out. “You're right. It would have been a catastrophe. I'm a complete fool.”

“No, no,” he said, his lips against my face. “We want the same things. We've always wanted the same things. We just have different ideas on how to get them. And I should have explained it to you instead of attacking you.”

I looked up at him, and suddenly he pressed his lips hard against mine. The party was breaking up only a few hundred feet away, and I could hear the muted sound of laughter and cars starting. But I was in here, secretly and perfectly in his arms.

“You have to be strong,” he whispered into my ear. “I have to tell you something, but you have to be strong.”

“What?” I asked, a new panic rising. “What?”

He lifted my chin and held it in his fingers. “Listen to me,” he said, then stopped to kiss my forehead, then spoke low, so low I wasn't sure of his words, though I heard them. I did hear them. “Listen to me,” he said, “from all the information I've gotten, the word is, Tusker is gone. He hasn't been seen anywhere since the day you left. I'm afraid he's totally disappeared.”

FOR ONE AGONIZING MOMENT, I THOUGHT I HAD
been caught in a steel trap and it had ripped me open to my core. Tom's voice sounded metallic, his words were filling me up with an eerie silver light, the taste in my mouth was metallic, everything was gleaming silver, and I realized it was mercury and it was poisonous and I was drowning in its silver viscosity. I struggled to get free, but it was too deep, and I was being poisoned from the words, and dying. I could hear Tom calling my name, feel his arms pull me back, holding me, like a lifeguard, to save me from drowning.

“Neelie, sit down.” He helped me, stumbling and light-headed, and sat me back down on the cot.

I heard his words in my head. Or maybe he spoke them aloud again. Tusker was not anywhere. “How can that be?” I choked out. “The minister—Joshua—he promised—”

“A promise in Zimbabwe means nothing. Joshua Mukomana was assassinated.”

“No! No!” I dropped my head into my hands. I could see Joshua Mukomana's face in front of me, round and laughing, then Tusker, his trunk raised above his head, standing so close, good-natured, trusting.

“I'm sorry,” Tom said, sitting next to me and stroking my back as if it was going to help. “They said it was a car accident that killed Mukomana, though everyone knows better.”

I was broken. The trap had broken me in two. I could do no more, react no more. It was all over.

“Well, I guess we did it for nothing,” I finally said, struggling not to cry. “Go back to the party. Go back and declare yourself the victor. Ha! A Victor for Victoria.”

He held me fast. “We weren't having a contest,” he whispered fiercely into my ear.

“What did I do wrong?” I whispered.

“You couldn't have helped him, Neelie,” Tom said into the dark. “And I couldn't either. Charlotte wanted him to stay in Chizarira, but there is only so much you can do to hold a wild elephant.”

“I failed him,” I said dully, and suddenly Tusker was in the room with me. His cathedral body, his massive heart and great, good-natured face, his one tusk, which curved so exquisitely inward, as though cradling his soul to his body. He was with me and within me, extending his trunk to me, asking for alms, reaching out to me, asking me to help him. Where had he gone? Taken? Poached?
Eaten?
He was mine. I had been sent to save him. I had been
called
. Oh, what conceit to think I had been called.

And I had failed.

I sat in the dark, my eyes open and staring at his image. I didn't hear Tom. There was nothing in the room with me except this elephant, whose only crime was that he had eaten garbage in the presence of humans.

Tom stroked my arm and I let him. I wasn't angry with him. He had tried, we had all tried, all decent people try.

“What about the elephant with him?” I asked softly. “Did you hear anything of him—the other bull elephant?”

“No,” Tom replied gently. “But Charlotte Pope stays in touch with me. She promised she would find out and let me know, and I promise I'll tell you.”

 

I don't know how long we sat together in the dark. I was dimly aware that, in another ironic touch, the fund-raiser was still going on. I sat very still, grieving. My tears felt hot against my cheeks, and I didn't wipe them away. I kept seeing the moment Tusker was killed—shot? The surprise in his eyes, the betrayal. When I stopped crying, I could only wonder how things sometimes just don't work out, even when you try as hard as you can.

Tom stayed next to me, saying nothing. He put his arm around my shoulders and drew me close and pressed his lips gently to my ear, but still said nothing.

“Neelie?” he finally asked, then brushed his lips along my face. I pulled away.

“Well, at least you still have your fiancée,” I said. “A victory for you.”

“You're the victorious one. Neelie, you broke my heart.”

Well, that was no victory. It's no victory to break the heart
of someone you love, because you break your own heart as well. And if you ever find each other again, all the parts never quite fit back the same way. Tom held me as I sat next to him, trying to find pieces to put back together. There were pieces of our time together and pieces of Tusker and pieces of Joshua Mukomana sipping tea with his pinkie daintily extended, pieces everywhere mixing themselves around in the dark, a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle that made no sense.

I tried to protest when Tom kissed me again, but he stopped my words with his lips and pulled me against him until I put my arms around him. It was such familiar terrain, the hook of his ribs, the hollow of his collarbone against my cheek. I was barely able to see him in the darkened room, even this close, except the silver of his hair, the cut of his chin, the high slant of his cheeks. I touched his face and knew he belonged to me, that I belonged to him. I could feel him asking me to love him again.

To make love to him.

The darkness made a protective circle around us as we kissed. We kissed again and again. Suddenly he moved away from me and crossed the little room to lock the door.

“You can't be serious,” I said, when he returned to the cot.

“I'm not?” he asked, and pulled me down to his side. “It's been hell without you.”

Though I only let him hold me, the year washed away, vanquished. Disappearing, collapsing into the night, leaving only this moment, leaving only the feeling of his arms, his body, his mouth. I wanted this. I wanted him more than anything, but I stopped him when he asked for more.

“Do you want to go inside to the party with me?” I asked.

“You mean right now?” he asked.

“Yes. You could hold my hand and dance with me.”

He paused. “I think that would hurt a few people,” he said.

“I see,” I said, my old anger coming back. “So, before we take things any further, I want you to break it off properly with Miss Victoria Cremwell of the Boston Crème de la Crèmes.” I jerked away from him and walked out of the kitchen, but not before saying, “And I want you to do this in a thoughtful,
refined
kind of way.”

 

Diamond was calling my name, and I slid open the barn door. Car doors were slamming and motors starting, and party voices spilled into the night, calling farewells. Tom was behind me.

“Neelie,” he started.

“I'd better go,” I interrupted him. “I have to say good-bye to everyone. Please don't follow me out.” I slipped through the doors. “I don't want to add to the evening's embarrassing entertainment.”

“Please wait,” he said. “I have a business trip, but I'll call you in two days. And I will straighten everything out with both Victoria and my mother by then.”

“Swell,” I said, and started away from him. It wasn't until a white puff of condensation escaped my lips to join the mist from the cool night that I realized just how much I had been holding my breath.

 

“There you are!” Diamond exclaimed when she saw me coming up the path. She was standing outside the elephant barn, licking a piña colada–on-a-stick.

“Where's Jungle Johnny?” I asked.

“He asked for my phone number before he left.” She shrugged. “But I'm really not interested. No more jungle men for me. I'm done with them. The jungle always takes them back, and I'm not going through that again. Anyway, I have good news.”

“What?” I asked as the crowd of happy guests spiraled around us like a centrifuge of party silliness.

“You'll love this,” she said, and took a big bite of her piña colada. “We raised almost forty-two thousand dollars. We have more than enough to buy the elephants.”

MY LIFE WAS BEGINNING TO RESEMBLE A PAINTING
by Escher. It looked interesting and perfectly logical until you examined it closely, and then you saw a continuous loop of interlocking pieces that twisted and turned on themselves, circling endlessly in curiously repeating patterns that promised resolution but went nowhere.

I would find love, I would lose it, I would find love, I would lose it.

Humans and elephants—everything was linked together, but nothing was permanent. Everything I tried to do slipped through my fingers and disappeared, only to reappear someplace else.

And I had tried. I had tried so hard.

I knew I was meant to rescue animals, I knew that. I knew that as soon as I saw Mousi. And Grace. I knew as soon
as I saw Margo. And Tusker. But I couldn't help wonder if I was caught in the middle of some kind of karmic retribution where what I needed to do got all tangled up with my love life, because when I had the ellies, I lost Tom, and now that Tom might be in my life again, I had lost the elephants.

 

Two days passed, and though I still didn't hear from him, I was determined not to call him. Despite Diamond's best advice that an innocent inquiry whether he had heard anything more about locating Tusker, or maybe even Shamwari, would be very appropriate, I thought better of it.

“I want him to break up with Victoria,” I told Diamond. “But I don't want to pressure him. I want him to be totally single before we start again.” Then I thought I'd hedge my bet. “If we do start again.”

“How will you be sure he's free of her?” Diamond asked. “It's not like she's going to sign a release form for you.”

But Tom had said he would call me in two days, and I vowed to wait patiently. By the end of the second night, I was beginning to think karma had abandoned me for someone less complicated. I called Diamond.

“I'm making chocolate chip cookies,” I said. “Tuck in Mrs. W., and bring over a bottle of wine.”

“A big, cheap bottle or a small, elegant one?”

“Medium,” I replied. “He said he would call me by tonight, and I want to be sober if he does.”

 

Barns are meant to be filled. My empty barn looked bleak, sitting across the yard from us. It needed horses and hay and the soft nickering you hear when you tiptoe through the
door at 10:00 p.m. to tuck your horses in with night hay. It looked lonely. Or maybe it was me who was lonely. Diamond arrived with a big, cheap bottle of wine, and I was glad to see both of them.

We sat on the back porch, wrapped in itchy wool blankets. Me, rocking back and forth with the phone in my lap, and Diamond in the other chair, hugging her knees to her chest and keeping our glasses filled. I was glad for her company.

“Good cookies,” she said, grabbing another handful. “I used to bake when I was a kid. I never quite got the hang of it, though. They always came out so black.”

“The trick is to get them out of the oven before they catch fire,” I said, grabbing a few more myself.

The phone rang, and I checked the caller ID before I answered. It was Richie, on his new cell phone in Alabama.

“The truck is leaving today and should be up in New York in two or three days,” he said. “Then we'll pick up Margo and Abbie and return. I'm flying in tomorrow night to get things ready.”

“No,” I said.

“Yes,” he said, “I'll see you tomorrow,” and hung up.

“The elephants are leaving,” I announced to Diamond, eyeing my barn and wondering if I could hide them at the last minute.

“New misfortunes erase the old ones,” she said wistfully, putting the now-empty bottle next to her chair while I licked the last drop of wine from my glass.

“That's not very comforting,” I said. A strong wind whipped around the corner of the porch, sending a chill through me. I pulled my blanket closer. “Why should I get any misfortunes at all?” I was warming up now. “I mean,
you create your own karma, right? You get punished for things you did or didn't do. I mean, I never borrowed anything that I didn't return. Not even something blue for my first wedding. So why is everything disappearing from my life?”

“To make room for better things,” Diamond replied, but it sounded more like a question.

 

Tom called me very early the next morning. He told me Charlotte Pope was pretty sure Shamwari had been shipped out of the country. The young bull had gone on a rampage after Tusker disappeared, and the conservation task force had come back for him. Rumor had it that the men were carrying rifles and had herded him away by firing shots over his head, but she didn't know where they took him after that. The only thing she was certain of was that both elephants had disappeared.

I felt sick to my stomach. “I don't want to hear any more,” I shouted into the phone. “We raised enough money, I'll find him on my own. I don't care about cottage industries or anything. I'm getting him somehow.”

“Calm down and listen to me,” Tom said. “Are you going to listen? I need to tell you something about the farm, but you haven't given me a chance.”

“Okay,” I said resentfully, “I'm listening.”

He cleared his throat as though getting ready to present a business proposition. “You know I bought the land next to the sanctuary, but you don't know why. So here's why—I bought it in order to expand the farm. I plan to redo the whole place, make bigger fields. Huge. And build a bigger barn. I want the sanctuary to house bull elephants.”

“Why didn't you tell me all this sooner?” I demanded. “Didn't you think you could trust me?”

Tom sighed. “If news of my purchase had gotten out prematurely, I could have wound up in EPA hearings for the next ten years, discussing how to protect the cross-eyed seven-toed night drooler, or something.”

I still didn't understand. “But if the sanctuary is going to have elephants, why send Margo and Abbie away?”

“
Bull
elephants,” he repeated. “
l
I'm going to take them in, but you can't keep them on the same property as the females. They're too strong and unpredictable, especially when they go into musth. There isn't a sanctuary in the U.S. that wants bull elephants.”

I couldn't help myself. “Well, there was one bull elephant you could have helped,” I said pointedly.

“I thought we were finished with all that,” Tom snapped back. “And I'd like to proceed with my plans without a fight from you.”

I was suddenly tired of arguing. “I won't fight,” I said.

“You mean for once we have an agreement?” He sounded relieved. “Because it seems like there are always elephants putting up roadblocks between us.”

“We're okay,” I said. “No elephants between us. And by the way, have you spoken to Victoria?”

“Not yet,” he said. “She's an old friend, and I don't want to hurt her feelings.”

We didn't need elephants, I thought, because this time the roadblock was being erected by a canary, a certain Miss Victoria Crumb Bum.

 

The night before the elephants were leaving. I was on a countdown to an empty heart. Richie called to tell me he had arrived and was staying in his old house to get things ready for the next morning, although there really wasn't all that much to do. Shipping an elephant isn't like shipping a horse. Horses need halters and lead lines and blankets and saddles and bridles and leg wraps and coolers and buckets and all manner of equipment. Elephants just have themselves.

“You don't need to come to the barn tomorrow,” he said. “It might be easier on you if you stayed home.”

“Don't be ridiculous,” I said. “Someone has to be there to wave good-bye.”

 

“A quick slash to the heart hurts less than one hundred small wounds,” Diamond said. It was early morning, and we were standing in the elephant barn, waiting for Richie to get things ready, waiting for the truck. “So, say good-bye and get it over with.”

“I can't,” I said. I had already said one million good-byes and kissed the soft spot on Margo's face, near her lips, a bazillion times. But like a bazillion Zim dollars, they had no real value.

Richie was busying himself piling bales of hay, stacking bags of elephant chow, filling buckets of fruit for the ride to Alabama.

I ran my hands over Margo's face, wrapped my arms around her trunk and wept against her shoulder. I stroked the rough skin over and over, wondering, how do you memorize a touch? You can't truly recall it, you have only the
memory of touching, the sensation disappears from your fingertips like vapor. I wanted desperately for my hands to remember what Margo felt like, but I knew they wouldn't.

“That's it, Neelie,” Richie said. He was finished with his chores and was standing at the entrance to the barn.

It was time to leave her. I stopped, frozen with grief, unable to take another step away from her. I couldn't let her go. It had been insane to think I could.

“Neelie,” Richie said quietly. “The truck is here.”

“No, it's not,” I said, even as I could hear the heavy engine coming up the driveway.

“Neelie,” Richie said again.

I took a deep breath and blew Margo a final kiss, though a thousand kisses wouldn't have been enough. “Be happy,” I commanded, her last command. I tried to keep my voice steady. “Be safe, be happy.” And then I left her.

Diamond was so wrong. Big slashes and little wounds, they all hurt like hell.

 

I waited with Diamond and Mrs. Wycliff in the living room, peeking out through the bay window because Richie didn't want us to be a distraction while he put Margo and Abbie on the truck. Mrs. Wycliff, dressed in her red wellies, jeans, white knit sweater, and pith helmet, was holding her old dart gun and grumbling about poachers.

“They're stealing the elephants!” she declared, raising the dart gun to her shoulder. “I think I can pick them off from here.”

“No,” Diamond soothed her, and gently tried to take the antiquated gun from her hands. “They're just taking them to another encampment where they'll be safer.”

“I can't look,” I said.

“She'll be happy,” Diamond sternly said to both of us as if we were naughty children. “Think about her being happy.”

 

The silver eighteen-wheeler made a slow circle of the parking area and neatly stopped right outside the doors of the barn. Two caretakers from the sanctuary in Alabama jumped from the cab and went inside. They emerged a few minutes later carrying the bales of hay, kegs of water, the fruit, the last ten bags of pellets, and the two boxes of donuts I had left for Margo.

It was time to load the elephants. The caretakers rolled back the middle trailer doors, revealing an inner cage of thick steel bars, which he swung open. They were ready.

“Oh no!” I grabbed Diamond's arm when I saw Richie lead Margo from the elephant barn to the waiting truck, as though it was going to be just another day in the field. Margo followed calmly, in trusting, measured elephant steps, holding her trunk straight out in front of her like an arm, feeling the air. She had been given a very mild tranquilizer and seemed calm enough, though she flapped her ears at the truck and stopped to cautiously examine the steel bars, the doors, and the straw-covered floor inside. Richie gave her the command to step up. She looked back at him, then, it seemed to me, toward the window where I was standing. I pushed my fist in my mouth to keep from calling out. Margo put one foot up and stopped. I could see Richie coaxing her. She put her second foot in the truck, then lifted herself up and stepped in. Innocent little Abbie followed without hesitation. The men immediately closed the cage and shut the doors with a metallic finality that
echoed through the parking lot. They jumped into the cab of the truck, leaving the back passenger door open for Richie to climb aboard.

I couldn't contain myself any longer and rushed from the house with tears streaming down my face.

“Margo!”

Richie put his finger to his lips so that my voice wouldn't carry to the elephants. “We have to go,” he said.

Margo was only a few feet from me, hidden inside the steel walls of the truck. I reached out to touch the metal sides with my fingers.

Diamond and Mrs. Wycliff, with the cockatoo on her shoulder, came out of the house together and stopped on the edge of the driveway.

“See?” Diamond said to Mrs. Wycliff. “Margo and Abbie are fine. Come on, Mum, wish them well.”

“Safari njema
,” Mrs. Wycliff called out softly, wishing them a good trip.

“Fika salama
,” Diamond added. Arrive safely.

“Fuck you!” called the cockatoo.

Margo heard their voices and trumpeted from inside the trailer. Abbie joined in. Suddenly, it didn't matter how I was losing them. I sat down on the ground and wept. Mrs. Wycliff came over to pat me on the head as though I were an obedient dog.

“Harry and I are breaking camp tonight to track them,” she said. “We're leaving as soon as I find my teeth.”

Richie leaned from the cab and blew us a kiss while the driver rolled down his window and saluted.

“Thanks for buying us breakfast,” he yelled, waving the
box of donuts I had left for Margo. “We'll have them on the road.”

If I could stop rain or gravity, if I had that power to summon, I would have summoned it to the full at that moment to keep my elephants.

Gears slid smoothly into other gears, the truck heaved forward like a draft horse trying to gain traction, then rolled down the driveway, rumbling over the potholes, swirling the dust into curls, taking my elephants and my heart away with them.