Chained (10 page)

—From
Care of Jungle Elephants
by Tin San Bo

Now that I’ve seen how Sharad treats Nandita, I’m careful to take even better care of her. She is my responsibility. Over the next weeks I pay more attention to everything Nandita does. When I scrub her at bath time, I search for new sores. Each time, I hope to find nothing wrong, but I must learn to see things I do not want to see. When she eats, I observe how much. Is it more or less than the day before? Does she seem hungry, or does she pick at her food? I’m not sure what to do if she doesn’t eat enough, but I notice anyway.

Whenever I lead her around I hold her chain like Timir asked, even though I don’t really need to. Nandita tries to follow me everywhere. She even waits outside the door when I go to the outhouse.

I’ve learned that she likes to be petted on her trunk and forehead, but not her back. Sometimes when I’m busy working, she nudges me with her head until I take a break to pet her. She also nudges Ne Min when he’s nearby. Often he doesn’t look at her face when he pets her.

One evening when I feed her outside the stable, Nandita curls her trunk around some hay, then scatters it to the ground like she’s not interested in eating. From the woodshed I take the ax and run to a tamarind tree to chop a branch full of sand-colored pods.

Beyond the stable the trees are thicker. From tree to tree I search for more food for Nandita. My eye catches the broad leaves of the mango tree, so I chop down one of those branches, too.

Nandita pulls the mangoes from the branch and drops them into her mouth. While still chewing the last fruit, she reaches out her trunk and grabs the tamarind branch from my hand.

“Nandita, be patient,” I say.

One by one she eats the tamarind pods, then she eats the leaves and bark.

I lead Nandita into the stable and decide to sit down to carve something out of mango wood. Everyone else has left for the day, so Sharad and Timir aren’t around to bother me about sitting down for a while.

With Baba’s knife, I peel away slivers from the piece of wood to round the edges at one end. The other end is jagged where I hacked at it with the ax, so I even it out to make a figure that will stand upright in the stable.

After studying the block of wood, I start carving a face. While I work, I feel my father over my shoulder, guiding me.
Smooth out that area. Even out the eyes. Watch how you hold the knife.

Yes, Baba, I am being careful.

The figure I carve does not look like the one I pictured in my mind. I imagined the Ganesh I made would look like the one at home, only smaller. But the head is lopsided, and one ear is larger than the other. Baba’s carvings were so smooth. I wonder how any pair of hands could make something so perfect. The skin of my Ganesh is bumpy, like a road that would make for a bouncy rickshaw ride. But the eyes I have right—evenly spaced and small, a wise and laughing Ganesh. I set him in one corner of the stable, close to where my head rests at night. He leans a bit to the right, so I stack more straw on that side so he will not worry about tipping over. I hope he does not mind the shape I have made him.

*   *   *

One morning as I’m serving breakfast, Timir asks Sharad, “How soon before we’re ready for the show? We need to get started.”

“She is stubborn,” says Sharad. “She doesn’t know all the tricks yet, and I haven’t started training her to give rides.”

“Then we’ll start the show with the tricks she can do. We’re not earning any money waiting for her. Work her harder so she’ll learn the rest of the tricks faster.”

“We have a few things ready. She can do a show in early February,” says Sharad.

“Two weeks, then,” Timir says. “We need to get the word out now that Circus Timir is coming back. I want you and the boy to start making posters tonight to advertise the show.”

*   *   *

Nandita tries to follow me out of the arena after I drop her off there. I reach over the top of the fence to pet her head. I hate to think about what she is going through each day with Sharad. What will it be like now that Timir ordered him to work her harder?

“Be good now, and do what Sharad says.”

She touches my nose with her trunk.

What kind of elephant keeper am I? Every day I leave Nandita with someone who hurts her, then walk away. But what can I do to protect her?

*   *   *

After dinner, Sharad stays behind to work at the table in the cook shed, drawing and lettering posters with pencil. When he is finished with a poster I lay it flat on the floor to paint it.

For a long time I don’t speak to him. Seeing him brings me back to the tamarind tree where I watched him hit Nandita with the hook.

But it isn’t fair to Nandita to keep quiet. Sharad didn’t listen to Ne Min, so he probably will not listen to me, but I have to say something. There are still too many new wounds.

The poster I’ve painted of an elephant kicking a ball is finished, so I set it aside to dry.

When I look at Sharad, I see the hook, and hear Nandita’s screams.

“I don’t want you hurting the elephant anymore.” I barely hear myself speak. It’s hard to talk when it feels like a python is squeezing my chest.

Sharad stops drawing and turns to me. “What did you say?”

I take a deep breath and try to sound braver than I feel. “If you are a good trainer, you can find a way to teach her without the hook.”

Sharad leaps up from his seat and steps toward me. From my spot on the floor he towers over me.

“What do you know about them?” he yells. “You haven’t lived with them all your life, you haven’t seen—do you know what they’re capable of?”

I back away when he grabs the elephant hook from his belt. He steps closer to me and waves the hook in my face.

“You have to show them who’s in charge!” He turns away and slams the hook into the table, stabbing it with its point. He leans forward and rests his hands on the table, like he needs to catch his breath.

I try to think of something to say, but nothing seems right. Sharad looks like someone who needs to be comforted, but I cannot tell him it’s all right, because it isn’t. And I can’t say things will get better, because I don’t know if they will.

Again he says, “You have to show them who’s in charge,” almost too quietly for me to hear him this time. He pulls the hook out of the table and walks away, leaving an unfinished poster.

Timir spots me as soon as I leave the cook shed. I’d like to hide or pretend I don’t see him, but it’s too late.

“My office needs cleaning,” he says before he walks away.

There is so much paper to go through, and I am so tired. I don’t even know what to do with most of Timir’s things. The crumpled papers on the floor I suppose can go into the trash bin. Does he realize he has a trash bin? There it is, right next to his desk, but it seems he never uses it. With a clean cloth I wipe away the layer of dust from the furniture.

The sofa is threadbare in spots and sags in the middle, but it is comfortable when I sit down on it. I will rest my eyes, just for a moment, before I get back to work.

I fade into a dream about Chanda on Amma’s lap, laughing as she plays her game of dropping her doll onto the floor for me to pick up. As soon as I brush off the dirt and hand it back to her, she lets it fall again. This time when I reach for the doll, it turns into a snake, coiled and ready to strike.

Even as I sleep, I hear the
step-click-step
of Timir’s approach. From the depths of my dream I scream at myself,
Wake up!
but I can’t. Finally I pry my eyes open, just in time to see the cane hurtling toward my head.

“I come back to check on you, and this is what I find. Sleeping on the job. You’ve just earned yourself three more months here. You must want to stay here with me for good.”

It’s the middle of January, but it’s the fullness of the moon that tells me of the passing months, not the marks on the stable wall. I still scratch a line on the wall each night but I have stopped counting them, since I no longer know how many days I must stay here. Timir added time to my service when I spilled straw from the wheelbarrow and forgot to pick it up, and when I left the paint can on the ground after painting his office.

If I could one day say, “Look, Nandita, one hundred marks. If I do that three more times, I can go home,” that would be helpful. Or if I could ever celebrate the last mark in a row of scratches across the wall and think, When I do that twice more, it will be time to leave, the tracking of my days would make sense. But I do not know when I will carve the last mark or where it will fall. Still I make them. I feel I must do something to measure my time here.

Tonight Nandita falls asleep long before I do. She wakes when a distant rumble of an elephant herd breaks the silence of the night. She stands up, flaps her ears, and calls out to them.

I wonder if it’s her own herd. “I know, I miss my family, too,” I tell her.

Finally the faraway herd quiets, and so does Nandita. She lies back down and drapes her trunk across my stomach.

Next to my Ganesh figure, I pray for both of us.

“Ganesh, wise son of the goddess,

You who begin all good things

Grant me your blessing

Of freedom from fear.”

But I wonder if anyone is listening, and if I will ever break free from this dark place.

16

Elephants find ways to amuse themselves.

—From
Care of Jungle Elephants
by Tin San Bo

The first show day draws near, and our work has no end. I did not think it was possible, but Timir is even more demanding than he was before. And Nandita still wakes up twice a night for a bottle of milk, so I feel like I am sleepwalking as I work.

Thankfully Nandita has eaten the grass that grew in the arena, so that is one less area I have to clear. But I do have to make an area for cars to park.

Timir put up the posters in the town nearby to advertise the elephant show. Two days later he went back to talk to tour bus drivers and hotel owners. But his eyes look worried, and his nervousness has rubbed off on all of us. Sharad has grown tired of Timir’s questions—he would never say so out loud, but I can tell by the way he rolls his eyes when Timir is not looking.

“The hoop trick—she can do it now?”

“Yes,” Sharad says each time. “Perfectly.”

“And the game? How is she doing with the game? What about the box? Is it ready? It’s strong enough for her to stand on?”

*   *   *

The morning of Nandita’s first show arrives. Finally we will be able to sit down and watch the performance we have worked so hard for. After I fill the water trough, I look around for any last chores to do before the show. Ne Min steps out of the cook shed and calls to me to bring firewood.

I’m stacking the wood next to the stove when I hear the hum of an engine. Ne Min and I peek outside, then I run toward the arena to see the tour bus that bounces into the drive.

Our first visitors file out. They line up across from Timir, who sits at a table with a sign that reads “Rs. 25.” He collects the twenty-five rupees from each person, then places the money in a metal box. Some of the people look around the circus grounds and say “What is this place?” and “We asked our driver to take us shopping. Where are we?”

With a wide smile and a laugh, Timir welcomes the visitors to his circus and assures them they won’t be disappointed. His friendliness reminds me of the first time I met him in the café—the Timir who bought me samosas and tea and convinced me to take this exciting job.

He invites the customers to sit on the wooden benches. The two lowest benches are close to the arena, just high enough for the audience to see over the fence. Behind those are two more rows of benches, elevated a bit more so the people who sit there can see over the heads of those in front. Last is a fifth row, higher than all the others.

Two taxis and a hotel van bring more people to the show. I notice that the people who rode in the taxis and vans pay their admission, but the drivers do not. Instead, Timir slips some money to each driver when he greets them at the table.
He’s paying them to come to the show?
The drivers join the audience and step to the back row to take the last empty seats.

Just before the show starts, I carry a small bench from the cook shed to the arena fence, then sit down to see if we’ll be able to see the show from here. The bench isn’t high enough for me to see over the fence, but if I look between the logs I have a good view of the arena. It would be easier to watch while standing at the fence, but Ne Min might get tired. I run back to tell him I have a place for him to sit during the performance.

He’s cleaning the stove and doesn’t look up. “I cannot go, Hastin. I will stay here.”

“But it’s Nandita’s first performance. She’s been working so hard. Don’t you want to see her?”

“Not today. I cannot see her today.” Something in Ne Min’s voice tells me not to say anything more, like a scorpion with its raised stinger that warns, “Don’t come any closer.”

I trudge back to the arena and sit on the bench alone. While I wait I keep glancing back toward the cook shed, hoping Ne Min will change his mind and decide to join me. For this first show, I don’t know what to expect. How will Nandita behave, and how will Sharad react if she doesn’t perform like he wants? The worry that churns in my stomach would calm down if Ne Min were here. I reach for my pocket and realize that Ne Min reminds me of my stone—old and small but strong, and I feel safe when he’s nearby. I think he has a story, too.

I wonder where Nandita and Sharad are and if I should check on her. I try to look through the trees to see if I spot her near the stable. Out of the corner of my eye I catch the shuffling walk of Ne Min’s approach. Without a word he takes his place next to me, and I let go of the stone.

We turn toward the audience when a little girl shouts, “There it is! There’s the elephant!” The audience members crane their necks and look across the arena.

Sharad struts alongside Nandita toward the arena gate. He wears an outfit that I guess used to fit him at one time. Gold buttons strain to hold his red jacket closed. The puffy white collar and ruffled sleeves of his shirt stick out from beneath the jacket. Over his white pants he wears knee-high black boots. He seems quite proud of himself. I have never seen anything so ridiculous. Is this what Timir meant by “clowns”? He said they dress funny. I hold my hand over my mouth to cover my laughter.