Chained (16 page)

I wait for someone to start laughing, to tell me this is all a big joke.

No one laughs. I can hardly breathe.

“Don’t you have a family you would like to visit now and then?” he asks.

“Yes,” I manage to answer. “My mother”—my voice catches in my throat—“and my sister.”
Maybe, my sister,
I add silently. I imagine what Amma’s face will look like when I hand her the money I have earned.

“If you prove to be a good worker, you can stay as long as you like.”

That seems to mean I could also leave when I like, but I’m sure Sharad will nudge me very hard if I dare ask that right now.

“What kind of jobs do you have there?”

“My elephant keeper could use an assistant—you must know how much work they are. And you could help with our other animals. We have a hippo who never wants to wear her costume when it’s showtime. Then there’s a bear, a lion, monkeys—they are quite a handful, as you can imagine. Someone has to start and stop the music during the show. You must really pay attention to the performances to do that—the clowns, the acrobats, the animal acts. Or you could help serve food.”

“You sell food there?”

“Oh yes, like samosas and sweets. We will keep you busy. There’s always plenty to do at the circus.”

A bus and taxi turn onto the road leading to the property.

Timir interrupts us. “I should show you to your seat. The performance will begin soon.” Redness darkens his face.

“Yes, I’m excited to see what this elephant can do. We will talk more after the show, Hastin.” He smiles.

Timir starts to lead him away, then turns to Sharad and mutters, “Don’t let him too close to the elephant.”

Ne Min sits on our wooden bench while we wait for the show to start, but I’m too nervous to sit down.

“Hastin, please,” says Ne Min. “You’re making me dizzy.” I didn’t realize until he mentioned it that I’ve been pacing in circles around the bench. I step to the fence and rest my arms on the top log, hands clasped as if I’m praying.

At last some dark clouds glide across the sky and cover the sun to give us a little relief from the heat.

Sharad and Nandita start the show with the hoop trick and I lean forward to watch them.
You’ll get a barn, Nandita, a big barn,
I want to tell her.
And a real doctor to take care of you when you’re sick.

Somehow she seems to understand how important this show is. Nandita performs every trick just right. Even the new one—Sharad walks toward the audience as he speaks to them, and Nandita follows behind him on her hind legs. Her eyes look tired and she’s a bit wobbly when she balances on the milk bottles, but people who don’t know her may not notice.

A few raindrops hit my arms and head. Sometimes at home, after a long rain, I could smell the river in the red dirt walls of our hut. I swear I can smell my home right now.

Sharad and Nandita stand together in the arena, close to the audience. Finally, the last act is almost finished. I’m ready to leap over the fence and run to Nandita as soon as the show ends.

“Not a bad player for an elephant,” Sharad says. He no longer calls her “a little elephant,” since she is taller than he is. I laugh already, since I know what’s about to happen. Then I stop.

“Why isn’t she moving?” I say. Instead of stealing the ball from Sharad to make another goal, Nandita stands in place next to him. Sharad looks at her, then smiles nervously at the audience. He holds the ball more loosely in his hand, then bounces it on the ground right in front of Nandita, inviting her to steal it.

People shift in their seats and look at one another with questions on their faces. I scan the audience and recognize a few people who have attended the show before. They know what Nandita is supposed to do. I wish Sharad would end the show and tell everyone thank you and goodbye. Anything but this embarrassing silence. Nandita’s trunk rests on the ground, and her body sways.

Ne Min stands up and steps to the fence.

The crowd gasps when Nandita staggers forward. She stares in my direction, but past me. Sharad steps toward Nandita as she sways, then he jumps aside as she crashes to the ground. A cloud of dust puffs up around her body.

Ne Min turns and shuffles toward the arena gate. As I climb onto the fence I glance at Kapurji. Timir grabs his arm while speaking frantically to him, but he breaks away and storms off.

I leap off the fence and run to Nandita, then fall to my knees and pet her trunk.

“Nandita, please be all right. You just have to be.”

Her breathing is fast and raspy. Raindrops dot the dust on her skin.

The engine of Ravi Kapur’s car roars.

Nandita does not look at me as I speak to her. Her eyes are closing, but the sliver I can still see is cloudy. I lean over and lay my cheek on her head, next to her ear.

“Please,” I beg her. “Please stay with me.”

Timir stands in the road and watches the car pull away. I imagine running past him, leaping onto the bumper of the car, and throwing myself onto the trunk, where I would ride all the way to the circus—my new boss, the animals, the music, samosas, money in my hand, a trip home …

Sharad is kneeling on the other side of Nandita, his hand on her back.

“A heatstroke. Go get some water,” he tells me as Ne Min joins him at Nandita’s side. “As much as you can carry. And some burlap bags. Hurry!”

I rush to the fence and scramble over it, then glance back at Nandita when my feet hit the ground on the other side. On my way to the water trough, I take just a moment to look behind me and watch everything I had hoped for drive away.

23

Elephants spend eighteen to twenty hours a day foraging for food.

—From
Care of Jungle Elephants
by Tin San Bo

My arms are shaking, but I don’t know if it is from fear or work. Back and forth I have carried the metal bucket from the trough and poured water over Nandita’s body.

A few people from the audience stand around the arena fence, watching. Others have left, holding the hands of their crying children. Some have entered the arena to help care for Nandita. From the supply shed I grabbed empty rice and flour bags, and we have soaked them in cold water to lay over Nandita’s body. Timir paces alongside Nandita and yells at us, “Do something!” and “How could you let this happen?”

I want to run. I want to be far away from here, the gasping crowd, Timir, the heat. Nandita, the elephant I failed to protect. I have to get out of here. Now.

Slowly I back away from Nandita and look around. Everyone is focused on her. They won’t notice if I slip away.

I hurry to the stable. What should I take with me? I grab the empty iodine bottle from under the straw and one of my Ganesh figures. The carvings of elephants I leave on the floor. As I glance around for anything else I might need, the palm leaf that Ne Min nailed to the wall catches my eye.
May those frightened cease to be afraid, and may those bound, be free.
I reach for it, then stop when I see Ne Min in the doorway.

“Do you think if you run away you will forget her?” He steps into the stable. “She is a part of you now, and you are a part of her. She will be with you always, no matter if you are here, or home, or the farthest place you could ever run.”

Ne Min’s dark brown eyes show the pain that they had when he first treated Nandita’s hook wounds. “You have good memories of her now, but they will be forever shadowed by your abandonment. You are the one who cares for her most. You are the one she needs.”

“Ne Min, I can’t do this anymore. What use am I now? I’ve been her keeper all this time, and look at her. She is better off without me, and I don’t want to be here when she—” I stop and turn away. “Please just let me go, and don’t tell anyone I am leaving.”

“No,” he says. “Nandita still has a chance. I know what to do, but I cannot do it myself. If you leave now you are killing her, and you will not forgive yourself. Ever.”

I gaze at the Ganesh carving in my hand, the first one I made here, that sits lopsided in the straw, that is still my favorite.
Remover of obstacles …

My father used to tell me that sometimes we get help clearing obstacles from our path, and sometimes they are placed in our way. Later, when we are wiser and stronger, we may look back and feel thankful for what we had to overcome. Will I ever be thankful for anything that has happened to me? If only Baba had not died, and if Chanda had not been so sick, if we were not so poor …

I never would have met Nandita. How many people can say they have had an elephant for a best friend?

And I never would have met Ne Min. He stands next to me in the stable, quietly watching, knowing already what I will do, but knowing I have to decide for myself.

I set the Ganesh figure back in the corner of the stable. Underneath his right side I pile up some straw so he will not tip over.

“What do I need to do?”

“Nandita needs shade, but she will not be able to walk on her own yet. Gather some bamboo stalks and the biggest palm leaves you can. Help Sharad build a shelter over her.”

“Will she be all right?” I remember asking Amma the same thing, the last time I saw Chanda.

“I don’t know,” says Ne Min. I hear an echo of Amma’s voice adding, “
All we can do is pray.”
And I will pray, but the not-knowing that gnaws at my stomach is the worst feeling of all.

*   *   *

After I talk to Sharad, I take the ax from the woodshed and hurry to a clump of bamboo. The stalks I chop have to be taller than Nandita. By the time I return to the arena with six long poles of bamboo, the audience members have left. Timir has retreated to his office. Ne Min sits next to Nandita with his hand on her forehead.

Sharad takes the bamboo from me, and I run to the palm trees. I swing the ax at the base of leaf after leaf, then fill my arms with as many as I can carry. Back in the arena, I place the leaves in a pile next to Nandita.

With a stick I dig a hole for the bamboo stalks, in four corners around Nandita’s body. After Sharad places the end of each stalk into a hole, I fill in the dirt and pack it tightly. We will tie the two remaining stalks across the tops of the upright poles, so I grab the ladder from the supply shed. I hold each bamboo stalk in place as Sharad ties them with twine to the ones we placed in the ground.

“Now the roof,” he says. “Chop some more stalks to lay across the top.” I return to the trees and cut down an armful of bamboo. Sharad hands me the bamboo as I stand on the ladder so I can lay it across the poles to make the roof of the shelter. Maybe I’m seeing a bit of the goodness Ne Min was talking about that has been buried inside Sharad for so long.

While we work, I glance at Nandita to see if she looks any better. She is breathing easier, and her eyes are open but still cloudy. I pause in building the shelter to run to the spring for more water to keep her cool.

When bamboo stalks cross the top of the shelter from end to end, I cover them with palm leaves. Finally, Nandita is in the shade. From the stable I grab her wooden Ganesh and set it next to her so she can hold it in her trunk while she sleeps. Before I let go of it I say a silent prayer for her.

Ne Min tells me this will be Nandita’s home for a few days, so I will need to haul some hay to the arena and bring her food and water. He has not asked me to sleep here with her but I will. If this is Nandita’s home for now, it is also mine.

Sharad will lose two weeks’ pay, and Timir added three months to my service. “Maybe you will remember to take better care of that animal,” he’d said.

During the hottest part of the afternoon I pour water over Nandita’s body. I keep a full bucket of water next to her, so when she is thirsty she only has to reach her trunk in and pour the water into her mouth. Much of the water spills on the ground while she lies on her side, but that evening she is able to hold her head up.

The next day, though, she doesn’t seem to be any better. Ne Min told me that a strong, healthy elephant would probably recover, but Nandita hasn’t been healthy lately. If I were strong enough to carry her to the cool water of the spring, I would do it.

Even though I sleep outside with her now, I stop by the stable each night to carve a new mark on the wall. When will I get to go home? I imagine the marks stretching out in an endless row, to some faraway place that means never.

I bring Nandita mangoes and the pods from the tamarind tree, but she does not eat.

After my evening chores I go to the arena to check on her. I find Ne Min sitting next to her as he carves a block of wood. From my pocket I take a new elephant I have been working on and sit across from him.

“What are you making?” I ask. “I’ve never seen you carve before.”

“I talked to Timir. When Nandita is strong enough, he will allow her to wander the grounds on her own more.”

The thought of Timir listening to someone surprises me so much I can’t speak. I wait for Ne Min to continue.

“Walking around to find some of her own food will be good for her. She knows what she should be eating, what she needs. If she eats better, her recovery will be quick. And the exercise will help. She will not move fast wearing shackles, but I told him I would make her a bell, so we can listen and find her if she wanders too far.”

I take out my pocketknife and begin working on the elephant figure as Ne Min smooths out his block of wood. When it is round like a tree branch, he whittles away at the center of it until it is hollowed out. He sets it on the ground like an upside-down cup, then carves a hole through it from one side to the other.

Next he carves two sticklike pieces with a hole through the top of each one. He threads a piece of thick twine through all three parts so that the sticks hang on either side of the cuplike piece. He closes his eyes and shakes the bell, listening to the
clip-clop-clip
sound the sticks make against the cup.

“Some elephants”—he laughs a little—“some of the smart ones, are mischievous.” With the point of his knife he carves designs into the bell, and round letters like those on the palm leaf on my wall. “They clog their bell with mud to block its sound, if they wish to hide from you. Then you will have to search longer, but you will find her, and she will come to you.”