Water For Elephants (21 page)

August stands beside her left shoulder, grim-faced, his fingers alternately clutching and releasing the bull hook.

Sara Gruen

The band falls quiet. The performers make last-minute adjustments to their costumes, and the animal handlers give their charges one last check. And then the music for the Spec starts.

August leans forward and bellows into Rosie's ear. The elephant hesitates, in response to which August strikes her with the bull hook. This

sends her flying through the back end of the big top. Marlena ducks flat against her head to avoid being scraped ofFby the pole that runs across the top.

I gasp and run forward, curling around the edge of the sidewalk Rosie comes to a stop about twenty feet down the hippodrome track and Marlena undergoes a change that defies belief. One moment she is askew on Rosie's head, lying flat. The next, she yanks herself upright, turns on a smile, and thrusts an arm into the air. Her back is arched, her toes pointed. The crowd goes crazy—standing on the bleachers, clapping, whistling, and tossing peanuts onto the track.

August catches up. He lifts the bull hook high and then freezes. He turns his head and scans the audience. His hair flops over his forehead. He grins as he lowers the bull hook, and removes his top hat. He bows deeply, three times, aiming at different segments of the audience. When he turns back to Rosie, his face hardens.

By poking the bull hook in and around her underarms and legs, he persuades her to make a tour of sorts around the hippodrome. They go in fits and starts, stopping so many times the rest of the Spec is forced to

continue around them, parting like water around a stone.

The audience loves it. Each time Rosie trots ahead of August and stops, they roar with laughter. And each time August approaches, red-faced and waving his bull hook, they explode with glee. Finally, about three-quarters of the way around, Rosie curls her trunk in the air and takes off at a run, leaving a series of thunderous farts in her wake as she barrels toward the back end of the tent. I am pressed against the bleachers, right by the entrance. Marlena grasps the head halter with both hands, and as they approach I catch my breath. Unless she bails, she is going to be knocked off. A couple of feet from the entrance, Marlena lets go of the halter and W a t e r for E l e p h a n ts leans hard to the left. Rosie disappears from the tent, and Marlena is left clinging to the top pole. The crowd falls silent, no longer sure that this is part of the act.

Marlena hangs limply, not a dozen feet from me. She's breathing hard, with eyes closed and head down. I'm just about to step forward and lift her down when she opens her eyes, removes her left hand from the pole, and in one graceful movement swings around so she's facing the audience.

Her face lights up and she points those toes. The band leader, watching from his post, signals furiously for a drum roll. Marlena begins swinging.

The drum roll mounts as she gains momentum. Before long she's swinging parallel to the ground. I wonder how long she's going to keep this up

and just what the heck she's planning to do when she suddenly releases the pole. She sails through the air, tucking her body into a ball and rolling forward twice.

She uncurls for one sideways rotation, and lands firmly in

a burst of sawdust. She looks at her feet, straightens up, and thrusts both arms into the air.

The band launches into victory music and the crowd goes wild. Moments later, coins rain down on the hippodrome track.

As SOON AS SHE TURNS, I can see that she's hurt. She limps from the big top and I rush out behind her.

"Marlena—" I say.

She turns and collapses against me. I grasp her around the waist, holding her upright.

August rushes out. "Darling—my darling! You were brilliant. Brilliant! I've never seen anything more—"

He stops cold when he sees my arms around her. Then she lifts her head and wails.

August and I lock eyes. Then we lock arms, beneath and behind her, forming a chair.

Marlena whimpers, leaning against August's shoulder. She tucks her slippered feet under our arms, clenching her muscles in pain. August presses his mouth into her hair. "It's okay, darling. I've got you now. Shhh... It's okay. I've got you."

Sara Gruen

"Where should we go? Her dressing tent?" I ask. "There's nowhere to lie down."

"The train?"

"Too far. Let's go to the cooch girl's tent." "Barbara's?"

August shoots me a look over Marlena's head.

We enter Barbara's tent without any warning. She's sitting in a chair in front of her vanity, dressed in a midnight blue negligee and smoking a cigarette. Her expression of bored disdain drops immediately.

"Oh my God. What's going on?" she says, stubbing out her cigarette and leaping up. "Here. Put her on the bed. Here, right here," she says, rushing in front of us.

When we lay Marlena down, she rolls onto her side, clutching her feet. Her face is contorted, her teeth clenched.

"Myfeet— "

"Hush, sweetie," Barbara says. "It's going to be okay. Everything's going to be okay." She leans over and loosens the ribbons on Marlena's slippers. "Oh God, oh God, they hurt..."

"Get the scissors from my top drawer," says Barbara, glancing back at me.

When I return with them, Barbara cuts the toes offMarlena's tights and rolls them up her legs. Then she lifts her bare feet into her lap. "Go to the cookhouse and get some ice," she says.

After a second, both she and August turn to look at me. "I'm already there," I say.

I'm barreling toward the cookhouse when I hear Uncle Al shouting behind me. "Jacob!

Wait!"

I pause while he catches up.

"Where are they? Where did they go?" he says. "They're in Barbara's tent," I gasp.

"Eh?"

"The cooch girl." "Why?"

W a t e r for E l e p h a n ts "Marlena's hurt. I've got to get ice."

He turns and barks at a follower. "You, go get ice. Take it to the cooch girl's tent. Go!"

He turns back to me. "And you, go retrieve our goddamned bull before we get run out of town."

"Where is she?"

"Munching cabbages in someone's backyard, apparently. The lady of the house is not amused. West side of the lot. Get her out of there before the cops come."

RosiE STANDS IN A trampled vegetable patch, running her trunk lazily across the rows. When I approach she looks me straight in the eye and plucks a purple cabbage. She drops it in her shovel-scoop of a mouth and then reaches for a cucumber.

The lady of the house opens the door a crack and shrieks, "Get that thing out of here! Get it out of here!"

"Sorry, ma'am," I say. "I'll surely do my best."

I stand at Rosie's shoulder. "Come on, Rosie. Please?"

Her ears wave forward, she pauses, and then she reaches for a tomato. "No!" I say. "Bad elephant!"

Rosie pops the red globe in her mouth and smiles as she chews it. Laughing at me, no doubt.

"Oh Jesus," I say, at a complete loss.

Rosie wraps her trunk around some turnip greens and rips them from the ground. Still looking at me, she pops them in her mouth and begins munching. I turn and smile desperately at the still-gawking housewife. Two men approach from the lot. One is wearing a suit, a derby hat, and

a smile. To my immense relief, I recognize him as one of the patches. The other man wears filthy overalls and carries a bucket.

"Good afternoon, ma'am," says the patch, tipping his hat and picking his way carefully across the ruined garden. It looks as though a tank has plowed through it. He climbs the cement stairs to the back door. "I see you've met Rosie, the largest and most magnificent elephant in the world. You're lucky—she doesn't normally make house calls."

Sara Gruen

The woman's face is still in the crack of the door. "What?" she says, dumbfounded.

The patch smiles brightly. "Oh yes. It's an honor indeed. I'm willing to bet no one else in your neighborhood—heck, probably the whole city—can say they've had an elephant in their backyard. Our men here will remove her—naturally, we'll fix up your garden and compensate you for your produce, too. Would you like us to arrange for a photograph of you and Rosie? Something to show your family and friends?"

" I ... I ... What?" she stammers.

"If I may be so bold, ma'am," the patch says with the slightest hint of a bow. "Perhaps it would be easier if we discussed this inside."

After a reluctant pause the door swings open. He disappears inside the house and I turn back to Rosie.

The other man stands directly in front of her, holding the bucket.

She is rapt. Her trunk hovers over its top, sniffing and trying to squirm its way around his arms into the clear liquid.

"Przestari!" he says, brushing her away. "Nie!" My eyes widen.

"You got a fucking problem?" he says. "No," I say quickly. "No. I'm Polish, too."

"Oh. Sorry." He waves the ever-present trunk away, wipes his right hand on his thigh, and offers it to me. "Grzegorz Grabowski," he says. "Call me Greg."

"Jacob Jankowski," I say, shaking his hand. He pulls his away to protect the contents of the bucket.

"Nie! Teraz nie!" he says crossly, pushing at the insistent trunk. "Jacob Jankowski, huh?

Yeah, Camel told me about you."

"What is that anyway?" I ask. "Gin and ginger ale," he says. "You're kidding."

"Elephants love alcohol. See? One whiff of this and she doesn't care about cabbages anymore. Ah!" he says, batting the trunk away. "Powiedzialem przestan! Pozniej!"

Water for E l e p h a n ts

"How the hell did you know that?"

"The last show I was on had a dozen bulls. One of them used to fake a bellyache every night trying to get a dose of whiskey. Say, go get the bull hook, will you? She'll probably follow us back to the lot just to get at this gin—isn't that right, moj mqlutki paczuszek?—but better get it just in case."

"Sure," I say. I remove my hat and scratch my head. "Does August know this?"

"Know what?"

"That you know so much about elephants? I bet he'd hire you on as

»

a

Greg's hand shoots up. "Nuh-uh. No way. Jacob, no offense to you personally, but there's no way in hell I'll work for that man. None. Besides,

I'm no bull man. I just like the big beasts. Now, you want to run and get that hook, please?"

When I return with the hook, Greg and Rosie are gone. I turn, scanning the lot.

In the distance, Greg walks toward the menagerie. Rosie plods along a few feet behind. Every once in a while he stops and lets her slip her trunk into the bucket.

Then he yanks it away and keeps walking. She follows like an obedient puppy.

W I T H ROSIE SAFELY restored to the menagerie, I return to Barbara's tent, still clutching the bull hook.

I pause outside the closed flap. "Uh, Barbara?" I say. "Can I come in?" "Yup," she says.

She's alone, sitting in her chair with her bare legs crossed.

"They've gone back to the train to wait for the doctor," she says, taking a drag from her cigarette. "If that's what you came for."

I feel my face turn red. I look at the sidewalk I look at the ceiling. I look at my feet.

"Ah heck, ain't you cute," she says, tapping the cigarette over the grass. She brings it to her mouth and takes a deep drag. "You're blushing." Sara Gruen She stares at me for a long time, clearly amused.

"Ah, go on," she says finally, blowing smoke from the side of her mouth. "Go on. Get out of here before I decide to give you another go."

I SCRAMBLE OUT OF Barbara's tent and run smack into August. His face is dark as thunder.

"How is she?" I ask.

"We're waiting for the doctor," he says. "Did you catch the bull?" "She's back in the menagerie," I say.

"Good," he says. He rips the bull hook from my hand. "August, wait! Where are you going?"

"I'm going to teach her a lesson," he says without stopping.

"But August!" I shout after him. "Wait! She was good! She came back of her own accord.

Besides, you can't do anything now. The show is still going!"

He stops so abruptly a cloud of dust temporarily obscures his feet. He stands absolutely still, staring at the ground.

After a long while he speaks. "Good. The band will drown out the noise."

I stare after him, my mouth open in horror.

I RETURN TO THE ring stock car and lie on my bedroll, sickened beyond belief by the thought of what's going on in the menagerie and even more sickened that I'm doing nothing to prevent it.

A few minutes later, Walter and Queenie come back. He's still in costumea billowing white affair with multicolored polka dots, a triangular

hat, and Elizabethan ruff. He's wiping his face with a rag.

"What the hell was that?" he says, standing so that I'm looking at his oversized red shoes.

"What?" I say.

"In the Spec. Was that part of the act?" "No," I say.

"Holy cow," he says. "Holy cow. In that case, what a save. Marlena's 1 7 0 •=-•

Water for E l e p h a n ts

really something. But you already knew that, didn't you?" He clicks his tongue and leans over to poke my shoulder.

"Would you knock if off?"

"What?" he says, spreading his hands in feigned innocence. "It's not funny. She's hurt, okay?"

He drops the goofy grin. "Oh. Hey, man, I'm sorry. I didn't know. She gonna be okay?"

"I don't know yet. They're waiting for the doctor."

"Shit. I'm sorry, Jacob. I really am." He turns toward the door and takes a deep breath.

"But not half as sorry as that poor bull's gonna be."

I pause. "She's already sorry, Walter. Trust me."

He stares out the door. "Ah jeez," he says. He puts his hands on his hips and looks across the lot. "Ah jeez. I'll just bet."

I STAY IN THE stock car through dinner, and then through the evening show as well.

I'm afraid that if I see August I'll kill him.

I hate him. I hate him for being so brutal. I hate that I'm beholden to him. I hate that I'm in love with his wife and something damned close to that with the elephant. And most of all, I hate that I've let them both down.