Whistling for the Elephants (32 page)

‘Mommy,
Mommy,’ she moaned as the two women clung to each other and wept and wept.

Everything
was different after that. Aunt Bonnie blamed herself and she went real quiet.
No one saw the funny side of anything any more. We went to the funeral
together. We weren’t family, Helen, Cosmos, Sweetheart, Miss Strange, Judith,
Aunt Bonnie and me, but it felt like it. Uncle Eddie and Joey were the only men
who turned up. Judith looked so pale and Aunt Bonnie wouldn’t speak. Judith
kept hugging her and telling Aunt Bonnie that it was an accident, that she was
the one who had been wrong. The minister wasn’t feeling too well so Cosmos said
a few words.

‘I
would like to share with you the last words of Crowfoot, great Blackfoot
warrior,’ she said, clearing her throat as tears poured unbidden down her face.
“‘What is life? It is the flash of the firefly in the night. It is the breath
of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the
grass and loses itself in the sunset.” We’ll miss you, Perry. You were our
family.’

Uncle
Eddie and Joey carried the coffin. It wasn’t easy — they were such different
heights — but they gave it what dignity they could. Afterwards Uncle Eddie
spoke quietly to Aunt Bonnie.

‘Be
careful. Harry’s gone kind of crazy.’

Aunt
Bonnie stroked Eddie’s arm and said, ‘Eddie, go up to the camp. Bring home the
kids.’

Things changed after that.
For example, I don’t remember Judith wearing make-up again. She stopped doing
all that stuff to her hair and even borrowed some pants from Helen to wear.

Maybe
it was guilt — I hope so — but Harry was definitely loony after that. We got
news that he was moving to enforce an order against the zoo. Miss Strange hadn’t
bothered with even trying for the licenses and now he was coming to close the
place down. If he did then all the animals would be destroyed. We got together
in the barn. Things didn’t look good but Helen was driving everyone on.

‘We need
a plan,’ she said, pacing in front of us.

‘Forget
it, Helen, it’s hopeless,’ sighed Miss Strange. Judith sat close to her mother,
her head hung in despair.

‘Maybe
we should just give up,’ agreed Judith. Sweetheart nodded and pulled her
cardigan close around her.

Helen
shook her head. ‘We are not giving up on Artemesia and Betsy. Grace, this place
is your life. You can’t give up on it now. Perry wouldn’t have wanted us to.’

It was
not a good moment to invoke the dead. More tears followed. I thought it was a
good time to tell them about my telegram.

‘I made
a plan,’ I said. Everyone looked at me. I think sometimes they forgot I was
there. ‘It’s a military thing.

My
father told me. There was this General called Ha Ha Shepherd.’

‘Ha Ha?’
inquired Cosmos.

‘Not now,’
said Miss Strange.

‘No,
really. Anyway, he was supposed to take this bridge from the Germans who were
advancing on it, do you see? So General Shepherd sent a telegram pretending he
was the German colonel, saying don’t worry about reinforcements, I’ve already
taken the bridge. So they never came. You have to pretend that you have already
won when you haven’t. So anyway, I sent one to the news people.’

Sweetheart
looked at me. ‘Sugar, what are you talking about?’

‘Well,
Harry is a Republican, right? And Miss Strange said the elephant was the symbol
of Harry’s party. The Republican elephant? So I sent a telegram to the news
people. I watch it all the time, and they like little funny stories. Sometimes
they show them on Johnny Carson. I sent them a telegram from Harry saying there
was no truth in the rumour he, the Mayor of Sassaspaneck, was trying to destroy
Artemesia, symbol of his party. In fact, he was trying to save her from the
town. As they will never have heard about it I thought it might make them
interested. They might send someone to check it out. Harry would have to stop
and explain himself. I don’t think it would look too good.’

‘A
telegram.’ Miss Strange patted me on the head. I knew she didn’t think it would
work. No one was really paying much attention to me by then. Death was a big,
grown-up thing and I guess they were beginning to think I should go home.

The
fire siren began to blast across the water. Two then four then one. It was the
signal for the zoo.

‘Harry’s
coming,’ said Helen. ‘We have to do something.’

We went
together to the locked entrance gates and waited. Christabel Pankhurst’s words
hung above our heads as we waited. Judith, Helen, Cosmos, Sweetheart, Aunt
Bonnie, Miss Strange, me, the goose and the orangutan. We could hear the wail
of a police car and the big fire truck approaching. Helen was sitting curled up
again. She was scared. We all were.

‘They
can’t get in, right?’ asked Aunt Bonnie. ‘I mean, it is locked?’

‘I can’t
do this, Mother, please,’ implored Judith, looking straight at Miss Strange. ‘Harry’s
my husband. I have…

Miss
Strange looked at all of us.

‘Did
you know,’ she began, ‘that it was a Judith who saved the Jewish people? The
people were under siege so Judith used subterfuge, the subterfuge of a woman.
She flirted with the attacking general, drank him under the table and she and
her maid … what was her name?’

Helen
shrugged.

‘No,’
Miss Strange nodded. ‘History doesn’t like women to have names. Anyway, she and
her maid whacked off the general’s head, stuck it in a picnic basket and
escaped back to the Jewish camp. They staked his head high over the gate so
when soldiers charged the camp they saw their general leering down at them and
ran away. Judith set her maid free and all the women danced in her honour.’

‘We can
hardly put Harry’s head on a pike, can we?’ said Aunt Bonnie, not entirely
averse to the idea. The sirens were right outside now and there was a rattling
at the gate.

Miss
Strange stood up. ‘Maybe not, but we will dance.’

Harry’s
voice boomed out through a megaphone:

‘This
is the Mayor speaking. You are required by Town Ordnance Four Hundred and
Sixty-two to let me in and examine the premises.’ The megaphone fell silent and
you could just hear Harry yelling, ‘Go on, Joey, go on.’ The megaphone burst
back into life. ‘These animals are being held illegally without license and
must be destroyed.’ He had completely flipped out.

Miss
Strange looked at us. She took Judith’s hand and pulled her to her feet. One by
one we moved together to the gate and looked out. Harry was standing on the
fire engine with the lights blazing at us. Either side were two patrol cars and
next to one of them was Joey’s van. Joey looked nervous.

‘Get
your gun, Joey,’ commanded Harry.

Joey
yelled back. ‘I don’t need my gun.’

‘You gonna
do this job or what? Get the fucking gun.’ Joey looked at the gathered men. The
whole of the football team stood lined up behind Harry and the brigade. Other
men from the town had come in pickups, cars and trucks. Mr Torchinsky stood
over to one side next to his hearse. About a hundred men facing the zoo
entrance. Joey opened the back of his van. He reached in and took out a
shotgun. He leaned against the car cradling the gun in his arms.

Miss
Strange spoke quietly to Cosmos. ‘Open the gate.’

‘Are
you sure?’

‘Yes.’

Cosmos
stepped forward and took the chain and padlock from the gate. She pushed the
heavy metal entrance to swing open as Miss Strange turned on the floodlights.
Now Harry and his crew could see what they were up against. Seven females, a goose,
a grey parrot and an orangutan.

‘Give
it up, Grace,’ bellowed Harry. Miss Strange lifted her head and matched his
voice with no megaphone to aid her.

‘You
cannot wins she called to the men. ‘This zoo has been here for forty years and
it’s not going.’

‘This
place is a danger to the community. There are animals missing. Dangerous
foreign animals. You do not know how to control wild creatures. Even as we
speak a government inspector is on the way,’ yelled Harry. ‘You are a threat to
the community.’

‘You will
not touch a single creature,’ replied Miss Strange, standing completely still.

The
bright lights had woken up Girling the Gorilla in his cage behind Miss Strange.
In the unnatural silence he began to beat the bars of his pen and make wild,
threatening noises. Miss Strange calmly removed a plastic ice-cube tray
divider from her pocket and held it aloft. Girling fell silent instantly. It
was a pretty impressive use an ice-cube tray divider. No one really knew what
to do.

‘You
will not harm us,’ said Miss Strange firmly.

‘Yeah?
Says you and whose army?’ called a lone male feeling safe behind the fire
truck.

‘Say I
and great women down through the generations. We shall stand here like Lady
Mary Banks, who held Corfe Castle against parliamentary forces with only her
daughters and gentlewomen to defend her. In charge of our own destiny, like
Queen Adelaide, Queen of Italy and Holy Roman Empress; Princess Aelgifu, ruler
of three countries; Zoe, Empress of the Byzantine; Queen Asma, ruler of Yemen;
Agnes of Courtney, Crusader Queen of Jerusalem; Blanche of Castille, Queen of
all France; Caterina Corner, ruler of Cyprus; Anne of Beaujeau, Queen of the
Bourbons; Grace O’Malley, Irish war leader; Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman …
Sojourner Truth…’ Miss Strange was beginning to fade a little. ‘And…’

Lily
Tomlin,’ added Sweetheart, slightly off the point.

It was
probably the only name Harry recognized. Mr Honk screeched approval at the top
of his raucous voice. He wasn’t perhaps in tune with how serious everyone was, as
he then paraded up and down between the warring factions showing off his
plumage.

‘Come
on, men. Joey, bring the gun.’ Harry moved forward with the football team slow
on his heels.

‘Bollocks,’
called Mr Paton, changing his repertoire for the occasion.

Helen
began to chant in Swahili. I knew she was actually saying, ‘Six drunken
Europeans have killed the cook. Do not pour treacle into the engine,’ but it
sounded very impressive. A deep primal tone which Harry could not fight.

‘Order,’
cried Harry over the noise.

‘We don’t
give a fuck for your order,’ I yelled.

This
caused a moment’s frisson. No one on either side was quite sure that this was
okay. I mean, I was ten. There were those who were perhaps unaware that I was
merely being historical. It was then that we saw the women. Dozens of them,
some walking, some in cars, all moving up the drive to the zoo. Some carried
candles and others had children with them. They moved silently but with great
purpose. Judith looked at them and then at her husband. In a calm, dignified
and loud voice she began to speak.

‘Remember
the dignity of your womanhood.

Do not
appeal, do not beg, do not grovel. Take courage, join hands, stand beside us.
Fight with us.’

Harry
turned and looked. The women of the town moved without speaking. They walked
silently past the engine and the police cars, past the men and the young
football squad. As they walked, the men parted and quietly let them in the
gates of the zoo. Standing in front of Mr Girling, Mr Kruger and Mr Goss, who
all paced in their cages, the women began to hold hands. The world was being
destroyed and we were in a cosmic dream. The women stood united, facing the
men. It was a powerful moment. Better even than press-ups in the wind.

‘Come
on, men,’ yelled Harry with some desperation but no one moved. Harry jumped
down from the fire truck and moved slowly toward us. As he came through the
gates, Sappho, not aware of the tension of the moment, reached out and flipped
his boater off his head. Harry was incandescent with rage. He leaped backward
screaming, ‘See, see. That animal is dangerous. It’s out of control.’

It
probably didn’t help that a few people actually laughed.

‘Joey!
Joey!’ Harry sounded like a desperate little boy. ‘Joey, do your duty. For
Christ’s sake! Go on, you nancy idiot.’

Joey
moved forward carrying a large net. He looked ridiculous. Sappho reached out
and flipped that away too. Then the orangutan picked the net up and started
after Joey. All the men laughed as Joey ran back to his van. He was humiliated.
He began loading his gun and organizing ammunition. Harry started screaming.

‘Can’t
you do anything, you ridiculous asshole?’

Joey
was sweating now. ‘Don’t call me that. I am not ridiculous.’

‘You’ve
always been ridiculous, you dwarf. You can’t do anything right. Look at you,
you’re nothing. You think people in this town aren’t laughing at you? The dog
catcher who thinks he can be mayor. You’re not even a good dog catcher. You’re
a coward, Joey. You can’t deal with more than a goddamn poodle. No wonder you
never married, huh, Joey? Who the hell would have you? Judith didn’t want you,
did she? Did she?’

Joey
had begun weeping. ‘I stood by you, Harry. In school when they teased you, I
was always there for you. You knew Judith was mine. You knew that and you took
her from me. Helen didn’t want you so you took Judith. You weren’t good enough
for Billie’s daughter.’ Joey pushed his way through the throng to his van,
where he stood holding his gun and sobbing.