Whistling for the Elephants Read online

  ‘Hello, my old friend,’ she said quietly to the giant beast. ‘Have you got a new home?’ She spoke gently to the four hundred pounds of muscle. Through the bars the bright colour of Rajan’s coat stood out. He was stunning. Billie moved to unlock the door. John suddenly became nervous. He had never been nervous before, but Billie had never been his wife before.

  ‘Don’t you need your whip?’ he called.

  Billie smiled at him. ‘You have to balance fear and respect, John. A beaten child has only fear.’ Then, just as she was about to open the door, she leaned toward her new husband and whispered, ‘I’m pregnant.’

  Before John could say a word, Billie stepped into the cage and locked the door behind her. She faced the tiger square on as Rajan padded as far from her as possible. Billie moved slowly, reaching her hand out gently toward the top of its head. She had done this a hundred times. The drunken crowd was completely silent. This slender bride in white matched against one of Nature’s furies. It was good entertainment, till the tiger spoiled it. He must have wound the muscles in his legs like the spring in Mlle Zazel’s cannon. One minute he was standing there and the next he was on Billie. Grace was the only person who moved. Without thinking she was in the cage and on the back of the tiger. Somehow, by surprise or luck, she managed to release Billie from its grasp. Blood ran from Billie’s arm, a scarlet cloak across her white wedding wear. Finally John was able to move, and he pulled his wife from the cage, but now the tiger turned to Grace. Grace inched her way round the cage toward the door. The tiger was playing with her. At first it seemed it was going to let her go. Then, as she approached the door, it reached out with one massive paw. The rip into her flesh started at the top of the right side of her head. It tore through her skin, from her hair down her temple and across her cheek. The destruction had no end as the claws reached her shoulder and then down, shredding, tearing, slicing, destroying her right arm and hand. The right side of Grace’s body pulled for ever down and down. A single shot from Captain Bogardus finished the horror. The tiger was dead.

  As the tiger slumped to the floor Phoebe rose in her chair, trying to reach Grace. As she did so her body pitched forward and then back. For a moment Phoebe moved like a dancer. She was beautiful, poised between dropping and recovery, between balance and uncontrolled falling. An arc of death. Then, finally, she slumped into young Harry’s arms and she was gone.

  Joey sat completely still in the empty room as the people of the past moved around us. At last I asked him:

  ‘How come you were there, Joey?’

  ‘I was Harry’s best friend.’

  Chapter Eleven

  Joey and I parted in the house with some awkwardness. I don’t know who was more embarrassed by the unexpected encounter. To be honest it had probably been a little too intimate for both of us. He went off to look for Miss Strange and get ‘dog details’ while I went to find the others. I was pretty sure Joey and I could rely on each other never to mention our conversation again.

  It had been a revelation, though. Miss Strange was Grace. She had been beautiful. She had turned from Grace to Strange. I thought about seeing her in the ice-cream store and I wanted to die right then and there. I had no place on any list of any kind.

  When I arrived at the field everyone was busy getting ready for Artemesia. Something extraordinary was in the air. Happiness was filling the place, and it seemed to be contagious because it wasn’t just the humans. The sun shone under the clearest blue sky and as soon as I came in the gate I knew things were good. Right at the entrance Girling the Gorilla greeted everyone with his particular song. It was a happy sound, somewhere between dog whining and human singing. He would munch on an apple and when Cosmos came to feed him he put his arm round her and sang even louder. Sweetheart and Perry couldn’t stop laughing at the bonobo chimps. They played endless solitary games of blind man’s bluff. The small chimps would cover their eyes with a leaf, or their fingers or arm, and stagger about the climbing frame.

  I knew then that I never wanted to leave there. This was my family now. This was where I would find my rainbow bridge. I tried to put Mother out of my mind. She wasn’t well. I couldn’t bear to be in the house. There was a new quiet. A silent drowning. I just stayed at the zoo where we were busy. We were getting on with the job. Doing what women do best — working by instinct. Cosmos said it was the best way.

  ‘There’s a lot more to instinct like, than men think, you know,’ she explained to anyone who would listen. ‘Women’s intuition is like, excellent. I mean, imagine you’re in space, okay?, and this like, meteorite or whatever is coming at you, then your problem is A, the meteorite, right? Now the answer to getting out of the way may be D, but you don’t have time to go A then B then C therefore D. What you need is the intuition which tells you D right away.’ Cosmos said it was a special strength in women. Anyhow, it was that summer.

  We worked all day preparing and digging the holes for the new enclosure. Around lunch, Gabriel arrived with the Jacobson’s tow-truck. He had come most days. He would lash three or four of the metal rails together and haul them over the field. There we put them in upright about every two foot or so. Gabriel didn’t say much but we couldn’t have done it without him. We needed that much brutal strength on our side. He worked for a while without a word and then, as he turned to go, he just said the one word, ‘Welding,’ and was gone. Not one of the world’s great communicators. We didn’t pay that much attention to him because a strange thing had started to happen.

  Women, other women from the town, had begun turning up. Now you have to remember the Sassaspaneck Zoo wasn’t exactly the local hotspot. But Harry talked about the zoo all the time in his electioneering and I guess it put the place in people’s minds. Or maybe they just heard about our building work. I don’t know. Anyhow, at first there was just a couple of onlookers and then gradually more and more women came. Usually around lunchtime. Some would bring sandwiches and just sit and watch us work. Cosmos said we were becoming the zoo’s most successful exhibit. But soon others were helping out a little or getting drinks for the workers. No one said anything about it but the workforce just kind of grew. I think after a while everyone had heard about the elephant coming, and all those women who normally sat home or went to the store wanted to see. There was Hubert Thomas’s wife Ingrid, and Doreen Angelletta whose husband Tony ran the pizza parlour, and even Mrs Torchinsky stopped her coffin-polishing to come over. I don’t know why. Maybe it was just something so out of the ordinary. The whole town must have been getting dusty because no one seemed to be home doing housework any more. Ganesh was providing for us big-time.

  Perry was in heaven. He was such a cute kid. He’d been hidden out at the big house and at the zoo, so no one in town had really met him before. He was kind of a clown and made all the women laugh all the time. All day he raced around from one new game to another. Then he would suddenly plump down on the lap of one of the women and go straight to sleep. They loved him but there was never any talk about his grandparents or his mom. Me and Perry were about the only kids in town. Everyone old enough had gone to camp. Maybe we were a novelty.

  Time was running out so we worked even harder. Miss Strange was in charge although no one ever said so. No one said much of anything. We worked when she worked and stopped when she did. This curious half-woman led the way. Artemesia was due on the Tuesday and it was Sunday when Joey and I had had our talk. It was that same evening that Aunt Bonnie and Judith pitched up. They hadn’t come to help. Judith looked real thin. Thin like Aunt Bonnie, not corset-thin. She was dressed as coordinated as ever but somehow it wasn’t working. She still had insanely high heels on but her mountain of hair had suffered something of an avalanche down one side. Everything about her looked a little untucked. Miss Strange kind of started when she saw Judith. Aunt Bonnie was sort of leading her. It sure didn’t look like she wanted to be here. Miss Strange moved forward and I thought for a minute she was going to kiss Judith hello but she didn’t.

  ‘You
haven’t been,’ she said quietly. Troilus, the widowed goose, began making little whimpering noises. I don’t think he wanted the distraction from his grief. It should have been his moment.

  ‘I can’t drive. Really, I can’t drive.’ Judith never looked at Miss Strange. She just kept looking at the ground. This was not the Welcome Wagon woman I had first met. She didn’t have any bounce in her at all. I doubted she would ever carry a green cake again.

  ‘I drove her over. She’s a little shaky.’ Aunt Bonnie dragged the life out of a cigarette and looked at the morose goose. I don’t think she was much for animals but it’s not often you look at a goose and think instantly of therapy rather than stuffing. Aunt Bonnie looked away and rather stiffly patted Judith on the arm. She talked to her like one of her kids late with a book report.

  ‘Go on. Get it over with.’

  Judith looked everywhere except at Miss Strange. I had got so used to Miss Strange’s face that I never noticed it any more. That’s just how she was. Now Judith seemed to make all of us look at the disfigured right side just because she wouldn’t. It was horrible. Judith obviously had a short speech prepared but her heart wasn’t in it. She just said it like she had learned it for school.

  ‘Harry asked me to come. He will win, you know. He wants the stadium. The town needs a stadium.’

  Miss Strange wasn’t taking any nonsense. ‘That’s not why Harry wants to close the zoo and you know it.’

  Judith was beginning to falter. ‘Everyone will vote for him and you’ll have to go. If you can’t do it for the town then at least do it … for the family. I still own the land.’

  ‘You and Helen own the land. This is your history, Judith. What are you doing? Honey, I …’ It would be a stretch to call Miss Strange soft, but she did have kind of a soft look on her face with Judith. She moved toward her as Sweetheart strolled over from the house with Perry on her hip. Judith looked up at her grandson for a second and then trailed off with:

  ‘You can’t win.

  There was no conviction in her voice. The other women from town had started to arrive for the day and everyone stood around looking at her. After she finished speaking there was silence. Troilus took the moment to shuffle forward. Whether he wanted sympathy or simply couldn’t stand any more from some unseen injury, he chose to put his head on Judith’s knee. Apart from his whimpering it was very quiet.

  Aunt Bonnie dragged on her Virginia Slim. You could hear the air sucking through’ the menthol. Troilus sobbed. Finally Aunt Bonnie asked, ‘What’s wrong with the goose?’ Miss Strange didn’t say so I volunteered.

  ‘A dog killed its mate. It’s … sad.’ I looked at Miss Strange. I didn’t know if that was okay. If a goose could be sad. It didn’t matter because Judith burst into tears. Then all the women did what women do. They cooed and clucked and someone went to make iced tea. Miss Strange and Cosmos kind of stood on the outside of it all then they went back to work in the field. Judith could hardly contain herself She was worse than the goose. They howled together. Sappho, the orangutan, who had been sitting in a corner, looked away in disgust. It was then that Joey arrived at the field in his full dog-catcher regalia. Judith saw him show up and howled even louder. I felt sorry for him. He was obviously having a day of females crying.

  ‘I came about the dog,’ he said. The women all looked at him. ‘Miss Strange called me.’ Judith sobbed on. Troilus, having found a soul mate in sorrow, hung over Judith’s knee, abject with grief Joey shuffled his small feet on the ground, stepping first toward Judith and then away.

  ‘Oh God, Judith, don’t cry. I’ll get the dog. No goose-killing dog is going to last in this neighbourhood. Judith!’ Joey ineffectually reached out a plump arm toward woman and bird and I saw then that he had it — the rainbow bridge, for Judith. I think everyone saw it because suddenly everyone was very busy with their work. Mortified by his day, Joey began frantically pacing out the yard. He paused for a moment in his deliberation, gave a kind of contained nod in Judith’s direction and turned to me.

  ‘Are you able to tell me when exactly this crime had its perpetration? Do you have any leads as to possible dog species involvement?’

  They were probably good questions but I wasn’t the person to answer them. I had no idea.

  ‘Don’t you worry, young woman.’ He came quite close to patting me on the head but stopped in time for both of us. ‘I’ll get the varmint,’ and I was sure he would. Troilus had not allowed anyone near the body of his deceased partner, but he made way for Joey’s official examination. Joey examined the neck for teethmarks and checked everywhere for footprints. He was very thorough. All the time Judith sat watching him with Troilus draped inconsolably across her knee.

  Some two hours later, Judith was still seated on a hay bale outside the barn. Sweetheart was organizing snacks and Aunt Bonnie had taken over playing with Perry. The two of them were having a wonderful time. Aunt Bonnie had hung up an old tire in the barn and she and Perry couldn’t stop laughing. They were playing at being monkeys and kept pretending to pick bugs off each other.

  ‘Ugh, ugh.’ Aunt Bonnie came towards Perry like Girling the Gorilla. He shrieked with laughter and swung out of the way on his tire. Judith’s face leaked tears. I don’t think she would have had the energy to go unless someone had carried her out. I guess with her kids at camp Aunt Bonnie didn’t really have a reason to go home. Anyhow, they both stayed.

  It was the hottest and probably the hardest day. The uprights for the enclosure were all dug in now. There were just the crossbars left to do. The women humped and heaved the last of the track pieces into the places they would eventually go. Everyone was waiting for Gabriel to come back. He returned in his truck. He was wearing tight white jeans, a white singlet and no shoes. He leaped down from the cab like some knight from his white horse. It was ridiculous.

  ‘God almighty, look at those muscles,’ whispered Mrs Torchinsky through her moustache.

  ‘I may work all day,’ answered Ingrid, who had been ready to quit.

  They weren’t alone. All the women went quite gooey. Stupid, I thought. From the back of his truck Gabriel took down a big gas tank, some piping and a large metal mask. He smiled at everyone, aware of his performance, and then began calling out instructions. While the women heaved and held the solid metal, he began to weld the crosspieces into place. In his white sleeveless T-shirt and with that glass and metal mask with blue and purple sparks flying around him he looked like a god. An unobtainable god. All afternoon long he gave off this incredible aura. The women worked harder and harder. Women who had never done anything manual without rubber gloves and a Brillo pad lifted metal into place and stood under a shower of sparks.

  Up at the barn, Joey continued with his job, examining every nook and cranny of the crime scene. A couple of times Miss Strange had passed by the barn but she and Judith never said a word to each other. I think Miss Strange wanted to but Judith just looked away. By nightfall, the enclosure was nearly finished. After a sandwich lunch Sweetheart had moved on to organizing dinner. Doreen Angelletta had called Tony at the pizza parlour and Sweetheart had been to collect. There was pizza for everybody in the barn. It was getting dark now and maybe twenty or more women had got together for the food.

  There probably hadn’t been a gathering of women in the town like this for years. Certainly it was the first one with a disconsolate goose present. Judith sat silently, matching her body language to the drooping bird. They were in hell together. Out in the field, the sparks from Gabriel’s work continued to splinter the air.

  ‘God, he’s gorgeous,’ announced Mrs Torchinsky, looking out through the barn doors. ‘And I seen a lot of fellas.’

  ‘Yeah, but they’ve mostly been dead,’ laughed Ingrid from behind a piece of Sicilian.

  Aunt Bonnie sat on a bale with Perry. She was playing some counting game with him. They kept laughing. It seemed weird to me that she was so good with kids and yet she sent her own away for the summer. I’d have stayed with her.
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  ‘You be a horse again, Aunt Bonnie,’ he cried as the game moved on. In the distance the fire siren sounded but no one moved or even counted the blasts.

  ‘I haven’t worked this hard since I gave birth to the twins,’ grinned Doreen Angelletta.

  Sweetheart handed out drinks in Dixie cups. I kept thinking how my Mother would enjoy that. The Dixie cups.

  Doreen sighed. ‘I think I’m in love,’ she declared as Joey passed by outside. There was a general shriek of disbelief.

  ‘With Joey Amorato?’

  ‘Ergh, you’d never get the dog hairs off your clothes. Ain’t that right, Judith?’

  ‘How you ever chose between him and Harry I’ll never know.

  Everyone laughed. Doreen was chanting through a crack in the barn door. ‘Gabriel, oh Gabriel!’

  ‘What’s the matter, Doreen? Ain’t your Tony coming up with the goods?’ called one of the women.

  ‘Sure,’ said Doreen. ‘Once a year on New Year’s Eve after Guy Lombardo’s been on the TV. God forbid that Lombardo man ever dies, my married life will be over.’

  ‘New Year’s Eve, you’re lucky,’ said another woman. ‘The only person who touches me is my hairdresser.’

  Helen slipped in through the barn doors. When she saw how many people there were she tried to leave again but Miss Strange gently grabbed her arm and moved her into a corner.

  ‘I lit the fire,’ Helen said quietly and curled away. Cosmos was explaining one of her theories to a few of the women. She clutched a piece of paper earnestly as she spoke.

  ‘You see, you have to find your place in the cosmos. Like, it might not be here.’

  I nodded. ‘You mustn’t be an Et cetera,’ I said, which I thought was the worst on my list.

  ‘For God’s sake, Cosmos, you do talk some talk sometimes,’ said Doreen.