Elephant Bangs Train

by William Kotzwinkle

  Elephant Bangs Train

  William Kotzwinkle

  CORGI BOOKS

  A DIVISION OF TRANSWORLD PUBLISHERS LTD

  WILLIAM KOTZWINKLE is a former department store Santa Claus who has taken leave of his senses to write a remarkable series of short stories. His imaginative command of character and atmosphere is astonishing. In a few lines we are deep in the world of an Indian mahout, or a Siberian peasant, or a mountie in Edwardian Canada; and the more day-to-day stories of childhood are full of deprecating humour and sly, appealing humility. His world is peopled with legendary figures from all times and places—including St. John Noonday who lied to men, women, animals, inanimate objects, 'was master of the small lie of little consequence; was proficient in the long convoluted lie in which vast systems of falsehood spiralled, minutely detailed, leading nowhere'; and Wood Flower, living in a narrow cobbled lane beside Yellow River, whose 'walk was perfect, having been trained in the school of Han Tan; her eyebrows, green slivered moons, rose above the magic pools of her eyes, in which both dragon and kissing fish swam.'

  ELEPHANT BANGS TRAIN

  A CORGI BOOK 0 552 10941 X

  First published in Great Britain by Faber & Faber Ltd.

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Faber edition published 1971

  Corgi edition published 1979

  Copyright © 1969, 1970, 1971 by William Kotzwinkle

  Corgi Books are published by Transworld Publishers Ltd.,

  Century House, 61-63 Uxbridge Road, Ealing, London, W5 5SA

  Made and printed in Great Britain by

  Richard Clay (The Chaucer Press), Ltd., Bungay, Suffolk.

  Marie first appeared in New Orleans Review, Spring 1969

  Turning Point first appeared in Armadillo, Autumn 1970

  Follow the Eagle first appeared in Redbook, April 1971

  Lines from 'Long Tall Sally' by E. Johnson and R. Penniman are reprinted by permission of the publisher

  Copyright © 1965 by Venice Music, Inc.

  CONTENTS

  A Most Incredible Meal

  Marie

  Follow the Eagle

  The Doorman

  The Bird Watcher

  The Jewel of Amitaba

  Nippy

  Elephant Bangs Train

  The Magician

  Turning Point

  Tiger Bridge

  Stroke of Good Luck: A True Nurse Romance

  The Trap

  Soldier in the Blanket

  The Great Liar

  Elephant's Graveyard

  For Elizabeth

  with thanks to Bob Shiarella

  'Somewhere there was once a Flower, a Stone, a Crystal, a Queen, a King, a Palace, a Lover and his Beloved, and this was long ago, on an Island somewhere in the ocean five thousand years ago . . . Such is Love, the Mystic Flower of the soul. This is the Centre, the Self . . .'

  Jung to Miguel Serrano

  A Record of Two Friendships

  A Most Incredible Meal

  IN 1843, a Siberian woodcutter, Alexei Bulnovka, while walking homeward in the moonlight, noticed a deep shadow in a mountain of ice. The wind howled, stinging and freezing his face. He'd been thinking of a fire, food and his bed, but dropping to his hands and knees, he crawled along the frozen hillside, trying to determine the nature and size of the dark shape within it.

  The moon was nearly full. The woodcutter swung his axe. Three strokes were enough to crack the ice. Bulnovka knelt and reached into the opening with his bare hand. His fingers touched coarse stiff hair. He scraped away the clinging ice until he uncovered beneath the hair, a toe, large as a fist, hard as stone.

  He looked around the frozen hill, caught in a cold wave of fear that iced his spirit. Yet as in that terrible moment when a great tree is falling, he felt a surging joy.

  He began to chop. The ice broke, slid away. He uncovered a foot, enormous, with the stone toenails of a giant. Whose foot, he dared not imagine. He knew only that he had to free the creature from its icy grave.

  He struck with his axe, again and again, and soon his body was drenched with sweat. He was a powerful man, his blows were shattering; yet his limbs were like twigs compared to the hairy leg which was slowly revealed beneath his strokes, a leg like the trunk of a hundred-year-oak. With woodcutter's precision, he aimed his axe so that it fragmented the ice, but did not wound the flesh frozen beneath.

  The night passed on, but he'd lost track of time. He'd been a steady fellow, quiet and unfulfilled. Now he was intoxicated with discovery, and all that he had ever been, boy, young man, husband and father, seemed to culminate in this task of liberation.

  He did not tire as he worked, but like the sculptor, quickly learned the technique of making those blows which fracture deep cavities in stone, and huge slides of ice fell away with echoing cracks.

  He cut steps and mounted upward on the ice, chopping through to the creature's haunches, which were big as oxen. His joy was great, he made songs.

  What were the courts of the Czar compared to this, the hidden treasure? He strode across the glistening ledge of ice, striking boldly. What were troops, and horses, compared to this, the gigantus?

  A massive chunk of ice fell away and there, staring coldly at him, was an eye, shining in the moonlight like a jewel. Removing his glove, he touched the small frozen pupil. Like all men, he'd nourished the idea of a miracle, but now he knew, his companion was dead. The eye was open; the expression, a mournful one, was still there, but the great spirit had fled. Alexei Bulnovka was alone.

  He continued chopping, and slowly the top of the head appeared, a terrific mass of bone and flesh, covered by a shaggy mane. He stood upon it in the falling snow, facing the eastern sky, and knew his first moment of doubt. Might it not be better to let the snow reclaim its prisoner? The beast, whatever it was, was dead, preserved like a precious saint. Who was he to disturb its sleep?

  He staggered down the icy staircase he'd constructed, and looked into the beady frozen eye. He longed to see the face of this creature. Decisively, he struck a blow between and just below the eyes, parting the ice around a long protuberance, like a giant's arm.

  He looked up at the sky, questioning the stars. He struck again. The side of his axe collided with something hard, like bone. Knocking away the ice, he saw that it was not a bone, but a long curling tooth, like the Saracen sword, and then he knew he'd found the grandfather of elephants and he chopped with fury through the night.

  As the grey morning came, Alexei Bulnovka's axe had revealed the head, forequarters, and mid-section of the beast. The mastodon stood erect, except for the right front leg, which was bent, as if in kneeling. Bulnovka knelt beside it, resting his feverish head against the frozen flesh.

  A dream he had as a child erupted in his mind—he'd been walking across a frozen lake and seen below, frozen in the ice, a diamond. Here was that diamond, he realized, risen from the waters of time, and he wept, knowing that this night had been, after all, the one moment of his life.

  The work Alexei Bulnovka had performed alone in the night became public property with the dawn. As when the grave of the Redeemer was opened and the flame of his rising body touched every heart, so the lifting of the icy shroud was seen in a dream by the oldest woman of nearby Solmuchkava, as the sleepy village awakened restlessly to its most glorious dawn.

  Barking dogs led the way to the mastodon and the men of the village followed with their axes, along with the women and old Petroyuv the priest, who sprinkled holy water on the beast and gave Alexei Bulnovka the sacred host in the snow. In a few hours the carcass was fully loosed from its glacial sarcophagus and was claimed by Count Ivan Fyodorvich Musov, whose team of superb black horses
was dwarfed in the shadow of the mastodon.

  Count Musov was, momentarily, speechless, and walked quietly around the great beast, slapping lightly once with his whip the kneeling leg.

  News of Count Musov's find was quickly carried to the city of Svobodny, where, within the following hour, a train for Solmuchkava was boarded by Rushov, a physician of the Czar, and Nyam Gogoli, a wandering poet who convinced the conductor that in the interest of Russian literature he should be allowed to ride for free to the site of the primeval grave.

  Doctor and poet arrived at the grave site by late afternoon, when makeshift tents and cook-stoves were dotting the ice, and the men of the village were in counsel with Count Musov about the removal of the body.

  Seeing the beast, Gogoli the poet was seized by vertigo, as if he'd been hurled from a mountain of the moon. Rushov the physician declared the mastodon to be a female and suggested to Count Musov that it be removed to Moscow. But how could it be moved? There was no railroad car big enough to handle her, and now that her snowsuit had been removed, she would soon begin to melt.

  However, the mastodon was still frozen solid and stood unwavering in the snow, eyes staring out over the once-silent tundra, which was now filled with spectators.

  The logistics of movement were grappled with by Count Musov and the village men. The hero of the night, Alexei Bulnovka, could not be consulted, as he lay inside a tent, covered in blankets brought by the women, who watched over his deep and dreamless sleep.

  There was no team of horses strong enough to draw the mastodon over the fifteen miles to Count Musov's castle, not if every horse in Solmuchkava were harnessed to her carcass. The only way of moving her was in pieces. So the question was, which piece?

  Ultimately, the head was decided upon, because of the fine-tooled ivory which Count Musov envisioned in his main gallery. The physician of the Czar instructed the men as to where the easiest cutting would be, and as night fell the woodsmen took their axes to the great neck and in the flickering firelight began to chop away, to no avail. The flesh was harder than Russian oak.

  Saws were brought and manned by teams in the moonlight, but progress was pitiably slow. Finally, it was decided among the men that they should wait until the thawing of the beast had begun. The workmen retired to the village for the night; Count Musov and the Czar's physician rode off to the castle. Still sleeping, Alexei Bulnovka was carried home on a sled, pulled by Gogoli the poet. The woodcutter was attended through the night by his wife and daughter, who sat up over a glowing samovar; the poet dropped off to sleep in a chair, into dreams of a tropical rain forest, where stampeded the pachyderms of paradise.

  Dawn came once again on the ancient hulk, bathing her in sunlight. The village teams returned, as did the Count, and his wife, the beautiful Katerina Dupinovna, who'd been given a thorough examination that morning, following her bath, by the physician of the Czar, who declared her pulse to be normal, in spite of the excitement.

  The woodcutter and the poet had been first to arrive, and now stood watching the industry of the men. The work was proceeding satisfactorily, as drops of blood could be seen on the neck of the mastodon where the sabre-toothed saws were cutting through the hide, now softer and more yielding.

  'I was a fool,' said Bulnovka, cursing himself.

  'You held her in the moonlight,' said the poet.

  At noon the spinal column was cracked, and the tendons of the neck severed. The ice was bathed in blood, and the great head dropped off. The ivory tusks rested in the snow like the runners of a sleigh. A horse was hitched to each one and over the ice field the head rode, eyes open, towards the castle of Count Musov.

  'Might I suggest,' said the physician, indicating the flank of the beast, 'that you now carve steaks?'

  The men of the village worked skilfully, cutting off great hunks of flesh, which were then salted, wrapped, and taken immediately to the castle. The Count was not ungenerous. Each man received a cut of meat larger than his own torso, as did Father Petroyuv for himself and his housekeeper.

  In the afternoon, under the mournful gaze of Alexei Bulnovka, the kneeling leg collapsed and the mastodon tumbled over, as the workmen leapt from their posts, and bloody axes flew in the air.

  'A banquet tonight!' shouted Count Musov, waving to the woodcutter and the poet. The poet nodded his head. The woodcutter stared out over the frozen field.

  The feet of the beast were chopped off and loaded into Count Musov's sleigh, as the sun set behind the icy mountain range. The remaining fragments were left in the snow, unattended, except for small birds who searched the hair for ancient fleas.

  Bulnovka and the poet walked towards the village.

  'I'll not sit at his table,' said the woodcutter.

  'My dear fellow,' said the poet, 'you must see the final curtain.'

  The poet prevailed and that night a horse and sleigh were borrowed from the blacksmith. The two men set out for the castle, riding in silence across the glistening fields, past the dimly lit church where Father Petroyuv knelt alone.

  Upon the altar, between two candles, was a piece of bone from the kneeling leg of the mammoth. 'O Ghost,' prayed the old priest, 'forgive us.' He ran his fingers along the bone, then removing his high stiff hat, leaned his grey head over and laid a kiss upon the cold smooth surface.

  Fires burned in the Count's courtyard, and the air was filled with the shouts of men and the music of stringed instruments. Bulnovka and the poet were led into the main gallery to a huge table surrounded by guests and filled with jugs of vodka. The Count and his beloved Katerina Dupinovna sat at the head, and Musov raised his glass to greet the latest arrivals to his table.

  'The hero of Solmuchkava!' toasted the Count, and those at the table cheered drunkenly as Bulnovka and the poet took their seats. Spirits were high; the transparent drink of fire had stoked every heart. 'Come, Bulnovka,' said the poet, clicking his glass against that of the woodcutter, who drained his cup with a sudden and startling ferociousness.

  Count Musov stood, waved his hand in the air. Katerina Dupinovna clapped her small white hands. Silence fell in the room. 'We have a treat in store for us,' said the Count, eyes glazed with glory. 'I have opened the oldest wine. It is only fitting.' The Count's servants entered with a large cask. 'I am told,' he smiled, 'that in China they eat thousand-year-old eggs. Tonight Count Musov's guests shall dine on a beast—how old do you estimate it to be, Doctor?'

  The Doctor rose precariously, supporting himself with one hand on the back of his chair. 'At least two thousand years,' he said drunkenly, and slid back down.

  'At least two thousand years,' said the Count in a solemn echo, and gestured to his kitchen. The servants entered once again, bearing an enormous piece of meat on a silver platter, which they set in the middle of the long wooden table. 'I shall carve,' said the Count, and the plates of the guests, noble men and women from as far as Krasnoyar, were filled, each with a large red-running piece of the mammoth.

  The Count, still standing, bowed his head.

  'We thank Thee for this bountiful table,' he said, and stabbing a piece of meat on the end of his knife, held it in the air for a moment, then dropped it in his mouth.

  The table burst into applause and the doctor rose in his seat. 'More ice!' he shouted, waving his glass. He fell back in his chair, laughing to himself. He'd watched the cook's men beating the meat with mallets.

  The poet disliked the flesh of any beast or fish, but tonight he was gripped by a dark hunger. He laid a piece of the ancient meat on his tongue, and chewed into it.

  The woodcutter stared at his plate, unable to recall the song he'd sung in the moonlight.

  'A most incredible meal,' said the Count, slicing through the roast with his ivory-handled knife.

  'Superb, my darling,' said his wife, nibbling with little white teeth. Upstairs, the maids were braiding her a wig of hair from the mammoth.

  'We have indeed been blessed,' said the doctor, laying his hand in the la
p of the young woman beside him, who seemed not to notice it had landed there, so professional were the good doctor's learned fingers. 'More ice, my dear?' he asked, dropping a glistening chunk into the young lady's glass, followed by more of the clear, inflaming potion. Vodka, thought the doctor, his brain reeling, is a supernatural drink.

  The poet's eyes were closed. His arms were pressed back in his chair and he had surrendered. The primeval meat was in him now, and his soul was dancing.

  Count Musov chewed heroically on the rubbery flesh. What a beast! And herds of them once, with their ivory bayonets. A sudden surge of power raced through his body, thrilling him, and then suddenly, his head felt heavy, as if it were made of stone.

  'You look as if you'd swallowed the thousand-year-old egg, my dear,' said his wife with a smile, sucking the meaty juices off her fingers.

  The three musicians plucked out the mood from their corner of the hall. They'd eaten and drunk and now they pursued the mammoth's ghost, constructing chords they'd never known before, weaving dark songs to capture her.

  Alexei Bulnovka pushed back his plate, stood, and walking to the head of the table, contemplated driving the ivory-handled knife of Count Musov into his own heart, then considered driving it into Count Musov.

  'Well, woodcutter, what is it?' joked the Count. 'Is there some trophy you would like, the tail, perhaps?'

  Bulnovka turned and walked out of the hall, as the beautiful Katerina Dupinovna burst into laughter.

  'These men of the fields,' Count Musov explained to his guests, 'they're made of ice.'

  The poet sank in his chair, down past broken temples, and the scattered pots of civilization, down past the tribes of men, and down, until all trace of humanity was eclipsed and there was only the trumpeting of beasts, and all belonged to them, and still he hurtled down, through the gates of dawn.

  'Delicious, delicious,' said the doctor, laying his head on his plate and closing his eyes to rest in the primal gravy.