The Elephant's Tale

by Lauren St. John

  There was the briefest of pauses. “Not only did he not come back that day, he never came back at all. That was a year ago.”

  Martine stared at him in horror. “You mean, he just vanished without a trace?”

  Gift focused on the road. “Without a trace. We sent our best trackers out to search for him and they didn’t find so much as a footprint.”

  Martine’s heart ached for him. It was bad enough when you did know what had happened to your parents. It had to be a thousand times worse having no idea.

  “What did the police say?” Ben asked.

  “They think he was eaten by some wild animal. They don’t suspect foul play. My father was one of the most loved men in our tribe. He was an elephant whisperer.”

  “I’ve heard of horse whisperers,” Ben said, “men and women who have a special gift for communicating with wild or traumatized horses. But what is an elephant whisperer? Surely you’d be trampled to death if you tried to whisper in the ear of a wild African elephant?”

  Gift reached into his pocket and took out his wallet. He tossed it to Martine. “Show Ben the photo inside.”

  Martine slipped the photo out of its sleeve and she and Ben studied it. It showed a San Bushman like the ones she’d seen in books. He was standing between two elephants. The female elephant had her trunk curled around his waist, and he had one hand resting on her trunk and one on the tusk of a massive bull elephant. His face was radiant with happiness.

  “Those are wild elephants.”

  Martine studied the picture again. “You mean, they’re wild elephants that have been tamed?”

  “No, they’re totally wild. They’d gore you or me without blinking.”

  “But how is that possible?” Martine returned the photo to its sleeve and handed the wallet back to Gift.

  He put it in his pocket. “When my father was four years old, the San camp was raided by desert elephants. There was a drought and they were looking for food. During the raid, he was snatched by one of the elephants. My grandparents assumed he’d been dragged away and killed, but three months later he was found alive and well and living quite happily with a herd of elephants. They rescued him with great difficulty, and were shocked to find he was reluctant to come home.

  “Ever since, he has been able to communicate with elephants. Whether they know him or not, they seem to accept him as one of their own. Or, at least, they did before he disappeared. People think I’m out of my mind, but I believe that the elephants would not have allowed anything to happen to him. I’m positive that I will find him one day and he’ll be living with elephants. I miss him so much.”

  “If it’s any consolation, I know how you feel,” Martine told him.

  “No offense,” Gift answered shortly, “but a kid like you couldn’t possibly understand how I feel.”

  The car went quiet after that. They were passing a line of low, golden dunes that looked airbrushed and unreal, like a backdrop in a film set. Soon after that, they reached the little town of Swakopmond. Suddenly the sparkling sea was before them. Palm trees lined the beach.

  The Germans had built Swakopmond during their occupation of Namibia, and the town looked a bit like a German film set. The architecture was German and the buildings spotlessly clean and prettily painted. The roads had names like Hendrik Witbool Street and Luderitz Street. Martine also spotted the Bismark Medical Center.

  She nudged Ben. Leaning forward, he said, “Thanks for the ride, Gift. You’ve saved our lives. I don’t know what we’d have done if you hadn’t come along. We owe you. But we can manage on our own from now on. If you drop us somewhere around here, we’ll find a phone and call our friends.”

  “Sure,” responded Gift, but instead of pulling over he stamped hard on the accelerator. He swerved around another car, made a dangerous turn at the lights, and screeched to a halt in front of the police station.

  Ben grabbed at the door handle, but it was locked.

  “Sorry about that, but I couldn’t afford to take any chances,” Gift told him. “You seem like nice kids, but it’s obvious you’ve told me a pack of lies about your so-called friends and their plane and their holiday. You’ve got thirty seconds to tell me the truth or I’m turning you in to the police.”

  16

  A couple of lean, mean policemen, their hands resting casually on their gun belts strolled past the four-wheel drive. One of them turned as he passed and cast a suspicious eye over the vehicle and its passengers.

  Martine’s blood pressure went through the roof as she imagined her grandmother receiving a phone call in England to say that her granddaughter and Ben were in jail in Swakopmond, charged with stowing away on a private plane and entering Namibia illegally and without passports.

  “You’re right, Gift,” she said. “We haven’t been honest with you. We had a fight with our families and we ran away. We’ve learned our lesson, though, and we just want to call them, say sorry, and go home.”

  Gift opened the glove compartment and took out a cell phone. “What’s the number? I’ll dial it for you.”

  Martine swallowed. “I don’t know it.”

  “You don’t know your own phone number?”

  He looked over at Ben. “How ’bout you?”

  “There’s nobody at my house. My parents are away on a cruise.”

  “Right, your thirty seconds are up. I’m getting the police and they can deal with you.” He went to get out of the vehicle.

  “Wait!” cried Martine. “I’m sorry. We’ll tell you the real story.”

  Gift ignored her. He locked the doors from the outside and strode toward the police station.

  “If I’d known I’d be spending my vacation in a Namibian jail, I might not have been so hasty about turning down the Mediterranean cruise,” said Ben.

  Martine banged hard on the window. “Gift,” she yelled. “How would you feel if someone threatened to take away your home and everything and everyone you loved? Wouldn’t you lie too? Wouldn’t you do anything in your power to stop the people who wanted to do that?”

  Two hours later, after a much-needed shower at Gift’s aunt’s house, the three of them were sitting in a restaurant called The Tug. It was an atmospheric place constructed from a tugboat that had been shipwrecked along the coastline—a stretch of ocean so treacherous that early explorers had named it the Skeleton Coast. Watching the Atlantic rollers charge up to the jetty outside and splatter the restaurant windows with gray foam, Martine was not in the least surprised.

  “I want the whole truth and nothing but,” said Gift as they tucked into prawns dripping with lemon and garlic, giant asparagus spears, and the biggest plate of fish and chips Martine and Ben had ever seen. “If you lie to me again, you’ll be spending the next month washing dishes to pay for this meal.”

  So they told him the whole story. Well, almost the whole story. Martine explained about the fire that had killed her parents, and about moving to Africa. She decided against telling him about Grace’s prediction. It seemed pointless when she had no idea what it meant.

  Gift heard her out, his face filled with compassion. “I’m sorry for saying that a kid like you could never understand what I’ve been through. Obviously you do.”

  Ben took up the story. He told Gift about the sinister businessman who’d shown up out of the blue one day, claiming that Henry Thomas had signed over Sawubona to him as surety for a debt and giving them less than a fortnight to leave the reserve. He and Martine were, he said, so determined to save Sawubona that coming to Namibia to investigate the man who wanted to take everything from them had seemed their only option.

  “Do you know where he has his business?” asked Gift.

  “No,” admitted Martine. “We think he might own some tourist lodges, but we’re not really sure. A few years ago, he gave my grandfather a desert elephant from Damaraland. She was very badly injured, and we have a sanctuary that helps heal wild animals that have been wounded or mistreated. He said she came from a zoo that had shut down.”
/>
  Gift frowned. “That’s odd. I myself am from Damaraland. That’s where my father disappeared. We don’t have zoos in Namibia, and if one had opened or closed down in our area I’d definitely know about it, because my father has records about practically every elephant in the desert.

  “The other thing that puzzles me is why this man would send an injured elephant out of the country. We have plenty of wildlife hospitals and sanctuaries of our own. It makes no sense at all.”

  He paused to shovel in a mouthful of fish. “He sounds like a thoroughly evil character. What’s his name? Maybe I’ve heard of him.”

  “His name is James,” Ben told him. “Reuben James.”

  Gift choked. His fish went down the wrong way, and he had such a severe coughing fit that he needed almost a whole bottle of water to recover. It was some time before he could speak again.

  “That’s impossible,” he croaked, eyes streaming.

  Martine was bewildered. “Why is it impossible?”

  Gift took another swallow of water. “Because the man you’re describing sounds like a nasty, heartless piece of work. I’ve known Reuben James since I was a boy, and he is the opposite of that. He’s a conservationist. He’s poured a fortune of his own money into protecting the desert elephants. When my father disappeared, it was Reuben James who organized all the patrols that went out searching for him. He’s the man who paid for my education and he helped me get a job as a freelance photographer for a local magazine.

  “Reuben James is the best man I know.”

  17

  It was Angel who saved the day. Sitting on Swapokmond beach early the next morning, drinking coffee and tucking into a slab of Black Forest cake from Anton’s famous German bakery, Martine thought there was something ironic about the fact that the elephant, who’d been intent on hurting them at Sawubona, had indirectly ended up helping them in Namibia. But then maybe Ben was right. Maybe she’d only ever intended to harm Lurk. And that raised a lot of questions.

  The way it happened was this. Gift had taken the news about Reuben James badly, to say the least. He’d been ready to cart them back to the police station just for criticizing the man. Even when Martine pointed out that he himself had described Reuben as a “thoroughly evil character” before he knew who they were talking about, he was still reluctant to accept that his mentor could be flawed.

  But then Ben recounted the conversation they’d overheard on the plane, and Martine followed it up by telling Gift about Angel’s attack on the chauffeur.

  When he heard about Lurk, the stubborn scowl left the San boy’s face. He sat up straight. “Are you telling me that this desert elephant—the elephant given to your grandfather by Reuben James—singled out Lurk and charged him?”

  “Apparently,” said Martine. “And when Lurk escaped by throwing down his jacket, she mashed it into the earth as if she hated it.”

  Gift nodded. “I know how she feels. Lurk is sly. Cunning. Whenever Reuben James is around, he’s all smiles and politeness and yes sir, no sir. The minute Reuben is out of sight, he’s an arrogant brute. He’ll kick a dog as soon as look as it, and he’s forever making spiteful comments about the San people and hinting that we’re all cattle thieves and drunkards. No one understands why Reuben has him around.

  “What’s interesting is that your elephant Angel seems to have remembered him years after she left Namibia. That almost certainly means he’s done something cruel to her in the past. For that reason alone, I’m prepared to help you. As for what you overheard on the plane, I’m sure there’s an innocent explanation. I can’t believe Reuben is mixed up in anything dodgy.”

  Martine and Ben, who were by then so exhausted that their eyes were closing at the dinner table, were too grateful to him for feeding them and agreeing to assist them to argue. They were also thankful to him for providing them with shelter. Gift’s aunt hadn’t minded in the least allowing two young strangers to sleep on her floor for a night, especially since they were leaving before breakfast. She’d even done their laundry.

  Sitting on the beach, Martine popped the last chocolatey morsel of cake into her mouth and checked the time. It was six a.m. After depositing them at Anton’s café with a handful of money and instructions to pick up supplies and meet him near The Tug restaurant, Gift had gone to get fuel and water. They had another long drive ahead of them.

  An early-morning sea fog hovered over Swakopmond, and the ocean looked gray and wintry. The palm trees creaked and sighed. Martine huddled closer to Ben for warmth. They shared the last of her coffee.

  “Have you noticed,” she asked him, “how everything keeps coming back to Angel? It’s almost as if the key to understanding what Reuben James is up to and why he’s trying to get his hands on Sawubona is the elephant. If we can get to the bottom of her story, of why he gave her to my grandfather in the first place, we might uncover his secret.”

  Ben handed her back the coffee cup. “That’s funny, I just had the exact same thought. The thread that runs through everything is the elephant’s tale.”

  Gift materialized behind them. He had a disconcerting habit of appearing out of nowhere. “What elephant’s tail?”

  “They’re cute,” said Martine, “elephant’s tails.”

  Gift jiggled his keys. “I suppose they are. Come on, we need to hit the road. I can’t wait to get home to Damaraland.”

  The drive north was not nearly as interesting as the one to Swakopmond, but it had a bleak appeal nonetheless. For the first hour they followed the Skeleton Coast, still shrouded in sea fog. Martine found her mood lifted as soon as they turned inland and left behind the gloomy cloud.

  There followed three hours of flat, rocky desert, interrupted only by the occasional gaily decorated house, or neat roadside stall selling chunks of shimmering pink quartz and leopard stone. They stopped at one, and Martine was sure she could feel a kind of warm energy coming off a piece of pink quartz when she lifted it.

  Gift gave the rock seller a crate of water. In the desert, he told them, people shared what they could. The man was from the Herero tribe and had buttery brown skin enhanced by many bracelets and other trinkets. He summoned his wife from their thatched house and Martine’s mouth dropped open when the woman emerged, followed by three small children. She was magnificently dressed in a colorful outfit styled in the manner of a Victorian missionary. A bright yellow banana-shaped hat sat lengthways across her head.

  She explained to Martine and Ben that Herero women had worn the dresses for centuries and that they were a symbol of great pride.

  Martine felt very self-conscious in her ragged jeans and old T-shirt. She cast a look around the barren landscape, simmering under the harsh desert sun, and couldn’t imagine where the Herero mother found the energy, or the water, to look that good.

  “We have only ourselves to blame if our country is desert,” the rock seller told her, reading her thoughts. He nodded at Gift. “If he is from the San tribe, he can probably tell you why.”

  “There is a Bushman legend about the lack of water in Namibia,” Gift explained to Ben and Martine. “It’s said that many moons ago, our ancestors were very poor. They complained bitterly about how hard their lives were. They thought of little else. They prayed and wished that they could be rich. They were sure that if they could only be wealthy, their lives would be perfect. So God granted their wish. He crystallized all the rivers and lakes in Namibia and turned them into diamonds.”

  “Now we have many diamonds and other precious minerals like platinum,” said the rock seller. “Namibia is one of the richest countries in Africa. But we have nothing to drink.”

  He thanked them again for the water and they continued on their way. A range of violet mountains appeared on the horizon. The desert gave way to grassland and then they climbed the mountains and dropped over the other side. Martine could not get over how the road ahead just seemed to stretch on forever, into infinity. Above them, the sky bubbled with clouds that changed by the second, like some dizzying ka
leidoscope.

  Early in the afternoon, Gift pointed at a distant hill of massive boulders, a bit like those Martine and Ben had come across in the Matopos in Zimbabwe, and said proudly: “There’s my house.”

  The two friends exchanged glances. Even after they’d unloaded the supplies from the vehicle and followed Gift up the steep path between the rocks, they still couldn’t see any sign of habitation. Then they rounded a boulder and there, perched on the edge of the hill and overlooking a lovely, tranquil valley, were three thatched domes. Beneath the domes were two-bedroom tents with showers at the rear, and one living room tent with a splash pool cut into the deck in front of it.

  Gift grinned at their expressions. “This land has been in our family for generations and my father always talked of building a house here. When I started working at the magazine, I saved every cent I made and put it toward creating this place. Reuben James was kind enough to arrange for some of his hotel workers to help me thatch the domes and put up the tents. There have been many challenges, such as drilling a borehole to get water, but it has been worth it. This is my father’s favorite valley, because it is the gathering place of many desert elephants. When he returns, I want him to have a special place to come home to.”

  Gazing around the tents, which were simply but lovingly furnished in African cotton and wood, Martine felt tears spring to her eyes. Gift’s father had gone missing in one of the most treacherous desert environments on the planet, and yet his son had never given up hope they would be reunited. He still talked of his dad in the present tense, as if he might round the corner at any time.

  That evening, she sat with Ben and Gift on a high, flat boulder, watching the setting sun sink behind the mountains. As the rocks glowed orange, the clouds became lacy wisps of pink, and the contours of the valley became a carpet of jade-colored velvet, she thought again of the San boy’s courage. It inspired her to keep faith that, against all odds, she’d see Jemmy and her grandmother again.