The Mourning Parade

by Dawn Reno Langley

  Natalie took a step back as if he’d pushed her. It was such a tiny moment, minuscule really, but she felt as shocked as if he’d dumped a bucket of ice water over her head. She laughed aloud. So it took a trip out of the sanctuary for him to act like a fellow human being.

  “Where’s the river?” she asked Mali.

  “What river?”

  “Isn’t the Floating Market on a river?”

  Mali laughed. “Not the type you imagine. Technically, it’s the Mae Klong that flows through Ratchaburi, but the boats pull up between some buildings on what’s basically a skinny little canal, barely wide enough for a couple of boats to pass by each other. You’ll see. Come on. I’ll point you in the right direction and see you in an hour or two.”

  Mali took her friend Hom’s arm and the two of them walked away, heads together conspiratorially. Natalie envied the friendship and the obvious need they both had to spend time alone without Andrew around. He’d stayed behind to take care of administrative details, and Mali had seemed pleased she’d get to spend the day alone.

  Natalie was left alone with Hatcher, who glanced at her and adjusted his sunglasses. “I have to see the apothecary . . .”

  “You don’t have to explain. I can explore on my own. I’m a big girl.” She pulled her hair back and tightened her barrette as he walked away, then suddenly realized she had no clue where to go. “Wait! Wait a minute!” Jogging the few steps to catch him, she broke a sweat even though it was not yet nine in the morning. “Where’s the Floating Market? All I see are buildings.”

  “Go into one of the entrances and have a look.” Hatcher waved an I-don’t-have-time-to-take-care-of-you hand at her and melted into the throng.

  She entered the nearest open-sided metal building, instantly grateful for the shade it provided. This time of day felt stagnant, when the only wind that moved was an artificially-produced breeze from an overhead fan.

  For a moment, she oriented herself and took in all the sights and smells. The building teemed with booths that catered to the tourist: bamboo hats shaped like umbrellas, orange T-shirts emblazoned with elephants, garishly-designed pocketbooks, wooden Buddhas, golden-red Thai puppets, fake silk scarves, cotton balloon pants in all colors and sizes, intricately-woven white lace blouses, and red and yellow carved wooden children’s toys.

  It’s a flea market like the one in Raleigh at the State Fair Grounds, Natalie thought, except this one is full of goods created in Thailand for tourists.

  Beyond the food booths cooking steamed rice and spiced meat or offering frozen bananas and fruit drinks, the canal Natalie had been hearing about separated one building full of tourist kitsch from another identical to it, and on the canal: the long, canoe-like boats.

  Each boat brimmed over with fresh fruit and vegetables like yellow-and-green papayas, while another held crescent-shaped bunches of bananas, and yet another was loaded with golden-green watermelons, rumored to be more delicious than any back home. Boats floated by filled with piles of neatly-stacked, hand-crafted bamboo pocketbooks, cerise and aquamarine silk scarves like the ones being sold inside the buildings, carved wooden elephants that fit into each other like nesting dolls, or funky coconuts shaped like monkeys. The female boat owners, wearing wide-brimmed bamboo hats over their sun-lined faces and sporting knee-length, colorful aprons to hold their change and tools, piloted their canoes in and out of the canal with long bamboo poles. They reminded her of the stories Mark Twain told of the Mississippi, except she couldn’t understand a word these women said.

  People called out the prices of their merchandise, customers haggled about what they would pay, store owners enticed buyers into their stalls or to the pier where boats rested to sell their goods, and everyone raised their voices to the highest decibel.

  Natalie stood for a while watching the organized confusion and shook her head, amazed at the ancient use of the canal as the conduit for sales of goods that not everyone in the region could grow. The Thai version of the Walmart Superstore, she thought. Much better than the Walmarts in the States. At least this type of economy thrives on individual ownership.

  From down river, she heard a familiar voice and without so much as a glance, realized it was Mali negotiating a better price for something she was purchasing from a vendor in the canal. Natalie headed in her direction.

  “Oh, there you are, my dear.” Mali straightened up, shoving the small greenish fruits she’d purchased into the cotton bag she had slung over her shoulder. “What do you think of this Floating Market? Pretty unique, eh? Have you seen Siriporn? I asked him to find the spice woman for me.”

  Natalie shook her head and inwardly chuckled. What teenage boy would want to be seen with his mother? Surely he’d disappeared with his friends rather than do Mali’s bidding.

  Mali glanced around her, more concern on her face than the situation warranted. “Someone said there’s a Red Shirt meeting nearby,” she muttered. “If he’s involved with them again, I’ll . . .”

  An ungodly scream ripped through the marketplace. The same sounds Sophie made when she could no longer stand on her infected leg.

  Natalie’s hair prickled along the edges of her scalp. Without thinking, she turned and instinctively ran toward the sound. People scattered in front of her outstretched hands. A woman stumbled. Natalie stooped to pick her up, then heard another scream.

  An elephant in pain.

  She moved faster, pushing her way through the shopping crowd to the end of the football-field-length building. Sweating and breathless, she emerged into the white-hot sunlight onto a tiny side street, temporarily blinded. She stopped for a moment, shaded her eyes and scanned the street. A small crowd had gathered past the little bridge that spanned the canal. Above their heads she saw the gray hump of an elephant’s head. On its back, at a precarious angle, hung a garishly decorated covered seat large enough to hold four adults. The seat itself weighed between fifty and seventy-five pounds. Add two or three adults at an average of a hundred and fifty pounds each, thus the elephant might be forced to carry between three and five hundred pounds.

  Her stomach turned as she shoved her way through the throng. A woman hawking pencils shaped like palm trees stuck a handful of them in Natalie’s face, “You buy some for your chillen, lady?”

  Natalie waved her away.

  She stood close enough to the elephant now to smell the fear. A mahout poked the screaming animal with a pointed pole, digging it again and again into the ellie’s delicate eye socket. The elephant rocked backward with each new jab, rivulets of blood and pus running down its face as it tried in vain to back away from the abuse. The top of the howdah, the wooden seat the elephant carried on its back, slammed repeatedly against the building behind it. She had nowhere to go. Trapped. Terrified. And from what Natalie could see, the elephant was probably blind. And in serious psychological distress.

  “Stop!” Natalie grabbed the mahout’s shirt. “What the hell are you doing? You’re killing her.”

  The mahout spat at the ground and rattled some Thai curses. Natalie had no idea what they meant but the mahouts at the sanctuary used the same terms with Sophie. However, this mahout didn’t smile when he spoke the words. Instead, his eyes gritted shut, and when he opened his mouth to let another tirade fly, he appeared toothless. He wore a threadbare blue and white shirt and shorts made of rags. On his feet, he wore a pair of red flip flops at least three sizes too big. She instantly realized he was one of the men Mali had told her about: an elephant owner who took his animal to the same streets every day so that she could earn money for him by giving tourists the exotic treat of a ride on her fragile back. Animals mistreated like this ended up at the sanctuary with such damaging injuries that they couldn’t turn their head from side-to-side or walk straight.

  “Okay, old girl, okay,” Natalie murmured as she moved closer to evaluate the elephant’s condition. Runny sores around the elephant’s eyes and ears s
poke of years of being poked and prodded mercilessly. The pads on her feet were worn and bleeding as a result of spending long hours on unforgiving cement. Her skin hung off her skeletal frame in folds, and her knees practically knocked against each other.

  Natalie shook her head. Even though most of the elephants at the sanctuary had major health issues caused by human handling, she’d never seen one this bad. It brought tears to her eyes.

  “No animal is ever healed by a vet’s tears.” A gruff voice she instantly recognized spoke in her ear.

  She turned to see Peter Hatcher and Mali approach with several others from their group close behind.

  He slid in front of her so that he stood between the elephant’s mahout—who seemed to be getting angrier by the moment—and Natalie. Mali moved to stand by his side. Slowly, in halting Thai, Hatcher addressed the mahout.

  At first, Mali stood silently, but when Peter glanced over at her as if questioning a word he’d spoken, she chimed in, her Thai natural and relaxed, though her tone sounded strident. Natalie understood nothing except their body language. Peter held his arms open, gesturing toward the elephant who had now begun rocking side to side. The seat atop her back tilted, even more precarious than before. In the back of her throat, she keened and rumbled sadly.

  The mahout balanced on one foot, stamping the other occasionally into the ground as if doing a strange traditional dance. His voice varied between a scream and a demand. Mali kept her own voice even and quiet; whenever she spoke, both men had to listen. All around them, Thai people stood in small clumps, whispering behind their hands and watching the drama unfold in front of them.

  Fifteen minutes later, the mahout spoke calmly and quietly with Mali as if they’d grown up together, and Peter turned, took Natalie’s arm and walked her away.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  “We offered him some medicine for the elephant, and Mali’s going to keep trying to talk to him about surrendering the elephant, but this is his living. It might not work.” He glanced back over his shoulder and kept his hand on Natalie’s arm as though sensing that she still wasn’t convinced. “You must not be cheeky when dealing with an owner. In spite of the way it looks, he’s doing the best he can. Most of these guys have had elephants in their family for generations. He doesn’t think what he’s doing is . . . wrong. He’s simply making a living for his family.”

  “But that animal is dying . . . he’s killing her!”

  Hatcher’s blue eyes darkened. “You know that and I know that, but that chap has no clue. You can’t come over here and all of a sudden expect years of tradition to change because you have one encounter with a mahout-owner. Sometimes you have to back off a tad. Don’t be a bull in a china shop.”

  “And let the animal die? I can’t do that. And you can’t either, can you?”

  “We’re not letting the animal die. We’ll get the owner help in order to understand how to deal with her, and slowly, but surely, we’ll convince him there are other ways to make a living besides using her to trek tourists around, but we have to be respectful.”

  “Can’t Andrew do something? Buy the elephant? Bring it to the sanctuary?”

  “Ultimately, that may be what happens, but Andrew’s not here right now. It’s only us, and drawing a crowd in the middle of the Floating Market doesn’t make the locals look upon us very favorably. You can’t barge in there and simply . . . well, scream and shout. You need to think before you react.”

  “When it’s an emergency situation, you react. You move. You do what needs to be done to save the animal. You know that. You’ve been a vet as long as I have.”

  “Yes, that’s true, but I’ve lived here longer than you have, and I learned the hard way that you don’t butt into their business. There are other ways to handle the situation.”

  Across the street, Mali smiled and bowed to the mahout who had taken the rope around the elephant’s neck and was leading her away. The ellie followed him slowly, her gait unsteady and wobbly. Then, out of a side alley, a man appeared with a handmade ladder. The man spoke briefly to the mahout, who leaned the ladder against the elephant and climbed up to the wooden seat, unleashing it from the elephant, and with the help of the man on the ground, lowered the seat off the elephant’s back.

  “See?” Hatcher said into Natalie’s ear. “One step at a time.”

  Mali strode across the street. “He expects us to come to his farm next week,” she told Peter. “And he’s ready to give the old girl up if Andrew can come up with enough money, but I fear that ellie’s not going to last another week or two.”

  He nodded, then released Natalie’s arm and told her, “If you want, you can come with me next week. For now, this is all we can do.”

  “At least the mahout took the seat off her back,” Natalie said as they all started walking back toward the truck.

  “Small victory,” Mali muttered, eyes straight ahead.

  In the truck, Mali, Hatcher, and Natalie sat together, talking about what had happened. At the other end of the truck, out of earshot, Karina shot Natalie venomous glances as if suspecting the conversation was a romantic one. Natalie longed to tell her she had absolutely no interest in Peter Hatcher. If Karina wanted him, bless her, but he was not on Natalie’s agenda.

  Siriporn had boarded the truck at the last minute, sporting a new, red T-shirt. Mali was right. He’d gone to a political meeting. Mother and son studiously ignored each other, their angry silence more damaging than an outright quarrel. Natalie watched silently, wishing they knew how silly the argument would feel in the future. They should treasure each moment, for the future wasn’t promised. All they had was now.

  Once they were on the road, the truck’s noise prevented everyone from talking, so Natalie watched the scenery go by. Immersed in her own thoughts, she realized she’d acted like her old self during the crisis with the street elephant. No flashbacks. No PTSD. She breathed deeply and a film rose over her eyes as the city streets faded to jungle. An unexpected feeling of guilt overwhelmed her. She hadn’t thought of the boys for hours.

  Fourteen

  When elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers.

  -Kikuyu Proverb

  The piglet squealed as though its life was coming to an end that very second. Though Anurak held on to the wriggling, little, pink mass with both hands, it seemed to Natalie (and to everyone around her, most of whom howled with laughter) that the boy was losing this battle. Finally, Anurak grabbed the piglet’s front legs in one hand and turned the rear end toward Natalie with the other. With a triumphant toothless grin, he nodded at her.

  Natalie brushed her hair out of her eyes, took a deep breath, and shoved the needle into the pig’s thigh. One last squeal from the piglet, and she pulled the needle out and nodded to Anurak, who’d been acting as her assistant all morning. He placed the squealing piglet on the ground where it promptly scurried back to its mother and the dozen siblings that had already been vaccinated.

  “That’s the last one,” Hatcher announced. He stood next to the sanctuary’s truck, his hand atop the valise he carried with him every time they did these runs.

  This trip to the local village was the third Natalie had joined in since coming to Thailand. Each time, she learned more about the local people, the Thai language, and the customs of the surrounding villages. On today’s visit, they had vaccinated this farmer’s pigs against parasites, viruses and bacteria, then she splinted his dog’s foreleg and checked on his pregnant cow.

  The voluntary visits were Andrew’s way of supporting the community. He had started the tradition years ago, only a few months after the sanctuary had opened its gates, and though the visits were meant to keep the community’s pets and livestock healthy, they also cemented the relationship Andrew had with his neighbors. The farmers donated any leftover produce to feed the elephants and would help repair a section of fence around the sanctuary’s five-mile perim
eter because Andrew continued to help them. Everyone won. Animals included.

  Natalie speculated that Andrew wisely realized he wouldn’t be able to conduct his work without support from the locals. Not everyone agreed with treating animals so fairly, but the Buddhists in the neighboring communities accepted Andrew as one of them, and though he never talked openly about his religious beliefs, Natalie thought there might be more truth to that than fiction. He understood the Thai people and dealt with them in a quiet and unassuming way. He was careful not to take advantage of any people who worked for him, and as a result, everyone connected with the sanctuary shared Andrew’s philosophies, from the way they ate (most followed a vegan lifestyle) to their commitment to the animals.

  “Andrew puts people out of business,” Mali said. “The elephant is royal in Thailand, but they’ve also been a beast of burden, helping human beings by doing the heavy work. A family who owns an element can hire it out or use it to do farm work or logging. Makes them pretty valuable. Andrew’s had to be quite diplomatic when explaining what we do.”

  Peter, Andrew, Mali, and Natalie climbed into the back of the truck with very little discussion and took the forty-five minute ride home in bone-tired silence. The morning had been a long one, and it sapped all of their strength to wrangle the piglets and ensure that all of the other living beings on the farm were healthy. Anurak and Decha had tagged along so Anurak could visit his teacher for a sign language lesson. Decha shared the lessons, as much as a dog could, and filled the role of therapy dog though no one had trained him as such. They rode in the cab of the truck with the driver, Anurak’s uncle.

  Natalie idly picked clumps of dirt from under her nails and tried not to doze as the truck bumped its way down the rutted two-lane highway. All she could think of was how good it would feel to take a shower back at her cabin. Sometimes it felt like she hadn’t been clean for days, and she often found herself fantasizing about a scalding hot bubble bath she could sink into up to her neck, but she’d come to the realization that as long as she stayed at the sanctuary, both hot water and bubble baths would be at a premium. No matter, though. She felt happy and satisfied. She could deal with taking cold baths as long as she had soap—and her mother had sent her a new supply that arrived yesterday.