An Inconvenient Elephant

by Judy Reene Singer

  “And, Diamond, this is my mom, Abbie Davison.”

  “It’s wonderful to meet you, ma’am,” Diamond said, impulsively giving my mother a bear hug. “Or shall I call you Mum, as well?”

  “Yes, I see.” My mother coughed a little. “You come right in and make yourself at home.” She led us into the house while wiping her hands with an antibacterial wipe she pulled from her pocket. “After you leave your boots at the front door, of course.”

  Diamond questioningly looked down at her boots, then at me.

  “Boots off,” I said. “House rules.”

  “Okay.” Diamond reluctantly kicked them off, but left on her gaiters, the little tent of tan material that fastened around each of her ankles. “In case of scorpions,” she explained, quickly scanning the wall-to-wall carpeting.

  “It’s a remote risk,” I said, “now that the snakes ate most of them.”

  We started for the kitchen, but a pungent waft from Diamond’s thick gray socks stopped me in my tracks. “Why don’t you put your boots back on,” I said to her. “I’m sure my mother won’t mind after all.”

  As Diamond followed me and my mother into the kitchen, I could see she was politely taking in the antique furniture, the cranberry glass lamps, the little tables with their vases and statues as best she could without being obvious.

  “I used to dream of a house like this my whole life,” she murmured to me. “The kind of home you can bring your friends to, without worrying that your aunt’s going to roll out from under the sofa and puke on their shoes.”

  “There is someone waiting to see you,” my mother announced as we entered the kitchen.

  “It’s my ex-dog,” I whispered to Diamond. “She just adores me. It’s like we’re soul mates.”

  A streak of black and white leaped across the room, and a small Boston terrier attacked my ankle with a tiny but very penetrating set of white teeth.

  “Grace!” I screamed with a mixture of joy and pain as I tried to shake her loose. “You remember me!” She was frantic with excitement, wriggling her fat dumpling body with the three extra love handles from side to side, until the momentum fairly knocked her over. Then, overcome with ecstasy, she threw herself across my shoelaces and ripped them open.

  I knelt down to cuddle her, and she nipped my nose. “She still loves me!” I declared happily as I pinched my nostril to stanch the flow of blood.

  “She might have put on a pound or two,” my mother apologized as she poured us all coffee. “She just adores having breakfast with me every morning. She takes her three eggs coddled, along with her bowl of oatmeal.”

  We sat at the kitchen table, and Grace jumped into a chair at the table, apparently a well-practiced habit, and glared at Diamond.

  “Is she friendly?” Diamond asked, reaching over to pet her.

  “No!” my mother and I screamed together, as Grace sank her teeth into Diamond’s fingers.

  “Bollocks!” Diamond pulled her hand away to examine the minor flesh wound. “She’s rather deceiving, isn’t she? For something that eats coddled eggs.”

  “I hope you’re not planning to take her home with you,” my mother worried as I got up to find Diamond a bandage. “She’s so happy here.”

  I could hear Diamond take a sharp breath. Grace squinted at me and growled.

  “No,” I reassured my mother. “She’s all yours.”

  Some exes, I decided, are much better off ex.

  It was good to see my mother again. The kitchen was filling with the aroma of fresh bread with a hint of dirty socks. The dirty socks were courtesy of Diamond-Rose’s unlaced boots, and the bread was courtesy of my mother, whose hobby is baking, though hobby is not exactly the right word. She bakes bread as though the grain farmers of America were totally dependent on her output. My mother feels there is no occasion, no illness, no disappointment that can’t be cured with a slice of bread. A whole loaf, if it’s a real crisis. This little reunion was just crying for a few dozen muffins.

  “So, Reese said that you just got in last night.” My mother’s face was composed, but her nostrils were flaring delicately. She couldn’t take her eyes off Diamond’s clothing. “I don’t suppose you two even had time to…shower…or anything?”

  “First thing I did,” I said, knowing what she was referring to and trying to help her. “I even used that lavender body wash you once gave me.”

  “Because you could always shower here—we have lots of hot water,” my mother continued, emphasizing “hot water” while giving Diamond-Rose an encouraging smile. She poured us more coffee. “I’ll toss your stuff in the laundry for you. It’ll be ready before you even miss it.”

  Diamond seemed flattered that someone cared. “Thanks, Mum,” she said, “but I’ll have to pass. You know, one thing I learned from the animals in Africa—it’s not good to bathe too frequently. It removes the protective oils from your coat.”

  “Yes, I see…” My mother stood up and unconsciously rubbed another sanitary wipe over her hands, then changed the subject. “Well…you’re probably starving. Why don’t I just get you a little something to go with that coffee?” She fluttered from the refrigerator to the table and back, Grace falling in step next to her, to set out a bowl of fruit salad, a platter of deviled eggs, and five or six varieties of breads, scones, muffins, and brioches.

  “Primo!” Diamond-Rose pronounced enthusiastically, putting two big muffins on her plate and scooping up a knifeful of butter the size of a golf ball. “As they say in Kenya, it makes a family when you gather around to eat the same cornmeal.”

  My mother shot me a puzzled look. I just shrugged. “Yes, well, you’ll find a few corn muffins in there,” she said to Diamond. “Neelie just loves my muffins. It brought her right back home because I’m sure that’s what she craved the most while she was away.”

  I would have thought toilets that flush or a good haircut, but apparently my mother was thinking homemade bread. In fact, my mother was watching me with great expectations, and though still full from breakfast, I felt compelled to take a muffin because to do anything else, I knew, would be committing the gravest of offenses.

  Diamond was already on her second muffin. “You must get a lot of practice baking,” she commented, “because these are the best I’ve ever eaten.”

  “Why, thank you!” My mother put her hand to her throat, the way she did when she’d been supremely flattered. “I’ve been told many times that my bread has moral fiber, and I always appreciate the compliment.”

  “I think they just meant fiber,” I corrected her, “but it’s still good.”

  I slowly nibbled on my muffin, Diamond happily polishing off her own two. I finally finished, gulped the last of my coffee, then stood up to give my mother a quick hug and kiss. “Gotta go, Mom, but thanks for breakfast. I called the car rental, and they’ll be by today. I’ll talk to you soon.”

  “We’ll have dinner,” my mother said. “Soon. With the whole family. Everyone missed you so much. Your father was worried the whole time you were gone.”

  “Oh, a family dinner would be wonderful,” Diamond replied, giving her a peck on the cheek. “I love family gatherings.”

  My mother opened the front door, and we stepped into the sunlight. Diamond followed us out, but not before I saw her furtively tuck a loaf of pumpkin-raisin bread into her rucksack.

  Chapter 14

  “YOU!”

  The owner of the donut shop recognized me as soon as I gave him an order for four dozen jelly donuts. “I no have four dozen jelly! Long time ago you buy donut, donut, all the time donut, donut, and I make donut, donut like crazy jelly donut factory, but then you no come back. My wife and I eat every night, donut, donut.”

  “Well, I’m back again,” I said. “Today I’ll take whatever you have, but tomorrow I’ll need all raspberry jelly, please.”

  “You come every day?” he asked, his black caterpillar eyebrows dancing happily while he emptied his shelves of every variety of donut he had and rapidly box
ed them.

  “Every day,” I promised. “Four dozen jellies.”

  “Wonderful goodness,” he said, mollified, and handed me the boxes with an ecstatic smile. “I tell my wife everything okay now. Then I surprise myself with new big-screen TV.”

  “Muffins? Donuts? Bread? Your family have a baked goods fetish?” Diamond asked as I drove us to our next destination. “I suppose your brother is competing in the World Cup for pie throwing?”

  “These donuts are for Margo,” I replied. “She’s the elephant I told you about—the one I helped bring from Zimbabwe. She’s at the Wycliff-Pennington sanctuary, and that’s where we’re going next.”

  “Pennington?” Diamond caught the name of the farm. “Tom Pennington again?”

  “Him,” I said. “But he doesn’t stay there, he only supports it.”

  “And donuts are on the treat list because you think pastries are a natural diet for elephants?” Diamond asked, reaching into a box and stealing a Boston cream.

  I pushed the lid closed. “No, but they’ll keep Margo from playing her little jokes,” I explained. “She just loves picking people up and throwing them across her enclosure.”

  “Oh, great,” Diamond said, noisily sucking out the filling. “I guess I’m dressed for the occasion after all.”

  Puffs of dust swirled lazily around the car as we pulled into the parking lot of the sanctuary. I was surprised at how rundown it had gotten. The unpaved driveway looked more rutted than I remembered, and weeds raggedly outlined the buildings, which could have used a few coats of paint.

  Diamond-Rose uncurled her long legs from the front seat of the car to stand next to me in the parking lot. She executed a slow three-sixty to take in the several small barns, the larger elephant barn in front, all the fencing and gates. I knew what she was thinking. Fencing and gates. And more fencing.

  “Civilized,” she sniffed.

  But I was puzzled. Elisabeth Wycliff, the elderly owner of the sanctuary, was almost always to be found driving her vintage ’70s Chevy truck across the grounds, its bed filled with buckets of fruit or frozen raw chicken or bales of hay for the animals, but now it was parked next to her house, covered in more dust than usual, with a large crumple in the front fender that pushed the hood up like a metal origami. And the truck belonging to Richie and Jackie Chiger, the farm managers, was parked by their house, though it had been a rule that either Mrs. Wycliff or Richie had to be patrolling the property during the day. I knocked on Richie’s door, but there was no answer. This struck me as odd since Jackie usually answered. Mrs. Wycliff’s house looked equally quiet. Well, I would find them later. All I really cared about was seeing Margo again. And Abbie.

  The doors to the elephant barn were wide open, revealing that it was empty except for the usual large pile of hay stacked in a corner of the huge metal cage inside. Everything looked the same as I remembered except for a few heavy-duty truck tires that were suspended by chains from the ceiling for Margo to play with. The familiar smell of elephant hung in the air, and I sniffed at it as though I were inhaling the scent of fine perfume.

  “It’s been four days since I’ve smelled elephant,” I exclaimed to Diamond, “and I miss it already. Margo must be down at her pond with her baby. Maybe Richie’s out there with them, though he usually takes his truck.”

  We walked from the barn through the gates that separated the upper part of the sanctuary from the lower elephant field. I led Diamond along a narrow path that started at the top of a rise and traced a dusty line along a grassy hill before finally winding its way down to a meadow and the pond.

  There was an elephant next to the water. A monolith in gray, standing on the bank, dozing in the afternoon sun, plump and peaceful, the tip of her trunk resting on the ground, her ears slowly fanning away the flies. My elephant. Stunningly large and real and glorious.

  Margo.

  I pressed my hands to my mouth as my eyes filled with tears. “I’ve missed her so much,” I whispered.

  I had missed sitting in the barn at night and talking to her. I had missed our old games, when Margo would wrap her trunk gently around my waist and lift me a few inches from the ground. I missed how Margo shook her head in rhythm to the music when I turned on the radio, or tossed her big beach ball back to me. For the whole year I had been in Kenya, surrounded by dozens of baby ellies, I longed for Margo.

  “And that’s Abbie.” I pointed to Margo’s daughter, a yearling now, up to her knees in the green algae pond, gleefully spraying water into the air. “Oh my God, look at how much she grew!”

  “Abbie?” Diamond repeated. “Like your mother?”

  I nodded. “Margo was named for Tom’s mother. I met her once. She’s more of a horse person, but she loved having an elephant named for her.”

  “I don’t blame her,” Diamond said. “It’s an honor.”

  “And I named Abbie for my mother.” I giggled at the memory. “You’d think she’d have been pleased but, well, that’s my mother.”

  Diamond gave me an affectionate smile. “Our mother.”

  We watched quietly from the top of the knoll.

  Before us stood two gray silhouettes against the blue sky, framed by the distant kaleidoscope colors of the Catskill Mountains. A loxodontine study of Madonna and child, with all their strength and magnificence and sad vulnerability, pursued no longer, now secure and serene, standing safely together.

  “How sad,” murmured Diamond. “Two wild creatures. They don’t belong here, locked up like criminals.”

  Of course I knew that. They belonged to a different world. A world where Margo would be with her herd, her mother, her aunts and cousins, as they made their lumbering treks across the African landscape. I knew Abbie needed an extended family to grow up healthy. If I knew anything about elephants, it was this: family was everything.

  “She would have died in Zimbabwe,” I replied, a little defensively. How could Diamond ruin the moment by criticizing this place? Margo had not been merely taken, she had been rescued. She had been wounded by poachers and left to die with her baby next to her. To not take her, to leave them both to die would have been unforgivable. “Besides, where do you think we’ll be bringing Tusker?” I reminded her. “We can’t just turn him loose once he gets to the States!”

  “He can’t live behind fences,” she said. “It isn’t right. We’ll have to find something more suitable.”

  Abbie diverted our discussion by blowing another spray of water into the air and then nudging her mother with her little trunk and squealing with happiness.

  I took a step toward them and gestured for Diamond to follow. “I can’t wait for them to see me again,” I said. “We have a very unique relationship. We’re like soul mates.”

  It was Abbie who spotted us first. She climbed from the pond with a huge splash, barking and squealing until her mother startled awake and turned around to see what the disturbance was. Margo studied us for a moment, then swung her head and trunk sideways with a deep rumble. I took another impatient step down the slope, but Diamond-Rose grabbed my shoulder.

  “One thing I learned in the bush,” she said quietly. “It’s never a good idea to just pop in on your local wildlife.”

  “Well, she doesn’t have a doorbell,” I joked, but in my impatience I was rushing things, and Diamond was right to be concerned. I forced myself to stay on the slope and wait for a friendly sign, but Margo slowly flapped her ears and continued to stare. I knew enough about ears to know leisure flapping was good, that the elephant was thinking things over.

  Margo didn’t seem concerned as we started down the hill. Diamond and I were almost at the base when Margo suddenly rumbled and held her ears straight out from her head, apparently perceiving us as a threat. She marched forward a few steps for a better look. We froze in our tracks.

  “That’s not quite the reception I’d expect from a soul mate,” Diamond said in a low voice.

  “It’s been over a year,” I replied. “But it should be okay—elephants
never forget.”

  Still, I decided prudence was the better part of safety and waited for a sign that it was okay to proceed. Margo rumbled again and took another step, flapping her ears a bit more vigorously, then raising her trunk over her head and blasting us with a trumpeting roar.

  “That looks more like a challenge,” Diamond whispered.

  I wasn’t sure. Though I wanted to rush to Margo’s side, she was definitely giving signals of intruder alert. A moment later she was moving toward us in a rapid, undulating walk.

  “Bollocks! I believe she’s coming right at us,” Diamond announced in a tight voice, her years in the bush having taught her not to scream while in the direct path of a charging animal.

  We both backed up a few steps. “She’ll remember me,” I said hopefully.

  “Before or after she tramples us?”

  It was a good question, because between Margo and Abbie, there was probably close to eight thousand pounds of inquisitive pachyderm bearing down on us. The ground trembled with each step, and I worried that I might have been overconfident. A whole year had passed. I was thinner, tanner, and had even brought a stranger. And I knew there was nothing more furiously protective than a mother elephant, except maybe Richie, who would be livid with me for taking such a risk.

  I quickly looked around for options, but trying to return to the top of the hill before Margo reached us was not one of them. Doing so could escalate the elephant into a rage, and she was quite capable of outrunning us. My second choice, dodging around the two elephants was too risky.

  “Bollocks!” Diamond declared as the elephants closed in to five hundred feet. “Can’t you throw her one of those donuts or something?”

  “I left them in the barn.”

  Three hundred feet.

  “Neelie?”

  Two hundred feet.

  “I’m waiting for her to recognize me,” I said with a quaver.

  One hundred feet.

  “What happens if she’s myopic?” Diamond demanded.