“We do safaris on horseback, too,” Julian said, gesturing to the horses. “Some guys think they’re quite the cowboy. They ride for about fifteen minutes”—he laughed—“then they’re ready to call it a day.”
“Can I see the other elephant?” I asked. “I want to see the tusks. Dr. Trotsky is very fussy. He saw a nice elephant in”—I had to think—“Budapest! It was perfect.”
“Sure.” Julian refilled my glass once again and drove us farther into the compound. We were alone, and suddenly all my giddy power from righteous anger melted away and I felt vulnerable. I had nothing to protect me out here but my silly stilettos and a hot pink Marc Jacobs bag. I wished I had a gun, though I realized that I might have used it a little too quickly.
Shamwari was at the very end of the dusty road. I could see his movement before I could get a clear view of him. He was weaving. Rocking back and forth, back and forth, back and forth in a mindless dance of insanity. His eyes were closed, he rocked his head to one side, and then followed through with his thin, freshly scarred body, rocking, rocking, lost to some internal, private hellish rhythm. Back and forth. I slipped my hand in my purse and pressed the buttons on the GPS. They would help the others determine exactly where the elephants were. Then I pressed the clasp of the handbag. Tom said we would need pictures for prosecution. The pictures were vital. I stood at Shamwari’s cage and tapped the sides of it lightly with my fingers.
“Hello in there,” I called like a fool. “Hello, you big thing.”
Julian checked his watch and made an impatient noise.
“I’m done,” I said, and finished the champagne. I almost wished it was poison. “It was very awesome.”
Julian drove me back. I tried to banter with him, saying how much fun my husband was going to have, how good the trophies—they weren’t called heads, I had to remember that—how good the trophies would look in our lodge in Russia.
“I thought your lodge was in Switzerland,” Julian countered.
I gave him a drunken wave. “That’s the ski lodge. Truthfully, I have no idea where he wants to put those dirty things.”
Julian laughed and gunned the big engine of the jeep. “You always wanna keep your man happy,” he said.
“Oh, I do,” I said meaningfully. “I do.”
Grisha came out of the office, waving a sheaf of papers. Julian had parked the jeep and was holding the ubiquitous umbrella over my head as we waited a few moments for our Rolls to be brought.
“We are hunting,” Grisha said happily. “Tomorrow night!” Lance was next to him, smiling a big, greasy smile. “I like night hunting. Heavy challengement.”
“You don’t mind he wants to do it at night?” I asked, truly surprised.
“Honey,” said Lance, “he could hunt butt naked in the moonlight. I just take the money.”
“It is Grisha’s pleasure to give you money,” Grisha replied. Our Rolls pulled up.
“Well, I want to shop,” I said, yawning. “I’ve had enough of this. Come on.”
“Grisha must make marital woman happy,” Grisha declared, helping me into the car. I wondered if there were cameras charting our every move because everything seemed so seamless. It was a point I had to bring up when I got back to the hotel.
“You promised me a diamond watch,” I whined.
“Make her happy,” said Lance, closing the limo door on me. Then he walked to the other side of the Rolls and helped Grisha in. “Tomorrow night, we make you happy.”
Chapter 44
“IT IS TUSKER,” I ANNOUNCED AS SOON AS WE GOT back. I felt disgusted and soiled and was ripping off my clothes before I made it into the bedroom suite, not even caring that I had an appreciative audience in the form of Jungle Johnny, Diamond, Grisha, and Tom.
“I like Plain-Neelie undressing her clothes,” Grisha announced gleefully as my miniskirt flipped across the room, the low-cut blouse and push-up bra following. I threw the shoes in the garbage and began scrubbing at the mascara with a sanitary wipe from my handbag while I pulled clothes together for a shower.
“Not that it matters what elephant it was,” I was saying, grabbing jeans from my suitcase.
Jungle Johnny was sitting at the edge of the sofa and hanging on my every word. Maybe not hanging on my words so much as hanging on whatever of mine that was visible. Grisha was searching for another pack of cigarettes, and Tom was racing for a bath towel from the bathroom to wrap around me.
“We have to get those elephants out of there,” I said with urgency. “And I don’t care how we do it. It’s inhumane. It’s misery!”
“Grisha liked Plain-Neelie in special makeups. Like beautiful Russian woman,” Grisha called after me as I headed for the bathroom. “Don’t wash off makeups!”
“Grisha can find himself a beautiful Russian woman,” I countered as I ducked inside. “This one is spoken for.” I gave Tom a sideways look.
“Is that my cue?” He laughed.
“No,” I said, irritated by his laugh. “I didn’t mean you, I meant Tusker.” I shut the bathroom door behind me and took a shower, ungluing my hair, scrubbing the sadness and grime and rage and cruelty from my skin. When I emerged, half an hour later, Jungle Johnny was napping, Tom was reading at the table, Diamond had left on an errand, and Grisha was happily puffing himself into oblivion.
Diamond returned an hour later with a shopping bag. “Last-minute stuff,” she said, and sat down at the table where everyone had gathered.
“Trucks are ready,” Jungle Johnny was saying. He had a tiny screwdriver, the kind used for repairing eyeglasses and was prying the camera from my handbag. “We use trucks all the time. They have no lettering on them, plain faded blue trucks. We use them for emergency seizures. People don’t remember faded blue, so we can move them around and no one notices. I ordered two of them, one for each elephant.”
“Someone has to get in and open the gates to the pens,” I said. “They have big padlocks.”
“I have men to do that,” Tom replied. “They’ll carry bolt cutters, check for alarms, monitor our movements, back us up, everything we need.”
“And they have security dogs,” I said. “I didn’t see them, but Julian mentioned them.”
“Easy,” said Tom. “Sedatives mixed into hamburger meat.”
“It has to be perfect timing,” said Jungle Johnny. “Grisha has to keep that Lance guy occupied, while we get the elephants out of there. He has to invite Lance and his men to dinner, get them drunk, tell them he wants to hunt after dinner. By the time they get back to the ranch, the animals will be gone. Tomorrow night is the only chance we’ll get.”
“Why tomorrow?” I asked.
“Lance Imperialle has other clients,” Tom said. “We made sure Grisha was the first to contact him after the elephants came, but if we don’t work fast, someone could move in and outbid us.”
We had dinner in the hotel dining room. Our group was loud and happy and boisterous. Diamond and JJ, as he kept insisting to be called, seemed to be hitting it off; Mrs. W. was tucked neatly under Diamond’s chair; and I fiddled with the huge shrimp cocktail in front of me, my stomach in knots from what I had seen that day. I finally pushed it away and drank wine while the others ate.
“JJ has a TV show,” Tom said.
“For kids,” said Jungle Johnny. “Try to teach them conservation.”
“I like kids,” said Diamond, and they smiled at each other.
After dinner, Tom stood up. “I think we should convene to the honeymoon suite,” he said, “and finish our conversation. That is,” he gave me a mischievous smile, “if the honeymooners don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind at all,” I said to him. “It may be my only chance to use one.”
They were refining plans for the next day. Tom and Grisha and Diamond. Apparently my job as wife was done. Grisha’s would be wining and dining Lance Imperialle and Julian by himself, while the rest of us worked behind the scenes.
The trucks would be moved to just outside the far end of the ranch. Tom�
�s men would be cutting away a large portion of the chain-link fence earlier in the day, but would roll it back into place so that the breach was not noticeable. JJ and Diamond and I were going to slip inside, release the elephants, and drive them to the end of the property, through the opened fence, and up into the truck. That simple. That crazy.
And everything would depend on the speed of the elephants. We weren’t even sure they would leave their cages. And once out, they had to be marched across the property to the waiting trucks.
And the whole time, Grisha would have to keep Lance Imperialle and Julian happily eating and drinking and concentrating on the huge profit they were going to make.
Everyone was on edge—there were variables in every corner of the plan.
“Why can’t we just let the authorities take the elephants?” Diamond asked at one point. “We could file a complaint.”
“They’ll be dead by the time anything gets to court,” Tom said. “Let’s hope Neelie got some good shots. They’ll be used to build a case.”
“I’ve done a lot of seizures,” said JJ. “And it’s always the same story. The authorities just had no idea anything like this was happening right under their noses.” He shook his head in disgust.
“We’ll all be wired together,” Tom announced. “I have enough electronics to launch a rocket. You’ll all have mikes and earphones and GPSs. Johnny will carry the bullhooks.”
“Bullhooks!” I repeated. “What do you mean, ‘bullhooks’?”
Tom made a face. “We are going to have to get those elephants out of their cages fast. We won’t have time for civilities. They have to be driven out any way we can.”
“Plain-Neelie, we cannot throw oranges this time,” Grisha agreed.
“But bullhooks?”
“Well, we don’t want to use them, but this is life or death,” Tom chided me. “If it’s going to be a problem—”
“Bollocks, we’ll both be fine,” Diamond said firmly, giving me a kick under the table. “A determined woman is the equal of the strongest man.”
“Women hold up half the sky,” JJ interjected with his peculiar Kenyan homily. I looked at him and I looked at Diamond. They dressed alike, thought alike, both given to cheesy proverbs—it was too perfect. I wondered if she noticed, too, but Diamond only stood up and yawned.
“I guess I’ll get some sleep,” she said.
JJ stood up, too. “I can walk you to your room, Diamond,” he said, then blushed to the roots of his blond hair. “If you don’t mind. Maybe we can have a cup of coffee before we call it a night.”
“I don’t mind at all,” she said, and gave him a beatific smile. “You can call room service while I take a nice, hot shower.” She bent over to retrieve Mrs. W. “I don’t want to forget Mum,” she added, then explained, “she and I are sharing a room.”
“I like a person who honors her elders,” JJ replied, taking the urn from her. They left together.
“If Diamond is even taking a shower,” I said to Tom, “this must be true love.”
His eyes met mine, and he gave me half a smile. “Do you believe in stuff like that, Neelie?” he asked.
“Actually, no,” I said. “I don’t believe in anything anymore.”
Tom and Grisha and I went down to the dimly lit bar where Tom had a bourbon, Grisha enjoyed a vodka, and I had another glass of wine. They quietly finalized a few more details for the next day, and I mulled over my change of heart. Had my heart changed? I stole a glance over at Tom and wondered what I wanted from him. I loved him, I wanted to spend my life with him, and he loved me—Diamond was right, I would be a fool to let him get away twice—yet all the unrest I had felt from a year before was still with me. I finished my wine. Maybe he wouldn’t mind if we put marriage on the back burner for a while. That would solve everything, I thought.
Grisha yawned. “Grisha is ready for sleeping now,” he declared. I looked over at Tom, about to ask him if he had gotten me my own room for the night.
“Go to his room, Neelie,” Tom directed me softly. “Go up with him.”
I stood up. Grisha gave me a little bow and offered me his arm. I took it, and we walked together to the elevator, Tom watching me until the door closed behind us.
I wasn’t worried at all. Grisha had always been a total gentleman. From the first time I met him, spending my first week in Africa, peeing behind baobab trees while he stood guard, he was honorable and good.
“Plain-Neelie,” he said, when we reached our room, “you can have bed. Grisha does not mind crouch.”
I undressed in the bathroom and came out into a darkening room and sat down on the king-size bed. “Have you ever done anything like this before?” I asked Grisha, who was sitting in a chair near the window, the drape opened just enough for him to see out.
“Marriagement?” he asked. “Nyet! Grisha makes many romance, but never marriagement. Too heavy travel! Too heavy risk!”
He lit another cigarette and took a long drag. “Grisha suffers from”—he paused to think of the right words—“wild heart.” He thought about his words for a moment and then repeated them. “Da. Grisha cannot make explainment to you, but—”
“You don’t have to explain,” I said to him. “I think I know what you mean.”
How odd, I thought. I had actually meant to ask him if he had ever taken elephants under these circumstances, and he had misunderstood, but suddenly his answer set my thinking on another course.
I had been floundering. Fretting. I had come home to New York, to a house that I was so proud to have purchased for myself. And yet I was as uncomfortable in it as a mismatched shoe. It felt tight and rubbed at me in all the wrong spots.
I grew up suburban. And I had always chafed at my childhood. It had been so neat and properly contained, and even though I thought I would grow up to emulate it, I couldn’t. Yet I didn’t know what else I wanted. Tom had come along and taken me to Zimbabwe, and we rescued Margo, and it was the beginning of even more unrest within me. I had found some answers during the year I spent with the baby ellies, but there was something else. Something I could not or didn’t want to define just yet.
I lay back on my pillows and tried to sort it out.
“Da,” Grisha said into the darkening room, his voice filled with both sadness and acceptance. “Grisha cannot be domestic. Grisha suffers from wild heart.”
Chapter 45
SOMETIMES THE WORLD BECOMES MORE THAN A SUM of its parts. Sometimes the cruel part, the viciously indifferent part, the part that is so unspeakably mean overwhelms everything good and humane and forever unbalances the ratio of kindness and goodness. Then the world becomes irredeemably ugly and filled with nothing but darkness.
When we found Margo, she had been wounded. Trying to nurse her calf and unable to keep up with her herd left her vulnerable and starving. When I first saw Tusker, he had been the butt of cruel taunting, even though he had done nothing but innocently seek food. When I saw him again, he was a trembling skeleton. And the worst part was that it hadn’t been the lack of rains over the lowland plains of Kenya or the sparse growth of savannah grasses that caused it. It hadn’t been natural at all. It had been part of human design, a cruel act that forever disarranged the karma of the human race.
I sat up almost all night, nervously thinking about how we were going to get Tusker off the ranch. About all the things that could go wrong and the danger we would all be in. When I was finished torturing myself with that, I thought of Tom and me and Diamond and JJ and Grisha—who was the happiest out of all of us. I wondered who was the most content with their life, and whether their work or love was the most responsible. By dawn, I hadn’t solved anything philosophically, but I did manage to give myself a raging headache.
I slept for about an hour when I heard a rap at the door. Room service. The room suddenly bloomed with the delicious scent of food. By the time I sat up, Grisha was already at the table and digging into a huge American breakfast.
“Grisha likes this room servant,�
�� he declared. “Come sit with your husband, Plain-Neelie. We eat before everyone comes.”
I joined him at the table. It was set for two. There was a lid over my plate, and I lifted it to reveal eggs Benedict and fresh strawberries.
“Wow,” I said, “you nailed my favorite breakfast.”
Pleased, he closed his eyes and smiled. “Husband should know how to make pleasure with marital wife.”
I laughed.
He cut into his egg and ate a piece. “Grisha is thinking, Plain-Neelie,” he said, “that he gives you wrong information. Grisha is thinking all night. He is thinking maybe wild hearts need—” He looked at me, and his eyes held something, a longing, and for a moment I thought he was going to declare his love for me, and my mind was already racing for a nice way to deflect him. I took his hand, and he continued. “Maybe, Grisha is thinking, maybe sometimes wild hearts need to come home. Grisha thinks you are suffering from this, too.”
His last words were almost whispered, an obvious effort for him, and I jumped from my chair and went to him and embraced him. He put his arms around my waist, and we held each other.
I caressed his hair and murmured, “Thank you,” and kissed the top of his head before we broke apart.
He rose from his chair and gave me an apologetic smile along with a little bow. “Grisha gets ready now,” he said. “Everything moves on Grisha’s shoulders.”
The day passed quickly enough. Tom informed us to take everything with us when we left the hotel since we wouldn’t be coming back to it. He had made reservations in another one across town, in another name, so that we wouldn’t be traced.
Grisha dressed in exquisitely bad taste: brand-new starched-looking gold-brown pants, a tan-and-orange plaid shirt, and brand-new boots, ready to hunt. The rifles would be supplied by the ranch and then taken back. His contract, a carefully worded document to protect the ranch from prosecution for illegal hunts, called only for a night of entertainment at a hunting lodge. Two large blue vans rolled past the hotel on their way to the ranch, and just the sight of them made my stomach quake from nerves.
An Inconvenient Elephant Page 28
