Whistling for the Elephants

by Sandi Toksvig

  ‘I am going to get them fucking elephants, Harry, and it will be your fault.’

  ‘Uh, yes … determined to eliminate the wild creatures. Mayor, your reaction.

  Caught in the lights, Harry blinked. ‘There’s been a mistake. Joey!’ he called after the irate dog catcher, but there was no holding him. Joey was off into the zoo as fast as his small legs could manage. The reporter once more thrust the mike at Harry. ‘I didn’t mean it. Oh God,’ he managed.

  Miss Strange moved fast. ‘Come on. We have to get to Artemesia.’

  All hell seemed to break loose. The women split up from their whistling ring and the men moved in. Harry was still trying to deal with the cameras and Joey was already at the entrance. Helen, Judith, Miss Strange, Sweetheart, Cosmos and I began to run but Joey was ahead. We ran in past the gorilla cage and up to the penguin pool. That was when we heard another shot. In the enclosure Artemesia’’s ears were as wide as a sail as she trumpeted with alarm. A small trickle of blood ran down her right flank. Joey stood with a shotgun. Cosmos got there first and threw herself in front of Artemesia. Betsy was hiding behind some coconut matting, shaking and calling to her mother. As the rest of us ran up, Joey turned, aiming the gun at anyone coming near.

  ‘Think I’m ridiculous, don’t you? All of you. I can do this, you know.’ Cosmos made a slight move toward Joey but he swung the gun back at her. Cosmos lifted up her hand and put it out toward him. I knew she was trying the Buddhist power of concentrated calmness over unreason and brute force but I didn’t think it was a good time. Anyway, it was at that moment that a small mouse decided to run across the field. Cosmos saw it first, shrieked and stepped back. Then it caught Artemesia’s eye and she wasn’t keen either. She stood up on her hind legs in horror. Joey didn’t see the mouse. He could hardly believe the power he was exerting. Women and elephants terrified by his massive testosterone-pumped power. He turned to grin at the rest of us just as Gabriel tackled him. Joey hit the ground and another shot went off.

  ‘Get the elephants out of here,’ yelled Harry, racing up as Gabriel scrabbled with Joey. Faced with TV fame he had completely changed his mind about the creatures. Miss Strange moved fast. She rounded up Betsy and opened the gates. Cosmos and Artemesia hightailed it out of there and headed for the house. We could still hear Joey and Gabriel fighting. We were all running as hard as we could.

  ‘We have to hide them,’ called Judith.

  ‘Where the hell are we going to hide two elephants?’ yelled Helen.

  ‘The Himaphan forest,’ said Cosmos.

  ‘For Christ’s sake, Cosmos,’ yelled Miss Strange.

  ‘It’s okay,’ I shouted. ‘She means the woods, the woods over the river.’

  We ran that way in the dark. Troilus couldn’t keep up and we heard his whimpering honks behind us. At the riverbank we came to a halt. There was no bridge now, just the tracks which I had often used to come over. Sweetheart was last to arrive. She was wheezing.

  ‘This is impossible.’

  ‘No, it isn’t,’ I said. ‘Tightrope—walking.’

  Miss Strange nodded. ‘Tightrope-walking. Come on, Artemesia.’ Miss Strange stepped out on the track to lead the way. Everyone was panting and shaking but the great grey beast was calm. The nick in her right flank didn’t seem to bother her. With very precise footsteps she stepped out on to the track. Her hind legs moving to rest precisely in the spoor of the front. It was an entirely silent walk. The sole of her foot spreading out to take the weight at each step. Perhaps Betsy knew the importance of what was going on. For once she got her trunk to work. She reached out and grabbed her mother’s tail and began to follow. Strong lights picked them out on their steel tightrope as the TV van careered across the grass and up to the riverbank. The reporter leaped from the truck, still in full flow.

  ‘The elephants are on the run. The question is whether…’ Confused by the light, Artemesia paused for a moment. Suddenly we heard Harry scream in the dark.

  ‘Joey! No!’

  A shot came from behind and Betsy lurched forward. Artemesia turned to save her but the baby elephant fell forward with a hoarse, deep cry into the river. It never occurred to me that I couldn’t save her. That’s why I jumped in. I had been to Boat Safety. I thought I knew what to do. The river pulled at Betsy and she floated off to a sand ledge near the middle. She was bleeding from her left shoulder. Her head was being swamped by water as she lay on her side. I got to the middle of the river and tried to push her up on to the sand. I remembered about Resussa-Annie. I kept trying to remember what to do.

  ‘You put your hand on her chest like so, then take a deep breath and blow, one, two, three.’ I began to blow into her mouth. Her chest was supposed to rise up. I knew it was.

  ‘Head to the side, blow out, one, two, three.’

  I didn’t even care about cooties. I thought her lungs would suddenly fill up but I didn’t have enough air. No matter how much I blew I couldn’t cover her baby mouth. I started crying, my tears mixing with the river water. I thought I knew how to do this and I didn’t. The river was pulling on me and I couldn’t hold on. The water snatched at me, pulling me away from the baby elephant. I didn’t know that my father had been following. He knew his way without a map. I didn’t hear him call to me but he saved me. My silent father leaped into the waters, reached out for me and pulled me safe. It was the closest moment we ever had.

  From behind me I could hear Artemesia giving a great scream of pain as she turned back to land. The elephant knows about revenge. Artemesia ran at Joey. He didn’t have a chance, and when she was done she knelt by the riverbank uttering choking cries with tears trickling down her cheeks.

  Judith put her arms around her mother and rocked and rocked her.

  ‘Mr Mayor, your comment,’ called the reporter and Harry just stood there. He looked back at the big house and at Joey on the ground and at Miss Strange and then he began to cry.

  ‘Billie! Billie!’

  Betsy did not die. The fire brigade saved her. Once again Uncle Eddie came to do salvage.

  The whole thing kind of shocked everybody and it took a while to settle down. The mayoral race was held over. No one had the appetite for it. The news people found out the truth about Harry and there was a great deal in the papers about Pearl. The elephants had made Sassaspaneck famous and for a while the town was full of strangers. Harry resigned from the fire brigade and didn’t go out much. Aunt Bonnie’s kids came back from camp and she went back to her regular life. It was about two weeks later that there was a town meeting. Judith addressed everyone. She looked so different now to the woman I had met when we first arrived. Strong and determined. Harry sat meekly beside her while she spoke.

  ‘My mother, Grace Gerritsen, has been running the zoo for as long as any of us can remember. Perhaps it is time for a change, but it needs to be the right one. Does anyone have any suggestions?’

  I looked around the gathered townspeople. Mr Torchinsky who had romance even though his wife had a moustache, Hubert who was a cool dude and had stood by us when it mattered, Frank Walchinsky, Alfonso and Gabriel who had been my friends. But mostly I looked at the women — Doreen Angelletta from the pizza parlour, Mrs Torchinsky the undertaker’s wife, Ingrid who married a black man, Miss Strange, Sweetheart, Cosmos, Judith, Helen, Aunt Bonnie — and I knew I had found my place in the cosmos. Not necessarily in Sassaspaneck, but in myself I could be anything. Run troupes of roller-skating bears or tame tigers or write or whatever. Being a girl was just fine if you got to end up like one of these women.

  Helen stood up. ‘I think Artemesia and Betsy need to go home. I think they need to go home to Africa.’

  Abe from the ice—cream parlour stood up, shaking his head.

  ‘Are you crazy? Those elephants are the best thing ever happened to this town. People are coming from all over. This could put us on the map.’

  Mr Torchinsky slowly got to his feet. ‘You know, Abe,’ he said, ‘there is definitely money in it. We could all
make money and God knows that would be nice but I’m a lousy businessman. Boots and bicycles, there’s money in that, but the elephants have to go home.

  And that settled it. The whole town chipped in so they could go home, home to the bush, away from the people. There was a parade when they left. The two of them leading a great march through town. Everyone whistled and waved flags and Artemesia set off the cannon on the high-school lawn. Even Mr Paton flapped his wings to the high-school band. Judith, as stand-in Mayor, made a speech and then everyone marched off to the railway station. There were flags up everywhere. Even the funeral parlour was looking bright with flags. As we passed Mr Torchinsky’s the most wonderful thing happened. A cloud of beautiful plumage rose up from the glasshouse at the back. Mr Torchinsky had released every one of his birds. It was a mass melody of thanksgiving as each of Shakespeare’s birds took to the air and to freedom. The bizarre human grouping stood on the street and watched with wonder.

  Grace went to Africa with our elephant friends. As she leaned out of the train to say goodbye she called:

  ‘Sugar, I thought of something. Betsy — I didn’t like the name, but there was Betsy Ross. She sewed the first American flag. It’s okay.’ And it was.

  Nature gauges time not in tens but in thousands of years, and in the great scheme of things what happened that summer in Sassaspaneck was not earth—shattering. But it changed some lives. Saying goodbye to Grace was hard. I loved her beyond all measure. She was not an Et cetera. She belonged to the Emperor. She was first on the list. Any list. I’m not sure what happened to everyone else. Father sent me back to England to boarding school. It was a British way of valuing me and it was its own kind of drowning. I never got back to Sassaspaneck. Helen had a baby. A boy who was both beautiful and big, which is what you get when a butterfly mates with a bull elephant. She called him Billy. She and Cosmos closed the zoo and opened an animal sanctuary and a home for unmarried mothers. At last love came back to the big house. Judith and Harry divorced and eventually she was elected Mayor. Troilus fell in love with an emu and went to live in the sanctuary. Grace slipped into her sleep under the stars in Africa. It was all a long time ago but I know that we were none of us Et ceteras.

  I guess somewhere in the bush there is an elephant called Betsy who would remember. I still have my carving of her that Cosmos made all that time ago. Sometimes I wake in the night clutching it and whistling as if my life depended on it.

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