by Brady Hammes
She found her brothers sitting with Laurent in the shade of the schoolhouse. “Good morning,” she said, approaching.
“There you are,” Jonah said. He stood and threw his arms around her.
“When did you get back?” she asked.
“Early this morning. Had to go get this guy.” He nodded to Gavin.
Sam turned to Gavin. “What happened?”
“I disappeared for a while,” Gavin said.
Sam wasn’t sure what he meant by that, but she smiled anyway. “Well, I’m glad you’re back.”
“So how was it?” Gavin asked.
“It was awful,” she said. “Awful but necessary.”
Grace approached with a bowl of jackfruit. “Better?” she asked.
“Much,” Sam said, taking a piece. “Thank you for everything. You were a very good Bwiti mother.”
“So that’s it?” Gavin said to Laurent. “It’s done?”
“The withdrawal symptoms will subside,” Laurent said, “but her work is not complete. The Bwiti is just the beginning. Sam must continue the journey. She must continue the hard work.”
“I understand,” Sam said, and she did. Work was nothing new to her. Hard work was what had granted her access to the cutthroat world of professional dance. It’s what had landed her at the Joffrey at sixteen and the New York City Ballet two years after that. Hard work was what had defined her life until recently, and though she knew the path forward would be long and lined with temptation, she finally possessed the will to try.
“So what was it like?” Jonah asked. “The iboga?”
She couldn’t say what it was like, because it was unlike anything she’d ever experienced. It wasn’t a dream, because the sensations were too real, too strong, and it wasn’t real life either, because the things she saw were not of this world. It was a walk through the darkest part of her soul, but also a reminder of the happiness she’d once known, such shining joy that it nearly brought tears to her eyes just thinking about it. It was impossible to explain, so she decided not to try. “I don’t know if I’m ready to talk about it just yet,” she finally said.
“Understood,” Jonah said.
“It’s not easy to explain,” Laurent added.
“When did you do it?” Sam asked.
“When I was a young man.” He shook his head. “But never again.”
“Yeah,” Sam said with a smile. “That’s kinda how I feel too.”
“So now what?” Gavin asked.
“I think we should go see about the elephants,” Jonah said.
* * *
—
THEY ARRIVED AT THE BAI early that evening and sat on the observation deck, eating what was left of the smoked fish and plantains Laurent had packed for them. Rain had fallen earlier, but now the clouds were beginning to part, the sun painting the sky a silky orange. The plan was to spend the night there, enjoy a bit of peace before returning home. In the morning, they would return to Franceville, where Sam and Gavin would catch the train to Libreville, then a couple flights to Chicago. Gavin said he planned to drive back to Los Angeles, would try to wrangle a few auditions, maybe adopt a dog. Jonah’s plan was to stick around for a while to monitor the situation with the elephants, then, assuming everything remained calm, head back to the States to work on his thesis. Sam wasn’t sure what came next for her. Some kind of restart was all she knew, and she savored the idea of a blank, uncluttered future.
“How do you know if they’ll show up?” she asked, staring out at the empty bai. The three of them sat next to one another, their feet dangling off the edge of the platform.
“I don’t,” Jonah said. “I sometimes spend whole days waiting up here.”
“Do you ever get lonely?” she asked. “I think I’d lose my mind if I lived out here by myself.”
“Most of my time was spent questioning my sanity.”
“It must be scary when the sun goes down.”
“You’ll soon find out.”
“It’s funny to think about you living out here,” she said.
“What do you mean?” Jonah asked.
“I just never really had a clear picture of your life—what you do on a day-to-day basis. I knew you were doing research, but I always imagined you in some kind of lab.”
“This is it,” Jonah said. “This is the lab.”
“Look!” She pointed to two elephants emerging from the forest. Trailing behind them were three young calves.
“You’re in luck,” Jonah said. “Here they come.”
“They’re stunning,” Sam said, floored by the majesty of these creatures she’d seen only in zoos.
“The big ones are the matriarchs,” Jonah explained.
“And the little guys?” Sam asked.
“Siblings most likely.”
Two more adult elephants arrived, but unlike the rest, they were tuskless.
“Those guys don’t have tusks,” Sam noted with a little frown.
Jonah couldn’t be sure if they were the same two he’d observed the last time he was here, or if these were new additions, but he removed his camera and snapped a few pictures to show Marcus. “This is something I just started noticing,” he said. “Nobody really knows for sure how it happens, but the thinking is that because of all the poaching, the gene pool’s being altered to such a degree that some of the females are born without tusks.”
“That’s awful,” Sam said.
“Yes and no. I mean it’s terrible that it’s happening, but if that’s what it takes for the species to survive, then maybe it’s okay.”
“But don’t they need them—their tusks?”
“Not necessarily. We notice the change, but if they’re born that way then it’s all they know. It’s evolution, albeit human-motivated evolution, but still. They adapt. They learn to live without.”
“Yeah,” Sam said. “I guess so.”
The two matriarchs began drinking the mineral water percolating from the ground, while the calves splashed in the mud, spraying water from their trunks like rowdy schoolchildren.
“What happened to the males?” Gavin asked.
“They usually leave and form bachelor herds when they reach adolescence,” Jonah said.
“Smart animals.”
“Will the calves leave when they get older?” Sam asked.
“Some will,” Jonah said. “Some won’t.”
“That’s a little sad.”
Jonah shrugged. “Such is the life of a forest elephant.”
As the last bit of color drained from the sky, a silence fell upon them. It had been a long time since they’d spent this much time together, and though nobody wanted to ruin the moment with an acknowledgment, Sam knew that something unspoken had passed among them. As kids, they used to spend whole afternoons watching planes take off from the commuter airport down the road from their house, oblivious to the way moments become memories and memories become things no one talks about anymore. How had the distance opened up? Where had it come from? Sam couldn’t say, and it was unlikely her brothers could either. But now, in Gabon, on the first day of a new year, that distance was momentarily collapsed as they watched elephant calves jostling in the mud, limbs crashing, tiny trunks knocking, struggling to make sense of all that common blood between them.
For my family
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I’d like to thank my parents: my mom for encouraging me to read; my dad for instilling in me the work ethic required to finish a novel. Thanks to my brothers, my first friends, the loyal and constant presence in what was an occasionally itinerant childhood.
It’s likely you wouldn’t be holding this book if my agent, Emma Sweeney, hadn’t plucked it out of the slush pile, shepherded it through many rounds of revisions, and then, through a stroke of what seemed like magic, made a dream come true.
Thanks to everyone at ESA, including Margaret Sutherland Brown and Hannah Brattesani.
Many thanks to my editor, Susanna Porter, whose sharp eye and keen instincts elevated the novel in ways I could not have done on my own. This book is immeasurably better because of her. A special thanks to everyone at Ballantine and Random House, especially Emily Hartley.
Jonah’s work with forest elephants was loosely based on The Elephant Listening Project, and I’m grateful to Peter Wrege, the director of the program, for consulting on matters relating to Gabon and forest elephants.
Steve Almond has taught me more about the craft of writing than almost anyone else, and his notes on a very early draft pushed the book in the direction it needed to go.
Many thanks to the following people who read various iterations of the novel: Andrew Hume, Dustin Hammes, David Heinz, Cheryl Spraetz, Lauren Westerfield, Zack Quaintance, Josh Denslow, and Mark Douglas.
A very special thanks to my love, Sondra Hammes, for encouraging me to keep going when there were plenty of reasons to stop. And lastly, to my sweet boy, Quinn, for putting it all in perspective, for making it all worthwhile.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
BRADY HAMMES is a writer and documentary film editor. His short stories have appeared in Michigan Quarterly Review, Guernica, The Rattling Wall, and Landlocked. He lives in Los Angeles by way of Colorado and Iowa.
bradyhammes.com
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