“You don’t have to tell me everything, but give me a little hint,” Corinna said, lowering Bettina’s head backwards into the sink. “Did you find a pile of money in your backyard, maybe? Did Mr. Solomon propose?”
Mr. Solomon had been courting Bettina for nearly fifteen years without making a single commitment. Corinna didn’t think much of him; he was a skinny man with a stingy attitude. He was more than happy to let Bettina cook him dinner every Thursday night, but when it came time to give back again, he was sorely lacking. So far his greatest extravagance had been to take Bettina to a cafeteria for her sixtieth birthday; the entire meal had cost him twelve ninety-nine, and that included a seventy-five-cent tip for the busboy.
Bettina sat up a little straighter. “As a matter of fact, there’s a new man in my life.”
“No.”
“Yes, and I want to look my best for him.”
Corinna took her hands out of Bettina’s newly black hair. “Well, go ahead. Or do I have to guess?”
“I can’t tell you much,” Bettina said, “’cause he’s married.”
“No.”
Bettina nodded coyly. “Yeah.”
“Well, you’ve shocked me. Is he someone I know?”
Bettina nodded.
“Do I like him?”
“Not much, but I believe that’ll change.”
Corinna put the back of Bettina’s chair upright so she could look her in the eye. “Who?”
“You know Darla Kinney?”
“Didn’t she die last year?”
“Thirteen months ago this March.”
“Billy Kinney? But honey, that’s not married, that’s widowed.”
“Yeah, only he says he still feels like he’s married. Says he needs another couple months to sort it all out and then we’re going to tell the world. He told me last week he loves me.”
“Aw, honey,” Corinna said, pressing Bettina’s shoulder through the cape. “Why’d you say I don’t like him? I like him.”
“I never thought you did.”
The women moved over to the chair in front of the mirror as one, Corinna holding the back of Bettina’s cape like a train so she wouldn’t stumble. Bettina adjusted her skinny hips in the chair, and Corrina started setting her hair with rollers. She said, “He’s just kind of a strong flavor, is all. But I never didn’t like him. You tell Mr. Solomon yet?”
“Cheap old thing,” Bettina picked a piece of fuzz off her tongue.
“You tell him?”
“Yeah, I told him. You know what he said?”
“What?”
“He said, Honey, if you got someone falling over in love with you, why, you take that road, ’cause the one to my house don’t go all the way through.”
“He said that?” Corinna stabbed a pick through a roller.
“Yeah, he said that.”
“All those years of your feeding him pork chops and lamb stew, and he says a thing like that.”
Bettina sighed. “Don’t I know it.”
“Funny the way things work out. You and Billy Kinney. Now I think about it, it makes a lot of sense. You and him and Darla have always been good church friends, and you never could get Mr. Solomon to church except on Christmas and Easter.”
“He never felt strongly about Jesus,” Bettina said primly.
“You and Him, you on pretty good terms?”
“Yeah, we are,” Bettina said. “I work real hard at it every day. Me and the Lord, we talk.”
“Is that right? About what?”
“Mostly what you’d tell a husband, I guess. How I’m feeling, what worries I’ve got—nothing special. An old woman like me, I’ve got nothing to say that will exactly raise somebody’s blood pressure, but He listens just the same.”
“Well, you know me and the Lord, we’ve had our differences over the years,” Corinna said, separating out a section of Bettina’s hair with the end of a rat-tail comb. “I never made a secret of that.”
“Uh huh.”
“But with Hannah going to the sanctuary and all, I believe I’ve got some answering to do to Him for a change, instead of the other way around.”
“When’s she going?”
“Soon, maybe a week or two. Sam’s all jittery about it. Me, too. We worry about the girl.”
“Well, tell that to the Lord, honey. He’s up there right now listening for you.”
Corinna pinned the last roller in place. “To tell you the truth, I’m working on getting up the courage. It’s been an awful long time since I’ve been in touch.”
“That’s no more than a blink of an eye to Him.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve got to figure out an apology, that’s the first thing. It doesn’t feel natural, though, after all these years of being mad.”
“Well, tell Him that. Tell Him you’re ready to put your hand in His and walk down that path of righteousness and joy.”
“Yeah,” Corinna said doubtfully.
“Come on now, you got to have faith. He’s taking care of Sam, isn’t He?”
Corinna set the last roller in place. “I didn’t see it before, but I guess He is.”
“Then you got no reason to doubt His goodness. You talk to Him, honey, and you’ll feel your cares just lift away like magic.”
“Well, I sure could use that.”
“Yeah, you could.”
As Bettina drove away, Corinna saw Sam just pulling into the driveway. As they often did, the two of them closed up the shop together, Sam sweeping up Bettina’s hair clippings while Corinna emptied bowls of old disinfectant and poured in new. Sam seemed like he was in a pensive mood. He’d been changeable ever since they’d gotten word that the sanctuary had made a place for Hannah. As though he could hear her thinking, he said, “Now that shug’s going, I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself, Mama.”
“We’ll figure it out,” Corinna said. “Like we always do.”
“Don’t know that I want to figure it out.”
“Sure you do, honey. I guess we’ve got some mourning to do first, but once that’s over we’ll still be right here, together.”
Sam stowed his broom in the closet and came over to put his arms around her. “We’re a fine pair,” he said softly.
Corinna looked up at him, her eyes brimming. “Yeah, we are.” She raised her hand to his face, his cheek as familiar to her as her own. “Aw, sugar man,” she whispered, “now we get to be old.”
Harriet wondered why the expression stopped at a glass half empty. It could be a lot emptier than that, and she was in a position to know. She’d been in her aviary power-drinking a bottle of Merlot that was definitely more than half empty—the only thing left was its tears, not even enough to fill a teaspoon.
She wandered out of the aviary with the grieving wine bottle in one hand and her empty glass in the other, moving from room to room to visit the framed photographs she had hung everywhere—photographs of Maxine and the pretty little woman who had accompanied her to France, to New York, to Italy; photographs of Brave Boy and Arthur, of Maxine in the company of mahouts in the jungles of Burma. Here was a successful woman, a woman who had loved passionately and inspired love in return, and who was now mocking her: You can look, but you may not have. Harriet had been betrayed by her employees, by her circumstances, by family, by genetic inheritance, by love in general and men in particular—and now, unkindest of all, she was being betrayed by the dead. A bolt had appeared from on high, and it had come from the distant hand of Maxine Biedelman herself, Harriet’s angel and savior, her beloved. The elephant would not be staying.
From her night table Harriet pulled a thick stack of unframed pictures and fingered them like rosary beads. She left on top a close-up of the face of a young elephant, its left eye mangled and swollen shut, the eyelid pulpy and weeping blood. Under the picture was written in faint pencil, OUR DEAR GIRL. The photograph was of Hannah, freshly orphaned: Hannah, Maxine’s crowning achievement, the object of her final passion. A big, awkward, wounded creature who w
as lucky enough to be loved by a woman who saw beauty where there wasn’t any. Along the bottom of the photograph was written, THE FINAL RED TAPE IS DONE, AND WE SHALL HAVE HER!
Harriet turned the photograph on its face and regarded the next one, a picture of Maxine in safari-wear, striding up the path of her property, neatly thatched huts on one side—a balloon-animal kiosk stood there now—and, on the other, an open yard with two gentle-eyed dik-diks and a zebra.
And just like that, from the ashes heaped around her, Harriet found her salvation. She was not, never had been, and never would be Maxine—Max—Biedelman. But she could be her agent, could keep the flame of Max’s legacy alive by devoting herself to restoring Havenside, all of it, to its old and original glory—the whimsical gazebos and pavilions, the lush grounds, the grand home, the campaign tent, the lifetime of photographs; and yes, gradually, the animals. She would tell Max’s story to anyone who would hear her, visitors, guests, donors, and historians, and with the money she raised she would rebuild the zoo. All of it.
And maybe one day there could be elephants again.
chapter 21
People lined the streets of Bladenham two and three deep despite the drizzle. From inside the closed cab of the transport truck, Sam watched them cheering and holding up homemade signs and balloons to say goodbye to Hannah. His shug had been loved.
He hated that she was riding in an open cage like she was, even with the wooden windbreak on three sides. It was cold out, and it nearly broke his heart, seeing her chained to the transport cage by one front foot and one back foot so she couldn’t turn around. It kept her safe but he hated it anyway, his sugar being driven out of town like a criminal, like something wild and dangerous. What was she thinking, all by herself in those chains, with no idea where she was going, or that it would be someplace good? Sam wasn’t allowed to ride back there with her, in case she shifted suddenly and crushed him, but he’d have chanced it, if it had been left up to him—ridden in his old chair from the elephant barn, feeding her a donut from time to time and telling stories, making up some foolishness to pass the time. He was glad Corinna had stayed home. Seeing her shug in chains like that would have broken her heart.
Satellite trucks were broadcasting Hannah’s departure live throughout the Pacific Northwest and feeding news services around the world. Harriet Saul had been giving interviews continuously since Good Morning America powered up at three a.m. It was now nine. Sam had been at the zoo all that time, too, getting Hannah watered, keeping her calm while the transport truck was backed up to the barn. Hannah had gone into the cage easily, despite Neva’s worrying, and they were getting on the road earlier than they’d expected. Neva was ahead of them someplace, driving her run-down little car. She’d meet the transport truck at designated rest stops on I–5 heading south—two in Oregon, three or four in California. It would probably take them twelve hours in all to reach the sanctuary.
The truck driver didn’t have a lot to say, and that was all right with Sam. His heart was too sore for company, all his feelings riding high and tight in his throat. If Max Biedelman was watching, he hoped she’d be proud—proud of Hannah, and proud of him, too. It reminded him of a conversation he had had with her several months before Miss Effie’s death, when it had become clear that she needed to prepare herself for it. She’d been stumping along beside him with her walking stick, wearing a jaunty Irish cap against the fall drizzle.
“Do you know, Mr. Brown, when my father died, I wasn’t sure I would go on. He passed away on safari about seventy miles from Nairobi. It was some sort of hemorrhagic fever, and came on so swiftly that by the next morning he was too sick to move, and by the following evening he was gone. We buried him there. It was what he’d have wanted, though my mother never forgave me. We’ll stop here, I think.”
She’d unfolded her little campstool. Hannah had explored the nearby trees and Sam had crouched in the damp, running his fingers through the dew and the clover while she talked.
“My father was a fine man and an ideal traveling companion, Mr. Brown, curious about everything. He taught me astronomy, botany, zoology, anthropology, biology—he was a great admirer of Charles Darwin. Before he retired each night he read poetry. I never could stand the stuff, but he claimed it sang to his soul.” She’d smiled fondly. “I never found another traveling companion who suited me as well, though I’ve traveled with other men over the years.”
“Ladies, too?”
“Very few. My mother despised travel. She was a vain, silly woman to whom a length of Italian lace was more important than either my father or me—or anyway it seemed that way to me. I could never understand why he’d married her. He claimed she had been more daring when she was young, and perhaps she was, but it would have been quite out of character. Effie, of course, was nearly as bad, though Effie is not and never was a silly woman. No, women were not my traveling companions of choice, Mr. Brown. Wonderful when they are in civilization, but best left there.”
She stood, folded up her campstool, and they’d set off again, Hannah lumbering along beside them.
Sam said, “My father got old early, busted up by Jimmy and Emmanuel dying like they did; no sense to it, no sense at all. I tried to be real careful with myself after that, so I wouldn’t multiply his misery. My mother died younger than she should have, from grief. Woman was only fifty-three, and strong, but I guess that was just on the outside. She loved us children. First there was Jimmy, of course, and then eight years later there was Emmanuel. When a couple of old boys from the bar brought the body home, she started to scream so loud my daddy had to send her upstairs just so he could hear the story straight. Not that it was much of a story. No story at all, really; no point to it, none whatsoever. Her heart broke, right up there in their bedroom with the bureau and washstand her father had made as wedding presents, and the bed my father built. There was nothing else in that room, not so much as a rocking chair. Her heart was like that, too—all the basics but nothing extra, no padding to soak up all the sorrow when it spilled over. Drowned her soul.”
“Tell me, Mr. Brown, do you ever hear their voices?”
“No. Wish I did.”
“Nor do I.” The old woman kept her eyes on the ground ahead. “I’ve asked God for that, but He has not seen fit to answer.”
“To tell you the truth, where God is concerned, me and Him are only distantly connected,” Sam said. “The way I figure it, we’re aware of each other, we’re respectful, too, but we don’t exactly sit down for a meal at the same table.”
Max Biedelman smiled. “Nor do I, Mr. Brown. Nor do I.”
The truck driver pulled into the first prearranged rest stop, ready, as he’d put it to Sam, for a crap and a cuppa joe. Sam was out of the cab the minute the truck stopped, headed around back to check on Hannah.
She was quiet behind the bars, and calm. Sam dug into his first box of Dunkin’ Donuts and handed in a custard-filled imperial.
“How you doing, sugar?” he said softly. “You keeping warm enough? If we would have known how cold it was going to be, Mama could have knitted you a sweater, maybe, or a blanket. Sure would like to see you riding down the road in a purple-striped coat—wouldn’t you just look fine.” Sam smiled in spite of himself, the first real smile in hours. It did him good, seeing Hannah so calm and composed—the truth was, she was doing better than he was, and he wasn’t even the one out in the cold. He was so proud of her, he could have just spit.
He handed her a Bismark.
“How is she?” Neva, who had been waiting for them, hopped out of her car with the engine still running. A small crowd was growing around the truck and the cage.
“Good—she’s doing good.”
Sam offered a raspberry jelly donut and stooped to look at Hannah’s ankles. They’d wrapped the steel shackles with soft leather strips to keep them from rubbing so much. He didn’t see any abrasions yet. That was good.
Neva hauled over a hose. “Do you want a drink?” she asked Hannah. “Yes?” She s
prayed the hose into Hannah’s open mouth for a good long drink. Sam gave her two Bavarian cream-filleds and a cruller, which she popped into her mouth one by one.
“Ain’t she a dainty thing, though?” Sam said, smiling.
Neva smiled, too, and looked him over. “How are you holding up? Are you tired yet?”
“Nah,” Sam said. “I figure I’ve got the rest of my life to be tired. I’ll be tired when sugar’s out in that meadow making friends. How about you—you okay?”
Neva had been up all night, getting Hannah’s food and gear ready. She shook her head. “I’m okay. It’s pure adrenaline, but I’ll grab a cup of coffee before I head out. It was a nice sendoff back there, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah. Baby sure had friends.”
Neva smiled and squeezed Sam’s arm.
When they got back on the highway again heading south, Sam thought about Corinna, about the day he’d brought her home from the hospital after the baby died. Sam had taken the trash out to the alley, and when he came back he’d heard her upstairs keening, a fury and a wildness to it. By comparison, his own grief had been a puny thing, a narrow dark place like a well sunk deep in his soul. After that, there had always been this thing between them, this inequality of grief, this unfinished mourning.
People had asked him sometimes what they’d said to each other, as though there had been something to say to each other. There hadn’t been. There had only been Corinna’s eyes, awful things, and the milk stains on the front of her dresses.
Last night, when Corinna had said her goodbyes to Hannah, she had been composed, at least mostly. Sam had stood back while she’d let Hannah’s trunk explore her hands one last time. Hannah had moved close and rumbled deep down in her throat, as though she knew.
“Honey girl,” Corinna had said, “you’ve been the best thing that’s ever happened to Papa and me, and I think you know that. We love you, and that won’t ever change, no matter how far away you are.”
Hannah's Dream Page 26