An Elephant in My Kitchen: What the Herd Taught Me About Love, Courage, and Survival

by Françoise Malby-Anthony

  ‘How can you be so sure?’

  Anneline laced her fingers with his. ‘What Pietie wants, Pietie gets.’

  ‘Let’s just say I’ve got friends in high places,’ he said. ‘Do we have a deal?’

  I didn’t know what to say. I’d done the figures in my head and what he was proposing would save my life. I would be able to clear all our debts and have a steady income to safeguard Thabo and Ntombi. If my calculations were right then there would eventually be enough money for me to expand the reserve and create the much-needed extra space for my growing herd. Luckily, the authorities had been very supportive of what we were doing and they hadn’t brought up the issue of culling again, but the kind of money Potgieter was talking about would solve that problem too. Still I hesitated.

  ‘How do you think your rhinos will get on with mine? Ours have never been around other rhinos,’ I said.

  ‘They’ll figure it out. Don’t forget, mine aren’t exactly wild. They’re used to being around other rhinos. I doubt they’ll attack them, if that’s what you’re worried about.’

  That’s exactly what I was worried about. Rhinos are territorial, and after everything Thabo had been through, the last thing I needed was him fighting off strange male rhinos who were eyeing his Ntombi.

  ‘What’s the male-to-female ratio of the rhinos you want me to have?’

  With an impatient flick of the wrist, Potgieter signalled to Sindi to top up Anneline’s glass.

  ‘And another Castle for me. Sure you won’t have anything other than water?’

  I shook my head. ‘Tell me more about the rhinos I’ll be getting.’

  ‘Can’t we go on a game drive before lunch?’ Anneline begged in her best little-girl voice.

  It struck me then what a good team they were. She had obviously picked up that he didn’t want to go into detail about the rhinos and was stepping in to distract.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Anneline, but there aren’t any drives scheduled until sunset,’ I said. ‘So, Piet, you were telling me about the rhinos?’

  ‘You’ll get eight in excellent health, even vaccinated against Histotoxic Clostridia toxaemia.’

  I didn’t let on that I had never heard of the disease.

  ‘I suppose they’ll be dehorned before they get to Thula Thula,’ I said.

  ‘The horns will grow back within a year or so and then they’ll start making money for you.’

  I took this in without replying and he misunderstood my silence.

  ‘Okay, okay. I can see what you’re thinking. How about this? I’ll make sure four of them still have their horns so you’ll reap the rewards quicker.’

  ‘It doesn’t feel right,’ I said quietly.

  ‘We knock them out. They don’t know what’s happening.’

  It wasn’t at all what I meant, and his nonchalant attitude to anaesthetizing the rhinos shook me. He was right that dehorning doesn’t hurt the animal, but the process remains brutal and it can go wrong – there is no such thing as a risk-free anaesthetic.

  I understood then why Gypsy hadn’t liked him. He wasn’t the kind of conservationist Lawrence and I had set out to be.

  ‘The thing is,’ I said, ‘we spend our lives educating people that the horn is worth nothing and that it has no more medical value than the keratin in their nails, so don’t you think that selling the horns goes against everything we conservationists are trying to do?’

  ‘You’re not going to change the minds of the idiots who buy the stuff, so you may as well make money for your animals from them, and anyway, let’s remember the objective here – once we flood the market, the price will drop and the horns won’t be as lucrative for the poachers any more.’

  Not before you’ve sold your stock at the current dollar rate per kilo, I felt like saying, but I kept quiet. I had no doubt that in the two decades he had been quietly breeding his rhinos, he had built up millions of dollars’ worth of horn, waiting for the day that the selling embargo would be lifted. Maybe he was right that the price would drop, but I didn’t for a moment believe that a product so ingrained in a society’s cultural belief system would become less popular if it was less expensive. Yes, some of the status around owning rhino horn might disappear, but what about the uneducated Chinese labourer whose cancer-riddled mother is dying and who really believes that traditional medicine with rhino horn powder will save her life? Of course he’s still going to buy it.

  Lawrence would have laughed in Potgieter’s face. The only reason he wanted to give me some of his rhinos was because he was running out of space. Just because he was a breeder didn’t mean he didn’t have to stick to South Africa’s wildlife regulations, and I knew first hand how strict the rules were about the ratio of wildlife to size of reserve.

  ‘Are the rhinos you want to give me males, by any chance?’ I asked.

  His eyes narrowed for a second. Bingo. He was offloading territorial males. Anneline placed her hand on his forearm.

  ‘Are you done yet? I’m dying to meet Nana,’ she pleaded.

  I leapt at the opportunity to get rid of them.

  ‘I’ll arrange a private game drive for you. I could even ask the kitchen to prepare you a romantic lunch in the bush if you like.’

  ‘Really? That would be great,’ she squealed.

  I waved them off on their game drive à deux, but not before Potgieter tried to extract an answer from me.

  ‘I can’t make the decision on my own,’ I protested.

  ‘Why not? You’re the boss.’

  ‘I’m still learning about conservation, and for something as big as this I prefer to talk it over with my team.’

  ‘Are they here? Why don’t you let me speak to them?’

  ‘They aren’t all here,’ I lied. ‘But there’s a meeting planned for next week so I’ll be able to get back to you pretty quickly.’

  He tried again over dinner to persuade me to agree to his proposal, but by then I’d had a quick word with Vusi and Promise and they both agreed that we shouldn’t touch the rhinos with a bargepole.

  Firstly, none of us believed that selling rhino horn would help the species in the long term, and secondly, I didn’t want anything to do with what was effectively a huge con. People who believe rhino horn has medicinal value are being duped and I wanted no part of it, no matter how badly we needed the money.

  The Potgieters left straight after breakfast the next morning and I promised I’d let him know about the outcome of our meeting and then I did the French thing and just left it. And he never made contact with me either. He was a smart man and I think he realized that I wasn’t just a broke blonde, desperate to say, Yes! Bring me rhinos. Let’s cut off their horns and get rich. He thought he could lure me with bags of money and he was wrong. There’s a fine line in conservation between putting animals first and turning it into a business. If you want to get rich, don’t get into conservation. Everything we make at Thula Thula goes back to the animals. I spend it all on them, every last cent of it.

  Potgieter’s visit was yet another wake-up call for me. Ever since Lawrence’s death, I’d been so focused on coping with everything at Thula Thula that I wasn’t really aware of what was happening outside the reserve.

  My exposure to this man prompted a big change. I began to lift my head and look outwards again, and one of the first things I did was become more involved in the conservation world, a world with which I had had very little contact until then. I quickly discovered that Potgieter cropped up everywhere as a pro-trade lobbyist.

  Thank heavens I had listened to my instincts and refused his dangerous offer.

  11

  Courage is doing what you’re afraid to do

  I was on a game drive with Jos, an old friend of Lawrence’s, and Elisabeth, a German journalist he had brought to Thula Thula for me to meet. Elisabeth was a striking woman in her sixties with piercing blue eyes who devoted her writing skills to telling the world about wild animals in trouble.

  Even though I had rarely met Jos in my t
wenty-five years with Lawrence, he did everything he could to help me after Lawrence died. I don’t think his mind ever stops trying to find ways to make a difference to the lives of those he cares for. He is an extrovert with a sense of humour as big as his personality and he’s always smiling – except when Mabula gets too close to him, because he’s convinced himself our big bull doesn’t like him!

  ‘Is Mabula in musth at the moment?’ Jos asked Vusi nervously.

  ‘For months already,’ Vusi nodded, sending me a quick wink.

  ‘Don’t worry, Jos. We didn’t tell him you were coming,’ I grinned.

  Jos adjusted his trademark baseball cap and squinted into the bush. I smiled at Elisabeth and the other guests, Joanne and Bruni, who had joined our drive.

  ‘It’s fine. Mabula’s nothing to worry about.’

  ‘What does being in musth mean?’ Joanne asked.

  Vusi explained, ‘It’s when bull elephants have a surge of testosterone and even the most placid elephant can become…’ He paused, searching for a word that didn’t sound frightening.

  ‘Moody,’ I suggested.

  ‘More like crazy,’ Jos grimaced.

  ‘It’s when we don’t get too close to any of our bulls,’ Vusi said diplomatically.

  ‘Does it happen to all of them, even the young ones?’ asked Elisabeth.

  ‘No, only once they get to about twenty years old,’ Vusi replied as he manoeuvred the 4 x 4 through the dry riverbed and revved the engine to get up the opposite bank.

  I quickly scanned the area for Frankie. This was the exact same crossing where Lawrence and I had run into the herd fourteen years earlier and it still gave me the shivers. There wasn’t an elephant in sight. I sat back and tried to relax.

  ‘How old is Mabula anyway?’ asked Jos.

  ‘Twenty-three,’ I replied.

  The vehicle fell silent as we bumped along the rugged terrain. You could almost hear everyone thinking, does that mean he’s had three years of practice at being bad-tempered?

  ‘The thing about Mabula is, he’s stroppy like his mum Frankie,’ explained Vusi. ‘But as long as we remember we’re in his space, and we stay out of his way when he’s in musth, he actually loves us being around.’ He grinned at Jos. ‘He also loves a good prank, especially giving someone a fright.’

  ‘Why does he have to pick on me though?’ Jos muttered.

  ‘Hello there. Look who’s here,’ Vusi said softly.

  Thabo and Ntombi were standing in the middle of the track, side by side with their backs to us. Vusi slowed to a halt and switched off the engine. A rhino’s bum is about as solid as it gets: a barrel of rock-hard muscle on stumpy but powerful legs that can outrun an elephant’s. Neither rhino acknowledged our presence, not even with a quick over-the-shoulder peek.

  ‘Something’s caught their attention all right,’ Vusi murmured.

  I noticed him shift the gearstick into reverse. Smart man. We didn’t know what Thabo and Ntombi were staring at, but a prepared man is an alive man in the wilds.

  ‘We hand-reared these two from when they were babies,’ I whispered to the guests.

  ‘Do rhinos go into musth too?’ Bruni asked.

  ‘No, they don’t,’ Vusi reassured him.

  ‘Thabo looks like he’s healed completely,’ Jos observed.

  ‘He’s doing well physically, but emotionally, it’s taken him a very long time to get over being shot. He really took a bad knock, poor thing,’ I said.

  The huge, grey head of an elephant appeared from behind a tree.

  ‘Uh-oh,’ said Vusi, starting the engine.

  ‘Mabula?’ Jos asked.

  Vusi shook his head and slowly began to reverse. ‘Shaka.’

  Jos let out a sigh of relief. Shaka is Nana’s grandson and he has inherited her sweet nature. He ambled towards Thabo and Ntombi, stopping a good fifteen metres in front of them, ears swishing air over his body, trunk down and relaxed. Vusi moved back to a safer distance then cut the engine again.

  ‘Bush stand-off,’ he laughed.

  ‘They’re not going to fight, are they?’ Joanne asked nervously.

  ‘I doubt it. Thabo’s too friendly for his own good and just wants to say hello.’

  Thabo took a few steps towards the young bull.

  ‘I wish he wouldn’t get in Shaka’s way like that,’ I frowned. ‘That’s the problem with hand-reared wild animals, they don’t grow up with bush manners.’

  ‘But what are the alternatives for animals that are orphaned like he was?’ Elisabeth asked.

  ‘A proper animal orphanage where human contact is kept to a minimum. We’ll have one here some day,’ I said confidently.

  Ntombi had ambled after Thabo and the pair of them were now very close to Shaka, who hadn’t moved at all. He looked down at them with a bemused expression as if to say, I think I have right of way here, buddies. The widest part of his trunk was more than twice the size of Thabo’s back legs. One swipe, and he could knock either rhino off its feet.

  ‘What about Shaka, how old is he?’ Joanne asked.

  ‘Only seven, also very young.’ I smiled despite my concern. ‘Look at them – just a trio of curious youngsters eyeballing each other in the playground.’

  ‘I think now would be a good time to leave,’ Vusi said. ‘If those two little tanks decide to turn around and bolt for the hills, we do not want to be in their way!’

  It was pouring with rain that evening so we ate inside, and over my chef Winnie’s latest dish – crayfish bouillabaisse – Elisabeth and Jos peppered me with questions. They were passionate about wildlife and determined to see how they could help.

  Will Thabo and Ntombi have babies one day? Would you take in more elephants that needed rescuing? Is poaching getting worse?

  ‘What are your plans for Thula Thula?’ Elisabeth asked.

  ‘To carry on Lawrence’s dream of creating one of the biggest reserves here in KwaZulu-Natal. And I would love to do more to help rhino calves whose mothers have been killed by poachers, but it’s a big project and there’s no money for that just yet. I’ve got my hands full keeping Thabo and Ntombi safe.’

  One of Elisabeth’s questions stayed with me for days after she left. She had asked how I was managing on my own after Lawrence died. The truth was that I had survived by simply getting up every day and doing what had to be done. I was utterly out of my comfort zone, small decisions felt overwhelming, and there was so much to learn. Rumours had continued to fly that I was going back to France and even the bank kept checking with me that I wasn’t leaving.

  One thing I was grateful for that first year was that no one at Thula Thula stopped talking about Lawrence. He always cropped up in conversations.

  ‘Remember how he would say he was bringing two guests for dinner at the lodge and then arrive with twelve?’ Mabona reminisced with me. ‘And telling him I’ll try wasn’t ever good enough. He taught me to go out and make things happen.’

  I loved how Vusi would quietly disagree with me about something then go on to explain what Lawrence would have done, and the way Promise would tell a story in the bar at night and mimic the way Lawrence used to tell it.

  We weren’t the only ones affected by his passing. People from all over the world contacted me to say what an impact his books had had on them, and the stream of supportive messages that came to me throughout 2012 was so comforting. Lawrence had no idea how many lives he had touched and he would have been deeply moved by the kindness shown to me by complete strangers.

  The anniversary of his death came too quickly, and before I knew it I was planning a small memorial for him on Saturday, 2 March 2013 at his beloved Mkhulu Dam. I wanted a simple and relaxed get-together that Lawrence himself would have enjoyed. No big speeches, no tears, just his closest friends and family celebrating his life together. His mother, brother and two sons Jason and Dylan joined us, along with friends from far and near, and of course everyone from the game reserve.

  The sky was pale blue, and on the
horizon storm clouds were gathering. I looked around at the beautiful faces standing in a half circle facing the spot where we had scattered Lawrence’s ashes. Vusi, Mabona, Promise, Siya, Alyson, Winnie, Tom, Sindi, Fortunate, Biyela, Victor and many more – my Thula Thula family. Between us, we had held it together and made it through the year, somehow keeping the wheels turning. I was so thankful for every single one of them.

  The dam was full and I could just make out the gleaming partly submerged bodies of our hippos Romeo and Juliet. A herd of Cape buffalo drank at the water’s edge on the other side, lifting their heads occasionally to fix us with austere stares from underneath magnificent curved horns that looked like helmets. Lawrence had loved bringing me here. We weren’t often able to carve out time alone and we had cherished our sundowners together, just him and me, watching the animals until it was too dark to see.

  I said goodbye to everyone and spent the rest of that weekend alone with Gypsy, Gin and Jeff. They sensed my sadness and nuzzled me gently, paws touching some part of me, warming my skin with their love, shepherding me to sleep with their soft snores. On Monday morning, I reluctantly headed for Durban for a week crammed with appointments. The storm that had threatened during the memorial had turned into nothing more than a drizzle and an eerie mist hovered between the Zululand hills as I slowly drove along the coastal road. Trucks transporting anything from timber to vehicles roar along that road so I always take my time and allow plenty of extra margin to get to my first commitment of the day.

  I raced from meeting to meeting and arrived after five o’clock at the apartment Lawrence and I had owned, a second home where we stayed whenever we had business in the city. I poured myself a glass of cold Sauvignon Blanc, pulled open the sliding doors and went outside onto the covered veranda. Seagulls swooped low over the ocean in front of me and a troop of monkeys jabbered away in the palm trees close by, no doubt eyeing the open door behind me and trying to figure out if they could bolt through to steal fruit from my kitchen.

  Inside, my phone pinged. I ignored it. The day had been exhausting and I wanted half an hour of peace before tackling the build-up of emails and messages. The waves rolled in gently, scattering white froth over the rocks then sliding back again. I never tire of looking at the Indian Ocean. The waves can pound with brutal power in the morning then caress with infinite tenderness by afternoon.