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

by Françoise Malby-Anthony

  ‘I’m Clément,’ said the man.

  ‘Your name sounds French,’ said Michelle.

  ‘Sort of French, I suppose. I’m Mauritian but I was born here.’ He looked at me. ‘You’re definitely French.’

  ‘C’est vrai. I’ve been here forever and still can’t lose my accent!’

  ‘And believe me, it gets worse the longer she lives here,’ Michelle teased.

  He lived and worked in Durban but although he had heard about Thula Thula, he confessed sheepishly that he hadn’t read The Elephant Whisperer.

  ‘I’ll send you a copy,’ I promised.

  An hour later, I glanced at my watch and wondered if my friends would allow me to escape.

  ‘Is the noise in here also getting on your nerves?’ asked Clément. ‘I’m house-sitting at my sister’s just around the corner, why don’t I cook up a Mauritian curry for all of us?’

  I was delighted to get away from the pub and we bundled into our cars and followed him to a tranquil all-white beach house. We sat on the deck and listened to the waves crashing on the rocks while mouth-watering garlic, cumin and chilli smells drifted out from the kitchen.

  Clément and I sat next to each other over dinner and chatted about everything under the sun. He told me where to buy the best crayfish in Durban and I gave him my secret recipe for a foolproof crème brûlée. I learned that he also came from a big family and had four sisters, a brother and three grandchildren.

  There wasn’t a breath of wind, and at midnight we watched the moon rise over the horizon and turn the sea into a glistening pool of amber. We talked so late that the others gave up on us and went home. I didn’t even notice. By the time I drove home, I felt as if I’d known him for years. A week later, we met again for a proper date. He arrived with roses and those gentle eyes, and before I knew what was happening, I was falling in love.

  What a surprise. I thought I had done such a good job of locking my heart away! Never in a million years did I think I would have another chance at love. After I lost Lawrence, I threw myself into work. At first, it was to bury my grief but then it just became a bad habit. There was always so much to do that I barely had enough time for myself, let alone a new us.

  I found balance in my life again with Clément. We love cooking, the bush, the ocean and being at home. He understands how important Thula Thula’s human and animal families are to me, even when they keep me away from him.

  When my mother turned ninety-two, Clément and I flew to France so they could meet. My parents were married for sixty-seven years and lived a very normal life, like my brothers and sister do. They’re all doctors, have stable families and sane lives. I’m the black sheep – going off to different countries, giving up a good career to live in Africa, and not even coming home after being widowed in my fifties.

  I was nervous about the introduction because my mum was a very traditional French matriarch. Respect and courtesy were important to her and she belonged to a generation who valued restraint. She rarely showed her feelings, certainly not to someone she barely knew.

  And Clément is the complete opposite. He is as easy-going and friendly as she was reserved and formal. His roots are Mauritian but he was born in South Africa and he speaks French in a haphazard jumble of franglais – part French, part English. But as no one in my family speaks a word of English, at least I knew he would be able to communicate with them.

  ‘Maman, this is Clément,’ I said. ‘Clément, my mum.’

  He kissed her hand. ‘Enchanté.’

  She was charmed.

  ‘Françoise m’a beaucoup parlé de toi,’ he said. Françoise has told me a lot about you.

  I froze. He had used the familiar form of you – toi – as all Mauritians do.

  She was a little less charmed.

  Unaware of his faux pas, he chatted away, asking her about her collection of antique teaspoons and wolfing down a second helping of her tarte tatin with oohs and ahs and pleas for the recipe.

  She thawed a little after that and a whole lot more the next day, because she spent most of the afternoon cooking and I knew it was for him. Like me, she fed people she loved. And when she asked him to help her chop onions, I knew we had her blessing.

  Such genuine warmth developed between them in a very short space of time that when we left she hugged us both in a rare show of affection. Six weeks later, she passed away quietly in her sleep and I often wonder if she felt free to go because she knew I wasn’t alone any more.

  Just before she died, I had been looking forward to a visit from Susanne Simonsen and her sister. We had talked over the past two years about doing something to honour her late father-in-law Jorgen, whose discovery of Thula Thula had introduced three generations of their family to the bush and instilled in them all a deep commitment to wildlife conservation. We decided her trip would be the ideal occasion to hold a small ceremony at which we would hang a plaque at the orphanage in his name. Their most recent donation had paid for extra-sturdy barriers to stop our little rhino thugs from escaping, so it was the perfect time to celebrate the meaningful impact of their generosity. Giving her father-in-law this simple recognition meant so much to Susanne, as he had deeply influenced her own life.

  When I phoned to tell her about my mother and that I was devastated to miss the ceremony, she was her usual gracious self.

  ‘We’ll be fine. Go to your family,’ she urged. ‘Promise and Christiaan will celebrate with me.’

  I rushed off to France for the funeral, struggling to come to terms with the fact that I had lost my mum so soon after seeing her. I was gone for ten days and it was only upon my return that my assistant Jojo sat me down and told me what a disaster the event had turned out to be.

  ‘Christiaan and I went up to the orphanage before the others so we could prepare a couple of things,’ she said grimly.

  When they got there, a very embarrassed Axel told them they weren’t allowed to put up the plaque.

  ‘You’re joking, right?’ laughed Christiaan.

  He wasn’t, unfortunately. The orphanage’s Durban-based admin manager had phoned through an explicit instruction to prevent the ceremony from taking place.

  I stared at Jojo in horror. My dear friends had been caught bang-smack in the middle of the petty human politics that I had tried so hard to protect them from. All Susanne had wanted to do was honour her father-in-law with a plaque, and then be allowed to take some photos that would help spread the word about Thula Thula’s conservation projects through their wildlife foundation network.

  ‘What happened then?’ I asked.

  ‘Promise and Siya arrived with the Simonsens and…’ She fell silent. ‘It was so awkward. I tried to make it better by suggesting to Susanne that we find a spot at Mkhulu Dam for the plaque but she wouldn’t hear of it.’

  ‘It doesn’t belong in the middle of the bush and especially not at Thula Thula’s most sacred place,’ Susanne had protested vehemently.

  If I had been there, I doubt that the instruction to stop the plaque from going up would have been given in the first place. It was a shockingly heartless thing to do while I was 10,000 kilometres away, burying my mother.

  To his credit, Axel showed the Simonsens the new barriers and gamely participated in the photographs. He did his best to handle the very uncomfortable situation imposed on him by his boss.

  Susanne then had the difficult task of going home to Denmark and reporting to her husband and brother-in-law that their father had not been honoured in the way they had hoped. At that stage, she didn’t know about the management difficulties that I was experiencing at the orphanage, and being the gentle and considerate person she is, she let it be and didn’t even raise the subject with me afterwards. In a way her kindness made me even more upset that the partners to whom I had entrusted the orphanage could have cold-shouldered the family who had helped us so much.

  ‘If the Simonsens can move on then so should you,’ advised Clément.

  He was such a calming, steady supp
ort during that awful period and all I could do was continually remind myself that the animals at the orphanage came first.

  Very few people knew about the conflict I was going through with the outside management team and I preferred it that way. It was distressing to talk about and seemed so petty in the bigger scheme of things, going against everything Lawrence and I had dreamed of – which was to create something that went beyond Thula Thula, where anyone who loved animals could find a way to help and be involved in wildlife conservation.

  * * *

  Although Lawrence had been gone for many years by then, I was unsure how people would react to me having met someone. I don’t know why I fretted so much, because everyone was thrilled for me, and I was so touched when Lawrence’s mother Regina invited us both to join the Anthony clan for her ninetieth birthday celebrations.

  But Clément still had to pass the scrutiny of my dogs and I was very curious about how they would react. Gin loves everyone, so he was a pushover, but my Labrador, Jeff, was almost ten years old and had become very possessive of me. The day they met, he was fast asleep on the kitchen floor. I tiptoed past him and shot Clément a warning look.

  ‘Be careful. He’s grumpy and doesn’t like strangers.’

  Jeff heard my voice and lifted his head, looked at me, looked at Clément, registered I was with someone he didn’t know, then thumped his tail twice and went back to his old man’s siesta.

  ‘Two down, one to go,’ Clément grinned.

  Gypsy is my most discerning dog. She’s smart and has an excellent nose for trouble, so if she didn’t like him, it would be a bad sign. Clément had brought a bag of bones but she isn’t easily fooled and would have seen right through his tactic if she hadn’t fallen head over heels for him first. Not that he was her priority. She snatched up her bone and disappeared outside without a backward glance.

  ‘That’s a bit of a non-reaction!’ I laughed.

  ‘She’ll come back later and say thanks,’ he smiled.

  He was right, she did, and now there are five of us fighting for space on the sofa.

  Even Gobisa gave his stamp of approval.

  One weekend, Clément drove up to Thula Thula to spend a few days with me and persuaded me to abandon my in-tray and go along with him on a game drive, which was quite a feat because I rarely went on drives any more.

  My nervousness around the herd developed slowly and without me really being aware that I was coming up with excuses to avoid going into the bush – usually work-related excuses, because who could argue with that? I loved being with our elephants from the safety of my home but I always felt unsure and worried if I was on foot or in a car, and after Lawrence died, my anxiety became worse.

  I reluctantly followed Clément into the Land Cruiser and made sure I sat in the middle of the seat, with him on one side of me and a guest on the other. I sat bolt upright and did my best to hide my nerves.

  We hadn’t had rain for weeks and the Zululand hills looked like a painting – layers and layers of golden savannah against a deep-blue sky. No artist paints as vividly as Mother Nature.

  Our ranger Andrew radioed Siya for the location of the last sighting of the herd.

  ‘We saw them heading south,’ he reported.

  ‘Rain must be coming at last,’ Andrew said to us.

  The sky was clear and cloudless and rain didn’t seem possible but our elephants are never wrong. We don’t need a weather station in the bush, we watch our animals. If a cold front is coming, the herd take shelter in the south of the reserve, where there are more trees and there’s less chance of them losing their footing going down wet and muddy hills.

  Rain in our Zululand paradise is often regarded by locals as a blessing. I smiled to myself. These rain blessings couldn’t be coming at a better time. Two of our rhino orphans, Ithuba and Thando, had ‘graduated’ and gone back to the reserve they had come from, and the next two, Impi and Gugu, were also close to going home. With all the people problems at the orphanage, I hadn’t been present when Ithuba and Thando had left, but I had heard from the reserve that they were settling in well. I would have given anything to have been present for these important milestones, but by then, it was just less painful for me to stay away. It was tough, though, really tough, to be excluded. What kept me going was that getting these little creatures back to the wild was why we had built the orphanage in the first place.

  I was jolted back to the present with the vehicle bumping across the veldt as Andrew did a U-turn, and not even fifteen minutes later, we saw the herd about 500 metres ahead and coming towards us along the dirt track.

  Andrew stopped the 4×4 near a magnificent acacia tree.

  ‘They’ll be munching on it within minutes,’ he predicted.

  Acacias are queens of the African wilderness; tall, tenacious survivors of droughts that hide their spear-sharp thorns within gracious leafy canopies. Our elephants love them.

  My heart thudded as they ambled towards us, slow and steady. Frankie and Nana were in the lead, the other mums behind them with their little ones holding onto their tails, and trailing much further back were the bulls: Mabula, Gobisa and our gentle giant Mandla. Frankie stopped on cue under the acacia tree and broke off a branch, nimbly manoeuvring it into her mouth with her trunk. This was a sign to the rest of the herd that it was time for a snack. Nandi walked protectively on Nana’s blind side and led her mother to a tree without thorns.

  With both matriarchs distracted, our youngest elephant Themba decided to charge us, slinging his trunk in the air like a lasso. But like all kids, he hadn’t yet realized that mothers – and aunts – have eyes in the back of their heads. Frankie spun around, mouth sprouting leaves, and rumbled a warning at him to behave. I kept my eyes riveted on her, terrified she would realize I was in the 4×4.

  Themba stopped dead in his tracks, stared warily at her, then flew off like a bullet in the opposite direction towards Mandla. Baby elephants love to charge and this little one was bubbling over with mischief and energy.

  Mandla may be six tons of intimidating bull, but inside he’s a marshmallow and the best uncle a calf could wish for. He slowly lowered his head and Themba crashed into a wall of muscle and skull and toppled over. Mandla coiled his trunk around him and gently helped him up.

  ‘That’s how Themba will learn who to pick his battles with,’ smiled Andrew.

  The herd milled about, nibbling on trees and grass with not a care in the world. I felt such a rush of love for them and their Zen-like way of being, and at the same time I felt confused that I had allowed myself to become so anxious around them. They show me how happy they are every day, and yet over the years I had slowly stopped spending this kind of close-up time with them.

  As for Frankie – she was either ignoring me or she hadn’t even picked up that I was there!

  Suddenly Gobisa stopped and jerked his head towards us. His trunk shot up and rotated in our direction, picking up the scent of everyone in the 4×4. Then he strode towards us. I gritted my teeth and watched Frankie like a hawk. Clément took my hand and smiled at me. He knows the bush and wasn’t the least bit concerned.

  ‘He’s just popping in to say hello,’ Andrew murmured. ‘Stay calm, keep still and make sure your phones and flashes are off.’

  Gobisa walked straight up to Clément and stopped in front of him. We held our breath. He gazed down at him, huge body blocking the sky. Clément looked up, hand tightening over mine. They stared at each other. Gobisa leaned his massive forehead against the Land Cruiser’s canopy, his tusk prodding Clément’s side. The vehicle shifted and creaked under the weight.

  ‘I only saw peace in those hazelnut eyes,’ Clément said to me afterwards.

  I watched in amazement as Gobisa floated his trunk over him. An elephant can yank an oak tree out of the ground but it can also caress with infinite tenderness. His trunk fluttered over Clément’s chest, moved to his face, explored his cheeks, nose, hair.

  ‘He looked at me the whole time as if expecti
ng something from me. I didn’t know what he wanted so I just kept looking back at him. He was serene and his eyes were kind. I could see the furrows cleaving his skin, the veins on his ears. But I didn’t want to be a hero and touch him back. I’m not the one who talks to elephants,’ he smiled wryly.

  Andrew started up the Land Cruiser and Gobisa stepped back. The engine purred patiently while we waited for him to leave but he continued to quietly study Clément before stepping up to him again, touching him one last time with his trunk, then sauntering off to join the rest of the herd.

  I gripped Clément’s hand, stunned, filled with the deepest calm.

  Who knows why Gobisa homed in on Clément like that, but my Zulu rangers say that as the herd’s oldest bull, he was checking out my new mate. If eyes are the windows to the soul then I know he left reassured that I was with someone who made me happy and who would never come between me and them.

  25

  Nowhere is safe

  Lightning blitzed white through my bedroom. Thunder cracked like gunshots. The storm was close, very close, and it had been hammering for hours. I stroked Gypsy to re- assure her and registered that my phone was ringing.

  I groped for it and checked who was calling at 2 a.m. in the morning. Unknown number. I dropped the mobile on my bedside table and fell back on the pillows.

  It rang again. One wrong number is possible, two unlikely.

  ‘Hello?’ I mumbled.

  ‘The orphanage has been hit. They shot two rhinos and attacked the volunteers.’

  It was the orphanage’s wildlife consultant calling from Johannesburg. I sat bolt upright. Hit. Shot. Attacked. I couldn’t process the words. I called my assistant Kim. No answer. I tried Vusi. No answer. Between sleep, the storm and the time of night, no one heard their phones. I pulled on khakis and a jersey, ran to the cottage nearest mine and banged on my general manager’s door. She had only been with us for a few weeks and I was about to discover that, over and above being a strong and capable woman, she had steady nerves and a clear head in a crisis.