“Mr. Clarke, you know who I am.”
He returned her identity card. Hettie tucked the card into the interior pocket of her worn satchel.
“Did you hear the news?” asked Mr. Clarke.
“The Germans?” she asked, her heart quickening.
Recently, Hettie and Rose had been listening to J. B. Priestley’s weekly broadcast, Postscripts, on the wireless. Priestley had mentioned predictions of the remote chance of the Germans bombing Northern Ireland, and then moved into the common debate of whether or not the Unionist government needed to be taking more measures to protect the citizens of Belfast. While she and Rose listened to the broadcast, Hettie had wondered if the Luftwaffe would bomb Belfast before the war was over. There were many arguments for why this attack would never happen: that the city was too remote from Germany, that Hitler had never heard of it, that German bombers would have to cross the antiaircraft guns twice to reach Belfast and this seemed unlikely, and finally maybe Hitler would respect Éire’s neutrality and not bomb Northern Ireland either.
Despite all this reasonable rationale, Hettie couldn’t stop herself from imagining what an aerial invasion of her city might look like: an infinite series of deafening explosions and spontaneous fires blooming along the nocturnal horizon. In her mind, Hettie never made it to the aftermath of the destruction, to the casualties and injuries enumerated daily in the wartime reports on the wireless. The lost limbs, the lost lives. The roofs of shelters that buckled and collapsed onto innocent citizens. Children, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters. In Hettie’s version, there were no tears or blood on the streets. Instead, the explosions always remained suspended in the air. The attack was always something that illuminated the night sky of Belfast, but never destroyed the sleeping city below.
“No, not the ruddy Germans,” Mr. Clarke scoffed. “All this guff about Hitler. Everybody knows he’s never heard of this place.”
“What happened, then?” Hettie said, doing her best to tamp down her growing irritation with this man.
“George is making more purchases,” he said. Mr. Clarke was the only employee at the zoo who referred to Mr. Christie by his first name, and it grated on Hettie every time. “A pair of panthers from a zoo in Turkey and then a small herd of camels from Africa.”
“That’s grand,” she responded, quickly recognizing that these additional animals might require the necessity of another full-time zookeeper on staff.
Mr. Clarke glanced over Hettie’s head. A queue of other employees had formed behind her, each carrying a lunch box and thermos, their breath curling into the morning air.
“At this rate, everyone’s going to be late,” said Mr. Clarke.
“Good day,” she said.
Hettie walked at a clip past the enclosure of the two polar bears. Felix and Misty had arrived at the zoo at the same time Hettie had. Mr. Christie had acquired the pair from a circus trader in Florence, Italy, who had captured the animals in their native habitat of the Arctic Circle. Felix was standing up on his hind legs while Misty waded in the pool, her white head, statuesque snout, and pointed ears perforating the indigo water. On Hettie’s right, black-masked lemurs leaped from limb to limb, their long tails swinging behind them. One lemur carried a baby in her arms, its fists clinging to her white-furred chest. The other lemurs yipped and cackled as if they were lobbing insults at each other. Harold Gilbert, one of the zookeepers, fed the Chinese water deer, with their prominent tusks on either side of their soft mouths. As Hettie took in the presence of the animals and walked through the familiar surroundings, she felt the assurance and confidence that the zoo often gave her.
When she arrived at Mr. Wright’s office, she knocked on the door. As she waited, Hettie straightened her coat and lifted her chin. There was no answer. She pressed her ear against the door and heard classical music playing on the other side. Then came the steady punches of a typewriter, one forceful stroke after another. Hettie rapped her fist against the door again, harder this time. The music ceased.
“Come in.”
As Hettie opened the door, Mr. Wright stood up behind his desk and lifted the needle from the shellac record on the gramophone. He wore a short-sleeved undershirt instead of his signature red coat. Tufts of black hair sprouted from the ribbed, rounded collar. It was almost as if he were wearing no shirt at all because Hettie had only ever seen him clad in his ubiquitous uniform. Hettie felt a heat travel into her cheeks. Mr. Wright reached for his coat from a hook and slipped into its sleeves.
“What do you want?”
“I have a request,” Hettie said, feeling each word in her throat.
“Make it quick,” Mr. Wright said. “Chop-chop, Miss Quin.”
He buttoned his coat, straightened out the shoulders, and picked up his leather crop. Above a short bookshelf, Hettie noticed a wall calendar: The photograph for the month of October was a cheetah racing at full speed, its paws lifting off the grassy tundra, its spotted body lean, nimble, and fierce all at once.
“It’s about Violet.”
“My time is in short supply, Miss Quin—”
“I would like to be made a full-time zookeeper,” she said, her voice shaking slightly. “I can care for Violet in addition to my other duties.”
Without looking at her, Mr. Wright grabbed his fedora from the cluttered desktop.
“May I ask, Miss Quin, what about your performance yesterday demonstrated your ability to care for an elephant?”
Hettie stood taller, with her hands tucked into her coat pockets, as she attempted to locate the height of her spine, the length of her legs that she had just felt a few minutes ago, walking along the pavements of the zoo, but that natural confidence and ease had diminished as swiftly as it had materialized. Instead, during that split second, standing in Mr. Wright’s office, Hettie felt small and sad, just like her mother. At moments like this, Hettie was convinced that Rose’s sorrow was mysteriously slipping into her, and there was no way to avoid becoming her mother. That as she approached middle age, Hettie would be alone and full of melancholy and grief, too—and there was little she could do to sidestep this kind of unhappy existence. She returned her attention to Mr. Wright and the request that she was making.
“I managed to lead her for a wee bit—”
“Ha!” Mr. Wright said. “It was more like Violet was leading you.”
She felt a twitchy spasm above one of her eyes—as if an insect were trapped there.
“I’m not sure if you comprehend the situation,” he continued. “Elephants are dangerous animals. Violet might look innocent, but one wrong move and she could crush you to death. Don’t forget: She weighs over three thousand pounds. It just happened recently. An elephant charged her trainer during a feeding at the Chester Zoo in Cheshire. The man was dead before he arrived at the hospital.”
Sudden. Like Anna. One second, she was prematurely giving birth to a baby girl; the next second, Anna was bleeding and dead. The news arrived the following morning when a doctor from the Royal called Rose at their home. Hettie recollected her mother pressing the black receiver against her ear, her complexion draining of its color, and then dropping the phone onto the kitchen floor as the doctor’s tinny, miniature voice continued to travel through the receiver’s earpiece. Again, Hettie tried to drive these thoughts away.
“Mr. Clarke mentioned that Mr. Christie is purchasing more animals.”
“Yes, this is, in fact, true,” Mr. Wright said. “Mr. Christie is making a few more acquisitions.”
“So won’t you—”
“Excuse me, Miss Quin,” he interrupted. “I’m needed elsewhere.”
Like that, Mr. Wright was out the door, leaving it open behind him. Hettie stood silently in front of his desk. A few papers and receipts drifted to the floor. She picked them up and studied the pages. Invoices for feed, hay, and fish. There was a telegram from an animal dealer in Greece, confirming Mr. Christie’s recent purchase of the panthers. She sighed.
As Hettie returned the papers on
to Mr. Wright’s desk, she noticed an unfinished letter in the platen of his Remington typewriter. It was addressed to the head zookeeper at the Bristol Zoo Gardens in England. Mr. Wright was corresponding to inquire if his peer knew of any well-respected zookeepers who might be interested in transferring up to Belfast. He went on to say that he realized there were shortages of upstanding young men, given the continuing demands of conscription and the munitions factories, but wanted to ask on the off chance that the zoo director might have any worthy referrals.
Hettie slammed the door to Mr. Wright’s office. The lock on the handle clicked into place. She wondered if Mr. Wright had a key with him, but decided that he must, given the oversize brass ring of keys that was always attached to the belt loop of his trousers. Mr. Wright didn’t seem like the type of person who would get locked out of anything; instead, he was a man of command and control who was always several steps ahead of everyone else. And right now, she didn’t really care if he was locked out of his office. Hettie kicked the bottom edge of the door.
“Damn it,” she said to herself. “Goddamn it!”
In the distance, a howl traveled from the wolves’ den. She still had the day of chores in front of her. She wasn’t going to quit impulsively, as her father might have done. Instead, she would figure out a way to ask again, press for another chance. Up ahead, on the pathway in front of Mr. Wright’s office, Jack Fleming, another zookeeper, pushed a wheelbarrow filled with mounds of manure.
“Morning, Hettie.”
“Morning.”
One of the lions roared, the sound echoing against the treetops. Jack and Hettie exchanged glances.
“Wallace isn’t feeling so chipper this morning,” Jack said.
The lion unleashed another roar. Together, Jack and Hettie walked down the pathway that led to the lions’ enclosure, where several other zoo employees were congregated. Mr. Wright stood in the middle of the enclosure. Wallace reared into one of the far corners. A confetti of hay and dirt flew out as the cat shook his flaxen mane. Wallace’s ears were folded back. Hettie noticed a trickle of blood dripping from one of his front paws. Mr. Wright took several steps closer. Wallace swiped his good paw at Mr. Wright. Victoria and her cubs cowered in the opposite corner of the enclosure.
“I know you’re not feeling well, Wallace,” Mr. Wright said calmly.
He took several steps closer until he dropped his crop onto the ground and cradled the lion’s injured paw in his hands. He inspected the dark pads before removing what looked like a scrap of rusty metal. More blood leaked from Wallace’s paw, and the lion growled ominously. Mr. Wright held a tattered rag against the injury, exerting a steady pressure for several minutes, as the group of zoo employees stood silently and took in the natural ease and expertise of Mr. Wright’s medical attention. It was as if he were treating a harmless dog rather than a dangerous lion. Wallace roared again and nudged his head into Mr. Wright’s forearm.
“There, there, my boy,” Mr. Wright said, removing the compress.
Wallace licked his paw again and again. The other female and cubs emerged from the cave at the rear of the enclosure. Mr. Wright set down an aluminum bowl of pork trimmings donated by a local butcher, and Wallace and the other cats began to feed.
“Mr. Wright may not be so nice, but he certainly knows his animals,” Jack said.
“He’s not very nice, is he?” Hettie said, scowling.
“He has his moments of kindness,” Jack said, adjusting his tweed cap before returning his grip to the wooden handles of the wheelbarrow. “Anyway, back to work.”
Hettie made her way to the women’s locker room, next to the staff canteen. The locker room was a tiny, windowless space with six metal lockers painted a muted shade of green, one toilet stall, and a sink with a mirror attached to the cinder-block wall. Hettie changed into her work suit and socks, and slipped on her worn boots. She shut the metal locker door and placed her navy blue knit cap on, tucking the staticky strands of her brunette hair underneath its itchy rim, and stepped outside. Already, the day was beginning to warm up, the sun creating spots of heat along the sinuous pathway. Before heading to the flamingos, she walked to the Elephant House, where she found Violet standing near the edge of the moat.
“Morning, Violet,” Hettie said, once again feeling the disappointment of Mr. Wright’s response as she took in the animal.
The elephant stood with her tail stiff, her ears pleated against her head. Suddenly Violet turned and trumpeted, and then kicked hard against the iron bars of the fence, sending a loud clang into the air. Hettie gasped and took a step back. She thought about what Mr. Wright had said about how an elephant could easily crush her. She imagined a human skull cracked open, like a watermelon, and the hairs on her arms pricked up. She finally understood how lucky she had been yesterday, to get away with only a bruise.
It was hard to imagine an elephant being so violent. She recalled the first time she had seen one at the circus with her father and sister more than ten years ago. She remembered the audience cheering on a chaotic parade of clowns underneath the swiveling spotlight. The warm air had held the smells of sawdust, sweet honeysuckle, and popcorn. The notes of a wheezing organ filled the enormous tent. Below, in the illuminated ring, an elephant emerged from the wings. Right away, Hettie was entranced by the elephant’s dignified and elegant presence amid the frenzy of circus performers. The animal seemed to emit an otherworldly peace. A mystery and a knowingness. Her large-lidded eyes slowly blinked as she stared out at the crowd. A rhinestone tiara had somehow been propped up on her forehead. The ringmaster cracked his long bullwhip, and the elephant shifted her weight from side to side. The man cracked his whip again.
And then, it had happened: The elephant had stepped, one foot at a time, onto a sizable blue ball. The ringmaster lashed his whip again—and the majestic creature stood perfectly still, balancing on the curved surface. Then he slipped a harmonica out of his pocket and raised the instrument up to the elephant’s trunk. The rowdy din of the audience grew silent as the animal wrapped the end of her trunk around the harmonica and proceeded to blow, producing a series of uneven whistling notes. The crowd erupted into wild applause. Hettie’s father had squeezed her hand, the edge of his wedding ring pressing into her finger, and gave her a wink as he cheered the elephant with the rest of the crowd.
With her head lowered, Violet charged toward the edge of the moat, and Hettie quickly realized that the gentle giant at the circus and the elephant standing in front of her were not one and the same. But even as Hettie took a few steps away from the clearly agitated animal, she knew that she was enchanted by Violet just as much as she was frightened by her.
“Miss Quin,” Mr. Wright said. Startled, Hettie spun around. “Aren’t you supposed to be with the flamingos?”
“Yes, Mr. Wright—”
“Go on now,” he said, uncoiling a rubber hose that lay next to the Elephant House. “No time to waste.” Mr. Wright turned on the spigot and sprayed a fan of water along Violet’s rounded back. “The Monkey House requires a good cleaning this morning, too.”
“Yes, sir,” Hettie mumbled.
“And after your break, the Reptile House,” he said. “Change the water.”
“Yes, sir.”
In the distance, Rajan bellowed his familiar call. When Hettie arrived at the flamingos’ enclosure, most of the birds were asleep, their black-tipped beaks disappearing into their plump, feathered bodies. The smell of rotten cabbage and manure wafted through the air. She reached for the shovel and bucket that were stored in the far corner of the enclosure, drew it back, and got to work.
As she began to scrape up the birds’ excrement, Hettie heard Anna’s voice in her mind. You need to get better at asking for what you want. Nobody’s going to do it for you. She was right. Hettie would ask again. Once the panthers and camels arrived at Bellevue, Mr. Wright would realize he needed Hettie, that she deserved to be treated equally, just like the male employees. She would become full-time, earn a higher w
age, and her mother could no longer press her about applying for positions in a typing pool at one office or another. Eventually, she would manage to save enough to find a room in a boardinghouse downtown and move out of her mother’s home on the Whitewell Road altogether.
Her disappointment eased and Hettie focused her attention on her chores: the repetitive swings of the shovel, the somnolent birds, the occasional roar of one of the larger cats, the low croaks of the toucanets, and the raucous calls of the macaws with their sweeping feathered tails. At least the animals were reliable and consistent, Hettie thought. Every morning she worked at the zoo, Hettie knew the animals would be there, waiting for her to take care of their basic needs. This predictability gave her days a satisfying order and purpose. Hettie had always known that she was someone who preferred habit to spontaneity. Routine—whether it was school, chores, and later her part-time work at the zoo—provided a comforting rudder to her daily life.
During their midmorning break, Hettie and Ferris met at the canteen, as they usually did on the days when Hettie worked at the zoo. After fetching cups of tea, they sat at one of the worn wooden tables. Handfuls of other employees gathered at other tables, their murmurs producing a steady strum. The odors of boiled potatoes and chopped onions suffused the musty air. An electric heater, with its metal coils glowing amber, stood on the linoleum floor underneath the bank of windows. Ferris sat hunched over his cup of tea. A thick lock of hair curled against his forehead like an upside-down question mark. Hettie looked up and caught sight of Eliza Crowley in the kitchen area on the other side of the large window. She was filling a metal bucket with water. Eliza smiled and winked at Hettie.
The Elephant of Belfast Page 4