Just like that, the physical weight of Maeve in her arms was gone, and Hettie suddenly missed her niece again. Mrs. Keegan laid the baby down on the changing table. Liam and Hettie stepped into the hallway, the worn floorboards giving with each step. As they entered the kitchen, birds chirped near the windowsill. Liam glanced up at the clock on the kitchen wall.
“I have a meeting before work,” he said.
Hettie nodded, avoiding eye contact with him. Anna had told Hettie about Liam’s history and beliefs: that he had joined up with the republican youth organization Fianna Éireann and later, when he was eighteen, the IRA, after dropping out of St. Malachy’s College and getting work as a stock boy at a local grocery store. Like the speaker on the square, Liam and his friends thought that Britain’s current war with Germany should be seen the same way the first one was viewed by the rebel leaders in 1916: that “England’s difficulty was Ireland’s opportunity,” that Hitler had his good points, that at least he could drive the Brits out of Ireland and end a thousand years of British occupation of their country. In any case, they couldn’t be worse off than they already were. Liam grabbed his coat and scarf.
“Don’t tell my mum,” he said. “She doesn’t like the idea of me being so involved. It makes her nervous.”
“I don’t like it either, Liam, you—”
“I’m sure you’re aware de Valera only seems to care about Ireland remaining neutral and doesn’t give a damn about the North,” Liam said, the pitch of his voice rising. “He represses, imprisons, and executes republicans, and isn’t even open to the recruitment of Northern Catholics into the Irish Army. We need to train and organize ourselves. No one else is going to do it for us.”
Hettie had read about Éamon de Valera and how his ruling party, Fianna Fáil, supported a military policy of Irish neutrality throughout wartime. And then there were the other stories on the wireless and in the papers about how subversive minority groups were critical of young Protestants enlisting in the army, how they were being “suckered by Stuttering George.” More than once, she had wondered about these theories and if Liam was concocting conspiracies to support his increasing involvement in the IRA and its questionable activities, but now was not the time to bring any of this up.
“It’s nothing to worry about,” Liam continued, his tone conciliatory. “Just training and drills. We’ve set up a boxing ring in the hall on Kane Street. Come and watch me fight again.”
Over the last few years, Liam had also developed a reputation as a fleet-footed boxer, defeating a string of opponents in amateur matches throughout the city. When Anna was alive, Hettie had gone to see him fight once, and he had easily knocked out his opponent within three rounds.
“I will,” Hettie said, trying to smile.
“Bring your ma next time—”
“You know she won’t come.”
“Maybe she’ll change her mind,” Liam said. “Stranger things have happened. Bye, Ma! Grand to see you, Hettie.”
Liam leaned forward, slid a strand of hair from Hettie’s face, and kissed her on the cheek. His lips felt like feathers, and her blood pulsed in her ears. Then he was out the front door. Cold air slipped its way into the foyer. Mrs. Keegan carried Maeve from the baby’s room.
“God bless,” Mrs. Keegan called.
“I should get going, too,” Hettie managed.
“Such a short visit,” Mrs. Keegan said. “Promise you’ll come for a proper tea next time.” She opened the front door for Hettie and propped up Maeve’s arm so the baby waved goodbye. Hettie felt her heart break a little again, taking in the sight of Maeve in Mrs. Keegan’s arms. She waved, too.
“See you soon,” Hettie said even though she wasn’t certain when her next visit would be.
“Love to you,” Mrs. Keegan said. “Say hello to your mum.” She shut and locked the door.
The sun had come out again. A few auburn leaves floated down from a tree. Still standing on the front step, Hettie replayed her exchange with Liam. What had just happened? Was she attracted to her dead sister’s husband? Was she finally admitting to herself that she found Liam handsome, too, and that occasional purls of jealousy, envy, and shame swirled underneath the veneer of her pleasant exchanges with him? Hettie pushed these questions out of her mind. After all, Liam was still her brother-in-law. He was her sister’s husband—whether she was dead or alive. And Hettie knew instinctively that there had been something special about Anna and Liam’s marriage, how the two had complemented each other’s dispositions: Anna was the container of sorts for his boundless spirit, and his rambunctious nature had tempered her daily need for discipline and her relentless competitive drive. Liam and Anna had completed each other, even if it was only for a short period of time. Deep down, this was something that Hettie desired—a companion, a kind of punctuation that would place some finality to her unspoken yearnings, a pure kind of love.
On the street, a group of young boys played a game of catch, and two girls swung a long leather rope. Another girl paused before jumping in and hopping on one foot and alternating onto the other foot. Together, the girls recited: Charlie Chaplin went to France / To teach the ladies how to dance. Hettie started to whistle along with the familiar rhyme as she walked to her bike. Out of habit, she reached into one of the pockets of her coat, as she often carried a talisman—a shell or a rock or some other object—in her pocket, something with worn or weathered contours. Instead, she felt the corners of a piece of paper. Hettie took it out and even before she unfolded it, she knew what it was—a list that had been written by Anna over a year ago, items she had wanted Hettie to pick up at the market:
rationing of eggs
sack of potatoes
tin of sardines
square of chocolate
Hettie refolded the piece of paper and slid it into her coat pocket, and rode her father’s bike home.
Four
AUTUMN ADVANCED INTO WINTER. THE DAYS WERE SHORTER, the nights longer, and morning freezes regularly stiffened the dead grass in people’s yards and in the large meadows along the foot of the Cavehill. Air-raid drills became routine, and the familiar sirens frequently whined across the sweep of the winter sky. A smattering of pedestrians got into the habit of carrying gas masks, the straps draped over their shoulders, each mask folded into its own cardboard box, the instructions glued to its interior lid.
Hettie noticed other changes, too. Onions, cheese, and jams were no longer being sold at Aunt Sylvia’s shop, St. George’s, and other stores. The Belfast Telegraph arrived during the afternoon hours rather than early in the morning and the news was clearly being censored. Walls of layered sandbags surrounded many of the government offices, such as the city hall, the parliament buildings at Stormont, and the Customs House. Air-raid officers had dug trenches around the perimeters of many of the public parks. Civil defense wardens and ambulance workers staged mock incidents with pretend casualties reclined on canvas stretchers and ferried them through the busy streets of downtown and the dockyards.
In the meantime, Hettie spent less and less time at home. Instead, she found other ways to occupy her evenings, often staying late at the zoo after its doors had closed and taking on extra chores in hopes that Mr. Wright would notice her efforts and reconsider full-time employment in the near future. Since Violet’s arrival to Bellevue two months ago, Edward Baird, another zookeeper, had been assigned to the elephant’s care, but Hettie remained optimistic. She had also checked out a handful of books from the Belfast Public Library about animal husbandry and elephants. She was studying up on the black bears as well, so she might be able to assist Mr. Wright with the birth of the cubs when the springtime came.
On other evenings, when Hettie wasn’t at the zoo, she wandered along the lower reaches of the Cavehill or paid ever more frequent visits to the Keegans and spent more time with baby Maeve, since Rose was paying less attention to the nature of Hettie’s whereabouts. If Liam happened to be at their flat, it was nothing to her. And as she walked home at night,
Hettie had become accustomed to the darkness of the government-mandated blackouts. The terraced silhouettes of the unlit houses against the paler sky. The glowing ends of cigarettes amid the shadowy huddles of men gathered on street corners and in front of pubs and storefronts. The hooded headlights of the cars and lorries. It was like the city of Belfast was meant for the regulated darkness, its industrial landscape disappearing each night as the early-winter sun set. And Hettie felt as if she were meant for darkness, too, that it made being invisible and lonely acceptable, a natural state of being, at least during the evening hours.
Often when Hettie returned home, the glowing seam underneath her mother’s bedroom door disappeared as soon as she slipped off her winter coat and locked the front door. During their brief morning exchanges, Rose asked fewer and fewer questions about Hettie’s activities, and their daily conversations were limited to a few subjects, such as changes in the weather, the rationing, and the new prime minister, John Andrews, who had taken over since the recent passing of Lord Craigavon, who had simply died in his armchair while listening to the six o’clock news on a late November evening. After the sudden loss of her sister, this kind of abrupt death no longer seemed alarming or implausible to Hettie. No one—not even the prime minister of Northern Ireland and the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party—was immune to such a death.
One morning during the first week of December, Hettie arrived early for work, as she often did. During the past week, the temperatures had dropped, and snow flurries had gathered in the flat, pewter sky. Underneath her winter coat, Hettie wore extra layers—one of her father’s jumpers and one of his long-sleeved shirts to insulate herself against the biting cold. Throughout the morning, Hettie’s assignments followed a familiar revolution: feeding the flamingos, the birds in the aviary, and the lemurs (who were making a habit of escaping their cages on a regular basis, requiring Ferris to recapture them again and again). In the afternoon, she had also been assigned to the dromedary camels, cleaning out their bedding and the drain of their enclosure.
After feeding the lemurs, Hettie creaked open the door to the Elephant House. There, inside, she spotted Violet lying on her side. As soon as the elephant noticed Hettie’s presence, she stirred to her feet and shook splinters of hay from her boulder-like torso.
“Hey, Vi,” she said. “It’s me, Hettie.”
Violet took several steps toward her, and Hettie patted the elephant on her forehead. Violet lifted up her trunk and opened her mouth, revealing her pink, slippery tongue. During recent weeks, it seemed that Violet had come to expect Hettie’s visits; she had become familiar with the sound of her voice and the occasional treats—stale buns and bruised produce that she brought from her aunt’s corner store.
“Hungry?”
Violet released a series of chirps, a kind of Morse code of affection. Hettie gently patted her side, and the elephant’s fine bristly hairs sprung underneath her fingertips. She stepped back from Violet and took a closer look: Her belly appeared less full. The drape of her coarse skin barely hid the curves of her rib cage.
“We’re not feeding you enough, are we?” Ferris had mentioned the other day that Mr. Wright was closely monitoring the amounts fed daily to the animals so the zoo wouldn’t run out, and although Hettie understood, it didn’t make seeing Violet going hungry any easier.
Violet swung her trunk from side to side, and Hettie peered around the Elephant House for a bale of hay. Cobwebs stretched across the rafters, the morning sun glinting on the gossamer threads. She didn’t see any. Hettie made a note to herself to ask her uncle Edgar if he might be able to spare a few extra bales for the zoo. She stepped into the exterior yard and reached into her pocket for one of the turnips from her aunt’s shop. The gate slammed shut, and Hettie turned to see Edward Baird standing at the door of the Elephant House with a rake in one hand and a bucket in the other. Edward was a scrawny young man with rusty sideburns that trailed down the sides of his thin, freckled cheeks. His overlapping front teeth were the color of aging newspaper. From her first day at the zoo, Hettie had never exactly taken to Edward. He looked like one of those people who scratched their face and arms too much, leaving behind a broken trail of red welts, and you felt that if you stood too close to him, you might start itching your arms and face, too.
“Aye, Hettie,” he said. “What you doing here?”
“Just saying hello to Violet.”
Edward smiled at her. “She’s a good elephant, isn’t she?”
Hettie smiled back, doing her best not to stare at his teeth. “She’s lost a bit of weight.”
Edward sighed. “Mr. Wright told me not to feed her more than a half bale a day.”
“I’m worried about her.”
“Talk to Mr. Wright,” he said, sounding defensive now. “I’m just following orders.”
“I will.”
“Good day,” Edward said, wiping his brow with one of his work gloves.
Recognizing his dismissal, Hettie closed the gate behind her. She watched as Edward walked over to where Violet stood. He patted her on the side and then nudged his forehead against hers. For a moment, it looked as if the elephant and Edward were held under some sort of mutual spell. Edward closed his eyes and leaned into the elephant’s large, lumbering body. Hettie clenched her fists, turned around, and made her way toward the nearby pathway. A tightness grabbed at her chest. She stole one more glimpse: Edward wiped something from his eye, and Violet walked away from him. He retrieved the rake from the ground and began to comb the enclosure’s dusty surface. She suddenly felt a warmth toward him.
As she made her way to the flamingos, Hettie passed the polar bears. One after the other, Felix and Misty dove off the stony ledge and swam in circles before lifting themselves onto the pebbled shoreline, climbing to the top, and diving again. The polar bears performed this continuous loop of movements every day, and Hettie never grew tired of watching them. Misty paused at the top and shook her fur, sending out a halo of moisture that sparkled in the winter sun. She growled, stood up on her hind legs, and bared her teeth and dark gums. Her triangular ears perked up as she returned to all fours and dove into the pool again. Felix followed her.
Hettie rubbed her gloved hands together and blew into them. Already, the tips of her fingers ached from the cold. Misty growled again as she pulled herself out of the water, her wet paws slopping against the ice-laced ground, and Hettie forced herself to move on. A minute later, the pink-and-scarlet huddle of flamingos came into view, standing still on their thin black legs. Clouds of air materialized in front of her mouth as she walked along the pavement, greeting Helen McAlister and Mary Robinson, who were opening the ticket kiosk.
Hettie spotted Eliza Crowley walking toward her. A wool scarf obscured most of her face, and in her gloved hand she carried a tin lunch box by her side. For a moment, Hettie wanted to turn around and walk in the other direction, pretend that she had somewhere else to be. Even though she and Eliza were now in the habit of exchanging friendly pleasantries when Hettie visited the canteen for a cup of tea, Hettie had ignored Eliza’s advice of going out with Ferris to earn a promotion at the zoo. She still didn’t know if she liked him in that way and didn’t want to overstep their friendship as a means of advancement. Hettie had also learned from the other zookeepers that Eliza had gone out with Bobby Adair, who also worked at the zoo, and another boy, who worked at a linen mill on the Shankill Road, one week after the other, and had agreed to a romp with each of the young men in exchange for chocolates and nylons they had procured on the black market. She felt like Eliza’s business was her business—and knew this was her habit to move from boy to boy for one reason or another—but she was still fretful that if she became better friends with this scrappy, fiery girl, it might tarnish her reputation among her fellow zookeepers.
“You’re here early,” Eliza remarked.
“I’m always here early,” Hettie said, staring at Felix and Misty and avoiding Eliza’s gaze.
“How’s young Ferris?
” Eliza asked.
When Hettie glanced back at her, she saw a flicker of mischief in Eliza’s eyes.
“He’s fine,” Hettie replied stiffly.
“I’m going to go out with him if you don’t hurry up.”
Hettie finally looked up at Eliza and studied her face. A ring of lavender stained one of her eyes. At first Hettie thought it could be visible hints of fatigue; she knew that Eliza worked two other jobs—one in the foundry at one of the mills and the other for a fruit merchant on the weekends—and often wondered how she found the time to go out with all these young men. But then she realized Eliza had a shiner.
“What happened?” Hettie asked.
“Oh, that,” Eliza said, reaching up for her face but not touching it. “I fell.”
“It looks like more than a fall,” Hettie said.
Eliza lowered her hand. She lifted one end of her scarf to wipe her running nose, causing her scarf to fall away from her face. The bruising discolored most of her cheek, and a few black-thread stitches marked her chin.
“Who did this to you?” Hettie managed, after a few moments of shocked silence.
“No one,” Eliza said, wrapping her face up again.
“Eliza, you have stitches,” Hettie said.
“My sister took me to the hospital after it happened,” Eliza said.
“After what happened?”
Eliza lowered her gaze to the pavement. “My brother has a wee bit of temper,” she finally said. “He doesn’t like it when I go out with Protestant boys. You know Ellis Johnson? He lives near you, I think, on the Longwood Road. So, when we arrived home last night, Aiden started to punch the lights out of him, and it made me so bloody mad. I mean, what right does he have to hit my date? It was only my second time going with him. I don’t even know Ellis, and there’s my older brother beating him to the ground. I had to do something.”
The Elephant of Belfast Page 7