Outside the camel enclosure, Hettie clomped her work boots against the pavement. One of the camels released high-pitched bleats while the other quietly chewed cud, its thick rubbery lips and large teeth moving in slow motion. According to Mary Robinson, the Christies had departed at half past one. In the meantime, Mr. Wright hadn’t sought Hettie out to let her know if Violet was going to be transported or not. She decided to take this as good news.
As she locked the gate of the camels’ enclosure, Hettie heard a distant metallic crack and pop. The artificial sounds echoed in the twilight. With a lurch, Hettie realized that it was the discharge of a bullet. There was a second pop, followed by a dissonant chorus of wailing. Hettie ran toward the sounds and arrived at the enclosure of the black-footed penguins. There were six penguins in all, and three of them lay still, like miniature torpedoes, against the pebbled border of their oblong pool.
At first, Hettie saw only their peaceful bodies with their distinctive markings—the black feet, the single black stripe and flecks of black along their broad chests, and the black masks. But as she looked more closely at the still birds, she was able to discern them from each other: Clementine, Marie, and Franklin lay on the pavement. It was easy to tell the birds apart, because those three were much smaller than Oscar, Gerald, and Joy. Clementine also had a black star-shaped spot near one of her flippers. Hettie stared at the penguin’s unique mark before she began to notice pools of blood spreading underneath Clementine’s body. Her eyes smarted. Mr. Wright stood on the other side of the pool, still dressed in his dapper gray flannel suit and bow tie, with the butt of a rifle pressed against his shoulder and the eye of the weapon aimed at Oscar, the penguin with a black collar across his neck. Oscar scuttled across the pavement. Mr. Wright took another shot. Gerald and Joy brayed as they rocked from side to side, extending their flippers as if they were about to embrace each other.
There were two more shots, and bile traveled up Hettie’s throat. Mr. Wright lowered the rifle and wiped his forehead with his pocket square. It looked as if he had been punched in the stomach, and he was doing his best not to give in to the agony. The rims of his eyes were red.
“Why is Mr. Wright doing this?” Hettie asked Bobby Adair, who was standing next to her, even though she already knew what Bobby was going to say: During the past month, there had been many discussions about how to divvy up the herring rations—how much would go to the sea lions and how much would go to the penguins and the cranes and the egrets. Hettie had just assumed that Mr. Wright would find a way for all the animals to be properly fed.
“The penguins were on their way to starving,” Bobby said.
“Mr. Christie gave the orders just before he left the zoo,” Jack Fleming added.
“That’s not right,” Hettie said, still unable to believe the scene that had played out in front of her eyes. “How did he know they were going to starve?”
“Either the sea lions or the penguins had to go, and Mr. Christie decided that he was more willing to part with the penguins. He said that when the war is over, the penguins will be easier to replace.”
Ferris entered the enclosure and collected Clementine and deposited the bird into the rear bed of a lorry. Despite his injured shoulder, he managed to perform this duty with no indication of pain or discomfort. A tear rolled down from the corner of Hettie’s eye. At the same time, she felt a flash of anger. How could Josephine Christie have allowed this? Perhaps Hettie had misread her—perhaps Josephine was more concerned about the destruction of property rather than the actual welfare of the animals, and maybe economics had entered into Josephine’s demand that her brother hire more female zookeepers because the salaries of women amounted to cheaper labor and lower costs for the concern’s overall bottom line.
Ferris loaded the remaining dead birds into the lorry. Mr. Wright handed the rifle to one of the other zookeepers and let himself out of the enclosure. The chain of events still seemed implausible to Hettie. None of it added up. Just a few hours ago, they had stood in the center of Violet’s enclosure, discussing how the animals were the Christies’ top priority. When Hettie glanced down the path, Mr. Wright’s dark gray figure had already disappeared around the bend. Ferris gunned the lorry’s engine and then drove away, and Jack Fleming rinsed off the concrete border of the penguin pool. Some of the blood washed away, but several irregular shapes still stained the pavement.
When Hettie glanced down the pathway again, Eliza Crowley was walking toward her. She carried her tin lunch pail in one hand and a thermos in the other.
“I just heard about the penguins,” she said. “What a nightmare.”
Hettie stared at the now-empty enclosure. “The Christies ordered their execution,” she said, still in a state of disbelief.
“Did you get a chance to meet Josephine Christie?”
“I did,” Hettie said. “They came and met Violet. She was approving of my work, but now I don’t know what to think.”
“It’s a shame,” Eliza said, shaking her head. “I always liked Clementine and Oscar. Such a lovely couple.”
“Where have you been lately?” Hettie asked.
“Sick.”
Hettie studied Eliza more closely. Her wool coat was pulled tightly over her body, and the curve of her abdomen looked slightly more pronounced. Eliza’s cheeks were rosy and radiant, as if she had just sprinted from somewhere; a few stray strands of her red hair tumbled into her cherublike face.
“Are you pregnant?” Hettie asked with hesitation.
“Of course I’m not pregnant,” Eliza said. “What do you take me for? Jesus Christ, Hettie, I thought you liked me. I thought we were friends.”
“We are friends,” Hettie said defensively. “I just haven’t seen you since Stella Holliday. And I heard that you left with some fella and then you haven’t been at work for the past few weeks, and some of the other zookeepers were talking—”
“You know, you shouldn’t believe everything you hear,” Eliza snapped.
Hettie lowered her gaze to the pavement.
“I’m actually leaving,” Eliza said, more gently now. “That’s why I came to find you—to say goodbye.”
“Goodbye?” Hettie said, looking at Eliza again.
“My mother asked me to take my younger siblings farther north, up to Cushendall. To her sister’s. It’s not that far, but it’s definitely safer. Not much chance of bombs dropping up there. The government has been trying to get children to evacuate to the countryside, you know. For once, I think they’re right. Hopefully, it will only be for a month or so. Mr. Wright said I can have my job again as soon as I get back. I’ll miss you. I never knew the zoo was such a good place.”
At that moment, Hettie realized that the two of them hadn’t spoken since her run-in with Samuel Greene, but at the same time, it felt like that incident no longer mattered, with the executions of the penguins and now Eliza’s departure from Belfast.
Before Hettie knew it, Eliza had put her arms around her. Her embrace was solid and firm. Hettie smelled cigarette smoke and floral perfume knitted into the fabric of Eliza’s coat. She leaned into her friend. Tears gathered in her throat. She wasn’t sure if her tears were over the executed penguins or Eliza Crowley’s abrupt departure. Her sadness felt neither here nor there; instead, it felt like a colossal coral reef of melancholy, and that it didn’t matter which direction she swam in, she would always run into it. Eliza released her.
“Maybe we can write each other?” Hettie suggested.
“Sure, we could do that,” Eliza said. “You can let me know how things are going with Violet and the boys.” She took a piece of scrap paper and a pencil out of her purse, wrote down an address, and handed it over to Hettie.
“Write me first,” Eliza continued, “and then I’ll have your address.”
“I will,” Hettie said with a smile. “And I’ll be here when you return.”
Eliza took Hettie in her arms again. When she first met Eliza that morning of Violet’s arrival, she had never
imagined that she would develop such fondness for this odd girl with flame-red hair who knew how to swing her hips and pick out the right lipstick. Hettie’s heart ached in that strange way that it ached for Maeve and Liam. For a moment, Hettie wanted to ask Eliza not to leave, to stay at the zoo and in Belfast, but she knew this was an absurd request. Despite everything, she knew that Eliza’s family came first.
“You take good care of yourself, Harriet Quin,” Eliza said, stepping away.
“I will, Eliza Crowley,” Hettie responded. “You too.”
The next afternoon Mr. Wright stopped Hettie outside the Camel House. It looked as if Mr. Wright had aged a decade. Pale lavender half-moons hung underneath his eyes, and deeper wrinkles fanned out from their corners. His trousers hung loosely at his hips; his shoulders seemed to be permanently hunched, as if a cinder block of regret sat on his shoulders, his gaze cast perpetually downward.
“Do you have a minute, Hettie,” he said, approaching her on the path.
“Of course, Mr. Wright.”
“The Christies were impressed with your care of Violet.” Mr. Wright hesitated for a moment and glanced over at the bench in front of the Camel House. “Maybe it would be best if we sat down—”
“Is everything all right, Mr. Wright?” Hettie asked, sitting down next to him and trying to control the tremble in her voice. “Did I do something wrong?”
“No, you’re doing an excellent job. Like I said, the Christies were quite impressed.”
“Impressed? But they ordered the execution of the penguins,” she said. “They don’t seem to care about the animals at all.”
Hettie rocked on the bench, her hands tucked underneath her thighs. Her soiled gloves sat next to her. She was waiting for Mr. Wright to reprimand her, for speaking out against the Christies and what had happened to the penguins. She glanced up. A rash had traveled along his neck from the bright red collar of his coat. Mr. Wright paused before he spoke again.
“Hettie, I don’t need to tell you this: The execution of the penguins was a very difficult decision for everyone. No one wanted to do it, but sometimes we have to carry out horrific tasks for the overall welfare of the zoo. I know Josephine is sympathetic to the animals. She is on our side,” he explained, his voice gathering momentum. “And with Mr. Christie, as long as I’ve known him, he has been a successful businessman who has made the right decisions so that his circuses and zoos continue to thrive. We wouldn’t have the zoo—nor all of the animals—if it weren’t for George. You’ll see, as you get older, everything is a negotiation, everything is a compromise, and sometimes this means you have to let go of what you care about the most.”
Hettie looked up to see that Mr. Wright was staring at her. A tenderness seemed to replace his fatigue. Mr. Wright placed his hand over Hettie’s and squeezed it. She was surprised by the smooth, warm touch of his palm against her skin. She had expected that his hand might feel rough and calloused from his endless work with the animals.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Wright,” she said.
“There, there, Hettie,” he said. “We were all upset, but we’re all recovering, aren’t we?”
They sat in silence for a moment.
“Is there something else?” Hettie asked.
“Well, there is something else.”
Hettie felt the impulse to stand up from the bench, to leave Mr. Wright there, but she forced herself to remain sitting next to him.
“I wanted to talk to you about the Christies and their plans for the elephants. As it turns out, they are planning to transport Violet within the next two months,” Mr. Wright said, looking up at Hettie. “They want to get the elephant troupe together for the circus that’s now touring Sweden and then will go to India after the war.”
Hettie felt a flood of panic and dismay. “She’s too young,” she argued. “She hasn’t been trained for the show. Why would they want to take her? You’ve seen the families, one of the reasons they come up to the zoo is because of Violet and her way with the children.”
“Mr. Christie is married to the idea of using our three elephants and shipping them to Sweden by the beginning of the summer.”
“What about the war?” Hettie asked, trying a different tack. “It’s not safe.”
“That’s why he chose Sweden, since the country is remaining neutral for the time being.”
“I thought you said Josephine Christie is sympathetic.”
“She doesn’t want to see Violet moved,” Mr. Wright said. “Josephine’s going to ask her brother to reconsider, maybe see if he could purchase another elephant from a circus or an animal dealer elsewhere.”
“Do you think that’s possible?” Hettie asked, lifting her eyes to meet Mr. Wright’s solemn gaze.
“I’d say it’s fifty-fifty.”
Hettie stared at the stand of birch trees on the other side of the pathway, right next to the Camel House. Their branches were just beginning to leaf. Black rooks and two jays, with their striking pinkish hues, flitted in the treetops. The camels slept in the corner of their enclosure, their long legs folded underneath their sandy bodies.
“Between Josephine and me,” Mr. Wright said, “we’re going to do everything in our power to try and keep Violet at Bellevue. I’ll promise you that.”
He squeezed Hettie’s hand again and released it. Beyond the thickets of evergreen bushes, the plaintive calls of the peacocks filled the air. The Rhesus monkeys swung from branch to branch in the enclosure next to the Camel House. Their howls collided with the cries of the peacocks. One of the camels stood up, sucking in his muscular nostrils, and then released a low moan.
“I know Violet has been a helpful diversion for you,” Mr. Wright said.
“Diversion?”
“Your sister’s unexpected death,” he said gravely. “How long has it been now?”
Her voice caught in her throat, and unexpectedly she thought she might cry. What normally would be an easy question became challenging to answer—and Hettie had to do the arithmetic in her head.
“Nine months,” she finally responded.
“Not that long.”
Another silence settled between them. The rooks and jays continued to dance on the overhead branches. For a moment, the trees looked shiny, as if their new leaves held some sort of internal illumination, but then they turned dull and flat again. Hettie’s vision blurred, and she wiped her eyes.
“You know, I had a brother once,” Mr. Wright finally said, staring into the distance. “We were fraternal twins. I was born just a few minutes after Nicholas. When we were older, he always introduced me as his younger brother.”
Hettie looked up at Mr. Wright. His face was etched with creases of weariness. His hazel eyes had become glassy. The mating calls of the peacocks grew louder and more persistent.
“The peafowl are lively this morning—”
“What happened to your brother?” Hettie pressed.
“We fought in the same army unit during the last war,” he said, and then paused before continuing. “Nicholas was next to me in the trenches. It was the second day of the Battle of Arras. We were outside a village in northern France. It was raining. It was cold. I remember the tips of my fingers were numb and blue. I couldn’t feel the trigger. Gunshots flew over our heads, one barrage after another. I remember thinking that I enjoyed the whistling sounds of the discharged bullets. It sounded like a rare species of bird, one that I never heard before. It was an irrational thought—verging on delusion. Here the enemy was, trying to kill us, and I was pondering the musicality of firing bullets. The next time I looked over at Nicholas, he was crumpled up next to me and blood was leaking onto his uniform.”
In a nearby evergreen hedge, a dove sang its hollow song.
“When I went to check his pulse, it had already stopped,” Mr. Wright said.
Hettie sat, transfixed. As Mr. Wright had been talking, she was transported to her sister’s hospital room again. Rose was uttering a litany of prayers, a slipstream of barely spoken words, ov
er Anna’s body. Her sister was merely a corpse with a sheet draped over the length of her. Torpid, heavy, and rigid. Her spirit had already left several hours earlier. Gone, released right out of her. The wisps of her breaths extinguished forever. And Liam was there, too, explaining how the doctors couldn’t stop the bleeding, how it had happened so quickly, how she went from living, from giving birth to their daughter, to suddenly dying.
But Mr. Wright was speaking to her, and Hettie wrenched herself back to their conversation. “I’m sorry,” Hettie said, attempting to convey the gravity and depth of her sympathy with her words. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”
She felt embarrassed to hear this platitude come from her own lips. Hettie remembered friends, acquaintances, extended family members, and strangers expressing this exact sentiment again and again during the reception after Anna’s service, and how the condolence had quickly lost its meaning. The words became a continuous loop of emptiness. She recalled the faint haze of the church’s community room that hovered between the ceiling and the dense crowd of mourners, a collective miasma of warmth, musty body odor, and grief. Everyone was there, but she still had felt alone.
“That’s kind of you, Hettie,” he said, removing his fedora and resting it on his lap. “It’s been more than twenty years now, but I still feel his absence every day.”
Up the pathway, Rajan released a trumpet call from his enclosure.
“With your sister and everything,” he said, and then paused again. “I wanted to let you know.”
Hettie looked up at Mr. Wright. A tear slid down the side of his face. He didn’t try to wipe it away. Instead, it stopped at the edge of his black-stubbled cheek.
“Right after the war, I started working with animals,” he continued. “They saved my life, in a way. I wanted you to know, there is a way back from the grief. You just need to give it time.”
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