The Elephant of Belfast

by S. Kirk Walsh

  She still didn’t know how to find the words to express to her mother that this kind of conventional life wasn’t going to happen for her, this wasn’t her ambition. Instead, Hettie hoped to remain Violet’s zookeeper as long as the elephant lived, and then perhaps later, she would travel to other zoos throughout Europe and the world, and meet other elephants and other female zookeepers. Over the years, she would become known as an expert of elephants, as her understanding of the sophisticated social behavior of the extraordinary mammal would continue to grow. Hettie would become a sort of elephant angel. An expert, like Mr. Wright. People would seek her out. People would want to know her. She would no longer be alone.

  “Hettie, are you listening to me?” Rose asked.

  Hettie started. “Sorry, Mum,” she said. “What were you saying?”

  Rose glanced at her. In the pocket of her coat, Hettie touched the curve of the snail that Ferris had given her. Its smooth surface felt both soft and hard.

  “You look peaked,” Rose said, sounding more worried than annoyed.

  Hettie hesitated before admitting: “I was thinking about Violet.”

  Her mother took Hettie’s free hand in hers and gently squeezed it. A warmth traveled up the length of Hettie’s arm and into the bony ridge of her shoulder. Rose released her grip as they turned onto the Whitewell Road. Now that the sun had set, a blanket of stars started to emerge across the vast sweep of the Belfast sky. On either side of the Whitewell Road, the scattered windows of the terraced houses were dark except for an occasional careless light casting a beam despite the blackout. The moon was three-quarters full. Up ahead, a beaten tin can was positioned in the middle of the road. More than a half dozen children were standing in a row behind the can.

  “One, two, three,” Johnny Gibson yelled before kicking it down the center of the street.

  The can hurtled and clanked against the road before finally arriving at a standstill a few feet away from Rose’s and Hettie’s feet. Johnny ran toward them with all his might. He was dressed in his holiday clothes—wool short trousers, a tie loosely knotted at his neck, and a white button-down, its sleeves crumpled up to his freckled elbows. He pumped his fists on either side of his stout body until he reached the can, collected it, and returned it to its upright position. Then he began to count to ten. The other children dispersed into hiding places—behind a hedge of evergreens, in the low branches of an ash tree, inside the empty dustbins at the end of a graveled driveway.

  “Eight, nine, ten,” Johnny yelled. “Ready or not, here I come—”

  Rose and Hettie exchanged smiles as they continued to walk down their street. One of the children released a series of hoots from his hiding spot, then there was a shrill scream. Johnny had found Lily Brown hiding in the rear seat of her grandfather’s car.

  “You cheated.”

  “Did not—”

  “I’m going to tell my grandpa—”

  “Cheater—”

  “Mum—” Johnny Gibson cried. “I did not.”

  Inside, Rose and Hettie settled into their routine of listening to the wireless with their evening cups of tea. The news program with the commentator William Joyce—popularly known as Lord Haw-Haw on account of his sneering, snooty voice—came on. His nightly propaganda broadcast Germany Calling played on the English-language German station out of Hamburg. Hettie had heard Joyce’s program before and also had read about the commentator in the newspaper; he was attracting a growing audience because of the universal suspicion over the government-censored news on the BBC. At the beginning of the show, Joyce exuberantly reported on the Luftwaffe’s successive string of bombings in British cities, including Coventry, Tyneside, and Birmingham. He repeated how just a few nights before, on April 11, Bristol was attacked again in what was being called the Good Friday Raid. With unconcealed exuberance, Joyce stated that over a thousand people had been killed and countless homes and other buildings had been destroyed as a result of the Luftwaffe’s aerial attacks on the city.

  “I’d rather listen to something else,” Hettie said. “Why do we listen to this rubbish, anyway?”

  “Sometimes it can be helpful to hear both sides,” her mother said evenly.

  A crackle of static interrupted the show, and then Joyce’s menacing voice resumed. “Germany calling, Germany calling. There will be Easter eggs for Belfast.”

  “Perhaps you’re right,” Rose said, and without further hesitation, she dialed the wireless to her favorite classical music station, the BBC Home Service. Hettie recognized the familiar notes of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, the piano chords alighting into a whimsical melody of flying leaps and dramatic plunges.

  “By ‘Easter eggs,’ he meant bombs, didn’t he?” Hettie asked.

  “He talks about an attack every night,” Rose said calmly. “No one takes William Joyce seriously.”

  Hettie stared through the darkened window over the kitchen sink. She could still hear the children’s voices in the street.

  “No, you’re it!”

  “You’re it.”

  “I don’t want to be it again. It’s not fair!”

  “Yes, it is!”

  “One, two, three, four, five,” the children yelled, their joyful voices converging into one sweet, discordant song. “Six, seven, eight, nine, ten!”

  The can was kicked again, hurtling down the road.

  “I’m going to turn in early,” Rose said. She stood up from her chair, leaned over, and gave Hettie a kiss on her forehead.

  Hettie couldn’t remember the last time her mother had kissed her good night. Despite Rose’s lightened mood, Hettie was still surprised by the comfort and kindness of it all, how this sort of affection had returned to her relationship with her mother, that they were now a family of two—mother and daughter—and through everything, they had emerged a little more resilient than what Hettie had thought was possible.

  “Good night, Mum,” she whispered, squeezing Rose’s hand.

  Hettie sat at the kitchen table and took in the sounds of the night. The children’s rising and falling voices. The tin can careening down the street. The distant horn of a car. A cat’s sorrowful meow from one of the neighbors’ backyards. Finally, a mother called for her children. Several of the boys and girls said good night to each other. The second hand of the clock over the doorway ticked loudly. The black cotton drapes over the kitchen window weren’t fully drawn, and a moth fluttered against the illuminated glass, beating its powdery wings as it attempted to draw closer to the glow. The sight of the insect reminded Hettie of the night when she’d been at the zoo with Violet during the bombing, and the orange-winged moth that had somehow found its way into the Elephant House.

  The moth zigzagged, knocking its tiny body against the glass of the kitchen window. Again and again and again. Hettie clicked off the overhead light and then sat for a few more minutes and sipped the rest of her tea. The remaining neighborhood children called good night to each other, their innocent voices ringing out in the evening until finally silence took over the Whitewell Road—and the moth vanished.

  Eight

  ON THAT NIGHT OF EASTER TUESDAY, THE SOUND OF SIRENS stirred Hettie from sleep yet again. Within a few minutes, though, the short, imperious cries ceased, and an eerie silence veiled the night. Hettie sat up in bed. She heard her mother padding down the hallway. Rose poked her head into Hettie’s bedroom.

  “I’ll be right back.”

  Rose disappeared, then Hettie heard the front door slam shut. She got out of bed and slipped into a cardigan, socks, and shoes. Outside, her mother stood at the end of their walkway, her arms tightly crossed over her chest, staring up at the unchanged sky. Other neighbors lingered. It appeared to be another false alarm. Relief spread through Hettie like a drink of cold water on a hot day. She wanted to believe that the Germans wouldn’t be returning so soon, that Hitler had more critical targets to hit in England. At the same time, this thought made her feel sick to her stomach; she wished no one had to suffer under the wr
ath of the barbaric dictator. The evening breeze kicked up and then died again, and Hettie shivered. Rose returned to the house and fetched two cups of warm tea. They stood on the street with their neighbors.

  “I can’t believe they would fly up here again, especially on such a cloudy night,” Mr. Reynolds said, lighting a cigarette.

  “Did you hear Haw-Haw on his show?” Mr. Brown said. “He was predicting another attack.”

  “Belfast would no longer exist if we believed every word that traitor said,” responded Mr. Reynolds.

  Together, they watched the sky and sipped their tea. After about a half hour, Hettie heard the same unsynchronized drone of the German bombers that she had heard the week before. An odd calm possessed the sky despite the fact the collective drone was growing louder. Hettie bit into her bottom lip. She didn’t want to believe what she was hearing. Within seconds, their splintered, mechanical purr occupied the night. Everyone looked up, knowing that the sound indicated the approach of low-flying planes. This time, they were arriving in massive numbers. The sky lit up. The city’s newly arrived searchlights pierced the darkness. Hundreds of flares dropped from the Heinkels, illuminating the horizon like a summer’s day. A loud, concussive explosion echoed against the Cavehill. Silvery parachute mines began to float down like diaphanous ghosts wandering through the night sky.

  The buzz and whir of aircraft engines grew even louder; now they were overhead. An ack-ack-ack penetrated the explosions. Amber bursts emerged along the edge of the night. The ground shook. Some of the bombs whistled as they fell. The deafening sounds and explosions accelerated, overlapping like fast-moving riptides, colliding and collapsing into one another again and again.

  People ran in all directions, some with their pets, to shelters or to the homes of relatives or friends. Others found refuge under kitchen tables, in cubbyholes under the stairs, or in the rooms that held the family’s holy pictures. Air-raid wardens and rescue workers scurried toward their posts while soldiers and airmen took up their positions behind antiaircraft guns.

  “Go to the shelter on Atlantic Avenue,” Rose yelled over the increasing din. “Run, my sweet girl, run!”

  Hettie turned to her mother and hugged her.

  “I have to go to the zoo,” Hettie said.

  And before her mother could say anything else, she ran along the street. The vibrations traveled through the soles of her shoes, up her legs, and into the center of her chest. Fear radiated throughout her limbs. Hettie saw strangers congregating in the middle of the streets, their necks craned skyward, their hands clasped over their mouths. The red sky was all around them, disturbing and hypnotic at once. Hettie continued to run. Other people surged up the Antrim Road toward the Cavehill to seek refuge in the shadowy ditches, hedgerows, and caves there rather than fleeing to the city shelters because of the rumors that the structures might not provide adequate protection when the bombs began to fall.

  As she flew past, Hettie heard snatches of strangers’ panic.

  “The Germans. The bloody Germans.”

  “They’re coming for us. They’re going to kill us all.”

  “Holy mother of God.”

  “The goddamn IRA,” screamed an older man, and she saw him shaking his fist into the smoke-filled air. “They put the Nazis up to this. They’ve lit lights and fires to guide their path.” Hettie hoped this wasn’t true.

  More and more people emptied out of their houses onto the already crowded streets, but Hettie turned away from the chaos and onto the Crazy Path, and ran faster. The sky lit up again. Heat traveled into her limbs. A terror rushed along the narrow slope of her shoulders. Hettie reached for deeper breaths. Flames raged in the sky. Frantic shadows danced against the dense forest wall. It felt as if the whole world was on fire.

  “Run, run, run,” Hettie repeated to herself.

  She pushed her legs harder, running as fast as she ever had in her life. Suddenly she was back with Anna, when they were young and would race across the manicured playing fields of the Academy, the wet blades of grass biting at her bare ankles, the morning dew brushing against her cheeks. Somewhere on the pitch someone blew a whistle. The sisters’ legs stretched underneath them, their fists pumping at the sides of their slender frames, and Hettie felt a shimmer of joy for a moment. But as the sound of bombs rent the air, she came back to the horror of her surroundings. Tears stung the corners of her eyes. Flames licked the night. I don’t want to die, she said to herself. Please don’t let me die. Please don’t let Violet die. Please don’t let my mother die. The ground shook again.

  Hettie ran toward the zoo’s rear entrance as the sky lit up again. She unlocked the padlock and flung the gate open. At the Elephant House, Hettie found Violet pacing the yard. As Hettie slowed to approach the elephant, her ribs aching from the run, the acrid smell of fresh dung hit her like a slap in the face. Violet released a deep guttural cry.

  “I’m here, Vi,” Hettie said softly. “I’m here.”

  Light gathered and scattered in the sky. Hettie heard the continuing drone of aircraft. Dozens of bombers were up there now, and they all seemed to be approaching from the northeast, along the shores of the Belfast Lough, and flying directly over the Whitewell Road. Hettie rubbed Violet absently behind one of her ears. The elephant’s skin felt cold and clammy. She rested her cheek against Violet’s heaving side and rubbed the elephant behind her ear again, speaking softly to her, the way that Thomas used to whisper to Hettie when she couldn’t fall asleep when a thunderstorm rolled over their neighborhood. Only then did she notice the wall of animal cries and howls that surrounded the Elephant House. It was different than the other night. Louder. Fiercer. And it came from all sides. Like everything was escalating to another level, another volume, another rung of fear, another circle of violence.

  As Hettie listened, the fine hairs on the nape of her neck stood on end. The animals’ calls gained more definition. The growls of lions and leopards. The roars of the black bears. The cackles of the hyenas. The shrieks of the monkeys and baboons. The brays of the sea lions. The squawks of the toucans and macaws. It was as if a call and response were taking place between the animals, and the shadows and darkness transformed into its own sort of mythic cathedral with all its devout congregants praying in their distinctive tongues at the sacred altar of their greater animal god with hopes of reaching a higher state, a higher consciousness, so they could endure this suffering of higher proportions. They were singing, singing to something.

  Hettie closed her eyes—and prayed. She prayed for her mother. She prayed for Violet. She prayed for Maeve. She prayed for Liam and for Ferris. She prayed for her father. She prayed for Johnny Gibson, Martha and Lizzie Reynolds, Lily Brown, Albert O’Brien, and the other neighborhood children. She prayed for Mr. Wright. She prayed for Eliza Crowley. She even prayed for Samuel Greene. She prayed for Anna. And then she prayed for herself, that she would wake up and experience another morning. The calls of the animals soared into a vortex of cries and screams while the Germans continued to bomb Belfast. All of it was breaking upon Hettie—the horror, the sadness, the loss—at once.

  Violet released another terrified cry. With her hand still resting on the elephant’s side, Hettie felt the sound travel along Violet’s rib cage. She knew that the other animals’ cries were making the elephant more agitated, but there was nothing to be done. In fact, there was little she could do about anything. Her city was being destroyed. Her sister was dead. Her father was gone. Hettie folded over her knees and lowered onto the dusty yard of the Elephant House, and rocked on her heels. Help me. Please help me. Someone, please help me.

  Something slipped inside Hettie. A vague, sharp grief. The ground shook again. Her knees felt watery and weak. It felt as if she were breathing in tiny shards of glass. Everything hurt. Violet released another loose stream of diarrhea against the ground. The wings of birds flapped wildly. Monkeys rattled their cages. The wall of sound was infinite and continuous. Hettie willed herself to stand up and retrieve the rubber
hose attached to the side of the Elephant House, but when she turned the spigot, no water trickled from its brass mouth.

  “Fucking brilliant,” Hettie said to herself. “Why aren’t you working?”

  “Hettie! Is that you?”

  It was Mr. Wright. He stood outside Violet’s enclosure, peering in at Hettie in disbelief. He was dressed in his pajamas, a red cotton jacket and trousers bordered with white piping, and a pair of wellingtons that were tucked into the legs of his pajama bottoms. Hettie had forgotten that she was still wearing her nightclothes, too.

  “I’m afraid the damage is far greater this time,” Mr. Wright said.

  “There’s no water,” Hettie said, holding up the end of the dry hose.

  “They might have hit the waterworks.” Fiery bursts of yellow and orange bloomed over the treetops, and Mr. Wright glanced up at them, his eyes wary. “Come with me, we can check on the lions and polar bears,” Mr. Wright said. “It won’t take long.”

  Hettie glanced over at Violet. She was now lying on her side on the hay-strewn floor of the Elephant House. Hettie didn’t want to leave her, but didn’t feel she could say no to Mr. Wright. “Stay there, Vi,” she said. “I’ll be back.”

  Hettie followed Mr. Wright up the footpath that led to the lions’ den at the upper reaches of the zoo. The higher they walked, the more discernible the Belfast Harbor became, with the rising flames dancing along its distant edges. The moon was no longer visible, obscured by clouds of black smoke. The drone of airplanes was punctuated by the staccato pops of the antiaircraft guns.