The Elephant of Belfast

by S. Kirk Walsh

  Then Hettie heard the lilting notes of a big band, and she paused for a moment. Amid the falling bombs and the calls of the frightened animals, the music sounded alien and peculiar, as if it were from another world. It seemed impossible that something that embodied beauty and grace could exist right now in this city, in this zoo, in the Floral Hall.

  Hettie followed Mr. Wright up the gradual incline to the front steps of the venue. Several buckets of sand and water were lined up along the facade of the building. Just like the Saturday night that Hettie had seen her, Stella Holliday was backed up by a big band of trombones, trumpets, flutes, violins, and snare drums. The performer’s mellifluous voice floated out the double doors.

  “She is still singing,” Mr. Wright said, walking up the stairs to the hall. “I can’t believe she’s still singing.”

  Together Mr. Wright and Hettie stepped inside. The Floral Hall was half full. Stray clutches of strangers danced near the stage, swaying like unmoored ships at sea. The teardrop-shaped lights of the chandeliers were dimmed, looking like the leftover embers of a fire. Hettie felt she had entered a dream, crossed over a threshold into another reality, where citizens weren’t dying and homes weren’t being destroyed and the sky wasn’t on fire. Instead, it was only Stella Holliday and her extraordinary song.

  “She says she’s gonna sing until the bombs stop falling,” said a man who stood by the entrance. “Lots of people ran for the shelters, but I think it’s safer here. Listen to her. Look at her.”

  The stage’s perimeter was aglow with hurricane lamps, the flames fluttering within their transparent chimneys. Standing before the diffused light was Stella Holliday, dressed in a sapphire-blue gown that dropped luxuriously to the floor. She sang deeply, her hands folded over the center of the chest, her eyes closed. Despite all that was going on, Hettie felt held by the dimly lit hall, by Mr. Wright standing right beside her, and by Stella Holliday’s ethereal voice.

  I’ll be seeing you / In all the old familiar places.

  Stella Holliday’s full red lips grazed the stand-up microphone as her honey-hued voice was amplified through the oversize speakers that sat on either side of the elevated stage. Hettie thought Stella looked as though she were dedicating every cell and fiber of her body to her song as she moved into the final refrain.

  I’ll find you in the morning sun / And when the night is new.

  Hettie glanced over at Mr. Wright: He appeared to be caught in a trance, as he watched Stella Holliday. His expression was open and full of melancholy, joy, and exaltation. He mouthed the lyrics to the song.

  I’ll be looking at the moon / But I’ll be seeing you.

  The floor of the hall shook with more force, but Mr. Wright didn’t flinch as he continued to sing along with Stella Holliday. The chandeliers swung. There was another explosion. Several people ran for the door, clenching their bags and coats, ducking their heads. Truly afraid now, Hettie tugged on Mr. Wright’s sleeve, but he didn’t respond. Another eruption rocked the ground. Instead of staying by Mr. Wright’s side, Hettie followed the other people outside the Floral Hall.

  Despite her mounting fear, she couldn’t stop herself from wanting to witness what was taking place in the city below. Hettie stood at the top of the short flight of stairs, and looked out.

  Belfast was a city of flames. Streets, homes, churches, factories, stores. All of it burned and burned and burned. There was a rain of ashes and soot. Everything felt light and heavy.

  Hundreds of civilians were losing their lives. Many were being crushed in the air-raid shelters, the unsturdy structures collapsing from the explosions of the parachuted land mines, the sea-green canopies inflating with air and smoke, floating onto rooftops, with the clockwork mechanisms detonating twenty-five seconds after landing.

  Walls fell. Concrete roofs tumbled down.

  Legs and arms were crushed. Feet were mangled.

  A chaotic opera of screams and cries rose into the red sky.

  Later, Hettie would learn that the Atlantic Avenue shelter was hit by a parachute mine that caused the roof to collapse, killing most of the people who had found refuge there. A young woman who had fled the Floral Hall to get to the shelter only minutes before she was killed instantly. A mother of two young girls was trapped by the shelter’s crumpled roof with the lifeless young woman lying across her legs, bits and pieces of her brain stuck to the mother’s stockings. The mother thought, I’m going to die tonight. I’m going to leave my girls behind without a mother.

  The mother’s seven-year-old daughter peered through the cracks of light and listened for her father’s voice. Right before the blast, a man in a uniform had yelled, Hit the ground! Get down on your tummies! As the girl lay still underneath the rubble, she thought about the enormous balloons she had seen suspended in the sky right before her family ducked into the darkened tunnel of the shelter, how the barrage balloons resembled gigantic floating pigs without legs, their silver bellies pressing down from the night sky. What are those pigs doing up there? she thought more than once. Who is going to feed them? And then the pigs had begun to sing, a metallic twanging, like the plucking of a wire.

  The girl was worried about her mother and her sister and how her Easter dress and Easter gloves were getting dirty and her best Sunday shoes were pinching her toes. Her ankles hurt, and pebbles pressed against her cheek. It smelled of pungent urine. The girl thought of the song that everyone was singing right before the room started to fall and disappear. Roll out the barrel, we’ll have a barrel of fun. Roll out the barrel, we’ve got the blues on the run. How blue-orange flames had flickered and danced in the little oil lamps scattered throughout the cave-like space. How she had been standing at her mother’s knee, her mum sitting in one of the hard chairs, her soft hand resting against her girl’s lower back. She longed for her mum’s touch now. She longed for the collective song of the strangers.

  Across the street from the city hall, in the clerical office of an insurance company, a young man who had been recruited as a firewatcher by his employer, equipped with two buckets of water and sandbags, wasn’t quite sure what to do with either once the bombs started to fall in rapid succession. It was impossible to discern if the explosions came from the falling bombs or from the antiaircraft guns attempting to take down the enemy planes. The noise was deafening, unbelievable. The young man and his fellow watcher took the stairs to the building’s roof. Even at the top, they could feel the vibrations from the falling bombs. In the distance, his co-worker pointed toward north Belfast, where fires raged across the residential neighborhoods, and the young man wondered if his home on Duncairn Gardens, where he lived with his father and mother, was still intact.

  Earlier, before the first bombs fell, a dockworker had walked over to the Percy Street shelter to entertain his friends and neighbors with his melodeon. This was his nature—to entertain others. After a few hours of playing, the man had returned to his two-bedroom house, and as he fell asleep he thought how lucky it was that his three sons and wife had evacuated to the countryside near Lisburn four days before. A few minutes later, one of the bombs hit a nearby roof and sent a large piece of concrete up into the air; upon falling, it landed on the man while he was sleeping in bed, killing him instantly.

  In the Clonard Monastery, situated off the Falls Road, Catholics and Protestants filed down the steep steps into the ornate crypt below the monastery’s high altar. Together, people sang the familiar hymns “O God, Our Help in Ages Past” and “Nearer, My God, to Thee” as the mills and docks burned throughout the late hours of the night. All fervently prayed and sang hymns. Catholics murmured recitations of the rosary, the smooth amber beads running through their weathered fingers, till their voices were hoarse and their throats dry. They prayed together for the bombing to end—and for the morning to come quickly. They prayed for their souls.

  But during that moment on the evening of April 15, 1941, Hettie knew only about the endless display of detonations and the sweet, sophisticated voice of Stella Hollid
ay. She thought about Ferris and Samuel. Was Samuel patrolling the streets and guiding civilians to safety? Was Ferris at home with his band of animals? Were both men still alive, even? And what about her mother? Had she stayed at home? Or was she standing in the street with their neighbors? Had she taken cover? Or was Rose seeing right now what Hettie was seeing—that Belfast was an inferno?

  A rim of flames burned along the far edge of the Antrim Road. With all the rolling billows of smoke, it was hard to determine where the fires began and ended. Another explosion erupted. This one was closer, and a kick of fright nearly pushed Hettie over. She ran. Someone yelled, “Hit the ground!” but she ignored them, racing down the steps of the Floral Hall, down the darkened pathway that led to the heart of the zoo and Violet’s enclosure. There, inside the Elephant House, Violet was pacing and squealing piteously. Hettie cast around for a way to comfort the poor creature. She reached into the pocket of her coat and was surprised to find a leftover sweet bun. The spongy bread was flattened and moist. Hettie placed it in her open palm, and the elephant swept the roll up with her trunk and dropped it into her mouth.

  The concrete structure shook again. The bombs were now falling along the upper reaches of the Antrim Road, falling ever closer to where Hettie and Violet cowered in the darkness of the Elephant House. Hettie briefly considered going to find her mother, but decided that it would be safer to wait out the attack with Violet. She hoped to God that Rose was all right. A part of Hettie wished she had never left her mother’s side and the other part of her was grateful to be with Violet, knowing that the elephant might remain safe and secure as long as Hettie was with her.

  She arranged her coat on a mound of hay and lay down, closing her eyes. The boiled wool of her coat smelled of smoke, mold, and Rose’s lilac perfume. A sadness and terror traveled up from her gut and moved into her chest before spreading into her throat and finally pressing into her eyes. Hettie tasted salt in her mouth. There was another explosion somewhere, and she heard the creak of Violet’s swinging trunk. The elephant folded onto her legs, and her rear landed with a thump on the damp, hay-covered floor. Hettie felt a modicum of relief, seeing that Violet was going to try to rest amid the chaos. Outside the enclosure, Hettie heard the loud braying of the other animals: the parrots, the monkeys, and the lions. She pressed close to Violet’s rounded back and draped her arm over the elephant. Violet released another soft trumpet call. Hettie reached her arm farther over the elephant’s broad side. Violet’s rubbery skin pressed against her cheek.

  Hettie heard the distant cry of a child. Where’s me mammy? Me mammy? An ambulance raced down a road, its rooftop siren howling. There were the metallic pops of gunfire, like a long belt of firecrackers being ignited at once, one after another. Heat played against her cheek. She forced herself to focus on the rise and fall of Violet’s breathing against her stomach. She closed her eyes again.

  The continuous whine of the all-clear signal sounded at about five o’clock in the morning. Waking from a fitful doze, Hettie lifted herself up from the grimy floor of the Elephant House and wiped the loose strands of hay from her coat and nightgown. She looked over at Violet. The elephant was still lying on her side, sleeping. A pall of yellow smoke hung in the air.

  Hettie made her way down the path to Mr. Wright’s house, hoping she would find him there. Without knocking, she creaked open the door to find him sitting behind his messy desk. A single burning candle was anchored to a puddle of dried wax on the wooden surface. Mr. Wright attempted to tune in his wireless. Only static was coming in. He smacked the side of the wireless with the palm of his hand.

  “Goddamn this daft machine,” he said. “God fuckin’ damn it.” Mr. Wright hit the side of the wireless again; this time harder, then looked up.

  “Oh my heavens, Hettie,” he said, shuddering in fear. “I didn’t see you there.”

  He stood up from his chair and hugged her for a long time. For a moment, Hettie thought she might slump into his arms, lose all faculty of her muscles, but she managed to stand still and take in the warmth and comfort of his embrace.

  “Where did you go? We were at the Floral Hall, then you disappeared,” Mr. Wright said, an urgency riding in his voice.

  “I was worried about Violet.”

  “They hit the gauge line near the front of the zoo, but I think that’s it,” he said. “Is Violet all right?”

  “A wee bit rattled.”

  “My wireless won’t work—”

  “Are the rest of the animals safe?” asked Hettie.

  “Surprisingly, yes,” said Mr. Wright, his eyes brightening. “None escaped. None got shocked to death. To tell you the truth, it’s a miracle. I think the Bellevue Zoo is going to come out of this a lot better than the rest of the Belfast.” He looked out the window of his office. “I’m afraid it doesn’t look good,” he said, and then sighed, trying his wireless one more time. “At least we can be grateful that all the animals are safe. How about your mother and father?”

  “Well, my mother—”

  Hettie broke off as the sound of a voice crackled from the wireless. Mr. Wright’s eyes widened as the two of them listened to the report.

  “. . . death count is still not known, but a high number of civilian casualties are likely. Though the city’s defenses functioned well, and military personnel and civil defense workers showed great courage and fortitude, some neighborhoods sustained considerable damage. Several shelters in the city were struck. Clearing-up operations have already begun, and civilian morale remains high.”

  “My mum,” Hettie said, panic flooding through her. “I think she went to the Atlantic Avenue shelter.”

  “Oh, Hettie,” Mr. Wright said, looking up at her. “Maybe it was one of the shelters that wasn’t hit.”

  Ignoring Mr. Wright’s half-hearted attempt at reassurance, she ran out the door and along the zoo’s central pathway and down the grand staircase, out the front entrance, onto the Antrim Road. There was a red glow in the sky, especially over north Belfast. Shattered glass crowded the pavements and gutters. Water gushed from broken pipes. Half-burned papers from businesses in the city center had swirled up in the hot air of the fires and littered many of the streets. Relief turned to dismay when she saw that Aunt Sylvia’s store was merely a blackened skeleton. Heaps of ashes had accumulated along its foundation. A tattered OPEN sign bounced against the remaining wooden doorframe.

  Hettie slowed, struggling to take shallow breaths, and peered inside. Her eyes stung, and she closed her mouth against the taste of smoke and burning. Charred cans of tomatoes and tins of sardines and broken jars of pickles were strewn about the aisles. Puddles of pale green juice were leaking out onto the floor. Hettie didn’t see her aunt anywhere and hoped that she had made it safely to one of the luckier shelters.

  Up the street, three storefronts over, Mr. Gordon stood near the door of his hardware store, holding a cardboard box of candles that he was distributing to passersby.

  “Mr. Gordon,” Hettie called. “Have you seen my aunt?”

  “I’m sorry about her store,” he said. “It’s barely standing.”

  Hettie felt a flicker of frustration, and had to work to maintain an air of politeness. “Yes, it is. Have you seen her? And my mother, Rose Quin?”

  “I’m sorry, I haven’t,” he said. “Here, take this.” He held out a candle to her. “Might be useful.”

  Hettie took the candle, feeling guilty now that she had been annoyed with him. She thanked Mr. Gordon and slid the candle into her coat pocket before heading down in the direction of the Whitewell Road. The early-morning sun began to slice through the thick yellow smoke.

  Astonishingly, her house appeared to have been untouched by the night’s bombing. As Hettie walked toward it, she could see that the windows were still intact, that her house looked exactly the same as when she ran off to the zoo. Unfortunately, some of her neighbors were not as lucky. Homes closer to one of the seats of explosion endured catastrophic damage. The entire facade of the Fi
nneys’ house had collapsed, and all its rooms were exposed to the street: There was a mattress with a tangle of sheets and blankets in one of the bedrooms, and plates and glasses were still arranged on the dining room table. Edith Curry’s house had lost its roof. Most of the windows had been broken at the Hartes’ and the Browns’. Some of the houses farther down the road were still on fire. Desperate wardens and rescue workers urgently roamed the stricken homes in search of survivors. Hettie felt her heart lurch. In the middle of the street sat a singed couch with a majority of its cushions missing. A Mickey Mouse gas mask with large circular eyes and a pale pink flap over the nose was left behind on one of the couch’s arms.

  Hettie strode up the front sidewalk of her house and burst through the door. “Mum!” she yelled. “Mum, are you here?” She tried the light switch in the front hallway. It didn’t work. “Mum,” she called again. “Where are you?”

  With her heart beating loudly in her ears, Hettie rushed down the darkened hallway to Rose’s room. Her mother’s bed was unmade, and her bathrobe lay in a crumpled pile at the foot of the bed. Her lamp had tumbled to the floor, and the frosted light bulb had shattered into countless pieces. She sat down on the edge of her mother’s bed, as she felt like her equilibrium might give way at any second. Hettie tried to convince herself that Rose had likely sought out safety elsewhere, and it wouldn’t be long before they would be reunited.

  Hettie steadied herself as she stood up and walked into her own bedroom and changed into a skirt, blouse, and cardigan. Then she went into the bathroom to rinse off her face, but forgot that the water was no longer running.

  “Holy God,” she mumbled. “Holy Mother of God.”

  She felt like crashing her forehead into the metal head of the faucet. Perhaps this self-destructive act would somehow relieve the overwhelming pain that was swiftly taking shape inside her. What if Rose was dead, too? Hettie could barely hold on to the thought. It didn’t seem possible. Her family had already split in half during the past twelve months. If her mother didn’t make it out of the shelter alive, the Quins would be spoken of only in the past tense—That unfortunate family, so many tragic losses—in the same way that her city would be spoken of in the past.