The Elephant of Belfast

by S. Kirk Walsh

  Hettie frowned. “I thought you were staying the night.”

  “Poor George is ill,” Josephine said. “My brother needs me.”

  The shrieks of the monkeys ricocheted across the treetops. Violet answered with a trumpet call. The peacocks and parrots joined in. Then the mournful brays of the sea lions. A growing chorus of living animals, a sort of plaintive ode to what once was. Hettie looked over at Violet, who seemed to be listening, too, her flap-like ears raised in the air, and then over at Josephine, who withdrew a linen handkerchief from her purse.

  “Mr. Wright told me what happened with Violet.” Josephine paused, and Hettie wondered what version of the story Mr. Wright had told Josephine. Since she hadn’t spoken to Mr. Wright, she still wasn’t sure what parts of the story he knew.

  “How you took her home in order to avoid the ministry’s directive,” Josephine continued, looking up at Hettie. “How you saved Violet’s life.”

  “That’s one way of seeing it,” Hettie said.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “If I hadn’t been so worried about her, I might have died, too.”

  “I guess you saved each other,” Josephine said.

  “Thankfully, we did,” Hettie said.

  Josephine sighed. “I need to return to London.”

  “Do you need Mr. Wright to call you a cab to the station?”

  “A driver is waiting for me on the Antrim Road.” Josephine took Hettie’s hand and looked her in the eye. “You’re doing good work here, Hettie Quin,” she said. “I hope you’ll continue with it.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I’ll be sure to give Georgie a good report.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Goodbye, dear Hettie.”

  Josephine Christie proceeded down the path that led to the grand staircase and the front entrance of the zoo, the lace hem of her black dress trailing behind her. Hettie continued to watch Josephine until her dark figure disappeared down the grand staircase. It felt strange, but Hettie was certain that she would never see this impossibly elegant woman again. That this would be her last exchange with Josephine Christie.

  The following morning, Hettie returned Violet to her enclosure after their walk up the Crazy Path. As she walked toward the canteen to fetch a morning cup of tea, Hettie ran into Mr. Clarke. His face was rumpled with distress, his complexion a patchwork of redness.

  “Mr. Clarke, are you all right?” Hettie asked.

  “Mr. Wright is gone,” he said. “He left early this morning.”

  “On an errand?”

  “On the train to Dublin. He’s taking the ferry to Holyhead and then the train up to Yorkshire.”

  “He’s going home?” Hettie gasped.

  “Yes, that appears to be the case,” Mr. Clarke said. “George will be sending a replacement as soon as he can find a suitable head zookeeper.”

  Mr. Clarke started down the pavement again, but then stopped.

  “You know, out of everyone,” he said, “I didn’t think Mr. Wright—” Mr. Clarke didn’t complete his thought, but only shook his head. He continued down the path to his security station.

  Hettie made her way to Mr. Wright’s office and knocked on the door. No one answered. She heard the recorded voice of a woman singing, but didn’t hear Mr. Wright’s voice harmonizing along with the lyrics. Hettie checked the knob, and the door slipped open. No one was there. Many of his personal effects had been left behind: The framed black-and-white photograph of Mr. Wright and Augustus was still on top of the bookcase. His gramophone sat in its rosewood cabinet with his collection of albums leaning against one wall. When the French singer stopped singing, the thin needle skipped on the last rung of the spinning record. Hettie lifted the arm of the needle, replaced it onto its elevated position, and turned the gramophone off.

  The room was silent. The framed poster from Mr. Christie’s Continental Circus still hung on the wall. Its frame was crooked, and a hairline crack traveled across the clear glass face. Loose papers were scattered on Mr. Wright’s desk. Hettie sifted through them with hopes of finding some kind of note related to his abrupt departure, perhaps explaining that his hiatus would be only a temporary one, that he would return in a week’s time or less. Instead, there was nothing. The short nub of a candle was still anchored to the corner of his desk by a dried puddle of wax. For a second, Hettie saw the dancing flame of the candle against Mr. Wright’s ruddy complexion the night of the bombing and then, earlier, his trancelike stare fixated on Stella Holliday as she sang amid the shadows of the Floral Hall, and later his solemn stance as Constable Ward, Sergeant Miller, and Samuel shot the animals one by one.

  The door to the office opened. Hettie prayed that it might be Mr. Wright returning for something he had accidentally left behind. Maybe she could convince him to stay. Instead, Ferris emerged from behind the door. He studied the untidy office.

  “I heard—”

  “Did he tell you? Before he left?”

  “No,” Ferris said, shaking his head, “but I’m not surprised.”

  “But—” Hettie started to say, but then stopped. She looked around the office. A piece of scrap paper with Mr. Wright’s handwriting drifted from the desktop onto the floor. Hettie picked it up. It was an order for hay, cornmeal, and feed. The date written at the top of the note was October 20, 1940. Hettie held the piece of paper in her hand for a second before letting it fall back down onto the floor.

  “I’ll ask Jack to come in and clean things up,” Ferris said.

  He held the door for Hettie and together they walked up the path to the center of the zoo.

  “How could he leave us?” Hettie asked abruptly.

  “I don’t think he wanted to,” Ferris said. “I think he felt like he’d disappointed us, so he had to leave.”

  They stopped in front of the Elephant House. Violet was standing near the end of the wrought-iron fence, lightly kicking her front feet against the dusty ground. Before Ferris walked away, he gave Hettie a hug. She leaned into him, and took in his familiar scents of cigarettes, soot, and manure. For a moment, she allowed herself to feel the solidness and strength of his sturdy arms. She felt his reliability and steadiness, and their mutual respect for each other. All this from his embrace. She rested there for a moment, and then they stepped apart again.

  “Tea at our usual time?”

  “Yes,” she said with a smile. “That would be grand.”

  Ferris went his way to feed Sammy and the other sea lions. By the end of the day, the rest of the zoo staff had learned about Mr. Wright’s sudden departure. Very few rumors circulated about the reasons behind his leaving. Everyone knew Mr. Wright would never recover from the execution of the animals, especially Rajan’s death.

  As the hours edged toward dusk, Hettie raked the dirt floor of the camel enclosure. At one point she thought she heard the phantom roar of one of the lions and then later the distant cackling of the hyenas. With each one, a tingling traveled through her body. She recalled the decaying carcasses that were now buried in the meadow next to the Crazy Path and the supply of butchered meat on ice in the storage shed.

  When Hettie stepped into the Elephant House, Violet gave out a roar into the early-evening sky, which still held a smoky haze and a noxious smell from the fires still smoldering in the city. Hettie clucked her tongue. Violet turned around and walked slowly toward her. Hettie offered the elephant a turnip. Violet opened her mouth, and Hettie threw the vegetable underhand and it landed with a thunk in the elephant’s mouth. Hettie looked over at Violet. Tiny pieces of white flesh were caught between the fine black whiskers underneath her chin. Violet touched her trunk into the pocket of her jacket. Hettie reached in and felt for the last turnip.

  “How did you know I had one more?” she said, handing the turnip over to Violet.

  Hettie glanced down at her father’s wristwatch. It was a quarter past eight. She looked up at the sky. Along the western edge of the Lough, the sun was beginning to set, its diminishing rays
sending deep ribbons of lavender and apricot against the horizon. Violet walked through the Elephant House, strands of hay crunching underneath her feet. The peacocks in the aviary called out, like the prolonged wail of an infant. Hettie imagined the birds fanning their eye-spotted feathers of iridescent blue, green, and black, strutting back and forth across the width of the caged enclosure. The spring leaves clattered and vibrated in the twilight.

  Together, Hettie and Violet walked along the pavement that wound toward the rear entrance of the zoo. As they got closer to the top of the Crazy Path, Hettie turned left and walked until they stood on the far edge of the meadow where many of the animals were now buried. During the past few days, makeshift memorials had emerged across the mounds of dirt. Broken sticks and twigs were tied together with twine and pieces of ivy, forming a series of crosses of different shapes and sizes. Loose bouquets of purple lilacs and bright pink azaleas had been picked and placed in front of many of the homemade crosses. A few lone daffodils were scattered, their yellow trumpet-shaped heads resting on the uneven ground.

  A flock of swallows rose from the treetops that bordered the meadow. A swirling mass of what looked like hundreds of birds flew up into the weak twilight of the sky, a synchronized movement of black flecks flowing into one fluid, shape-shifting cloud before the birds returned to the same treetop, momentarily resting on its branches before taking off and circling the watery sky again. Violet gave out a soft trumpet cry. They stood on the top edge of the meadow and took in the changing light and the multitude of memorials for the dead animals as the gathering of swallows lifted up from the treetop once more and circled the expanse of the early evening sky. The elephant gave out another call.

  Hettie looked up at Violet before turning around and heading down the Crazy Path. Violet walked in front of her along the sinuous curves of the wide trail, and Hettie followed. Then they traversed the short path that bordered Uncle Edgar’s farm and across the Antrim Road. The road was still cluttered with piles of gray rubble. Union Jacks attached to thin poles stood in the mounds here and there, the red, white, and blue snapping in the evening breeze. Together, they turned down the Whitewell Road. The few remaining neighborhood children sat on the burned-out couch in the middle of the road, but quickly ran toward Hettie as soon as they spotted Violet. For a second, Hettie expected to see Johnny Gibson leading the pack, but instead it was Lily Brown running at the front of the group of young children.

  “You promised,” they sang collectively. “You promised, Hettie!”

  “Me first,” Lily Brown said, shooting her hand straight up into the air. “You said.”

  “No, me!” said Albert O’Brien. “Let me go first.”

  “You remember Violet, don’t you,” Hettie said, patting the broad side of the elephant.

  Hettie extended Violet’s trunk and placed it into Lily’s palm, and the two of them gave each other a gentle handshake.

  “Her skin feels funny,” Lily said, releasing her grip and staring into Violet’s serene, blinking eyes.

  “Her skin is rough to the touch,” Hettie said, “but it’s also resilient.”

  “How old is she?” Lily asked.

  “She’s three years old,” Hettie said, “but sometimes she acts older than her age.”

  Hettie lifted Lily Brown up onto Violet’s broad back. The lightness of the young girl surprised her. For a moment, she was reminded of when her father taught her how to ride one of her uncle’s Clydesdales when she was seven years old, how to trust the movement of the animal through the act of riding, the swaying back and forth, the graceful locomotion. It was like a new kind of freedom, sitting atop a horse and being able to command his movements. “Pretend you’re riding a horse,” she told Lily. “Press your legs against her sides so you stay in one place.”

  “Like this?” Lily said as she attempted to squeeze her short legs against Violet’s broad sides. Violet swatted her tail from side to side.

  “Exactly.”

  Hettie walked in front of Violet and clucked her tongue, and the elephant lumbered slowly with Lily on top of her. The other children gathered on the side of the road as Hettie and Violet and Lily made their way up the rise before turning onto the Antrim Road.

  “Brilliant, Lily,” Hettie said. “You’re brilliant.”

  Lily smiled as she held on to the loose skin of Violet’s neck. The neighborhood children formed a procession behind them, along with Mr. Martin, Mrs. Lyttle, and Mr. Brown. In a broken window of one of the houses that bordered the Antrim Road was a cardboard sign that read CARRY ON, BELFAST. A porcelain bathtub, streaked with soot and filth, sat askew on the pavement. Another sign in the rubble warned CAUTION BOMB CRATER. From a wireless that sat in the window of a terraced house, a big band tune played, its notes from trumpets, oboes, and saxes floating up into the air. Lily waved to the sparse collection of pedestrians who had gathered on the curb. Air-raid wardens, with their black steel helmets and dark blue uniforms, paused to take in the sight of Hettie and Violet and Lily. Hettie whistled softly along with the big band melody.

  “I’m the queen!” Lily said with a grin, revealing a missing front tooth. “I’m the queen!”

  “You certainly are,” Hettie said. “You’re the queen of the Antrim Road.”

  Acknowledgments

  THANK YOU TO MY EDITOR HARRY KIRCHNER WHO WAS THE first to say yes to this unlikely pair of Violet and Hettie—and guided my novel along the path to publication at Counterpoint. Thank you to Dan Smetanka for his early enthusiasm and being the next yes that made this novel a reality, and to Kendall Storey for expanding the readership of Hettie and Violet. Thank you to my editor at Hodder & Stoughton, Thorne Ryan, for her thoughtful edits. Also, at Counterpoint, thanks to Wah-Ming Chang, Chandra Wohleber, Alison Forner, and Nicole Caputo. And to the marketing and publicity team of Megan Fishmann, Sarah Jean Grimm, Katie Boland, and Rachel Fershleiser. I’m very grateful to everyone at Counterpoint—and Hodder & Stoughton—for getting behind this novel and championing it to the finish line.

  Many individuals on both sides of the pond assisted during the writing and researching of this book. Thank you to former curator Ciaran Doran and the late John Hughes of the Northern Ireland War Memorial Museum in Belfast. Thank you to the Blitz survivors who took the time to speak with me: the late Vance Rodgers, the late Sammy Clarke, and Eithne O’Connor as well as David Ramsey, Denise Austin’s last living relative. At the Belfast Zoo, I’m indebted to Zoo Curator Raymond Robinson and Zoo Manager Alyn Cairns for sharing stories of the zoo’s history and animals. In addition, thanks to Aidan McCormack of Belfast City Sightseeing for a tour of the city through the lens of the World War II. And thank you to Daryl Campbell and Tina Chong for your hospitality.

  I’m enormously grateful to scholar Brian Barton, Ph.D. He is the author/editor of twelve books on Irish history and politics, including The Belfast Blitz: The City in the War Years (Ulster Historical Foundation, 2015). This comprehensive volume served as a research Bible of sorts as I was writing and revising the novel over the years. Brian also read drafts of my manuscript, providing detailed feedback to ensure that the novel reflected the historical accuracy of the city, the bombings, and the time period. I will always be thankful for Brian’s knowledge, expertise, and kindness. Also, in Ireland and Northern Ireland: thank you to Anne Kennedy, Raymond Robinson, and Ciaran Doran for your helpful, instructive reads of my novel.

  Thank you to Vanessa Cameron, librarian/archivist at the New York Yacht Club, where I completed further research about the Belfast shipyards and Harland & Wolff. I also made multiple research visits to the main branch of the New York Public Library. And thank you to Nick Flynn for the permission to include the sentence—All creatures have square shoulders—from his memoir The Ticking Is the Bomb (Norton, 2011).

  For my elephant-related research, I would like to thank Large Mammal Curator Daryl Hoffman and Elephant Manager Martina Stevens at the Houston Zoo. Hoffman and Stevens allowed me to visit the elephants at the Houston Zoo
on several occasions. This firsthand experience with the elephants, especially three-year-old Tupelo (at the time), and interviews with Hoffman and Stevens gave me a deeper understanding of the lives and care of elephants.

  On a summer afternoon in 2014, I met Scott Sellers in front of the Neil Simon Theatre on Broadway while waiting to purchase tickets for the final performance of All the Way. Scott recognized my husband, Michael, because he had seen Michael perform in the role of the hustler opposite Derek Jacobi’s Alan Turing in the Broadway production of Breaking the Code in the very same theater twenty years earlier. Then, we learned that Scott worked for Penguin Random House in Toronto, and our conversation moved between plays, books, hockey, and more over the next few hours. This chance meeting gave way to a friendship, and as I struck out on my own to find a home for this novel, Scott provided mentorship every step of the way. During the contract process, I also received guidance and advice from Nancy Bilyeau, Max Epstein, Andy Bowman, and Tanessa Harte.

  Heartfelt gratitude to my mentors, teachers, and friends: the late E. L. Doctorow, Mary-Beth Hughes, Margot Livesey, Lily Tuck, Rick Moody, and Abdi Assadi. Thank you to the following writers for reading my manuscript and providing valuable feedback: Elizabeth Crane, Fiona McFarlane, Margot Livesey, Lily Tuck, Dalia Azim, and Anne Burt. Thank you to the editorial expertise of Sarah Branham on a later draft of this manuscript. I’m also indebted to Karen Olsson, Dominic Smith, and Elizabeth McCracken for their friendship, feedback, and advice during the writing process.

  Love and gratitude to my friends and family who have been cheering me on along the way: the Harte family, Lize Burr and Chris Hyams, Stephen Marshall and Shirley Thompson, Nancy Miller, Karen Christensen and Kathleen Donnelly, Hester and Jim Magnuson, Ted and Melba Whatley, Greg Cowles, Vivé Griffith, Debra Lamberson Young, Clune Walsh III, E. Bennett Walsh, Liza Lauber, Colleen Dolan Vinetz, Beverly Curtiss Walsh, and John Baird. And a very special thanks to my sister, Ami.