by Lynne Kelly
My pocketknife is with me always. When it’s time to leave I’ll have to grab the ax on our way to the property fence. Nandita barely fit through the wooden gate last time, and she’s grown since then. But if I chop away at the fence post next to the metal gate, I’ll be able to free the gate from the chain that holds it closed.
Each day as I work and each night as I sleep, I dream of home. I imagine feeling dry sand again and seeing smoke pour from our courtyard stove in my village. I dream of the baking roti and of the buttermilk calming its steam. And my mother’s whole-face smile.
I long to hear the mooing of our cow, play ball with Raj, and even look forward to seeing a camel again. Most of all, I need to know if Chanda is all right.
* * *
One morning I throw off my blanket and sit up in a panic when I realize it was the sunrise that woke me, not Nandita. I slept all night long. She always needs a bottle of milk during the night, but she did not wake up.
I reach over and touch Nandita’s head. She opens one eye and looks at me, then closes it and starts snoring again. I sigh with relief, then laugh.
“No bottle at night anymore?” I say. “I guess you’re growing up, Nandita.”
* * *
Ne Min isn’t in the cook shed when I place the water tub on the stove, so I sit down to work on a wooden elephant I’ve been carving. I don’t expect to be as good as my father yet, but after all this time and practice, my skills should have improved more. This figure is better than many I have done—it is smooth and even, and anyone looking at it will be able to tell that it’s an elephant. But still, something is wrong, something is missing …
Ne Min shuffles into the cook shed and leans over the table to see my work. “That looks like it was carved by someone who has never seen an elephant,” he says. “Maybe by someone who has seen an elephant only in a picture. Do you ever see them standing so still?”
“No, but, Ne Min—this is a block of wood. Of course it is still.”
He crosses the cook shed to the stove. “And that is why it looks only like an elephant-shaped block of wood. You are thinking of them as carvings with no life. When you focus instead on the living, moving animal, your work will show that.”
I close my eyes and think about the first time I saw the elephants. Stomping through the forest, playing in the river, spraying water from their trunks—those always-moving trunks, reaching for mangoes, ripping down branches …
When I open my eyes I look at the carving in my hand. Lifeless. Ne Min is right, certainly there has never been an elephant that stood so still. Not just still but straight, as if planted in the ground. And the trunk—it lies there like a dead snake. Maybe if I add some curves to it later it will look more like it’s moving. I fold the blade of my knife into the handle and drop it into my pocket with the wooden elephant.
After breakfast Timir and Sharad talk at the table while I wash the dishes with Ne Min.
“I’m going to town tomorrow morning,” says Timir. “I will be here in the afternoon. But start working on some new tricks with the elephant.”
Without Timir around, Sharad will not bother showing up for work very early. If I leave, it will be a long time before anyone notices. Tomorrow morning. Tomorrow, before the sunrise, we will leave. Only when Ne Min nudges me do I realize I have paused in my dishwashing. I sit frozen in place, holding a plate and dishcloth over the water. I glance at Timir as I continue my chores and notice his glare. I smile at him. Fine, stare all you want. I’m washing your breakfast dishes for the last time.
That afternoon Ne Min appears at the stable door as I am cleaning.
“I went home to get a gift for you,” he says. He holds out a colorful cloth bag.
I prop my pitchfork against a wall. “A gift? Why?”
“I’ve had this for a long time. I do not need it anymore.” He hands the bag to me. I run my fingers over the designs of red, purple, and blue stitched into the canvas fabric. The edges of the black handle are frayed, and the seam along the bottom has been restitched with different colors of thread. The bag looks old and worn but strong.
“Maybe you could make use of it,” he says. “It is still good and can carry many things, if you ever need something like that.”
“Thank you, Ne Min.” I cannot look him in the eye, but I step forward to hug him. I wish I could talk to him more, find out how he knows so much, why he is so good with Nandita, and what makes him so sad. I inhale the smell of cinnamon and pepper and those spices I never knew before I met him. I breathe them in deep so the scents will tie him to my memory.
* * *
After dinner I fly out of the cook shed as soon as I finish cleaning. I can’t wait to get through my chores and pack my things in the bag Ne Min gave me. I slow down when I see Timir standing outside his office with Sharad. Casually I walk to the stable and keep my eyes on the ground.
I loop the chain around Nandita’s neck to lead her to the spring for one last bath. Her ears flap as she dashes out of the stable. She seems to know something important is going to happen.
“One more night, Nandita,” I tell her. Tomorrow we will be free.
I close the stable door behind us and wonder what my family and neighbors are having for dinner. Chanda will save a bit of her food for Raj if she is there.
We take only a few steps before Timir’s voice stops us.
“Wait,” he says. “Something for the elephant.”
Nandita stiffens, her ears flat against her head.
I turn to see Timir and Sharad walking toward us. Sharad carries two metal shackles, joined by a thick chain. He kneels down to place the cuffs around Nandita’s front legs. With one snap of the shackles he locks away any hope we had of escaping.
19
An elephant will sacrifice its own well-being for the good of the herd.
—From Care of Jungle Elephants by Tin San Bo
I stare at the metal shackles that encircle Nandita’s legs.
Timir steps closer, and Nandita turns to face him.
He stares at me as he speaks. “I see flight in her eyes. We have to do what we can to keep her here. We’ll also be locking the entrance near the arena when we leave every night. It would be a shame if she got out and ran off. Imagine how she would be punished when we found her. Or we’d have to catch another elephant to bring back. Perhaps the elephant has a sister”—he brushes my cheek with the back of his hand—“who would work out just as well. Maybe better.”
My face feels like it’s crawling with spiders. I back away from Timir’s touch and stand closer to Nandita.
Timir narrows the distance between us and raises his cane. Before he can move any closer, Nandita calls out a trumpet blast. Branches overhead shake as the birds that rested in them fly away. Ears flared out straight, Nandita steps toward Timir and throws her trunk across my body.
We all stand frozen in place. Timir and Sharad do not take their eyes off Nandita. Sharad’s hand grips the handle of the hook at his side. Nandita stares at Timir with a look I hope she never gives me. Our breathing is the only sound I hear. The silence in the trees adds to the stillness.
Leaves rustle as Timir takes one step back and waits. When Nandita doesn’t move, he takes another, and another, holding his cane out in front of him.
“Let’s go,” he says when he steps just past Sharad. Sharad does not move. “Come on, we’re done here for now.” He taps Sharad’s leg with the tip of his cane.
Sharad shakes his head as if someone snapped him out of a daydream. He joins Timir and backs away from Nandita. She stands in place until they are out of sight. I let out a deep breath I’ve been holding and slump against Nandita. My shaking hands and pounding heart need some time to calm down.
Nandita has shown before that she cares about me—she crosses the arena when I walk by, even when I don’t have a bottle of milk. She likes to sleep next to me, and looks as if she’s smiling when she sprays water on me or taps me on the shoulder. But I didn’t know she would put herself
in danger to protect me. I hope I can do the same for her one day.
I hug her and pet her forehead, then we walk together to the spring.
* * *
To make the elephant show more entertaining, Sharad trains Nandita to do harder and harder tricks, like balancing on a row of milk bottles. Even when the show is over, her work is not. After each performance, people from the audience now line up for elephant rides. Nandita kneels onto her front legs for each person to climb on her back, then walks them three times around the arena.
On show days, I let Nandita enjoy a longer evening bath. I scrub her with the coconut husk until my hands are too sore to move, then I sit on the bank of the spring while the cool water flows over her body, which I know must ache.
I imagine myself years from now, as an old man, still sitting here at this spring while Nandita takes her bath. How big will she be then?
Nandita’s chains rattle against her shackles when she rolls to her other side in the water. At this moment, she does not look like the sad, overworked show elephant, but more like the playful wild elephant she was when I first saw her. When she looks up at me, her face reminds me of our Ganesh figure back home. Sometimes I used to sit in front of it and listen to the stories my father told. One of my favorites was about how Ganesh got his head.
“He did not always have the head of an elephant, you know,” Baba would say.
“He didn’t? What happened?” I asked each time, even though I had heard the story a hundred times before.
“Ganesh used to have the head of a regular boy, like you, until the day his father returned…”
“Skip to the ending, Baba,” I said, “where Ganesh’s parents meet the elephant…”
“What good is a story if you hear only the end? You have to know how you got there!”
So I would listen while my father told the whole story.
The goddess Parvati was lonely, since her husband, Lord Shiv, had been away from home for so long. So she gathered some earth in her hands and created for herself a son. She named him Ganesh.
One day Parvati told Ganesh, “I am going to take a bath. Guard the door for me, and do not allow anyone to enter. I do not wish to be disturbed.”
“Yes, Mother,” said Ganesh.
On this same day, Lord Shiv returned home from war. When he tried to enter his home, he was blocked by the boy guarding the doorway!
“Move aside,” Shiv ordered him.
“My mother is taking her bath,” said Ganesh. “No one may enter our home right now. Come back another time.”
Lord Shiv shoved the boy aside and tried to step into the house, but young Ganesh leaped in front of the doorway and would not let his father pass. Shiv was so enraged, he grabbed his sword. He cut off the head of Ganesh and threw it far into the woods.
Parvati heard the commotion outside and ran to the door. When she saw what had happened she cried out, “That was our son!”
The horrified parents ran to the woods to search for Ganesh’s head, but could not find it. Knowing their child could not live without a head, they decided to take the head of the nearest creature they found.
The first animal they saw was an elephant. When Shiv and Parvati told him what had happened, the elephant bowed his head and said, “Lord of the World, cut off my head quickly. I will gladly sacrifice it and move on to my next life, so that your son may live.”
Lord Shiv told the elephant, “You will not need to live again in this world. I bless you and set your spirit free, so that you may join the gods.”
Ganesh’s mother and father raced back home with the elephant’s head. Shiv placed it on his child’s body. Parvati placed her hands upon Ganesh, and their son awoke.
As I remember the end of the story, I think of the animal that was so generous he gave his own life to save another. I look into Nandita’s eyes and know that she would do the same if asked. And I would do it for her.
That evening after I finish my chores, I’m looking around for a piece of wood to carve while Nandita eats hay in the stable. I notice Ne Min sitting on the ground outside the arena. A large roll of brown twine sits on the ground next to him.
“What are you making?” I ask as I approach.
“That elephant, she does not give you room to sleep.” The roll of twine unravels in a blur as he works. Row after row of knots appear, each a perfect copy of the one before it. I sit down across from him.
He is right. Nandita has grown so much during our time together. Many mornings I can feel the pattern of bark imprinted on my face, from sleeping while pressed against the stable wall.
“Hang this hammock in the stable and sleep above her. Then she can have the whole floor to herself.”
The knots of the hammock seem complicated, but Ne Min ties them in neat rows with no more effort than it takes him to stir a pot of rice.
“You must have made many of these,” I say.
“A few. I prefer sleeping mats woven from palm leaves, but you have no room for that. Someone who has his own hut, with an elephant that sleeps outside among the trees, can sleep on a mat and blankets on the ground. But for you, for now, a hammock.”
“Some people let their elephants sleep outside? Not locked in a stable?”
“They like to wander around, yes, but if they are treated well, they come back when they are called.” Ne Min smiles and pauses in his knot tying. “The mischievous ones try to hide so you have to look for them, but still they come back.” He looks at me, then down at the hammock, and continues working. The roll of twine uncoils even faster than before. “Nandita would return to you, even if she were allowed to wander.”
“Maybe. But I’ll never know, since Timir would never allow that.”
“Timir is one who does everything out of fear.”
I laugh. I have never thought of Timir being frightened of anything. He seems so strong, and so scary himself, what could he be afraid of?
“One who is brave inside does not have to use fear to control others,” he says. “You are braver than Timir will ever be.”
“Brave? Me? I’m afraid all the time!”
“It is not weakness to feel fear. To do the right thing even when you are afraid—that is bravery. It saddens me that I have not always done so.”
I try to find the words to ask Ne Min what he means, what it is that bothers him so much.
“Can you tell me—” I start to say.
The swaying of trees in the distance catches my eye. Ne Min turns to follow my gaze. The tops of the trees shake, even though there is no wind. Neither of us moves.
Then I see it emerge from the woods. It is the largest animal I have ever seen.
20
Elephants grow six sets of teeth during their seventy-year life span.
—From Care of Jungle Elephants by Tin San Bo
If one man stood on the shoulders of another, he still would not meet the eyes of the elephant that stands before us now.
As he walks closer to us, he pulls up clumps of grass with his trunk. He beats them on the ground, then places the grass in his mouth when enough dirt has been pounded away.
“If Nandita ever grows that big,” I say, “there won’t even be room in the stable to hang that hammock. I’ll have to sleep outside.”
“She will not grow to that size, even if she does live to be as old as this one,” says Ne Min. “The females do not grow as large as the bulls.”
“He is old?” The bull looks so strong, like he could crush a truck if he stepped on it. “How can you tell?”
Ne Min points. “See the pink face? And the ears—look how tattered they are, and how they fold.”
The elephant is still far away, so I don’t know how Ne Min noticed it so easily, but I see it now. The edge of the animal’s ear is raggedy and flops inward. Splotches of pink cover his face and trunk.
“That means he’s old?” I ask.
“That, and those tusks. You see—that one he has broken, perhaps in a fight, but it takes many years to grow tu
sks that size.”
Each tusk looks thicker than both of my legs put together. “I wouldn’t want to meet the elephant that dared to fight him.”
We both stand and watch the bull as he pulls grass and ambles toward us. He’s not close enough to touch, but I don’t want him to get any closer.
The air around us is quiet. Timir and Sharad have gone home for the evening, so we hear no shouting from Timir, no yelling demands of Sharad’s training. The only sounds are of the bull pounding grass on the ground and the chewing as he eats. At times he looks at us, then wraps his trunk around another clump of tall grass he yanks from the ground.
In a quiet voice I ask, “Is he as old as you are?”
“Not that old, no,” Ne Min answers. “If their teeth could last longer, they could live to be as old as I am. This one may not have many years left. He might have wandered all day looking for grasses that are easy to eat.”
“Their teeth wear out?”
“You have seen how much Nandita eats every day. Imagine how all the chewing of hay and grass wears down their teeth, year after year. Like your wood carving, only much slower. When you whittle away at the wood, bit by bit, there comes a time when there is nothing left to work with.”
“So it’s like their food whittles away at their teeth.”
“It takes a long time, but yes. By the time they grow as old as he is, most of their teeth have worn away. They die when they can no longer eat.”
“And then what?”
“And then they are dead, Hastin.”
“Yes, but—” I have never mentioned to anyone that I wonder sometimes about Baba. He must have been reborn by now into someone else, somewhere else, but I wish I knew who, and where. I would find him and visit him, even if his new self would not know me.
“What do you think happens to them after they die?” I ask.
“Or after we die?”
“Or that. Do you think they, or we, are born into another animal or person?”