“I’ve seen you around here a couple of times.”
“Possibly,” I try, faking surprise.
“No, for certain.”
I stare at his huge eyes, the eyelashes of which are long and soft looking. He is a big horse, probably at one time powerful, but now, as I have said, tired, and not just tired from a sleepless night or two, but from a hard life, one of hauling heavy loads day in and day out, until, finally, he just quit.
“Maybe I have been here a while.”
“Not maybe, for sure. And you are not from around here, but, most likely, from Egypt.”
A stubborn thing, this here horse; must have a donkey as a father. My ears twitch at his words.
“I’m correct.”
“How can you tell?”
“It is the reddish dirt on you. That only comes from the tunnels and they, of course, are only on the Egyptian side of the border.”
I say nothing and look away.
“There is no reason to hide the fact; the tunnels are certainly no secret. Half the people you see here work there in some way or other. A growing number even die there.”
What does he know, I wonder? I walk a little faster, but he keeps up.
“Almost all of the animals in the zoo come through the tunnels.”
“Zoo?”
“Yes, we have several zoos here, but the main one is about a mile away, in the Bureij district of the city. You should give it a look. They could probably use a sheep without a home.”
“Is there a peacock there?”
“Two, in fact. Brought them all the way from Asia, I guess.”
“I thought I heard one this morning, but was surprised.”
“Noisy animals, and they only scream at night. Always calling attention to themselves.”
“Why do they have a zoo here?”
“For the kids, mostly. There is not much in the way of beauty or peacefulness in this place; in case you haven’t noticed.”
“The sea is beautiful,” I say, pointing my nose in the direction of the water.
“Yes, but only if you don’t think about what is at your back.”
“What other animals do they have in the zoo?”
“A gazelle, mountain lions, the peacocks that I mentioned, camels, monkeys, even a giraffe.”
“How the hell did they get a giraffe through the tunnels?”
“Good question. Even an occasional miracle, I guess, graces Gaza.”
“Are there no sheep?”
“Not that I know of. Certainly not one of your color!” The horse shows his huge teeth as he chuckles.
“Yes, I know that I could use a shearing.”
“And a bath.”
“You are quite blunt with your words.”
“Not many words left in this old mouth. Use them while I still can.”
I sleep for a while near Beach Camp, then, about an hour before dawn I walk to the neighborhood where the zoo is. Although it is quiet, I do see a couple of people out in the streets, one, a man with large rubber boots, more than likely a fisherman or a worker in the fish market, another, an old man huddled under a burlap sack, sleeping atop a cart.
I can smell the zoo before coming upon it. A strange, intoxicating blend of odors, some of which I recognize, of course—the camels and birds—the others I can only imagine.
As I near the zoo, with its brick entrance and black gates, a peacock begins to stir and its scream lacerates the approaching dawn. The peacock continues mewing, louder and louder, and a squeal of a monkey, a growl from a lion, a grunting giraffe join in the discord. Startled, and in a rush to get out of there, my hooves gain little traction on the gray bricks, but finally I begin to run in the direction of the sea. Slipping around a corner, I slide into the arms of two men, both dressed in black and white-striped sweaters. Men dressed as zebras. They wrestle me to the ground and one of them, within seconds, has my feet roped together. My bleating joins in the discordant choir and it continues until I have not a single syllable left inside my throat.
They have taken me inside a large room and lay me on the floor. My feet are still tied. One of the men has a knife in his hand and I think; so, this is your fate, this is how all sheep feel as the knife, not as glistening as I imagined it would be, dirty in fact, makes its descent.
I have heard that one’s life will flash before them, tiny pictures making a quilt of your history. Nothing like that happens at all. The knife is near and passes my throat and belly and with one quick swipe the rope is severed and my legs, as though springs, snap open. I want to jump up and race around the room and celebrate my freedom, my continuation of life, but I cannot move. Cannot so much as wiggle an ear.
“What an interesting color we have here. We are certainly the only zoo in Gaza to have a red sheep. Imagine how the children will love him!”
“Stand up, my friend. Let’s see the whole of you.” The taller of the two men comes over and tries to lift me, but I am deadweight.
“Help me, Farid. He’s a heavy one.”
Farid puts his hands under me and together they lift. I do not help them in any way, keeping my body as limp as possible, but I can resist no longer, besides, the tall man’s fingers dig into my belly, tickling me.
I stand before them.
They walk circles around me.
Sometimes they touch me, looking inside and behind my ears, at my teeth, raising my legs and checking my hooves. I allow them to do with me what they wish. They comment on my matted wool, the color of it, the need for my hooves to be clipped. Then they walk out of the room and I am left standing in the middle. One of the men, reaching back through a crack in the door, flips off the light; I still don’t budge in the darkness and I am standing where the men left me when the door opens, the light comes back, and the men, along with a veterinarian, enter.
With great care, the vet shears my wool while the men watch. He doesn’t nick me, not a drip of my blood dots the floor. Although my hooves haven’t been trimmed for some time, they are not that bad for I have walked a lot and the cement of the coastal road, and in the city itself, have worn them. When finished, the vet sticks me with a needle; even that is done with care. Where, I wonder, has this man been all these years? I walk around the room, shiver, not because I am cold, but rather a sudden chill has trundled down my back. I feel so light and clean without my wool. Because of the vet, my first day in the Gaza Zoo is bearable.
For the next several weeks of sunrises I remain in the room, where they feed me twice a day and allow time for my wool to grow. I have not seen the vet since that first morning. One day both men come into the room and I go over to them, thinking I will be fed, but they have no food, only a small bucket with a reddish-brown liquid in it. One of the men takes hold of me, and for the first time since they brandished the knife, I feel a runnel of fear.
The other man, Farid, wears long, orange rubber gloves, up to the biceps; he is the one holding the bucket. The man steadying me in place whispers in my ear to stay calm, nothing bad is going to happen, but it is his whispers that make me all the more anxious. Like with the man in the tunnel, seemingly years ago, I begin to flail and a struggle ensues. Farid places the bucket on the floor and helps his friend try to contain me, but I elude them and lunge for and kick the bucket, sending the red liquid across the floor and splatting the gray walls.
They look at me with surprise more than anger. Farid picks up the bucket, ignoring the mess and they leave the room and do not return until late that night and Shafiq, the veterinarian, is with them and he gives me a little pinprick on the rear and I slip into sleep and waken to see a red-woolen sheep, me, the color of the tunnel.
It is on my second night in the pen that the first animal speaks to me. We, the smaller, cloven-footed animals are housed in a pen, surrounded by a large metal fence, rather than a cage. We have room to walk. This silence is as much my doing as theirs. Mostly, for me, I am embarrassed and uncomfortable about the way I look and I stay in the far-right corner, away from the o
thers. It is in this corner that I keep to at night and in this corner that a soft voice speaks to me, a voice so soft that I think it is whispering because of the hour.
It turns out that the voice is always this soft.
“I haven’t had a chance to say hello and welcome you to the zoo.”
“Why would you welcome anyone to a place where they are not free to leave?”
“I was also not too happy to be here, but it isn’t such a bad place. Anyway, I just came to say hello.”
The small tapping of hooves I listen to as the animal turns and walks away, soft, the steps, like the voice. I am about to tell him to stop and come back, but I say nothing and the steps fade into the night.
It is the day before the beginning of summer vacation, when the school children will begin to visit in larger numbers. I make myself as inconspicuous as possible and try to figure out who the unseen pen-mate was that I spoke with last night. There are not that many possibilities, I figure. Judging by the voice alone, I quickly eliminate the two cows and the giraffe; whoever heard of a cow or a giraffe with a gentle, soft voice? Even more so, whoever heard of a cow or giraffe walking with such quiet steps? I admit that I have never met a giraffe before, but common sense tells me that an animal that large cannot walk or speak as softly as what I heard last night. Now, I have known a few cows, and can say with almost certainty that it was no cow that approached me last night.
By mid-morning, the choice is narrowed to the goat or the gazelle. Closing my eyes, I imagine each of them speaking to me, the words I remember clearly, the tone, the breaths during the pauses. The thing that convinces me it is the gazelle is that the goat has a nearly white coat, and at night, even in a night as dark as last, I would have seen at least a hint of it. Besides, only those tiny black hooves of the gazelle could walk, glide is the better word, like that. Glorious hooves, shiny, despite the dirt—coffee beans at the bottom of the fragile legs. That is why they can run so fast, I think, making up for their lack of strength. They are an animal that avoids confrontation, peaceful creatures, I imagine.
Once or twice during the afternoon, I catch myself gazing at the gazelle, one of the most beautiful, lithe animals I have ever seen. Although I want to go over and talk to him, I hesitate, not only because the zookeepers discourage us gathering during the day, but also for the simple fact that I was rude the night before.
So, I wait and watch as the sheet of dusk becomes a thick shroud over the zoo. I keep my eye on the gazelle to see where he stays during the night and then go over there a little while after I hear the diminishing of the usual night chatter.
Cautiously I make my way across the ground to where the gazelle is. I try to walk as quietly as possible, but I am not much better than my fellow, heavy-hooved animals.
“You have decided to talk to me.” The silky voice of last night guides me the final ten yards.
“I was just walking around before going off to sleep.”
“Yes, sometimes I like to do that as well. But starting tomorrow, with the larger crowds, I rarely have the desire to do so at night. Eat and then sleep; that is the repetition of summer.”
“I hear that the days are long.”
“That they are and the children love to pet us, and there are always those that like to tease, and the rare few who enjoy tormenting us.”
“I am not looking forward to that.”
“None of us are, but at least we have the nights, for the most part, to ourselves. For me, that is the one beauty of not being in a cage.”
“But those in the cages can at least hide and rest during the days, if they so choose.”
“I imagine, but if there are too many complaints about not seeing the monkeys or the birds, the zookeepers force them to come out into the open.”
I yawn and the gazelle echoes it.
“Well, I am tired and should get back to my place. Anyway, it was good talking to you, and I apologize for being so rude last night.”
“Apology accepted. See you bright and early.”
“Bright and early.”
And before the sun has time to broil the air, they have arrived. Many, as I have been told, head first to the monkey cages, always the most popular. The monkeys are fifty yards away and yet I can hear the laughter of the children. How wonderful, I think, being able to make children laugh. I look over at the gazelle. The low-sitting sun brings out the two black stripes on his white face, his stripes, the gorgeous, subtle tones appear as though they have been painted there with the simplest sweep of a brush. Unlike my coat, his was done by the brushstroke of nature.
In time, the children make it to the petting area and the gate is opened by one of the workers, who promptly shuts it after the children enter, in order that none of us escape, something that is a rarity, but it did happen once last winter, I have heard, when a goat raced through a gate left open. A cluster of children head to the gazelle, squealing at its cuteness, but one girl, wearing a blue school dress like the rest, spots me and comes in my direction. Startled, I run away from her and she chases me, which attracts the attention of some of the others and they too are in full pursuit and soon I tire and one of the zookeepers has ahold of me and keeps me there, talking calmly, while one of the girls comes and rubs my red head and the man tells her to touch me nicely, and she does. The other girls follow suit—gently, the zookeeper says—and they do as well and I am surprised that their hands feel rather nice and once, even, I close my eyes.
I’m not sure what to do or how to act when the children pet me; I have been told nothing. Watching the girls go over to the gazelle, I see that feeding us is not permitted, for one of the zookeepers points to the sign when a girl tries giving the gazelle a piece of candy. Speaking of candy—I hate it. Not that anyone has tried feeding me any, but that it is sticky and when they touch me with those hands it gets caught all up in my wool and other kids, with their dirty hands, touch me, and in no time my red wool becomes matted and often it hurts when I walk or lie down because it pulls at and pinches my skin.
By the end of the day, actually, well before the zoo closes, I have had enough and I am so tired of it all that I don’t even care to be cleaned or to eat; I just want to drop to my corner of the pen and sleep the stars away. But even then, sleep does not come easily. I am distracted by dreams, nightmares even, where every time I begin to relax a child comes up and begins petting me or someone snaps a photo, which leaves tiny galaxies on the inside of my eyelids and they bob there, not allowing me the rest that I need before it all begins again in a few short hours.
Never could I have imagined how exhausting it is to have children pay attention to you all day.
Tonight, a sultry night, an hour after we have been hosed down, I am unable to fall asleep and I make my way to where the gazelle stays and he is awake so we talk a little.
“Trouble sleeping?”
“How did you know?”
“It happens to all of us in our first weeks here.”
“Do you have any suggestions?”
“Embrace the dreams.”
“Embrace them? They won’t allow me any rest.”
“That’s because you are fighting them. When the children won’t let you alone and they pet you until you think your fur will fall off, imagine they are petting you on the spot that makes you feel good and relaxed and calm.”
“I can’t imagine that working.”
“Teach yourself how to imagine this. If not, you will go crazy in here. Lie down for a minute.”
I do as the gazelle says and he takes his front hooves, those tiny hooves that seem so fragile, but are surprisingly strong, and he rubs the lower part of my head, where the skull meets the back.
“Think of the children’s hands, clean and gentle, and there is no shrill in their voices, only calmness, matching the stroke of their fingers. Over and over they touch you and it relaxes you and your warm eyelids drift over your tired eyes.”
That is the last thing I hear and I wake up and for the first time si
nce I came here I feel refreshed and ready for another day.
So, too, are the patrons tired at the end of the day: the giggling of the children becomes less and less; they rub their tired eyes; running is almost non-existent. All around the zoo the voices grow weaker and I listen until they dwindle into their cars or, if walking, their fading footsteps as they head to houses somewhere in the city. I have grown to love this time of night, before we are hosed down and fed and left alone until morning. Some nights I eat with the gazelle and we talk until sleep comes upon us. My nightmares have lessened, although they sometimes occur, but mostly I am able to wake myself before they get too far along and I walk around until my tiredness blots out the bad dream. The zoo is calm at night, except for the occasional mewing of the peacocks, which happens not as often, now that the mating season has passed.
Even though there are many animals I have never met, at least I know all in my pen and I have begun to feel more comfortable in here. In addition to the gazelle, there are other cloven-hooved animals with us—a couple of goats, a white donkey, two cows, a giraffe and a pregnant camel. All, except for the donkey, which I have told you that I don’t care for the species, talk with me. I don’t mean that the two of us never talk, for we do, but there is always this distance between us and the talk is mainly in passing.
For the most part all of us are too busy to speak much and, at night, too exhausted. When we do speak, it is normal animal chitchat, not so different than you can hear anywhere: the lack of taste with the food; the fascination of some children’s need to play with our ears; the best remedy for a split hoof; of our lives before we came through the man-made tunnels—that one commonality that so many of us share. It is when we begin to speak of our prior lives that the conversations tend to drift into the night and a silence ensues and each of us is alone with our thoughts, and if the wind is just right, we can sometimes hear the repetition of the sea.
In the Cemetery of the Orange Trees Page 11