In the Cemetery of the Orange Trees

by Jeff Talarigo

  Before we know it, the six weeks of summer vacation is about over and soon our afternoons will begin to slow down, although some groups of children will be brought in on class trips. The days are hot, but at night there is a hint of the slightly cooling days of September. In Gaza, summer is a struggle for autumn to fight off, the season so short, as if it were exhausted from the heat and the fight, that it just lies down and allows winter to traipse over it.

  The gazelle and one of the goats are talking with me while we savor the occasional breeze. Never one to hold back his words, the goat says:

  “Why is it that our friend the donkey doesn’t like you much?”

  Surprised by the question, I pause, not sure what to say, and the gazelle, in his soft voice, answers before I can manage to come up with something.

  “He’s jealous of the color of your wool and how the children have taken a liking to you. The problem with him, and any donkey that has been in here, is that he is no different than what the children see in their daily lives, so they pay him very little attention. That’s difficult for any animal to take.”

  “Jealous of my wool! Why would anyone be jealous of this red blanket?”

  The goat looks at me.

  “Because it’s different,” he answers.

  “Different doesn’t make it good.”

  “I never said that. But different is different. Instead of closing your eyes when the people are petting you, you should start paying more attention. The people who come here are even more trapped than us. The one beautiful thing about this place is that we offer these people something a little different in their lives. Anything that is at all different is good for them—even if it, like you, looks like a big fuzzy apple.” The goat snickers and his straggly beard quivers a little.

  Despite the goat’s utter lack of humor, I am surprised by his observations. I have never thought that goats were all that intelligent, not much more than a donkey, but, at least this one here I will look at differently from now on.

  I notice that the gazelle is not paying attention to our banter. I turn my head to look at what he is engrossed in. The goat turns and what we all see is the donkey, the donkey we were just speaking of, being led out through the gate.

  “Where do you think they are taking him?” I ask.

  “Probably for his shots. It is about that time,” answers the gazelle.

  The gate closes with a squeak and I say good night to my friends and head to the opposite end of the pen to sleep.

  I enjoy the slowing days, but they are short-lived because, by the end of the week, we have a new addition to the petting pen. With much fanfare, a zebra has been brought in, a boon for us, for we are the only zoo in all the Gaza Strip to have one. It was smuggled through the tunnels, at great expense, I hear. Attendance grows to nearly summer levels. There is also a buzz around the cages and petting pen as well. They have made a special area for the zebra, where even we in the petting pen cannot get too close to him. I have seen him from afar and the black and white of its stripes nearly glow. The pen where they keep the zebra is packed with not only awestruck children but many adults as well. With the overflow at the zebra pen, some of the crowd is moved into our area where they pay us scant attention and, for the most part, we are little more than a waiting area until the zebra admirers thin out.

  I am over near the zebra’s pen, trying to get a better look at him myself, when a young schoolgirl in a headscarf comes over and begins to pet me. I am still trying to get a glimpse of the zebra while her hand remains on the top of my head and down my back. Top of my head and down my back. The repetition is soothing and I forget about the zebra and shut my eyes. Again and again she pets me and even when her friends call out her name—Haneen, they yell, Haneen, coaxing her to come over to the zebra—even then her hand stays on me. Not until she drops her small schoolbag do I open my eyes, and as she bends to pick it up we look at one another. Immediately I recognize her, remember the smell of her as she passed that day, in the arms of the man carrying her away from the tunnels. How many months has it been? With my red wool, I’m hoping she doesn’t recognize me.

  But she does. Although there is nowhere for me to go, I run away, but unlike the children that first day in the zoo, she doesn’t pursue me, rather, she stands and watches me get as far away from her as possible. I am not certain how long she stands there, for I keep my face burrowed in the corner, beneath the tree where I sometimes go to get out from under the beating summer sun. But the hours have passed and there is no sun now, only the moon, scaling the sky, full and bright.

  With the moon at its brightest and the zoo asleep, tonight is a good night to go over to the zebra’s pen and try to get a look at him. It has been a long, traumatic day, with me seeing the girl and all. Her image pesters me, and even though I have seen her in a different light, still, it is that crying face of hers, minutes after I made it through the tunnel, that is emblazoned in my head.

  The zebra’s pen has bars so close together that I can barely poke my face through them. With the moon past its apex and dropping toward the horizon, the zebra is easy to see; its white stripes—or is it that the stripes are black—never mind, the white glows in the moonlight. I wedge my face between the bars a little more in order to get a better angle, a better look. The zebra, about twenty yards away, stirs in its sleep and turns its head toward me.

  “Who are you?” it asks. “What are you doing here?”

  Startled, I try to free my face from between the bars, but can’t. I am stuck. Bracing my front hooves against the bottom of the pen, I pull and twist yet still my face is imprisoned.

  The zebra stands and again asks the same question. This time the voice sounds deeper than I imagine a zebra’s voice should be, although I have never met one before. I try to answer, but my mouth and jaws can barely open and a long, drawn out, somewhat trembling sheep creeps into the night’s quiet. The zebra approaches and is within a foot of me before speaking.

  “Well, well, if isn’t my furry red friend.”

  I know that voice, not a zebra, but a donkey.

  “That’s where you’ve been.” The words hurt coming out.

  “What, you thought that you would always be the only newly created animal in this place?”

  “Help me,” I manage.

  He flashes me that arrogant look that I despise. Stripes or no stripes, he is still a donkey.

  “If I do help you, you must promise that you will tell no one. Never spoil, for the children, the secret of the only zebra in Gaza. Or, maybe I will just go back to sleep and they will discover your pinched, red face in my pen. Maybe you will stay there until you become thin enough to free your face.”

  The painted donkey turns and takes a step, then glares at me.

  “Promise,” I say.

  He lifts his ridiculous donkey ear.

  “Promise,” I repeat.

  He gets real close and his breath stinks. Again, that smirk. He turns and I think he is going to leave me there, when suddenly, without warning, he raises his legs and kicks me in the nose and I fly backwards, free of the pen, the whole of the night zoo swimming in my tears, and I see him strutting away until the glowing white of his body fades into the black of his fake stripes.

  I wake in a bright, unnatural light, the echoing squawk of the words—Thank you… thank you… thank you… interspersed with an occasional Have a nice day… have a nice day.

  In addition to the high-pitched squawking, there is a human’s voice and the words are mimicked and each time they pummel my head. My eyes creak open and through the thin gauze that wraps my head, I see two birdcages hanging from the ceiling of the room, the same room where they held me in my first days in the zoo. Standing beneath the cages is Shafiq, the veterinarian, and when he hears me stir, he comes over.

  “How is our little friend today?”

  “Have a nice day, have a nice day,” the parrots mimic.

  He turns and laughs at the green birds.

  “Animals that talk
. Isn’t that amazing!” His attention returns to me.

  Yes, I think, utterly amazing. His face is next to mine, so close that when I look at him my eyes cross, making my head feel as though it is being kicked over and over.

  “You took quite a hit there, didn’t you?”

  A kick, I think, yes I took quite a kick by that damn fraud of a beast that you have in here. The vet pulls back a little and I can see him more clearly. He is wearing glasses that make his eyes real big, like those of a fish or something. He looks me over.

  “You could use a shearing and a new coloring.”

  It’s about time you notice that, I think, but little good that will do, summer is over and winter is coming and that is when I need the coat.

  As though he reads my mind, the vet answers.

  “Maybe just a new coloring, then we can shear you in spring.”

  With those words, he leaves the room. I close my eyes and the parrots babble on, each screech a stick against the drum of my head.

  I am back in the zoo, my growing re-dyed red wool a calendar for all of us in the petting pen. I have not been sheared since I came here and the wool is more than four inches thick. I should be warm this winter and, for that, I am grateful.

  The parrots are also here, over by the peacock, and they and their sparse vocabulary are the new buzz at the zoo. The zebra continues to be a popular attraction, but only after the patrons ooooh and aaaaah at the speaking birds. They try to get them to say other words and phrases, but the birds seem incapable of repeating anything other than thank you and have a nice day. Still, for now, the customers are seemingly satisfied with this. These birds rarely seem to sleep and my dreams are filled with thoughts of going over there and rattling their cages until they say thank you never again.

  I avoid the zebra pen, although, from a distance, we catch an occasional glimpse of one another. I must admit that I am a little jealous of the fake zebra. At times, I want to shout to the children that the zebra is a fraud, it is just a damn, stupid donkey, no different than those they see every day pulling carts loaded with watermelon or trash or wood.

  For the most part I keep to myself because my headaches persist, but also I simply do not care to talk to any of them. The gazelle has tried speaking to me. A couple of times he has come over to my side of the pen, under the tree, but I tell him that my head hurts, which it does, but I am afraid that I will break my promise to the zebra, although, after what he did to me I really don’t give a damn what happens. But, a promise is a promise, and what good are they if you can’t keep them?

  We all have moments in our lives where we will never forget the sounds and the odors and the taste of bile in our wretched throats when we witness something, something perhaps we could have prevented or at least altered in some small way. But we do nothing and we have a scroll of excuses as to why not. Loathing. Jealousy. Weakness. Indifference. It doesn’t matter in the least if all of them are true, or parts of each, or even just a sliver of one. What matters is that we did nothing.

  As I lie in the stunned Gaza dawn I think not of the horror that has just passed, perhaps it is all too close, both personally and in time, but what I can’t erase from my mind is the sunset of the night before, that bloody mole on the forehead of the horizon. As that sun hit the sea, you could almost hear it sizzling, and instead of disappearing in an orb-shape, as it almost always does, it began to flatten out, and although I couldn’t see it all from the zoo, I am certain that the water and caps of the waves were red, and when they hit and rushed upon the shore, they stained the sand with their blood, this shore that has seen its litany of bloody sand: Alexander the Great; Bishop Porphyry; Napoleon; 1948. Much more sadness than any shore should have to bear.

  I am sleeping when the parrots begin their jabber. Unusual for them, these bright green birds, who normally talk themselves to sleep. Even a month after being kicked by the zebra, my headaches continue and the high-pitched voices of the parrots are knives. I stand and walk from behind the tree that I have claimed as mine. Groggily, I go over toward the zebra pen, as close that I have been since the last full moon, which, on this night, is nearly so again. How I wish that there was never a moon, that all nights were sheathed in buzzard-black.

  I am close enough to the zebra’s pen to see that he, too, is awake and standing on the far side looking in the direction of the parrots. I see his tail swishing back and forth. Once, he shivers his head as though an icy hand is slithering down his back. I hear, as does he, the frantic screeches of the parrots getting closer. Snow fills my veins.

  At first I don’t see the men. Their black masks and pants and shirts and boots conceal them, but their white eyes give them away. The more I stare, the clearer their figures become. One of the men holds the parrots’ cage, two others have guns and they shoot bang, bang the lock on the zebra’s pen. The man with the parrots stays outside while those with the guns stride toward the zebra. One of them unleashes what I think is a chain, but I hear no clinking, and realize it is a rope. He lassoes the neck of the donkey and, at first, as if he could not believe what is happening to him, the donkey stands passive, solemn almost. But when the rope tightens around his neck, it is as if this has unleashed the reality of what is happening. The donkey begins to kick and whine and flail at the men, striking one of them in the leg; I think I hear the fracturing of a bone and it is this that rushes the first taste of bile to my throat.

  One of the men strikes the donkey on the side of the head with a gun, buckling his legs, and flopping him to the ground. I can see the shimmer of the sweat, cold-looking sweat, on the flanks of the donkey. The men try pulling him to his feet, and when they push and shove the donkey from behind they can’t get a solid grip on his sweaty leather. Then, one of the men stops pushing.

  The night holds it breath. Even the luminous voice of the moon has abandoned us.

  The man yells something, I don’t know what, and he displays his hands and the glow of the moon shows the smeared black paint of the donkey on his palms.

  The silence screams. The parrots have stopped for a moment.

  The men give up trying to raise the donkey to his feet. A gun is aimed at his head, but the other man places his hand on the rifle.

  “No, not the zebra,” he says. “My children love the zebra.”

  The men look at each other. A sorrowful, short bray moans throughout the zoo, throughout all the Gaza Strip, even into and through the tunnels that brought us all here, all except for the donkey, who is a native.

  The men leave the pen and the donkey’s bray is replaced by the parrots hideous, repetitive thanking of the gunmen as they haul them away in their cage.

  Now that the secret of the zebra has been revealed, there is heavy mistrust amongst the animals. We sleep with one eye open, seeing only half our nightmares, and those that we do see are unclear. With the parrots now gone, and word that one of the lions has been taken as well, the crowds have become smaller, so small in fact that we are left lulling around for long stretches of time. All of this and it is also December. The days are cooler and the night’s cold. I am thankful for my coat of wool, despite its color, and wonder how my friend the gazelle keeps his tiny body warm.

  On this night, more than two weeks after the masked men came into the zoo, I visit the gazelle.

  “Are you warm enough at night?”

  “It isn’t too bad yet. Besides, it also gets very cold at night where I come from, out on the veld. You should know that, being from near the desert.”

  “Yes, but I have this nice coat to keep me warm.”

  “I may look tiny and frail, but I adapt to all kinds of weather. Besides, I eat a lot more than you think.”

  “Well, if you ever get cold, you can come and sleep over by the tree. It will help to protect you from the wind.”

  “Thank you.”

  There is a quiet between us, not uncomfortably so, but still I am glad the gazelle speaks up.

  “How long ago did you know the donkey was no longer a donk
ey?”

  “About a month.”

  “That’s what happened to your face?”

  “Yes, but I made a promise not to tell.”

  “That’s nice of you. I too have recently made a promise to someone, but I think I must break it.”

  I look away.

  “Do you want to hear it?”

  “I don’t know. Isn’t hearing something someone promises not to tell almost the same as the one breaking the promise?”

  “Possibly, but this promise must be told, I think.”

  “It’s that serious?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell me then.”

  “I will not tell you who told me, but it is from someone I trust. A few days ago I heard that Gaza is about to be invaded.”

  “When are they supposed to invade?”

  “Any day, I heard. Maybe even a ground invasion.”

  “What is going to be done with us?”

  “Who knows?”

  “Do you think we can escape from here?”

  “And where do we go, into the sea?”

  “Back through the tunnels.”

  “You think they will just allow us to leave? Wouldn’t that be a strange sight, the two of us, a gazelle and a red sheep roaming the streets of Gaza?”

  “What else are we to do?”

  “Wait and see what happens. Maybe when the time comes, I will outrun them all.” The gazelle smiles his soft smile.

  “Lucky for you. I don’t think I could outrun much of anything.”

  “You would be surprised what fear can do for an animal.”

  Along with the threat of the imminent invasion and the recent attack by the masked gunmen, a paralyzing pallor suffocates the zoo. Word that the gunmen were from Gaza, and that they sold the parrots and lion, leaves us trusting no one. The only time that there is any energy in this place is when the gates open and the customers, although much fewer than before, arrive. There are rumors that the tunnels have been fired upon and are being destroyed. Certainly, we have more and more fighter planes stalking the skies. Without the parrots, the quiet mocks the zoo.