The Nature of Jade

by Deb Caletti

  Damian became unhappy in Assam, because elephant management was deteriorating. Younger mahouts, Damian has said, didn't have the traditional initiation into the "art," didn't have the proper knowledge to do the work, or the proper respect for it. They used violence to control the elephants, and

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  Bhim, the elephant owner Damian worked for, was doing nothing about it. Damian argued with Bhim and almost lost his job, and when Damian was granted a U.S. visa just shortly afterward, he and his wife, Devi, left their home and family and even Jum to set up life here, where Damian got a job first as a keeper, and then as the elephant manager. "Is Jum okay?"

  "The first time I met her, twenty years ago, she was a baby. Still crying. She and her twin were dragged from their mother, kicking and screaming. She'd been crying for days, because just before I came, her twin died during the breaking process."

  "What do you mean?"

  "The breaking process? It's the first step in training an elephant. They are restrained and beaten."

  "Why?"

  "So they will listen to the new owner. What they are trying to break . . . It's the elephant's love for his mother."

  Damian raises the long file to Tombi's foot, scrapes it rhythmically across her nails as she reaches out to me with her trunk for more apple. I look at Tombi, happy now, and think of poor Jum. Elephants don't just wail their pain--people think their eyes get watery with tears, too, just like us. "That's horrible. I don't get why that's even allowed," I say.

  "Thousands of years of tradition. People don't see the humanity that lies in the animals, same as people don't see the animal that is within humans. The first time I saw Jum, she was trying to lift her dead brother up with her trunk. She was trying to get him to stand again. She'd even stuffed grass in his mouth to try to get him to eat."

  I don't say anything. I imagine Chai being taken from

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  Hansa. I imagine Oliver being taken from me.

  "And when I left, many years later, she was broken again."

  "Because you left? She was brokenhearted?"

  "Yes, she was brokenhearted. But she also had to be broken again. Ketti-azhifefeal. The process where a new mahout takes control over an elephant. They do not easily accept someone new.

  You see, an elephant is a very cautious animal. She needs to take time to see if something is safe.

  If you are trying to get her to cross a bridge she's never been across before, she must sniff it and test it, and will only cross if she is convinced of its safety. She will not allow her baby to cross until she has done so. Then she will go back and help her calf over. They are very curious, but very cautious. A new mahout, well..." The file zsh-zshishes over Tombi's nails.

  "It should be a slow process, and he should work with the old mahout to understand the elephant.

  He should assist with chores so that the elephant will come to trust the new mahout. But in recent years, ketti-azhikfeal has become violent, and mahouts will use physical force to control a new elephant quickly. One of the elephant's front feet will be chained, one back foot. Then, two or more mahouts agitate the animal, try to get it to chase while it is still chained. The new mahout gives the elephant commands, and the elephant resists. They beat the elephant with the Ualiya feol, the long stick, and cherukol, the short stick, until the elephant is exhausted and gives in to the commands."

  The vision of this makes my stomach drop. Elephants get angry and show joy and are sad and playful. They are vulnerable, full of tenderness and feelings. Hansa put her trunk around my waist once, just as Jum did to Damian, in a hug like greeting. And then there is Flora, with her tire. Captured in India, she grew up alone in a zoo. She had a tire in that zoo. When she 98

  moved here, Damian says, she claimed an old ignored tire in the yard as her own. Like Milo and his blankie, or Oliver and the stuffed Easter chick he's had since he was a baby. When he was little, Oliver wouldn't go anywhere without it, and Mom had to sew the head back on twice. It's so dirty and looks like stuffed-animal roadkill, but he still keeps it on a shelf in his room.

  These animals feel. They think. They love. People, one another, beloved old black tires. Chai was moved here because she was chained at her former zoo. She learned to undo the chain, and to fasten it back up when the trainers came. When she figured out how to undo the bolts in her holding area, she was transferred to our more open environment. I know people who aren't that smart. I know people who aren't as sweetly affectionate and loving. I know that feelings should be dealt with gently. Elephants don't have a voice, the power to defend themselves with words, and that only makes them that much more fragile. Four tons of fragility, a funny joke from Mother Nature.

  Damian shifts Tombi to her other foot, which she does happily. I give her more apples, and she takes them, twists her trunk to her mouth. "Damian, it makes me sick," I say.

  His eyes are sad, and he strokes Tombi's leg. He is very gentle. "My brother. He goes and sees Jum," Damian says. His voice is small. "She stands, rocking herself. For comfort."

  "I'm so sorry. I know how much you loved Jum."

  "Loved? Love. She's my child. I'm her mahout."

  I don't know what to say. I can see his pain in the slump of his shoulders. I just keep handing Tombi apples.

  "I left her. I fled. And now she is twice broken."

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  My two hours after school at the elephant house always speeds by, and when I have to leave, I do it reluctantly. Passing Delores in her ticket booth, walking out through the metal gates, always feels like a tough transition, an abrupt transfer between two worlds, like Oliver's Narnia books, where Lucy must pass through the wardrobe, leaving a snowy, magical land to return to the everyday coldness of the empty room in the huge country house where the wardrobe stands. I would walk through the parking lot, where I would often see Jake Gillette riding around on his skateboard with the parachute on the back, flying off homemade ramps and clocking leaps and jumps with a stop watch. Then I would pass Total Vid, where Titus in his pineapple shirt would be sliding Riding Giants across the counter to another customer. Sometimes he would look out at me, and I would look down, feeling too embarrassed to acknowledge him. I would count my footsteps on the way home, groups of eight.

  I would open my front door and there would be the cooking smells of dinner, the sounds--the S1SS of something frying or the hum of the oven, a wooden spoon scraping against a pan. Milo would rush over from wherever he was and start barking maniacally (he is very sensitive to all door sounds-- sometimes he'll bark when a doorbell rings on television, and other times he'll listen for when a door is not completely shut so that he can nose his way in). He'd turn to and fro and looking for his blankie, a toy, a sock, something to bring me; he's generous that way. Dad would be just arriving home, or he and Oliver would be returning from practice, Oliver's skinny legs sticking out from his satiny basketball shorts, his eyes tired and miserable. New invitations for some school function would be

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  spread over the dining room table, and my phone would be flashing its mailbox icon, with the lid opening and closing, opening and closing, with messages from Michael asking for help with proper footnote form, and Hannah asking if she should break up with guy of the moment, and Jenna saying she couldn't do anything on the weekend because she had Bible camp. My mind would be pulled from the animal world into the human one, my hands still smelling like hay.

  This transition between two worlds--I felt a little like the rocket that burns up on reentry through the atmosphere.

  That day, after Damian and I finish with Tombi, I help Elaine hang some hay sheets for enrichment, then change out of my overalls. I head up the path to the viewing area, in my regular clothes now, my backpack stuffed with homework and slung over my shoulder, and that's when I see him. Them. Just like that. Two and a half months later, at five o'clock in the evening--an unexpected time, an unexpected meeting, an unexpected veering in my day, week, life, and oh, my God, oh, my God, there he is, rig
ht there, and the little boy in the backpack, too, with his sweet baby cheeks rosy red from the cold.

  A rush of adrenaline zaps through me, an all-hands-on-deck, Code Red, physical emergency that basically fixes it so I can't move. I'm stopped in my tracks, like an animal suddenly face-to-face with his predator, only my body is messing me over again, as my mind is saying how happy I am.

  I am a deer, who can die of a heart attack if it is touched.

  The red-jacket boy points. "Look, Bo," he says, and there is his voice, too. Gentle, deep. Soft.

  There he is, in front of me, not the object of my imagination 101

  but a real person, with a real voice. He stands, a hand around each of his son's legs. Of course it is his son. The baby's hair is bright blond and the boy's is brown, but his touch on that patch of the baby's bare leg, just there between the cuff of the baby's pants and the top of his sock, is too tender to be anything other than a parent's touch.

  My legs decide that they can walk again. What I decide to do next, or decide not to do, is to just walk past them, that's all. Just walk past, smiling briefly.

  Because I am a cautious animal. And this, too, is a bridge I have never before gone over.

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  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The marmoset father carries his babies wherever he goes for the first two years of their lives . . .

  --Dr. Jerome R. Clade, The Fundamentals of Animal Behavior

  Casual, regular day. No big deal. Casual, regular day. Calculus. Spanish test. Starbucks with friends. Elephants, as usual. Nothing special, I am telling myself the next day after school, before I head to the zoo. Hair pulled back. Nothing sexy, nothing different. I'm going to work with elephants, shoveling crap, among other things. No new sweaters allowed there. Anyway, if I'm going to offer anything to anyone, I'm offering just me, and if he doesn't like it, too bad. But I probably am not going to offer anything, because this is a casual, regular day, so stop thinking anything else! Okay, no new sweater, but a little lip gloss. I'd worn lip gloss to work before, because your lips get dry. Okay, fine. My favorite older sweater. Goddamn, I'm going to ruin this, I just know it, with my own thinking.

  There is no time for the perfect patron saint, so I light Raphael, the nightmare guy, so that this doesn't turn out to be one. I light him, blow him out, head downstairs. Mom has made a bowl of peanut butter cookie dough and is eating it off the tip of her finger. Cookie making is never simply cookie making. It is a direct result of an elevated mood, good or bad. It is either joy inspired (see the related French Toast Incident,

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  previously described), or depression inspired--PMS, broken heart, listless boredom, agitation that can only be cured by the near inhalation of fat and sugar. The clues--no baking sheets out yet, the oven still cold--means this is not about joy.

  "I suppose you'll be home for dinner," she says. Her tone sags. Bingo: depression.

  "Five thirty. Or so."

  "Don't be late without calling." Finger dip, consume. "Want some?" "No, thanks."

  "Jeez, it seems like I barely see you anymore." Her voice is a ball rolling downhill. "Busy time,"

  I say.

  "You're not going to be around your family forever, you know," she says.

  "Well, I could get married and have six kids and we can all live in my room," I say.

  "At least we'd still do stuff together. Watch a movie every now and then. Eat cookie dough out of the bowl like we used to. Make valentines."

  "Valentine's Day was two weeks ago."

  "We used to make valentines together, remember? I'd buy all those paper doilies and the glitter ..."

  "When I was six."

  "I loved that," she says.

  "I've got to go," I say.

  She doesn't answer. I leave the kitchen, close the front door behind me. I have this creepy, gnarled feeling inside. Guilt. God, what'd she want me to do, eat paste and have her tie my shoes for me forever?

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  The task of the day is to finish the elephant cleaning started by the morning interns. This means Bamboo and Flora, and Flora's tire. I work with Elaine and Evan, who is embroiled in some kind of divorce depression that day and barely talks, except to the animals. I know how it is--

  sometimes you're sure only they'll understand and/or put up with you. We clean the dirt out from the bottoms of Bamboo's and Flora's feet and give them baths, and when I am done, the legs of my overalls are soaked. Picture washing a four-ton car, only the car is moving.

  The task is involving enough that the time goes fast, and I check my cell phone clock only a couple of times, because I am holding one of the hoses. I change out of my overalls about ten to five. My pants are also wet too from the mid-thigh down, so walking around, out toward the viewing area, just before five, after combing my hair and putting on new lip gloss, is also probably a good idea. Not because of anyone, but just so that the air can dry my pants a little.

  And then back to the elephant house because he isn't there yet, and then out again, and then, oh, shit.

  Oh, shit, he's there. He's there, and now I have to breathe, only it's impossible because my lungs are collapsing, folding in on themselves.

  I watch him from a bit up the path (stalker!) so that I can catch my breath and until he becomes just the same old him. We practically know each other. Okay, he doesn't have a clue who I am, but I can tell a lot about him already. He is familiar to me now, I remind myself.

  Every big happening has a moment of plunge, that moment of decision, usually instantaneous even if you've been thinking about it forever. That now! Toes at the edge of the pool, look 105

  ing at the water, one toe in, looking some more, and then, suddenly, you're in, and it's so cold, but nice, too, and you don't even remember where in there you decided to jump.

  "Look, Bo, look who's coming. Remember that one? With the tire?" Flora. She's ambling out of the house into the yard with her new manicure. "She sure likes that tire. See, Bo?" The boy points, I can hear the nylon of his jacket swish as he moves his arm, but the baby just squirms in the backpack.

  "Dow," the baby says.

  "And that one. Remember him, with the really big ears?" Actually, her with the really big ears.

  Tombi. Stomping out with newly bathed cheer.

  "Dow," the baby says. "Dow!" The word turns into a half screech.

  "Okay, fine." The boy says. He sounds tired. "But no running off."

  The boy swings the backpack off his shoulders and around, giving the baby a mini amusement park ride. He holds the baby under the armpits and lifts him out. I still can't tell how old the baby is. A year? A little older? I'm not too experienced with babies--my only real exposure was with our neighbors', the Chens', little girl. They wanted me to babysit when I was about fourteen, but Mom got nervous that something would happen that I couldn't handle, so they had Natalie come over to our house. She was only a couple of months old, and her head was as floppy as my old doll Mrs. Jugs.

  The minute the baby's little tennis shoes hit pavement, he takes off running, in this rigid-limbed, forward-leaning way. It seems so unsafe. Like a windup toy headed for the edge of a tabletop.

  My own feet start moving then, heading to the viewing

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  area where they are. I have this instavision--the baby running to me, grabbing my legs. Looking up at me, then smiling. I am going forward, because this is the moment, right now, when the boy and I are going to meet. Two points in need of a line, and now the line is being drawn.

  The baby is running in my direction, just like I envisioned. And, yes, when I am in front of him, he stops and looks up. His face freezes in this look of half pleasure/half alarm. I smile. "Hi," I say in a small-children voice. Here is where he is supposed to smile back, big and beaming, the red-jacket boy seeing the connection we already have.

  But instead, the baby's mouth twists, contorts. He looks up at me, and his face turns red. And then he begins to cry. Scream, actually. A wail so loud and terrified, ev
en Onyx looks up with concern, and a couple making out by the savannah enclosure stop to watch who might be being kidnapped in case they're interviewed on the news.

  "Oh, no," I say. "Oh, I'm sorry." Oh, my God. Horrible. Way to go, Jade! Perfect first impression--his baby screams in fear at you! You make the kid cry, for God's sake! Thanks bunches, Raphael--good job on the nightmare thing!

  The boy comes over, lifts his son up in his arms. The baby sobs into his shoulder as if he's been traumatized so terribly he's sure to need therapy far into adulthood. "He's not good with strangers," the boy says over the cries. "Bo, hey. It's okay. Hey, kiddo." He bounces him up and down, pats his back. "She works with the elephants. Right?" he asks.

  The baby is still crying, but my shame backs up a step. He'd seen me. He'd been here, when I was here. When I didn't even know it. Sea boy, desert girl.

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  "Yes," I say. "I help out whenever I can. Almost every day."

  "We watched you before," the boy says. "You were hiding pieces of watermelon all over."

  "Enrichment. It keeps them interested, working things out."

  The baby, Bo, is quieter now. His chin is tucked into his dad's shoulder.

  "The little elephant likes you. He sniffed your hair."

  I laugh. "Hansa," I say. "She likes smells. You know, my shampoo . . . Hansa's a real handful."

  "I know all about that." Bo peeks from the safety of the red jacket.

  "I bet. Is this little guy yours?" I ask. I'm bold. I can be. He'd seen me. He'd noticed things about me, as I had noticed things about him.

  "Oh, yeah." He smooches Bo on the neck, and Bo wriggles himself further into his dad, into that red jacket, which is right there in front of me. The real red jacket, the real boy, talking. To me.

  Having a regular old conversation. I am listening to his voice, this real person, this person who is not just an image in my thoughts. "All mine. This is Bo. Say hi, Bo."