“That’s Thaya.” Andrew pointed to the elephant standing about ten feet away, a bit smaller than Ali, with a freckled, pink trunk and ears. “She’s afraid of the water for some reason, so we’re trying to help the old girl get over her fears. Never any good to have an anxious animal around. Besides, she’d be a lot cooler for her if she’d come into the river. Right now, though, she’s content with her mud baths.”
He gestured to the right of Thaya and pointed. “Khalan, her mahout. He’s Mali’s middle son, and he lets everyone know that he’s strong.” Andrew snorted as if that was far from true.
Khalan, a head shorter than she and more muscular than the others, flashed Natalie a mischievous, movie-star-white grin that showed off his dimples, then put his hands in prayer position at chest level and bowed respectfully. “Sawadee krup.”
“Sawadee ka,” she responded. The Thai language was gender specific. She had learned the feminine response to Khalan’s masculine ‘hello’ during her first visit to Thailand, and it was the only phrase she remembered.
Mali’s middle son wore a fluorescent orange and green short-sleeved soccer shirt over a ragged pair of knee-length black pants. It would be hard to miss him in any crowd, Natalie thought wryly. With a shy grin, he nodded to her before flipping over the railing like an Olympic gymnast. He climbed nimbly on bare feet over Thaya’s back, to straddle her neck. Yelling a gruff command, he dug his heels in and turned Thaya’s head. A flourish of her tail, and they ambled away, with his knees tucked against her ears, his face bent toward her ear, talking earnestly to her as if she were a dog. They walked away, Huck-Finn style, as if they were strolling along the Mississippi looking for a good place to go fishing.
“I’m surprised he’s riding on her back,” Natalie said to Andrew. “I thought trainers were getting away from riding that way.”
“As long as he’s right at her neck, she’s fine. The mahouts all know that. How ellies have endured everything that’s been loaded onto their spiky backbones without becoming crippled is beyond me. But you know my concerns. I’m sure you know their skeletal system better than I do, and I’ve been working with them for years.”
Probably not, she thought, but she didn’t repeat that aloud. If someone quizzed her right now to name each bone, she’d flunk, but she did know that their dorsal vertebrae stood almost straight up, meaning those bones could easily be broken. A pachyderm’s back wasn’t meant to take any weight at all.
The other elephants and mahouts started leaving the platform area, creating a long, slow-moving line that appeared headed for the dirt road that led to the river.
“We’ll meet the rest of them later,” Andrew said. “They don’t waste any time heading for their baths after filling their tummies. Things are pretty quiet here when they’re down at the river. Perfect time to catch up on administrative work we need to do. Let’s go meet the people who make this place run like a well-oiled machine. You’re going to need to know them. They’ll get what you want when you need it.”
He took her elbow and steered her back to the tables in the middle of the platform. A partial roof covered the area, creating a welcome piece of shade under the sizzling morning sun.
“This is Karina, my little sister.” Blonde and sturdy, Karina greeted Natalie with a firm handshake and a once-over that made Natalie slightly uncomfortable.
In a pinched, gruff voice, Karina asked Natalie where she’d received her degree, and when Natalie answered, Karina asked again, as if she didn’t believe a vet with a degree from the North Carolina State University School of Veterinary Medicine was good enough for the sanctuary. Though Natalie felt slightly offended, she responded each time with a smile.
“Karina grew up across the Channel in Belgium,” Andrew said, giving his sister a squeeze that made Karina roll her blue eyes. “Not quite an English lass, but we’ll forgive her for that. Right, sweet girl?” He laughed as his sister punched his arm as though they were still teenagers. “Karina cooks the books here. You’ll be talking to her about supplies and purchase orders and forging checks.” This time he ducked as Karina doubled her fist and swung at him like a drunk street fighter.
They bantered and teased each other a bit, but Natalie only vaguely heard their jabs. She thought about her brother, Stefan, and how he’d made it his mission as a child to find every slimy reptile in their backyard and hide each under her pillow, expecting her to scream. He gave up when the aquariums on her bookshelf became permanent home to the reptiles he’d “gifted” her: Freddy the frog, Thomas the garter snake, Willy the gopher snake, and Sylvia the snapping turtle. Little did he know she would actually enjoy the reptiles. After that, he left her alone.
Danny and Stephen had teased each other unmercifully, too. She often told them of their Uncle Stefan’s tricks, but times had changed, and the boys were more likely to zap each other with video game weapons than to hunt down reptiles.
Andrew continued to shepherd her through the group of volunteers. She nodded and shook hands, but if someone were to offer her a million dollars to repeat the name of the last person to whom she’d been introduced, she wouldn’t have had a clue. Part of her reasoned that it was all right not to remember since volunteers lasted a short period of time. Some came for a day, some for a couple of weeks, and only a select few stayed longer than that.
Then, one last person. “And this gorgeous woman is Mali. You met her daughter earlier. Sivad.” He hugged Mali as he had hugged his sister, but Natalie sensed this relationship was far from innocent. Mali was definitely not a sibling. This was his lover.
Shorter than Natalie by almost a foot, Mali radiated confidence that drew Natalie in. The Thai woman smiled and a deep dimple accented her left cheek. She greeted Natalie with a Wai, both hands in the prayer position over her heart, she bent at the hips, her thin body as straight as a bamboo pole.
“Good morning. I hope you’ll be happy here.” Mali’s voice, deep and modulated, carried only a trace of a Thai accent. Instead, she sounded as properly British as Peter Hatcher.
Natalie tried not to show her surprise.
“Mali’s probably the smartest person at this camp,” Andrew continued. “Whatever you need or want, she can either procure it for you or she knows someone else who can. She’s the person who’s been with me the longest, and I keep trying to promote her to administrative manager, but Mali’s stubborn.”
“No, that’s not true, Andrew. It’s simply that I like to cook.” Mali tilted her chin in his direction.
“Are you English?” Natalie asked.
“Not exactly.” Mali pulled off her apron, balled it up, and tossed it into an ever-growing pile of aprons and towels in the corner. “I spent most of my childhood there in a little town north of Liverpool because my father worked there. He was an attaché for the ambassador. Age two to twenty-two, I went to school at Oxford because my father insisted. But I was born right here, about fifteen kilometers away, actually. I guess since I learned to speak in England, the accent simply never left, but I’m Thai.”
“Mali’s family has always raised ellies. They’re Karen,” Andrew answered.
“Karen?”
“The original elephant trainers,” Mali said with a laugh. She pulled off her turban and roughed up her bluish-black hair with a sigh as if she’d been waiting all day to do so. “Our tribe lives on the Burma border, in the mountains. The largest group of peoples. The original settlers. Most of the mahouts here are Karen. They’ve come from generations of mahouts. Thousands of years. Some were involved in logging. All of my uncles, my brothers, and even my sons, are mahouts. They begin the process as children with elephant calves, and the two grow up together. Most of the chaps you see here at the sanctuary are Karen. I’m the only person in my family who went to university, and even I can’t stay away from the chang.”
Natalie assumed the word meant elephant.
“Master’s degree in Psychology, an
d look at me, I cook for people who spend their whole lives covered in elephant mud.” Mali’s robust laughter brought smiles to everyone around them. She glanced up at Andrew, and her eyes softened. “But I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
For a brief moment, Natalie felt jealous of the relationship they had, but a memory of her husband Parker’s flashes of temper with her and her boys intruded. She squeezed her eyes closed and replaced the memory with a reminder to concentrate on the moment. Parker is the past. This is the present. Now is all that matters.
Mali lowered herself to a bench and gestured for Natalie to join her. “Come, let’s get to know one another. Andrew tells me you’re from North Carolina. I’ve never been there, but I’ve heard the weather there’s nearly as hot and humid as this.”
“Not this warm.” Instinctively, Natalie knew this woman might become a friend, someone to talk to, someone who might share some of life’s treasured moments. That was, if Natalie could trust herself enough to let down her walls and let Mali in.
Six
All the resources we need are in the mind.
-Theodore Roosevelt
Sleep didn’t come easily that night. Natalie’s internal clock was so far off that she wondered whether it would right itself anytime soon. When the sun went down, the workers at The Lotus Animal Sanctuary did as well. Natalie found herself wide awake, raring to do research in her tiny cabin, and frustrated that she couldn’t. She longed to text home, but her cell didn’t work. She thought about researching the elephant—Sophie—and treatment for her wounds. Her mind whirred, but that’s all it could do.
So, she unpacked.
Within an hour, she had her clothes, books, and toiletries in their places. She sat on the edge of her bed and checked her watch. 8:35 PM. She took out a book she’d been reading on the plane, but her eyes wouldn’t focus.
Jet lag, she told herself. It’ll go away. But four hours later, her eyes were still wide open, and her brain hadn’t even begun to shut down. It was like being high on speed.
At one o’clock in the morning, she talked herself into lying on the bed and made a game out of listening to the jungle’s sounds. She’d always won when she and her fellow veterinary students had played “which animal made this sound” in college. She’d even taught the boys how to identify bird calls. Danny was better at it than Stephen, but only because he loved to sit and listen. Stephen would rather be talking than listening.
She closed her eyes and listened. Besides the elephants’ grunting and an occasional barking dog, she heard a small monkey (she wasn’t sure what kind, and that irritated her), several night fisher-type birds, and some rustling that could have been a rodent or a cat (she’d seen several on the grounds earlier in the day). She’d identified more than twenty-five sounds when her body finally relaxed into the bed, and the jungle sounds disappeared into the sleep world.
It was a light sleep. She remained aware of her body and that she was in a strange place, but dreams intruded on reality. Short snippets of voices, deep and far-away. An image of someone’s hand, a small hand, reaching. The jolt of falling, then catching one’s self.
She had the sensation of floating, then Danny’s voice was in her ear. She sensed him nearby. In her dream, she reached for him, longing to press his skinny body against her, to hug him more tightly than she ever had.
She held her arms out again.
Mom, you remember the time we went to that zoo in, where was it? Asheville?
Asheboro, sweetie. It was in Asheboro. She knows she’s saying the words aloud, talking in her sleep, and feels her consciousness rise a little, but she doesn’t want to wake up. Not as long as she can see her boys.
I didn’t like that place. Don’t think the animals did either.
I know. That’s why I’m here. I’m trying to make sure animals like those zoo animals have a better life.
An image of a carousel, a man selling pine cones nearby, the laughter of a young girl. She suddenly straddled a white steed, its mane festooned with carved wooden roses so real she could almost smell them. It was summer. She felt the sun’s heat through the long filmy dress she wore. She watched its pink ripples flow beneath her, blown by the soft breeze across her face. In the distance, the squeak of a young elephant’s trumpet.
She woke abruptly. Sat upright in the bed. The world around her was quiet. No animal sounds at all. She laid back down and closed her eyes.
The dream was still there. She slid into it, longing for her sons, calling Danny’s name in her mind, but she wasn’t near the carousel anymore. Instead she stood on the edge of an expansive meadow. Small white and yellow flowers blossomed at the top of hip-deep grasses that swayed like the waves of the ocean, mounding, then flattening and retreating.
She touched the flowers. They felt warm, as if some of the sun’s rays had heated them. She moved into the grasses, felt their weight against her skirts, bent her head back to the sky.
Where are you? she called. The words expressed themselves, but this time she somehow knew she hadn’t vocalized them. Her message would be heard, though. She knew that for sure. Where are you?
A cold wind whispered across her face.
She awoke once more, her cheeks wet, the corners of her eyes swollen, and with a sob in the back of her throat, she turned over and slept.
Seven
Blessings on thee, little man,
Barefoot boy, with cheek of tan!
-John Greenleaf Whittier
The dog gently licked Natalie’s hand and looked up at her with soft brown eyes. His tail thumped the steel table where she examined him.
“How’s the leg, mister?” She tapped the cast, checking to see whether it had completely hardened, then touched the skin around the hipbone to satisfy herself that the cast wouldn’t chafe. An infection could go undetected until too far gone. The dog could have been hurt much worse after a round with an elephant only a couple of days before. He would be fine.
She was about to lift the dog from the table and put him on the floor to assess his reaction to the cast when she spotted a little boy huddled in the far corner of the clinic. He seemed about eight to ten years old, a skinny little thing wearing a pair of red basketball shorts, a red and white t-shirt, and no shoes on his dusty feet. He anxiously pushed his shiny, black, chin-length hair behind his ears. Squatting against the wall with his arms wrapped around his knees, he watched her like a raven about to pluck a grasshopper into its mouth.
“And who are you?” Natalie asked. “What’re you doing in the clinic?”
She folded the dog into her arms. He whimpered and the boy rose from his crouch. The dog wiggled, his nose stretching out toward the boy. Natalie adjusted her hold and lowered him to the floor.
“I get it. This is your dog, huh?” She smiled and joined the boy, so they could both watch the dog try to navigate with the cast on his leg.
For a few moments, they giggled as the dog slipped on the floor, then regained his balance like a newborn colt learning how to walk. The dog’s eyes shifted to them every once in a while, as if he knew he looked foolish. He tried to walk on all fours, yet quickly learned the cast was a bit longer than his other three legs, so he stuck it straight out and maneuvered on three legs instead. The boy opened his mouth and gave a croaking laugh, an odd sound like a quacking duck.
Natalie smiled but kept her eyes on the dog, trying to figure out whether the cast needed adjusting. It always took a few moments for dogs to get their bearings when wearing a cast, but without exception, they adapted easily, and they never took offense if you laughed at them—though most raised an eyebrow and ducked their head as if embarrassed, as this one did. Finally, the yellow dog got into a rhythm and hobbled his way over to the boy. From the exuberant way they greeted each other, Natalie knew they belonged together. But why hadn’t the child verbally responded to her questions?
The three of them sat on the fl
oor together for another fifteen minutes, not saying a word. Then the door to the clinic opened. Hatcher came in, carrying a metal box and talking to someone behind him.
Natalie and the boy scrambled to their feet as though they’d been caught stealing the Crown Jewels. Even the dog paused, his nose twitching, his cast in mid-air. All eyes were on Hatcher and the woman behind him.
“Dr. DeAngelo.” Hatcher acknowledged her and placed the aluminum box he held on the counter and said something in Thai to the woman who accompanied him. She handed him the basket she carried, smiled shyly at Natalie, and scurried out the door.
“So you’ve checked our patient?” Hatcher motioned to the dog, who obediently hobbled to him, tail wagging furiously. The boy followed suit, standing next to Hatcher, his hand companionably on the dog’s head.
“The cast hardened so I . . . I thought it would be a good idea for him to try it out.” Natalie stumbled through her sentence, feeling as if she had committed some sort of a crime by coming to the clinic. Why in hell did he intimidate her so much?
“Not the first time this old boy’s broken a bone.” He checked the cast, patted the dog’s head, then poked a finger against the boy’s chest with a grin. “And my friend here slept beside him all night, didn’t he?”
“I’m not sure if it was all night, but he was here when I got here.” She moved forward, hoping that it wasn’t her imagination that the ice in Peter Hatcher’s eyes might have thawed a bit. She’d been prepared to pack up and go home today if things didn’t get any better, but in the shower this morning, she reminded herself she wasn’t here to impress any British doctors. She was here to help Andrew Gordon care for the animals at the sanctuary. And she couldn’t deny her own personal reason: to heal. Those two reasons trumped any consideration for Peter Hatcher’s feelings.
The Mourning Parade Page 6