“One bedroom plus an office,” Isaac said, referring, I guessed, to the desk in the kitchen.
“Well, I’m going to be making a little announcement of my own. Oh, I have to say hello to some people, I’ll be right back.” She fawned greedily over to the dance floor.
“Please don’t criticize me in front of Ivy, Isaac,” I said. I was so annoyed that I was considering braving the muggers and finding my way out of there.
“I didn’t criticize you.”
“You said I don’t go to parties, implying that I’m some kind of hermit or something.”
“That’s not a bad thing. You’re a real writer and real writers are hermits. Come on, let’s get in line for a gondola ride.”
He took my hand and we made our way through the crowd, out the glass doors to the small dock on the lake. A few people stood before us waiting for one of the two gondolas to return. I leaned over the wooden rail and looked into the soot green water at a giant turtle swimming with its shell just above the surface. It wasn’t every day you saw a giant turtle in New York, and I started to feel a little better about being there.
Finally it was our turn and the gondolier, wearing a black-and -white striped costume, held out his hand to help me into the boat. I sat on the frayed velvet bench and the gondolier tried to help Isaac. “That’s okay, I think I know my way around one of these things,” Isaac said. “We do this all the time at home.” He wobbled over and sat next to me with his arm around me.
We crawled along the bank toward the center of the lake, the second gondola passing us, heading back. Of course we had to awkwardly wave at the guests on the other gondola. But then something very strange caught our attention. A sound rang out, a long chilling cry.
And then we saw it: an elephant wading into the middle of the lake, spouting water over its back with its trunk. It was terrifying, and we all froze and watched it. People screamed. It was so huge that the water barely came up to its ankles. It swooshed its trunk violently from side to side.
It was so out of place but, at the same time, it wasn’t that surprising. I thought of Sascha suddenly showing up in my father’s office, coming out of nowhere. Having every right to be there and yet somehow trespassing. I shrugged off the feeling about Sascha and tried to focus only on this spectacle. I was seeing an elephant on the loose with my fiancé. Nothing better, not even seeing Arthur Weeman, had ever happened to me. For a second, I wondered if Arthur Weeman was part of this. I looked quickly around me but no one seemed to be shooting a movie, it was just there of its own free will. There were no lights, in fact the sun was quickly setting. What was stranger, I wondered, an elephant in the lake in Central Park or a gondola? An elephant flailing his trunk or Isaac gripping me to him, loving me enough to want to marry me?
Everything was silent except the sounds of splashing. It turned its head and looked at me with one eye. It took a step toward us and then spouted water at us. It seemed angry and not at all playful, but I didn’t flinch. I just sat there sort of thanking God for everything that had led me to this moment so I could be here to see the elephant.
This elephant was like Arthur Weeman, I thought. Looming large before me with his huge trunk set so high up between his silver-rimmed eyes like a giant Jewish nose. It gave him a funny pinched, nasal look, like Arthur Weeman playing a saxophone in Adopting Alice.
Then a terrible thing happened. His knees buckled under him and he crashed in slow motion down into the water. Our gondola rocked and almost capsized. A round of applause broke out on the bank. I thought he was doing some sort of a trick. I turned to see men on the bank, police and others in ranger outfits or something. Then I saw the blood pouring out of a hole in its neck and I realized they had shot him.
My whole life I had been on the lookout for something bad to happen. I always thought it just went along with growing up in New York, you look up and you wait for a body to fall or a plane to crash or two 110-story buildings to collapse. You know something will happen—a bullet or a dirty bomb or just an old-fashioned rape or mugging. But this was not something I had been prepared for.
Isaac on the other hand seemed as prepared as a hunter in the bush. He pulled a camera out of his suit jacket that I didn’t even know he had with him and started taking its picture.
“Stop it,” I said. It suddenly occurred to me that Ivy had staged this whole thing to get publicity for her birthday party. Or maybe she just wanted the tusks for ivory. “Leave him alone!” I yelled. It seemed the elephant had been shot twice, first by the terrible men and now by Isaac.
The gondolier steered over to the men and asked what was going on.
“He escaped from the children’s zoo,” a cop said. “He’s vicious. He almost trampled a child. You’ll read about it in the paper tomorrow.”
“We certainly will,” Isaac said. “Can you row us back to him, right up to his eye?” He put another roll of film in his camera. “I’d love to get a close-up of that.”
“No,” I said.
“Yeah, I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” the gondolier said. “We don’t know if it’s dead or just stunned or something.”
“I’m surprised you don’t have a telephoto lens on you, shoved down your pants or something,” I said, bitterly.
“I do, but I left it inside,” Isaac said. He brought the camera back up to his eye, and I blocked the lens with my hand, a surprisingly violent gesture.
“Rebekah, cut it out.” I grabbed for the camera, desperate to get it away from him. “Whoa, Rebekah, sit down. You’re gonna tip us over.” He tried to restrain me with one hand while still pointing his camera at the elephant in the bloody water.
“If you take one more picture, I’ll jump out of this boat right now.” I started to sob. Isaac stopped taking pictures and held me, but I couldn’t stop crying.
“Rebekah, you’re overreacting. She gets like this with animals, ” he told the gondolier.
“No, I don’t. This has nothing to do with animals.” He made me sound like some kind of PETA freak. “How could you take pictures of him?” I cried. "How can you sit there, like an innocent bystander, and take those cold-blooded pictures?”
“Because I am an innocent bystander. It’s just news. I’m serving the public. Raising awareness.” He was being condescending. “This is a camera. It just takes pictures. It’s not an evil soul-stealing device. You act like an Aborigine who’s never seen one of these newfangled inventions before. Stop judging everybody, Rebekah. Your eyes are more lethal than my camera because I’m just taking pictures, but you sit there judging everything so harshly and permanently recording it in that bear-trap brain of yours. If you’ll notice, I’m the only photojournalist here. I have to document this. Please, Rebekah, you have to calm down. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. Just let me take a few more shots.”
His speech shocked me into silence and I stopped crying. I had never thought of my brain as a sleazy paparazzo before. His camera went off like wildfire, the flash turning the lake into Times Square. He shot the elephant with passion, as if it were a beautiful thing, like Richard Avedon shooting a Dior model. Within minutes it was over, and the gondolier turned the boat around and ushered us up onto the dock, where Ivy’s guests were gathered along the glass doors, watching.
To my amazement, the band played that awful “In the Jungle Wimoweh” song and the party slowly got back to normal. Isaac had a point about the camera, and I tried very hard to relax but something was really bothering me. I felt so terrible for the elephant, but I also felt terrible for myself. And for Arthur Weeman. And even for Isaac. We were all dancing a sort of cannibalistic dance to the Wimoweh jungle song.
People went on eating shrimp and drinking a terrible green drink the bartender had named “The Ivy,” and giving toasts. Then Ivy took the microphone.
“Everyone, I have an announcement to make. Thank you all for coming to my birthday party. I feel like I’m at my bat mitzvah, although that took place at the B’nai Israel Temple on the Upper
West Side and no animals were killed.” Uproarious laughter poured from the moronic crowd. “I love every single person in this room.”
I felt about as loved as the poor waiters stationed behind the buffet. She stood with her back to the glass doors, and behind her an elaborate system of ropes and pulleys was being used to haul the trussed-up elephant out of the water. He was being dragged in slow lurching motions toward the shore. I looked away. I couldn’t watch.
“So, I wanted you to be the first to hear the news that someone in this room is engaged.”
Isaac and I looked at each other. I had to admit it was nice of Ivy to announce our engagement at her party like that. I tried to smile.
“Mom, Daddy, Dr. Schneider . . .” She turned to an old olive-skinned man sitting in a chair watching the elephant. He was crying. At the sound of his name, he looked up and wiped away his tears with a handkerchief, put his glasses back on, and stuffed the handkerchief in his pocket. Seeing him crying for the elephant made my eyes fill with tears again. “I’m engaged!” Ivy said. “Someone finally roped me in.”
I wished it were Ivy roped up in the water like Houdini and the elephant holding the microphone in his trunk.
“I’m sorry my fiancé couldn’t be here tonight. He just called and said he couldn’t get away from work. Mom, Daddy, I know you’re upset that Derek’s not Jewish, but I know you’re going to get to love him. He’s a real Southern gentleman, and I can honestly say that I’ve finally met a man who treats me the way I deserve to be treated. Everyone, his name is Derek Hassler and he’s an editor at Maxim.”
My mouth fell open. It was the most hilarious thing I had ever heard. I remembered that on our second date Derek had stopped me in front of a store window to point out a pair of clear plastic stripper shoes with at least a ten-inch Lucite heel, not exactly the type of glass slipper every young girl dreams of. “I want you to buy those and wear them for me,” Derek had said. I couldn’t believe that not only did he expect me to wear them, he expected me to buy them too.
“Stop laughing,” Isaac said. I hadn’t even realized I was.
I took a glass of champagne from a passing tray and drank it down. Ivy’s parents were hugging her, and her father said something to the band that immediately started up a moving rendition of “I’ll be seeing you in all the old familiar places,” and everyone cleared the dance floor so Ivy could dance with her father.
When the song was over, the elephant was gone.
Then Ivy walked over to us. “Isaac, what are you still doing here? If you get that film to the lab by nine we can run it in tomorrow’s paper. You’ve got to get going. You can take the limo out front.”
“I’m sorry, Rebekah, Ivy’s right. We should really go.”
“What a shame,” I said.
“You don’t feel weird about me and Derek, do you? I know you and Derek used to date,” she said.
“I think it’s great,” I said. “I really think you’re perfect for each other.”
“I guess you’ll have to tell your father I’m no longer single.” She winked at Isaac.
“I’ll tell him,” I said.
We got into the back of the car, and I listened numbly as Isaac made a series of phone calls to every newspaper and TV news station, offering to sell the film. I was shocked.
“I thought this was going to be a Quille exclusive,” I said.
“I’m loyal to Ivy, but not that loyal,” he said. “I’m going to have a wife to support now. I have a honeymoon in Venice to pay for. This will get us enough money for two weeks at the Gritti Palace.”
“I can’t believe you’re going to betray Ivy like that.”
I thought about the eye of the elephant, open wide and staring, as beautiful as a peacock feather, as terrifying as an open wound. I just felt that at all costs, I had to protect it.
Isaac was right about celebrities. He wasn’t doing anything wrong to photograph them. But exploiting an innocent elephant was different. Arthur Weeman was responsible for his own actions, and he knew what he was doing. He could hide or dart out from between the rocks and rattle the bars of his cage whenever he wanted attention. But this elephant had left the zoo. This elephant had marched past the llamas and the brass rabbit hole and Jonah’s whale and took a right at the Delacorte clock. In a way, Arthur Weeman was like the elephant, shot by the very public who had once loved him. I had been protecting and defending him as best I could since I saw Adopting Alice so many years ago. But Arthur Weeman could take care of himself. He didn’t need my help the way this elephant did.
I thought of Y.G. dropping to her knees on the cement ground of the schoolyard. I thought of Arthur Weeman looming above her, big and mighty.
Why was I protecting him, I wondered bitterly, outraged at myself. An elephant was dead, while Arthur Weeman sat up in his town house laughing at having gotten off scot-free.
“Isaac,” I said. “What if you didn’t give anyone this film? Just pretended you didn’t take the photos, or that they got exposed or something.”
“Why would I do that? That would be stoo-pid,” Isaac said.
“What if I traded you that film for something even better?”
“As much as I love your blow jobs I’m not trading these pictures for one.”
“I’m not talking about a blow job. I’m talking about a . . . scoop.”
“A scoop?” he said, smiling. “Who are you? Nancy Drew, girl detective?”
“Access,” I said. “You could call it ‘access.’ ”
“Access? That’s probably the sexiest thing anyone’s ever said to me. What kind of access. Access to what?”
“Call Ivy and tell her you lost the film,” I said.
“Rebekah, please, I don’t understand this,” Isaac said.
“I don’t want those pictures developed. I promise that what I have access to can make you ten times more money. Please tell me you won’t publish those pictures.”
“Give me the access first,” he said.
“How do I know I can trust you not to publish these pictures? ” But really I thought, how did I know he would marry me and stay with me and love me?
“Here,” he said, handing me the three rolls of film. “I don’t want to upset you. You can hold on to these. Rebekah, I love you. If you feel this strongly about it you can have them. Here. Let Babar rest in peace.”
“Don’t make jokes,” I said. And then, even though he had already told me he loved me, and promised to marry me and love me forever, now, with the elephant film in my hands, for the first time I knew unquestioningly that he did. He really, really did. He had given me Arthur Weeman’s handkerchief and a ring and this film, and I had been withholding everything. I had poured my heart out to Arthur Weeman, written him love letters, kept his secret, and what had he done for me? He’d never even written me back. Oh what the hell, I thought. I would do this for Isaac. I would do this for us.
I gave the driver Mrs. Williams’ address.
"Wait, we’re going to Mrs. Williams’? That’s your big scoop?” Isaac asked.
“Not exactly,” I said.
“Come on, Rebekah. Where are you taking me?”
“Arthur Weeman’s kitchen,” I said.
His light was on when we approached the window. Isaac stood at it like a temple, as I had done so many times. “How do you know it’s his kitchen?” he asked.
I smiled. “You see that coffeemaker?” I asked, pointing to the incredible chrome Taj Mahal-like thing on the counter. “It costs eighteen hundred dollars. It’s from Italy. Makes one personalized cup at a time. But Arthur drinks tea.”
“That doesn’t really prove anything.”
“Just watch,” I said.
Isaac went into a meditative silence.
Then I saw something on Mrs. Williams’ kitchen table and I went to see what it was. It was a large manila envelope. I turned it over and saw that it was addressed to me. Well not to me exactly, it was addressed to Thalia. Quickly I put the envelope back down on the tabl
e and looked up to see Isaac staring at me.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“Mrs. Williams’ mail,” I said.
He turned back around to the window.
My heart pounded. Arthur had written Thalia a letter. It was here, right on the table.
I picked it up again and tried to figure out what to do. I couldn’t leave it on the table because I couldn’t risk Isaac seeing the name Thalia written on the envelope. I thought about bringing it into another room, but Isaac would wonder why I was doing that with Mrs. Williams asleep in her bedroom. There was no way to slip it into my purse because it was too big.
I decided to stand there and open it.
“Oh, my God,” Isaac said. Arthur Weeman was in his kitchen.
“I have to change lenses.” He emptied the contents of his tote bag on the window seat and glanced in my direction. “Why are you opening Mrs. Williams’ mail? Isn’t reading other people’s mail a federal offense?”
“That coming from a man with a long lens pointing into someone’s house. She likes me to go through it for her.”
I held the contents of the envelope in my hand. It was a large X-ray of some kind.
“What’s that?” Isaac asked. "Some medical records, I guess,” I said. The X-ray shook in my hands. “You better hurry if you want to get some photos.”
I held the X-ray up to the light and saw that it was of a brain. Clipped to the X-ray was a hand-written note on an old-fashioned jagged-edged parchment card.
Dear Thalia,
This is my brain.
Your devoted,
Awful Writer
“Is everything okay?” Isaac asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “I guess so. I mean, just because I work in a medical office doesn’t make me a doctor.”
“I mean, with you. Are you okay? You look . . .”
“I’m fine,” I said.
This is my brain. It was like a book I had loved as a child called This is London.
I looked at his beautiful brain—his jokes and themes and characters swirling in it. It was like looking into History’s brain at Plato and Aristotle, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Dante, Chekhov. I saw every movie ever made, the first motion picture—Workers Leaving the Lumière Factory—and Thomas Edison’s Electrocuting an Elephant. I saw snow in it, and gondolas, Chaplin and Bergman were there, and center stage in the frontal lobe, was Thalia. I saw her so clearly looking right back at me, brain to brain. The lobes unfurled like film in a projector, and there, in Arthur’s magnificent brain, I saw the whole plot of my new book. Beginning to end, it was there like a time line. My book was all right there just waiting for me to finish writing it.
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