I Am an Executioner

by Rajesh Parameswaran

  There is more anecdotal evidence (see Jason Hribal, Fear of the Animal Planet: The Hidden History of Animal Resistance, Counter Punch and AK Press, 2010). But did any of these animals, Shanti, achieve freedom? I have found not one example of an elephant escaping to live happily and with dignity in the city. Disregarding isolated instances, ill-conceived experiments, and unsubstantiated rumors, dear Shanti, your dream remains pending. Back

  11 See above. What did you expect, Shanti? That people wouldn’t bat an eye to see a tusker careening down Broadway? That the city would build elephant lanes on the West Side Highway, double-wide, for your slow-moving sisters? That your calves would study with our children side by side in the same schools, and play with them? That they would be popular in the playground, your elephant children, tossing balls with their trunks, spraying water of a summer’s day at their bipedal friends? Did you ever fear, Shanti, that they would instead feel, for the first time, fat, naked, ugly, and odd? That they might fortify themselves in angry elephant enclaves? That they would stand in corners and cower, instead of flapping their ears against the city air and trumpeting out their freedom?

  12 Elephants never forget. I’m sure you’ve heard this phrase. Here we see that, for good or ill, it’s true. Everything Shanti has seen, heard, tasted, and smelled, she remembers. It is a burden. In this city, dogs wander the streets noting the smell of every beast who has been there before them, treading a landscape invisible to the rest of us, a landscape whose urine-marked boundaries we will never comprehend. Similarly, for Shanti every inch of life, every color or shape, bears a unique and pulsing resonance. Show her a face, say a name, make a sound, name a thing, and she could name you another that preceded it, whose memory rises unbidden in her mind, to press up against the present thing with its own painful force and reality. Every corner of the world she turns reveals to her a new vista haunted by an old one; every door opens into a new house whose furnishings seem stolen from a long-ago home. Elephants don’t enjoy those simple Freudian-type luxuries humans take for granted: aphasia, repression, sublimation, omission. Memory for them is an edifice, a fixed and growing thing, enlarging itself brick by brick with each passing hour. It is a burden. In writing this, Shanti shares her burden, for a spell, with us.

  13 Rushing underfoot, clumsy but eloquent in her own way, now straying from, now returning to the herd, in contrapuntal gallop with those above—an intuitive anticipation, dare we say, of her future editor’s trotting underfootnotes?

  14 Hm!

  15 The language of words would come only later—when she needed to communicate with humans. (Shanti’s somewhat romantic faith in language—both elephant and Englaphant—must be distinguished from the attitudes of other literate beasts, particularly the German-speaking ape Red Peter [1883–1924], brutal truth-teller, joyless [though not humorless] genius, gifted imitator of humans, altogether remarkable creature, who started off his speaking career with a hoarse “Hallo!” not because of an idealistic desire for interprimate communication; not because, in conjoined existence with people, he perceived new possibilities of freedom [Red Peter mocked the idea of freedom]; but only and merely because, held captive by humans and at the end of his short rope, he needed “einen Ausweg” [“a way out”]. Language released him from a cage—nothing more.)

  16 Elephants are a complex species. Their herding instincts are counterbalanced, if not contradicted, by the deep-running passions of their individual psychologies. For example, pachyderms may harbor personal grudges for years, remembering the beatings inflicted by a particular mahout, or the pokes and thrown pebbles of a mischievous young circus visitor; and on encountering the person by chance years, yea decades later, kill him.

  A narrative, to be completely true, must plumb these dark depths. But keep in mind that Shanti, for all her perspicacity and eloquence, is at heart an innocent, as reluctant to suspect malice in her relatives as in the kindest of her captors. And she was short on time. Wouldn’t she be regretful if the one person most intimate with her life and her tale, well studied in elephant culture and psychology, a writer not untalented in his own right, and who moreover enjoys exclusive access to her text, did not fill in for her those voices and details that she would have felt, on further and deeper reflection, were crucial? While the editor’s job is normally to clarify, when duty calls, he must not shy from the role of a sort of Shamspeare in love. I humbly comply. Imagine, if you will, a scene, exterior, a jungle, daytime. Enter Shanti’s mother, Amuta, a spry, keen-eyed young woman.

  AMUTA: The herd trusts her implicitly, respects her fundamentally. But don’t let misplaced respect and false sentiment cool your purpose. When the young among us are dying, there is no time to indulge fond old age.

  Enter Ania, an old elephant, ears frayed from many battles, eyes rheumy with wisdom, kindness, or fatigue.

  AMUTA: (Aside) Here she comes. Steady yourself. See how fat she is? For too long we have indulged her with portions of our grass while our own calves have gone hungry. If that ponderous cow had to seek her own food, she would starve. She lived her youth in fuller times, but since I was born we’ve had only lack. See her eyes? She was the sharpest among us once, the lithest and most fearsome. This is how we become when we live too much of our lives in prosperity, dull and clouded, susceptible (just watch!) to truism and flattery. How sad to see a bright star go dim. Better to put it out entirely. This morning I heard a tigress stalking a nearby valley. (Even the tigress has more logic than Ania—seeing the drought, she has left her home and invaded ours in search of meat.) I’ll give Ania one more chance to change her mind and take the herd away from this dead land. If she stubbornly refuses (as I’m sure she will), then I’ll lure her with this bit of fruit I found, buried in the den of a long-dead ape. I’ll send Ania to pasture in the tigress’s valley, and let her learn the jungle’s logic. By herself, the fat old dam stands no chance. I’ll flatter Ania and feed her. I’ll play on her greed to seal her downfall!

  ANIA: We are here. Why have you called us?

  AMUTA: (To Ania) Have I made you walk far, Ania? I apologize. Rest under the shade of this tree. Here is some fruit I found and saved for you.

  ANIA: Fruit? How rare, how delightful.

  AMUTA: It’s not so fresh.

  ANIA: Don’t be silly. These rotting bits might seem foul. These might be the undigested pieces picked from some far wandering monkey’s shit. No matter. In times like this, such bits are as refreshing as heavy rain and a roll in the mud. We don’t see fruit these days much anymore.

  AMUTA: No, we don’t. This season has been a poor one yet again. We have not had the rain we’d hoped for.

  ANIA: Yes, but there is always next spring. We have lived through many more seasons than you, Amuta. Some are dry, but others are wet.

  AMUTA: Your experience has made you wise. But surely this drought is unlike any you have seen before. Some in our position might consider seeking out a new grazing land.

  ANIA: Leave? This is our home. There is no way to leave, no sense in the thought.

  AMUTA: (Aside) That was your last chance, old dam. You’ve lived a full life, so there’s nothing to regret. I’ll not allow you to kill us out of respect for your empty years.

  (To Ania) Your years have served you well, old Ania, and under your leadership we can only hope for fullness and increase. Have you enjoyed the fruit?

  ANIA: Yes, young one. There is only one thing, they say, better than a bull on your back, and that’s a banana in your mouth. You seem brighter than your cousins. We have enjoyed the fruit very much.

  AMUTA: I know where you can find more of it.

  ANIA: What?

  AMUTA: Old Ania, I don’t want to seem like I have kept hidden from the herd something which of right belongs to the herd. I only this morning discovered it and have eaten none of it myself.

  ANIA: Either you are making a poor joke, Amuta, or you must tell us right now where you found it.

  AMUTA: Old Ania, there is not enough for us all, and that is th
e only reason I didn’t wish to disclose this in front of the herd. There is enough, I am afraid, only for you, and it is right that you alone should have it, because your survival is our survival. A body is nothing without its head.

  ANIA: Don’t worry about all that. Just tell us where you found it.

  AMUTA: In the small valley nearby that was once shaded by evergreens. Some new type of tree has grown there, some windblown seed from elsewhere has sprung up a drought-loving tree that needs no water. It gives bananas much sweeter than what you’ve just tasted—in my rush, I picked only the rotting fruit that littered the ground beneath it. But it also gives mangoes and jackfruits and figs.

  ANIA: All from one tree? It seems fantastic.

  AMUTA: It must be a reward, old Ania, for your wisdom and patience. Soon many trees just like it will spring up, and all our worries will end. But now there is only one. Go and find it and eat your fill.

  ANIA: This tree is too improbable, Amuta. It’s a hunger-borne mirage. I’m sure you’re mistaken.

  AMUTA: I, too, thought so, until I touched the tree and smelled its fruit. Was that banana you just enjoyed a mirage, Ania?

  ANIA: It was not. Then guide me to the tree. Right away, let’s go.

  AMUTA: No, Ania! The herd will grow confused and restless in your unexplained absence. I will go and feed them an excuse. You need only walk to the very center of the valley, raise up your trunk, and sniff the air. Try to detect a smell something like a tiger—one of the oddities of this wonderful tree is that it gives this most obnoxious scent. Be patient if you don’t see it at first. Wait there patiently and surely you will find it.

  ANIA: Very well. You are a bright young elephant and will go far. You have done a good thing. Be assured, you are acting on behalf of the herd.

  Exit Ania.

  AMUTA: Is it this easy? Has it always been this easy? With so little effort could I at any time have dispatched the unquestioned leader of our herd? Treachery in name alone is daunting. But her kind old eyes almost did make me doubt myself. Poor, befuddled cow! She is a slave to her stomach, and at her age she’d die if we didn’t feed her first. But isn’t this alone reason to replace her with a younger leader? Survival is not a gift for the frivolous or soft. I didn’t invent this law, and bear no responsibility for it.

  Now I hear the tigress growling. She must have spotted old Ania. Those snarls make even my strong bones shiver. God allows only such animals as this tigress to thrive in a time of drought: animals whose hunger makes them not weak, but more fearsome—animals for whom lack itself is fuel. Hear that? Ania is trying to fight the beast. Ha? Can that be Ania’s war cry? Still so loud and violent, no fear in it? The tigress’s blood will go cold at the sound. My plan will be ruined! But no, listen—Ania’s cry is of no avail. The tigress also knows no fear, and she screams her attack. Ania is shouting for my help! Steady yourself and hold your ground. Don’t let old instinct lead you to her aid. Hear the anguish in Ania’s voice? Sounds of gnashing and of chewing, crunch of bone and gurgle of blood, unheard-of and unnatural elephant cries. Oh, close your ears! It is a gruesome, noisy death. But Ania’s gathered a dying wind, and slurs out a scream. What? “Treachery!” does she yell? Does she yell “treachery”? Does she realize, as she dies, that her death was by design? Oh, but why let it worry you, Amuta? What weight does an accusation carry that echoes in the empty air, and falls on the ear of no elephant but me? Now Ania’s words are garbled, her moans weaken. There remains only the sound of that ravenous tigress glutting herself on the meat of an elephant, an elephant like me, one of our beloved. Why, what is it I have done? And having done it, can I still call myself elephant? Or does this act show that my veins run with the cold blood of some other creature? I am alone in this, and afraid, for this is treachery that goes against nature! But then, treachery always does. Every leader must act alone, challenging her very nature that her nature may be realized. Go on now, wipe the distress from your eyes. Walk proudly back to the herd. You have done well by them. When Ania’s fate is found out, and her absence makes them feel the lack of strength and guidance that actually they lacked even in her presence, then they should look only to you for its fulfillment. Back

  17 Shanti’s precipitate excursion into our city occurred, of course, following her escape from the Silver Brothers Circus, the outfit which every year pitches its dirty tents in a distant borough of our city. The Silver Brothers Circus was founded in 1871 by Amar Selvaratnam, more commonly known as Amar Selva (or sometimes Silva or Selvar or Silvar), and even more popularly as Amos Silver. Selvaratnam/Selva/Silva/Selvar/Silvar/Silver was a dusky man of unknown origin, various versions of whose name began appearing in the inmate rolls of jails and prisons in cities as far-flung as San Francisco, California, and Chicago, Illinois, in the mid-1850s. From time to time, usually to escape creditors, Silver tried to pass himself off as his own twin brother, “Andy Silver” (thus, “Silver Brothers”). The existence of Andy Silver was never, of course, confirmed, and Andy was commonly assumed to be another one of Amos Silver’s many frauds and hoaxes, until Amos’s death in 1928. At that time, in a little-visited windowless car of the Silver Brothers’ traveling conveyance, hidden among a family of cruel and filthy chimpanzees, was found a narrow cage holding a withered, naked, and equally aggressive old man. He bared his teeth and threw his shit like a chimp; he beat his chest like a gorilla; and he clutched with one hand a seemingly inexhaustible erection, like a gibbon. The chimp family among whom the naked man lived seemed to regard him, alternately, as God, fiend, whipping boy, pampered child, idiot—a source of irritation and awe and hilarious entertainment.

  The discovery of this unidentified and unidentifiable man was heralded (by the circus’s new management) as the discovery of the long-rumored “real” Andy, and he was quickly promoted as the star of the revamped and under-new-ownershiped circus. “Andy the Man Monkey” survived a scant fourteen months under the glare of the gas flares and flashbulbs, but it was a frenetic and productive fourteen months. He left behind a rumored legacy of twenty-seven children, all conceived during that hysterical time, born of various acrobats, contortionists, bearded ladies, soothsayers, midgets, and clowns, as well as (reportedly) the females of several nonhuman species (chimpanzee, yes; also giraffe, hippopotamus, alligator). These supposed, hybrid, half-human children would become, in turn, the stars of their own freak show attractions. Back

  18 AMUTA: Thoosha, Great-Aunt, you are old, and may feel your age entitles you to some indulgence. But in fact it gives you greater responsibility. You have no right to delay the herd. Get up. Remember that I am leader now.

  THOOSHA: Yes you are, Amuta. Therefore lead your herd ahead. New journeys are not for me. I am tired. If I find strength, I will go back home and rest among familiar trees, and let my bones dry among the bones of my mothers. The old life is all I know and want to know; one generation of hardship is not enough to make me abandon our memories.

  But now I am tired. I will wait for sleep, and I will find my way alone.

  AMUTA: Even if you make it back, Thoosha, three weeks’ journey alone, as you say, it will only be to die. And in dying you will again have left. Why do you welcome that unknown journey, but fear this one?

  Now stop drawing attention to yourself and get up, old coward! We have no time for this. Baboon-livered mistake! Skinny, short-trunked, unlucky heap! I don’t ask you anymore, I order you. The herd itself is your only home, Thoosha. You seem to forget that the old place was full of pain.

  THOOSHA: It’s not an unknown journey. I see the way clearly. It’s a simple place, dark and cool. My body aches for it.

  ELEPHANTS: Is it so, Thoosha? Can you see the new place also? Amuta tells us it will be cool and green, not dry. There will be water and sweet grass.

  THOOSHA: Better than water and grass is absence of thirst and hunger. I’m headed for our only home. You’ll join me there, one by one.

  AMUTA: Leave her, elephants. If a lonely death is all she wants, she’ll get it. Let’
s move. Back

  19 What? See also footnote 14 supra.

  20 Not long past the age of eleven, your humble editor was a student at the Dolphin Cove Middle School, where he had certain experiences and conversations that may elucidate the claims made in footnote 17 supra, regarding the alleged hybrid progeny of “Andy Silver.”

  The history of animal-human love (let us avoid the anthropocentric term bestiality, and the politically fraught miscegenation) is clouded by popular misconception and mythology. For instance, among children at the Dolphin Cove Middle School, it was widely believed that chickens were the most easily accessible, manageable, and therefore personally satisfying of animals with which to copulate. Although cows were also desirable and abundant, they were rather large for our boys’ frames, and known to kick at inopportune moments. Among the watery beasts, our mascot and namesake, the dolphin, was widely reputed to have the most human and snug-feeling of recesses, and moreover was considered so intelligent that you could maybe have a conversation with it afterward. But while there was much talk of arranging a nocturnal break-in at SeaWorld, the nearest one was six hundred miles away, and so, practically speaking, none of us knew how to get hold of the delightful fish. Little did we understand, reader, and less still could we have imagined.

  Does such conversation disgust you? Keep in mind these were the lunchroom digressions of twelve-year-olds, and none of my acquaintances in that school ever actually copulated with any creature—chicken, cow, dolphin, or human—until several years later.

  Which brings me to the subject of my penis—a subject, I daresay, similarly clouded by popular mythology and misconception. I still remember the first time I realized I was, shall we say, different—perhaps tragically, perhaps magically—different. As I stepped up to the urinal in the boys’ room at our Dolphin Cove school, and my friend Brian—in truth, not a friend, but one of the boys known in our class for his uncensored mouth framed by shapely lips, his pretty hair, and his consequent popularity with the little ladies of our hallways—this bold Brian stepped up to the urinal next to mine, unzipped his pants, and began to guide his tiny dolphin out of its little cove. As he was doing so, Brian turned to glance at my own boy’s bud. Then his eyes widened, his grin spread, and as I was about to set loose my stream, the shameless fellow grabbed me by the shoulder and swung me around to face him. “Your thing,” he said. “It looks like an elephant’s trunk!”