Tua and the Elephant

by R. P. Harris

  “May I feed the elephant?” he asked.

  “Of course. Her name’s Pohn-Pohn,” Tua said. “She loves mangos the best.”

  Pohn-Pohn accepted a rosy-cheeked mango from the boy, tossed it in her mouth, chewed up the pulp, and spit out the seed.

  As the monks stepped up one by one to feed Pohn-Pohn, Tua finished her bowl of curry and excused herself to make an offering at the temple.

  Climbing the steps between the statues of two Singha lions, Tua kicked off her shoes, bowed a wai, and stepped over the threshold.

  She walked the length of a long red carpet in the flickering candlelight, past wood carvings and shrines, until she came to a giant golden Buddha sitting on a lotus throne. His legs were folded in front of him, his right hand was draped over his right knee with his finger touching the earth, and his left hand was resting in his lap holding an alms bowl. He was surrounded by offerings of fruit, flowers, and incense. Tua knelt in front of the statue, bowed three times, chanted a prayer, and made her offering. Then she told the Buddha how thankful she was that Pohn-Pohn had come into her life. She thanked all of the people who had helped her and Pohn-Pohn come this far. She thanked the monks for taking them in and offering them refuge. “And, if it isn’t asking too much,” she added, “please help us find a place where Pohn-Pohn can be safe.” Then she bowed three more times and withdrew from the temple.

  Pohn-Pohn and the boy monks were across the courtyard and standing in front of a life-size statue of an ancient monk meditating on a platform. As Tua drew near, the statue opened its eyes and clapped its hands, sending the boys back to their chores, studies, and devotions.

  Tua stopped in her tracks and bowed a wai to the head monk of the temple.

  “Welcome,” he said, after Tua had sat herself cross-legged on the ground in front of Pohn-Pohn.

  “Khawp khun kha,” she thanked him.

  “Tell me, why have you come?”

  Tua began telling their story, from the moment she and Pohn-Pohn met at the fountain until they arrived outside the wat. Pohn-Pohn’s trunk stayed draped over her shoulder the entire time.

  The monk listened patiently, scarcely moving a muscle. When Tua came to the end, he blinked his eyes three times.

  “What is it you wish to do?”

  “Find Pohn-Pohn a home where she’ll be safe.”

  The monk nodded. “And do you know of such a place?”

  Tua thought a moment, then looked up at Pohn-Pohn for help. Pohn-Pohn flapped her ears.

  “No,” she said, turning back to the monk. “We don’t know of a place.”

  The monk smiled down at this devoted pair. “There is a sanctuary in the forest not far from here,” he said at last. “It is run by a woman called Mae Noi, the little mother. They have elephants there, I am told. It is a place for the sick, injured, abandoned, and abused.”

  Tua bolted upright. “How do we get there?”

  “If it is your wish, I will arrange to have a truck take you there tomorrow morning.”

  Tua looked up into Pohn-Pohn’s eyes and hugged her trunk.

  “Yes, please,” she answered for them both.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Outside the Walls

  Meanwhile, a ten-wheeled truck skidded to a halt outside the wat walls, sputtered, shivered, and groaned. The driver cut the engine, hopped out of the cab, and waved to a waitress at the outdoor restaurant across the street.

  “What’s going on at the temple?” a customer asked the waitress.

  “They’ve got an elephant over there,” she blurted, as if revealing a secret.

  “You don’t say. Did you hear that, Nang? They’ve got an elephant at the temple.”

  “That’s nice.” Nang belched. “Can I get another beer?”

  Once evening fell, two bent shapes stepped out of the shadows under the cover of night and crept along until they stood in front of the ten-wheeled truck. While one held open the hood, the other climbed on the bumper, peered inside at the engine, and began tugging at a hose.

  An old dog crawled out from under the truck and sniffed at the legs on the ground.

  “Go away. Shoo,” Nang whispered.

  The dog raised its mangy head and smiled.

  Where had Nang seen that face before? As he bent over for a better look, the dog took hold of his pant leg and began to tug and pull.

  “Be still, Nang.” Nak pulled his head out from under the hood. “And stop that growling, or you’ll wake the driver.”

  The old dog stopped growling on command, released the pant leg, yawned, lifted his leg, and took aim.

  “Oh no,” Nang said. “Don’t …”

  “Got it.” Nak yanked the hose free. Then he slipped it loosely back in place and declared: “That should come off nicely.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Leaving the Wat

  In the early morning calm, before the roosters crowed and the monks went out on their alms rounds, the ten-wheeled truck pulled into the courtyard with its headlights and taillights blazing. Tua yawned, rolled out of the hammock at Pohn-Pohn’s feet, rubbed her sleepy eyes, and pulled a sarong around her shoulders against the chill.

  “Look, Pohn-Pohn. That’s the truck that’s going to take us to the sanctuary.”

  Pohn-Pohn was looking at the truck. And she didn’t like what she saw. The bed of the truck, with its wooden slats and canvas roof, reminded her of the cage she was put in when she was taken from her mother in the forest. For four days she had been imprisoned, beaten, and denied sleep, food, and water in an attempt to crush her spirit. She cried for her mother, but her mother never came.

  Tua led Pohn-Pohn across the courtyard in the dark. The monks, attending to their early morning chores, moved as softly as dark shadows. When two of the monks slid a ramp out from under the truck, Pohn-Pohn stopped short and would go no farther.

  “Don’t be afraid, Pohn-Pohn,” Tua said. “I’ll be with you. Come.”

  But Pohn-Pohn’s eyes opened wider and she flapped her ears: “No.”

  The driver suggested that they remove the canvas top. So four monks climbed up the slats like ants and rolled it back. But Pohn-Pohn still wouldn’t budge.

  Tua pleaded some more, and the monks chanted a prayer while the driver scratched his head, and looked at his watch. But Pohn-Pohn still wouldn’t climb up the ramp into the back of the truck.

  At last Tua gave up and sat down on the bumper. She picked up a banana that was lying on the truck bed and began peeling it. Pohn-Pohn stretched out her trunk, plucked it out of Tua’s hand, popped it in her mouth, and reached for another.

  “I’m sorry, Pohn-Pohn,” she said. “I don’t have anything else for you to eat.”

  Just then, the boy with the big ears appeared with a cloth bag slung over his shoulder, bulging with mangos. He stepped up on the ramp and held out a mango in his palm. Pohn-Pohn reached for the mango, tossed it in her mouth, chewed the pulp, and spit out the seed. The boy backed up the ramp and offered her another mango. She stepped up on the ramp to retrieve it. They continued that way until the bag was empty and Pohn-Pohn was standing in the back of the truck with the boy.

  “You’re so smart,” Tua said to the boy.

  “Noom,” the boy answered. “My name is Noom.”

  Tua climbed up the ramp to join them. “You’re so smart, Noom.”

  Noom removed a bodhi seed bracelet from his wrist and offered it to Tua. “Please accept this gift.” He bowed a wai.

  “Khawp khun kha.” Tua bowed back.

  Noom slipped the bracelet over Tua’s wrist, smiled, and wiggled his ears.

  After thanking the monks, Tua waved from the back of the truck as it squeezed out of the wat walls and turned into the street.

  The only other vehicle on the street was a motorcycle with a sidecar, and it followed the truck at a distance with the beam of its headlight.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Journey to the

  Mountain

  As the truck rumbled b
eneath their feet and the wooden slats rattled around them, Pohn-Pohn wrapped her trunk around Tua’s back as if holding on to a guardrail.

  “Don’t be afraid, Pohn-Pohn,” Tua said. “We’ll be there in less than an hour. It’s in the forest. I’ve never been to the forest before. And there will be elephants there, too.”

  She talked and talked and talked, cradling Pohn-Pohn’s trunk and looking her in the eyes, until the sun came up and they began climbing the side of the mountain.

  “Look how green it is, Pohn-Pohn,” Tua said, pressing her face between the slats.

  The forest was mostly a dark shape, a blur, to Pohn-Pohn. But she could smell the cool mountain air above, and the warm breath of the forest beneath it.

  The truck groaned up the mountainside in low gear, then raced, purring, down the other side. It climbed and fell, twisted and turned, until it came to a wide green valley surrounded by a ring of blue mountaintops. A chattering river ran through the valley, dividing it between forest and farms.

  “Isn’t it beautiful, Pohn-Pohn? This must be …” Tua started to say, when the truck began to sputter and cough. It rolled to the shoulder of the road and stopped with a gasp and a sigh.

  “What happened?”

  Pohn-Pohn began rocking and swaying, tossing her trunk about and flapping her ears. She looked behind her on the left, then behind her on the right.

  The driver hopped out of the cab, climbed up on the bumper, opened the hood, and peered inside. Then he hopped down and came around the cab, scratching his head.

  “What’s the matter?” asked Tua through the slats.

  “I’ve lost a hose.”

  “Oh,” Tua said. “Can I help you find it?”

  Just then a motorcycle with sidecar approached, slowed as if intending to offer help, then sped away and took the turnoff just ahead. The riders were wearing bright bubble helmets with black tinted visors that looked like a dragonfly’s eyes.

  “It must have fallen off,” said the driver, turning back to Tua. “I’ll have to go back to look for it. You can wait here or walk the rest of the way on foot. The sanctuary isn’t much farther.”

  Pohn-Pohn rocked her head and tossed her trunk over her shoulder.

  “We’ll walk, I think, kha,” Tua said. “Which way is it?”

  “Maybe three or four miles up that river.” He pointed to the valley. “The road’s just there. But you might want to take the path instead, on account of the logging trucks.”

  “Logging trucks?” Tua curled her arm around Pohn-Pohn protectively. “I think we better take the path.”

  After backing out of the truck, Pohn-Pohn led Tua down the rocky embankment and onto the path below. They entered a bamboo grove and passed a riot of ferns and plants with leaves as big as an elephant’s ears. A swaying coconut palm stretched so high into the blue sky it made Tua dizzy to look at it. An orchard of banana trees lined one side of the path, and papaya trees stood at ease on the other. Mangos dangled from trees like gaudy baubles. Then they stepped out into a field of corn that grew twice as high as Pohn-Pohn’s back.

  Pohn-Pohn reached out her trunk, plucked off an ear, and popped it in her mouth.

  “Stop that, chang,” shouted a voice.

  Tua dropped the mango she was about to bite into and kicked it aside with her foot. Then she leaned over and peeked around Pohn-Pohn.

  A boy with arms crossed over his naked chest and scowling like a bat was blocking the pathway. A faded sarong reached down from his waist to the tops of his two bare feet.

  “Sawatdee kha,” Tua said, stepping out from behind Pohn-Pohn and bowing a wai.

  The boy leapt into the air like a rooster and took two steps back.

  “Who are you?” he said, recovering from his surprise.

  “I’m Tua. And this is Pohn-Pohn.”

  Pohn-Pohn ignored the introduction and reached for another ear of corn.

  “Are you from the sanctuary?” the boy asked.

  “No,” Tua said. “But we would like to go there.”

  Tua was about to ask the boy for directions when she heard voices singing a chant.

  “Hoon lai ga, hoon lai ga, where do you find a hoon lai ga?”

  “Quick,” said the boy, “in here.” He parted the cornstalks like a curtain and nodded his head inside. “Hurry. Reo reo.”

  Tua took Pohn-Pohn’s trunk and led her inside the cornfield.

  The boy straightened the stalks as best he could and covered the hole with his back.

  “Hoon lai ga, hoon lai ga, what do you do with a hoon lai ga?”

  Tua crept back to the path and crouched down out of sight to listen and watch.

  Two children faced the boy: an older girl in a school uniform and her brother, a plump boy in a tracksuit and white sneakers. The brother kicked a dirt clod that splattered against the other boy’s legs.

  “What are you doing, scarecrow?” said the girl. “What do you do with a scarecrow that can’t even scare crows?”

  “What do you do with a scarecrow that’s ascared of crows?” said her brother.

  The two children laughed at the boy in the sarong.

  “Afraid of crows,” said the boy.

  “What?” yelped the girl.

  “It’s ‘afraid’ of crows, not ‘ascared’ of crows,” the boy in the sarong said.

  “What do you know?” whined the girl. “You’re only a hoon lai ga. Scarecrows don’t go to school.”

  “I know what I know,” said the boy.

  “And that’s nothing,” said the girl. Then she spun around on her heels and skipped down the path singing, “Hoon lai ga, hoon lai ga, nobody wants a hoon lai ga.”

  “What’s in there?” asked the brother, standing on tiptoes. He could see stalks swaying in the cornfield.

  “A demon from the forest went in there,” the boy in the sarong whispered. “With bloodshot eyes and tusks like a wild pig. Do you want to see it?”

  “No!” The brother stumbled backward. Then he spit on the ground and said: “I don’t believe in demons and spirits,” and ran off to catch up with his sister.

  “You can come out now,” the boy called to Tua. “They’re gone.”

  Tua led Pohn-Pohn back to the path, trying not to trample too many cornstalks.

  “They would have told their father about the elephant,” the boy said. “Farmers don’t like elephants very much.”

  “Thank you,” Tua said. “What’s your name?”

  “Kanchanok.” He blushed and looked down at his feet.

  “Why did they call you hoon lai ga, Kanchanok?”

  “I come from a village in the hills,” he said. “My father left home to look for work, and he didn’t come back. Now I must work to support my brothers, sisters, mother, and grandmother. I don’t have money to go to school.”

  “I’m sorry,” Tua said.

  She took off the bodhi seed bracelet and slipped it over the boy’s thin wrist.

  “Thank you for helping us,” she said. “This was a gift from my friend Noom at the temple. My Uncle Sip says gifts that are shared travel in a circle back to us.”

  Kanchanok turned the bracelet around on his wrist like a knob that opened a smile on his face.

  “Would you like me to take you to the sanctuary?” he asked.

  “Would you?”

  “Of course,” he threw out his chest. “Mae Noi is my friend. She taught me how to read and write. But we’ll have to cross the river and go through the forest so no one sees us.”

  The motorcycle with sidecar came to a turnoff at the bottom of a hill with a sign over the road that read:

  Elephant Haven

  Nak stopped the motorcycle in the middle of the road and gunned the engine, attracting the attention of a gatekeeper and a chocolate-colored guard dog with a razorback.

  The dog bared its teeth and growled back at the motorcycle.

  “Easy, Fudge,” said the gatekeeper. “Don’t much like the look of them, do you?”

  The motorcycle
accelerated around the bend, sped up the side of another hill, and pulled over to the shoulder.

  “Look there,” Nak pointed his finger at the river below. “They’re crossing the river with that buffalo boy and going into the forest.”

  “Maybe they’re going to set it free in there,” said Nang.

  “They’ll come out of the forest and cross into the sanctuary there,” Nak pointed up river. “We need to get to the river and cut them off.”

  “How do we do that?” Nang threw up his arms. “There’s a guard. And a dog.”

  A raft floated downriver just then with two farangs on board.

  “By craft.” He chortled, then slapped down his visor and sped off down the hill.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Into the Forest

  After luring Tua and Pohn-Pohn out of the river with sticks of raw sugarcane, Kanchanok led them into the dense forest and onto a small dirt path. The forest leaned over the path, threatening to swallow it up. A line of green tufts grew between two dusty tracks as if bursting through a seam. The tree canopy blocked out the sun, sending down long vines of grasping tentacles and shivers down Tua’s spine.

  When they heard voices up ahead, Kanchanok steered them off the road and into the cover of the forest.

  An elephant appeared on the road, carrying a mahout behind her neck and two farangs in a wooden saddle on her back. The farangs were laughing and taking pictures of themselves. After they passed, a young elephant only a few months old came running clumsily after his mother. The mother stopped so the baby could catch up, but the mahout struck her face with a bamboo switch and ordered her to move on. She called encouragement to her calf and continued down the road with her cargo.

  “Oh no, Kanchanok. We can’t go there,” Tua whispered.

  “They’re from a tourist camp upriver, not the sanctuary. Mae Noi asked them to let her take the mother and calf until he’s stronger, but they said the mother must work.”

  Tua turned and pressed her forehead to the base of Pohn-Pohn’s trunk. Pohn-Pohn blinked and hugged her back.