Tua and the Elephant

by R. P. Harris

  “Come on,” said Kanchanok. “We’ll be able to see the sanctuary from the ridge.”

  They climbed up and down the side of the mountain until they came to a clearing in the forest.

  “That’s it down there,” said Kanchanok. “That’s the sanctuary.”

  Tua looked down to what at first appeared to be a large farm. There were buildings and orchards, fields and gardens. But what made this farm unusual was the presence of so many elephants. There were elephants everywhere! Elephants bobbed and floated in the river. More were taking mud baths in pits on the shore. One elephant stood chest-deep in the shallows while people with buckets and brushes scrubbed it down.

  “Pohn-Pohn loves playing in the mud,” Tua said.

  “It protects their skin from mosquito bites and sunburn,” said Kanchanok.

  “Oh!” Tua patted Pohn-Pohn’s trunk. “Aren’t you smart, Pohn-Pohn?”

  “Look! That’s the new baby, Mojo. He’s only three months old.”

  A small calf with a thin tuft of black hair sprouting from the top of his head ran between the legs of his mother and auntie, his small trunk flailing in the air like a runaway hose. The skin sagged on his little body as he romped on stubby legs, flapping his ears and flicking his tail.

  “He’s so cute,” Tua gushed.

  “That’s Poon under the tree,” Kanchanok pointed his finger. “She stepped on a landmine in Laos and lost part of her foot. That elephant with the limp is Roy. He was hit by a truck and came here with a broken hip. And that old bull over there is Kanda,” he nodded toward the river bank. “He’s blind, because some men cut off his tusks with a chainsaw and it infected his eyes. Pranee and her two calves, Lucky and Mee, look after him now.”

  Tua swallowed a lump in her throat. “It’s a hard life for an elephant, Kanchanok, isn’t it?”

  “Not so easy,” Kanchanok shook his head.

  “But they’re safe now?”

  “As safe as Mae Noi can make them. Come,” he said, “I’ll take you and Pohn-Pohn to meet her.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  A Raft on the River

  The motorcycle and sidecar turned onto a dirt track and followed a crudely made sign with the words rafts for rent painted above a crookedly drawn arrow. The track ended at a crudely made house on the bank of the river. Nak and Nang walked around to the back and lifted their visors.

  There were two boys asleep in either end of a hammock as if wrapped in a cocoon. Chickens scratched at a yard strewn with bamboo poles and coconuts. A dog came out from under the porch, murmured a bark, scratched his ear, and crawled back under the house.

  “Sawatdee khrap,” Nak said to an old man in a swing chair on the porch.

  The old man stared down at them, as still as a spider.

  “Do you have any rafts for rent?” asked Nak. “We saw your sign on the road.”

  Instead of speaking, the old man tapped his cane on the floor three times.

  A pig came out of the back door, followed by a man. The man yawned and blinked his eyes.

  “Khrap.” He squinted.

  “We’d like to rent a raft,” said Nak.

  “A raft?” He scratched his chin as if trying to recall where he’d heard that word before.

  “You do rent rafts, don’t you?”

  “Of course. They’re all out at the moment,” he shrugged. “But now that I think of it, I might have one I could sell you.”

  “And how much would that cost me?” Nak raised an eyebrow.

  “Let’s see … I could let you have it for … oh … say a thousand baht.”

  “A thousand baht?” squeaked Nak. “It’s a bamboo raft, not the king’s yacht.”

  “Handmade native crafts fetch a handsome price in the city these days,” the man shrugged.

  Nak pulled a note out of his pocket and waved it in the air. “Five hundred,” he said. “And that’s my final offer.”

  “One thousand,” smiled the man. “And that’s my final price.”

  Nak couldn’t risk letting the elephant enter the sanctuary while he haggled over five hundred baht with this river rat. He pulled out another note and handed the money over.

  “Follow me, gentlemen,” said the man with a grin. “You won’t regret your decision. She glides like a dream.”

  The old man on the porch began cackling like a mynah bird, and Nang reached for his medallion.

  Standing over the raft they’d just purchased, the mahouts winced. “Does it float?” Nang asked.

  “Sound as a cork,” the man beamed. “Don’t let appearances fool you.”

  “But it’s a bundle of sticks.” Nang nudged the raft with his foot.

  “Never mind about that,” Nak leapt in. “How does it work?”

  “You’ll need a pole to steer by. Then climb aboard, push her out to the middle of the river, and let the current do the work.”

  “Where’s the pole?” Nak searched the ground for something to steer by.

  “Did you want to buy a pole as well?” asked the man.

  A cackling in the tree above sent Nang reaching for his medallion again. But it was only a pair of mynahs.

  Tua, Pohn-Pohn, and Kanchanok took a narrow path along the ridge and down to a beach on the river. While Pohn-Pohn frolicked in the water, Tua sat on the bank and stared at the sanctuary on the other side.

  They had made it. Pohn-Pohn’s new home was just across the river—and it was beautiful over there. The elephants seemed so kind to one another. And the people seemed so kind to the elephants. Pohn-Pohn would be very happy here. She already loved the river, rolling in the current and blowing spouts with her trunk. Tua smiled. But there was a touch of sadness in her eyes.

  “What is it?” Kanchanok asked, sitting down beside her. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” she sighed. “It’s just that … well … Kanchanok … would you look after Pohn-Pohn for me … when I’m gone?”

  Before he could answer, they heard voices on the river and, shielding their eyes, turned to look upstream.

  A raft was coming around the bend sideways. There was a man on one end stabbing the river with a pole, and a man on the other end shouting instructions and insults. And then the raft began a slow spin, as if caught in a whirlpool.

  After much paddling and stabbing with the pole, the raft corrected itself and was careening downstream nose first.

  Tua sprang to her feet and shouted: “It’s them, Kanchanok! It’s the mahouts!”

  “What mahouts?” Kanchanok asked, leaping up beside her. “Where?”

  Pohn-Pohn was nowhere in sight.

  Nak, who had been urging Nang to give up the pole, turned around to face downstream … when he saw an elephant’s trunk—and then its head—rise up out of the water in front of him. It seemed to be bearing down on him like a wrecking ball.

  “Turn away!” he shouted to Nang. “Turn, turn, turn!”

  Nak began rocking the raft with his feet in an attempt to steer it around the elephant, but succeeded only in breaking its bonds. There were now two rafts, held together by Nak and Nang’s legs. Nak leapt onto one half while Nang leapt onto the other. The two halves parted, taking separate currents around the elephant.

  Pohn-Pohn whirled her trunk around her head and soaked them both as they surfed past, bouncing on the current toward the rapids below.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Mae Noi

  A large floppy hat was watching from the opposite shore. The person sitting under it stood up, lifted the hat in the air, and waved it over her head.

  “What have you got for me today, hoon lai ga?” she shouted across the river.

  “That’s Mae Noi,” Kanchanok said to Tua. “Sometimes I bring her injured animals from the forest.”

  “She’s so little.” Tua shielded her eyes and squinted.

  “She’s bigger than she looks,” he said. Then he shouted to the woman across the river: “What are you going to cook for me today, Little Mother?”

  “
Sticks and rocks and weeds, with coconut milk and red curry paste,” she called back, and giggled at her own joke.

  Pohn-Pohn emerged dripping from the river and approached the little woman on the shore who smelled like an elephant. Mae Noi crouched down and allowed Pohn-Pohn to inspect her with her trunk. Then she reached in her pocket and offered Pohn-Pohn a banana. Pohn-Pohn accepted the gift while Mae Noi petted and cooed over her.

  Just then a sausage-shaped dog, painted brown and white like a pinto, bounded out of the tall grass and tumbled down to the shore to inspect the newcomer. She began weaving around Pohn-Pohn’s legs and sniffing her feet for clues. She counted five toes on the front feet and four toes on the rear. That much was as it should be, at least.

  Pohn-Pohn tossed her trunk between her front legs to say hello, but the little dog yapped at the trunk and darted out of the way. She had not finished her inspections and didn’t like being interrupted. But once her job was completed, she trotted in front of Pohn-Pohn and introduced herself. Then she climbed into Mae Noi’s lap and reported all that she’d learned. She did this by licking Mae Noi’s face, whining, and twirling her stubby tail.

  “Isn’t she gorgeous, Peppy?” Mae Noi gushed.

  Peppy humored Mae Noi, licking her face and whining all the more. Mae Noi had never met an elephant she didn’t think was gorgeous, including cross-eyed Pinkie with the missing tail and pink ears. Mae Noi was a pushover for elephants.

  Tua and Kanchanok emerged from the river and bowed a wai.

  “This is Tua and that’s Pohn-Pohn, Little Mother,” Kanchanok said.

  “Sawatdee kha.” Mae Noi bowed back. “Welcome. Are you hungry? Come,” she said, taking Tua’s hand, “you must tell me all about yourself and Pohn-Pohn.”

  The words began tumbling out of Tua’s mouth as if from the pages of a book.

  Pohn-Pohn fell in step behind them, followed by Kanchanok and Peppy. The little dog wound around Kanchanok’s feet, jumped on his legs, and begged him to tell her all about these strangers. How had he met them? Where did they come from? Were they going to stay at the sanctuary?

  Pohn-Pohn tossed her trunk up and down and from side to side. She could smell the musky scent of elephants. It was in the air and on the ground—it was all around her. She reached out and stroked Tua’s back as if to say, “Can you smell that?”

  Tua reached her hand behind her back and squeezed Pohn-Pohn’s trunk.

  They passed an old matriarch in a mud wallow with big, watery eyes. Her back was covered in a thick cake of dried mud; a wide stripe of wrinkled gray skin ran from her shoulder to her tail; then a dripping layer of bright orange mud coated her belly and legs like fresh paint. She lazily blinked her eyes at Pohn-Pohn, scooped up a trunkful of mud and grass, and tossed it on her head like a bonnet. Pohn-Pohn blinked her eyes and quickly looked away.

  A young elephant with the tips of a new pair of tusks poking out of the corners of his mouth galloped past them just then, flapping his ears and flailing his trunk. Peppy yapped at the elephant for cutting them off. The elephant trumpeted a rude reply over his shoulder, ran up to the platform ahead, then looked back around at Pohn-Pohn and flapped an apology with his ears.

  There were elephants coming to the platform from all directions, some with mahouts and some without. But these mahouts were different from any Pohn-Pohn had ever seen before. They walked alongside the elephants instead of driving them. None of them carried sticks, or chains, or the sharp, hooked ankus.

  On top of the platform, people as busy as ants were sorting boxes of fruit and vegetables, hauling them to the edge, and hand-feeding the elephants pineapples, mangos, bananas, cucumbers, yams, corn, and pieces of pumpkin and watermelon as if they were pampered guests at a resort. The elephants kept coming. And so did the boxes.

  Pohn-Pohn stood back, watching, listening, and smelling. It was a most unusual place.

  “Who are all these people?” asked Tua, as she climbed the platform behind Mae Noi.

  “They’re volunteers from all over the world who have come to work for the elephants. Some are here for the day, and some stay for weeks at a time. We couldn’t get along without them.”

  Tua had never seen farangs like these before. Tanned, dirty, and sweaty, they were all working—even the boys and girls!

  “Volunteers come up from Chiang Mai every day in trucks and vans,” Mae Noi said. “They stop at the markets along the way to collect food for the elephants. It takes a lot of fruit and vegetables to feed this many elephants. We have our own gardens, orchards, and fields, too, so there’s always plenty of work to be done. After the elephants have eaten, we take them to the river for a bath.”

  A pile of fur coats lifted their heads and jumped apart as they approached. Mae Noi crouched down and ruffled the heads and rubbed the bellies of four scruffy dogs.

  “We’re not just a sanctuary for elephants, are we, Shadow?” Mae Noi said to the shiny black dog whose ears she was scratching. “We’ve got dogs and cats and water buffaloes, too. All animals are welcome.”

  The black dog licked Mae Noi’s face and yawned.

  They climbed some stairs and entered an open-aired room with low tables and pillows scattered across the floor. Napping calico cats lay slung over the railings and roof beams like washing hung out to dry.

  “This is where the volunteers eat,” Mae Noi said. “It’s the people’s feeding platform. Would you like something to eat?”

  “Pohn-Pohn!” Tua exclaimed, at the same time that Pohn-Pohn called out to her. She spun around and leapt down the stairs two steps at a time.

  Kanchanok crossed the platform with a branch of bananas balanced on his shoulder. “These are for Pohn-Pohn,” he said.

  “Thank you, Kanchanok.”

  Pohn-Pohn was waiting at the bottom of the steps, and Tua fell into the embrace of her outstretched trunk.

  “I didn’t leave you, Pohn-Pohn. I’ll never leave you.”

  A farang girl and a Thai boy followed Kanchanok off the platform with a box of mangos between them. The girl had long, fine hair the color of corn silk.

  “Sawatdee kha,” she said, bowing a wai and handing Pohn-Pohn a mango. “What’s her name?” the girl asked Tua in Thai.

  “You speak Thai?” Tua couldn’t believe her ears.

  “So do you,” laughed the girl.

  “But I am Thai,” Tua said.

  “I’m Swedish,” said the girl. “My name is Nikky, and that’s Kit,” she pointed to the boy standing behind a box of mangos with his arm draped around Kanchanok’s shoulder. “He’s Thai, like you.”

  “Khrap,” Kit grinned.

  “Sawatdee kha.” Tua bowed a wai.

  “What’s the elephant’s name?” Nikky asked a second time. “She’s so sweet.”

  Tua shook off her disbelief. “Pohn-Pohn. And I’m Tua.”

  “My mother is an elephant doctor,” Nikky said, handing Pohn-Pohn another mango. “And Kit’s father is a mahout.”

  “My mother is the best waitress in Chiang Mai,” Tua said. “And my auntie is an actress.”

  “I’m a Thai dancer,” Nikky said, and she immediately lifted her arms, curled back her fingers, tilted her head, and bent her knees.

  She was so convincing that Tua could almost imagine her dressed in the costume and makeup. But before she had an opportunity to compliment Nikky, Mae Noi called down from the platform.

  “Your lunch is ready in the dining area. Nikky, Kit, Kanchanok, away you go. Tua, this is for you.”

  “Khawp khun kha,” Tua bowed.

  And while Mae Noi took over the job of feeding Pohn-Pohn, Tua sat down in the grass and began eating the lovely massaman curry.

  “How is it?” Mae Noi asked.

  “Aroy mak mak,” Tua said between spoonfuls. Then she swallowed and said, “She speaks Thai.”

  “Nikky, you mean?”

  Tua nodded.

  “She’s been here a long time,” Mae Noi said. “Almost four years now. She goes to the village school wit
h Kit.”

  “Why doesn’t Kanchanok go to the village school?”

  “I’m working on that,” Mae Noi said. “In the meantime, why don’t you tell me a bit more about these two mahouts.”

  “Will Pohn-Pohn be able to stay at the sanctuary?”

  “I hope so,” said Mae Noi. “But elephants are worth a great deal of money. I don’t think they will give up so easily.”

  “But they can’t take her away, can they?”

  “Elephants are considered property in a court of law, Tua. If they have a legal claim on Pohn-Pohn, I’m afraid there won’t be much we can do.”

  “Oh.” Tua looked at Pohn-Pohn, and her eyes began to water. “I thought she’d be safe here.”

  “We’ll do everything we possibly can. I promise. Now eat your curry.”

  As hungry as Tua felt, she found that she could not swallow another bite. It was as if a door had closed in her throat.

  “Who do we have here?” called a voice from across the yard.

  Tua looked up, put down her bowl, and wiped her watery eyes.

  A tall, thin woman with long blond curls walked up to Pohn-Pohn and offered her a banana. After Pohn-Pohn had smelled her all over, the woman began an inspection of her own.

  “This is Pohn-Pohn and Tua,” Mae Noi said. “Tua, this is Margareta, Nikky’s mother.”

  “Sawatdee kha, Tua,” Margareta said.

  “Kha.” Tua bowed a wai.

  “How does she look?” asked Mae Noi.

  “She’s a bit underweight. I see some sores around her neck and leg, but they’ll heal quickly enough. And she has scars around the insides of her ears, but they’ve completely healed. I don’t think it damaged her hearing at all. She must have been very young when she was broken in. Those scars on her hip are newer, probably from a machete. I would say she’s remarkably healthy and alert. I’ll take some tests after she settles in a bit—if that’s all right with you, Tua?”

  “What kind of tests?”

  “Blood, urine, and stool. And I’ll give her a couple of vaccinations as well. You’ll let me know when you think she’s ready?”