The Elephants in My Backyard

by Rajiv Surendra

  Every lesson felt like a purification ceremony, a human sacrifice almost. “Here we are again,” I’d say to myself as I unzipped my down-filled parka, pulled off my tuque and mitts (hand-knitted using homespun yarn from Black Creek, dyed with apple bark from the orchard). “You will remain dignified as you descend into the sacred waters . . .” I’d continue. Sweater off. Shirt unbuttoned. “And the gods will praise your efforts . . .” T-shirt off, then jeans. “You can do it, putcha’ back into it . . .” Ice Cube’s wise words of wisdom (sarcasm) echoed in my head. Long johns off, “ . . . you can do it, putcha’ ass into it!” Tighty whities—off—oh, hey Willy! Wiggle-wiggle-shimmy-shimmy, and the Speedos shorts were on. Red flip-flops on, and then the gauntlet walk through the changing room before walking up the sixteen concrete stairs to the second floor where the pool was, turning the corner and—shiver. Oh, God! The cold winter breeze blowing through the corridor as an exterior door opened nearby. Then, at the edge of the pool. Towel down, slippers off, and into the blue depths.

  Meghan insisted that I spend as much time in the pool as possible, even outside of our swimming classes, so I began attending one of the three scheduled lane swims that took place daily, whenever I had a significant chunk of time between my lectures. Lane swims were much more intimidating than my official lessons, not just because I no longer had the safety of Meghan to guide and protect me, but everyone there appeared to be completely competent swimmers, and I worried that I’d just get in their way. No matter, I thought with perseverance, I must soldier through it.

  As I showered in the locker room before one of my early attempts at lane swim, I was faced with yet another reason to dread jumping into the pool carefree. I tried my best to not notice the obese old man to my left, probably a retired geology professor, his ginormous belly spilling over his Speedos, the black fabric stretched beyond its limits. As he lethargically turned from front to back under the shower spout, making no effort at all to lift his huge hippolike arms to clean under them, I wondered whether he ever actually washed between the folds of his fatty belly, the folds of his fatty thighs or, worst of all, the myriad folds that made up his massive buttocks, the suffocating sweat pockets which probably housed a multitude of old, caked-on pieces of festering fecal matter that he was never able to reach. That’s why he swims, I concluded. He just plunges into the pool and all those fat folds effortlessly float apart . . . and those microscopic bits of poo slowly soak up the chlorinated water and then, when fully saturated, gradually release themselves from his butt folds, floating off into the pool. He probably stands in the corner, I imagined, and discreetly pulls down his Speedos—releasing any constrained fat folds and allowing the water to come in contact with every last bit of butt cheek.

  I turned away, only to notice the man to my right, another distinguished U of T alumnus, no doubt—an eighty-year-old that looked like he had just returned from Auschwitz, pure skin and bones in a light and airy pair of loose, neon orange swimming shorts. At least this one was lifting his arms and rubbing his torso with a green bar of soap, but then, as he turned his face away from me and revealed his back, I was horrified to see that it was completely covered in peeling skin—eczema wounds that were blistering and filled with puss, oozing out as the warm water rippled and cascaded down his bumpy lesions. Great. The bits of microscopic poo in the water could be joined by thin flakes of sloughing skin and puss.

  I closed my eyes and pictured two veteran tailors at Henry Poole and Co. on Savile Row in London, one kneeling and one standing at my shoulder, making the final adjustments on the tuxedo that I’d be wearing to the Oscars. Hanging from the green-velvet-covered walls were the framed royal warrants they had been issued from their patrons over the previous two hundred years, the crown heads of Europe and various maharajahs and emperors from the colonies. Refueled with a sense of purpose, a reminder of why I had to plunge into a pool of heavily chlorinated microscopic unmentionables, I opened my eyes and returned to reality, accepting my plight.

  My swimming lessons with Meghan took place in the smaller, more intimate twenty-five-yard pool on the other side of the Athletic Center, but lane swims were held in this giant ocean of a pool, Olympic-sized for swimmers who were actually training with the Olympics in mind. This fact was not lost on me, and no, it did not serve as inspiration, but had the complete opposite effect—embarrassment that these future Olympians, jumping off the numbered platforms and effortlessly flying through the water, had to share their second home with the likes of me. I hurried out of the changing room, pushing through a heavy set of double doors, the threshold into the sanctum sanctorum, the natatorium. I was hit in the face with the strong smell of chlorine and the rhythmic echo of arms piercing the surface of the water from dozens of swimmers pulling stroke after stroke in the cavernous space, ca-chick, ca-chick, ca-chick. The floor of the pool was divided into eight lanes by lines made up of black floor tiles that sat in contrast to the white ones. In the shallower end, blue floor tiles spelled out “Toronto” in huge capital letters. Blue and white bunting hung across the width of the pool at four intervals.

  I was doing my best to focus on my swimming and not the dozens of merpeople who looked perfectly at home in the pool. I pulled my goggles down, slipped my flip-flops off, and went to the edge of the shallow end, conjuring up positive thoughts as I readied myself to jump in, when there, beside me, was an Asian man in his forties. No potential forms of pool contamination from this man, I surmised, looking him over briefly. As I tipped my chin into my chest, preparing to jump in, I noticed his feet. His toenails were hideously long, thick, yellowing, and curving over the edge of his toes, and in the corners of his nails were darkened gray areas—toenail fungus, no doubt. Festering in his warm, dark, humid socks, living in the crevices of his toenails, this cheese bacteria was happy to hide out and multiply, growing a nice thick rind until—wham!—his feet hit the water of the pool and then, as his legs languidly undulated in the flutter kick and his pointed toes helped to propel him forward, the water pressure would push its way into every nook and crevice of his body, where no toe fungus was safe. A string quartet could be heard harmoniously playing out a classical waltz as the cheese bacteria slivered out of the corners of his toes and joined the rest of the tiny demons in the water—the poo and the dry, dead skin.

  Welcome to lane swim at the University of Toronto.

  “You just have to relax! Chill the fuck out. You need to be relaxed when you’re swimming,” Laura insisted as she took a modern carton of whipping cream out of her wicker basket. I was back at school full-time, but working at the village on weekends, for extra cash.

  “I’m trying to relax! But the more everyone keeps telling me to relax, the more nervous I get!” I was working “relief” that day—delivering firewood, kindling, and buckets of water to all the buildings. We were alone in Second House.

  My arms were piled high with heavy split maple logs. I was restocking Laura’s supply of firewood for the day, going back and forth between my wheelbarrow outside the front door and the little brick alcove in the kitchen’s fireplace. The leaves had fallen off all of the trees and I welcomed the warmth of my winter costume—thick trousers made from brown woolen tweed with a matching vest and jacket, with real horn buttons. On my head was a moss green bowler hat with a feather in it. “It’s nerve-racking,” I sighed. “I didn’t think learning how to swim was going to be so hard.”

  Laura emptied the cream into a ceramic crock that served as a butter churn. “It’s because you’re an adult—you’re overthinking it. You should be having fun. Kids don’t think about it at all, they just jump in and play, and that’s usually how they learn. It’s how I learned. My sisters and I grew up by a big lake and I can’t even remember not knowing how to swim. Swimming is supposed to be fun, Rajee; don’t make it such a big deal. Just learn to laugh at yourself and have fun,” she said as she put the empty carton back in her basket, covering it with a piece of striped cotton cloth. It was a strict rule that visitors were not
to see any traces of the modern world in our buildings.

  The brisk morning air was infiltrated by the sound of an approaching school group—kids laughing and talking excitedly, and it got louder by the second.

  I pulled my antique pocket watch out of my vest. Nine fifty-five.

  The school groups had prescheduled “productions” in various buildings, where they got the chance to see and take part in a task that was specific to the building. In Second House, the production was butter churning. I spotted the approaching group, headed by a guide named Ian. He was always friendly and polite but had that weird uncle vibe. Maybe it was his penetrating gaze, or the matter-of-fact monotone in which he dictated everything—he sounded like an auctioneer from the backwoods. Today he had his pristine white hair slicked right back, and was wearing a navy blue parka with a pair of pressed chinos as he escorted about twenty third-graders into the kitchen of Second House. Laura had cleared the giant pine table in the middle of the room for the demonstration.

  “Now, boys and girls,” Ian began, “Mrs. Stong here has set up the butter churn and is ready to make some butter. Can anyone tell me what animal on the farm gives us what we need to make butter?”

  A freckled third-grade hand shot up into the air. “A cow!”

  “That’s right,” Ian continued. “And what comes out of the cow that we use to make butter?”

  Another polite arm in the air before “milk!” was heard.

  “Correct,” Ian said, rubbing his palms together. “You milk the cow, and the cream separates from the milk and floats to the top of the pail. Then the little boys and girls would help their mother out by skimming off the cream and putting it into this here butter churn; isn’t that right, Mrs. Stong?” A huge phony grin spread across Ian’s face and his bulging eyes were magnified by his thin-framed glasses as he turned to Laura, who obligingly nodded back.

  “Yeah, sure,” she confirmed,. I could tell she couldn’t wait to get this over with. It wasn’t the actual butter churning she hated, but the phony show the guides would rope her into, calling her “Mrs. Stong” or, the title she despised most of all, “the Mommy.”

  “Now, Mrs. Stong, will you please show us the motion that we use to churn the cream into butter?”

  A wooden lid was placed on top of the churn. The lid had a round hole in its center, from which a long wooden dowel protruded. This was the handle of the dasher, at the bottom of which (now immersed in the cream) was a cross-shaped wooden piece. Laura grasped the long wooden dowel with both hands, lifted it up a few inches, and then pushed it back down quickly. She repeated this motion a few times.

  “See, boys and girls?” Ian whispered, “This is how we churn butter! It goes from cream, to whipped cream, and then from whipped cream to butter! Now, which one of you would like to help Mrs. Stong churn her cream into butter?”

  Dozens of scrawny arms frantically sprung into the air, jittering. Ian picked a little Korean boy, all smiles as he made his way over to Laura and grasped the handle of the churn, at the very top. Laura silently guided his hands lower on the dash, giving him a better grip. The others would not be left out, Ian assured; they would assist by chanting a rhyme that was traditionally recited as the children would churn butter, “to make the job a little more fun, and keep the rhythm going,” Ian added. “You’re going to start pumping the churn,” Ian instructed the little Korean boy, “and I’m going to say the rhyme. Then, boys and girls, I want you all to join in quietly. We’ll get faster and faster as the cream turns into butter! Ready?” he asked to the room full of eager and excited faces.

  Laura subtly turned to me stacking wood by the fireplace and we exchanged a glance. Then the kid started pumping the churn, up and down, up and down.

  And then Ian softly began the rhyme in a whisper, his knees gently bouncing in tempo, “Come, butter, come! Come, butter, come! Johnny’s at the garden gate, waiting for his Johnny cake. Come butter, come!”

  As the cream thickened in the churn, the pumping became more exhausting, and every so often Laura reached in to help the boy with the churning. And with each sequence of the rhyme, more and more kids joined in, excitedly whispering while following Ian’s movements, bouncing up and down on their knees, “Come, butter, come! Come, butter, come! Johnny’s at the garden gate, waiting for his Johnny cake. Come, butter, come!”

  Oh, God, I thought to myself, surely there must be another rhyme we could be using for this. The chanting was no longer a whisper. “Come butter, come! Come butter, come! Johnny’s at the garden gate, waiting for his Johnny cake. Come, butter, come!” the kids were yelling, prompted by Ian, as the little Korean boy grasped the dasher with both hands, biting his bottom lip as he focused on his pumping, which now required his determined effort as the whipped cream thickened. “Come butter, come! Come butter, come! Johnny’s at the garden gate, waiting for his —”

  At that very moment, that miraculous moment when the fat solids of the cream separate and congeal, creating rich golden butter lying in a pool of milky, chunky white buttermilk at the bottom of the churn, the boy gave one final spirited hard and heartfelt pump . . . and if we could see the wooden cross at the bottom of the churn, in slow motion, we would see that it rose up above the buttery mess and then, smack! It hit the butter solids with an exhaustive squish, which violently shot the lumpy white buttermilk up the sides of the churn, erupting through the tiny gap of space between the dash handle and the hole in the lid and up, up, up into the air . . . and then . . . well . . .

  The boy stopped his pumping. The room was quiet. Save for the clack, clack as I continued to stack firewood in the corner. The little Korean boy turned to Laura, looking up at her, “Oh, nooooo . . .” he moaned, “I got it all over your face . . .”

  I dropped the log I was holding with a thud and whipped my head around just in time to catch Laura throwing both arms into the air and shaking her head.

  “I can’t deal with this!” she cried, running out the front door of the house. I jumped up from my task and flew to the door, holding the doorframe with both hands as I called out after her, “But Mrs. Stong, it’s supposed to be fun!”

  From: yann_martel1963@yahoo.com

  To: rajivsca@yahoo.ca

  Subject: RE: Progress

  Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2006 22:42:48

  Dear Rajiv,

  Good to hear from you. Happy New Year to you, your family, and the elephants in your backyard!

  As for the movie, I was told that the studio is expecting a draft screenplay some time in March, and if they like it and things proceed normally, shooting should start this summer, at the Fox studio in Baja California and in India.

  I wish you the best of luck with your casting hopes, but I’m afraid it will be immaterial. Jeunet and I have communicated back and forth about three times and in his politeness he’s been unfailing, in his opinion of the book glowing, and in keeping the door closed firm. Trust me, he told me. Which I do. But it does mean that aside from making a few recommendations early on, which he said he would consider, I’m playing no role at all in the making of the movie. So it’s in the hands of Vishnu and Hollywood. I imagine your efforts will be rewarded, if not with this movie, then in another. India’s place on the map is increasing in size every passing year, politically, economically and culturally. Look at how Bollywood movies are becoming mainstream.

  Stay well,

  Yann

  9.

  “YOU BASTARD! WITHOUT me, you wouldn’t even be in this world!” My dad was drunk and livid. I was fourteen and, in a moment of desperation, I had come between Ma and my dad. She was usually insistent on handling him by herself, sending my sisters and me up to our rooms when things started getting ugly, but that night I ignored her protests. The three of us were in the hallway, at the foot of the staircase by the front door.

  “I never asked to be here! You think I wanted this, huh? Do you think if I had the choice I’d want to be here, putting up with your crap? I hate you!”

  “Mahan, stop!�
�� Ma was trying to pull me back, “Enough! He’ll hit you.”

  “Get out!” my dad boomed, both his arms raised over me, “get out of this house now!”

  “You hit me, and I’m calling the police, you asshole, I swear to God—”

  “Mahan, stop! Enough, go to your room!” Ma was now between me and my dad.

  “Get out! This is my house, get out of here, you bastard!”

  “Eyy!” Ma was screaming at the top of her lungs, “You shut up! You get out! You leave! Don’t you dare tell him to go.”

  Ma and my dad looked like two wild animals willing to fight to the death. My dad dropped his arms, grabbed his car keys, and slammed the front door on his way out.

  The air was still charged with crackling sparks. Ma turned to me, breathing heavily. “Are you hungry darling? Come, I’ll make you something.”

  “No, Ma.” I went up to my room, shut my door, and lay on my bed, staring up at the ceiling. I wanted my dad gone, for good. I wished, with every ounce of my being, that he would just die.

  The phone rang a few hours later and Ma answered. It was a police officer. My dad had hit a car.

  I got my wish, I thought. He’s dead. Finally.

  No one was hurt, Ma said, but the officer confirmed that the car was registered under Ma’s name, and then told her she could be held accountable for the damages. My dad went to jail for the night and his brother bailed him out.

  This was the end, Ma said after hanging up the phone. It was over, and this time, I really believed her.

  The next two weeks were quiet at home—my dad had not returned since the blowup. He was staying at his brother’s house. He had never stayed away from home for so long and, to Ma’s relief, he had made no indication of coming back to try and patch things up. By the end of the second week, Ma had put the house up for sale and was looking for a smaller one, a house she could afford with her single income. My sisters and I collectively felt like we were finally free to start living our lives, the right way.