The Masterwork of a Painting Elephant

by Michelle Cuevas

  And then she met Papa. I bet when he saw her for the first time he thought she was lovely. If I could just talk to him now, he would say things like “If everyone else thinks something is ugly, but you think it’s beautiful, then that’s a sure symptom of true love.”

  I imagine that in the circus Papa wore a frog suit and was known as the Frog Swallower, on account of his near-perfect control over his gastrointestinal system. Here’s what he would do: He would drink huge amounts of water, then swallow live frogs, salamanders, and even small snakes. Minutes later he would spew them forth, still very much alive and wriggling. Mama probably fell in love with how kind he was to things—inside and out. She knew if he was that gentle in his stomach, he must be even more gentle in his heart.

  And so I figured it out: my parents had left me as a baby so they could run off with a circus, and once again perform as the Frog Swallower and the Bearded Lady. Sometimes I dreamed that they came back for me, and that I joined the circus too. I would stand on Birch’s back and we would zip around the center ring. Everyone would cheer and yell, “Look at that boy! Look how brave!” The only other thing I ever dreamed was that I could hear my mama crying softly in the next room, but when I awoke, the only sound was Birch’s breathing. Can you even imagine that? Missing someone so much you would give anything just to hear her cry again?

  FIVE

  A Painting Elephant

  “Listen,” I said to Birch one night as the sky thickened with black-blue darkness. “Can you hear all the animals?” There were sounds of crickets, frogs, and cicadas in the trees. There was a certain rhythm to the song, caused by each creature waiting for a pause to sing. “I can hear things in the pauses too.”

  “Such as?” Birch asked.

  “Oh, well, the moon for example.”

  “You were listening to the moon? Well, those ears of yours are special, aren’t they?”

  “Conversing, actually,” I replied. “The moon was talking about how he’s sick of his literary work, what with all his appearances in stories. Tired of being full of cheese and drawing werewolves near. But then I asked him, ‘What would you do if we didn’t need you? If we told you we were fine with just our lamps and light-up gear?’ The moon agreed he’d miss his career.”

  We sat there in the quiet. The mosquitoes nibbled on my skin, reminding me where the world ends and I begin. “Know what else I asked the moon?” I said to Birch. “I asked him if maybe, while he’s already up there in the sky, he can find my family, if they’re still alive.”

  “Well, that seems like a reasonable enough request,” Birch replied.

  “Do you think Mama and Papa remember me?” I asked.

  “I know they do,” Birch said. “I know because I loved someone and lost someone once too,” he continued. “Love is like rain. I remember how it fell down on my back, the water spraying off me like the sparks of a firecracker. I felt every raindrop. I felt the oceans where they had been, the clouds they flew from, and the adventures they had in front of them—adventures on petals of flowers, on wings of bees, or in the dark soil. In the rain, I was flawless and wild with the skies falling over me like gray and blue silk. I didn’t ever want to come in out of that rain.”

  My heart hurt. Of course, I didn’t need to say this to Birch for him to know what I was thinking. After so many years of constant togetherness, my eyes were Birch’s, and his mine. Trunk and nose were interchangeable, and we breathed the same breath. Even our movements came together like a flock of geese changing direction, first in our minds, then in the air. So, without a word being spoken, Birch always knew when I was upset. He’d reach his trunk over his head, wrap it around me, and stay like that until I drifted off to sleep.

  * * *

  After tucking me in, Birch would quietly get out the art kit he’d bought at a secondhand store. He’d set up his easel and lay his tubes of oil paint out in specific rainbow order: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. He’d squeeze some of the blue on a palette and then, gripping a paintbrush in his trunk, cover the soft bristles with deep color. Then he’d take a breath, whispering, “This is my favorite part,” and make the first stroke on a pure white canvas.

  Since Birch was an animal and part of nature, he created art the way nature creates it. Nature’s art is the spider’s web or the nest of a bird with twigs layered with precision, tied together with a strand of a girl’s silky hair; a silkworm’s cocoon, spun like sugar, a cotton-candy delicacy; the tapping of a light-drunk moth against a screen door. It’s the leaves of fall stained scarlet and, in turn, their reflection rendering a lake scarlet as well; a school of silver fish darting together or the way a savannah of grass and a herd of bison and a blue sky can create stripes of color on a horizon.

  That night Birch painted a picture of a late summer evening using all the colors on his palette. He painted an orange sky pouring buckets of light onto a field that stretched back to a black fringe of forest. He painted a river reflecting the sky, a river that was silent and always moving toward the ocean, toward a place where we could rediscover long-lost love. He painted birds in a tree by the riverbank, and imagined they were speaking to the river and singing to the grasses. If the song was truly beautiful, Birch imagined that everything was singing together with those birds—the dirt, the mountains, and the leaves—and the dreams of things that can’t sing could be heard in the things that can.

  SIX

  Scientific Names and Other Zoological Facts

  “Well, you have to start the fifth grade tomorrow, Pigeon,” Birch said one day, as if I needed a haircut or new underpants.

  “You’re joking, right?” I replied.

  “Not at all,” Birch said. “Homeschooling is over. I’ve taught you what I know.”

  The night before I was to start school, lying on Birch’s back, I decided to count the stars. But the stars wouldn’t come out to be counted, so I decided to count the holes they left. I remembered the time I had seen a shooting star, and for some reason it made my heart feel sad. Lots of people think they’re beautiful, but I thought about how the star had lived in the sky, and now it was forced to leave the world it had known for somewhere else. A falling star must have far to fall, and probably a lot of bumps, bruises, and scars when it’s all said and done.

  The next morning Birch handed me freshly pressed pants and a new collared shirt and I got dressed standing on his back. Birch used his trunk to comb my hair over to the side.

  “I look like a fool,” I told him.

  “You look like a gentleman,” Birch said, adjusting the large striped tie he’d placed around his own neck. “I want us both to look presentable. You only get one chance to make a first impression.”

  “The impression we’re making is that we dress like total fools,” I replied.

  Soon the minibus pulled up. There were already about five children inside, and the driver just stared at us with her face scrunched up tight like she was trying to do long division in her head.

  “My name is Pigeon Jones,” I said. “I live on the back of this elephant named Birch. Today is my first day of fifth grade.”

  The driver stared with her mouth agape. “That elephant you’re riding won’t fit on this bus, boy,” she said, wiping her brow with a handkerchief.

  “He isn’t going to fit in a classroom neither,” said a thin boy with no front teeth. His two friends laughed and held their hands up to their ears. “You look like an elephant too with those big ears,” one said.

  “I suppose,” the driver said, “you and your elephant—”

  “Birch. His name is Birch,” I interrupted.

  “All right, I suppose you and Birch can walk along beside the bus until we get to school. That way you won’t get lost.” And that’s just what we did. As we walked along, I noticed I was riding next to a window. Through it I could see a girl in a polka-dot dress reading a book and stealing glances at Birch.

  “Don’t you get motion sickness if you read while someone is driving?” I asked
her. “I sure do.”

  She stared in my direction. “When are you ever in a car if you live on the back of an Elephas maximus indicus?”

  “Well, that’s what I meant. I can only read if Birch isn’t walking.” I scratched my head. “Hey, what did you call Birch? An Ela-maxa-whata?”

  “Elephas maximus indicus. It’s his scientific name.” She held up the book she was reading, and it had the title Scientific Names and Other Zoological Facts on the front.

  “I want to be a zoologist,” she said.

  “What does a zoologist do, exactly?” I asked. She had a lonesome look about her, but her eyes glittered just a little when she started to answer.

  “Oh, being a zoologist is the best job there is. You get to be around animals all day long. Wild animals like zebras and lions. Animals that you wouldn’t normally get to go near, but they let you, because you’re a zoologist and wild animals know to trust zoologists. That’s just part of their instincts.”

  “Wow, you sure are smart. Maybe I’d like to be a zoologist,” I said.

  “You can’t be a zoologist from the back of an elephant,” the girl replied. “Unless you came down, of course.”

  “Oh, I never leave Birch’s back. I don’t know why I ever would. So,” I continued, “if you want to be a zoologist, you must be thrilled to see a real elephant.” I patted Birch and flashed her a winning smile.

  She blushed as red as the polka dots on her dress. “Maybe a tad excited,” she said. “Everyone calls me Darling, by the way. Darling Clementine, if you were wondering.”

  “Of course,” I said, speaking quickly. “What a swell name. Boy-oh-boy. This town is so magical, don’t you think? I never noticed before.”

  She rolled her eyes and was so cute, it felt like someone had reached inside me and pulled my stomach inside out like a sock.

  I, Pigeon Jones, had fallen in love.

  SEVEN

  The Elephant (Not Quite) in the Room

  My teacher seemed nice enough, except he spat whenever he said the letter P. As luck would have it, my classroom was on the first floor. This was lucky because it allowed Birch to stand outside the open window, and I was able to stay on his back but still see and hear the teacher. It also helped me avoid being spat upon every time the teacher said “Pigeon.” However, I seemed to be the only one following along with the lesson. None of the students were interested in Mr. Turnipseed’s lecture on Shakespeare—they all seemed more interested in the big white elephant in the room. Well, not in the room. The big white elephant right outside the room.

  “Mr. Turnipseed,” a young boy in overalls said without raising his hand. “Were there any elephants in Shakespeare’s plays?” The students laughed. “Maybe Juliet talked to Romeo from the back of an elephant instead of a balcony!”

  “Mr. Turnipseed, can you speak up a bit?” a second boy asked. “I can’t hear you with my normal-sized ears.”

  “Mr. Turnipseed.” A girl with very thick glasses raised her hand. “Do elephants bite? They have such big, scary teeth.” The class erupted into laughter. Darling Clementine turned around and gave me a look of what could only be described as pity.

  “Children, please purify the things you’re pondering. I am preaching about Shakespeare here, about proud Romeo and purest Juliet, the most passionate of passionate productions. I don’t want to hear another peep,” Mr. Turnipseed said, turning back to his lesson. The unfortunate boy in the seat closest to the board took off his glasses and cleaned away the spittle on them with his shirtsleeve.

  “Those are not teeth.”

  Mr. Turnipseed whirled back around. “Who pronounced that peep?” he bellowed.

  “They’re tusks,” replied Darling Clementine. “Not teeth.”

  “That’s it, young lady!” Mr. Turnipseed said, pointing. “That was a peep! Preposterous, pointed peeping. You have officially lost your lunchtime privileges.”

  When lunchtime came, I sat on Birch’s back and watched the other boys play baseball in the field next to the school. I wanted to play, but there’s no position for a boy who always stays on the back of an elephant. All I wanted to think about, to be honest, was Darling Clementine and how she had defended Birch to the other students. I decided this quality was one I liked in a woman.

  “Birch,” I said, “go over to that water fountain.” We marched over to the drinking fountain and Birch sucked up a trunk full of water. “Now go stand next to Mr. Turnipseed’s classroom and let’s make it rain.”

  And that’s just what we did. Standing beside the classroom window, Birch sprayed water up in the air.

  “Oh dear,” Mr. Turnipseed shouted. “It’s raining! I need to pop out and roll up my car windows before my perfect leather interior is poured upon.” He looked at Darling sitting in detention. “You better proceed out to recess where the chaperone on duty can properly pay attention to you.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Darling with a smile.

  Once she got outside, Darling ran up to thank us, but the water coming from Birch’s trunk poured down on her. “Oh no! You got my dress all rained on,” she yelled.

  There’s music in a girl’s hair, in the shaking out of water. There are wind chimes in it, tiny, tinkling echoes of the sound you can hear carried by a breeze sometimes. Droplets leaped from her hair, shimmering; one landed on my lip. Without taking my eyes off her, I licked it away, and it tasted like heaven. Darling pretended to be disgusted about being wet, disgusted by the recklessness of water, the way that girls sometimes do. But no matter how hard she was working not to smile, I saw a twinkle in her eyes and knew she had secretly enjoyed it. Oh, who knew a girl’s hair could have so much to say, or even tongue to say it?

  EIGHT

  Red Balloons

  “Birch. Birch, are you awake?” I asked that night when I was supposed to be asleep.

  “I am now,” he replied.

  “Birch, tell me about the time you were in love,” I said, thinking of the droplet of water from Darling’s hair that had landed on my lip.

  We sat there for a moment listening to the crickets crick.

  “I fell in love with an acrobat when I worked for the circus,” Birch said. “She joined a few years after I did. Her name was Dahlia, like the flower, like the color red. We performed an act together where she would do flips and handstands on my back. She was so beautiful. She would wear outfits in bright orange and red with sparkles all over them and feathers in her hair. She looked like a great flaming phoenix rising from the ashes on my back as I trotted around the ring.”

  “Did she love you too?”

  “It’s hard to say,” Birch replied. “It’s hard to say with love. But I do remember once she came by to say good night and she gave me a bag of peanuts. And do you know what she said? She said, ‘I brought you these because I like seeing you happy.’ It was the most romantic moment of my entire life.”

  I thought about the girl on Birch’s back, her hands planted on his shoulders, her legs in the air together, then split apart, her toes pointed like a ballerina’s. It must have been hard to keep her balance. She must have really trusted Birch.

  “Then one day they added a new trick to our act,” Birch whispered. “She would stand on my back, and I’d pick up speed and then WHOOSH! Another acrobat would sweep down from the sky on a swing and lift her off my back. They’d do their tumbling routine with me standing below watching. It was a very popular act, but I hated it.”

  “Why?”

  “Every time she was lifted away, it felt like a part of me was being taken. I’d look up and she would get smaller and smaller like a red balloon, its string accidentally let loose from a child’s hand, floating higher and higher.”

  I laid my head on Birch’s shoulders and let my body rise and fall with his breath. “That’s the thing,” Birch said, “about balloons. Airy and light, but don’t attach anything to one that you ever want to see again.” Birch wiped a tear from his eye with his trunk. “Never get attached to someone, Pigeon. You’ll s
pend the rest of your days waiting for that person to come back, or worse, waiting for yourself to come back. Never get attached to beauty. Never get attached to your own beauty. To pictures of beauty. The cities you saw will never be the same; the streets will grow old as well, the neighbors turning gray in their houses. Don’t get attached to hope. I tell you there’s no ship coming. I tell you there’s no road away from this place where we stand.”

  We sat together, and finally I asked, “You don’t really believe any of that, do you?” In reply, Birch reached over and lifted the cloth that covered his canvases. As he turned several of them around, I saw that they were all paintings of a great orange and red bird of paradise, a beautiful creature, painted with tiny bristled brushes and so detailed the feathers looked real. I imagined if I put my palms flat against those birds, I would feel heat radiating from their bodies.

  “She fell in love with the other acrobat,” Birch said. “They ran off together to Paris and I’ve never seen her since. I guess that’s not true, because I see her everywhere. When I see goldenrod dancing in the wind in summertime, or when I see a firefly blink on and off like a lighthouse over the ocean, or when I see moonlight streaking the wing of a bird.”

  “Where do they go, Birch?”

  “Where does what go, Pigeon?” Birch said, sounding sleepy.

  “All those feelings that you had for her. I mean, they came out of you, and then they went out into the world. What happened to them? They can’t just disappear.”