An Inconvenient Elephant (13 page)

I WASN'T SURE IF THE FULL MOON WAS ALIGNING
with the devil and the entire universe was conspiring to break my spirit, but the next three days were a study in domestic and social torture.

Diamond had accidentally started a fire in the toaster oven, trying to dry out the cheroots she had accidentally laundered while she was washing her summer safari outfits before packing them away. Then she accidentally vacuumed up a thick wool sock that had been lost under her bed, thereby clogging up the vacuum hose and causing the motor to whine at a high-pitched strain until it burned out. As an act of contrition, she whipped up a hearty pancake breakfast, which would have actually been successful had she not accidentally dropped the hand mixer and spattered the kitchen ceiling with thick, doughy, blueberry-filled stalactites.

“Forget breakfast. I'm going to the barn,” I finally told her. “I'll pick up something on the way.”

“I'm coming with you,” Diamond volunteered. “I need a break from housework.”

 

Richie was waiting for us in Mrs. Wycliff's kitchen, an array of papers across the kitchen table. Mrs. Wycliff waved cheerfully, then returned to concentrate on her bowl of oatmeal.

“I'll make us coffee,” Diamond said, pulling out a saucepan and a bag of ground coffee. She dumped the coffee into the pot, filled it with water, sloshed it onto the stove and set the flame high. Richie watched her with his usual trepidation, then sat down at the table. I passed him the box of donuts after taking one for myself.

“You know, Neelie,” he began, “I think you bit off more than you can chew.”

I looked down at my donut to protest. “But it was only a small bite.”

“I mean Tusker,” he said. “I want you to know I'm totally on board with you saving him, but you're talking a lot of money.”

I gave a hollow laugh. “You got any loose change?”

Richie put his hand into his pants pocket and pulled it inside out. “Sorry.”

Diamond set out four mugs and filled each with slow-moving, tarry black coffee, and sat down to listen.

“You have any whiskey for this coffee?” Mrs. Wycliff asked Diamond, who shook her head. “Try the sideboard in the dining room.” Diamond left to check.

“First of all,” Richie started, “what did Tom say to you?”

I tried to concentrate on Tom's exact words, but like the donut I was eating, there was a hole somewhere in the middle of the conversation. “He said that he wasn't going to help me,” I said. “He told me to stay out of things.” I diplomatically left out the part where he called me a fool, an idiot, and stupid. I may have gotten the order wrong.

“Well, he may not want you to stay out of things anymore,” Richie said. “I leave in another two weeks, and someone has to manage this place, so I pushed for you and Diamond and salaries for both of you. He finally admitted that it might not be a bad idea. He's just not sure you know what it entails.” He pushed a few papers in front of me that were covered in numbers. “So, I'm going to give you a crash course.”

“Why didn't he tell me himself?”

“Are you going to say no because he asked me to ask you?” Richie sounded exasperated. “I got the feeling that maybe you and he were having trouble holding a civil conversation.”

“Only with each other,” I replied, picking up the sheet of paper he pushed at me and glancing at it. It was the budget for the sanctuary.

“The work itself is doable,” Richie began explaining. “I ran this place pretty much okay. There's Ignacio—he's been working here for years. And the volunteers, though they can be sporadic.”

“This looks so complicated,” I whined, looking at columns and rows of numbers. “Budgets and workers and numbers, oh my.”

“And you're the one who wants to handle thirty-five thousand dollars?” He slid another set of papers across the
table. I sighed and glanced at the lists of animal feed. Diamond returned with a bottle of Tyrconnell and poured a healthy dollop into Mrs. Wycliff's coffee. “Anyone else need a slug?” she asked. I held out my cup.

“‘Two bags of barley,'” I read off as Diamond spiked my coffee. The magnitude of what I wanted to do was beginning to sink in. “‘Seventy-two bags of crimped oats.'”

Mrs. Wycliff reached over and patted my hand. “The oats are for me, dear. I always have oatmeal in the morning.”

“Plus ‘a hundred and thirty pounds of hay,'” I read. “‘Fifteen bags of corn, fifteen bags of wheat bran.'”

“Forget the Wheatena,” Mrs. Wycliff said. “It sticks in my teeth.”

“‘Equine sweet feed,'” I continued. “‘Five to ten pounds each horse,' times fifty-seven horses.”

“And the big cats go through seven or eight weekly packs of Carnivore Ten,” Richie added, “in addition to over a hundred pounds of raw meat every day.”

“I don't eat meat, myself,” added Mrs. Wycliff. “So that's a savings right there.”

Diamond looked over my shoulder at the list. “Check, check, check,” she said. “We can order all of this without a problem. I think we're going to have a lot of fun running this place. It'll be like going to the circus every day, except no sex with the acrobats.”

I looked at her in surprise. “You never told me about acrobats.”

“Yeah, well, they were before the trapeze act.” She poured a healthy shot of whiskey into her own coffee, took a sip, and savored it.

“Trapeze act?” I repeated.

But Diamond-Rose was lost in memories. “It was cool,” she said. “Three guys, very limber, if you know what I mean.”

 

Evening falls so differently in New York than in Africa. The African sky is a grand, summoning curve of open blue. The sky in New York is so close you can carry it on your back. Dusk falls earlier, grayer, with no prospects, no hope. I sat on the back porch and watched evening drift in sideways, curling around the houses, draping itself over the rooftops, finally obscuring everything beyond. The clouds hovered and then parted, revealing a full moon hanging ripe, like an orange.

It wasn't that I didn't get it. Actually, I have a lot of problems with animal sanctuaries.

Animals shouldn't need them.

Animals shouldn't need to be rescued from their own natural habitat and put in an artificial representation of that very same habitat. Rescuers shouldn't need to pull skeletal horses from knee-deep mud just hours before they die, or help two sad, scrawny, moth-eaten lions with severe dental problems hobble from a nine-by-seven concrete cage because their legs are half paralyzed from the cramped conditions. Or even take a magnificent elephant, humbled by pain and torturous wounds, too weak to care for her infant, and push her into the cargo bay of a plane for an agonizing trip across the globe to a climate and place about as familiar to her as the moon.

Animals just need people to stop blundering around in their world.

I rocked back and forth and thought about my empty barn. How I wished I could move Margo in there. And Abbie. Tusker, even.
Shamwari.
I would tell no one, it would be my secret, my delicious secret. They would be loved and they would be safe. And I would sneak out to the barn every day and talk to them and feed them their fruit and hay and tell them how much I loved them, and it would be perfect until, of course, the first time they trumpeted. Though I had never met my neighbors, they just might have a problem with elephants trumpeting across the lawn to one another. Somehow I didn't think four elephants could pass under the radar.

Diamond opened the back door and came outside to sit in the other chair, pulling it next to mine. She put her stocking feet up on the porch rail and lit a cheroot. That first puff of smoke always makes me gag.

“Sorry about the drapes in the den,” she said as I tried to catch my breath. “I was flipping my knife, and it got a bit stuck in them, but actually, I think they look better short.”

I sighed. It was just another incident in a long line of domestic catastrophes, but I had a bigger problem on my mind. “How on earth are we going to raise the money we need?” I asked glumly.

“I do have a solution,” she said. “All we have to do is hold a proper fund-raiser.”

“Fund-raisers don't work,” I said. “I held a bake sale for a class trip once, and we made fourteen dollars and thirty-two cents. It was just barely enough for one pizza.”

“Well, I'm good at fixing things.” Diamond exhaled a long breath. The reeking smoke eddied around her face and
lifted away with the breeze. “And I vote for a fund-raiser. You know, I never had a lot of money, so I had to be inventive. Especially after Jake died.”

“Jake, who got taken by the jungle?” I asked, then realized how flippant it sounded. “I'm sorry.”

Diamond took another puff on her cigar. “Yes, that Jake,” she said simply.

“You never told me what happened.”

“He followed his grandfather,” she said. “That's what they say in Kenya when someone dies. He followed his grandfather.”

I didn't ask any more. It was like Tom and me. There are things that are for thinking and things that are for speaking.

Diamond didn't say anything for a long time. “Jakob Tremaine,” she said, raising her face to the full moon. “I have finally forgiven you for dying.”

“Why would he need to be forgiven?” I asked.

She shrugged and didn't answer, but her face lost its repose for a moment.

I stretched back in my rocker and stared at the moon. A bold cyclopean eye, it hung full over us now, staring down from the heavens. Clouds crossed in front, obscuring it, then scuttled off. “It's okay if you don't want to talk about it.”

“AIDS,” she finally said.

And that said everything. I knew that Africa had the highest rate of AIDS in the world. And the highest death rate. I supposed that her Jakob had strayed. “I'm sorry,” I said.

She didn't hear me. “I was very angry with him,” she reflected, picking her words carefully. “He got very sick very
suddenly. When he first told me he had AIDS, he was already very sick. He told me he would soon die. One day he came back from safari so sick. He didn't want me to drive him in the Rover to the hospital, and he didn't want to drive himself. The only other option was to take a horse all the way back to Loisaba and pick up a private charter to Nanyuki to see the doctor.” Her voice trailed off. “He came back from safari so sick. He didn't want me to know until it was too late.” She stood up and pinched out her cheroot and put it in her pocket. “What can I say? I didn't know it was his time until the end.
Mahumba ni tombo
.”

“He put you at risk,” I said softly. “You couldn't have loved him, I mean, after you found out.”

“He didn't put me at risk,” Diamond said flatly, then stood for a moment with her eyes closed. “He made sure he didn't. I was more his daughter than his wife. Now I close my eyes and see his face. He had a lovely face.” She took a long breath. “My heart doesn't love him anymore, but my eyes do.”

Another cloud drifted across the moon, and I waited politely for it to leave before I spoke. “You can find love again,” I said.

But Diamond was already someplace else. “Listen,” she said. “We will raise money to buy Tusker. We will invite that Tom of yours, and we will invite everyone in New York who loves animals and ask them for a contribution. He must know other people who are into rescues.” She jumped, then felt her pocket and slapped it a few times. “Damn, I've set my pants on fire again.”

“Tom'll never come,” I replied. “And we don't know
anyone in New York. Except my family and his mother. I met her once. I know she is very involved with racehorses and contributes lots of money to horse charities.”

Diamond laughed. “There you go! You have to give your man an incentive to attend.”

I didn't like where this was leading. “And what would that be? Kidnap his mother and hold her for ransom?”

“The very thing,” Diamond said. “Because you must find a way to get a lot of people here. People bring money. You have to use a little jungle strategy. When you invite a gazelle, the lions come to the feast as well.”

I snorted. “Yeah, except for one problem,” I said. “What happens if I'm the gazelle?”

IT TOOK DIAMOND ABOUT TWO DAYS TO FIGURE OUT
what I already knew—that you need funds to hold a fund-raiser. And we didn't have any.

“I'll think of a way,” she promised. “I always come up with something, one way or the other. You know, when the lion cannot find meat, it eats grass.”

 

We had taken over some of Richie's chores by now, in anticipation of his leaving soon for Alabama, and he had given us a long list of cautionary instructions: Don't trust the chimps, always feed the lions together, always walk
next
to Margo, never in front. Count the poultry before you lock them in at night. Nothing about how to be a good negotiator.

Diamond worked hard alongside me. We fed the animals,
cleaned cages, organized the volunteers a little better, and gave Ignacio long lists of chores.

“We could use that truck.” Diamond was eyeing Mrs. Wycliff's old truck after we pulled in one morning. She walked over to it, pried open the hood, and began tinkering. Half an hour later, it grumbled to life. “There are no garages in the bush,” she remarked to a pleased Richie, “so I learned some basic mechanics.”

With two trucks running, we were able to get the work done twice as fast. When it was time to feed the horses, Diamond got behind the wheel and drove one truck through the horse field, while I threw bales of hay from the bed.

“Fifty-seven hay burners,” Diamond tsk-tsked, and pointed at the horses as they galloped up for their hay. “They need to get a life.”

We were having lunch with Richie later that afternoon, sitting on the elephant hill and watching Margo and Abbie wrestle with each other. Richie dug into a bag he had just brought back from the deli. “Tomato on rye,” he announced, and dropped a wrapped sandwich onto his lap. He made a face and handed another sandwich to Diamond, commenting, “And here's your bologna on rye. I personally never eat anything with a face.”

She unwrapped her sandwich, lifted the bread, and peered underneath. “Bologna doesn't have a face,” she reported.

“And ever the diplomat”—Richie handed me mine—“bologna on rye with tomato.”

“I have an idea for the horses,” Diamond announced in between bites. “Bring Mrs. Wycliff down to the horse field after we finish eating. I want her to see something.”

“Elisabeth doesn't like anyone messing around with her babies,” Richie cautioned.

Diamond laughed. “I am going to give Mrs. Wycliff a performance she'll never forget.”

 

We were waiting by the gate in the horse pasture when Richie pulled up in his truck, Mrs. Wycliff sitting next to him, wearing her pith helmet.

“Right on time,” Diamond said as they drove up. “Come on.”

I followed her over to the truck. Richie helped Mrs. Wycliff to the ground, and she gave us a happy wave.

“How are my babies?” she called to us.

“Ah, yes, your babies,” Diamond replied. “I have an idea for your babies.” She walked back to Mrs. Wycliff's old truck, reached into the backseat and pulled out a coiled lariat. “Let me show you what I've been thinking.”

Climbing into the pasture, Diamond uncoiled the lariat. “I counted fifty-seven horses,” she announced as she spun the rope in a hypnotic circle over her head. “And they're all standing around waiting for a job.”

“They can't be ridden,” Mrs. Wycliff protested. “You don't ride your children.”

“If we don't do something, your children are going to be sent away,” Diamond replied, still spinning the lariat. “They have to pay for themselves.”

“But I made a promise to each of them,” Mrs. Wycliff said. “Absolutely no interference with their personal lives.”

But Diamond wasn't listening anymore, She pointed at the black horse with the white stockings. “That pretty black one, for starters,” she called out, winding her lariat
up and down like a yo-yo. “Let me show you what I mean.”

She coiled the lariat over her head and rolled it away from her, aiming at the horse. It settled around his neck, and he immediately stiffened against it. Speaking softly, Diamond moved to his side, shortening the slack in the rope as she went. She placed her hands on his back and, in a flash, mounted him.

“I say we turn them into a paying enterprise,” Diamond called from atop the horse. “We train them and sell them.”

“Absolutely not,” Mrs. Wycliff declared. “I promised they would have a good home forever.”

“And you would still be keeping your promise,” Diamond pointed out. “It's just that the good home won't be with you. There are plenty of people who are looking for a nice horse.” She clucked loudly and tapped the black horse in the ribs with her heels. He backed up a few feet and then trotted off.

“Young lady,” Mrs. Wycliff called after her, “you step down this minute. I don't want any injuries.”

“I'll be fine,” Diamond called back. “He likes this.”

“I think she's referring to the horse,” Richie called out.

They trotted back and forth. Diamond brought the horse to a halt with a pull of the rope, then clambered to her knees and stood upright on his back with her arms outstretched, one hand still holding the lariat. She clucked loudly, and the horse picked up a smooth, rolling canter with Diamond standing balanced on his back. The horse gave a little squeal and a buck as he passed us, but Diamond still managed to stay on. She continued to make a circuit of the field, finally slipping down to a sitting position as she headed toward us.

“My goodness,” said Mrs. Wycliff. “I didn't know Jackie could ride like that.”

“I didn't either,” I said.

“Nice horse, too,” said Mrs. Wycliff. “Wonder why she hasn't ridden him before.”

 

“How did you know you weren't going to get killed?” I asked Diamond later as we drove home.

“That's how Jake and I used to find horses for the safaris,” she said. “We'd take a day trip in the rover to Borana Lodge. They always had horses for sale. Kept them in a large pen, and Jake and I would just hop on the ones we fancied. We'd find out soon enough if a horse wasn't suitable and just bail off.”

“Pretty brave,” I said. “That black horse probably hasn't been ridden in years.”

“Oh, I know,” she said. “Of course, it helped that I found tranquilizers in the barn and shot him up with a couple of cc's of acepromazine first.”

 

The next day was Reese's birthday, and I had invited him and Marielle over for dinner.

“I'll cook dinner,” Diamond volunteered. “You can make the cake.”

Knowing her culinary skills were limited to bacon and eggs, cowboy coffee, and burned toast, I politely declined her offer.

“Trust me,” she said, “I'll make something good. It'll be my contribution to his birthday. He's my brother, too, you know.” An hour before Reese and his wife were supposed to arrive, I still didn't notice anything in the kitchen that might indicate the preparation of food.

“Dinner?” I asked. I had already made a cake early in the day to give Diamond full access to the stove without my in
terference, but she was sitting with her feet propped on the table and reading a newspaper.

“All taken care of,” she replied. “So, what are you giving Reese for his birthday?”

I held up a package. “New earbuds for his iPod.”

She blinked a few times. “Oh, right,” she said. “They're in season now, aren't they?”

 

My brother and his wife arrived, and Diamond had dinner on the table by the time they took off their coats. She had made a salad, opened a few cans of chili, heated it, and poured it over wedges of Italian bread, which, I knew, was pushing her culinary skills to the limit.

“Voilà,” she said, standing back from the dining room table with pride. “And here comes the best part.” She plopped a six-pack of Heineken on the table. “International cuisine.”

Reese started dinner with his usual opening. “How do you make an elephant float?” He looked around expectantly. When there was no reply, he answered himself. “Two hundred bottles of cream soda, two hundred scoops of ice cream, and an elephant!”

Diamond hooted with laughter, while Marielle gave him an indulgent smile. We started eating.

“Great chili,” Reese pronounced. “Marielle hasn't made her special chili in a long time.”

“It's because I'm busy—I'm doing a lot of tutoring,” Marielle said, then looked at me. “How about you? Have either of you found work?”

“Sort of,” Diamond announced. “At the sanctuary, but it's still not enough to buy the elephant.”

“Do you really think you're going to raise enough
money?” Marielle laughed as she passed the platter of food to Diamond, who stabbed the bread with her knife, dripping chili across the tablecloth to eat it
en pointe
.

“Two
elephants,” I corrected Marielle. “For the bargain price of a trillion eleventy zillion dollars. We're planning to have a fund-raiser, so if you have any ideas, let us know.”

“Sorry.” Marielle shook her head. “We had a bake sale when I was in pony club, and we made nine dollars. Everyone had ice cream. I don't think fund-raisers really do much.”

We ate dinner and endured several more elephant jokes until it was time for dessert. I stood up to clear the table.

“I'll clear the table,” Diamond offered. “You can put the candles on the cake.” I looked with apprehension at the dishes. Her gaze followed mine. “Or we can switch, if you want,” she added. “And I'll light the cake.”

I pondered this for a moment. Which did I want to chance—broken dishes or a fire in the kitchen? The fire seemed more remote.

“You light the cake and bring it in,” I said, carrying the dishes to the sink.

Reese followed me into the kitchen. “Who was the most famous female animal jazz singer in the world?”

“Don't you ever run out?” I asked, stacking dishes in the dishwasher. “All right, who?”

“Elephants Gerald!”

Diamond guffawed and dropped the cake she was carrying.

 

Reese opened his earbuds, we sang two rounds of “Happy Birthday,” ate the remains of the cake, and in general had a pleasant evening.

“I've got to be up early,” Diamond excused herself as I was saying good night to Reese and Marielle at the front door. “We've got horses to train and sell.”

“I don't know that you're going to sell any horses,” Marielle said sympathetically. “The economy is scary. Horses are a luxury—there are an awful lot of people in my position who do what I had to do.”

“What position?” I asked guiltily, since I had monopolized the evening talking about Tusker and hadn't even bothered to ask Marielle how her tutoring was going.

“Oh, you know,” said Marielle. “I'm teaching only two courses now. The tutoring doesn't bring in all that much—half my salary is gone.”

“Oh, right,” I said. “That must be so hard.”

“We've been budgeting like mad.” Marielle sighed. “Thank heavens I met that really nice man who took that old horse of yours.”

My blood froze. The hairs on my arms stood up, and a cold, sick feeling grabbed my stomach. “What really nice man?” I asked breathlessly. “What are you talking about?”

“Remember? I asked you about it during dinner at your mother's, and you said it was okay. So I put an ad in the paper.” Marielle smiled and patted my arm. “And this really nice man with two kids answered the ad. Pulled up with a horse trailer and took Mousi right away.” She gave a little giggle. “It's not like I sold him into slavery or anything. The man promised him a good home—going to make him a 4-H project—and he was really nice, so there's nothing to worry about.”