An Inconvenient Elephant (3 page)

DIAMOND WAS SITTING AT THE LITTLE TABLE OUTSIDE
our hut and serenely drinking a cup of tea. There was a brown-and-yellow clay pot set on the table along with another cup, a small jar of honey, and a single spoon for us to share.

“Still haven't gotten in touch with Charlotte,” she announced as I sat down. “Now that
my
phone's back online,
her
service is out.” She shook her head. “You know the old joke, if you're in Zimbabwe and can make a phone call, you're not in Zimbabwe.”

I laughed and poured myself a fragrant cup of hot black tea, then mixed in some honey and took a sip.

“Good tea,” I said.

“Bush tea.”

I'd had it nearly every day in Kenya, and I liked the strong
flavor. I took another appreciative sip and stared down at my cup.

“You're being quiet,” Diamond said. “Did you enjoy your walk?”

I nodded.

“Missing your man?”

“No,” I said. “It's not that.”

“Yes it is,” she said, a mischievous smile playing on her lips. “What was his name?”

“Tom,” I said, then looked back into my cup at the tiny leaves that were clinging to the side. I wished I could read them.

“See?” Diamond said triumphantly. “I knew it was a man. It's always a man.” She leaned back in her chair and scrutinized me. “I'm guessing that after your lover broke your heart, you ran off to live with the baby elephants.”

I gave a little laugh. “Actually, I met him rescuing an elephant. Then I ran off to live with the baby elephants, and
then
he broke my heart. That's how it all started.” I thought for a moment, then corrected myself. “Actually, that's how it all ended.” I reconsidered my words again. “Actually, I think that means
I
ended it.” I sighed. “I think I broke my own heart.”

 

Dinner was served a while later by a guide who drove up in a jeep and briskly pulled a silver metal food container from the back. He lifted the lid to reveal a series of bowls and dishes, and poured out a small bowl of water, offering it to Diamond with a polite bow. She washed her hands, then passed the bowl to me, and I did the same.

Next the guide took out two plates and with great ceremony set the table for our dinner. He put a bowl of dinner
sadza
, made of cooked ground corn, in the middle of the table, along with a bowl of stewed greens, some cauliflower, and a fresh pot of tea. I looked askance at the cauliflower.

“Give us this day our daily cauliflower,” I intoned, holding my hands reverentially over our plates.

The man took out a platter of meat on skewers, put that on the table, bowed, and left.

“No forks?” I said. I'd had forks even at the sanctuary in Kenya, dining with the elephants. Well, technically, it wasn't with the elephants. Dr. Annabelle Pontwynne, who ran the sanctuary, was very genteel and insisted on a proper dinner every night with her staff.

“No,” Diamond agreed, looking over the food with satisfaction. “But it's
shasleek
!” She grabbed a skewer and pulled off a piece of meat with her teeth. “I love
shasleek
.”

I took a little bite. It was very savory and tender. “What kind of meat do you think it is?”

She peered at the piece left on her skewer. “Ostrich? Springbok? Could even be croc.”

I stared at my skewer for a few minutes, then looked at the cauliflower, then back at my skewer. I was hungry. I finished the meat.

We ate our fill, politely leaving a small amount as was custom. An hour later, the jeep returned, and the procedure was reversed. Our guide bowed, rolled out the silver container, loaded our plates, and left. Diamond sighed with satisfaction and pulled what looked like a short, tan cigar
from her pocket and lit it, taking a deep, contented puff. It smelled like, well, an overflowed toilet.

“What are you smoking?” I asked.

“It's a
bundu
cheroot,” she replied. “I roll them myself. Want one?”

“No thanks.” We just sat there, content to watch the heavens turn orange and gold, the sun burn itself down behind the mountains, while the blackest of skies revealed a million stars overhead.

“I have an idea,” Diamond said into the deepening night. “If I can't reach Charlotte, we can do our own little walkabout. It'll be a great experience.” She took another puff on her cheroot. “I'll get permission from the game warden, I'm sure it won't be a problem. I have a Level Three license, with an Advanced Weapons Certificate. And you can snap some photos like a proper tourist. I even bought a disposable camera at the airport for the bargain price of two hundred thousand Zim dollars.” She laughed at this before continuing. “There's really another side to this country, and it's quite beautiful.”

“Great,” I said. It did sound nice to have a chance to play tourist before I went home.

Diamond stood up and stretched, then opened the door to the hut. The little green lamp was giving off a sweet yellow glow. “I'll talk to the warden at first light,” she said, lingering at the door to look up at the stars, “and it comes very early, so you'd better get some sleep.”

I followed her in.

“Take the bed,” she said, dropping to the floor.

“We can share,” I said, trying not to sound as doubtful as I felt.

She just stuffed her rucksack under her head and yawned. “Sweet dreams, Neelie Sterling. Dream of your Tom.”

I lay down on the bed and rolled the thin pillow under my head and stretched out on the hard mattress. “I hope I don't,” I said truthfully.

 

I wasn't sure what had awakened me. Several sharp reports, then a great noise, a crash, someone shouting, and the familiar trumpeting of an elephant. I jumped from the bed. Diamond was already out the door, the camera swinging from her wrist.

We followed a rush of campers and guides across the dark compound, toward a path where the lights had been turned on. There was a jumble of loud voices ahead, and my stomach tightened with anticipation. I was certain that an elephant had come into the camp. I missed my elephants, and I was eager to see one. I let myself get carried along in the surge toward a campsite about a quarter of a mile away.

“It's probably Tusker,” someone said behind me. “He comes here almost every night.”

I turned around to see a thin man running with a camera. “Who?” I asked.

“That big bull elephant,” he said. “Breaks into camp here around dinnertime. He's famous for it. Practically a mascot. I've snapped quite a few photos of him.”

No one seemed fearful. There was a contagion of high spirits and laughter and several comments about Tusker's frequent visits. Some even proudly mentioned they had old videos of him, as though he were a star.

There was a loud trumpet, and my heart jumped inside my chest. For all the hundreds of elephants I had seen by now, the sight of one still sent a thrill through me.

He was just ahead. I could hear him, smell him.

I ran with the others, anticipating him. Exhilarated. He was here. He was here!

I hadn't known what to expect. A camp attraction? Something to amuse the tourists? Some semicomical version of an elephant, not so very large, certainly not truly as wild as the country around us?

And then suddenly he was right in front of me.

 

In the night stood a colossus of an animal, thirteen feet at the shoulder, at least. His great gray body swayed as he left the shadows and moved into the light, each step slow and deliberate and majestic, until he stood there, illuminated like a god, the gold light falling upon him like a mantle, his ears held out like great capes, his trunk lifted over our heads like an arm held out to bless us. He stood wild and glorious, the god of wild hearts.

The shadows played against his giant head, his ears seemed to fan away the darkness as he approached the crowd of people playing flashlights on his corrugated face. He stopped walking and stood over us, expectant, yet expecting nothing. It was all contained within him, his own splendor, his own personal dignity. He needed nothing from us to complete him.

I could only stare. I wanted to pay him homage. Drop to my knees in reverence. In an instant, I was utterly his.

 

His one tusk curved delicately inward toward his uplifted trunk like a musical instrument ready to summon other gods to his side. He looked around, turning his attention from one to the other, and we stood before him, chastened, like subjects to a king, as though waiting to be summoned into his glorious presence for a holy convocation.

A large tent had been knocked over, the refrigerator lying on its side and broken apart, cots and equipment strewn across the ground.

“Get your elephant under control,” a British-accented voice angrily rang out at one of the guides who had raced over to help. “The blighter's ruined my party.”

The guide slowly approached the huge animal and faced him under the light, standing just a few feet away. He braced his shoulders for courage and stood on his toes to clap his hands in the elephant's face. “Away, away!” he shouted. “Away!”

The elephant calmly backed up, his face composed, blinking his eyes to show he would have a sense of humor about it all. He rolled his head from side to side as though to apologize for the ruckus and any trouble he might have caused, and stepping back, back, disappeared into the night with not even the rustle of a leaf.

“There's your Tusker,” the thin man whispered to me. “There's your boy.”

I could barely breathe. I had seen something so transforming, so transcending that I had no need for air or light or anything else, except for this creature. He had retreated and taken my spirit with him. I had never seen anything more noble, more alien, more splendid. Every
cell in my body was filled with him, and I felt adrift after he left.

“Bloody pest,” the British accent continued loudly. Its owner was a heavy man with a mustache, dressed in an immaculately starched, stiff new tan safari outfit. His round face was flushed as he kicked at the broken camping equipment. “Bloody beast should be shot.”

The game warden, whom we had met earlier, walked into the disarray. He leaned over and pulled something from the broken refrigerator—a bag of lemons.

“Citrus! You were warned about the citrus,” he said sternly to the heavy man.

“You can't tell me what to eat,” the man retorted. “I use them for my drinks. I like my gin and tonic with a fresh twist of lemon.” He swayed drunkenly under the light. “The blighter ruined my party.”

“He was throwing firecrackers at the thing,” someone called out. “He was throwing firecrackers in the bush.”

The heavy man waved them all away, his starched shirt riding up around his stomach. “Just having some fun.” A few members of his party laughed at this, but some of the other campers became angry.

“I saw you throw firecrackers at him out in the bush. You sent him this way,” one shouted. “We could have been hurt.”

“You're the one who should be shot,” the thin man yelled.

“Damn you all!” The British man waved his arms at them. “I spent a bloody fortune to come here, and no one tells me what to do.”

I made a move to join the other campers to protest, but Diamond pushed me in the direction of our hut, and I moved woodenly, reluctantly.

“Don't fight with him,” she said to me. “We need to get some sleep so we can go on safari, first thing in the morning.” She looked over at the fat man with disgust. “Remember, one never rubs bottoms with a porcupine.”

MORNING CAME UPON US LIKE A GOOD FRIEND,
comforting and warm and ready to please.

Diamond was sitting outside our hut, waiting for me to finish washing. I emerged from the little stall shower and stepped into brilliant sunlight. I threw the thin towel over a post—it would dry in just a few minutes—before sitting down at the table with her.

I hadn't slept well. I had spent most of the night sitting at the edge of my bed and thinking about the elephant I had seen. Tusker, they had called him. Tusker. It was a common enough name—most bull elephants are called tuskers—but the name suddenly took on a certain majesty. Tusker.

“Good morning,” Diamond greeted me. She pulled her hair back from her face and secured it with a bolo string.
Then she dug into her bowl of breakfast
sadza
, scooping it up with her fingers.

“So, I spoke to the game warden this morning before you got up,” she said, slurping down the white cornmeal gruel. “We needed permission for a walkabout, and at first, he denied it because of safety concerns.”

I poured myself a cup of tea. “What do we do now?”

“After I told him that I was licensed and that the Popes in Chizarira would vouch for me, he agreed to assign us a guide.” She passed me my own bowl of breakfast
sadza
.

“I have to see him again,” I said. “The elephant.”

I did. He had taken possession of my soul. I could think of nothing else.

“I fell in love with him, too.” Diamond smiled. “The warden said he has another name, Dustbin, because he has a habit of picking through the garbage bins. He's sort of a park favorite.”

“Dustbin,” I repeated. “I hate that he's named after garbage.”

“The warden also told me something else,” Diamond said, her face becoming troubled. “They've classified him as a problem elephant, which means he's slated for execution.”

I jumped from my chair. “What are you talking about?” I gasped. “What do you mean, ‘execution'?”

Diamond looked up at me. “He knows there's food here, and apparently he's already overturned seven cars. They were empty, but he can't just flip cars around at will, looking for snacks.”

“But
execution
?” I said, my mouth barely able to form the word.

She nodded. “The warden said the Zimbabwe Conserva
tion Task Force is out of petrol again, but when they get their new requisition, he's as good as dead. They plan to come here and shoot him. They're culling elephants all over the country.” She scooped up the rest of her
sadza
and held her hand aloft for a moment. “They use their meat to feed the soldiers of the Zimbabwean army. One more elephant death would mean nothing at all to them.”

She licked the food from her fingers. Discussing Tusker's death over breakfast was making me sick. I pushed my food away. The orange sun bloomed over the day-bright lake.

“We don't have many options in saving him,” Diamond said, deflating the rapid swirl of ideas and solutions that were racing through my head. “I called my friend Charlotte after I spoke to the game warden. She knows about Tusker, says he's on everyone's rescue list, but she said it's very hard work, and the failure rate for rescues is very high. Plus she mentioned that she'd need a lot of help.”

I gave her a wondering look. “Does she mean us? There's no reason why we can't help.”

“No reason at all,” Diamond agreed, wiping her breakfast bowl clean with her fingers and licking them like a cat. “Charlotte says she'll try to come up with some kind of plan.”

“I hope she hurries,” I said, then sighed, thinking this Charlotte probably knew every bush, tree, and growl of the countryside, and if she couldn't think of something, then we'd have very little chance of success trying to do it by ourselves.

Diamond grinned. “You look worried. But I bet we can pull it off.”

“We'd need a crew and planes and tranquilizers and stuff,” I worried. “It's a huge undertaking.”

Diamond appeared not to be listening. I followed her gaze to the mountains and wondered if she thought of taking Tusker north since we were at the most northern tip of the country. “Maybe Charlotte could let us borrow some horses. Then we could track Tusker on horseback,” she mused out loud. “We could push him to Mozambique—its border covers the whole east of Zimbabwe.” She thought it over. “No, Mozambique is hundreds of miles away. It would be too far for horses.” She poured us both more tea. “Maybe north across the border to Zambia. Or south to Botswana.” She sighed. “Either way, it's very far.”

“This is crazy!” I exclaimed. “How do we push him? Besides, we'd need to get through the borders ourselves, and then a plane has to be ready and waiting.” I felt a wave of resentment. If only Tom and I were still talking, he would have helped. I knew he would have helped. He had contacts and planes and had spent years orchestrating elephant rescues.

Diamond bent over to lace up her boots, then stood. “Well, I've known Charlotte a long time, and I trust her to think of something that will work.” She pushed my bowl of breakfast
sadza
back at me. “You'd better eat, or you're going to be very hungry later. There aren't any vending machines in the bush.”

I looked down at my breakfast, cold and unappetizing. “I don't suppose there's a spoon.”

She laughed. “You carry your eating implements at the end of your arms. Finish quickly. We've got some tracking to do.”

 

“
Shamwari
, you come here for elephant?” a voice asked from behind Diamond. We both whirled around to see a man
dressed in the usual tan safari clothes, carrying a large backpack and a heavy-duty rifle. It was our guide. “
Shamwari
,” he repeated in a lilting accent, clapping his hands together, the traditional male greeting. “I was sent to help you. I have supplies.” He pointed to the backpack and smiled congenially. “Are you ready,
shamwari
?”

Shamwari
meant “friend,” and I had found in Kenya that almost everyone was your friend—the people are warm and open, the word is used all the time.

Diamond cupped her hands together and clapped them in response, the traditional female greeting. “Yes, thank you,
shamwari
,” she replied. The guide clapped his hands at me, and I followed Diamond's lead.

“Thank you for your help,
shamwari
,” I said, then pointed to his rifle. “Please, no shooting the animals. No shooting.”

He just patted the rifle and smiled pleasantly. “Until you grow big teeth, we will take this.”

 

We slipped easily through the lavender rushes, hiking along the curvature of Lake Kariba, leaving broken stalks of heather in our wake. From the edges of the lake rose half-submerged pale skeletons of dead trees, arms outstretched like graceful dancers, holding delicate white egrets in their hands as though offering up living ornaments to the azure sky. Beyond the flash of flaming orange bushes lay a backdrop of thick blue-green brush and dark blue mountains. “We make this lake,” the guide said proudly. “Many years ago. We make it from the Zambezi River, oh yes.”

Hippos drank nonchalantly at the water's edge, and several crocodiles floated close, their eyes studying the shore
line, watching the herons, the antelope, the impala that drank there, waiting for a sign of weakness. The guide led us away from the shoreline now, and inward, toward the forest.

The smaller brush was gone, replaced by stands of mahogany trees reaching skyward, like heavenly supports. Animals peeked at us from behind the acacia trees, then fled as our guide led us deeper into the interior.

With every step, every move, every turn of my head, I felt watched. The god of wild hearts was watching us, I knew. He would be cautious, hidden within the trees and thickets. Concealing himself within the deeper mopane woodland, where the trees had leaves like pale green butterfly wings that crushed easily under our feet, leaving behind the unexpected scent of turpentine.

We walked forever. After a while, my legs felt separated from my body, as though they had taken on a career of their own, to walk and walk and walk. We waded over brilliantly clear streams that gurgled all the way down from the mountains, feeding pink hibiscus growing all in rows like schoolgirls in pretty dresses. We stepped across small yellow and purple wildflowers that sprang up in natural bouquets, and we carefully pushed away from the undergrowth that grabbed our arms like beggars, always making sure to turn our faces downward to keep at bay the tiny bees following us with great persistence.

 

The guide finally stopped for a moment before crossing one of the unpaved roads that wove through the park and was frequently used by tourists packed into safari jeeps. On the other side was a lily pond surrounded by a circle of light
that streamed down through a series of short, stubby bushes. When we got closer, I could see it was a clearing of trees that had been broken away, standing in a ring as though they were on their knees in prayer.

“Elephant take up trees,” our guide explained, making a pulling motion with his hands. “Yes,
shamwari
, your boy come here.” He gave us a big smile and dropped his backpack but kept the rifle on his shoulder. “Eat?”

We gratefully nodded, and he unpacked cheese and fruits and vegetables and flatbread. We ate quickly. A troop of baboons found us and screamed loudly, opening their mouths wide, baring long, sharp teeth and snatching at us with sinewy arms until we threw food into the bushes for them. Our guide found a piece of wood and banged it against a tree while we ate, to keep them from returning. Suddenly he stood still, immobile, listening. I wondered what he was listening for—there was no sound at all except for the droning of the insects near our faces.

For a few minutes, the silence was an oasis in time, in movement, as even the trees stopped their sway. The air filled with an expectancy, and I felt the skin on my arms tingle. Something was there with us, something close, but it was concealed, hidden by the leaves and brush. I looked to the guide, but he hadn't moved at all. Diamond, too, had frozen.

Then I realized
he
was here. I knew it. He had come.

Suddenly, before us stood an elephant. He had slipped through the brush and trees like a stream of light, without bulk or gravity, without disturbing a single leaf. Like a secret revealed, with the hushed heralding of the most extraordinary, suddenly Tusker stood before us.

His amber eyes looked from one to the other, his one tusk glowed pale yellow in the sun, and he stood before us as though he was granting a royal audience. He studied us for a moment, three figures. Were we enough to pay him the respect he deserved? He flapped his ears slowly and reached forward with his trunk. My heart stopped beating in deference to him. I, too, stood frozen.

Diamond threw down her chunk of cheese, then slipped her camera from her pocket and surreptitiously pushed its button. Tusker swung the food into his mouth and reached for more. I threw my food before him, standing very still, not moving my arms, using only my hands. He was wild, we were at his mercy, I knew, and he knew. When he was finished, he waved his head up and down and stepped back, melting away into invisibility.

The guide was immensely pleased. “Dustbin,” he announced, then asked Diamond, “
Shamwari
, you get photo?”

Diamond nodded. The guide squatted to close up the backpack. “We go away now,
shamwari
,” he said to us. “
Haraka
!
Haraka
!” Hurry, hurry.

Before he could finish, there was a soft rustling behind us, a flutter of leaves, and we turned our heads. Tusker had returned, materializing again as if he were enchanted.

“Bollocks,” Diamond whispered, her eyes wide. She was nervous, and suddenly I was, too, my nerves heightened because of her reaction. I knew she was thinking he had come back for more food, and because we had nearly exhausted our supply, this time he might get aggressive.

The guide slowly reached into his pack and emptied its contents on the ground: a small piece of cheese and avocado
and some remaining fruit. He took out a few pieces of flatbread, looked at it, then smiled up at us. “Not for
tembo
,” he said softly, returning the bread to his pack. “For me.” We understood. His people were starving and bread was very scarce. To throw it down for an elephant was more than he could bear.

Tusker moved toward the food, and the guide backed us away from him calmly, reverentially as he ate, as though we were like the mythological creatures of the African bush who walked on backward feet to fool those that might bring harm to the jungle. He backed us across the road and into the brush, retreating slowly, carefully, almost reluctantly, until the form of the elephant became part of the trees and the trees became shadows and the shadows became whispers beyond the horizon.