Elephant Winter (17 page)

I struggled to get to my feet and Alecto’s hand reached through the rib and grabbed my shoulder. His eyes like lamps stared without expression. He jerked me back toward him and I still could not scream, my voice severed from my body. I watched his mouth open, blood dripping down his nose like thick tears. And then, disbelieving, I heard the furious voice that was his.

“You’ll rot.”

He tried to squeeze his own body at mine through the bones and, shocked by his sinuous rage, with a sudden twist and jerk I cracked his wrist against a rib and pulled my hand free. Then I scrambled away and escaped across that open field. The spring mud sucked the boot off my swollen heel and when I glanced back, Alecto had picked himself up and was nursing his wrist against his body.

I still fled though there was no need now. I was an absurd and fallen creature, one boot off and one on, limping, running. I didn’t stop until I got back to my mother’s house. And Alecto, finished with his carcass of an elephant, disappeared in uncouth passage.

(What do you ask?)

T
he elephants went to the place where Lear fell and stood all day scenting the earth. Three full days they stood there, digging up chips of bone, bits of hair, burying their trunks in the blood-soaked field. I sat watching them from the fence. Gradually they strayed from the spot, moving along the fences and coming back to walk in their great pacing circle. I brought their food outside after a few days and put it in the far corner of the back field so they would have a reason to leave the place.

Jo was flown to Florida. I could not persuade him to stay. Alecto disappeared. Day after day I sat on the fence watching the elephants and aching. My baby kicked and turned upside-down in the waters and I curled around my own stomach.

When a monk enters a monastery he must answer a question from the community. They chant to him, “What do you ask?” and the monk answers, “Mercy.”

But I was alone in a place without chanting. The elephants
rumbled only to each other their customary greetings. At bathtime, feeding time, and shackled up for the night, they swayed restlessly, scenting at the door of the barn and at Jo’s bed. I went about his tasks as best I could. They tolerated my inexperienced hands and my inability to understand the subtle language they had with Jo.
They’ll teach you what you need to know,
he’d said. I turned to Kezia to show me, to show the others to listen to me. I was in her power as she was in mine. I stroked her trunk and leaned on her, day after day. At night I could smell elephant all over me.

The Safari directors put me in charge of the elephants and asked me to do Jo’s work. I told them I didn’t know enough, didn’t want so much work, couldn’t do it, but they shook their heads and said, “There is no one else.” I couldn’t submit and I couldn’t leave and I couldn’t die. There were elephants hungry and needing exercise. There was Kezia, pregnant, and the Safari would open soon. I didn’t know all I needed to know to take care of them. Slowly Kezia accepted me as her keeper and I felt her wondering,
What do you ask?
I often didn’t know what to answer but I pretended. I want you not to hurt me. I want you not to kill me. I want you to hold your foot ready to work on. I want you to walk out into the elephant yard with me. I want you to stand while I bathe you. I want you to eat and to sleep. I want you to allow me to put the howdah on you, to bear weight, to raise your trunk, to walk beside me and safely carry small children. She had the power to do all these things. When I was too tired to go on I stood among them
and felt their graceful acceptance of a life they had not chosen. I made our daily routine as simple as I could. More and more I recorded their silence, took the tapes back to my mother’s house and when she was sleeping I listened to their low rumbles. One afternoon while I recorded, not knowing if they were speaking or quiet in the dark barn, I whispered to them, “What do you want?” And on the tape I heard for the first time the lowest of all their calls,
aaaaaaaaaaaa,
a sound I have come to understand as
mercy.

Nurturing

After survival, the single most important concern of female elephants is the care and nurturing of the young. Elephant, more than many languages, has specific nurturing utterances, everything from lullabies to “Don’t bother me now, dear.” They are uttered by all members of the group. A rite of passage for a seven- or eight-year-old female comes when she stops hearing such language directed at her and begins to use it herself. I have heard elephants as young as three and four begin to verbalize nurturing language and I consider it a sign of great emotional and intellectual health.

A Note on Vocabulary: Elephant Pi Factor

There are 52 Prime Utterances in Elephant, by which I mean sounds that cannot be broken down any further. The feature in the language that counterbalances this small vocabulary is the Pi Factor. Elephant discourse, similar to pi, expands without settling into predictable patterns. It
remains comprehensible but not repetitive, altered by rhythm, and context. Because the language is strongly oriented toward communal expression, any individual’s utterance may be joined at any time in unison, harmony, counterpoint, and finally (though rarely) in interruption. This makes the vocabulary more rich than the identification of 52 Prime Utterances might at first suggest.

aah:
(18-20 Hz.) A birthing chant, made during the delivery and after the baby is born. The more inexperienced the mother, the longer the chant.

One of the things I am proudest of at the Safari is our live births. Each of our females has given birth, with the exception of Gertrude, who shows no interest in mating.

After a stillbirth in my first months at the Safari, I decided to allow the other elephants to act as midwives when a baby was being born. Since that time, I have never lost a baby. I think that the necessary presence of others at the birth is indicated by the steady chanting that takes place after the event. The elephants encourage the newborn to stand with their trunks and with songs
(see
erh
).

Analogies might be made to parts of the world where women gather round each other after a birth and rub the mother’s skin with sweet oils, swaddle and hold and sing to the new baby. No sooner is a child born than they are touching the child with hands and voices, gathering the new mother and her baby back into their community after the dangerous voyage out.

Elephants honour life by placing enormous emphasis on the rearing of the young. This is a central emotional and social point of the community’s organization.

erh:
(35+ Hz.)
Try!

An encouraging call to a baby to do something. It is used immediately after birth to get the newborn to stand up, accompanied by help with the trunk. It is the first utterance a baby elephant hears, and it continues frequently through the first few months of life, as the baby is urged to wait, to run, to swim, to climb, to try any of the “firsts” of life.

huuuaaarrr:
(35 Hz.) Soothing sound for babies under three years of age.

This chant functions as a lullaby when a small elephant rests under her mother. I once heard Gertrude chanting it to Saba with an element of traditional Mother Goose irony, as in “Mother, may I go out to swim? Yes, my darling daughter. Hang your clothes on a hickory limb, But don’t go near the water!”

I have also heard
huuuaaarrr oooaaarrr
, a song sung together by our entire group of elephants after Kezia’s first live birth, when her baby slept for the first time. Moving and lovely, it was a celebration of the mother as much as the baby, a celebration of all of them for the new life in their midst.

tchr bra ow:
(23 Hz.)
Stop bothering me with silliness.

Young elephants are playful and inquisitive. This tender dodge is uttered when the mothers or aunts have had enough of the young elephants and wish to distract them from, in effect, asking too many questions.

bra bra:
(25 Hz.) Discipline sound meaning “Don’t do that,” often accompanied by a restraining gesture of the trunk.

A fundamental principle in the rearing of any species is the knowledge that the young will copy in minute detail everything the adults do. Elephant socialization is based on this idea, encouraging behaviour that fits in with the group while tolerating youthful curiosity and exuberance. However, when a small elephant persists in an activity that endangers herself or the group, a mother or auntie does not hesitate to stop the behaviour. For example, when Saba was very young, she had a dangerous inclination to slip under the fence. Unwittingly, she’d wander off after a scent in the air. For several days I watched Alice gently tug her back with her trunk. But when the young one kept forgetting, Alice finally uttered a frightening bra and pulled her back sharply.

eeeeaaa^:
(120-240 Hz.) Panic scream, strongest of all elephant calls, used when a female is rushing to help a baby in danger.

Reproduction

Second in importance to nurturing the young is the begetting of them. Mating is a highly ritualized, communal activity. Females sing estrus songs lasting up to forty-five minutes, and after, they sing post-copulatory songs. I have hesitated to mention the possibility of an erotic component in Elephant, although I feel it is present in these haunting chants. In the wild, males stay with a female for several days, guarding her against the intrusion of other males and mating frequently. Even though the mating elephants at the Ontario Safari are protected from danger, males and females still sing these songs, which are a necessary part of the mating ritual.

mrow mrooo mroow mroooah:
(14 Hz.) Estrus call.

This is a remarkable, throbbing chant, usually a deep rumble that becomes stronger and higher in pitch before sinking down again. In the wild, it is thought to function as a locator for roving males.

When I hear this gorgeous prelude to mating I am reminded of a Beethoven cello solo.

brrr rrr oh:
(14-20 Hz.) A very low call denoting support of mating.

This is generally sung by a group of females in overlapping spondaic and trochaic rhythms during mating. It creates a passionate effect similar to that of “The Song of Solomon,” to honour the ineluctable mystery and to remind the mating elephant she has a witness.

oar^oar:
(25 Hz.) Post-copulatory estrous sequence.

Two or more quite intense shouts indicating ending of mating cycle.

^rraaarr ^rraaaarr:
(40-55 Hz.) Threat call of a male in musth.

This is often accompanied by strong territorial gestures of charges (mock or real) and banging of tusks. In captivity it is directed toward a keeper, or a tree.

~rrowr:
(60-120 Hz.) Musth song of male after he has mated and stands protecting the female, awaiting the next opportunity to mate.

A male continues this call intermittently throughout the mating period. It is meant to ward off other males who approach and is repeated strongly when he gives himself over to the bewildering minute. It may also serve as a kind of reassurance to his partner that he is protecting her, although the real protection is provided by the group of females looking on.

I
was finally empty. Jo was gone. When his jaw was unwired he called from his brother’s trailer in Florida and said he wasn’t coming back.

“Jo, you have to come back.”

“I can’t.”

“What about Kezia?” What about me?

“I got a new job down here, Sophie. As soon as I’m on my feet again.”

“I’ll help, Jo. You’ve got to come. They need you.”

“It’s too big an operation. I’ve got a nice little zoo here. Two Asian elephants. No breeding. No males. I’m tired of the north. I’m tired of the circuses.”

“It will catch up with you . . . Jo?” I was talking into silence.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes. Jo, there was nothing you could do. Lear was getting too old. He had arthritis.” I couldn’t feel him over the telephone.

Finally he said, “Where’s Alecto?”

“He’s gone.”

“There’ll be a paper on Lear someday.”

“I suppose. I don’t think he’ll be back.”

“Don’t be so sure.”

“I think he’s run his course. I told the Safari if they wanted me to stay he couldn’t come back.”

I felt him stiffen, “How’s Kezia?”

“She seems fine so far.”

I buried Alecto deep and deeper. My eyes opened and battered, I divined the life before me. The elephants had to be taken care of. My baby was dropping toward the world. And I had to see my mother through her dying.

The only solution to her constant pain was her own end. There was no skin left between us, the air was raw as the open flesh of a burn.

“Sophie, what’s going to happen to the birds when I die?”

“What makes you worry about the birds?”

“What else would I worry about?” she said. “The birds will still be here. Someone has to take care of them.”

I didn’t want her to talk about it. I wanted her to say, “I’m not going to die.” She waited and said nothing.

“I’ll take care of your birds.”

“But you’ll be busy with your new baby. I know how the first few months are. Will you live here? I know you won’t want them flying around. I suppose you could put them in
the cage. Moore would hate it. Maybe you could just leave Moore out and keep the rest locked up?”

She seemed hopeful about this and I nodded.

“I was going to build an aviary outside this spring. Beside my studio.”

“Maybe I could.”

“I wish I could have been here for your baby, Sophie. You mustn’t be too sad. A baby can feel it. I would have loved her. You must love her to bits. It’s all for such a short time.”