Fear No Evil

sixteen

Elizabeth jerked, eyes wide, hand to her throat.

‘Oh! Hello …’

‘Hi.’ Big Charlie squatted self-consciously five paces away. ‘Sorry.’

‘How do you move so quietly?’

‘Sorry. Where’s Davey?’

She pointed down the glen, her heart still palpitating. ‘He went down there about an hour ago. I think I offended him.’

Big Charlie shook his head slightly. She did not know whether it was in denial, in regret, or even perhaps in sympathy. But right now, the less said the better. She had shot her mouth off with that impetuous remark about God’s instrument—she’d had him talking, and she had blown it. She found herself nursing the hope that if she shut up and stuck with them long enough they would simply not have the heart to reject her. Then she could do some good, when she had won their confidence. O God, she wished it would get dark quickly.

‘Did you find anything up there?

Big Charlie shook his head. ‘No, Dr. Johnson.’

‘Please call me Elizabeth.’ Big Charlie looked embarrassed. She added, ‘We’re all in this together.’

Charlie looked uneasy. He picked up a twig and fiddled with it; then said, ‘We’re going soon, Dr. Johnson. You won’t be able to keep up with us.’

She took a big breath and closed her eyes.

‘Let me worry about that. I’m a big strong girl, haven’t you noticed?’ She tried to make a brittle joke: ‘Maybe too big, you think, hmm?’

Big Charlie smiled, and blushed. ‘I didn’t mean you’re too big.’

She had him talking.

‘Yes, you did—too fat.’

‘You’re not too fat, Dr. Johnson.’

‘Just fat, huh?’

Big Charlie squirmed in smiling embarrassment. ‘You’re just right for me.’ Then he looked horrified, as if he wanted to slap his hand over his mouth. ‘I mean—for my liking.’ He floundered. ‘I mean … I think you’re great like you are,’ he ended, covered in confusion.

She smiled and felt tears burn for a moment.

‘Thank you, Charlie.’

Big Charlie looked desperately down the glen for Davey. But there was no rescue in sight; he pulled himself together and crumbled the twig.

‘But we will worry about you, Dr. Johnson. And … we’ve got enough to worry about right now.’

‘Charlie—don’t let’s talk about it. Let’s wait for David. Let’s just talk …’

A glint came into his hooded eyes.

‘It’s not just for Davey to decide, Dr. Johnson.’

She could have bitten off her tongue for the tactless way she had put that.

‘I know … I’m sorry … but please—can we just talk?’ She shook her head. ‘Tell me about yourself. Or I’ll talk about myself. Are you married, Charlie? Have you got a girl friend? Where is she? Or let’s … tell me about the animals.’

Big Charlie looked at her with disappointment. That she thought she was fooling him. But he was too polite to say so.

‘I’m not married,’ he mumbled reluctantly.

‘Is Davey?’ she said brightly.

‘No.’

‘Have you got a girl?’

Big Charlie looked at the ground, and then a rueful smile twinkled across his face. ‘Sometimes …’ Then a smothered laugh rose from his chest: ‘When I get lucky.’

She was smiling again. Oh, poor Charlie! ‘And Davey?’

Charlie shifted and looked at her apologetically. ‘Can we talk about the animals?’

She clutched at this change of subject. She cast about for something not provocative.

‘The elephants …’

Big Charlie waited. ‘What about them?’

She marshalled her thoughts urgently. ‘I watched that lion play today. And then the chimps. And … it was truly wonderful.’ She shook her head sincerely. ‘It’s been a wonderful day, really. I’ve learned a great deal. But about the elephants … I mean the zoo ones. Your circus elephants. They’re accustomed to traveling, to new places and all that. And to teamwork. So maybe all this isn’t such a shock for them. But you saw how nervous the zoo tiger is, for example—she doesn’t want to mix. So what I’m saying is, I’m sure that the zoo elephants are feeling the same way. I know those elephants—as individuals. I know they must be very frightened. Of —she waved at the forest—‘the vastness … the lack of security.’

Big Charlie stared at the ground, self-conscious at being asked advice by a fully fledged veterinary surgeon. He found it difficult to say, you’re mostly all wrong.

So he said, ‘You’re partly right, Doctor.’

In his cage in the zoo, Little had learned almost nothing about being an elephant. He had learned what time of day he was going to be fed, when he was going to be chained up again by his foot, that in daylight people came to stare at him. He was not allowed to play with Clever: sometimes their chains were just long enough to be able to reach each other with their trunks, but mostly they were chained too far apart, facing opposite directions. For the rest of the time they just rocked on their great feet. When the people came to look at them, they reached out their trunks through the bars, groping for some friendly contact. There was nothing else to do.

He could not see Jamba behind the next gray wall. But he could smell her, and hear her. Sometimes, he could stretch his trunk out through the bars, reach around the dividing walls, and maybe touch trunks with her. Then they sniffed and groped at each other. He yearned to be with her, for her company, her comfort, and her natural authority. Jamba yearned with all her elephantine instinct to mother him and yearned for his fellow elephantness. But they could not see each other. The only way to express themselves was to trumpet, a frustrated, old sound of the jungles that fell back on the Victorian hall.

Now Little had been released from his cage, and he was with old Jamba, in her important elephant company. Although he felt the urgency in the air, he was not really very afraid. He was only very anxious to do the right thing, to keep up with the running, close to Jamba and Clever, so as not to be left behind. After the first long, confused burst of running on the first day, what he mostly felt was a nervous exhilaration—for the sun, the sky and all the green, for all the space and the glorious sense of using his body.

But Jamba was afraid. Not so much of the wilderness itself, but because she knew they were running away from a wrong that had been committed, and that they would be pursued and punished if caught. For an old elephant understands very well what it is and is not allowed to do; she had learned very well from twenty-five years in a cage that she was not allowed outside; she knew that they were being chased. Only for this reason was she afraid of the wilderness, for the perils it had of her terrible pursuers.

Jamba was just naturally responsible for the young elephants now, for Little and Clever. All her life she had yearned for a calf to mother; for years she had bothered and fretted, and had called out to them in the next cage. Now she had them with her, and along the Appalachian Trail she kept them in front of her where she could discipline them, making sure that they kept running from the dangers behind: for that is an old elephant’s natural duty with inexperienced and foolish young elephants. And when they had arrived at this place and all the animals had thrown themselves down, Jamba had not gone to sleep. Not until the first birds began to twitter and she could see again had she fallen asleep, exhausted, but still on her feet, her big ears listening.

Nor had she relaxed her vigilance when they all woke. She had started feeding, urgently, stuffing her belly while she had the chance, before she had to run for her life again. She made sure Clever and Little were in front of her all the time. If one of them went too far ahead she called him back with an imperative squeak: if one dropped back, she curled her trunk around his rump and shoved him forward. She wouldn’t let them get too close to the circus elephants. She did not want to have too much to do with them yet, especially Queenie. Queenie was big, she had tusks, which gave her authority, for might is right in the kingdom of elephants. Queenie watched Jamba balefully.

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