Chained (14 page)

“Time to light mine,” he says.

Dots of wax leave a trail in the dirt as I lift my candle to Ne Min’s. The wicks touch, and the flame of one candle lighting another burns bright.

“Now blow out your candle,” Ne Min says.

I move my candle away from his and blow it out. Black and gray smoke swirls away from the wick.

“No more life in your candle, but mine lives because of it. Is my flame the same as the one you had?”

“Not the same, but it came from mine.”

“Yes. Without the light of your candle, mine would have no flame. Your candle has died, but gave light to a new one.”

“So when you die…”

“What has kept me alive will give life to something else. And soon”—Ne Min points his candle to the old bull elephant, who wanders away from us now—“what keeps him alive will breathe new life into something else.” Ne Min blows out his candle and hands it to me.

I don’t want to think about Ne Min dying someday, and how lost I would be.

“I should go clean the stable,” I say, even though I’ve already cleaned it this evening. I leave the candles lying on the ground and walk away.

Ne Min comes into the stable with the finished hammock and hands me two metal hooks to screw into the ceiling. I climb up the logs of the stable wall.

After I hang the hammock, I pull on it to test its strength while still clinging to the wall. I roll into the hammock and hang on as it swings above Nandita. I don’t know how she will react if I fall on her, but I’m sure she would not like it. Ne Min tosses my blanket to me. The hammock is comfortable once it stops swinging. I peek through the knots at Nandita. She looks up at me, her swinging trunk clutching the wooden Ganesh I carved in the cook shed.

I remember something now that Ne Min said when we first saw the old bull elephant.

“Ne Min, when I asked about the elephant’s size, you said Nandita would never grow that big, even if she did live as long as he has. Why did you say ‘if’ she lives that long? She will live to be an old elephant one day, won’t she?”

He opens the stable door to leave. “Not if she stays here.”

21

A frightened elephant has the strength of many.

—From
Care of Jungle Elephants
by Tin San Bo

My eleventh birthday comes and goes, but I feel much older. I try not to think about home so much, but I can’t help wondering if Amma celebrated my birthday somehow. I’ve also given up hope about leaving, and my sadness makes the days seem longer and longer.

Then in late August Timir mentions the new circus.

“I have wonderful news,” he says.

I’m almost finished with the breakfast dishes, but I wash the last pot over again while I listen.

“Another circus owner, Ravi Kapur, has approached me about needing an elephant act.”

He looks like he’s about to leap out of his chair with excitement, but the rest of us are quiet. I imagine Sharad and Ne Min are thinking the same thing I am: what does this mean for us?

“Where is his circus?” Sharad asks.

“About a two-hour drive…”

Toward home or away from it?
I want to ask. Water drips down my arm as I hold the pot still.

“… east of here,” Timir finishes.
Away from the sunset. Farther from home.

“He has all the supplies he needs, a big elephant barn, even a doctor to take care of all the circus animals. All he needs is a trained elephant.”

Sharad asks, “So … he has a circus, and all the equipment, but no elephant act yet?”

“He did have an elephant. He needs a new one. Kapurji will come here in two weeks to see the show—so it must be perfect. Increase her training time if you have to.”

Nandita is so tired at the end of each day, I don’t know how she will make it through an even tougher schedule.

“He’s willing to pay a lot of money for an elephant that is trained and ready to work. And her trainer, of course.”

Sharad’s shoulders relax as he exhales.

Ne Min is wiping off a counter that already looks clean. I wonder what will happen to him.

“Will he need the elephant’s caretaker?” Ne Min asks.

“Or a cook?” I ask.

Timir looks from Ne Min to me as if he just realized we were in the room. He stares at me when he answers Ne Min’s question. “The boy stays with me. I paid for him, and my circus will need workers.”

My heart sinks to the floor. I don’t want to stay here without Nandita.

“And what about your circus?” Sharad asks. “If you sell the elephant—”

“With the money from Kapurji, I can start over with some new acts. I plan to bring on clowns, a team of acrobats, and some trained monkeys for now. All of them are less trouble than an elephant, and cheaper to feed.” He laughs.

After all this time and so many shows, Timir has never been able to add any new acts. He blames Nandita for costing him too much money in food. How did he not know she would need hay, and lots of it? If Timir had to do the work himself, nothing would survive. I wouldn’t trust him to take care of a dung beetle.

I put away the clean dishes and walk to the arena to check on Nandita. She holds her chain in her trunk and bangs it against the post. The deepening rut in the ground shows that she has been pacing in circles again.

I wonder what kind of man Ravi Kapur is. Nandita sways back and forth, and I pet her trunk to calm her down. If he does buy her, it sounds like she will get better care—a barn fit for an elephant, and an animal doctor.

But I can’t stand the thought of living here without her. Being with Nandita is what gets me through the day. I promised her I would set her free one day, that I would never leave here without her, but what will I do if she leaves here without me? Then it occurs to me that if Nandita is sold to the circus without me, nothing will keep me from climbing over the fence at night and running away.

Sharad jogs toward us from the cook shed to unchain Nandita for her training. His smile tells me that he likes the idea of having a new boss.

*   *   *

When I go to get Nandita for her bath, she is not chained to her post like she usually is by now. Sharad is still training her.

“I need more time,” he says when he sees me. “She must learn how to walk on her hind legs by the time Kapurji comes.” I don’t think Sharad will have any luck, when Nandita seems almost too tired to stand on all four legs.

“Will you let me know when you’re finished so I can take her to the spring?” I ask.

“Timir thinks it will be funny if the elephant follows me around on two legs, like she’s imitating me,” he says. Sharad doesn’t look like he finds the idea all that funny.

I leave them to go work on my other chores. After I clean out the stable, I chop firewood and stack it next to the stove in the cook shed.

Sharad has not come by to let me know that Nandita has finished her training session, but they must both be exhausted by now. I decide to check on how she’s doing and find out if Sharad is almost finished.

When I enter the arena, Sharad is nowhere in sight. Nandita is lying on the ground, chained to her post and shackled. I unlatch her chain from the post. Usually she is the one who leads us to the spring, but now she will not even stand.

I pet her head and trunk. “Come on, Nandita, bath time.” Gently I tug on her chain to encourage her to stand. When she still doesn’t move, I sit next to her and pet her side as I talk to her.

Finally she stands, but she is wobbly on her feet. She lags behind me while I lead her to the spring. Ne Min’s face wrinkles with worry when we pass by the cook shed.

Nandita lies on her side when we get to the spring, and I decide to let her stay here as long as she wants.

She sighs as the cool spring water rushes over her body. When I scrub her, I feel her throat rumble as she growls—not like an angry tiger, but like a purring cat. An enormous purring cat.

With both my hands I pet Nandita under her jaw. Something doesn’t feel right—one side seems swollen. I’m ready to jump out of the way of Nandita’s slap when I press the area, but she doesn’t react. It must not be painful, but I will keep an eye on it.

In the morning I awake before Nandita and decide to let her sleep in. No one else will be here for a while, and she needs her rest.

Smoke pours from the cook shed’s chimney. When I enter the shed I see Ne Min sitting at the table, reading a book. I don’t smell anything cooking, but a fire burns in the oven and a metal bowl of food sits on the counter.

“Ne Min, why are you here so early?” I ask. He closes the book and moves it aside. Before he slides it away from the lantern light, I see a picture of an elephant on the cover.

“Bring me a stone. A large one, but one you can carry in both hands.”

I have no idea why Ne Min would need a large stone, but he will explain himself when he is ready.

Ne Min is standing at the counter stirring the bowl of food when I return with the stone. He opens the oven door. I expect him to take the bowl and place it on the grill over the fire, but instead he takes the stone from my hands and places it directly into the flames.

“What have you noticed about Nandita?” he asks.

I look at the oven before answering, wondering why someone would want to cook a stone. “She is tired, more than she usually is. Even at bath time I have to drag her to the spring, and she’s not easy to drag. She slept through the night and is still asleep now.”

He hands me the bowl. “Rice and bananas may help her regain her strength. Rest would help most of all, but…” He trails off. “What else is different about her?”

“I’m not sure, but when I was bathing her, it seemed like her jaw was swollen.”

“You’re right, it is swollen.”

“It doesn’t seem painful to her.”

“No, but uncomfortable. A sign of overwork.” He removes the stone from the oven with a pair of metal tongs. He sets it on the counter and wraps it in a thick white cloth, then places it across the bowl I’m holding.

“A hot compress will help the swelling go down. Hold it for a few minutes on each side,” he says.

*   *   *

Nandita is still listless when I see her in the afternoon, even though I have added the bananas and rice to her diet. Throughout the day I reheat the stone and wrap it in the cloth to hold against her swollen jaw. Sharad sighs like he’s annoyed whenever I interrupt Nandita’s training, but he doesn’t say anything. He has to know she needs better care. I cannot imagine how he’ll make any progress training her when she can hardly stand.

While cleaning the stable I decide I will try to talk to Timir. He’ll probably just yell at me, but if I can convince him that the show will be better if Nandita is well rested, maybe he will listen. He is so excited about Kapurji’s visit that he cannot see what is happening right in front of him.

On my way to Timir’s office I feel like a sandstorm is raging in my stomach.

I stop outside the office door when I hear voices.

“She’s overworked. She can hardly move,” Ne Min says.

“Sharad has ways of getting her to move when it’s showtime,” says Timir. “She can rest at night, like everyone else.”

“She must have a break from the work, at least for a couple of days,” pleads Ne Min.

“Don’t you understand? Kapurji is coming here next week. If the show is not perfect—if he is not impressed—he will not be interested in buying that animal.”

“He will be less impressed with an animal that falls down in front of him. If she is not properly cared for—”

“Yes, we know how
properly
you take care of elephants, don’t we?”

In my mind I see Timir’s face, his eyes cold but his mouth curling into a smile. “You are lucky I let you anywhere near my elephant.”

What is he talking about? I couldn’t keep Nandita alive day to day if not for Ne Min. I hold my breath while I wait for him to defend himself.

I don’t hear him walk away from Timir, so Ne Min startles me when he steps out of the office. He does not look at me as he walks by.

*   *   *

Before I go to sleep I check on Nandita. The swelling under her jaw seems to have gone down a little. I pick up the stone and the cloth to prepare one more compress for the night.

In the cook shed, I find Ne Min reading again. If he knows I’m here, he doesn’t show it. After I relight the fire and place the stone in the oven, I sit down across from him.

Each page Ne Min looks at has drawings of elephants. As he reads, I scan the handwritten pages for a letter I recognize. Baba taught me a long time ago how to write my name, but I don’t see any letters like those.

“I’ve never seen writing like that before,” I tell Ne Min. “It looks like a lot of loops and circles.”

He rubs his eyes. “Bring me two leaves. I will show you why.”

I run outside and pick two palm leaves, then bring them back to Ne Min. He lays a leaf down on the table in front of me, then hands me his pen.

“Write something on your leaf.”

I start to write my name, but as soon as I make the first straight line, the leaf tears.

Ne Min takes the pen from my hand. “Long ago, before they had paper, my people wrote on leaves.” He writes on his leaf, using letters like those in his book. “Letters with straight lines, like yours, will tear the leaves.” The letters dance across the leaf as he fills it, row after row.

“But rounded lines—not so harsh,” he says, “and will not harm the leaf.”

I want to find out what Timir meant by his comment to Ne Min earlier, but I’m not sure how to ask.

“Ne Min, thank you for talking to Timir today about Nandita. I know it did no good, but…”

“You must find a way to get her out of here,” he says. “Yourself, too.”

“I tried that before. I don’t know how it’s possible now, with the shackles.” Even if I could get past the fence and escape with Nandita, she could not live in the wild with shackles on her legs. She wouldn’t be able to run from danger or keep up with the herd. The metal cuffs, snug around her legs now, would dig into her skin as she grew if no one were around to unlock and loosen them.

Ne Min stops writing and sets the pen next to his leaf. “It complicates things, yes. But you are her caretaker, and she cannot be taken care of here.”