Four Doors and Other Stories (6 page)

“This is her way of telling you that she loves you too. That she is happy every time you come and see her.”

“How old is Gaya? Her skin is so crinkled that she seems ancient…” said the bespectacled kid before he could control himself. The skinny girl nailed him with a defiant look.

“Good observation, you are a clever little fellow. What’s your name?” asked the caretaker.

“My name is Mickey and I’m six,” he answered like a gunshot, surprised that somebody, a real person, was thinking so highly of him.

“To tell you the truth, Mickey, Gaya isn’t very old. But she’s not very young either. You could compare her to a woman in her forties. As fine as possible!” The teacher smiled, flattered because the man seemed to have looked at her while uttering these last words.

“And how did she get here? Did she walk?” little Mickey kept asking. The pale little girl started laughing but the caretaker ignored her.

“Yes, she walked…but she also sailed. She travelled on wheels, in a truck. Some circus people found her more dead than alive, while she was still a baby. They took care of her until she recovered. However, they grew fond of her. And she grew fond of them as well. The humans decided to keep her and turn the elephant into a circus attraction. Gaya knows how to use a towel after taking a bath. Gaya is a star!” The children listened, mesmerized. Even the elephant stood still.

“One day, bad fortune fell upon the circus. The owners went bankrupt. It was too late for Gaya to go back into the wilderness. The other elephants would have rejected her. They could have sold her to another circus but they weren’t acquainted with anyone decent. Instead, they chose to send her to a zoo, where she would be loved and looked after properly. After a thorough selection process, they chose this zoo. Thus, Gaya started the journey on water, crossing the ocean on a ship. She continued by land, in a big truck. And walked from the entrance to her enclosure,” the caretaker ended his story. The children clapped their hands, in delight.

“I understand that Gaya is a friendly and peaceful creature. The kids are upset to see her tethered. Is it really necessary?” asked the teacher.

“I’m sorry but we had to tie her up because she was chasing kids down the zoo’s alleys and stole the candies from their pockets. I’m joking! Although I heard, she used to do it to the children in the front row at the circus. I mean, checking their pockets for candies, in the cutest possible way. The truth is that, no matter how gentle she may be, she is still a beast. It is difficult to predict her reactions. There are also ill-disposed people that it’s safer to keep her away. Imagine Gaya would approach the fence in full confidence. And that somebody would sneak something into her trunk. Let’s say, a mouse. Or maybe put a stick into her eye. You wouldn’t want anything like that to happen, would you?”

“Noooo, noooooo, we wouldn’t!” a choir of tiny voices answered back.

“Gaya can move freely both in her summer and winter house. Let me tell you something else, but first you must promise that you can keep a secret. Do you promise?”

“Yes, yes, we can. Do tell us, do tell us!”

“That’s not good enough. Let me hear you: we promise to keep the secret!”

The teacher was watching them in delight. This man had a gift she had rarely seen. Even she had to work hard in order to polish her skills of dealing with the little ones. Actually, she was still improving them.

“We promise to keep the secret, we promise to keep the secret, we promise to keep the secret!” they uttered in one voice, same as they did every morning, when they were standing up to greet the teacher.

“Very good, I knew I could trust you! Every now and then, during the night, we set Gaya free and let her wander the zoo’s alleys.”

“Awesome!” exclaimed little Mickey. How he would have enjoyed walking with her, eventually up on top of her head, just as he had seen in a movie.

“I’m glad we met, children! I hope I’ll see you again. Go see the other animals. They could use some friends as well,” said the caretaker, pulling his hat down his forehead. “I need to carry on with my work.”

The teacher approached him, holding out her hand,

“You’re doing a great job here. It seems that you’re good not just with beasts, but with children as well.”

“Thanks, madam,” he answered touching the brim of his hat with two fingers, as a salute, while taking her palm into a big and rugged hand. “It’s just nature.”

That evening, Mickey was agitated. He barely touched his food and, right after dinner, he rushed into his room, saying he had homework, loads of it, to do. He even put the Do Not Disturb plate on his door. He was determined to go back to the zoo that very night. Somehow, he knew Gaya would be set free to take a stroll through the park. As his destination was pretty far and the bus service wasn’t available at night, he had to take a cab and needed cash. Walking with Gaya in liberty was worth a thousand times more than the bicycle with the green tires he wanted for his birthday and was saving money for. He opened the lid of the moneybox, a miniature of the red phone booths in his hometown, and threw its contents on his desk. It was made up of a few crumpled notes and many coins. Some of them rolled under his bed. Here was the money that his grandparents had given him at Christmas, for his birthday, and his fee for helping his father clean up the garage. After counting, he shook his head, satisfied. He had enough money, he thought, not only to get there but to also come back. Unless Gaya suddenly decided to go back to India and wanted him to accompany her. The only thing left to do was to choose what to wear. He needed clothes that would make him look like a grown-up person, so that he could make the cabdriver take him to the zoo, and that were strong enough for a long trip. He ran over the clothes in his closet but nothing seemed appropriate.

He pouted for a few seconds and then suddenly, his face lit up. He rushed under his bed and got a big box out. It was the box where he kept his cowboy outfit. The vest, the checkered shirt, the leather pants, the boots, even a hat. Swell! The large brim, as large as the caretaker’s from the zoo, would hide both his face and age. He would present himself to the cabdriver as an American cowboy visiting his European relatives. The only issue left was getting inside the zoo that closed at seven p.m.

“It would be so nice if Gaya waited for me at the gate. She would put her trunk around me, raise me up in the air and take me inside.” Mickey was dreaming with his eyes open. “Except that Gaya has no clue I am coming so she can’t meet me. It’s ok, I shall clear the fence. I might bring the washing line from the garage. A cowboy is no cowboy without his lasso.”

It was barely nine o’clock. The TV set was making noises in the living room. Had these parents of his no intention of going to sleep? He was running out of patience. His schoolbag lay on the floor untouched. He decided to try on his cowboy outfit. It had been a while since he had last put it on. What if he had outgrown it? Luckily, it still fit. Maybe the sleeves were a bit short. The TV set silenced, implying that his parents were getting ready for bed. Every night, they would come into his room and kiss him goodnight. All dressed up as he was, he hid under the blanket which he pulled up to his chin, pretending he was half-asleep.

He had no idea how long he stayed like that. When he opened his eyes, it was dark in his room and silence ruled all over the house. A soft noise,
knock, knock
, was coming from his window. What could it be? The trees grew on the other side of the lawn. And he had a visit to make. He hit the ceiling and went to the window to find out what was making that sound.

There she stood, almost as big as the house. Gaya was knocking at his window with the sole finger of her trunk.

“Come on, hurry up!” she said. “They’re expecting us!”

“I’m coming, let me just grab my hat!” answered Mickey who was suddenly able to perfectly see distant objects and did not need his eyeglasses anymore. “Get off the lawn. My father will kill me”

The elephant backed away, right in the middle of the road.

“I’m ready,” he said, opening the window.

Gaya stretched out her trunk, putting it delicately around his waist. Finally, she placed him on top of her head, just as he had wished.

“You can hold onto my crown,” she said. The elephant was wearing something on her head comparable to a tower-shaped jewel, adorned with colourful butterflies and precious stones. She had massive golden bangles at her feet, with gold tassels jingling at each step. Her eyelashes were dark brown and longer than he remembered.

“I am glad to see you again, by the way. I think you are a great little fellow,” Gaya told him, as she moved at an unusual speed for an elephant.

“I don’t know, not everybody agrees with you,” he answered a little sulky and still sleepy.

“If you are implying those two girls, your class-mates, the skinny one and the chubby one, there is one thing I know: they suck. Su-ck! They need a cold-water shower to come to their senses. But I did not want to scare you. The truth is that it is not their fault. They hold nothing against you. They just do not feel loved, that’s all. Therefore, they withdraw into themselves and treat other people badly. Either they look people up or they make fun of them.”

Poor things
, Mickey thought.
Not to feel loved must be terrible. Not to be kissed goodnight. Not to see the Easter Bunny. Not to be able to speak to animals.

“I’m glad to see you too, Gaya,” he said almost kissing her wrinkled head with an enthusiasm he tried to hide because his father had taught him that a man had to control himself. And, hell, he was a man. He had left home all by himself.

“I knew you could speak,” he whispered.

Gaya smiled. “You can whisper as softly as you like, I can still hear you. I can hear even your thoughts!”

The streets they were passing looked bizarre and strange. Moreover, they were very different from those he knew so well. The two-story houses, aligned impeccably alongside concrete sidewalks, where tiny trees were growing at a specific distance between each other, had been replaced by hovels painted in bright colors. As dawn approached, he could see that some of them had a dirty cloth at the entrance instead of a door. Fistfuls of withered grass were growing on the curb.

“Where are we?” he asked curiously.

“We are in India. We’re going to the circus. I am the star of the show and you are my special guest!”

Mickey stood up and started swinging his arms. Before Gaya was able to make a sound, he slipped and almost fell. Most obligingly, the elephant waved his left leg so that the little fellow may grab it.

“Do not try standing on a walking elephant without previous training!” joked Gaya.

“I didn’t mean to do this! I was just happy about being in India and about being properly dressed. Look, I have a hat! Is the sun strong in India?”

“Yes, it is quiet strong!”

“How do you get by without a hat? Don’t you get a sunburn?”

“Never! My skin is thick, so thick that I feel nothing. When I’m hot, I cool down. Just like this!” she answered sucking up a finger of water from a puddle and sprinkling it on him. Mickey giggled, delighted.

“Tell me, Gaya, don’t you ever get bored being locked up in that enclosure at the zoo?”

“I don’t have much time to get bored.”

“How come?”

“Firstly, I get plenty of guests every day. And not just children, like you. But other creatures as well like animals or insects. Then there are birds that are flying in from remote places to recount to me what is going on in the vast world. Pigeons sent to get advice on a circus number. Ants who know the latest news from inside the earth. Marvelous things happen around me all the time. A blade of grass is growing. Dandelion seeds learn to fly. A cloud changes shape. A star rises. How could I ever get bored?”

“Then why do people get bored? Maybe it is better to be elephant than a person. Look, sometimes on Sundays, when we are all at home, I see Mummy walking back and forth in the dining room. My father watches TV, pretending he doesn’t see her. Until she places herself right in front of him, hiding the telly, and yells: ‘I’m bored!’”

“I’ll try to clear this up for you. Did you ever go to the circus?”

“Sure, I did! But never to an Indian one.”

“Did you notice how the magician was hypnotizing the rabbit until it stood totally still?”

Mickey nodded his head in affirmation.

“It goes the same way with people. Somehow, they act like this rabbit. They never live in the present. All they do is think about what happened and what is going to happen. Sometimes, these thoughts seem to get tired. This is when, having forgotten how to listen or to observe, they start feeling bad. Like being hungry. They say they get bored. And rely on a familiar activity to push away the nasty feeling.”

Mickey was confused. Why were grown-ups thinking so highly of themselves when it was obvious that they were less intelligent than an elephant?

The air was lighting up and vibrating with merry music sounds. They were approaching a huge tent, with purple and red walls. A same-coloured flag, with two golden strips, was waving on the highest point of the tapering top. The elephant and the boy stopped near the artist entrance. Gaya made that trumpet sound again. A chimp wearing a white vest with big, silver buttons and red, baggy, silk pants appeared at once. Massive bangles hanged at his wrists. The turban on his head, artfully made, bore a huge amethyst.

“Raj will take you to your seat,” said Gaya lowering him on the ground. “Stay calm, be patient and you will see me as no one in your country has ever seen me before.”

Gaya became impressive, majestic, superb and very different from the grey and burly animal at the zoo. All dressed up, prepared for the show, she seemed to be more than an artist. She was a goddess of creativity, luck and abundance.

The chimp took Mickey’s hand and pulled him inside the tent. The backstage was animated with humans and beasts who, in perfect harmony, prepared for the show. The little boy sat in the front row. His heart was pounding heavily. He did not know where to look first. To the swarthy people around him. Or to the merry orchestra that was making the wonderful music, the clowns who were playing tricks in the middle of the arena. Or to the dazzling, colored lights, shining from the ceiling.