Still Life with Elephant (25 page)

“W
HAT DO
you want, Neelie?” Tom asked me. “What do you want? How can I make you happy?”

We were in France, at Tom's château, on the outskirts of Vannes, in the northwestern region of Bretagne. We had flown to Charles de Gaulle Airport, just north of Paris, in Tom's corporate jet, a few days after Reese's wedding. We were met there by a driver and whisked away to Tom's estate, about a two-and-a-half-hour drive.

Vannes was a beautiful medieval town with the Cathédrale Saint-Pierre at its heart and a picturesque old harbor as its soul. High walls surrounded the old city, and small colorful shops and outdoor cafés invited hundreds of visitors. We drove through the town's tangle of streets and roadways that wove around dozens of gardens in glorious fall colors, and I had to close my eyes more than once, when it seemed we were on a collision course with indifferent pedestrians dashing in front of us, or other vehicles furiously speeding in and out of the traffic circles like a carnival ride.

“Eh, touriste
,” said our driver with distaste.

 

Tom called it his country cottage, but as with his apartment, the name suffered from grave understatement. An ancient château, three stories of rose-granite walls covered in dark-green ivy, it sat high, overlooking the red stone cliffs that lined the coast of the Golfe du Morbihan. It sat like an elegant dowager, awaiting our arrival. We drove through great black iron gates, past meadows so thick you wanted to run barefoot, and dark, brooding woods that
hovered beyond like protective parents. Blue thistle and lavender were still blooming everywhere, and their fragrance followed us around the circular gravel path. The scent of gardenia hung in the air like vapor.

To the side of the house stood a small stone barn, and I found myself drawn to it as soon as we got out of the car.

“Horses?” I asked, hopefully.

“Chickens,” Tom said. “And, I think, one cow.”

I opened a little wooden gate, stepped into a small tiled courtyard, and waded among a dozen or so small red-and-brown chickens, who clucked noisily at my intrusion and pecked at my shoes. I peeked over a blue wooden half-door into the dim barn. There was fresh hay strewn across the floor, and a large brown cow lying down in the middle of it. She stopped chewing her cud long enough to greet me with a low moo.

Tom came up behind me and rubbed his hands across my back.

“What's her name?” I asked him.

“I'll find out,” he said. “She belongs to my caretaker.”

She dropped her head to take in more hay.

“She has the right idea,” said Tom. “Why don't we get something to eat as well?”

I followed him out of the courtyard to the house. Across the gravel path, onto a wide white-columned porch, and through a heavy, arched wooden front door. He led me through a large foyer of ancient plaster walls and hand-cut stone floors into a big cheerful kitchen, with black pots hanging from dark beams, and braided rugs, and chickens painted on the furniture. Estelle, the caretaker's wife and Tom's housekeeper, gave me a small curtsy and immediately set out platters of cheese and bread and fresh tomatoes and glasses of
pastis
and fussed over me until she was certain that I was beyond satiation. Then she said something to Tom, who nodded and translated.

“Estelle says you might want to wash up and rest a bit.”

“That would be great.” I thanked her, then followed him through
enormous, bright rooms with soaring ceilings and tiled fireplaces and thick colorful rugs and overstuffed furniture covered with soft shawls. I felt very much at home right away.

Our suitcases had already been brought upstairs, to a sunny bedroom with tall leaded-pane windows lining one wall. I could see the gulf, iridescent green-blue, just beyond the gates.

“It's so beautiful,” I breathed.

“We'll be sharing this room,” Tom said. “Unless you mind. There are thirty rooms, fourteen bedrooms—you can have your pick.”

Before I could answer, he had taken me into his arms and was covering my face and neck with a dozen kisses. I pulled him close to me. The scent of mint and wild grass and gardenia filled the room, and he slowly removed my clothes.

 

We napped the afternoon away, rolled against each other. I awoke to find him sitting on the bed, next to me, stroking my face and looking lost in thought. I reached up and touched his hand. Our eyes locked, and I saw him struggle to say something.

“Neelie,” he said, then suddenly stood up. “I'll check on dinner.”

I washed up in an old-fashioned bathroom with sunflower wallpaper, in the whitest, whitest porcelain claw-foot tub, after generously sprinkling the lavender salts that had been left for me into the steaming water. I slid down into the fragrant bubbles, up to my nose, in a reverie of comfort and wonder. This is what life with Tom could be like. Comfortable, endlessly carefree, full of flowers and color and peace. Peace? No, not peace. Love? Tom had never said he loved me. And this beauty, this luxury wasn't really my life.

I dried myself with one of the thick white towels piled on a small carved table and brushed my hair and let it lie loose on my shoulders, then put on jeans and a white tee and sandals and went down to dinner.

Tom's face lit up when I walked into the dining room. “You look like an angel,” he said, and pulled out a chair for me, next to him.

We had oysters and the freshest fish I'd ever eaten. And marvelous grilled vegetables and fruits and Kir, a drink made from
crème de cassis
and Chablis, which didn't hit me until I left the table.

“Let's go outside,” Tom suggested after we finished our dessert—strawberry-filled crêpes with crème fraîche. “It's a beautiful night.” I felt besotted, spoiled.

We walked the grounds and listened to our steps echoing across the crunchy gravel. A barn owl called; an answer came from a nearby tree. Tom put his arm around my waist, and pulled a gardenia from a bush and gave it to me. I was afraid to speak. It was too perfect, but perfect has the burden to remain the same. It can never change. And it can be shattered like a piece of thin glass. I was afraid of perfect. The air was warm, though the wind that came up from the gulf had a strong edge to it. I shivered a little, and Tom stopped walking.

“Are you cold?” he asked, facing me and putting both arms around my waist. “Do you want to go back?”

“No.”

“Not cold?” he asked, puzzled. “Or you don't want to go back?”

I looked toward the water. The smell of the sea was being carried on the wind, and washed across my face, ruffling my hair. I could hear the waves cresting against the rocks and retreating, only to return. I felt like an impostor. I had no right to any of this beauty. I was a guest. A guest. And in a week or two I would be home, worrying about losing Abbie or renting office space or thinking how lost I felt in my apartment.

“What is it?” he asked. “What do you need?”

I needed to find my balance. I wanted so much for us to stand there, in the warm night, in the cold wind, that smelled from late gardenias and the sea, and stand there forever. Forever wasn't possible, I knew that. My balance would come, as it came on a horse. A shift of weight and touch, of trial and error, until you sat perfectly even, perfectly fine, perfectly in control.

“Don't you want to share this with me?” he asked softly.

He hadn't said he loved me.

“We are sharing this,” I said. “Right now. And I thank you for it.”

“Oh,” he said ruefully. “I see.”

 

We spent the next week exploring Vannes itself. We ate in a wonderful restaurant on the rue des Halles, and bought blue-and-yellow pottery and leather bags and copper jewelry. We visited antique shops on the rue Saint-Gwénaël and watched the ancient craft of boatbuilding on the Ile aux Moines.

We drove to Belle-Île-en-Mer, an island of startling rock formations, and we walked along a coastline that rested on cliffs of rose and gray rock, while the surf below hammered away with Gallic confrontation. We biked into the village of La Vraie Croix, and bought bunches of white lilies and cheese and sausage and bread and a honey drink,
chouchen
, from local tradesmen whose attitudes were determinedly French, all short, with light-green eyes that matched the sea pounding near their doors. I smelled gardenias everywhere. And every word I heard sounded like a variation of “fwah fwah du bwah,” which Tom easily translated, slipping in and out of French as one would through an open door.

It was enchanting, and I should have been enchanted. But I was restless, and Tom sensed it.

“Would you like to go to Paris?” he asked me suddenly. We were strolling along the coastline, several hundred feet from the château, watching small yachts sail by while we ate cheese and baguettes and sausage that had been wrapped in brown paper. “You can shop. It's only about two hours or so by train.”

“I'm not really a shopper,” I said to him. “But I would love for you to show me Paris.”

We drove to Paris the next morning, and strolled through the streets, arm in arm, tripping over cracked sidewalks and eating lunch under ancient chestnut trees in the Tuileries Gardens. We strolled the Champs-Élysées at night, and I marveled at the Arc de Triomphe in the distance. We walked and ate all evening, the darkness revealing a glorious array of sparkling landmarks.

“Paris,” Tom said, pronouncing it in French and waving one arm in great expanse as though he had personally arranged the glittering lights and unseasonably warm night just for my benefit, and I was appropriately dazzled.

But I couldn't shake the disquieting feeling that rolled up from my stomach and wrapped itself around my heart. I was quiet—too quiet, I knew, for Tom.

“Are you bored?” he asked. “Or preoccupied?”

“Not bored,” I said, surprised that he would even think that. “Not at all.”

“Then what is it?” he asked. “Because something's not right.”

“I don't know,” I said.

I didn't. I was restless. And distant, though I was thrilled with every minute that I spent by his side.

Maybe I was healing, I thought. Maybe things had to shift and resettle themselves before they would leave me. I didn't know.

We returned to his château. We had only a few days left, and late one afternoon, I wandered on my own to the road that ran along the coast. I climbed a narrow path with little wisps of yellow and lavender wildflowers poking through the crevices, and followed it up to the cliffs. Smooth rose-colored rocks, shimmering with mica, that looked out over a choppy turquoise sea.

I could see Tom's house from here. I sat down on a rock and looked back at the granite walls, sincere and solid, that rested within the fields and woods, at the weather-beaten stone barn, its one side covered with dark-green moss, at the weather vane on top of it, a black iron rooster that spun indecisively this way and that, back and forth, as the wind blowing up from the water ruffled past. It reminded me of the way I felt, spinning one way, then another, a little south, a little west. I would open my practice again—no—the breeze spoke—I would train horses.

The late sun slowly drifted into the water, turning the sky from azure to a brooding gray, and the ever-present wind whipped against my hair. I stood up to make my way back to the house.

“Glad you came back,” Tom teased me at the door, then gave me
a kiss and glass of
pastis.
“Get dressed,” he said. “I have invited friends over for dinner.”

 

They were a charming couple, Maryse and Gérard, old friends of his from New York, who came back to France on a regular basis to visit their families. Maryse had the most perfect complexion I had ever seen—flawless creamy-white skin—and deep-green eyes and chestnut hair. She and Gérard were perfectly matched in Gallic stature—or, rather, lack of it. They were lively and funny and apparently involved in some of Tom's charities as well as owning a diamond-import company from Africa. They spoke English with the French accent that I was getting accustomed to, and we enjoyed a good dinner along with good conversation. Until dessert.

“So, Thomas,” Maryse asked, “what do you plan to do about the culling?”

Tom shrugged and ran his finger along the rim of his wineglass.

“What culling?” I asked.

“Eh!”
Gérard exclaimed. “They are culling herds of elephants in Kruger National Park. We were in touch with your Grisha, but the sanctuary in Kenya cannot take any more. No one can take them!”

I sat up. My heart stuttered and started again. “Culling? You mean
killing
?” My voice broke.

“Stop.” Tom took my hand, then turned to his friends. “We will do something about it, I promise. I have already been in touch with some friends in Kenya, and we're going to try and set up another sanctuary, maybe farther north.”

“When?” I asked.

“I will be leaving for Africa right after I take you home to New York.”

 

I don't remember saying good-bye to Maryse and Gérard. I don't remember preparing for bed. I do remember that we made love, and
afterward neither one of us could sleep. I lay next to Tom, and he took my hand in his. His hand was strong and warm, and I ran my fingers across his broad knuckles.

“What is it, Neelie?” he asked, pulling me close to him. “Are you homesick? Are you ready to go home now?”

“No,” I whispered. “I want to go to Africa.”

A
FRICA
IS a state of mind as well as a continent. We left Bretagne for Kenya two days later. And though I had never been there, as soon as I stepped off the plane at Jomo Kenyatta Airport in Nairobi, a peculiar déjà-vu settled over me. The air tasted familiar, the humidity that draped over us, the gray sky overhung with clouds—it was all strange and familiar at the same time, as if it had somehow settled into my bones long ago and I had come home.

Tom breezed us through customs, then told me to wait in the airport and promised to return soon.

The airport was old and clean, but had little seating, so I stood, leaning against a wall. There was a broken TV on a stand over my head, buzzing a pattern of white lines, and I watched them waver horizontally, then vertically, then horizontally. People milled everywhere. Some looked to be tourists “making” safaris, loaded down with cameras and the faux pith helmets and tan clothing they fancied one should wear to Kenya. Some were businesspeople, dressed in light suits; some were meeting relatives, rushing into arms and weeping. I waited. There were sleep cabins at the far end for rent, forty dollars for eight hours, and I watched several people pay for keys to use them. I watched people bustle in and out of the duty-free shops, until I grew bored. The television was still buzzing.

“Madame Sterling, it is my honor to see you repeat yourself.”

I whirled around to see Grisha, with Tom, several feet away, coming toward me. Or, rather, a cloud of cigarette smoke moving toward me, with Grisha at its epicenter.

“Grisha!” I ran to him and gave him a hug. “I missed you.”

He returned my hug, flushing with embarrassment, then kissed me once on each cheek. “Madame Sterling comes for more ellies?”

“Yes,” I said. “And Madame Sterling is no longer Madame. Please just call me Neelie.”

He took a long drag on his cigarette, squinting his eyes against the smoke. “Grisha is not electrocuted by this,” he said.

I was puzzled for a moment, then realized what he meant. “I didn't think you'd be shocked,” I said. “Our problems were pretty apparent.”

“Ah!” Grisha nodded with understanding. “So—now you are a parent?”

“No, no—” I started, but Tom interrupted.

“We don't want to lose daylight,” he said. “We'd better get going.”

We hurried across the broken pavement of the parking area. It was small, and crowded with taxis and heavy equipment, and obviously in the middle of reconstruction. We walked for what seemed a mile until Grisha led us to a waiting Land Rover, pretty much like the safari jeep we had in Harare.

“So Mademoiselle comes to serve enamels,” Grisha remarked, opening the door to the Rover and helping me in.

“I can't wait,” I said. “To save them or serve them. I don't care which.”

“Did you hire security?” Tom asked Grisha as he sat himself next to me.

“Yes, we make pickup outside Nairobi. They come from Makindu, much recommended,” Grisha answered him, taking his place at the wheel. He gave Tom a sheaf of paper. “Good men.”

Tom surveyed its contents. “They seem a bit off the road,” he said.

“Everything is off road outside of Nairobi,” said Grisha, “because there is no road.”

“Okay. After we pick them up, we need to go farther southwest about eighty miles, to the reserve in Masai Mara,” Tom instructed as Grisha started up the Rover. “Just watch these roads. I understand most of them have washed out.”

“Da,”
Grisha agreed. “Driving here is like jumping from plane.”

Tom took my hand. “You want ellies, you are going to get ellies,” he said. “All the ellies you can handle.”

 

The Rover bounced along the scrambling six-lane Uhuru Highway through the city of Nairobi. Grisha drove at breakneck speed, weaving around potholes, and trucks belching diesel fumes, and
matatus
—minibuses—that would suddenly jerk to a stop in front of us, without warning, in order to discharge passengers every few minutes, before racing rambunctiously to the next stop. An hour and a half later, we were in the town of Narok. It was definitely courting the tourist trade, with souvenir shops everywhere, and street peddlers selling beadwork and Maasai shields.

Grisha selected one of the several small native restaurants, and I gladly got out of the Rover to stretch my legs and eat something. He ordered samosas, a fried dough wrapped around sausage or potato, and after we ate our fill, he ordered dessert, which, for a change of pace, turned out to be fried dough, but sweetened, called
mendazas.
We enjoyed them with very strong, very good coffee. I used the
choo
, which was native for “loo,” which was British slang for
toilette
, which was French for “bathroom,” then waited with Tom while Grisha left to pick up the security men.

“Are they police?” I asked Tom.

“Better,” he replied. “They're Maasai.”

 

Grisha returned about half an hour later, with the Rover and four Maasai tribesmen, tall, solemn, slim as bamboo, sitting stiffly in their red robes, their short hunting spears tucked into elaborately beaded belts. They greeted me with great courtesy as I got into the Rover and then resettled themselves, two in the front, two in back.

“
Jambo
,” they said in Kiswahili.

“Hello,” I said.

“The proper reply is
hatumjambo
,” Tom said to me.

I bowed my head slightly. “
Hatumjambo
,” I said. They seemed pleased.

“Unatoka wapi
?” one of the men said to me. I looked over to Tom.

“He asks where you are from,” he said.

“United States,” I replied.

“
Mzuri
.” They nodded.

“‘Nice.' They like that,” Tom translated.

Then one of them said something in Kiswahili to Tom, who gestured under the seat. I took a surreptitious peek. I didn't need a translation. I saw rifles. A lot of them.

 

The Maasai tribesmen tried to teach me Kiswahili as we drove toward Masai Mara, but I was too nervous about the drive; we jounced in and out of huge ruts and along rocky washouts with such force I caught myself wishing that we had brought parachutes. I didn't remember much of my vocabulary lesson except that
tembo
was “elephant” and
asante
was “thank you.”

 

The sanctuary was just west of the game reserve, on the border with Tanzania. It was part of the Serengeti Plain, and it was under siege from not only the severe drought but, Tom pointed out, government policies that allowed the Maru River to be plundered by industry and repopulation. We passed wandering Maasai tribesmen herding bony cattle that were looking for something to graze upon. Walking slowly along the sides of the road, too, were small herds of emaciated giraffes. There were very few other wild animals to be seen. Tom explained that the wildebeest had died off in great numbers, and the hippos, zebras, and rhinos were now dying off as well. The drought was exacting a terrible price.

 

We reached the sanctuary early in the evening. It was a simple place. High fences of wire and wood that swooped and sagged as far as the eye could see, and two large metal gates with a sign hanging from one, announcing we had reached the Ian Pontwynne Elephant Rescue.

Two of the Maasai jumped from the Rover and pulled at the creaking gate until it opened; then we drove through, to follow a long, narrow, dusty path to the main compound. Chief Keeper Joseph Solango greeted us warmly and gave us a quick tour while he brought us to Mrs. Pontwynne.

I was wild with anticipation, but, to my terrible disappointment, there were no ellies to be seen. They were busy playing, Joseph explained, in their favorite nearby watering hole, or perhaps busily engaged in a game of soccer or practicing how to uproot small trees. They would be returning soon, he promised, when he saw my face.

We met Dr. Annabelle Pontwynne, a plump, pleasant widow in her sixties who had spent her life rescuing elephants. In her long, flowing yellow dress, she resembled one of the buttercups that grew in such abundance along the roads.

Her office was little more than a large wooden cabin, with dozens of elephant pictures hanging on the walls, names and dates below, like portraits of students who had graduated. The furniture was comfortable, several brown leather chairs facing a large desk with a computer. In the corner stood a small table with metal chairs, where she served us tea and little honey cakes. She and Tom spoke about elephant formula, and medical care, and rescue protocols, but I was restless. I wanted elephants.

“Family is everything to them,” she said more than once. “They must have that security. They are happiest when they are with their families.”

I wondered if Tolstoy knew that all happy elephant families were alike, too.

She and Tom were discussing finances now, and my anticipation had gotten unbearable. I finally excused myself.

The preserve was dusty and dotted with acacia trees, and rough outcroppings of red rock, and muddy ponds that were in their last gasps of drying up. Red sand packed hard under my shoes as I wandered aimlessly around the compound. The sky was blue, and still heated, even though it was full evening now, and the few high, white clouds offered no respite from the blazing sun. I wiped my face and sat down on an acacia stump. The air was heavy with dust and humidity, and smelled of elephant and acacia leaves and the profusion of thin, reedy grass that managed to get a toehold in the sand. Everywhere smelled of rock and heat and earth that was nothing like the earth at home. Mostly, it smelled from elephants.

“Mademoiselle Neelie?” Grisha was calling me.

I jumped up.

“Madame Pontwynne recalls you to see ellies now,” he said. I followed him back to her cabin, my heart pounding with anticipation. She and Tom were just coming out of her office, and she greeted me again with much warmth.

“It's time for the babies. They're coming in for the night,” Mrs. Pontwynne announced, clapping her hands together. “You won't want to miss them.”