The Elephant's Tale (19 page)

Martine sat up. “I’ve just remembered something. When we were in the storage unit this morning I saw an entry on the delivery sheet for twenty vials of medicine. I couldn’t remember what it was for at the time, but now I do. It’s an animal tranquilizer.”

Ben put down his knife and fork. “That bald man, Tony, he said that it was just as well it was only twenty-four hours until the elephants were gone, because they’d been cooped up so long they were ready to go on a rampage. If the hotel is due to open soon, it makes sense that Reuben James would want them gone. I bet you he’s planning to ship them out to Sawubona tomorrow.”

“Sawubona?”
Martine pulled the gown more tightly around her. “Ben, we have to stop them. But how?”

“Well, right now what we really need to do is sleep. We’re going to be no use to elephants or anyone else if we’re half-dead with tiredness.”

Martine wanted to disagree, but her brain was foggy with exhaustion and the words wouldn’t come. “Okay,” she said weakly, flopping down.

As the afternoon sun boiled down on Moon Valley, not a single bird sang.

Martine was awakened by a keycard clicking in the lock. Ben stirred at the same time and she heard him reach for the flashlight they’d left on the floor between them. He didn’t turn it on, but Martine could sense him lying there in the darkness, poised to fight or flee.

The door opened briefly and a figure slipped into the room. Ben flicked the flashlight on. The intruder was the elephant whisperer. He blinked as the beam seared his pupils.

Martine’s fear gave way to fury. “What do you think you’re doing, Joseph? You nearly gave me a heart attack.” But she softened once she saw that he was more frightened than she was.

“Forgive me for disturbing you, and for frightening you,” he said. “I had to find a way to speak to you both alone. It has taken me up until now to find the key for your door. I beg you, please give me news of my son if you know anything at all. Although you denied it to Mr. James, I had the feeling that you’d met Gift or seen him.”

Martine tried to harden her heart. “What do you care? According to Reuben James, you’re here of your own free will. He says he has a deal with you to look after Gift if you look after the elephants. Obviously it doesn’t matter to you that your son doesn’t know whether you’re dead or alive.”

Joseph hung his head. “You are correct about the first thing. I have had the choice to walk out of here at any time and be reunited with my son. And in the beginning Mr. James would often offer to take me to him, provided, of course, that I never spoke of this place. He is not a wicked man. He genuinely believes in the Ark Project and the good that can come out of it. It is not him I am afraid of.”

“Then who?” asked Ben.

Joseph lowered his voice. “His business partner, Callum. It’s he who convinced Mr. James they should divert the stream in order to control all the water in Damaraland. Mr. James was very much against it but now he has agreed. I think Callum might have some kind of hold over him—perhaps to do with money. If they are allowed to succeed with this plan tomorrow, devastation will follow.”

“I don’t understand,” said Martine. “You claim to love elephants, but you are helping these men with their sick experiments. You claim to love your son and say you’re free to go, yet you are still here.”

The elephant whisperer sank onto a chair and put his head in his hands. “Do you know the expression ‘If you 180 make your bed, you must lie on it’? A long time ago, I made a terrible decision. I’m afraid I have to live with the consequences.”

“Everyone makes mistakes,” Ben told him.

Joseph looked up. “Not like this. My elephants are family to me. They are like my brothers and sisters and uncles. Do you know what it’s like to watch them die slowly in their hearts because the freedom of the desert winds has been taken from them; because they are confined? Elephants lose their minds in such a situation. They become so desperate to be free of captivity that they have been known to take their own lives. I thought I could help them endure this period with patience, play, and love, but I was wrong.”

“You care for the elephants more than you care for your own son,” accused Martine.

Joseph paled. “That is not true, and besides, it is not a competition. I love them all. Please don’t judge me until you know the facts.”

“We’ve been searching for the facts ever since we came to Namibia,” Martine said a little sarcastically. “We’d love to know what they are.”

A shudder went through Joseph. “One year ago, I had an argument with my son. I had noticed some changes in him since he started attending school in Windhoek and I felt they were not good ones. He was cocky. Cheeky. He had this notion to become a famous news photographer. To tell you the truth, I could not admit to him that I could no longer afford to pay for him to go to school, let alone college. I told him to get his head out of the clouds. He accused me of trying to take away his dream and destroy his future. He ran out of the house, threatening never to return.

“During the long night I searched for him, I had much time to think. I realized that I was a stubborn old fool, stuck in my ways, and that the world is changing. I saw that I was a fortunate man to have a son with a dream to become a photographer when so many of my friends have sons who are bone idle and want nothing more than to hang about the town, stealing and drinking and causing trouble. I vowed to do whatever it took to find the money to help him achieve his goals.”

Martine and Ben were riveted. They sat side by side in their gowns and listened to the gentle man.

“Go on,” Martine encouraged.

“Toward morning I was passing Moon Valley when Reuben James came by in his car. I have known him for many years and when he asked me what was wrong, I told him. After swearing me to secrecy, he brought me to Moon Valley and showed me the dome, which had just been completed. He told me of his ambition to create a super race of animals, ones that would survive global warming. He believed that this could be done by studying the desert elephants.

“He offered me more money than I had earned in my whole career to manage, train, and take care of the elephants and, when I hesitated, he doubled it.”

“But the money came with a price attached?” guessed Ben.

Joseph nodded. “The Ark Project was top secret, which meant that if I wanted to be part of it I had to make a decision there and then. I could not even go home for one hour to explain everything to my son. I had to agree to cut off all contact with my former life for a period of twelve months. In return, Reuben said he would educate Gift and care for him as if he was his own son. He promised to do everything in his power to help him achieve his dream.”

“So you signed on the dotted line,” said Martine.

“I signed. The gates of Moon Valley closed and my life ended, all in the same moment.”

Outside the hotel room, night had fallen. Martine listened for the crickets and frogs that made African nights so musical, but the crater was eerily still.

Ben made them coffee and they sat at the dining table drinking it. Joseph’s story had made Martine worry again about Gift and why he’d never returned to the Welcome Center. There was a catch in her voice as she said, “If it’s any consolation, Reuben James has at least honored his promise about Gift.”

Over the next half hour, she and Ben told Joseph every detail of the days they’d spent with Gift, starting with him rescuing them in the red dunes of Sossusvlei and ending with him dropping them off at the Stone Age etchings in Damaraland. Neither of them said anything about Gift failing to reappear and their concerns that something might have happened to him. Rather, they put the blame on themselves, saying they’d wandered off and gotten lost in the desert.

Seldom had Martine seen a man so transformed by a piece of news. It was as if they’d given Joseph a tonic. He looked twenty years younger.

“The way my son helped you makes me proud,” he said. “And this photography career you say he has and the home he has built, these are the best things a father could hear. Knowing that my boy has become a man and, not only that, a gentleman, these words are like the sunshine to me.”

He stood up. “I am already in your debt and we don’t have much time, but I wonder if I can be permitted to ask you one more question.”

“Go ahead,” said Ben with a smile.

“I heard you talking to Mr. James about the elephant that was tortured and tormented by Lurk. You said she was living at Sawubona? Sawubona is your home in South Africa?”

“It is,” said Martine. “It’s a game reserve near Storm Crossing. My grandfather and our game warden, Tendai, took Angel in and made her well again. She’s happy now, I think, but she always seems lonely.”

She decided not to mention that, barring a miracle, in three days’ time Sawubona would be taken over by Reuben James and Angel would belong to him. So, agonizingly, would the white giraffe.

“That is good to hear. They had sent her away a long time before I was brought to this place, but as soon as the other workers described her I knew they were talking of one of my favorite elephants—one I knew for over thirty years. I was heartbroken, imagining the worst. My comfort here has been the companionship of her sister.”

Martine stared at him as if he’d grown wings. “Her
sister!”

Joseph nodded. “Ruby, the elephant you healed today. She is the twin sister of your Angel.”

He turned to leave.

“I’m confused, Joseph,” said Ben. You signed up to be at Moon Valley for twelve months. That means you must be due to go home to Gift any day now?”

The elephant whisperer looked down. “I have reached the end of my contract, yes, but there is a problem.”

“I don’t suppose it has anything to do with Callum?” said Martine.

Joseph reacted as if she’d poked him with a burning stick. “Please, Miss Martine, keep your voice down. A few months ago, Callum warned me that if I walked away from the Ark Project, I must do so knowing that one day—it could be tomorrow or in ten years—Gift would meet with an accident. I hope it is his idea of a joke, but I am afraid to test him. If it is a choice between my life and my son’s, I will choose to save Gift’s, even if it means he must grow up without a father.”

There was a knock at the door. They almost jumped out of their skins.

“What if that’s him?” Joseph fretted. “He must not find me here. He’ll think I’ve been telling you secrets.”

“Hide in the closet,” said Martine. “Don’t worry. Whatever happens, we’ll protect you.”

The knock came again, louder this time.

Ben bounced up and went to the door. “Can I help you?” he mumbled in a polite but sleepy voice.

“Housekeeping.”

He opened up cautiously, scared it might be a trap. A smiling maid handed him a parcel. It was their ragged clothes, washed and ironed.

“Good evening,” she said. “I am here with your laundry and a message from Reuben James. He sent me to ask if you would like some dinner.”

T
hey were ready to go before first light. They’d done all they could to persuade Joseph to come with them, but he wouldn’t leave his elephants. If his elephant family was going to be moved, he wanted to be with them. And he refused to do anything that might endanger his son.

After making Martine and Ben promise that they wouldn’t reveal his location to a living soul, he gave them an elephant hair bracelet and said, “If you see Gift, find some way to put this in his possessions so that he will come across it one day and know that I am alive and I love him.”

“No,” said Martine. “You’re going to give it to him yourself.”

Despite that, the elephant whisperer had agreed to tell them the code that opened the main gate, and the time the guards took their morning tea. He confessed that he’d memorized everything because he’d dreamed so often of escape, or of sneaking out to see Gift.