Tua and the Elephant (3 page)

The moment she saw the elephant swing its trunk and flap its ears, her fears and doubts evaporated.

All Thais love the elephant, from the beloved king in his palace to the monk in his temple; from the baby in the crib to the granny in the hammock; from the
tuk-tuk
driver to the roti vendor; from the city dweller to the rice farmer. And Tua, being Thai from her toenails to the part in her shiny black hair, was no exception. Tua loved elephants.

Of course, Tua had seen elephants before. Elephants make an appearance in Chiang Mai from time to time to entertain the tourists or participate in some ceremony or another. But there was something about this elephant that was different.

For a start, it was young like Tua—but it was still plenty big, even so. Some elephants are so big that one is reluctant to approach them. They are bigger than cars, bigger than trucks, bigger than buses—at least the wild ones are, or so Tua had been led to believe. (Whoever had led Tua to believe this, she could not remember; so it is probably safe to say that she led herself to believe that wild elephants were bigger than buses.)

But Tua was not the least bit afraid of this elephant. The first thought that entered her mind was: I must go and introduce myself. She had an overwhelming desire to tell it all about herself, certain that it would be just as delighted to meet her.

What stopped her were the two mahouts.

A master mahout becomes one with his elephant. He is brother and sister, mother and father, and son and daughter to his elephant. He lives, eats, and sleeps with his elephant. He feeds it from his table, and bathes with it in the river. The mahout becomes an elephant, and the elephant becomes a mahout. The two are inseparable.

But just as there are all kinds of elephants, so, too, there are all kinds of mahouts. And these two mahouts were as scruffy as sewer rats, beady eyed and sharp of tooth. Whiskers grew in sparse patches on their cheeks and chins like mildew. They were both shifty, but one was long and lean, and the other was squat and pudgy.

There was something about the way the elephant turned its head from side to side and eyeballed the two mahouts that gave Tua pause. And when it caught her gaze, she very nearly tumbled over backward. It was as if it were speaking to her with its eye.

She sat down on the steps of the fountain to give this situation a bit more study and thought.

The short mahout was holding out plastic bags of sliced pineapple and watermelon to some
farangs
who, in turn, gave the fruit to the elephant. Nothing alarming about that, Tua thought. The
farangs
gave their money to the elephant, the elephant gave the money to the tall mahout, the short mahout gave the fruit to the
farangs,
and the
farangs
gave the fruit to the elephant. It is how the market economy works. But she recalled how Uncle Sip had told her that free trade was freer for some than it was for others, so Tua watched this business transaction more closely. And that was a good thing, too, for the elephant then did something extraordinary—even for an elephant.

After accepting a fifty-
baht
note from a
farang,
taking it with its trunk as easily as someone with an opposable thumb and four fingers, the elephant stretched as far as it could reach and dropped the note in the lap of a woman who, motioning with hand to mouth in a pantomime of hunger, sat begging on the street with her baby.

Both mahouts bristled like cats.

“Oh, thank you,
chang,
thank you.” The woman bowed her head to the pavement.

The
farangs
grinned nervously, clutched their bags, and reared back on their heels.

“Oh my,” said the short one.

“My goodness,” said the tall one.

“How sad,” said the one in between.

The mahouts snorted and snickered, as if to reassure the
farangs
that it was all part of the show.

“Did you see that, Nak?” said the short one. “The elephant gave our money away.”

Nak, the tall one, glared at the poor woman, and then smiled at the
farangs.
“Don’t give them any more fruit, Nang. We’re closed for business.”

After the
farangs
had gone, the two mahouts scolded the elephant and tugged its ears. Then they went over to the woman and, when they thought no one was looking, snatched all of the notes and coins in her lap.

“Have pity,” she pleaded, shielding her baby. “Have mercy.”

Deaf to her cries, the mahouts walked away with her money, wrapped a heavy chain around the elephant’s neck, and attempted to lead it off. But the elephant refused to budge. Instead, it turned toward Tua and once again held her gaze.

“Did you see that?” it seemed to say.

It wasn’t until Tua nodded her head and mouthed the words, “Yes,
chang,
I saw,” that the elephant allowed itself to be taken away.

Tua hopped off the top step of the fountain like a cricket; ran over to the poor woman and handed her the twenty-
baht
note the
farang
had given her; bowed respectfully, palms together in a wai; and scampered after the elephant.

Tua’s eyes fixed on the elephant: its swaying rump and its swishing tail. The tail seemed to beckon like a wave—like a curling finger. From time to time the elephant looked around its shoulder to see if she was still following. As the streets became alleys, and the alleys became paths, it grew darker and darker. Still Tua followed the switching tail.

“Come,” the tail beckoned. “It’s only a little farther.”

“Forward, brute!” Nak barked, as he struck the elephant’s hind leg with a bamboo stick. “Give my money away, will you? We’ll see about that. No money; no dinner.” And he struck the elephant again.

“I’m hungry,” said Nang. “What’s for dinner?”

“You’re drinking it,” answered Nak, and he passed a bottle behind the elephant’s rump.

Nang drained the contents and tossed the bottle back over his shoulder. It exploded with a crash near Tua’s feet.

“What was that?” Nak spun around, squinted his eyes, and cocked his ears.

“Just the bottle,” Nang shrugged. “It was empty.”

“Not that, you buckethead. Back there.” He pointed to the banana tree that Tua had ducked behind.

“I don’t see anything.”

As Nang peered into the darkness, the elephant lurched forward and jerked him by the chain.

“Whoa, there, you.” He stumbled backward. “Where do you think you’re going?” He struck the elephant another blow and followed after.

The elephant seemed to take no notice of these beatings. Its only concern was whether Tua was still following.

They came at last to a beach beside the River Ping, where the mahouts had made their camp. Nak attached the end of the chain to a stake in the ground while Nang built a fire. As the fire burst into flames on the shore, its reflection did the same on the river. Tua threw herself behind a log to hide from the sudden blaze of light. Trapped until the flames died down and the mahouts retired to their tent, Tua curled up behind the log, closed her eyes, and promptly fell asleep.

A chill woke Tua as if a cold, wet hand had reached out and shaken her awake. How long had she been asleep?

She slowly raised her head and peeked over the top of the log. The fire had burned down to glowing embers and the mahouts were nowhere to be seen. The elephant stood at the end of its chain, with its shackled foot extended in the air behind
it, as if it were trying to pull the stake out of the ground.

“Hello,
chang,
” Tua whispered. She was about to ask if she could help, when she read the words in its eyes: “There you are! What have you been doing?”

“
Kho thot kha.
I’m sorry,
chang,
” she whispered. “I’m coming.”

Tua rose up, crept over to the tent, peeled back the flaps, and looked inside.

Both mahouts were fast asleep and snoring beside two empty bottles. A large pile of dung sat on the ground outside the tent flaps, like a trap. Tua looked back over her shoulder at the elephant.

“Don’t look at me,” the elephant’s eyes seemed to say to her. “Now get this chain off my foot so we can get out of here.”

“
Kha, chang,
” she whispered. “Don’t worry. I’m coming.”

And that is how Tua found herself on the streets of Chiang Mai in the company of a fugitive elephant.

Where does one take an elephant—a fugitive elephant, at that—in the city of Chiang Mai? How does one hide an elephant? Elephants don’t fit into closets, boxes, or drawers. One can’t simply toss a blanket over an elephant and call it a job well done. Someone is bound to notice. Elephants, for better or for worse, draw attention to themselves.

After they had crept far enough away from the camp for Tua to feel safe enough to catch her breath and collect her thoughts, she looked the elephant over as if trying to gauge its true shape, weight, and height. She was trying to imagine it smaller, as if a smaller elephant would be easier to hide than a
larger one. But whenever she managed to squeeze it in a box smaller than itself (in her mind, that is), the elephant flapped its ears (knocking the lid off of that imaginary box) and out came its trunk.

Tua wanted to say, “Could you please put that thing away,
chang
?” but she was afraid it might sound impolite. Besides, where does an elephant put its trunk when it isn’t using it? It doesn’t have a pocket or a purse to put it in. And you might well ask, when does an elephant not use its trunk? An elephant’s trunk is never completely at rest. It reaches with it, like an arm. It grasps with it, like a hand. It breathes and smells with it, like a nose. An elephant’s trunk is always doing something.

The very next thought that stumbled into Tua’s mind was: What am I going to tell my mother?

She imagined herself saying, “Mama, guess what I found?”

That might work with a kitten or a puppy, but it wasn’t going to work with an elephant. And how
would she get it up the apartment stairs? Where would it sleep? What does an elephant eat?

Taking the elephant home was definitely out of the question.

“I know!” Tua gasped. “I’ll take you to my Auntie Orchid. She’ll know what to do, she’s an actress. Plus she’s got a yard and a garden,” she added as an afterthought, trying to assure the elephant that she had its best interests at heart. And also that she was of sound mind and judgment, a girl with big ideas.

The elephant gripped Tua’s shoulder with its trunk and, turning her away from the river, gave her a gentle nudge as if to say: “That’s nice. Now let’s get a move on, shall we?”

“Okay,
chang,
I’m ready,” Tua called back over her shoulder.