Tua and the Elephant (7 page)

Tua tumbled through the front door, ricocheted from room to room, burst out the back, and, stopping at last with hands on knees and gasping for breath, shouted an alarm across the garden.

“They’re coming! They’re coming!”

Auntie Orchid was sitting in the lotus position under a bodhi tree with legs knotted beneath her on a pink and green pillow, eyes closed, and hands folded, palms up, in her lap. Pohn-Pohn, who was standing directly across from Auntie Orchid, had likewise crossed her legs and closed her eyes, and was curling her trunk in front of her face in imitation of the same pose. They each raised an eyelid and regarded the source of this interruption.

“Who’s coming, darling?” Auntie Orchid exhaled. “We don’t usually receive company this early in the morning.”

“The mahouts,” Tua shouted. “The mahouts are in the market!”

The devotees unknotted themselves and sprang into action. Auntie Orchid dashed into the house, while Pohn-Pohn trotted around the yard, looking for a place to hide.

Tua was torn down the middle. Her right foot wanted to follow Auntie Orchid into the house, and her left foot was lobbying to help Pohn-Pohn find a hiding place. Her right foot won the day. As Tua bolted for the back door, Pohn-Pohn retreated to her shelter and attempted to blend in with the scenery.

“Auntie,” Tua called out as she wandered from room to room. “Where are you? What do we do? Where are we going to hide Pohn-Pohn?” Her heart was pounding like a piston inside her chest.

The door to Auntie Orchid’s bedroom swung open and the actress, Lady Orchid, stepped into a shaft of sunlight shooting down from the window above the front door. She was wearing a Thai costume with bangles on her wrists and a golden crown on her head that glimmered like a temple. Batting her comely eyelashes, she turned her crimson lips up in a hint of a smile.

“
Wat,
” she said.

“What?” Tua repeated.

“Not ‘what,’ darling,” Auntie Orchid explained, ‘
wat.
’”

“What
wat
?” Tua asked, though she didn’t think this was quite the time to be discussing temples. (She didn’t think her auntie ought to be playing dress-up, either.)

“My little brother Chi Chi’s
wat,
sweetie. He’s being ordained as a novice monk. I’ve just spoken to him on the phone and he’ll be expecting you.”

“
Wats
have walls tall enough to hide an elephant,” Tua said, warming to the plan.

“An excellent point. But you mustn’t dawdle. It’s a long walk to the edge of the city, with perils and traps at every turn. I’ll remain behind and create a distraction while you make good your escape. It’s how they do it in the movies,” she explained. “What are you waiting for? Put your sneakers on. Reo reo!” She clapped her hands. “Hurry up, there’s no time to waste. Go out the back, into the soi, down the street, and over the moat. It’s across the bridge and just past the train station. And try not to draw attention to yourselves,” she added, before blowing a kiss and sinking back into the bedroom to make up her face.

“The shortest distance between two points is a straight line,” Tua reminded herself of the lesson she’d learned at school. Since point A was Auntie Orchid’s back garden, and point B was Uncle Chi Chi’s
wat,
a straight line between them meant
crossing a very busy intersection on one of Chiang Mai’s busiest streets.

She looked up one end of the soi and down the other.

“All clear, Pohn-Pohn,” she said, trying to sound confident. But she was thinking of the “perils and traps at every turn” that Auntie Orchid had mentioned.

Pohn-Pohn reached her trunk over Tua’s head and sniffed the air.

“Try not to draw attention to yourself, Pohn-Pohn,” she said.

Then arm in trunk, they stepped out into the soi.

Nak raised his clenched fist and was about to give the door a good pounding when it fell away and Lady Orchid appeared in its place.

“Here for the show, boys?” she purred, batting her unnaturally long eyelashes.

“Oh, yes,
pleeease,
” blushed Nang.

Nak bristled and shook his head like a horse. “No, we are not here for the show. We’re here for our elephant. What have you done with it?” he demanded. “And where’s that thieving little guttersnipe? I’ll have the law on the pair of you.”

“The law? Elephants? Guttersnipes? My, but you do have a fertile imagination. You aren’t by any
chance connected with the theater, are you?”

“We’re street artists,” Nang said, hoping to impress this dazzling creature. “Animal acts, mostly. Card tricks. I used to play the bamboo flute.”

“I’ll have a look for myself, if you don’t mind. Outta the way,” Nak said. He attempted to brush past the actress, but she blocked his way.

“I
do
mind, as it happens,” Lady Orchid said, tapping his chest with a daggerlike fingernail. “Very much,” she continued, walking him backward to the end of the porch. “In-
deed
!” And she flicked the end of his nose.

Teetering on the edge, he reached back his foot for a step that wasn’t there … and toppled over like a sapling.

Lady Orchid curtsied, bowed, and blew kisses to her audience, real and imaginary.

Nang broke into applause. “What a show! What a performance! What a woman!”

“You had better see to your friend, darling,” she said. “He looks a little starstruck.”

“Can I come again?” pleaded Nang.

“Of course you can, you silly man. Tickets can be purchased at the box office.”

Then she batted her eyes, stepped inside the house, and closed the door behind her.

“Did you see that?” asked Nang.

But Nak was lying on the ground, gasping for breath.

“Let me help you up. Are you all right? That was a nasty spill. How’s your head?”

Nak pushed him away and steadied himself on wobbly legs. “She’ll pay for this,” he hissed.

“But I’m sure it was an accident,” Nang said in her defense.

Nak’s hand shot out like a cobra and bit Nang’s ear.

“Ow!” Nang cried. “You’re hurting me.”

Nak twisted the ear another notch. “Not the woman, you mongrel half-wit! The feral brat who stole my elephant. I’ll make her pay.”

“You’re hurting me,” Nang whined. “Let go.”

Nak looked down the length of his arm and drew back his hand as if from a flame.

Nang stepped away and rubbed his throbbing ear. Then, reaching for the medallion under his shirt, he mumbled an incantation.

“What’s that? Speak up.”

“That hurt,” Nang said.

“Of course it hurt, you superstitious clod. It was supposed to hurt. How else do I maintain discipline? Now come on, if you’re coming. I’ve got a score to settle with that brat.”

Anger spread across Nak’s face like a bloodstain, and Nang took two paces back.

After glancing over her shoulder at the empty
soi,
Tua turned back to face the bustling street ahead. Motorbikes darted past like wasps,
tuk-tuks
trolled for fares, and red
songthaew
trucks pulled up to the curbside, unloaded their passengers, and gobbled up new ones. Cars and vans bullied each other, honking insults, gunning engines, and spewing exhaust.

“We’ll have to walk in the street, Pohn-Pohn,” Tua said.

Pohn-Pohn raised her head and rolled back her eyes. The street roared at her like a waterfall.

“Don’t worry,” Tua said. “I’ll walk on the outside
and protect you from the cars. Just look straight ahead and follow me.”

The moment they stepped into the street, the observers became the observed. But they didn’t stop traffic so much as congest it, for every car, van, motorcycle,
tuk-tuk,
and
songthaew
veered in their direction to get a better look at the unusual pair. They screeched, honked, skidded, and gawked, while Tua, walking on the outside and cradling Pohn-Pohn’s trunk in her arm, stared straight ahead. As Pohn-Pohn lumbered past, every parked car cried out an alarm until the whole block was shrieking like babies in an orphanage. When they reached the intersection, Tua guided Pohn-Pohn across a lull in the traffic to a concrete island in the middle.

As Pohn-Pohn teetered on the narrow divider, spilling over into the lanes on both sides, Tua looked around her—and into the tinted windshield of a tour bus roaring down on them like a rogue wave.

A flash of sunlight reflected off the dark glass, blinding Pohn-Pohn.

“Look out, Pohn-Pohn!” Tua leapt onto Pohn-Pohn’s trunk as if expecting to pull her out of the way.

Pohn-Pohn opened her eyes and, seeing Tua dangling from her trunk, tossed her head out of the lane. Her ear flapped over her eye as the bus roared past in a blur. She set Tua down on the narrow island and began inspecting her.

“I’m alright, Pohn-Pohn,” Tua said, and hugged her trunk. “That was a close one.” When a gap opened up in the traffic, she led Pohn-Pohn across the empty lanes and down the embankment to the riverside.

As Tua gazed across the River Ping and down to the bridge below, she wondered how she would ever get Pohn-Pohn onto a busy street again. She sat down on a hollow log to collect her thoughts and make a plan. They had to cross the river somehow, or they’d never reach the
wat.