Water for Elephants

He raises the bottle up to Camel’s lips and holds it as he swallows a half-dozen times. He looks like a baby taking a bottle. Walter turns on his heels and leans against the wall. Then he takes a long swig himself.

“What’s the matter—don’t like the whiskey?” he says, wiping his mouth and gesturing at the unopened bottle in my hand.

“I like it just fine. Listen, I don’t have any money so I don’t know when or if I can ever make it up to you, but can I have this?”

“I already gave it to you.”

“No, I mean . . . can I take it for someone else?”

Walter looks at me for a moment, his eyes crinkled at the edges. “It’s a woman, isn’t it?”

“Nope.”

“You’re lying.”

“No I’m not.”

“I’ll bet you five bucks it’s a woman,” he says, taking another drink. His Adam’s apple bobs up and down and the brown liquid lowers by almost an inch. It’s astounding how quickly he and Camel manage to get hard liquor down their gullets.

“She is female,” I say.

“Ha!” snorts Walter. “You better not let her hear you say that. Although whoever or whatever she is, she’s more suitable than where your mind’s been lately.”

“I’ve got some making up to do,” I say. “I let her down today.” Walter looks up in sudden understanding.

“How ’bout a little more of that?” Camel says irritably. “Maybe he don’t want none, but I do. Not that I blame the boy for wanting a little action. You’re only young once. You gotta get it while you can, I says. Yessir, get it while you can. Even if it costs you a bottle of sauce.”

Walter smiles. He holds the bottle up to Camel’s lips again and lets him have several long swallows. Then he caps it, leans across, still on his haunches, and hands it to me.

“Take her this one, too. You tell her I’m also sorry. Real sorry, in fact.”

“Hey!” shouts Camel. “There ain’t no woman in the world worth two bottles of whiskey! Come on now!”

I rise to my feet and slip a bottle in each pocket of my jacket.

“Aw, come on now!” Camel pleads. “Aw, that just ain’t no fair.”

His wheedling and complaining follow me until I’m out of earshot.

IT’S DUSK, AND several parties have already started at the performers’ end of the train, including—I can’t help but notice—one in Marlena and August’s car. I wouldn’t have gone, but it’s significant that I wasn’t invited. I guess August and I are on the outs again; or rather, since I already hate him more than I’ve ever hated anyone or anything in my life, I guess I’m on the outs with him.

Rosie is at the far end of the menagerie, and as my eyes adjust to the twilight I see someone standing beside her. It’s Greg, the man from the cabbage patch.

“Hey,” I say as I approach.

He turns his head. He’s holding a tube of zinc ointment in one hand and is dabbing Rosie’s punctured skin. There are a couple of dozen white spots on this side alone.

“Jesus,” I say, surveying her. Droplets of blood and histamine ooze up under the zinc.

Her amber eyes seek mine. She blinks those outrageously long lashes and sighs, a great whooshing exhalation that rattles all through her trunk.

I’m flooded with guilt.

“What do you want?” grunts Greg, continuing with his task.

“I just wanted to see how she was.”

“Well, you can see that, can’t you? Now, if you’ll excuse me,” he says, dismissing me. He turns back to her. “Nog,” he says. “No, daj nogel”

After a moment, the elephant lifts her foot and holds it in front of her. Greg kneels down and rubs some ointment in her armpit, right in front of her strange gray breast, which hangs from her chest, like a woman’s.

“,” he says, standing up and screwing the cap back on the ointment. “.”

Rosie sets her foot back on the ground. “Masz, moja ,” he says, digging in his pocket. Her trunk swings around, investigating. He pulls out a mint, brushes off the lint, and hands it to her. She plucks it nimbly from his fingers and pops it in her mouth.

I stare in shock—I think my mouth may even be open. In the space of two seconds, my mind has zigzagged from her unwillingness to perform, to her history with the elephant tramp, to her lemonade thievery, and back to the cabbage patch.

“Jesus Christ,” I say.

“What?” says Greg, fondling her trunk.

“She understands you.”

“Yes, so what?”

“What do you mean, ‘so what?’ My God, do you have any idea what this means?”

“Now wait just a cotton-pickin’ minute,” Greg says as I come up to Rosie. He forces his shoulder between us, his face hard.

“Humor me,” I say. “Please. About the last thing in the world I’d do is hurt this bull.”

He continues to stare at me. I’m still not entirely sure he won’t clobber me from behind, but I turn to Rosie, anyway. She blinks at me.

“Rosie, nog” I say.

She blinks again and opens her mouth in a smile.

“Nog, Rosie!”

She fans her ears and sighs.

“Prosz?” I say.

She sighs again. Then she shifts her weight and lifts her foot.

“Dear Mother of God.” I hear my voice as though from outside of my body. My heart is pounding, my head spinning. “Rosie,” I say, laying a hand on her shoulder. “Just one more thing.” I look her straight in the eye, pleading with her. Surely she knows how important this is. Please God please God please God—

“Do tytu, Rosiel Do tyu!”

Another deep sigh, another subtle shifting of weight, and then she takes a couple of steps backward.

I yelp with delight and turn to an astonished Greg. I leap forward, grab him by the shoulders, and kiss him full on the mouth.

“What the hell!”

I sprint for the exit. About fifteen feet away I stop and turn around. Greg is still spitting, wiping his mouth in disgust.

I dig the bottles out of my pockets. His expression changes to one of interest, the back of his hand still raised to his mouth.

“Here, catch!” I say, sending a bottle flying at him. He snags it from the air, looks at its label, and then glances up hopefully at the other. I toss it to him.

“Give those to our new star, will you?”

Greg cocks his head thoughtfully and turns to Rosie, who is already smiling and reaching for the bottles.

FOR THE NEXT TEN DAYS, I serve as August’s personal Polish coach. In each city he has a practice ring set up in the back end, and day after day, the four of us—August, Marlena, Rosie, and I—spend the hours between our arrival in town and the start of the matinee working on Rosie’s act. Although she already takes part in the daily parade and Spec, she has yet to perform in the show. Although the wait is killing Uncle Al, August doesn’t want to unveil her act until it’s perfect.

I spend my days sitting on a chair just outside the ring curb with a knife in one hand and a bucket between my legs, cutting fruit and vegetables into chunks for the primates and shouting Polish phrases as required. August’s accent is appalling, but Rosie—perhaps because August is usually repeating something I’ve just yelled—obeys