Ralph Helfer (27 page)

“M
O IS LOSING HER SIGHT IN THE OTHER EYE
, Bram. I don’t think it’s related to the injury in the left one. I think it’s just old age. She’s getting up there, you know. Her life has not been an easy one, and it’s just taken its toll.”

She had never really recovered from her years away. That had been a terrible ordeal!

Bram knew that the veterinarian was right. Lately he had to smooth out the ground in and around the barn because Mo, not being able to see where she was going, had been tripping a lot and he was afraid she might hurt herself.

“Modoc needs to retire, Bram.”

“Ah! To retire is to die.”

“No, I just mean not to do any big jobs, jobs that take her energy.”

She could work around the ranch, maybe do a few things for
the schoolchildren on the weekends but…“It’s time.”

Bram knew it as well, but to face it, to tell Mo…He, too, was feeling physically tired in ways that he had not experienced before. He felt a calling alerting him that time was running out. A Cross-Over was in the making,

They were growing old together. They were given a job appearing at a beautiful affair held on the lawn of a Beverly Hills mansion. A job that the veterinarian approved of.

The proprietor had asked that Modoc be put on top of a small grass hill so everybody could see her. Nothing more, no performance. She was there as a “movie star.”

Bram scrubbed her till she sparkled. Her eyesight by now had gotten worse, but as long as she could hear Bram’s voice she was content. She accepted her blindness as a matter of fact. As long as she was fed, watered, and knew he was there, and knew she could wrap her trunk around him and belly-rumble on occasion, she was happy.

The crowd gathered in a huge circle around her. Oohs and ahhs were heard. They asked questions about her studio career. Some of the dignitaries had their pictures taken with her.

Late in the afternoon Bram settled down under a nearby shade tree, as most of the crowd had left, when a solitary figure walked out of the shadows. He was an older man, large, dressed in a wool turtleneck sweater, heavy pea coat, oversized baggy pants, a wrinkled brimmed hat, and old heavy-duty shoes.

The man, limping a bit, headed straight up the hill to Modoc.

“Excuse me, sir!” said Bram

He never stopped.

As he approached Modoc, he stood for a moment, then dropped to his knees and put his arms around her leg. As Bram came up the hill he heard him quietly sobbing.

Mo was tender with him. She touched his head gently and then, as a sign of recognition, belly-rumbled. Bram knelt down beside the man, his hand on his shoulder. The man turned, looking straight into
Bram’s face. Bram’s mind exploded into a sea of memory, of one lost in the annals of time. Eyes that once saw death, that…

“Hands! Oh my God…Hands!” He threw his arms around the big fellow, practically knocking him over.

“Bram, my friend, my dear friend!”

They sobbed together, hugging, laughing, choking back the tears of joy. The hands that had held Bram up, that gave him the hope to stay afloat, now wrapped around him, holding as before.

“What are you doing here?” asked Bram through the sniffles.

“I was invited to the party by some old friends. It was so boring I was leaving when I saw…Modoc. I wasn’t sure it was her,” he said, wiping his eyes. “But when I came closer, I knew. I didn’t even see you under the tree!”

“But where have you been? I tried to find you, looked everywhere.”

“I left for England after I got out of the hospital. I was told all the people who were in the water had perished due to exposure. I checked the local hospitals—nothing.”

“And Modoc?”

“I called the zoo, they knew nothing. Only that an elephant had been used to save some people out at sea. So I went to England. Spent a good many years there as a longshoreman working the docks out of Southampton. Sometimes I signed on one of the ships heading for points unknown, you know, just traveling around to different ports. It’s great fun and the money’s good. Then, quite a while back, I came here to better myself but the work I do, the life I lead, is back there at the docks.”

“And now?” asked Bram.

“I’ll return to England. A freighter is leaving for India and I want to be on board her. Ever since the sinking I feel that I must go back.” Hands’s attitude changed. “All these years. Do you imagine? I don’t know why, but there is something I have to do or see. I don’t know. Maybe it’s just to relive the experience emotionally. I don’t think I ever gave what happened a chance to settle itself. It’s still
with me, you know what I mean?”

Bram nodded. He knew very well what he meant.

Mo’s eyesight had gotten worse. She couldn’t leave the elephant barn without Bram being there to help.

“Well, Mosie, how ya doing today, huh?”

Mo had developed a new way to compensate for her blindness.

She constantly kept her trunk busy, like a man with a cane, touching all things, whether standing still, walking, meeting people, she had to touch them; it was the only way she could “talk” with them. But she was getting into everything. Chairs, tables, cars, glasses, nothing escaped. If it was loose, it fell victim to her ever-swinging trunk.

When Bram took her out, she moved carefully, touching as she walked, but still anything in her way was fair game. Bram, seeing the problem, decided to resolve it.

“Today I will teach you something new.”

He put the tip of her trunk into his back belt loop. “Now you just hang on to that and I’ll be your ‘seeing-eye’ person.”

And so it was. Wherever they went Mo would tuck her trunk into Bram’s belt and off they would go. She would slide her feet as she walked, to assure herself that the ground was smooth. After a while even that stopped, her trust in Bram was so complete.

Bram taught her how to go up and down the steps to the circus ring he had set up, where he worked her three times a week.

“You must have a purpose in life, girl,” he would say. “Work is important.”

Her act was not the same. Slower, but passable. Sometimes she staggered, her moves weren’t as graceful. But she performed!

Gertie saw the deterioration. She worried what would happen to Bram were Mo to die. “She’s getting old, Bram. You know, the time will come when…”

“I know, Gertie, I know,” he would say and then walk away, usually in the direction of the barn.

Bram walked up and down the aisle in front of Mo, sometimes
his hands locked behind his back, other times they were expressing a point. Mo listened, swinging her head to and fro, not missing a word.

“You know, Mo, I’ve been thinking of the Elephantarium lately. You remember Atoul, the white elephant? Well, he taught me that all things need to change form to live. When we die we change into ashes, gases, things like that. Then they carry on until they change. The ashes may help a tree grow, the gases could mingle with others and become…something else! That means someday you and I are going to change and…ah…well…” His voice stuck in his throat. He stopped, cleared his throat, turned and walked to Mo. He rubbed the soft leathery skin on the underside of her ear. “And you…you will become something greater and more wonderful than you can imagine! You will soar in the cosmos, become part of all things, you will sit at HIS side and help rule all of nature.”

Bram’s whole being felt the impact…the thought of not being with her.

“I will be waiting for you, okay? I’ll meet you there.” His voice broke, tears were streaming down his cheeks. “I just don’t want you to go first. Okay? I don’t want you to be there…alone.” He rested his head on hers and cried aloud.

“So don’t be afraid. You have many friends here to take care of you.” He whispered in her ear, “Don’t cross over before me, Mo, okay?”

He rubbed his hand gently over her white eye, smoothing the soft skin around it. She stood stock-still, quiet, her trunk hung loose. Head held low. A little chirping was heard, a small belly rumble.

“I’m so, so, sorry…”

“Bram, you in there?”

It was Gertie, calling him for dinner.

“I’m coming.” He wiped his eyes, hers, too. “I’m coming.”

Ralph had decided to retire Mo. He was afraid that she might get hurt, trip…maybe even fall. Yet he knew how Bram felt about retiring. “To retire is to die,” he would say.

He had a private meeting with the ranch trainers.

“I want to retire Mo without her…I mean…Bram…well, both of them knowing about it. We can’t ever use that word.”

“How old is she?”

“The best we can figure is around seventy.”

“Wow! That’s got to be some kind of record.”

“That’s it! We’ll throw her a birthday party. Bram, too. You know they share the same birthday.”

“In reality, you mean like a farewell to Mo.”

“God, it’s like she’s got cancer and is going to die!”

“No, silly, many people have a farewell party for those who served their company or country well,” spoke up one of the female trainers.

Ralph broke in, “She has spent her entire life helping, pleasing people. It’s a way of saying thanks to her.”

“Will she know it, I mean is it for her…or for us?”

“Both.”

Ralph contributed into the pool allowing them to rent a large tent and have it erected at the ranch over the circus ring. It was big enough to house the ring and bleachers for a large group of people. They even had a calliope brought in to simulate the feeling of the circus.

Invitations were sent out near and far, to all her friends.

“There is to be a birthday celebration.”

The response was more than they could have imagined. Letters, telegrams, telephone calls, all poured in from around the world; some sent their love, others said, “Hope I can be there.” Many others said they would come.

“Well, this is an important day for you, big girl. All your friends are coming.”

Bram washed her early in the morning in preparation for the celebration. He sprayed her with some perfume.

Mo’s trunk was fussing with everything, wouldn’t stand still, playing with Bram’s nose, his face, messing his hair. Her backbone
had become more prominent as she aged, the burn scars from the fire more noticeable as well.

Bram covered her with the red and gold blanket he had been given by the sideshow people from the circus.

“It’s yours, Mo, nobody else can ever do or be what you are!”

Sometimes Bram would look up at her white eye and bony back, and tears would come into his eyes as he remembered the past when she had been young and strong. “Remember, Mosie, pushing that cart up the ramp when the wheel broke?”

These thoughts brought back vivid pictures of Sian smiling, her black silky hair blowing in the breeze. It was as though she were looking at him. The tears rushed to his eyes; he turned his head away, breaking the thought into a thousand bubbles.

“Sorry, Mo, it’s just that lately it’s all been coming back to me. Maybe to you, too, huh?”

Mo was too busy swaying, feeling the tassels bounce against her side.

Bram donned his old costume, saw that the pants didn’t fit as they used to.

“The jacket will do,” he said.

A package arrived addressed to Modoc Gunterstein. Bram gave it to Mo to check out. She tried to eat it. A letter accompanied the package:

In the package were the two golden tips. Bram slipped them on as he had in the old days. He fought back the memories. They were too painful.

“I’ll remember them later,” he said. He stood back a bit, looking at Mo. “Let me see how you look, girl!”

She was so proud! Trunk curled, head held high.

The blanket hung a bit loose, the headpiece had been taken up, the golden tips were a little lopsided, but she was PROUD! She stood tall, her spirits high! She was young again!

Bram, taking his choon, rubbed his hand over his father’s initials. Then he tucked Mo’s trunk into the back of his waistband. With a proud note in his voice, he said, “Move up, Mo! Move up, old girl.”

The circus music could be heard coming from the tent. Mo followed him across the yard, her trunk playing with his belt, sashaying to the music, down the steps, into a darkened arena. A voice rang out.

“Ladies and gentleman, children of the world, we give you Bram Gunterstein, and the world’s greatest elephant, the one, the only, Golden Elephant, MODOC!!”

A single spotlight flashed on the center ring. Bram slowly brought Mo into the center ring and as the calliope started, he backed away, not too far, but where she could hear his voice.

“Okay. Mosie, you’re on!”

Mo stood for a moment, ears out as though…listening. The calliope started to play. She stood there…missed her cue. Or did she?

She was somewhere else, hearing different music coming from a different place. Then she started to sway, to dance…her dance, in her own time, more beautiful than ever before. The calliope played on, and somehow it matched her movement, or maybe it just seemed to. The slight stumble, a waver off balance were dissolved in the beauty of the moment…

The circus tent seemed to spin, flashes of performers, the girls
on the flying trapeze, the Great Zifferoni and his fall of death, Gertie dancing on her back, uprooting the flower fields, the scorching fire, her trunk around Bram…

She bowed at the end of the performance, not quite as low, and the spot went out.

When the tent lights came on, she heard the thunderous applause. The stands were full.

Hundreds had come to say their goodbyes, to thank her for all that she had done to better the lives of so many. The audience rose as one. They stood in respect, in honor of a great lady.

Gertie was there, as were Kelly, Fat Lady, Thin Man, Fingers, even Hands, and if one looked closely one might have thought there was a little fellow standing on the seat, waving, nearly falling off. They had all had come to say their farewells.