Water for Elephants (13 page)

I slam the door and hold it shut with my knee while I check whether I still have an arm. I do. It is slick with saliva and as red as if I had dunked it in boiling water, but the skin isn’t broken. A moment later, I realize August is laughing uproariously behind me.

I turn to him. “What the hell is wrong with you? You think that’s funny?”

“I do, yes,” says August, making no effort to contain his mirth.

“You’re seriously fucked, you know that?” I jump down from the flat car, check my intact arm once more, and stalk off.

“Jacob, wait,” laughs August, coming up behind me. “Don’t be sore. I was just having a little fun with you.”

“What fun? I could have lost my arm!”

“He hasn’t got any teeth.”

I halt, staring at the gravel beneath my feet as this fact sinks in. Then I continue walking. This time, August doesn’t follow.

Furious, I head for the stream and kneel beside a couple of men watering zebras. One of the zebras spooks, barking and throwing his striped muzzle high in the air. The man holding the lead rope shoots a succession of glances at me as he struggles to maintain control. “Goddammit!” he shouts. “What is that? Is that blood?”

I look down. I am spattered with blood from the entrails. “Yes,” I say. “I was feeding the cats.”

“What the hell is wrong with you? You trying to get me killed?”

I walk downstream, looking back until the zebra calms down. Then I crouch by the water to rinse the blood and cat saliva from my arms.

Eventually I head back to the second section of the train. Diamond Joe is up on a flat, next to a chimp den. The sleeves of his gray shirt are rolled up, exposing hairy, muscled arms. The chimp sits on his haunches, eating fistfuls of cereal mixed with fruit and watching us with shiny black eyes.

“Need help?” I ask.

“Naw. About done, I think. I hear August got you with old Rex.”

I look up, prepared to be angry. But Joe’s not smiling.

“Watch yourself,” he says. “Rex might not take your arm, but Leo will. You can bet on that. Don’t know why August asked you to do it anyway. Clive is the cat man. Unless he wanted to make a point.” He pauses,
reaches into the den, and touches fingers with the chimp before shutting the door. Then he jumps down from the flat. “Look, I’m only going to say this once. August’s a funny one, and I don’t mean funny ha-ha. You be careful. He don’t like no one questioning his authority. And he has his moments, if you know what I mean.”

“I believe I do.”

“No, I don’t think you do. But you will. Say, you eaten yet?”

“No.”

He points up the track to the Flying Squadron. There are tables set up alongside the track. “Cookhouse crew got up a breakfast of sorts. Also put up some dukey boxes. Make sure you grab one, ’cuz that probably means we’re not stopping again until tonight. Get it while the getting’s good, I always say.”

“Thanks, Joe.”

“Don’t mention it.”

I
RETURN TO THE
stock car with my dukey box, which contains a ham sandwich, apple, and two bottles of sarsaparilla. When I see Marlena sitting in the straw beside Silver Star, I set my dukey box down and walk slowly toward her.

Silver Star lies on his side, his flanks heaving, his respiration shallow and fast. Marlena sits at his head with her legs curled beneath her.

“He’s not any better, is he?” she says, looking up at me.

I shake my head.

“I don’t understand how this could happen so fast.” Her voice is tiny and hollow, and it occurs to me that she’s probably going to cry.

I crouch beside her. “Sometimes it just does. It’s not because of anything you did, though.”

She strokes his face, running her fingers around his dished cheek and down under his chin. His eyes flicker.

“Is there anything else we can do for him?” she asks.

“Short of getting him off the train, no. Even under the best of circumstances, there’s not a lot you can do but take them off their feed and pray.”

She glances at me and does a double take when she sees my arm. “Oh my God. What happened to you?”

I look down. “Oh, that. It’s nothing.”

“No it’s not,” she says, climbing to her knees. She takes my forearm in her hands and moves it to catch the sunlight coming in through the slats. “It looks new. It’s going to be a heck of a bruise. Does this hurt?” She takes the back of my arm in one hand and runs the other over the blue patch that’s spreading beneath my skin. Her palm is cool and smooth, and leaves my hair standing on end.

I close my eyes and swallow hard. “No, really, I’m—”

A whistle blows, and she looks toward the door. I take the opportunity to extricate my arm and rise.

“Twen-n-n-n-n-n-n-nty minutes!” bellows a deep voice from somewhere near the front of the train. “Twen-n-n-n-n-n-n-nty minutes to push-off!”

Joe pokes his head through the open doorway. “Come on! We gotta load these animals! Oh, sorry ma’am,” he says, tipping his hat to Marlena. “I didn’t see you there.”

“That’s okay, Joe.”

Joe stands awkwardly in the doorway, waiting. “It’s just that we’ve got to do it now,” he says in desperation.

“Go ahead,” says Marlena. “I’m going to ride this leg with Silver Star.”

“You can’t do that,” I say quickly.

She looks up at me, her throat elongated and pale. “Why ever not?”

“Because once we get the other horses loaded you’ll be trapped back here.”

“That’s all right.”

“What if something happens?”

“Nothing’s going to happen. And if it does, I’ll climb over them.” She settles into the straw, curling her legs back under her.

“I don’t know,” I say doubtfully. But Marlena is gazing at Silver Star with an expression that makes it perfectly clear she’s not budging.

I look back at Joe, who raises his hands in a gesture of exasperation and surrender.

After a final glance at Marlena, I swing the stall divider into place and help load the rest of the horses.

D
IAMOND
J
OE IS
RIGHT
about the long haul. It’s early evening before we stop again.

Kinko and I haven’t exchanged a word since we left Saratoga Springs. He clearly hates me. Not that I blame him—August set it up that way, although I don’t suppose there’s any point in trying to explain that to him.

I stay up front with the horses to let him have some privacy. That, and I’m still nervous at the thought of Marlena trapped at the end of a row of thousand-pound animals.

When the train stops she climbs nimbly over their backs and drops to the floor. When Kinko emerges from the goat room, his eyes crinkle in momentary alarm. Then they shift from Marlena to the open door with studied indifference.

Pete, Otis, and I unload and water the ring stock, camels, and llamas. Diamond Joe, Clive, and a handful of cage hands head up to the second section of the train to deal with the animals in dens. August is nowhere to be seen.

After we get the animals back on board, I climb into the stock car and poke my head into the room.

Kinko sits cross-legged on the bed. Queenie sniffs a bedroll that has replaced the infested horse blanket. Sitting on top is a neatly folded red plaid blanket and a pillow in a smooth white case. A square sheet of cardboard lies in the center of the pillow. When I lean over to pick it up, Queenie leaps as though I’ve kicked her.

Mr. and Mrs. August Rosenbluth request the pleasure of your immediate presence in stateroom 3, car 48, for cocktails, followed by a late dinner
.

I look up in surprise. Kinko is staring daggers at me.

“You wasted no time ingratiating yourself, did you?” he says.

COLLECTION OF THE RINGLING CIRCUS MUSEUM, SARASOTA, FLORIDA

Seven

The cars are not sequentially numbered, and it takes me a while to find car 48. It is painted a deep burgundy and trimmed with foot-tall gold lettering trumpeting
BENZINI BROS MOST SPECTACULAR SHOW ON EARTH
. Just beneath that, visible only in relief under the shiny fresh paint, is another name:
CHRISTY BROS CIRCUS
.

“Jacob!” Marlena’s voice floats from a window. A few seconds later she appears on the platform at the end, swinging out from the handrail so that her skirt swirls around her. “Jacob! Oh, I’m so glad you could make it. Please come in!”

“Thanks,” I say, glancing around. I climb up and follow her down the interior passageway and through the second door.

Stateroom 3 is glorious as well as a misnomer—it constitutes half the car, and contains at least one additional room, which is cordoned off with a thick velvet curtain. The main room is paneled in walnut and outfitted with damask furniture, a dinette, and a Pullman kitchen.

“Please make yourself comfortable,” says Marlena, waving me toward one of the chairs. “August will be along in a minute.”

“Thank you,” I say.

She sits opposite me.

“Oh,” she says leaping up again. “Where are my manners? Would you like a beer?”

“Thank you,” I say. “That would be swell.”

She flutters past me to an icebox.

“Mrs. Rosenbluth, can I ask you something?”

“Oh, please, call me Marlena,” she says, popping the bottle cap. She tips a tall glass and pours beer slowly down its side, avoiding a foam head. “And yes, by all means. Ask away.” She hands me the glass, and then returns to get another.

“How is it that everyone on this train has so much alcohol?”

“We always head to Canada at the beginning of the season,” she says, taking her seat again. “Their laws are much more civilized. Cheers,” she says, holding out her glass.

I touch mine to hers and take a sip. It’s a cold, clean lager. Magnificent. “Don’t the border guards check?”

“We put the booze in with the camels,” she says.

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand,” I say.

“Camels spit.”

I nearly spurt beer through my nose. She giggles too, and brings a hand demurely to her mouth. Then she sighs and puts her beer down. “Jacob?”

“Yes?”

“August told me about what happened this morning.”

I glance at my bruised arm.

“He feels terrible. He likes you. He really does. It’s just . . . Well, it’s complicated.” She looks into her lap, blushing.

“Hey, it’s nothing,” I say. “It’s fine.”

“Jacob!” shouts August from behind me. “My dear fellow! So glad you could join our little soirée. I see Marlena has set you up with a drinky-poo; has she shown you the dressing room yet?”

“The dressing room?”

“Marlena,” he says, turning and shaking his head sadly. He waggles a finger in reprimand. “
Tsk tsk
, darling.”

“Oh!” she says, leaping to her feet. “I completely forgot!”

August walks to the velvet curtain and whisks it aside.

“Ta-dah!”

There are three outfits lying side by side on the bed. Two tuxedos, complete with shoes, and a beautiful rose silk dress with beading on its neck and hemline.

Marlena squeals, clapping her hands in delight. She rushes to the bed and grabs the dress, pressing it to her body and twirling.

I turn to August. “These aren’t from the Monday Man—”

“A tux on a wash line? No, Jacob. Being equestrian director has the odd perk. You can clean up in there,” he says, pointing to a polished wooden door. “Marlena and I will change out here. Nothing we haven’t seen before, eh darling?” he says.

She grabs a rose silk shoe by the heel and chucks it at him.

The last thing I see as I shut the bathroom door is a tangle of feet toppling forward onto the bed.

When I come back out, Marlena and August are the picture of dignity, hovering in the background as three white-gloved waiters fuss with a small wheeled table and silver-domed platters.

The neckline of Marlena’s dress barely covers her shoulders, exposing her collarbone and a slim bra strap. She follows my gaze and tucks the strap back under the material, blushing once again.

The dinner is sublime: We start with oyster bisque and follow with prime rib, boiled potatoes, and asparagus in cream. Then comes lobster salad. By the time dessert appears—English plum pudding with brandy sauce—I don’t think I can take another bite. And yet a few minutes later I find myself scraping my plate with my spoon.

“Apparently Jacob doesn’t find dinner up to snuff,” August says in a slow drawl.

I freeze midscrape.

Then he and Marlena dissolve into fits of giggles. I set my spoon down, mortified.

“No, no, my boy, I’m joking—obviously,” he chortles, leaning over to pat my hand. “Eat. Enjoy yourself. Here, have some more,” he says.

“No, I couldn’t possibly.”

“Well, have some more wine then,” he says, refilling my glass without waiting for a response.

August is gracious, charming, and mischievous—so much so that as the evening wears on I begin to think the incident with Rex was just a joke
gone awry. His face glows with wine and sentiment as he regales me with the tale of how he wooed Marlena. Of how he recognized her powerful way with horses the very moment she entered his menagerie tent three years before—sensed it from the horses themselves. And how, to the great distress of Uncle Al, he refused to budge until he had swept her off her feet and married her.