although I'm inclined to believe the closest he's ever come to a naked woman was
between the covers of one of his eight-pagers. Not too long ago some of the guys on my
football team paid a woman a quarter apiece to let them do it, one after the other, in the
cattle barn. As much as I had hoped to leave my virginity behind at Cornell, I couldn't
bring myself to take part. I simply couldn't do it.
And so in ten days, after six long years of dissections, castrations, foalings, and shoving
my arm up a cow's rear end more times than I care to remember, I, and my faithful
shadow, Virginity, will leave Ithaca and join my father's veterinary practice in Norwich.
"And here you can see evidence of thickening of the distal small intestine," says
Professor Willard McGovern, his voice devoid of inflection.
Using a pointer, he pokes languidly at the twisted intestines of a dead Sara Gruen
salt-and-pepper milk goat. "This, along with enlarged mesenteric lymph nodes indicates a
clear pattern of—"
The door squeaks open and McGovern turns, his pointer still buried
in the doe's belly. Dean Wilkins walks briskly into the room and mounts
the stairs to the podium. The two men confer, standing so close their foreheads nearly
touch. McGovern listens to Wilkins' urgent whispers and
then turns to scan the rows of students with worried eyes.
All around me, students fidget. Catherine sees me looking and slides one knee over the
other, smoothing her skirt with languorous fingers. I swallow hard and look away.
"Jacob Jankowski?"
In my shock, I drop my pencil. It rolls under Catherine s feet. I clear my throat and rise
quickly. Fifty-some pairs of eyes turn to look at me. "Yes, sir?"
"Can we have a word, please?"
I close my notebook and set it on the bench. Catherine retrieves my
pencil and lets her fingers linger on mine as she hands it to me. I make my way to the
aisle, bumping knees and stepping on toes. Whispers follow me to the front of the room.
Dean Wilkins stares at me. "Come with us," he says. I've done something, that much is
clear.
I follow him into the hallway. McGovern walks out behind me and
closes the door. For a moment the two of them stand silently, arms crossed, faces stern.
My mind races, dissecting my every recent move. Did they go through the dorm? Did
they find Edward's liquor—or maybe even the eightpagers? Dear Lord—if I get expelled
now, my father will kill me. No question about it. Never mind what it will do to my
mother. Okay, so maybe I drank a little whiskey, but it's not like I had anything to do
with the fiasco in the cattle
Dean Wilkins takes a deep breath, raises his eyes to mine, and claps a hand on my
shoulder. "Son, there's been an accident." A slight pause. "An automobile accident."
Another pause, longer this time. "Your parents were involved."
Water for E l e p h a n ts
I stare at him, willing him to continue. "Are t h e y ... ? Will t h e y ... ?"
"I'm sorry, son. It was instant. There was nothing anyone could do."
I stare at his face, trying to maintain eye contact, but it's difficult because he's zooming
away from me, receding to the end of a long black tunnel. Stars explode in my peripheral
vision.
"You okay, son?" "What?"
"Are you okay?"
Suddenly he's right in front of me again. I blink, wondering what he means. How the hell
can I be okay? Then I realize he's asking whether I'm
going to cry.
He clears his throat and continues. "You'll have to go back today. To make a positive
identification. I'll drive you to the station."
THE POLICE SUPERINTENDENT—a member of our congregationis waiting on the
platform in street clothes. He greets me with an awkward nod and stiffhandshake. Almost
as an afterthought, he pulls me into
a violent embrace. He pats my back loudly and expels me with a shove and a sniff. Then
he drives me to the hospital in his own car, a two-year-old Phaeton that must have cost
the earth. So many things people would have done differently had they known what
would happen that fateful October. The coroner leads us to the basement and slips
through a door, leaving
us in the hall. After a few minutes a nurse appears, holding the door open in wordless
invitation.
There are no windows. There is a clock on one wall, but the room is otherwise bare. The
floor is linoleum, olive green and white, and in the middle are two gurneys. Each has a
sheet-covered body on it. I can't process this. I can't even tell which end is which.
"Are you ready?" the coroner asks, moving between them.
I swallow and nod. A hand appears on my shoulder. It belongs to the superintendent.
The coroner exposes first my father and then my mother.
They don't look like my parents, and yet they can't be anyone else. Sara Gruen
Death is all over them—in the mottled patterns of their battered torsos,
the eggplant purple on bloodless white; in the sinking, hollowed eye sockets. My
mother—so pretty and meticulous in life—wears a stiff grimace
in death. Her hair is matted and bloodied, pressed into the hollow of her crushed skull.
Her mouth is open, her chin receding as though she were snoring.
I turn as vomit explodes from my mouth. Someone is there with a kidney dish, but I
overshoot and hear liquid splash across the floor, splattering against the wall. Hear it,
because my eyes are squeezed shut. I vomit again and again, until there's nothing left.
Despite this, I remain doubled over and heaving until I wonder if it's possible to turn
inside out.
THEY TAKE ME SOMEWHERE and plant me in a chair. A kindly nurse in a starched
white uniform brings coffee, which sits on the table next to me until it grows cold.
Later, the chaplain comes and sits beside me. He asks if there is anyone he can call. I
mumble that all my relatives are in Poland. He asks about neighbors and members of our
church, but for the life of me I can't come up with a single name. Not one. I'm not sure I
could come up with my own if asked.
When he leaves I slip out. It's a little over two miles to our house, and I arrive just as the
last sliver of sun slips beneath the horizon.
The driveway is empty. Of course.
I stop in the backyard, holding my valise and staring at the long flat
building behind the house. There's a new sign above the entrance, the lettering glossy and
black:
E.JANKOWSKI AND SON Doctors of Veterinary Medicine
After a while I turn to the house, climb the stoop, and push open the back door.
My father's prized possession—a Philco radio—sits on the kitchen counter. My mother's
blue sweater hangs on the back of a chair. There are Water for E l e p h a n ts
ironed linens on the kitchen table, a vase of wilting violets. An overturned mixing bowl,
two plates, and a handful of cutlery set to dry on a checked dish towel spread out by the
sink.
This morning, I had parents. This morning, they ate breakfast.
I fall to my knees, right there on the back stoop, howling into splayed hands.
THE LADIES OF THE CHURCH auxiliary, alerted to my return by the superintendent's
wife, swoop down on me within the hour.
I'm still on the stoop, my face pressed into my knees. I hear gravel
crunching under tires, car doors slamming, and next thing I know I'm surrounded by
doughy flesh, flowered prints, and gloved hands. I am pressed
against soft bosoms, poked by veiled hats, and engulfed by jasmine, lavender, and rose
water. Death is a formal affair, and they're dressed in their
Sunday best. They pat and they fuss, and above all, they cluck. Such a shame, such a
shame. And such good people, too. It's hard to
make sense of such a tragedy, surely it is, but the good Lord works in mysterious ways.
They will take care of everything. The guest room at Jim
and Mabel Neurater's house is already made up. I am not to worry about a thing.
They take my valise and herd me toward the running car. A grim-faced
Jim Neurater is behind the wheel, gripping it with both hands.
Two DAYS AFTER I BURY my parents, I am summoned to the
offices of Edmund Hyde, Esquire, to hear the details of their estate. I sit
in a hard leather chair across from the man himself as it gradually sinks in that there is
nothing to discuss. At first I think he's mocking me. Apparently my father has been
taking payment in the form of beans and eggs
for nearly two years.
"Beans and eggs?" My voice cracks in disbelief. "Beans and eggs?" "And chickens. And
other goods."
"I don't understand."
"It's what people have, son. The community's been hit right hard, and Sara Gruen
your father was trying to help out. Couldn't stand by and watch animals suffer."
"But... I don't understand. Even if he took payment in, uh, whatever, how does that make
everything belong to the bank?"
"They fell behind on their mortgage."
"My parents didn't have a mortgage."
He looks uncomfortable. Holds his steepled fingers in front of him. "Well, yes, actually,
they did."
"No, they didn't," I argue. "They've lived here for nearly thirty years. My father put away
every cent he ever made."
"The bank failed."
I narrow my eyes. "I thought you just said it all goes to the bank."
He sighs deeply. "It's a different bank. The one that gave them the mortgage when the
other one closed," he says. I can't tell if he's trying to give the appearance of patience and
failing miserably or is blatantly trying to make me leave.
I pause, weighing my options.
"What about the things in the house? In the practice?" I say finally. "It all goes to the
bank."
"What if I want to fight it?" "How?"
"What if I come back and take over the practice and try to make the payments?"
"It doesn't work like that. It's not yours to take over."
I stare at Edmund Hyde, in his expensive suit, behind his expensive desk, in front of his
leather-bound books. Behind him, the sun streaks through lead-paned windows. I am
filled with sudden loathing—I'll bet he's never taken payment in the form of beans and
eggs in his life.
I lean forward and make eye contact. I want this to be his problem, too. "What am I
supposed to do?" I ask slowly.
"I don't know, son. I wish I did. The country's fallen on hard times,
and that's a fact." He leans back in his chair, his fingers still steepled. He cocks his head,
as though an idea has just occurred to him. "I suppose you could go west," he muses.
Water for E l e p h a n ts
It dawns on me that if I don't get out of this office right now, I'm going to slug him. I rise,
replace my hat, and leave.
When I reach the sidewalk something else dawns on me. I can think of only one reason
my parents would need a mortgage: to pay my Ivy League tuition.
The pain from this sudden realization is so intense I double over, clutching my stomach.
BECAUSE NO OTHER options occur to me, I return to school—a temporary solution at
best. My room and board is paid up until the end of the year, but that is only six days
away.
I've missed the entire week of review lectures. Everyone is eager to help. Catherine hands
me her notes and then hugs me in a way that suggests I might get different results if I
were to attempt the usual quest. I pull away. For the first time in living memory, I have
no interest in sex.
I can't eat. I can't sleep. And I certainly can't study. I stare at a single paragraph for a
quarter of an hour but can't absorb it. How can I, when
behind the words, on the white background of the paper, I'm watching
an endless loop of my parents' deaths? Watching as their cream-colored Buick flies
through the guardrail and over the side of the bridge to avoid old Mr. McPherson's red
truck? Old Mr. McPherson, who confessed as he was led from the scene that he wasn't
entirely sure what side of the road he should have been on and thinks that maybe he hit
the gas instead of the brake? Old Mr. McPherson, who showed up at church one
legendary Easter without trousers?
THE PROCTOR SHUTS the door and takes his seat. He glances at the wall clock and
waits until the minute hand wobbles forward. "You may begin."
Fifty-two exam booklets flip over. Some people riffle through it. Others start writing
immediately. I do neither.
Forty minutes later, I have yet to touch pencil to paper. I stare at the booklet in
desperation. There are diagrams, numbers, lines and chartsstrings of words with terminal
punctuation at the end—some are periods, S a r a G r u en
some question marks, and none of it makes sense. I wonder briefly if it is even English. I
try it in Polish, but that doesn't work either. It might as well be hieroglyphics.
A woman coughs and I jump. A bead of sweat falls from my forehead onto my booklet. I
wipe it off with my sleeve, then pick the booklet up. Maybe if I bring it closer. Or hold it
farther away—I can see now that
it is in English; or rather, that the individual words are English, but I cannot read from
one to another with any sense of continuity.
A second drop of sweat falls.
I scan the room. Catherine is writing quickly, her light brown hair falling over her face.
She is left-handed, and because she writes in pencil her left arm is silver from wrist to
elbow. Beside her, Edward yanks himself upright, glances at the clock in panic, and
slumps back over his booklet. I turn away, toward a window.
Snatches of sky peek through leaves, a mosaic in blue and green that
shifts gently with the wind. I stare into it, allowing my focus to soften, looking beyond
the leaves and branches. A squirrel bounds fatly across my sight line, its full tail cocked.
