like a madman even as Earl dragged him across the lot and up the stairs into the privilege
car.
The remaining men found Rosie lying on her side, quivering, her foot still chained to a
stake.
"I HATE THAT MAN," says Walter as I climb into the stock car.
He's sitting on the cot, stroking Queenie's ears. "I really, really hate that man."
"Someone wanna tell me what's going on?" Camel calls from behind the row of trunks. "
'Cuz I know something is. Jacob? Help me out here. Walter ain't talking."
I say nothing.
"There was no call to be that brutal. No call at all," Walter continues. "He damn near
started a stampede, too. Could have killed the lot of us. Were you there? Did you hear
any of it?"
Our eyes meet. "No," I say.
"Well, I wouldn't mind knowing what in blazes you're talking about," says Camel. "But it
seems I don't count for squat here. Hey, ain't it dinnertime?"
"I'm not hungry," I say. 1 2 }
Sara Gruen
"Me either," says Walter.
"Well, I am," says Camel, disgruntled. "But I bet neither one of you thought of that. And
I bet neither one of you picked up so much as a piece of bread for an old man."
Walter and I look at each other. "Well, I was there," he says, his eyes full of accusation.
"You wanna know what I heard?" he says.
"No," I say, staring at Queenie. She meets my gaze and whacks the blanket a few times
with her stump.
"You sure?" "Yes I'm sure."
"Thought you might be interested, you being the vet and all."
"I am interested," I say loudly. "But I'm also afraid of what it might make me do."
Walter looks at me for a long time. "So who's going to get that old git some grub? You or
me?"
"Hey! Mind your manners!" cries the old git. "I'll go," I say. I turn and leave the stock
car.
Halfway to the cookhouse, I realize I'm grinding my teeth.
WHEN I COME BACK with Camel's food, Walter is gone. A few minutes later he
returns, carrying a large bottle of whiskey in each hand. "Well, God bless your soul,"
cackles Camel, who is now propped up in the corner. He points at Walter with a limp
hand. "Where in tarnation did you come up with that?"
"A friend on the pie car owed me a favor. I figured we could all use a little forgetting
tonight."
"Well, go on then," says Camel. "Stop yapping and hand it over." Walter and I turn in
unison to glare.
The lines on Camel's grizzled face furrow deeper. "Well, jeez, you two sure are a couple
of sourpusses, ain't you? What's the matter? Someone
spit in your soup?"
"Here. Pay him no mind," says Walter, shoving a bottle of whiskey against my chest.
Water for E l e p h a n ts
"What do you mean, 'pay him no mind'? In my day, a boy was taught to respect his
elders."
Instead of answering, Walter carries the other bottle over and crouches down beside him.
When Camel reaches for it, Walter bats his hand away. "Hell no, old man. You spill that
and we'll all three be sourpusses."
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."
1Z5 rSara Gruen
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. "Nogp, " he says. "No, daj nog$!v 2.2,6
W a t e r for E l e p h a n ts
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. "Jestes dobrq dziewczynkq, " he says, standing up
and screwing the cap back on the ointment. "Poioz nogg."
Rosie sets her foot back on the ground. "Masz, mojapi^kna^ 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, nogg!" I say.
She blinks again and opens her mouth in a smile. "Nogf, Rosie!"
She fans her ears and sighs. "Proszg?" 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 S a r a G r u en
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 tylu, Rosie! Do tylu!"
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
without fail. He hasn't
touched her with the bull hook since we discovered the language barrier. Z28
Water for E l e p h a n ts
He just walks beside her, waving it under her belly and behind her legs, but never—not
once—does it make contact.
It's hard to reconcile this August with the other one, and to be honest I don't try very hard.
I've seen flashes of this August before—this brightness, this conviviality, this generosity
of spirit—but I know what he's capable of, and I won't forget it. The others can believe
what they like, but I don't believe for a second that this is the real August and the other an
aberration. And yet I can see how they might be fooled
He is delightful. He is charming. He shines like the sun. He lavishes attention on the great
storm-colored beast and her tiny rider from the moment we meet in the morning until the
moment they disappear for the parade. He is attentive and tender toward Marlena, and
kindly and paternal toward Rosie.
He seems unaware that there ever was any bad blood between us,
despite my reserve. He smiles broadly; he pats me on the back. He notices that my
clothes are shabby and that very afternoon the Monday Man arrives with more. He
declares that the show's vet should not have to bathe with buckets of cold water and
invites me to shower in the stateroom. And when he finds out that Rosie likes gin and
ginger ale better than anything in the world except perhaps watermelon, he ensures that
she gets both, every single day. He cozies up to her. He whispers in her ear, and she basks
in the attention, trumpeting happily at the sight of him.
Doesn't she remember?
I scrutinize him, watching for chinks, but the new August persists.
Before long, his optimism permeates the entire lot. Even Uncle Al is affectedhe stops
each day to observe our progress and within a couple of
days orders up new posters that feature Rosie with Marlena sitting astride
her head. He stops whacking people, and shortly thereafter people stop ducking. He
becomes positively jolly. Rumors circulate that there may actually
be money on payday, and even the working men begin to crack smiles. It's only when I
catch Rosie actually purring under August's loving ministrations that my conviction starts
to crumble. And what I'm left looking at in its place is a terrible thing.
S a r a G r u en
Maybe it was me. Maybe I wanted to hate him because I'm in love with his wife, and if
that's the case, what kind of a man does that make me? IN PITTSBURGH, I FINALLY
go to confession. I break down in
the confessional and sob like a baby, telling the priest about my parents,
my night of debauchery, and my adulterous thoughts. The somewhat startled priest
mutters a few there-theres and then tells me to pray the rosary
and forget about Marlena. I am too ashamed to admit that I haven't got a rosary, so when
I return to the stock car I ask Walter and Camel if either
of them has one. Walter looks at me strangely, and Camel offers me a green elk-tooth
necklace.
I'm well aware of Walter's opinion. He still hates August beyond all expression, and
