He points down the length of the train. It stretches behind us like a giant snake, the linked
cars jiggling and bending as it rounds a curve. "It's a beautiful sight, isn't it, Jacob?" says
August. I look back at him. He's staring right at me, his eyes glowing. "Not quite as
beautiful as my Marlena, though—hey hey?" He clicks his tongue and winks.
Before I can protest, he stands and tap-dances across the roof. I crane my neck and count
stock cars. There are at least six. Water for Elephants
"August?"
"What?" he says, stopping midtwirl. "Which car is Kinko in?"
He crouches suddenly. "This one. Aren't you a lucky boy?" He pries off a roof vent and
disappears.
I scuttle over on hands and knees. "August?"
"What?" returns a voice from the darkness. "Is there a ladder?"
"No, just drop down."
I lower myself inside until I'm hanging by my fingertips. Then I crash to the floor. A
surprised nicker greets me.
Thin strips of moonlight filter through the slatted sides of the stock
car. On one side of me is a line of horses. The other side is blocked by a wall that is
clearly homemade.
August steps forward and shoves the door inward. It crashes against the wall behind it,
revealing a makeshift room lit by kerosene lamp. The lamp is on an upturned crate next
to a cot. A dwarf is lying on his stomach with a thick book open in front of him. He's
about my age and, like me, has red hair. Unlike me, his stands straight up from his head,
an unruly thatch. His face, neck, arms, and hands are heavily freckled.
"Kinko," says August in disgust.
"August," says the dwarf, equally disgusted.
"This is Jacob," August says, taking a tour of the tiny room. He leans over and fingers
things as he passes. "He's going to bunk with you for a while." I step forward, holding out
my hand. "How do you do," I say.
Kinko regards my hand coolly and then looks back at August. "What is he?"
"His name is Jacob." "I said what, not who."
"He's going to help out in the menagerie."
Kinko leaps to his feet. "A menagerie man? Forget it. I'm a performer. There's no way I'm
bunking with a working man."
S a r a G r u en
There's a growl from behind him, and for the first time I see the Jack Russell terrier. She's
standing on the end of the cot with her hackles raised.
"I am the equestrian director and superintendent of animals," August
says slowly, "and it is by the grace of my generosity you are allowed to sleep here at all.
It is also by the grace of my generosity that it's not filled with roustabouts. Of course, I
can always change that. Besides, this gentleman
is the show's new veterinarian—from Cornell no less—which puts him
a good deal higher than you in my estimation. Perhaps you'd like to consider offering him
the cot." The lamp's flame flickers in August's eyes. His
lip quivers in its shadowy glow.
After a moment he turns to me and bows low, clicking his heels. "Good night, Jacob. I'm
sure Kinko will make you comfortable. Won't you, Kinko?"
Kinko glowers at him.
August smoothes both sides of his hair with his hands. Then he leaves, pulling the door
shut behind him. I stare at the rough-hewn wood until I hear his footsteps clatter over top
of us. Then I turn around.
Kinko and the dog are staring at me. The dog lifts her lip and snarls. I SPEND THE
NIGHT on a crumpled horse blanket against the
wall, as far from the cot as I can. The blanket is damp. Whoever covered the slats when
they turned this into a room did a lousy job, so the blanket's been rained on and reeks of
mildew.
I wake with a start. I've scratched my arms and neck raw. I don't know if it's from
sleeping on horsehair or vermin and don't want to know. The sky that shows between the
patched slats is black, and the train is still moving.
I awoke because of a dream, but I can't recall specifics. I close my eyes, reaching
tentatively for the corners of my mind.
It's my mother. She's standing in the yard in a cornflower blue dress hanging laundry on
the line. She has wooden clothes pegs in her mouth W a t e r for E l e p h a n ts
and more in an apron tied around her waist. Her fingers are busy with a sheer. She's
singing quietly in Polish.
Flash.
I'm lying on the floor, looking up at the stripper's dangling breasts. Her nipples, brown
and the size of silver dollar pancakes, swing in circles—out and around, SLAP. Out and
around, SLAP. I feel a pang of excitement, then remorse, and then nausea.
And then I'm... I'm...
Five
IT 'm blubbering like the ancient fool I am, that's what. II I guess I was asleep. I could
have sworn that just a few
_1L seconds ago I was twenty-three, and now here I am in this wretched, desiccated
body.
I sniff and wipe my stupid tears, trying to pull myself together because that girl is back,
the plump one in pink. She either worked all night or I lost track of a day. I hate not
knowing which.
I also wish I could remember her name, but I can't. That's how it is when you're ninety.
Or ninety-three.
"Good morning, Mr. Jankowski," the nurse says, flipping on the light.
She walks to the window and adjusts the horizontal blinds to let in sunlight. "Time to rise
and shine."
"What for?" I grumble.
"Because the good Lord has seen fit to bless you with another day," she says, coming to
my side. She presses a button on my bedrail. My bed starts to hum. A few seconds later
I'm sitting upright. "Besides, you're going to the circus tomorrow."
The circus! So I haven't lost a day.
She pops a disposable cone on a thermometer and sticks it in my ear.
I get poked and prodded like this every morning. I'm like a piece of meat unearthed from
the back of the fridge, suspect until proven otherwise. After the thermometer beeps, the
nurse flicks the cone into the wastebasket and writes something on my chart. Then she
pulls the blood pressure
cuff from the wall.
"So, do you want to have breakfast in the dining room this morning, Water for E l e p h a
n ts
or would you like me to bring you something here?" she asks, wrapping the cuff around
my arm and inflating it.
"I don't want breakfast."
"Come now, Mr. Jankowski," she says, pressing a stethoscope to the inside of my elbow
and watching the gauge. "You've got to keep your strength up."
I try to catch sight of her name tag. "What for? So I can run a marathon?"
"So you don't catch something and miss the circus," she says. After the cuff deflates, she
removes the apparatus from my arm and hangs it back on the wall.
Finally! I can see her name.
"I'll have it in here then, Rosemary," I say, thereby proving that I remembered her name.
Keeping up the appearance of having all your marbles is hard work but important.
Anyway, I'm not really addled. I just have
more facts to keep track of than other people.
"I do declare you're as strong as a horse," she says, writing one last thing down before
flipping my chart shut. "If you keep your weight up, I'll bet you could go on another ten
years."
"Swell," I say.
WHEN ROSEMARY COMES to park me in the hallway, I ask her to take me to the
window so I can watch the goings-on at the park.
It's a beautiful day, with the sun streaming down between puffy clouds. Just as well—I
remember all too well what it's like to work on a circus lot when the weather is foul. Not
that the work is anything like what it used to be. I wonder if they're even called
roustabouts any more. And sleeping quarters sure have improved—just look at those
RVs. Some of them even have portable satellite dishes attached to them.
Shortly after lunch, I spot the first nursing home resident being wheeled up the street by
relatives. Ten minutes later there's a veritable wagon train. There's Ruthie—oh, and
Nellie Compton, too, but what's the point? She's a turnip, she won't remember a thing.
And there's Doris—that must be her Randall she's always talking about. And there's that
bastard McGuinty.
S a r a G r u en
Oh yes, cock-of-the-walk, with his family surrounding him and a plaid blanket spread
over his knees. Spouting elephant stories, no doubt. There's a line of glorious Percherons
behind the big top, every one of them gleaming white. Maybe they're for vaulting?
Horses in vaulting acts are always white so that the powdered rosin that makes the
performer's feet stick to their backs won't show.
Even if it is a liberty act, it there's no reason to think it could hold a candle to Marlena's.
There's nothing and no one who could compare to Marlena. I look for an elephant, with
equal parts dread and disappointment.
THE WAGON TRAIN RETURNS later in the afternoon with balloons tied to their chairs
and silly hats on their heads. Some even hold bags
of cotton candy in their laps—bags! For all they know, the floss could be a week old. In
my day it was fresh, spun from a drum onto a paper cone.
At five o'clock, a slim nurse with a horse face comes to the end of the
hall. "Are you ready for your dinner, Mr. Jankowski?" she says, kicking off my brakes
and spinning me around.
"Hrrmph" I say, cranky that she didn't wait for an answer.
When we get to the dining room, she steers me toward my usual table. "No, wait!" I say.
"I don't want to sit there tonight."
"Don't worry, Mr. Jankowski," she says. "I'm sure Mr. McGuinty has forgiven you for
last night."
"Yeah, well, I haven't forgiven him. I want to sit over there," I say, pointing at another
table.
"But there's nobody at that table," she says. "Exactly."
"Oh, Mr. Jankowski. Why don't you just let me—" "Just put me where I asked you to,
damn it."
My chair stops and there is dead silence from behind it. After a few seconds we start
moving again. The nurse parks me at my chosen table and leaves. When she returns to
plunk a plate down in front of me, her lips are pursed primly.
The main difficulty with sitting at a table by yourself is that there's nothing
to distract you from hearing other people's conversations. I'm not eavesW a t e r for E l e
p h a n ts
dropping; I just can't help hearing it. Most of them are talking about the
circus, and that's okay. What's not okay is Old Fart McGuinty sitting at my regular table,
with my lady friends, and holding court like King Arthur. And that's not all—apparently
he told someone who worked for the circus that he used to carry water for the elephants,
and they upgraded his ticket to a ringside seat! Incredible! And there he sits, yammering
on and on about the special treatment he received while Hazel, Doris, and Norma stare
adoringly.
I can stand it no longer. I look down at my plate. Stewed something under pale gravy
with a side of pockmarked Jell-O.
"Nurse!" I bark. "Nurse!"
One of them looks up and catches my eye. Since it's clear I'm not dying, she takes her
sweet time getting to me.
"What can I do for you, Mr. Jankowski?" "How about getting me some real food?" "I beg
your pardon?"
"Real food. You know—that stufFpeople on the outside get to eat." "Oh, Mr.
Jankowski—"
"Don't you 'Oh, Mr. Jankowski' me, young lady. This is nursery food, and last I looked I
wasn't five years old. I'm ninety. Or ninety-three." "It's not nursery food."
"Yes it is. There's no substance. Look—" I say, dragging my fork through the gravy-
covered heap. It falls off in glops, leaving me holding a coated fork. "You call that food?
I want something I can sink my teeth into. Something that crunches. And what, exactly, is
this supposed to be?" I say, poking the lump of red Jell-O. It jiggles outrageously, like a
breast I once knew.
"It's salad."
"Salad? Do you see any vegetables? I don't see any vegetables." "It's fruit salad," she
says, her voice steady but forced.
"Do you see any fruit?"
"Yes. As a matter of fact I do," she says, pointing at a pock. "There. And there. That's a
piece of banana, and that's a grape. Why don't you try it?" "Why don't you try it?"
She folds her arms across her chest. The schoolmarm has run out of Sara Gruen
patience. "This food is for the residents. It's designed specifically by a nutritionist who
specializes in geriatric—"
"I don't want it. I want real food."
There's dead silence in the room. I look around. All eyes are trained on
me. "What?" I say loudly. "Is that so much to ask? Doesn't anyone else here miss real
food? Surely you can't all be happy with t h i s ... t h i s ... pap?" I put my hand on the
edge of my plate and give it a shove.
Just a little one. Really.
My plate shoots across the table and crashes to the floor.
DR. RASHID IS summoned. She sits at my bedside and asks questions that I try to
answer courteously, but I'm so tired of being treated as though I'm unreasonable that I'm
afraid I may come off as a bit crotchety. After a half hour she asks the nurse to come into
the hallway with her.
I strain to hear, but my old ears, for all their obscene hugeness, pick up nothing but
snippets: "serious, serious depression" and "manifesting as aggression, not uncommon in
