Philosophy Made Simple (34 page)

Rudy drove into town to pick up some things for the puja: fresh fruit and a basket of flowers and more turmeric. The pandit,
who arrived at three o’clock, brought lamps and bells, incense and holy ashes and sandalwood paste, a red powder called
kunkuma,
an alcohol burner for the sacred flame, various small pots, colorful clothes to dress up the image of Lord Ganesh, and a small cassette player. The temperature was still in the sixties and Rudy Medardo, and Father Russell—who didn’t want to miss anything—all wore jackets. The pandit, in his saffron robe, seemed to be indifferent to the chill.

“It is not good for a non-Hindu to try to worship Shiva or Mu-rugan,” the pandit said as he was arranging all these things,
“but all devotions are acceptable to Lord Ganesh. But you haven’t eaten, have you? For three hours, I mean. You should not have eaten for three hours. And you haven’t cut yourself? That is not acceptable. Nor should you perform the ceremony after deep anger or emotional upset.”

Rudy hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and he hadn’t cut himself, but his emotions had been racing. He answered no, however, and so did the others, and the pandit made a little altar of empty avocado flats, low to the ground, and placed on it the clay idol that he had brought earlier. While Nandini chanted the one hundred and eight names of Lord Ganesh, Rudy went up to the house to boil a cup of rice and to get a bowl to catch the water that the pandit would use to bathe the image. The pandit wanted all the things necessary to the puja to be prepared in advance so he wouldn’t have to interrupt the ceremony to look for something.

When Rudy returned with the cooked rice and the bowl, a kite was circling overhead, flapping its wings and then gliding, and Rudy had the uneasy feeling that he was being watched. Nandini saw it too, and recognized it: “
Cheel,”
she said, and the pandit looked up in the sky. The kite flapped its wings and glided unsteadily down into the dense mesquite trees on the far side of the little hill.
Another omen?
Rudy wondered;
another baadha?

The pandit prostrated himself before the altar and knocked on his temples three times with his knuckles. He crossed his arms and, with his arms still crossed, pulled his ears. Nandini sat cross-legged, but Rudy and Medardo and Father Russell kept shifting position, despite disapproving looks from the pandit, who had put a tape of chants of the Vedas on the little cassette player and was making food offerings—the fruit Rudy had brought, some cooked rice, still warm, and various sweets. The pandit passed the food to everyone to eat after it had been offered to Lord Ganesh—the idol, not Narmada-Jai.

The ceremony itself, which involved a lot of bell ringing and prayers, which the pandit offered in Sanskrit, made no more sense to Rudy than the Greek Orthodox Easter service they’d attended one year with one of Helen’s friends, but he followed along as best he could, holding up his spoonful of water for the
idol to sip, bathing the idol’s feet several times, tossing raw rice and flowers. At the end the pandit offered the tray of food to Lord Ganesh a second time, in sincerity and love, and then he invited the others to pick up a pinch of rice with the fingertips of their right hand. As he finished the last chant they released the pinch of rice, and then closed their eyes and imagined Lord Ganesh accepting and enjoying this meal. But when Rudy closed his eyes it wasn’t Lord Ganesh he imagined.
It was Norma Jean—Narmada-Jai. Their fellow creature. Could she understand what had happened to her? Did she understand more or less than the humans? More or less than Brownie and Saskia, who were still up in Milwaukee with Meg and Dan and the boys?

Rudy wanted Narmada-Jai to live, to remove one more obstacle. When he opened his eyes he saw that Nandini was offering the elephant a sip of the water that had been used to bathe the idol, holding the little spoon at the tip of Narmada-Jai’s trunk,
and then at her triangular mouth, which hung halfway open. Rudy thought of Helen, at the end, how buoyed up with hope they’d be if she asked for a soft-boiled egg. But Narmada-Jai showed no interest in the water.

After the puja they gave Narmada-Jai a sponge bath. Rudy went to get two buckets of water. By the time he got back from the barn, the pandit had packed up his things. Nandini was arranging more fruit on a tray. When she gave it to the pandit Rudy noticed an envelope sticking up between a bunch of grapes and a green peach. His
dakshina,
she explained later. “You wouldn’t expect a lawyer or a doctor to come for nothing.”

“No,” Rudy said. “Of course not.”

The vet was going to come from Brownsville as soon as he got off work at the zoo, but the waiting was hard. Rudy’d always had
dogs when he was a boy, and when they got so old they couldn’t get up and walk around, his dad had taken them out in the woods and shot them. The hardest thing, he thought, was that he hadn’t been able to talk to them—to Buster or Jack or Buckle—hadn’t been able to explain. And now he wanted to explain to Narmada-Jai, to explain what had happened and what was going to happen,
but he couldn’t explain to himself what had happened. The Russian was right:
You cant understand it without vodka.

Late in the afternoon Medardo brought his five-man crew around and they introduced themselves and looked at the prostrate elephant and then carried the ladders into the lower grove. They were going to pick as many avocados as possible in the lower grove before the next storm hit. This one, malingering out in the Caribbean, had been officially declared a hurricane—Hurricane Beulah. Mission was on the fringe of most hurricanes, but they were expecting some severe weather in the lower Valley.

Rudy and Nandini ate sandwiches in their little camp next to Narmada-Jai. Rudy took the dirty dishes up to the house. The vet still hadn’t come. Just as the kitchen door closed behind him he heard a shout from Nandini. He couldn’t see what was happening because of the canvas from the
mandap,
but he could hear Narmada-Jai making noises. By the time he got to her she was rocking back and forth, one front leg caught under her stomach, another kicking helplessly in the air as she struggled to roll over. There was no way to help her, but Nandini was encouraging her, repeating a command he hadn’t heard before. Narmada-Jai rolled one way and then the other, finally managing to get over onto her knees. She rested for a few minutes and then struggled to her feet. Rudy poured some vodka over a fistful of
alfalfa and gave it to her. She chewed the alfalfa and then she put her trunk up in the air and sniffed. Nandini and Rudy walked beside her as she limped toward the grove.

“She is wanting to go to the river,” Nandini said. “Like elephants in Assam are going to Brahmaputra to die.” She started,
a second time, to sing the one hundred and eight names of Lord Ganesh.

Narmada-Jai stopped from time to time to pluck an avocado and flip it into her mouth. Her last meal. Rudy thought of the Texas convict. He’d sent half a dozen immature avocados, hard as rocks, to the assistant warden in Huntsville. What else could he have done? Narmada-Jai was walking pretty fast, swinging her trunk from side to side and sometimes thrusting it up into the air, like a trombone player in a jazz band.

When they came out of the grove and Narmada-Jai caught sight of the river—more with her trunk than with her eyes—she held herself back, for a moment, and then plunged ahead, down to the spot where she was accustomed to bathe, through the opening in the chaparral into the shallow water of the little cove. She stopped briefly to drink and to splash herself before stepping softly out into the current. They watched her disappear around the bend.

“The Russian said she’s a good swimmer,” Rudy said.

“All elephants are very expert swimmers,” Nandini said. “But she won’t swim long. She will take in water so that she not float longer.”

“What are we going to do?”

“Nothing. There’s nothing more to be done.”

They walked back to the barn and sat together in silence for a few minutes before going up to the house. In the kitchen Rudy made another pot of Assam tea. They were drinking tea when the vet arrived.

Rudy explained what had happened, and they walked out to the place where Narmada-Jai had been lying.

“I called the zoo,” Rudy said, “but you’d already left. I’m sorry”

“It’s all right,” the vet said. “At least you won’t have to dig a pit to bury her.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” Rudy said.

“I’m just amazed,” the vet said, “that she was able to get up again after being down so long. There’s your miracle.”

After the vet left Rudy built a small fire in the woodstove, to take off the chill. “Maybe we could talk now,” he said to Nandini, kneeling in front of the open door of the stove. “Because this is our last chance.”

“Yes. I understand.”

“Have you decided anything?”

They went into the kitchen, where Nandini poured the last of the tea. Rudy added a little vodka to his cup.

“Decided?”

“About immigrating to the United States?”

She nodded.

“Ann Arbor? Detroit? New York?”

She shook her head.

“Texas?”

“Rudy, my brother is speaking to me about…”

“Siva?”

“Yes, of course. He is a very strong advocate for you. He holds you in very high regards.” She took Rudy’s hand. “At first I’m thinking, maximum good idea. Even before I have met you I am hearing about you from my son, who is enjoying your hospitality in the month of December. And of course from your daugh
ter, Molly. You must be very proud of such fine daughters. It is probably not so unusual in the United States as in my country,
where daughters are beheld differently But my father is always very loving to me, equally with my brother in every way, and when I am not allowed to assist at the English school in Guwa-hati, he is sending me to learn some English language from our neighbors, the Johnsons, who are staying behind after independence. Every day I am riding my grandfather’s elephant, Ramu.
Mrs. Johnson is glad to have company. They have a very big garden. Five thousand coolies. The Johnsons are dead now, but this is where they are making Mollys movie—”

Rudy interrupted her: “Your brother spoke to you…”

“Maybe you think it is strange for women, this way, I know it is not American…”

“I did,” he said, “till I saw you coming to rescue us. In your beautiful green sari.”

“It was a very happy moment, don’t you think so? Even though Molly is telling me about Narmada-Jai, I am never expecting to be seeing an elephant in your garden. Maybe you are hiding a one-horn rhinoceros too. Then I would feel just at home.”

“I wish you would feel at home. After such a short time.”

“Excellent tea. Your daughter has learned this very well, has imparted her skills to you. I promise you that in India I will look after her as if she is my own daughter. And of course she is.”

“You were saying you spoke to your brother, Nandini. And your brother spoke to me. He led me to believe that you were thinking seriously of coming to live in the United States, that you had even filled out the forms for an H1 visa. He mentioned that there are problems with bandits.”

“Dacoits,” she said. She tried to say something but stumbled. She started to cry and then checked her tears. Rudy already knew what she was going to say, but he didn’t know how to stop her.