Tua and the Elephant (4 page)

After following the River Ping in the dark, Tua found her bearings and led the elephant down back alleys and unlit streets until she came to soi four, where her auntie lived.

“Wait here,
chang,
” Tua said.

She stepped out of the shadows and knocked gently on the back door, imagining what she was going to say to her auntie. But before she had time to rehearse a speech, the door flew open and Auntie Orchid was standing in its place, wearing a red silk robe and green cold cream all over her face.

“Tu-
ah
!” she sang out, as if calling her in for supper. “What are you doing here?” she asked
suddenly, as if she couldn’t remember inviting her over. “It’s late,” she declared. But that made it sound like she had invited her over and Tua was late in arriving. “Well, it’s not that late, I suppose,” she decided. “Come in, if you’re coming.”

“
Kha,
Auntie.” Tua bowed a wai, glanced over her shoulder, and stepped into the house.

“Was I expecting you?” Auntie Orchid asked as she closed the door behind Tua, thinking it best for both parties if she got this matter sorted once and for all.

“I have an elephant,” Tua said, ignoring the question. Then she began to relate the story of how she had rescued an elephant from a pair of rogues who were mistreating it, how they had stolen money from a poor woman and her baby, and what else was she to do?

“That’s nice, darling,” Auntie Orchid yawned. “Every girl should have a ‘special friend.’” The yawn reminded Orchid that it was quite late after all.

“
Kha,
Auntie. Can I show it to you?”

“I don’t know.
Can
you?”

“I mean, may I show it to you?”

“Yes, you may,” said Auntie Orchid, “if you must.”

Tua opened the door and gestured with her head for her auntie to look outside. The elephant had moved out of the shadows and was standing on the porch, its trunk curled in front of its face as if it were about to knock on the door.

“See?” Tua turned back to her auntie.

Auntie Orchid clasped her hands to the sides of her head and flung open her mouth as if to scream … but she didn’t. She stretched out her leg and gently closed the door with her foot instead.

“Tua, darling,” she calmly asked, “would you please tell me
why
… there is an
elephant
standing on MY … back … porch?”

“I told you already, Auntie. There were two bad men being mean to the elephant and it asked me to help so I followed it to the river and—”

“All right, all right, I remember now. Slow down. Take a deep breath.” Auntie Orchid inhaled
deeply, following her own advice. “First of all,” she continued, “that elephant is not an it; she’s a she.”

“It is? How do you know?”

Tua hadn’t considered the possibility that the elephant was a she. It was an elephant. But now it was a she—like she was. Tua wanted to open the door and look at it—look at her—again.

“I know because I am a country girl. That is, I was a country girl. Of course now I’m Lady Orchid, ‘The Lotus of the North.’ And ‘Chiang Mai’s First Lady of Sooong’ (she trilled musically), ‘Comedy’ (she grinned toothily), ‘and Tragedy’” (she frowned forlornly). At the conclusion of this performance, she took an extravagant bow.

“I grew up in the country, and I know elephants.” With that, she flung open the back door and leaned out to look the elephant in the eyes.

“Look at that face! Isn’t she lovely?” Auntie Orchid batted her eyelashes at the elephant, perhaps a little enviously (for elephants have very long and beautiful eyelashes). Then she turned to
Tua and added: “But that doesn’t mean she can come in the house.”

“No, of course not, Auntie.” Tua shook her head. “Where should we put her, then?”

Auntie Orchid imagined trying to explain to her neighbors why there was an elephant in her backyard.

“Alright,” she sighed, “but not in the bedroom. And we had better put down some newspaper,” she added with a shudder.

“Come in,
chang,
” Tua said. She was already thinking that she needed to give the elephant a name.

An elephant on the porch is not the same thing as an elephant in the kitchen. Elephants seem to grow larger indoors, somehow. One can’t help comparing them to the objects around them, like the refrigerator, the stove, and the kitchen sink. But an elephant is bigger than all of those objects, even a young elephant. And what’s more, an elephant is constantly moving: flapping her ears, swinging her trunk, swishing her tail, and rocking her weight back and forth and from side to side—as if swaying to music only she can hear. Kitchens with elephants in them are overcrowded rooms.

Tua and Auntie Orchid sat down at the kitchen table—which had to be pushed up against the wall to make room for the elephant—and contemplated the problem, each in her own way. Tua cupped her chin in her hands and rested her elbows on the table, while Auntie Orchid studied the ceiling for inspiration.

“What are we going to do, Auntie?” Tua sighed.

“We?” Auntie Orchid raised her eyebrows so high on her forehead that they looked in danger of rolling over the top of her head and sliding down the back of her neck. “
We
?” she repeated.

“Yes, Auntie: You, me, and
chang.
”

“You can stop calling her
chang
for a start,” she said. “We need to give her a proper name.”

“Oh, yes, please.”

Naming an elephant is not as easy as it might seem. Dogs, for instance, are quite happy with just about any name you give them. And if you change a dog’s name, even one he’s quite fond of, he’ll still come when you call. Cats, on the other hand, pay
no attention whatsoever to the names we give them. They have their own names, thank you very much. That is why when you call a cat by the name you’ve given her, she looks at you like you’ll never be capable of learning anything. “Why do I bother?” her expression seems to say.

But elephants not only expect to be named: they demand it. And they are very particular about their names. Give an elephant a name it doesn’t care for, and you’ve got an elephant with a chip on its trunk. So you see the problem.

Growing up in the country, Auntie Orchid had known elephants that were happy with their names; and she had known elephants that were not at all happy with them. The last thing Auntie Orchid wanted was an unhappy elephant in her kitchen.

“Now before you say anything, Tua—”

“How about calling her Pohn-Pohn?” Tua suggested. “Pohn’s the name of my very best friend at—”

But before Tua could finish her sentence, Auntie Orchid flipped the tablecloth over her
niece’s head. Flashing a grin at the elephant, she whispered, “Don’t pay any attention to her. She’s young, impetuous, and flighty—with an over- abundant imagination. She’s only teasing, ha-ha. It’s a joke. Ha-ha-ha!”

“Hey,” Tua said, clawing out from under the tablecloth. “What did you do that for?”

“I think we can come up with a name that’s just a nit noi more sophisticated than Pohn-Pohn, don’t you?”

“But Pohntip’s my best friend at school!” Tua explained. “And if one Pohn means happiness, then two Pohns means double happiness.”

“Be that as it may …” trilled Auntie Orchid.

“She’s happy, and I’m happy.”

“Even sooo …”

“We’re
both
happy,” Tua said, looking to the elephant for confirmation.

The elephant withdrew her trunk from the cupboard and waved it over her head.

“But is Pohn-Pohn really a proper name for an elephant?” Auntie Orchid pleaded. “Look at her.
Look at those eyes. Wouldn’t you just love to have eyes like that? They are positively … regal,” she gushed. “They are a queen’s eyes!”

She might have dropped to her knees and touched her forehead to the elephant’s foot (which is what she imagined one did in the presence of a queen), but she restrained herself.

“She’s awfully pretty,” Tua agreed. “But I don’t see what that’s got to do with—”

“She should be named after a queen,” Auntie Orchid decided. “But which one? There are so many queens to choose from. Makeda, queen of Sheba. Cleopatra, queen of the Nile. Suriyothai, queen of Ayutthaya.”

Tua threw up her hands. “She’s not a queen. She’s like me!”

“A
pea—nut
?” Auntie Orchid gasped, before biting down on her glimmering fingernails in mock horror. (Auntie Orchid had never approved of naming Tua after a peanut, although it fit her as snug as a shell.)

“An
or—chid
?” Tua snapped back. When she saw Auntie Orchid wince beneath the cold cream and clutch her throat, she recalled her mother’s words: “A sharp tongue cuts both ways.”

“Orchid is a very nice name,” Tua corrected herself. “We could always call her Orchid.”

“Taken,” Auntie Orchid cleared her throat. “Already taken, thank you very much. Two Orchids would only confuse the public, darling,” she explained. “It just isn’t done.”

They had reached an impasse. An impasse in conversation is rather like a roadblock in traffic. It’s the jam in traffic jam.

Tua hunched her shoulders, grinning impishly.

“Oh, all right. We’ll call her Pohn, then,” Auntie Orchid sighed.

“Pohn-Pohn!” Tua called to the elephant.

“Pohn,” Auntie Orchid corrected her niece. “One Pohn is plenty Pohn enough.”

No sooner had one problem been sorted than two more sprang to life. Pohn, or Pohn-Pohn, had opened the refrigerator door with her trunk and was searching inside for something to eat.

“What do we feed her, Auntie?” Tua asked.

Auntie Orchid turned to the elephant for inspiration and, finding none, concluded: “We’re going to need some help.”

In the excitement of having a hungry elephant in her kitchen, Auntie Orchid had forgotten to ask Tua what she had told her mother. “By the way, Tua, what did you tell your mother?”

“Ummm …” Tua shrugged.

“I’m calling her right now,” said Auntie Orchid. “What should I tell her?”

“Uhhh …” Tua shrugged higher.