Larger Than Life Read online

  Anger flares in my belly. He's not a bush vet or a zoologist; who is he to judge me? "I know a lot," I fire back. "But I guess I was absent the day my Harvard neurobiology prof covered how to raise a goddamned baby elephant."

  Ignoring me, Neo kneels to stroke the calf's brow. "Where did you find her?"

  "Near the mopane tree, past the bend in the river where the wildebeest cross."

  "She was with the five that were poached?"

  I nod. "I couldn't leave her behind."

  He doesn't comment, just scrutinizes the calf. "She's dehydrated," Neo pronounces. "Her cheeks should be plump, like a toddler's." He reaches for the bottle I've improvised. I can tell he is impressed by the engineering as he pulls the rubber glove off the top and rinses out the glass container. "Please tell me you didn't give her the cabernet."

  I shake my head. "Just the milk."

  "How much has she drunk?"

  "Gallons," I say. "But it passes right through." I hesitate. "Does anyone else ... do the others ...?"

  "Know about her? No." He glances up and sees the question in my eyes. "I saw you walking into camp with her, like she was a pet on a leash. I watched you tie her to the porch last night." He grins. "How'd that work out for you?"

  Neo slips a jar from the pocket of his jacket: The label reads "Coconut Oil." "This should help with the diarrhea. Different animals need different fat and protein to survive. The coconut oil, it's a substitute for the fat that would be in her mother's milk, and it won't upset her stomach."

  "How do you know all this?"

  He shrugs. "I grew up in the bush, and my grandmother was a healer. She knew to use resin from the corkwood tree to treat a wound; she boiled roots from the bush willow to cure infertility; she knew that chewing the root of the mothakolana tree helped with a toothache. Once, when an elephant calf wandered into our village, she kept him alive for two weeks. Milk went right through him, so she tried adding banana, and rice, and butter, but the calf got sicker. She experimented with everything and finally figured out that if she added coconut oil to fat-free baby formula, he would keep it down."

  "What happened to the calf?"

  "His herd came back for him," Neo said. "But he would return to our village every year at least once, looking for my grandmother."

  "That's amazing!"

  "It was amazing when he was tiny. It was terrifying when he was a ten-thousand-pound bull."

  I watch him open the jar. "You just happened to have coconut oil lying around?"

  "No. One of the other rangers, his wife uses it in her hair. He keeps a jar here for her."

  The elephant struggles to her feet, bumping against Neo as he stands at the sink. He dips his fingers into the coconut oil and slips them into her mouth; I hear her slurping. I realize that he is no longer wearing his bandage. The scrapes on his hand are red and raw, but they are already healing.

  "If you want to help," he suggests, "you can clean up a bit. No offense, but this place looks like a sty."

  I open my mouth to argue but realize he is joking. Neo's strong hand supports the elephant as she greedily devours this new cocktail. "Don't worry, little miss," he croons. "We'll figure this out."

  Suddenly, my eyes are swimming with tears. I think of Anya, whispering about me to the other researchers. Of my former boss, yelling as he said there was no place for me at Madikwe. Of the injured calf I sat with all night there, whose last breath rattled through me like a shiver. Of his mother, who abandoned him.

  Neo tilts his head, a silent question.

  "We," I repeat. My voice breaks on the rocks of relief. "You said we."

  When the door of my cottage flies open at 5:00 A.M. the calf is sleeping on Neo's lap and I am sprawled facedown on the bed.

  My eyes are gritty from lack of sleep, and my mouth is dry as bone. I squint at the doorway, at the silhouette framed by the blaze of the early sun, but it isn't until Grant starts yelling at me that I realize the figure standing before me is my boss. "Good God," he says, staring at the calf. "I thought Anya was crazy when she told me what she'd heard. What the hell are you thinking, Alice?"

  His booming accusation wakes the calf, who pulls on the hem of my shirt as I scramble upright. "Grant, hear me out. She's a newborn. Her mother was slaughtered by poachers. She was going to die if I didn't do something."

  "Exactly. You're here to observe nature, not to change it."

  As Grant's voice escalates in volume, the calf leans against my hip as if she is giving moral support, or maybe because she needs it. "If she'd been shot and was suffering, we'd be allowed to call in someone from the wildlife department to put her out of her misery. So why shouldn't we be allowed to intervene to save her if the opportunity presents itself?"

  But Grant is hardly listening to my impassioned rant. He has folded his arms and is frowning at Neo, who looks like he's trying to sink through the floorboards.

  For a man who came here unannounced last night and took charge--briskly mixing up a concoction that actually nourished the calf, rolling up the soiled blankets and sheets and setting them out back to be washed--Neo seems to be suddenly, surprisingly timid. Like he could make himself invisible if he tried hard enough.

  Then I realize why: Neo knows he doesn't belong in the cottage of a researcher. Fraternization between the rangers and the researchers simply doesn't occur. It is why the rangers have their own village; it is why we never invite Neo or the others to join us for cards or a bottle of wine. It is why they are expected to get up and scout the reserve at 3:30 A.M. while we sleep in till 5:00. We are the foreigners, and they are locals. We have PhDs and book knowledge; they have grown up tracking animals from remarkable distances and surviving in the bush. True, we are all part of the same team, but there are invisible lines between us, and they are not meant to be crossed.

  "Neo," Grant says tightly. "I expected more from you."

  I bite my lip. It is one thing for Grant to reprimand me, but I can't stand the thought that I might have cost Neo his job.

  I step forward, blocking Grant's view of Neo. "With all due respect, Grant, I came to Botswana to study elephant cognition as it is affected by trauma. This calf certainly qualifies as a subject. In fact, given the money that's been provided to me by the university for my research, it would have been negligent for me to leave this calf to die in the field without first examining the behavioral effects of having her mother and aunts killed in front of her."

  I am blowing smoke. Obviously, if I'd truly been doing what I described, I would have been observing the calf in the field, not bringing her to my cottage. And the truth is, I would have rescued this baby even if my field of study had been migratory patterns and watering holes. But Grant doesn't have to know that. "I'm the one who asked Neo for assistance," I lie. "I wasn't trying to break the rules, honestly. I was just doing my job."

  Grant narrows his eyes. "The folks down in Madikwe warned me that you aren't a team player. You're not going to get three strikes here before you're out. Just two. Consider this the first."

  As he speaks, the calf wobbles toward him. Her trunk pinches at the air, as if she's trying to catch a mosquito. She rifles through the front pocket of Grant's khaki shirt and pulls out his reading glasses.

  Whatever vitriol Grant was about to hurl at me dissipates in a sigh. It is a fact universally acknowledged that it's impossible to stay furious in close proximity to a newborn elephant.

  Grant points at me. "You are solely responsible for this elephant."

  "Yes, sir," I murmur.

  "And you will release her into the wild to join a herd at some point in the next month. If the herd rejects the calf, you will not intervene."

  I nod.

  When Grant leaves, I collapse onto the bed. The calf begins to root beneath the covers. "My mother was right. I should have studied primates," I murmur.

  "I doubt Lesego would agree with you," Neo says.

  "Lesego?"

  "Don't you think it's time she had a name?" He walks toward t
he calf and brushes his hand over her brow, a benediction. "In Tswana, it means 'lucky.' "

  He walks toward the door. The moment he puts his hand on the knob, I feel a jolt of panic at the thought of handling this calf alone again.

  "I'm assigned to take one of the trucks to Gaborone today for service. While I'm there, I will pick up more formula and coconut oil. Cases. Because otherwise I fear there might be a mutiny."

  "But you're coming back," I clarify--a statement, not a question.

  He smiles, and the knot inside my chest unravels. "If that's what you want, Alice."

  He is leaning against the door. His palm, pressed against the wood, is as pink as mine. Last night, Neo had rubbed some of the coconut oil into his skin. I had watched him flex his long fingers, lace them together, massage. I had wondered, for a fleeting moment, if his skin was as warm as it looked.

  Neo doesn't wait for me to answer. Instead he opens the door, letting in a slice of sunlight that cuts across the wooden floor. The calf, entranced, tries to stomp on it.

  "Neo," I call out.

  His grandmother was a healer, so maybe it is natural that such a talent would run in the family. In his presence, it is easy for me to forget that this is a world where horrible things can happen, when we least expect them.

  He turns, but I cannot remember what I wanted to say. "Your name," I improvise quickly. "What does it mean in Tswana?"

  He glances away, suddenly shy. "How would you say it ...? Something to be given," he answers.

  A gift, I think, as Neo closes the door behind him.

  We experience weeks full of firsts: the first time Lesego sleeps through the night. The first time she eats a cookie. The first time she gets a bath. The first time she sees a crested franklin and chases it into the rangers' village before I can catch up to her. The world is new to her, and as she gets stronger and bigger and the feedings stretch further apart, her skin grows smoother and softer, and she gets the round apple cheeks that Neo had said were a sign of good health.

  For all intents and purposes, I am Lesego's mother now, until I can provide her with a surrogate. Grant assigns Neo to help me until Lesego is released. We are a tiny herd, but we are all Lesego has.

  I am a proud parent. I diligently mark her growth every few days, celebrating by feeding Lesego a small prepackaged sponge cake when she crosses the three-foot mark. Neo and I find toys for her--a broom, the inner tube from a bike tire, a spool of rope that she manages to unravel and weave through the posts of each cottage porch, so that the researchers' village looks like a spiderweb.

  The other scientists may not want to admit it, but they like having her around. Anya takes pictures of Lesego to send home to her little sister. Paul, who has a fondness for chocolate olivers and never misses a teatime, offers a biscuit to Lesego, and now, whenever she sees him she breaks into a run and tries to search his pockets for the treat. Even Grant comes around more than usual on the pretense of checking logbooks, but he never leaves without seeing what Lesego is up to.

  However, I am Lesego's favorite. She follows me up and down the main road that leads to our research office, waiting patiently outside and rumbling when I appear with whatever book I've come for. When she walks behind me, she hitches her trunk to the tail of my shirt. She knows she is not allowed inside the cottage, but she will sleep outside only if she can see me directly. I wind up rearranging my bed in the center of the room, and even then half the time I have to sleep beneath the stars with her so she will not bellow and wake the entire camp. When she awakens, the first thing I do is touch her around the mouth, like an elephant mother would, and let her reach her trunk toward my own face to check in, too.

  During these weeks, I try to call my own mother--twice. The first time she does not answer; the second time, the circuits in Botswana are jammed and the call will not go through. I take these failed attempts as a cosmic sign, and then I go back to my cottage, where Neo is sitting on the porch wrapped in a blanket from my bed, with Lesego by his side. The blanket trick is the only way I can leave to shower or go to the bathroom or run an errand without her following me. I toss the fabric over Lesego's head, and by the time she extricates herself, I'm gone, and she settles down with Neo and my scent on the blanket. Yet even then, Lesego keeps one ear out listening for me to return.

  One morning, when Lesego and I are outside kicking a soccer ball back and forth, she punts it over my head, toward the rangers' village. Groaning, I jog to the rolling ball and scoop it into my arms, and then I see Grant. "Telegram," he announces, handing me the envelope before he walks back to the guest camp.

  I stare at the Western Union logo, the folded yellow paper. Crumpling it up, I stuff it into my pocket.

  The entire encounter with Grant takes less than thirty seconds, but that is all the time Lesego needs to disappear.

  It is not as hard as you'd think to lose an elephant. I am panicked. How fast could she wander away? We don't have an actual fence separating us from the wildlife; and even if she doesn't encounter a predator, there are ravines and water holes that she can easily tumble into. I am paralyzed, unsure which way to run first. "Lesego," I yell, as if she might come when called.

  I am about to sprint to the far end of our village, to see if she's stormed her way into the office, when I hear the crash inside my hut. I push open the door, my terror congealing into a hot nugget of fury. Lesego is buried in the closet, draped in half the clothing I own. The remainder has been flung around the room. "You've got to be kidding," I cry, and her head snaps up, dislodging a ripped gypsy skirt that is tangled around her neck like an Elizabethan ruff. "You know better!"

  The tone of my voice stops Lesego in her tracks. She is so soft-shelled that even a harsh reprimand is enough to make her back away with her ears drooping, or go hide behind the cottage for a few moments before she gets the courage to peek out at me again. If I don't follow up with a cuddle, she will sulk, her trunk hanging slack, until I remind her that she is loved.

  Neo bursts through the door, his obsidian skin gleaming with sweat, his eyes wild. "I heard the yelling. What's the matter?" he asks, looking from me to the calf. "Is she hurt?"

  Suddenly I feel silly and small. "She ripped my only skirt," I mutter.

  He laughs, in the way that I have come to admire--as if there are no fences holding him back, as if pure glee could paint all the walls of the world in a single coat. "I think maybe you both need a little cooling off," he says. "Come with me."

  We have settled into a routine, Neo and I. Although we are Lesego's de facto family, and although Grant has cleared Neo to take care of the calf with me, when the moon rises at night he bids us both a polite farewell before returning to his own bed to sleep. When I awaken in the morning, he is already outside with Lesego, feeding her a bottle--a proper one that we have borrowed from a bush vet. It is as if we are playing house, but we both know our boundaries.

  I get nervous when Neo leads us through the rangers' village, into the bush beyond. I have intentionally not taken Lesego for walks out here yet. She's still so tiny. Part of me is afraid we might run into an elephant herd that rejects her. Part of me is afraid we won't. But Neo doesn't walk very far before making an abrupt turn toward the bank of the tributary that feeds into the man-made watering hole in the tourist part of camp, where guests on safari can take their breakfast and lunch while watching giraffes and impalas and even elephants stop for a drink. He has hacked away the tall reeds on the edge of the bank with a machete, and has stabbed a shovel into the soft earth. In the center, in what had been marsh ground, is his man-made mud pit.

  "It is ... how do you call it?" Neo asks. "A playpen?"

  "Yes, I can see that." I turn to Lesego, who stands beside me, unsure of what to make of this. "Go on, then."

  The elephant uproots a cattail with her trunk. She delicately dips it into the mud like a paintbrush and waves it in the air.

  "I don't think she knows what to do," I say.

  "Well, in the wild she would have playm
ates to imitate." He grins. "I do remember the boss saying she was your responsibility."

  Rolling my eyes, I strip off my boots and socks. In my cargo shorts, I wade knee deep in the mud, and scoop some up with my hand. I rub it on Lesego's back. "See?" I say. "Fun."

  She shakes her head, her ears standing out like great pink radar dishes.

  "Wallow like you mean it," Neo suggests, smiling broadly.

  "Oh, like this?" I ask, and I grab a handful of mud and throw it squarely at his chest.

  He's so surprised that he staggers backward, losing his footing. He lands on his bottom as mud splashes up, splattering his face.

  Lesego, watching, trumpets with delight before splashing into the puddle beside him. She sucks muddy water into her trunk and sprays it at Neo's back.

  Our calf is having a grand old time now that she has a friend to play with. I give up trying to hide my snickering as Neo scowls. "Give me a hand," he says, reaching out so that I can help him up.

  His fingers curl around my wrist. But instead of using me for leverage, Neo kicks out with his foot so that I trip and fall forward, facedown into the mud.

  I come up sputtering, wiping my eyes, dirt gritted between my teeth. Immediately I think of the telegram in my pocket that I haven't read yet, that I won't read now. Maybe it is better that way.

  "You're going to pay for that." I dive, trying to push Neo under. We wrestle as the mud plasters our clothes to our bodies and Lesego splashes behind us.

  Neo is stronger than I am, but I am determined. I struggle and push against him until he is lying beneath me, my arm braced over his chest, my weight pinning him. In my free hand I hold a heaping scoop of sludge, which I let drip slowly onto his forehead. I realize that my skin is as brown as his is now. That we match.

  "Say uncle," I urge.

  He grins. "You wouldn't."

  "Try me," I suggest.

  And he does. His arms come around my waist and he knocks me completely off balance, not with brute strength or sheer force but with a kiss.

  His hands are in my matted hair and his mouth presses against mine, a validation as sacred as the seal of a king. And then suddenly a wall of water sprays me in the face. We spring away from each other, guilty. Lesego's fountain separates us like a river that carves through a continent, leaving the landscape irrevocably changed.