Elephant Winter - By Kim Echlin Page 0,49

It creates a passionate effect similar to that of “The Song of Solomon,” to honour the ineluctable mystery and to remind the mating elephant she has a witness.

oar^oar: (25 Hz.) Post-copulatory estrous sequence.

Two or more quite intense shouts indicating ending of mating cycle.

^rraaarr ^rraaaarr: (40-55 Hz.) Threat call of a male in musth.

This is often accompanied by strong territorial gestures of charges (mock or real) and banging of tusks. In captivity it is directed toward a keeper, or a tree.

~rrowr: (60-120 Hz.) Musth song of male after he has mated and stands protecting the female, awaiting the next opportunity to mate.

A male continues this call intermittently throughout the mating period. It is meant to ward off other males who approach and is repeated strongly when he gives himself over to the bewildering minute. It may also serve as a kind of reassurance to his partner that he is protecting her, although the real protection is provided by the group of females looking on.

KEZIA

Iwas finally empty. Jo was gone. When his jaw was unwired he called from his brother’s trailer in Florida and said he wasn’t coming back.

“Jo, you have to come back.”

“I can’t.”

“What about Kezia?” What about me?

“I got a new job down here, Sophie. As soon as I’m on my feet again.”

“I’ll help, Jo. You’ve got to come. They need you.”

“It’s too big an operation. I’ve got a nice little zoo here. Two Asian elephants. No breeding. No males. I’m tired of the north. I’m tired of the circuses.”

“It will catch up with you . . . Jo?” I was talking into silence.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes. Jo, there was nothing you could do. Lear was getting too old. He had arthritis.” I couldn’t feel him over the telephone.

Finally he said, “Where’s Alecto?”

“He’s gone.”

“There’ll be a paper on Lear someday.”

“I suppose. I don’t think he’ll be back.”

“Don’t be so sure.”

“I think he’s run his course. I told the Safari if they wanted me to stay he couldn’t come back.”

I felt him stiffen, “How’s Kezia?”

“She seems fine so far.”

I buried Alecto deep and deeper. My eyes opened and battered, I divined the life before me. The elephants had to be taken care of. My baby was dropping toward the world. And I had to see my mother through her dying.

The only solution to her constant pain was her own end. There was no skin left between us, the air was raw as the open flesh of a burn.

“Sophie, what’s going to happen to the birds when I die?”

“What makes you worry about the birds?”

“What else would I worry about?” she said. “The birds will still be here. Someone has to take care of them.”

I didn’t want her to talk about it. I wanted her to say, “I’m not going to die.” She waited and said nothing.

“I’ll take care of your birds.”

“But you’ll be busy with your new baby. I know how the first few months are. Will you live here? I know you won’t want them flying around. I suppose you could put them in the cage. Moore would hate it. Maybe you could just leave Moore out and keep the rest locked up?”

She seemed hopeful about this and I nodded.

“I was going to build an aviary outside this spring. Beside my studio.”

“Maybe I could.”

“I wish I could have been here for your baby, Sophie. You mustn’t be too sad. A baby can feel it. I would have loved her. You must love her to bits. It’s all for such a short time.”

I didn’t go to the Safari that day. I crawled up on my mother’s bed instead. She tried to tell me what she knew about mothering, a thousand seeds tossed into the air. She tried to tell me all the things that would have unfolded slowly between us as my baby grew and we watched her together. She said the most important thing to know is that a child wants to be just like you.

She said, “Give her everything and all of yourself and make sure you keep some back for yourself and do your own work too.”

“A pragmatist!”

“It’s never easy. The paradox is that a child takes everything and gives everything. You have to do that back. But you can’t do it well unless you have something of your own. There’s enough. Give all of it. It drives you crazy but do it. There,” she said, waving her hand in front of her, “there’s my two cents’ worth!”

I thought of her sweaters. She didn’t find them until I