Kate DiCamillo: The Magician's Elephant

“Heeeeeeeeeeee,” laughed Bartok Whynn into the doctor’s ear, “heeeee heee.”

The doctor stood up. He straightened his coat.

“He said nothing?” said the wife. She wrung her hands.

“Madam,” said the doctor, “he laughs. He has lost his mind. His life is to follow. I tell you he will not – he cannot – live.”

But the stonecutter’s broken back healed in its strange and crooked way, and he lived.

Before the fall Bartok Whynn was a dour man who measured five feet nine inches and who laughed, at most, once a fortnight. After the fall he measured four feet eleven inches and he laughed darkly, knowingly, daily, hourly, at everything and nothing at all. The whole of existence struck him as cause for hilarity.

He went back to work high atop the cathedral. He held the chisel in his hand. He stood before the stone. But he could not stop laughing long enough to coax anything from it. He laughed and laughed, his hands shook, the stone remain untouched, the gargoyles did not appear, and Bartok Whynn was dismissed from his job.

That is how he came, in the end, to stand behind the elephant with a bucket and a shovel. His new position in life did not at all, in any way, diminish his propensity for hilarity. If anything, if possible, he laughed more. He laughed harder.

Bartok Whynn laughed.

And so when Peter, late in the day, in the perpetual, unvarying gloom of the Baltesian winter afternoon, finally stepped through the elephant door and into the brightly lit ballroom of the Countess Quintet, what he heard was laughter.

The elephant, at first, was not visible to him.

There were so many people gathered around her that she was obscured entirely. But then, as Peter got closer and closer still, she was finally, and at last, revealed. She was both larger and smaller than he had expected her to be. And the sight of her, her head hung low, her eyes closed, made his heart feel tight in his chest.

“Move along – ha ha hee!” shouted a small man with a shovel. “Wheeeeee! You must move along so that everyone, everyone , may view the elephant.”

Peter took his hat from his head. He held it over his heart. He inched close enough to put his hand on the rough, solid flank of the elephant. She was moving, swaying from side to side. The warmth of her astonished him. Peter shoved at the people surrounding him and managed to get his face up next to hers so that he could say what he had come to say, ask what he had come to ask.

“Please,” he said, “you know where my sister is. Can you tell me?”

And then he felt terrible for saying anything at all. She seemed so tired and sad. Was she asleep?

“Move along, move along – ha ha hee!” shouted the little man.

“Please,” whispered Peter to the elephant, “could you … I need you to … could you … would it be possible for you to open your eyes? Could you look at me?”

The elephant stopped swaying. She held very still. And then, after a long moment, she opened her eyes and looked directly at him. She delivered to him a single, great, despairing glance.

And Peter forgot about Adele and his mother and the fortuneteller and the old soldier and his father and battlefields and lies and promises and predictions. He forgot about everything except for the terrible truth of what he saw, what he understood in the elephant’s eyes.

She was heartbroken.

She had to go home.

The elephant had to go home or she would surely die.

As for the elephant, when she opened her eyes and saw the boy, she felt a small shock go through her.

He was looking at her as if he knew her.

He was looking at her as if he understood.

For the first time since she had come through the roof of the opera house, the elephant felt something akin to hope.

“Don’t worry,” Peter whispered to her. “I will make sure that you get home.”

She stared at him.

“I promise,” said Peter.

“Next!” shouted the little man with the shovel. “You must, you simply must , move along. Ha ha hee! There are others waiting to see the – ha ha hee! – elephant too.”

Peter stepped away.

He turned. He walked without looking back, out of the ballroom of the Countess Quintet, through the elephant door, and into the dark world.

He had made a promise to the elephant, but what kind of promise was it?

It was the worst kind of promise; it was yet another promise that he could not keep.

How could he, Peter, make sure that an elephant got home? He did not even know where the elephant’s home was. Was it Africa? India? Where were those places, and how could he get an elephant there?

He might just as well have promised the elephant that he would secure for her an enormous set of wings.

It is horrible, what I have done, thought Peter. It is terrible. I should never have promised. Nor should I have asked the fortuneteller my question. I should not have, no. I should have left things as they were. And what the magician did was a terrible thing too. He should never have brought the elephant here. I am glad that he is in prison. They should never, ever let him out. He is a terrible man to do such a thing.

And then Peter was struck by a thought so wondrous that he stopped walking. He put his hat on his head. He took it off. He put it back on again. He took it off.

The magician .

If the world held magic powerful enough to make the elephant appear, then there had to exist, too, magic in equal measure, magic powerful enough to undo what had been done.

There had to be magic that could send the elephant home.

“The magician,” said Peter out loud, and then he said, “Leo Matienne!”

He put his hat on his head. He began to run.

Leo Matienne opened the door of his apartment. He was barefoot. A napkin was tied around his neck, and a bit of carrot and a crumb of bread were caught in his moustache. The smell of mutton stew wafted out into the cold, dark street.

“It is Peter Augustus Duchene!” said Leo Matienne. “And he has his hat on his head. And he is here, on the ground, instead of up there, acting like a cuckoo in a clock.”

“I am very sorry to disturb you at your dinner,” said Peter, “but I must see the magician.”

“You must do what?”

“I need you to take me to the prison so that I may see the magician. You are a policeman, an officer of the law; surely they will let you inside.”

“Who is it?” called Gloria Matienne. She came to the door and stood beside her husband.

“Good evening, Madam Matienne,” said Peter. He took off his hat and bowed to Gloria.

“And a good evening to you,” said Gloria.

“Yes, good evening,” said Peter. He put his hat back on his head. “I am sorry to disturb you at your dinner, but I need to go to the prison immediately.”

“He needs to go to the prison?” said Gloria Matienne to her husband. “Is that what he said? Have mercy! What kind of request is that for a child to make? And look at him, please. He is so skinny that you can see right through him. He is … what is the word?”

“Transparent?” said Leo.

“Yes,” said Gloria, “exactly that. Transparent. Does that old man not feed you? In addition to no love, is there no food in that attic room?”

“There is bread,” said Peter. “And also fish, but they are very small fish, exceedingly small.”

“You must come inside,” said Gloria. “That is the thing which you must immediately do. You must come inside.”

“But—” said Peter.