John Davis - Fear No Evil

But she remembered him saying, almost reluctantly, ‘I was there the day those baby elephants arrived from India. At Kennedy airport, in the middle of the night. They were reaching out for each other with their trunks, for comfort. Pushing their trunks into each other’s mouths, and everybody was saying. ‘Ah, aren’t they cute!’ But nobody felt bad for taking those poor animals away from their natural home.’ He’d looked at her, and she would remember his quiet intensity. ‘Because people are strange, Dr. Johnson. Somehow they think it’s all right to make animals unhappy, and treat them as curiosities. I remember the vet saying, “I got a real live baby elephant.”’ He’d looked at her, puzzled. ‘In prison , Dr. Johnson. For life. And yet that vet was a kind man.’ He shook his head. ‘Every day you see those animals in their cages—pacing up and down, up and down. For the rest of their lives … You’ve seen it in your zoo, seen it in the Central Park Zoo.’

She would remember protesting, ‘Kindly don’t compare us with Central Park. That zoo’s a disgrace.’

He said quietly: ‘All zoos are, Doctor. Your Bronx Zoo is worse. Because you’re the famous New York Zoological Society, with all the money and all the university degrees. But you’ve got all those tiny cages. Outside in the grounds there are hundreds of acres for people to walk around enjoying themselves looking at the unhappy animals … innocent animals, who’ve committed no crime.’

She had started to interrupt, but he went on quietly.

‘And we look at that miserable animal in its cage and say, ‘Isn’t that interesting—look at the elephant.’ What kind of creature are we, that takes pleasure in another creature’s misery? Even though we like that animal …’

‘That’s not all there is to it. Mr. Jordan. Zoos do a great deal toward conserving animal life—and educating the public.’

For a moment he had looked as if he were going to argue with her, then he just said, kindly, ‘I can’t understand you, Dr. Johnson. You’re a vet. All the good things you can do. Heal animals …’ He looked at her in real puzzlement. ‘You’re a kind person. But you’re really a prison doctor. You’re a doctor who wants to keep his prisoners forever, Dr. Johnson. Not send them home when they’re better—just keep them in prison forever so you can admire them.’

She had been absolutely indignant. ‘ Rubbish! ’

‘It’s as if you went to Africa and captured all kinds of black people, brought them back here, and stuck them in cages as Montezuma did, so people could go and look at them on Sundays with their children.’

‘Rubbish! There’s no comparison. Animals aren’t people.’

But he’d withdrawn, as if he regretted having let himself be drawn out at all, sorry for having hurt her feelings unnecessarily, because she would never understand.

Later, cooled down, she tried again.

‘But what are you trying to do , Mr. Jordan? I mean—please believe me, I love these animals as much as you do, and I deeply resent your calling me a prison doctor. But what are you trying to achieve? Are you hoping to make such an impression with this extraordinary feat that the whole world is going to be up in arms against zoos and somehow just turn their animals loose in the forests around London and Los Angeles and Tokyo? If so you’re wrong.’

But he was not going to argue about it, because she would never understand. When he spoke it was not in reply, but rather an articulation of a private thought.

‘There is a way of life, a way of thinking, of … behaving toward other men and your fellow creatures … toward all living things … toward the whole earth, and the sky, and the sun … that is based on love. On compassion. On respect. On cherishing everything there is around you, because it’s wonderful. Unique. It’s natural and … good , and it evolved that way all by itself. It’s got to be cherished. And if we think like that, and live that kind of life, we can all have our freedom, we can all have our happiness. … We can all feel the sun, and smell the grass and smell the flowers and look upon each other with … appreciation …’

“That’s the Garden of Eden. It doesn’t exist anymore. Maybe in parts of Africa. But you can’t try to re-create it in the United States of America.’

For the first time he almost argued with her. ‘Not in the richest, the cleverest, the most … inventive … the biggest, the most successful country in the world? Or can man only be successful when he hogs the whole world for himself?’

‘Are you suggesting we revert to a state of nature?’

He said quietly, ‘It’s a state of mind, Dr. Johnson. A state of heart. A state of soul. A state of God, maybe.’

He stood up. The discussion was over.

She would remember that day as a kind of dream.

There was a little grassy glen below the waterfall she had heard last night. Sam was left on guard up on the mountain, while Big Charlie slept beneath a tree, the chimpanzee called Daisy sitting nearby. Most of the other animals were in the forest. Elizabeth glimpsed them through the trees from where she sat, near the waterfall, her body stiff and aching, her nerves tight with frustration and anxiety about the gunmen that must be closing in on them now. Only the big cats were in the open glen, except Mama, the zoo tiger, who crouched near Davey and balefully watched the other big cats. Mama wasn’t going to have anything to do with them. On Davey’s side sat the little chimpanzee. Elizabeth thought it was a pathetic, colorless little animal.

The waterfall cascaded into pools; the sun dappled gold through the treetops, sparkling on the cold clear water, warming the rich earth; and the spring air was crisp and soft and clean.

And Sally wallowed in the gurgling pools.

Wallowed and huffed and sighed, big fat old Sally who had exhausted herself stumbling along at the rear of the troupe of animals, her old heart pounding and her hooves sore and scored. Now she had slept off her exhaustion, lying flat out like a felled ox, and when she woke up she had heaved herself up and waddled down to the stream, and stood there in the misty sunlight, staring at the first running water she had seen in her whole life: real sparkling water, tumbling and swirling through real pools, with real weeds and reeds and mosses. Sally had never seen, nor smelled, all these wonderful, almost frightening things, and she stood on the bank and sniffed and hesitated, showing the whites of her eyes. She knew this place was good, but still she was nervous. Then, finally, she tentatively put one sore hoof into the water. She flinched at the cold, but she wanted the water, cold or not; wanted to plunge her great weary body into the buoyant balm of it, wanted it to soothe and support her. For a long quivering moment old Sally hesitated, then she sort of bunched up her big haunches, and she plunged.

With a resounding splash, and a snort, she thrust her head down, and then she was gone in a flurry of hooves, her fat old body suddenly streamlined, surging like a submarine. Sally swam, the water churning about her, and she no longer felt the cold—just joy, of her body working naturally as a hippopotamus’s body is meant to do; she no longer felt her aches, and her hooves did not hurt anymore. Sally swam underwater, her eyes wide at the rocks about her, her ears filled with the crashing of the waterfall; then she came up to breathe, surging and huffing. The water cascaded down on her black shiny head, and rainbows sparkled about her in the morning sun.

She sank back under the stony bottom of the swirling pool, and pushed by the current, she walked, bumping against the smooth boulders, peering all around, nosing and nudging around the rocks, into dark places, all for the sheer pleasure of it. Then she broke surface with a gush; her ears pricked, her eyes widened and her nostrils dilated; then she turned, and plunged back under and swam into the current again, churning back to the waterfall.