Paul Theroux - The Elephanta Suite - Three Novellas

She said, “You have no idea who I am, and yet you’re being good to me. Bless you, bless you.”

The mahout laughed, hearing this stream of English.

One day she took an auto-rickshaw to the ashram. The gatekeeper looked apprehensive.

“Just visiting,” she said.

“Swami at Puttaparthi,” the man said.

She asked to see Priyanka, whose face fell when she saw her.

“I’m just here for my mail,” Alice said.

“We’re trying to get over the hoo-hah,” Priyanka said.

“By hoo-hah, do you mean the fact that I was assaulted and raped?”

“We are bitterly sorry,” Priyanka said.

“Never mind. You have more important things to deal with. But would you mind holding my mail for me?”

“Of course. Not to worry. Have you found lodgings?”

“I’ll let you know,” Alice said.

That day there was no mail of any consequence, but a few days later there was a large buff-colored envelope from the court in Chennai, with a stamp and many signatures, explaining formally that the date of the hearing had been deferred, “pending further enquiries.” So much for fast track.

Someone had sent her a prayer printed on one sheet of paper, another envelope included a religious card, the scary-faced goddess Kali, the size of a playing card. The second lawyer who had visited sent a form to sign—the same form, a letter with her name typed at the bottom, stating that she wished to drop all charges. Even Amitabh wrote, suggesting that they meet to discuss “this matter.” The nerve!

She began to hate picking up her mail. And what had become of Stella? She thought of her now—probably she had left India; perhaps she was traveling with Zack or living with him. Stella was safe. I am safe too, Alice told herself; safe but in suspense.

Sleeping in the small fragrant room, rising early, tending to the elephant, beginning to make notes in her journal—about the elephant, not herself—and eating with the mahout and his wife became her routine. These days her accumulated letters were left at the front desk of the ashram. With Swami at his other ashram, there were few devotees around. Alice did not see Priyanka and Prithi. They were obviously miffed that she had not revealed to them anything of her whereabouts.

At night in the dark, she told herself that she had a mission: she could not leave India until her case was heard and Amitabh was punished.

As if she’d sensed Alice’s disdain, Stella wrote to her, care of the ashram. She’d read the story, she said. Zack was in preproduction for his Bollywood film. They were living in Mumbai. Zack says that his father might be able to help.

Alice wrote various replies in her head, all of them on the theme of I-refuse-to-be-patronized. But she did not send anything; she did not want Stella to know she’d received the letter. She did not want anyone to know where she was. It was a great plus to her that the mahout and his wife had no idea who she was.

More weeks passed, more delays, more ambiguous legal letters. It was a pettifogging culture. Instead of justice there was combat and an elaborate confrontation that was a form of evasion. The ancient quality of India, its ruinous look, was the result of delay. You would die before any promise was kept, but denial was another way of doing business. The legal system was based on creating obstacles.

In this mood, Alice became indecisive herself and was saddened to think that she had surrendered to this Indian lack of urgency. So she was surprised one morning when she went to the storeroom for the hayfork and saw the mahout blocking her way. He would not allow her to go near the elephant. Shooing her away, he indicated a door in the corner of the stable yard, which led to the street. She understood what he was saying—it was an escape route. Should she find herself cornered, she could slip out and avoid the elephant’s wrath.

She saw why. The tear stain dripped from the lower part of his eye, brownish on the rough gray skin. And the eye itself looked troubled, the great animal agitated, yanking its chain.

“Musth?”

“Musth. Musth.” The mahout made a gesture of helplessness. The frenzy had come at last; it had possessed the elephant.

From her room, unable to feed the elephant, she looked down at the restless creature, trumpeting, snorting, twisting his head, flapping his ears. Alice put her chin on her hands, resting her arms on the windowsill, and saw how the poor thing was much like herself, hobbled, trapped by the chain. She watched for most of the day, and saw the mahout leave by the concealed door. He had no role to play with the elephant so restless—more than restless, the poor thing was suffering.

She remembered how, months before, when she’d misunderstood the mahout and imagined the elephant as half demented with frustrated desire, chained against venting it, lust and anger mingled in his big body and leaking out of his eye. She’d written it in her journal. Now she was not imagining it.

In her meditative posture, listening to the moaning of the elephant, Alice made a decision.

The phone card that she’d bought months before, and used once, was still valid. She went out the way the mahout had gone, into the lane and a street of shops. She found one with a pay phone, and, reading from a business card, she dialed a number.

“This is Shan.”

“It’s Alice.” She took a breath and told him exactly where she was and how to get there; where the gate was latched, that he must secure it as soon as he entered the stable yard; that she would meet him.

He was relieved—she heard it in his expression of thanks—but she shuddered in disgust and hung up. She could not bear to listen to his gratitude in his strangled American voice, that hideous accent.

She was squatting in the stable yard, behind the elephant’s post, in the darkness there, where the animal’s odor brimmed and stung her eyes. She was so still the elephant was not aware of her presence. She listened hard—was that a car in the side lane? Yes, the latch on the gate was lifted. The elephant heard, and he snorted and swayed. He began to roar. She was glad for that sound—it drowned out every other noise.

She did not act until she saw, by the light of the streetlamp in the lane, the gate being shut, the brace slipped into the slots, the door secured.

The elephant was straining forward. Alice saw Amitabh, greenish in the bad light, much fatter now, trying to judge the limit of the elephant’s reaching trunk, and he was skirting the animal, believing himself to be safe, when he saw Alice and called out softly, “Hey, you.”

Then she pulled the long pin from the ring on the post, releasing the chain, releasing the elephant, releasing herself. And just before she slipped through the small door to the lane, which led to the world, she lingered. She saw Amitabh tumble to the cobbles of the stable yard under the pounding feet of the ramping elephant, twisted in the posture of a helpless victim, bellowing in terror in his own voice.

It was day again, just after dawn, in the Ladies Only coach on the Mumbai Express. The noise of the clattering train made for a kind of drama, like a soundtrack to the image in the compartment window: her face, with the Indian landscape passing behind her pale features. The bang of the wheels on the rails, like rough music, filled her head with the insistent reassurance of the train speeding her to safety. She began to chant:

Jaya Jaya Jaya Hey Gajaanana

Gajaanana Hey Gajavadana …