Davide Longo - The Last Man Standing

“Do you recognize me?”

The boy’s eyes ran over him, but he said nothing.

“I’ve been in your house. With me there was a girl, a boy your age, and a dog. Also a tall gentleman.”

He noticed that Salomon was looking at David. The elephant was sleeping with his head propped on his front feet. He looked like a pious person mumbling prayers into cupped hands.

“Don’t be afraid of him,” he said to reassure the boy. “Sit down, you must be tired.”

The child did not move.

“You can sit by the door. I’ll stay here. Are you thirsty?”

Salomon nodded. Leonardo, without moving from the branches he was leaning against, sent the bottle rolling in his direction. Salomon grabbed it before it stopped. After drinking he stood it on the floor and stared at it with his hands hanging by his sides. He was wearing a pair of jeans, a light pullover with horizontal stripes, and felt slippers. The color of his eyes reminded him of the water of a fjord seen from the top of a Nordic cliff. They were the same shade of blue as his mother’s and required the same strength of character to sustain it. For a couple of hours now a crystalline silence had rested over the whole trailer. The croaking of a crow was deafening.

“Do you really not remember me?”

No answer.

“We had a meal together and you asked me the name of my dog.”

Salomon stepped two paces back until he came up against the wooden wall and let himself slide to the ground. Leonardo realized he would soon be asleep. So as not to disturb him, he turned away to look at the forest. A tired sun was struggling from behind a thick blanket of clouds, as the darkness grudgingly retreated to leave the grass veiled with mother-of-pearl.

“That’s an Indian elephant,” the child said.

Leonardo looked at him. His face was very pale and his hair had been cut pageboy style.

“Are you an expert on elephants?”

“Not really, but I’ve got a book that tells all about them.”

“It must be a book with lots of photographs.”

“Yes, but it has drawings too and a sort of puzzle.”

“His name’s David.”

The child nodded.

“Does he eat those leaves?”

“Yes.”

“It says in my book that elephants are always on the move because they have to eat so much. They have intestines thirty-seven meters long.”

“He doesn’t eat much.”

Salomon studied the animal. In the cold, troubled air the elephant looked as if it were made of slate.

“Is he also here because he tried to escape?” the boy said.

Leonardo touched his nose: the break had healed leaving it crooked and hooked.

“Have you tried to escape?” he asked.

“Yes, but I twisted my ankle.”

“That was very brave of you. But now you should rest.”

The child rubbed his hands together. It looked as if he hoped he might create fire or light that way.

“I’m afraid to fall asleep in case the elephant tramples on me.” He interrupted himself: “Elephants can be aggressive.”

“This one’s very docile.”

“What does ‘docile’ mean?”

“That he’s gentle.”

“Yes, but he doesn’t know me.”

Leonardo studied his hands.

“I’ll stay awake and keep an eye on him, and when he wakes up I’ll tell him who you are.”

They looked at each other for a while in the silence of the new dawn, and then the child closed his eyes and let his chin fall on his chest.

For three days, the shouts and music of partying, lasting until dawn, reached them from the head of the procession of vehicles. During those two days no one, except the doctor, came near the wagon to see how the child was or to annoy Leonardo. Salomon, when not asleep, was content to watch the youngsters coming back from the forest carrying the food, bottles, pans, furniture, and other objects that had once been part of the only home he had ever known.

Watching him, Leonardo wondered where the boy could be hiding what must be a desperate need to be alone and his grief over what had happened. In fact, he never mentioned his parents or brother or referred to their fate. He never asked any questions about the future or showed any sign of missing all the things he had had until the previous day. It was as though nothing had come to him as a surprise.

At dawn, when the doctor came, he woke and ate the food the man brought. Leonardo left the tenderest pieces of meat for Salomon and waited until he had had enough before eating the rest himself. Then Salomon would sit with his back to the wall in silence, except when he suddenly began to talk about animals he knew about, particularly his favorites, which were horses and foxes.

One afternoon he told Leonardo about the leafcutter ants of South America; and how they built nests eight meters deep with a room in the middle big enough for a man to stand upright. He explained that these ants got their name not because they ate leaves but because they cut them and carried them into their nest, where they made them into a bed on which they could grow mushrooms. In fact, they had such a passion for their favorite mushrooms that they not only ate them, but they used their own shit to sow the spores in the nest where they would grow and could then be eaten in comfort and fed to their larvae.

At dawn, with the child still asleep, Leonardo asked the doctor what had happened to his parents. For a while they listened in silence to Salomon’s breathing as he snored through a blocked nose in the way small children do. Then the doctor told Leonardo they had barricaded themselves in their house and the father had killed four youths before he was hit in the neck. Only then had they been able to break down the door. The woman and the younger child had fled to the attic where, judging all was lost, she had shot her son and then herself. When Leonardo asked where Salomon had been at the time, the doctor said he had been found hiding under the trap door to the secret room his father had dug beneath the house as a place for provisions.

In those two days, Salomon came to trust David, though he never went near him except when Leonardo was at his side. The elephant showed himself even more gentle with Salomon, giving short moans of pleasure when the boy’s small hand touched his thick hide, and turning away when the child retired into the corner to attend to his physical needs.

On their last night together in the cage, the child woke Leonardo to say he had had a bad dream.

“A very bad one?”

“The worst I’ve ever had.”

“I expect you’d rather not tell me about it.”

“Better not.”

“Yes, perhaps that’s best.”

Leonardo felt his forehead to see if he was feverish. It was the first time the boy had let himself be touched. His forehead was cool.

“You can go back to sleep. You can’t have two bad dreams in one night.”

“Can I sleep here?”

“Of course you can. Are you cold?”

“Yes, very cold. Will David be good?”

“Of course he will.”

The child lay down beside Leonardo, both with their backs against the elephant’s belly. Leonardo slipped his left arm around Salomon’s shoulders.

“Warmer?”

“Yes, but David has a bad smell.”

“That’s probably me. I haven’t changed my clothes for such a long time.”

“And I haven’t washed for three days. If Mamma knew all hell would break loose.”

“Your mother would understand the situation.”

They fell silent, feeling the bass notes of the music thump against their ribs.

“What have you done to your feet? Why are they black?”

“I’m a dancer. A dancer who sometimes dances on hot coals, but one evening I didn’t concentrate properly and burned myself. But they’re getting better now.”

“Sure?”