The Museum of Final Journeys_ A Novella - Anita Desai [13]
To my surprise, my small timid host went up to the great grey wall of the elephant's side and placed his hand on it, proprietorially. The creature stood listless, the merest twitch running through its flank as if it had been bothered by a fly. And there were flies. Also heaps of dung for them to feed on.
The two men spoke to each other in one of the local dialects unknown to me, the one in rags not even troubling to remove the stalk on which he was chewing from his mouth, and the clerk/curator giving him what sounded like instructions. The keeper of the elephant shrugged and said something laconic from the corner of his mouth and scratched the sparse hairs on his chest. He and his charge, the one minute and the other monumental, shared a surprising number of tics and mannerisms.
The clerk/curator turned to me and his elderly face with its white wisp of a beard looked tired and older still than it had earlier seemed.
'She was the last gift Sri Jiban sent his mother. She travelled to us over the border from Burma; it was a long journey by foot and this was her final destination. Her keeper brought us no letter and no explanation except that she was sent us by him, and we have had the care of her and the feeding of her ever since. And it is now many years. Srimati Sarita Devi saw to it as long as she had the strength and the means, then left her in my care. She gave me whatever remained in her hands, then departed for Varanasi where she has lived ever since. I did not hear from her again. Perhaps she is no more. She went there, you see, to die.'
I saw that he laid his hand on the great beast's flank with an immense gentleness; it might have been the touch a father bestows on an idiot son, a mad daughter or an invalid wife, gentle and despairing, because she also provided him with the purpose of his life.
'If she lives longer,' he murmured, 'and requires more feeding, I will have to start dismantling the museum, disposing of it piece by piece. It is her only inheritance.'
I had no idea what I should do or say, and stood there in the shade of the monstrous cloud, staring at the flies and the shifting padded feet and the dust they stirred up, away from the two small, spare men who, I now saw, were not only older and shorter than I, but also emaciated, probably lacking even the basic nutrition and necessities, while their ward lived on and on and fed and fed.
Then the clerk put his hands together and turned to me in pleading. 'Sir, please help us. Please appeal on our behalf to the government, the sarkar, to take the museum from us into its custody and provide for us, and for this last gift we were sent. I am ashamed, sir, but I can no longer care for her myself. Forgive me for begging you.'
I could not think of what to say, how to meet his request, his evident need. I mumbled something about it being late, about having to get back, about how I would think about what could be done and how I would let him know as soon, as soon as—
That year of my training in the service is long past. I have been for years now in senior positions, mostly in the capital. I have been transferred from one ministry to another, have dealt with finance, with law and order, with agriculture, with mines and minerals, with health care and education ... you could call it a long and rewarding career of service. I might even say my father took some pride in it. I am of course no longer the lonely bachelor I was when I was first sent out to the districts and compelled to stay in that benighted circuit house; my mother was able to arrange a marriage for me to a wife who is in every way suited to me and my life, and I am a family man with grown sons and daughters. In fact, I rarely think back to that time now.
I am ashamed to say that once I was transferred to the capital I did not look back, I did not keep in touch with the keeper of the museum and I never found out what happened to it, or to