WATER FOR ELEPHANT - Sara Gruen [70]
The drum roll mounts as she gains momentum. Before long she’s swinging parallel to the ground. I wonder how long she’s going to keep this up and just what the heck she’s planning to do when she suddenly releases the pole. She sails through the air, tucking her body into a ball and rolling forward twice. She uncurls for one sideways rotation, and lands firmly in a burst of sawdust. She looks at her feet, straightens up, and thrusts both arms into the air. The band launches into victory music and the crowd goes wild. Moments later, coins rain down on the hippodrome track.
AS SOON AS SHE TURNS, I can see that she’s hurt. She limps from the big top and I rush out behind her.
“Marlena—” I say.
She turns and collapses against me. I grasp her around the waist, holding her upright.
August rushes out. “Darling—my darling! You were brilliant. Brilliant! I’ve never seen anything more—”
He stops cold when he sees my arms around her.
Then she lifts her head and wails.
August and I lock eyes. Then we lock arms, beneath and behind her, forming a chair. Marlena whimpers, leaning against August’s shoulder. She tucks her slippered feet under our arms, clenching her muscles in pain.
August presses his mouth into her hair. “It’s okay, darling. I’ve got you now. Shhh. . . It’s okay. I’ve got you.”
“Where should we go? Her dressing tent?” I ask.
“There’s nowhere to lie down.”
“The train?”
“Too far. Let’s go to the cooch girl’s tent.”
“Barbara’s?”
August shoots me a look over Marlena’s head.
We enter Barbara’s tent without any warning. She’s sitting in a chair in front of her vanity, dressed in a midnight blue negligee and smoking a cigarette. Her expression of bored disdain drops immediately.
“Oh my God. What’s going on?” she says, stubbing out her cigarette and leaping up. “Here. Put her on the bed. Here, right here,” she says, rushing in front of us.
When we lay Marlena down, she rolls onto her side, clutching her feet. Her face is contorted, her teeth clenched.
“My feet—”
“Hush, sweetie,” Barbara says. “It’s going to be okay. Everything’s going to be okay.” She leans over and loosens the ribbons on Marlena’s slippers.
“Oh God, oh God, they hurt . . .”
“Get the scissors from my top drawer,” says Barbara, glancing back at me.
When I return with them, Barbara cuts the toes off Marlena’s tights and rolls them up her legs. Then she lifts her bare feet into her lap.
“Go to the cookhouse and get some ice,” she says.
After a second, both she and August turn to look at me.
“I’m already there,” I say.
I’m barreling toward the cookhouse when I hear Uncle Al shouting behind me. “Jacob! Wait!”
I pause while he catches up.
“Where are they? Where did they go?” he says.
“They’re in Barbara’s tent,” I gasp.
“Eh?”
“The cooch girl.”
“Why?”
“Marlena’s hurt. I’ve got to get ice.”
He turns and barks at a follower. “You, go get ice. Take it to the cooch girl’s tent. Go!” He turns back to me. “And you, go retrieve our goddamned bull before we get run out of town.”
“Where is she?”
“Munching cabbages in someone’s backyard, apparently. The lady of the house is not amused. West side of the lot. Get her out of there before the cops come.”
ROSIE STANDS IN A trampled vegetable patch, running her trunk lazily across the rows. When I approach she looks me straight in the eye and plucks a purple cabbage. She drops it in her shovel-scoop of a mouth and then reaches for a cucumber.
The lady of the house opens the door a crack and shrieks, “Get that thing out of here! Get it out of here!”
“Sorry, ma’am,” I say. “I’ll surely do my best.”
I stand at Rosie’s shoulder. “Come on, Rosie. Please?”
Her ears wave forward, she pauses, and then she reaches for a tomato.
“No!” I say. “Bad elephant!”
Rosie pops the red globe in her mouth and smiles as she chews it. Laughing at me, no doubt.
“Oh Jesus,” I say, at a complete loss.
Rosie wraps her trunk around some turnip greens and rips them from the ground. Still looking at me, she pops them