I Am an Executioner (28 page)

21
The pachydermological distinction was not just in my nether regions. It was also in my face. My uncle Gustaf recognized the deformity in my features, and would come back from his travels with bags full of elephant-themed trinkets from Thailand, South Africa—wherever his work had taken him. He gifted me with articulated wooden elephants from Sweden, stuffed elephants from Vietnam, elephant-headed idols from India. These things amused me, I suppose, but no more so than animals did in general.

I always knew there was some concern for my well-being implicit in Uncle Gustaf’s attention; and also, I suspected, some implicit association of the elephant’s unwieldy, exaggerated features with my own odd countenance, some hope he hoped I would find in the elephant’s ability to bear herself regally despite these apparent deformities.

Whence the real source of Uncle Gustaf’s fascination with the fat beast, of course I had no idea at the time.

Uncle Gustaf was the brother of my mom, Katharina. They were German, the children, I believed, of Holocaust survivors; and my father, Burt, was a Chicago-born African American. My parents met—true story—when they both worked as stewards for American Airlines. Their romance therefore took place in airline bars and in curtained-off cabins high in the air, and also, I guess, in overnight airport hotels in various cities all around the world. They married in a small ceremony in Memphis and had their honeymoon the same day, then moved to a nearby state and settled down in the wishfully and weirdly named town of Dolphin Cove, and I arrived in 1978. And the first picture of the three of us together in front of the new house in Dolphin Cove is the happy picture that I keep, even today, so many years and so many rooms, apartments, and houses later, Scotch-taped above the table in the room in the northern city where now I sit, and outside which two drunks are currently having vociferous intercourse.

Here’s a memory: Hovering over me to tuck me in at night, Katharina, my mother, stares into my face like she wants to cut me up in little stars. It is a look of sad affection. As I close my eyes and start to drift away, I cling to her hand to keep her from leaving.

She looks like she is about to cry, and all because of how ugly I am.

“What’s wrong?” Burt asks her, peeking into the room as she sits there sniffling, thinking I’m asleep.

“His nose,” she’d whisper. “His forehead. His whole face.” It’s hard, of course, to distinguish between real words and dreamworlds, but these were the conversations I thought I heard, as I drifted off to sleep.

“Nonsense,” Burt would say. “Just wait till he grows into himself. You can never predict how handsome a boy’s going to turn out to be.”

If Uncle Gustaf were there, he might add, helpfully, “It looks like he has a little Chinese in him. Could he have any Chinese in him?”

“Let’s go downstairs,” Burt would say, cutting short the nonsense. “Katharina, Gustaf. Leave the boy alone.” He’d lean over me and kiss me on the cheek, a smoky, whiskery, wonderful kiss. And then, lights out.

They were a nervous pair of siblings, Gustaf and Katharina (although they were perfectly mellow compared to their mother, the tragically, grotesquely and quite literally high-strung Nana Marina, who hanged herself when I was fourteen, using the long cloth cord of the new electric iron my parents had gifted her on her seventieth birthday.)

Burt was always the calm one, but there was also poison in the well of his family. His brother Jerry jumped off the ——— Bridge one broke, drunk, frozen December, at the age of thirty-five, bursting through the mulchy ice into the black water.

And it used to occur to me, maybe that’s what the whole family was searching for in my face so worriedly those evenings: some visible trace of the oblivion gene, the mark of future self-annihilation on “my nose, my forehead, my whole face.”

And they were searching also (Burt and Katharina) in each other’s faces. They carried a secret, the two of them—a secret, I often believed, that revolved around me. One could see it in their sad eyes, the way they looked at me, and then at each other, knowingly. And one could sense the vigilance with which they guarded each other, lest one of them slip away from the world and leave the other to bear the burden—of me, and of the secret—all alone.

There were many reasons for Uncle Gustaf’s eventual falling-out with my parents. I got inklings from Katharina that Gustaf had been less than enthusiastic about my parents’ marriage, and that while Burt had been willing to forgive and forget, Katharina held on to the prickly pear of pride (from a sense of fierce marital loyalty, and probably to balance out Burt’s forgiving nature) and thenceforward was quick to find fault with her kid brother Gustaf.

“It’s because he never was friends with a black man before in all his life,” Katharina said once, a note of forgiveness in her voice, and that was good enough an explanation for me.

Burt and Katharina, my parents, died tragically five days before my twelfth birthday. It was a car accident: they parked their car in our closed garage and accidentally left the engine running (as they sat in the front seat clasping hands). And I was left in the hands, henceforward (until her own eventual demise), of Nana Marina.
Back

22
Exterior, jungle. Enter Amuta, now a strong, older elephant, followed by Koni. Jointly, they push down a large tree. It falls with a thunderous crash. They begin to strip it of leaf, branch, and bark
.

AMUTA:
When Ania left us, and left you a motherless runt, Koni, we never thought you’d live to see maturity. But now look at you. Without your strong help, this herd would starve. We’d not have enough to feed our young ones. If only the others could be like you, eighteen years old, lithe and determined. You are brave. You are also foolhardy sometimes, and often you don’t take the direction of your elders; but these unappealing traits will be tempered with age. Strength is everything for an elephant—it is all we can rely on—and this you have. If you learn to discipline your strength, Koni, there will be few beasts to match you.

KONI:
Thank you, Amuta. If not for your kindness, I would have died an orphan, untouched and unfed. Your nurturing made me strong.

AMUTA:
We are elephants, Koni, so we are all related. It was a duty, not a favor that we did for you, so you shouldn’t thank us. We look forward to the day you find a mate and multiply yourself.

KONI:
Men are strangers to me, Mother, and I’d like to keep it that way.

AMUTA:
We’ll see how long your shyness lasts. But if it lasts much longer, be warned, we’ll tell the strongest, ugliest bull we can find to pin you down and pump you up with child. Your increase is in the herd’s favor. Maidenly virtue is charming only in children. Womanly beasts must practice womanly virtues. Now strip the last of this bark, and I’ll take these branches up to our camp.

Exit Amuta
.

KONI:
Why did she needlessly bring up my past? “When Ania left us,” she said, “and left you a motherless runt.” It’s almost as if she takes pleasure in retelling it. She does it so often, although it pinks my ears with shame, and now I wonder if that is her very purpose. It still stings me, years later, the anguish of that time. My mother deserted this herd and died a mindless death. If it’s a sin to curse your mother, then I am bound to hell. I wish that senile cow had never given birth to me, to make me bear the mark forever of her shame.

I have heard the stories—how my old mother was a kind and gentle leader who grew confused and weak and could manage only to fill her own belly; and how, finally, her hunger and senility led her alone into unsafe territory. She muttered aloud about magical trees and drought-loving fruit, and would not heed Amuta’s entreaties. Instead of trees and fruit, my mother met the fangs of an outland tiger and died an absurd, unnecessary death. I went with the others to grieve what remained of her body. I smelled its decay from a distance and brayed and tried to flee, but my new mother pushed me forward. My mother’s eyes had come unhinged and lay next to her body, staring upward in undiminished terror.

I have always strived to be as unlike the dimly remembered character of my mother as my muscles and mind would allow me. Everything I have done for sixteen years has been to separate myself from her image, and mirror myself to the image of my new mother. Amuta has been kind to me, favoring me sometimes equal with her own kin; and her favor has given me status among my peers. True, she always notes my past, never lets it slip far from view. But maybe she does it for my own edification. She has been a mother to me and more; she has instilled in me qualities to cherish. So why do I feel a lingering discontent? True, I could have been a princess, being born of a queen. But since that queen was no queen worthy of the name, I should count myself lucky to have been fostered instead by one who is.

Ho! But who moves there in the brush? Some predator or ape? Show yourself!

Enter Manami
.

MANAMI:
Forgive me, Koni, I was only grazing. I did not mean to intrude on your solitude.

KONI:
Elephants don’t enjoy solitude. We think as herd, move as herd. We don’t know solitude.

MANAMI:
Don’t we, Koni? Forgive me, but I heard your lament. You’re a young elephant, but like me, you have experienced the loss of that thing you loved most, and so you understand solitude. You were a child once, grieving for a mother, as I was a mother grieving for a child. Did the other elephants share in our grief, Koni? Did they understand it even distantly?

KONI:
Any grief I felt, Manami, for the elephant I once called “Mother,” was only the instinct of a child. We are grown elephants now, and although bound to remember our losses, must not linger over them. In these difficult times, many elephants know loss, not just us.

MANAMI:
“We are grown elephants now,” eh? How mature you’ve become. My boy, too, would have been almost your age. He would have begun to feel his manhood, and to think about seeking his living in the forest, alone. I know you remember how well the two of you used to play as children. You treated him like a little brother, pulling him along in everything that you did—I have never forgotten it. Many elephants know loss, Koni, but you and I share a special bond. Our losses were unnecessary and were caused by that elephant we both call our leader.

KONI:
Manami, you are elder to me, so I speak with deference. But you, too, must be careful what you say: slander without substance is like burping on an empty stomach. It’s true, the sayings: Rumors sprout most thickly where grass is sparse. And: Empty stomachs produce only fumes. These are old accusations you’re making; like all elephants, you complain about Amuta every time our fortunes diminish. With respect, Manami, you still resent the choice we made, moving here from our old place. But finally, it was you who lost your child and not Amuta.

MANAMI:
Of course these truths resurface when times are hard, because we are reminded again of our leader’s poor judgment in bringing us here. But forget my case for a moment. Forget for a moment the tragic death, which was no fault of mine, of my innocent, toddling boy. Think only of the violence done to your own family.

KONI:
Violence done by a tiger, Manami. You might as well blame the grass for being green.

MANAMI:
The tiger was only the tool. I have never uttered word of this before, but I was there.

KONI:
You lie.

MANAMI:
It is true. I always used to follow Amuta in her grazing, discreetly, from a distance. She knew the best places for grass—she would find unfamiliar spots, and I would track her because I admired her and wanted to learn her techniques. And so it was that I heard Amuta luring old Ania into a dangerous valley, promising her a harvest of strange fruit. I heard your mother’s cries of “Treachery! Treachery!” and saw Amuta ignore those cries. I myself fled to your mother’s aid, but saw from a distance that I was too late.

KONI:
How dare you put words into the mouths of the dead? And if it’s true, you should be ashamed only of yourself, first of all for following after stronger elephants, to save yourself work and graze on their leavings; second for not going faster to my mother’s aid. But I don’t believe you. If you were there, you would have mentioned it sooner.

MANAMI:
I didn’t mention it because I admired Amuta. Forgive me, I thought she might have made a better leader than your mother, who was old and weak. When Amuta led us on this stupid quest, when in the process she killed my son, I realized what a misjudgment I had made. We were better off with old Ania.

Ever since that time I have waited. The herd thinks I am grief-stricken and bitter. They don’t trust me and would never have believed me. So I have held close this bloody bit of knowledge. I have waited for you to grow mature and strong, for these facts concern you most of all. I knew that you alone would believe me and have the strength to act.

KONI:
Elephant, what makes you think I also don’t consider you bitter and mendacious? What makes you think that I alone am simple enough to believe such tales?

MANAMI:
So don’t believe me. Use your own common sense: Do you think it was a coincidence that Amuta was the last elephant to see your mother alive? That Ania would wander by herself through a deserted valley reeking of fresh tiger shit without being somehow deceived?

If we elephants were not so subservient, we would not stand for injustices such as this. We would not have clung to Amuta, ignoring the evidence of her guilt, simply because we believed she was the only one with the strength of will to show us what to do. I tell you, most elephants are born slaves. They never learn to think for themselves. They know only to listen to a leader. I include myself in this characterization—I will never do anything to avenge the death of my own child because I lack the power and the will, and because I know that my actions would not be respected by the herd. But remember, you are not like other elephants. You were born a princess. Therefore think with the mind of a princess and not of a slave.