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The cries of the elephant could be heard throughout the jungle.
Kanita
could no longer ignore the elephant’s suffering. Even though her
father—the king’s mahout—had warned her to stay away, she had to see
what was happening for herself. She snuck out of her bedroom window and
ran through the village to the royal stables where the white elephant
was in heavy labor.
Even though it was late at night, the stables
and yard were lit with torches, and mahouts were running here and
there, trying to calm the rest of the elephant herd. But they seemed
incapable of being consoled, and each one trumpeted in distress.
“Bring more hot water!” Kanita heard her father call to one of his men. “And my kris. I will have to cut the baby loose.”
Her
father had asked for his dagger! The poor elephant, Kanita thought. If
the elephant—one of the sacred white elephants—died, the king would be
displeased. She moved a bale of hay to a stable window and climbed on
top of it to get a better view.
On the floor of the stables was
the large white elephant. She was straining to birth her calf into the
world and tears seeped from her eyes.
She looked at Kanita, and Kanita’s heart froze in her chest. It was as though she could hear the elephant begging her for help.
The elephant’s wet eyes found Kanita’s, and she raised her trunk toward her.
Kanita
jumped down from the hay bale and ran into the stables. She had to do
something to help. As she entered the building, she saw her father walk
behind the elephant with his kris.
“Por! No!” Kanita cried as she ran to him, pulling on his arm. “You’ll kill her.”
“Kanita!” he said sternly. “I told you to stay in the house with your mother. Get out of here.”
“No,
I can help,” she said. She went to the elephant and looked at where the
baby was supposed to come out. The area was red and swollen, but she
thought she could see a trunk trying to wiggle out.
She had never
helped birth a baby elephant before. As a girl, she was forbidden from
becoming a mahout. But she had helped her mother bring a woman’s baby
into the world just a few days before. It didn’t look so different to
her. She just needed to reach inside and pull the baby out. And with her
small hands and arms, she thought she was just the right size to do it.
She slid her hands inside the mother elephant.
“Be careful,” her father cautioned. “Can you feel the calf’s legs?”
She
wasn’t sure what she was feeling. It was like nothing in the world she
had touched before. She closed her eyes and let her hands do the seeing
for her.
She felt it. The trunk. She could feel the length of it
and the ridges up to the baby elephant’s face. She felt the trunk wrap
around her arm.
“I feel its face!” Kanita cried.
“Keep going,” her father said.
She
pushed further into the elephant, all the way to her shoulders. She
slid her hands down the side of the baby elephant and gripped it under
its front leg.
“I have it!” she said. “I have the leg!” She tried to pull it out, but she was not strong enough. “Help me!” she cried.
Her father wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled. “Don’t let go!” he ordered.
She
could feel her hands start to slip, but she refused to release her
grip. The baby elephant’s trunk wrapped even more tightly around her
arm. She started to feel the baby elephant’s mass give way.
“It’s coming!” she yelled, and the mother elephant trumpeted again, forcing the baby out.
Kanita
and her father fell backward as the baby elephant plopped out of her
mother on top of them covered in birthing goo. The baby struggled, still
partially trapped in her amniotic sack. Kanita’s father used his kris
to cut the sack away.
The baby elephant took her first full gasp
of air, and Kanita wrapped her arms around the baby, a baby that was
probably ten times the weight of eight-year-old Kanita. A baby girl
elephant.
“You did it,” her father said, patting her on the back.
Kanita breathed a sigh of relief, happy to have saved the baby elephant and her mother.
But
then the mother elephant trumpeted again and let out a horrifying moan.
Blood and other fluids poured out of the mother elephant, soaking the
stable floor.
“Oh no!” Kanita cried as she stood, her chong
kraben drenched with blood. Her feet slipped on the floor as she made
her way to the mother elephant’s face.
The mother elephant groaned as Kanita stroked her face.
“I’m so sorry,” Kanita said. “I’ll take care of her. I promise.”
The
mother elephant sighed one last time, her eyes focusing softly on
Kanita as though she understood before closing them forever.
Kanita
stood back and then kneeled, kowtowing to the white elephant, thanking
her for her service to the king and honoring her as his representative.
All of the mahouts in the stables—including Kanita’s father—did the
same, as was proper. The rest of the elephants in the king’s
stables—white and gray—let out a mournful trumpet, as though they all
suffered from the loss of one of their own.
Kanita was the first
to raise her head, as her thoughts were now with the baby elephant left
behind. The baby elephant was sitting up, its eyes wide, apparently
confused about what was going on. Kanita raised the baby’s trunk and
coaxed her to follow. She led her to her mother so she could nurse. Even
though the mother was dead, the milk she made in preparation for her
baby should still be good for the baby’s first drink.
As the men
discussed what to do next with the deceased royal elephant—they would
have to inform the king and then hold a royal procession for her.
Kanita grabbed a bucket of water and started washing the baby. As she did so, she was greeted with an incredible sight.
“Por!” she called to her father. “Look!”
Her father and some of the other mahouts came to see what she was excited about.
“Well, I’ll be…” her father trailed off as he sunk to his knees.
The baby—like her mother—was a white elephant.
Once again, everyone in the stables—including Kanita—prostrated themselves before an auspicious elephant.
“Is this the first time a white elephant has been born in captivity?” Kanita asked after they all were standing again.
“King Sakda is truly a blessed monarch,” her father said.
“Hey,
boss,” one of the mahouts said, calling her father to him. He went to
him, and the two talked quietly for a moment, frowning at the baby
elephant.
“What is it?” Kanita asked. She went to her father’s side and realized what they were looking at.
The
baby elephant had a long red birthmark down one side of her face. On
her pale pink skin—white elephants were not really white, but only a
pale gray or pink in color—the mark showed dramatically.
“It’s
nothing,” Kanita said, remembering that her friend Boonsri had a red
birthmark on her back. “She’s still a white elephant. We will still
honor her.”
“It’s a bad omen elephant, boss,” the other mahout mumbled.
“Don’t say that!” Kanita yelled.
“Enough,”
her father said firmly. “I will send an urgent message to the king,
telling him what happened and about the new white elephant. In all his
wisdom, he will know what to do.”
“We should take good care of her,” Kanita said. “The king will want to know his auspicious elephant is well cared for.”
Kanita
went over to the little elephant, who had now finished drinking her
mother’s milk, and led her to a clean area of the stables. She finished
washing and drying the elephant and laid her on a fresh bed of straw.
“Don’t
worry,” Kanita said as she laid down with the elephant, wrapping her
arms around her. “I won’t let anything happen to you, Safi, my sweet
little friend.”
But in her heart, she worried about the mahout calling the baby elephant a “bad omen.”
