The City Jungle Read online

  “Well,” the old man began awkwardly, “he could have trampled Joseph that time.”

  “Go on,” growled the curator.

  “But he simply picked him up and dashed him down.”

  “Go on!” The curator stamped his foot. “What did he do to Joseph?”

  “He broke a couple of his ribs,” the old man explained. “But that’s all. As for him,” Philip pointed to the elephant, “the tip of his trunk was all raw. Something had been done to him.”

  “And in all the ten years that came after he’s done nothing worse than in the ten years that went before.” The curator was tremendously excited. “William!” He turned to an old keeper. “How long have you taken care of the elephants?”

  “Seven years,” said William.

  “And?” The curator was bursting with rage.

  “And,” William continued, “Hans has been the best-tempered of them all.”

  These humans called Pardinos “Hans.”

  William was about to smile, but recollected that he was in the presence of a corpse, and pointed to the cage. “Think how he loves Minka.”

  They all glanced in, as astonished as if they had never known this before, unable to reconcile the gentleness of the elephant with what had happened.

  A little white goat had bounced out of one corner of the cage and was rubbing against the huge columns of the colossus’ legs, munching the straw that he scattered.

  This was Minka.

  The curator walked to the bars with a determined air. “Open the cage!” he ordered William.

  They all crowded about the curator in terror.

  “For God’s sake!”

  “You’re risking your life!”

  “Don’t go in there with him now, he’s aroused.”

  Eliza screamed. “Oh, God, I can’t bear to see it!” But she did not stir from the spot.

  “Bosh!” said the curator. “Quiet!” And when they had all fallen silent, he commanded again emphatically, “Open the cage, William, at once!”

  The keeper unbarred the cage: the curator entered. He walked straight up to the elephant, who at first pretended not to notice anything. When the curator was right beside him, Pardinos turned very slightly, a decorous turn, so that man and beast were face to face with one another.

  “Look here, you blackguard,” the curator began in a level voice which nevertheless vibrated with grief and excitement. “You loathsome blackguard, you’ve committed a murder, a common cruel murder. Yes, look at your miserable victim!” He pointed outside where the corpse lay surrounded by the men. “Why did you do it?”

  This was a real question, demanding and seeming to await a real answer.

  The curator was all but weeping. “I took you for a good honest fellow. I was your friend. You! I would never have believed it of you.”

  The elephant blinked and there was a trace of embarrassment discernible in the shifty glance of his long-lashed human eyes. He swung his trunk to the right and left like the pendulum of a huge clock. But in the lifted corners of his lower lip there was something like a covert smile.

  The curator half turned to the men outside, supporting himself with one hand against the elephant’s forehead. “Remove the body quietly! And inform the authorities.”

  They covered the dead boy with sail-cloth, and making an unrecognizable parcel of him, heaved him on a hand-car and trundled him off.

  “Philip and William, you stay here,” commanded the curator. “You, too,” he shouted after one of the keepers. Then he turned to the elephant again.

  “Do you know that you’ll probably have to be shot? Have you gone mad, old fellow? The penalty for murder is death! Even for a great lord like you. Which is just as it should be!”

  “But he’s perfectly peaceable!” It was Eliza’s anxious voice.

  “Silence!” commanded the curator.

  She was still, frightened at her own outcry.

  “Are you going to maul me?” the curator continued. “Or kill me? Me? After we’ve hit it off so well for nearly twenty-five years!”

  The elephant did not stir, but continued to sway his trunk back and forth.

  “Well, we’ll see,” said the curator, slapping the elephant’s gray iron-like forehead as he spoke. “We’ll see, my friend, how things stand with you! We’ll see whether you’re in your right mind or ripe for a bullet.”

  “Be careful now!” he commanded the tensely listening men in a low voice. “The hooks! But don’t let him see you!”

  Cautiously William and Philip fetched two steel prods, a long and a short one, whose points were as sharp as needles. They came nearer.

  “Stay outside,” the curator ordered. “Watch every motion! And if you have to, let him have it in the eyes and trunk.”

  Suddenly he stooped and snatched at Minka.

  She eluded him with a short bleat. As the curator started to chase her the elephant became wildly excited. His huge ears clapped up and down with a rustling noise. He raised his trunk high, and a piteous sound issued from his gaping red mouth, like the tone which issues from a trumpet blown by an inexperienced trumpeter.

  The curator did not relax his pursuit of Minka. ­Pardinos placed himself squarely across his path. His trunk swished wildly through the air as if it were ­seeking some support, his ears clapped up and down incessantly. The broken poignant tones kept issuing from his throat.

  Presently Philip and William were compelled to enter the cage.

  The curator walked around the elephant and tried to catch Minka.

  With a sudden lightning-quick movement, ­Pardinos threw himself on the floor between Minka and the curator. It was a powerful gesture of unconditional obedience and passionate entreaty.

  The curator swung himself over the mountain of Pardinos’ body, caught the goat, took her in both arms, and carried her, walking close to the wall, past Pardinos, to the entrance.

  Once more the elephant was on his feet. But he made no move to follow the curator. He stood rooted to the spot, stricken as if by a blow of fate.

  Accompanied by Philip and William, the curator left the cage.

  “That settles it,” he burst out as he set down Minka. She immediately bounded over to the cage.

  “Catch her,” muttered the curator. Eliza crouched down and clasped the goat gently, whispering words of consolation to her.

  The curator mopped his forehead, cheeks and neck with his handkerchief. It was not until then that his heart began to throb so that he could hear it pounding in his throat and temples. It was then, when it was all over, that he realized how upset he had been.

  “Well?” he asked, with a glance of inquiry at the others. “Well? Does either of you dare say now that the old fellow is dangerous? Or that he ought to be shot?”

  Neither answered.

  The elephant came up to the bars, stretching his trunk longingly after Minka whom he could not reach, but who bleated to him. Both animals were dismayed by the separation, were unhappy and filled with fear. But the elephant seemed to be thinking no more of violence than Minka herself.

  “When you have to shoot,” said the curator, “then shoot! But only when you have to. It’s frightful enough then! Almost as frightful as hanging a murderer.” He added softly after a pause, “It has always been especially shocking to me, because such a person is judged only by our human standards, but by those of nature he is always innocent. Always innocent!”

  His voice trembled as he pronounced the last words.

  The elephant, his huge head pressed against the bars and his trunk extended, uttered a sobbing cry. His gestures, his expression, his eyes—all held an uncanny, urgent, eloquent appeal.

  “Yes, old fellow,” said the curator, “you’re crying, aren’t you? If I really wanted to punish you, I’d take Minka away for all time.”

  The elephant’s cr
y roared mightily through the empty tiled room.

  As if in response, the curator himself cried out: “I know! She’s the only friend you have in the world! But you don’t realize that you’ve destroyed the only joy of some poor parents. That you don’t know.”

  The elephant’s expression was that of a desperate prisoner. He really seemed to feel remorse. Actually he felt nothing of the kind. He simply wanted his little darling, Minka the goat. He desired her presence with all that terrible energy of his whole being which animals put into their wants.

  The curator rubbed his hands together nervously, cracking his knuckles. “We mustn’t excite him too much,” he decided, “or make him needlessly wild. We may have to repeat this test before the authorities. Let the goat go!”

  Eliza stood up and the goat ran to the cage. She was so small that she easily slipped between the bars to Pardinos.

  He saw that she was coming and received her with a transport of discreet tenderness. The goat ran round the elephant’s legs, one after the other, rubbing herself against the four iron-gray columns. Meanwhile the elephant was dancing slowly, apparently quite deliberately, raising his broad thick foot a little distance from the floor and setting it down again with surprising gentleness. He had swung his trunk high as if he meant to break the goat into pieces, but he brought it down very softly, running the finger at the tip in a breathy caress over Minka’s head and back. He exulted in the process, so that it sounded as if a gush of water were gurgling through a suddenly open pipe.

  Side by side, the goat looked even smaller and the elephant more gigantic. It was grotesque.

  “I wonder how that poor fellow managed to get in, and if he was hidden here all night,” said the curator. “We’ll have to have a thorough investigation; it must absolutely be explained.” With that he left.

  But in spite of his thorough investigation, nothing was explained.

  Chapter Four

  In Peter’s House

  ELIZA HAD SUDDENLY DISAPPEARED after releasing Minka. She hurried to Peter the chimpanzee, with whose care she was entrusted and whom she loved like a child.

  She was crying quietly as she looked after the wants of the clever, cheerful monkey.

  Eliza knew something about the tragic event. Not all, but enough to make her shed a few self-­reproachful tears. Nor did she restrain them because there were visitors already standing before the glass front of the cage. Let them think what they liked. Even if one was only the girl who sat all day long with the chimpanzees, one could feel vexed or sorry. Whose business was it anyhow?

  Eliza was the only person in the zoo who knew the name of the unfortunate boy. She took good care not to divulge her knowledge. A vague shyness kept her from it.

  His name had been Rainer Ribber, and he had never been numbered among fate’s fortunates. “Mr. R.-R.,” she called him when they talked together. “Dear R.-R.,” of late, and as a joke. They were done with joking now.

  Peter the chimpanzee sat before Eliza, observing her with his big professorial eyes. He pursed the black lips of his strong protruding mouth. Whenever he did that, he looked as if he were about to make some sagely humorous remark. But he never said anything and had to keep all his epigrams to himself. He understood that Eliza was sad. To cheer her up, he selected a doll from among his playthings, a black Pierrot, seized it by the arm and threw it gently at Eliza.

  A challenge to play.

  Eliza remained unmoved. The doll slipped from her lap, fell to the floor and lay with its arms outspread like the dead lad in the elephant house.

  Eliza looked down at the Pierrot. “Ah, Peter,” she said, “you will never see poor, good R.-R. any more. Never again will he bring you bananas and grapes. He is dead.”

  Peter scratched his head reflectively and turned a quiet somersault.

  Eliza gazed at him, her eyes filmed with tears.

  For almost a year she had been taking care of this good-natured funny fellow. When she came he had been nervous and quarrelsome; now he was quiet and tractable. He had lain sick in her arms. But for several months now he had been well and happy. The little monkey, always up to some knavish prank or other, possessed as tender and gentle a soul as the very best children to whom Eliza had been nurse. He had never angered her, never done anything to spite her, never put on airs before her, like so many human children. Behind his low brow, or (who can really say?) perhaps in his hairy black breast, there was hidden a pious grati­tude for Eliza, a boundless trust in his keeper, a feeling so powerful that no other could compete with it.

  Peter got up and came over to Eliza, walking erect on his flat feet. He looked as if he were trying to think of some means of cheering her up. Suddenly he sprang on the big wooden ball that lay in his path, and, started it rolling, balancing delicately, danced on it.

  The crowd of people who were waving and applauding outside the cage he ignored entirely. His eyes peered quickly at Eliza, who continued to weep quietly.

  Instantly Peter grasped one of the flying rings, and swinging himself over, clambered up to the roof. For a while he crouched there, dangling, then with a terrific plunge he was on the floor again in front of Eliza.

  Outside from the visitors came a many-voiced cry of fear. Peter merely blinked contemptuously. He crouched down, and laying his long arms carefully in Eliza’s lap, gazed pityingly at her.

  Eliza stroked his head wearily and sighed. “Ah, my good Peter, what can you know after all?”

  She remembered how, about two years ago, the curator had been the guest of Dr. Wollet where she was employed as a nurse. “If you ever leave your situation,” he said to her, “come to me, I may have a place for you.” Later she had left the Wollet children, and recalling the curator’s invitation, came to see him, quite unaware that he wanted her for Peter, the chimpanzee. But she had said yes, and until today had had no regrets.

  Peter sat up, and flinging his arms around her neck, drew her down to him and with lips absurdly pursed kissed her cheek. A kiss as soft as a sigh, a pathetically understanding kiss.

  Raucous laughter. Eliza resisted gently with, “That’s enough, thanks, Peter.” She recalled how long it had been before Peter had bestowed the same mark of favor on nice Rainer Ribber.

  Poor R.-R.! She wept more bitterly. He was so modest, so terribly shy, that he infected others with his own embarrassment. And yet he had such determination, knew so definitely what he loved and what he hated. Oh, yes, he could hate, too. Eliza had often been afraid when he said grimly, “I don’t like him!” as he shut his eyes and his features grew tense. Once he had said it so fiercely behind Karl’s back that Eliza had started in fright. For Karl’s sake she was hurt by the words. For there were all kinds of delicate threads binding Karl and her, and some day, perhaps, they would be married.

  Karl was the keeper of the bears. He was a strong and stocky fellow, not very tall, with a robust, healthy outlook. He often used to visit Eliza in the chimpanzee house, and sit there or help in all sorts of ways, and they had become close friends.

  Then the delicate boyish youth had come. He had appeared for the first time two months before. He would stand outside the glass all day long with the other visitors, but usually at times when the zoological garden was empty. Eliza had not wanted to let him into the cage. But he had been so insistent, so shy but so polite. “Ah, please, miss,” he had said, “only for a minute. Let me stay with the good creatures for just a minute. It will do me so much good; it will be such a comfort to me.” He had stuttered and stammered over the last words. Eliza could not refuse him further.

  “Comfort?” she had asked him. “What do you need comfort for?”

  He answered evasively, and turned to Peter. His way of approaching the young chimpanzee, of winning his affection, and playing with him, revealed so much good feeling, such deep understanding, that not only Peter, but Eliza also, began to trust him entirely.

  When
after a few minutes Rainer had wanted to go, Eliza said, “You may stay.” And he stayed.

  Indeed, he kept coming back and brought playthings and lovely fruit, carried Peter in his arms and hugged him. He would give up without resistance anything that the chimpanzee, ransacking his pockets, wanted.

  Peter ruined Rainer’s watch, he tore his handkerchief, his memorandum book, he wound his necktie around his neck, pulled out his cufflinks, and threw his money on the floor. Rainer never even smiled, was never impatient.

  Eliza sympathized with him, but gradually felt a kind of jealousy.

  “You let him make a fool out of you,” she said irritably.

  Rainer looked surprised, but merely shook his head.

  Eliza was insistent. “You let the creature tyrannize over you too much.”

  “Too much?” he asked, still more surprised. “Since the world began, the only tyranny has been that of men over the beasts.” He gazed gloomily into space. “Cruel . . . pitiless . . .” A sigh. Then silence.

  Eliza was silent, too. She was disarmed.

  Later he told her in confidence why he had needed comforting.

  “My squirrel died. Oh, no, I didn’t catch it, I bought it from an animal dealer, because I couldn’t bear to watch it rushing around in his cage. I wanted to free him. But he was unsuited for a life of freedom. Absolutely helpless! So I took him back home with me. I kept him in my room—at least it wasn’t a cage. We became great friends.”

  He would not say more and never mentioned it again.

  When Eliza sought to elicit certain details a few days later, he said shortly, “You know all there is to know.”

  Usually he visited the chimpanzees in the morning or in bad weather. In any case he always appeared when there were very few or no people at all in the zoo.

  Once he met Karl just as the latter was finishing his chat with Eliza. “I don’t like him,” he had said the moment Karl was gone. It had shocked Eliza, but she did not dare object.

  Now she recollected that a few weeks before, Rainer had let fall a chance remark: “One must be alone with the animals. It’s best at night when they are awake. They never sleep at night . . . the unfortunate creatures. That’s the time to be with them.”