To the Elephant Graveyard. Tarquin Hall

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ for me. I called my editor in London, sold him the story and explained that I might be away for as much as a fortnight. After that I booked myself on the next Indian Airlines flight to Guwahati.

      Now, sitting in Das’s office, I considered Monimoy’s fantastic tale. It seemed implausible. Elephants do not breathe smoke and fire, they are not gods, and they certainly do not go around in the middle of the night knocking down people’s homes and singling out particular human beings for premeditated murder. Elephants are kindly, intelligent, generally good-tempered creatures, like Babar or Dumbo. Monimoy, who had by his own admission been drinking at the time of the attack, was clearly prone to wild exaggeration. But could he also be lying?

      My suspicions aroused, I questioned him carefully about his motives for travelling all the way from Sonitpur, a full day’s bus ride, just to tell his story to the Forest Department.

      ‘I have come on behalf of my village’, he told me, ‘to petition the government to shoot the elephant.’

      He explained that his family, along with dozens of others, lived in constant fear. For weeks, the elephant had terrified their district, killing thirty-eight people.

      ‘He is possessed! An evil god! He kills anyone who says bad things about him. That’s why he murdered Shom. Only the day before, Shom said he hoped the elephant would be killed,’ continued Monimoy. ‘So, you see, by coming here and pleading with you to shoot the elephant, I am putting myself at great personal risk. When I return to my village, the elephant will surely come for me!’

      His superstitious beliefs aside, Monimoy’s motives seemed plausible and straightforward. Nevertheless, I had spent enough time in India to know that nothing in the subcontinent is ever clear-cut. There had to be more. Perhaps Monimoy, a shifty character if ever I’d seen one, had murdered Shom and blamed it on the elephant. Or maybe Monimoy was a poacher and had provoked the animal who, in turn, had killed his partner, and now the farmer was attempting some kind of cover-up. Or perhaps the elephant lived in a forest that Monimoy hoped to chop down and cultivate, and that was why he wanted the elephant removed.

      Whatever the case, I found it very hard to believe that an elephant would deliberately hurt anyone, except perhaps in self-defence.

      When Monimoy eventually left, I asked Das what he thought of the farmer’s extraordinary story. The information officer shrugged his shoulders.

      ‘You’re right. Elephants are generally very gentle creatures. Usually, they won’t kill a living thing, although you do get the odd rotten apple.’

      ‘Yes, but this farmer made the elephant sound like a crazed monster,’ I said. ‘It was sheer nonsense – all that stuff about him creeping through the village and picking out a single house to attack. That’s unheard of. No animal behaves like that.’

      Das tipped back in his chair.

      ‘You have a romantic view of elephants,’ he remarked. ‘Genuine rogues are rare, but we do get them from time to time. There’s no more dangerous or cunning an animal.’

      That’s what you would say, I thought to myself. Your department is the one that has issued the warrant for the rogue’s destruction. But why, I asked him, didn’t they capture the animal instead?

      ‘The average Asian male elephant weighs seven tonnes, stands nine feet high, can run at twenty-five miles an hour and possesses a trunk that could pull your head right off your shoulders,’ Das explained. ‘You can’t put such a rogue elephant in a cage, you can’t tie him to a post, you can’t pacify him or reason with him, and he can’t be trained. He has to be killed or he will kill. It’s as simple as that.’

      He drew hard on his cigarette and continued:‘An elephant must kill at least twelve people before a destruction order is given. When that happens, we have to choose a hunter. Not just anyone is invited to come forward. He must own a .458 velocity rifle, be a trained marksman and, preferably, have experience of shooting elephants.’

      Das went on to explain that a warrant is issued with a description of the elephant’s height, approximate weight, colouring and any distinguishing features.

      ‘The warrant has a time limit,’ he added. ‘It’s usually fourteen days. If the elephant in question is not eliminated within that period, then all bets are off.’

      ‘It sounds like a Mafioso hit,’ I joked as I jotted down the details in my notebook.

      ‘If you like,’ said Das, unamused.

      Just then, the old-fashioned bakelite telephone on the desk gave a loud, shrill ring. Das picked up the receiver.

      The person on the other end talked rapidly, the line distorting his voice.

      ‘Yes, I understand,’ said Das.

      The line squawked and then squawked again.

      ‘Right. I will. Five minutes.’

      Das remained calm and aloof. He replaced the receiver, stroking his right cheek like a poker player considering his hand.

      ‘I have just been given the name of the hunter who has been assigned to the task.’

      ‘Who is it?’ I asked excitedly.

      ‘He is Dinesh Choudhury, a Guwahati man and a trained marksman, the best there is.’

      Dinesh Choudhury: the name I had seen in the newspaper article. I asked Das how I might get in touch with him. He wrote down the address on a piece of paper and slid it over to me. Then he stood up and showed me to the door.

      ‘Don’t be misled by the environmentalists. This elephant is a man-killer,’ he said, squeezing my hand and looking me straight in the eye. ‘You should be careful. Things are not always what they seem. Rogue tuskers don’t distinguish between locals and white men. He hates us all equally.’

      I asked him whether it was true that the victims’ families had gone on hunger-strike, as I had heard that morning.

      ‘That’s another thing,’ he cautioned. ‘Don’t believe everything you read in the newspapers. Our Indian journalists are all consummate liars.’

      Outside in the street, I hailed a three-wheeled auto-rickshaw and handed the piece of paper to its Bengali driver.

      ‘Paan Ba-zaar?’ he asked, reading the address and seeking confirmation of my destination.

      ‘Yes, please. Paan Bazaar,’ I repeated.

      ‘Okay, Sahib!’

      He revved up his lawnmower-like engine and, with a jolt and a shotgun blast from the exhaust, we lurched off down the road, his dashboard shrine flashing with multicoloured disco lights. He slipped an audio cassette into his player and grating Bengali film music blared from the speakers. The yowling soon attracted the attention of a street dog who ran alongside the doorless vehicle, yapping frantically and snapping at our wheels. Despite our increasing speed, the dog managed to keep up with us for nearly fifty yards before receiving a well-aimed kick from the driver. As the whimpering hound fell far behind, the driver turned in his seat, cocked his head at me and smiled triumphantly.

      Soon we took a right turn down a back road pitted with potholes as deep as bomb craters. Crouched in a foetal position in a vehicle obviously designed for dwarfs, I bumped up and down on the СКАЧАТЬ