Elefant

The same day

The red, white and yellow striped tent with the Pellegrini logo was pitched on the recreation ground beside the recreation hall in a town in eastern Switzerland near Lake Constance, a good hour’s drive from Gentecsa. A dozen circus wagons in the same colours and a motley collection of just as many caravans and mobile homes were clustered behind the big top.

The picture might not have looked so sad if this hadn’t been the penultimate stop before the end of the season and if it hadn’t been chucking it down so persistently from a murky grey sky.

The bad-tempered woman from the office pointed to the caravan that said ‘Director’. ‘He’s expecting you,’ she said, before hurrying back to the box office.

He walked the few metres up to the caravan and knocked. Pellegrini opened the door and invited him in.

Roux knew the man from the media, particularly from the time when his father was ‘Torn to shreds by lions!’ as one tabloid put it. For a while the same rag ran stories on the circus takeover and the rather indelicate question of when Pellegrini would get married. After that, however, media interest in the director and his circus died down.

Roux recalled Pellegrini as slimmer, but otherwise he hadn’t changed much in the intervening seven years. Pellegrini was a head taller than him, his shoulder-length hair a touch too black and he stood slightly stooped, as many tall men do.

The director’s caravan was dominated by a huge desk with three visitors’ chairs. The rest of the space was taken up by three armchairs and a sofa. The walls were covered with old circus posters and photographs from eighty-five years of Circus Pellegrini. The director seemed to be pondering whether to offer his guest a seat by the desk or take him to the more comfortable armchairs; he opted for the latter.

‘I’m intrigued,’ Pellegrini said.

Roux placed his briefcase on the floor beside the armchair. ‘I’m looking for a surrogate elephant mother.’

Pellegrini smiled. ‘You mean an elephant cow for artificial insemination. You could have told me that over the phone. It’s no secret that we do this.’

‘But in this instance it needs to remain one. You see, we’re not talking about artificial insemination.’

Pellegrini looked at him expectantly.

‘It’s a blastocyst transfer. We place a 0.2 millimetre embryo directly into the womb.’

‘And?’

‘It’s a genetically modified blastocyst.’

‘Oh, I see. Would you like a coffee?’

‘I’d love one.’

Pellegrini went over to the espresso machine on the chest of drawers. ‘Lungo or espresso?’

‘Espresso please, black, no sugar. Don’t you want to know how?’

Pellegrini took a capsule, placed it in the machine and waited for the espresso to pour out. ‘You mean how it’s been genetically modified?’

Roux nodded.

Pellegrini made himself an espresso too, put both cups on the coffee table and sat down. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I don’t want to know how. I don’t even want to know that it has been.’

‘I understand.’ Roux was fine with that. He wasn’t going to tell Pellegrini the truth anyway. He would have said he was working on a project to make elephants resistant to herpes. Elephant herpes was one of the most common causes of death among Asian elephants in captivity.

‘There’s another issue,’ Pellegrini now explained. ‘Rupashi is pregnant, so is Sadaf, Trisha is breastfeeding and Fahdi is a bull.’

Roux realised that this was all about the price. He’d done his homework beforehand: the fourth cow, Asha, was available. She was also the most experienced. ‘What about Asha?’ he asked innocently.

‘Asha is reserved,’ Pellegrini came back quickly.

‘Is that a binding commitment?’

‘Sort of.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘Nothing’s been signed yet. But we made a verbal agreement.’

‘Given the special nature of our project, we’d be prepared to go above the usual rate.’

‘Who is we?’

‘Me and the international group that’s behind me.’

‘May I know which group?’

‘No, but I can assure you that they are a most solvent partner.’

Pellegrini nodded. Then sighed. ‘Turning down our other clients would have a very negative impact on any future projects with them.’

‘Well, of course we’d take this into account,’ Roux assured him.

‘As well as the fact that the project is secret, I assume. An additional complication.’

‘Naturally.’

Pellegrini took Roux to the animal tent to show him Asha, the elephant cow who was a possible surrogate mother.

It was quiet in the stalls; the only sounds were the occasional snort from a horse and the rustling of hay that the elephants were eating. Asha was the furthest away in the elephant pen. An Asian keeper was standing beside her, feeding her carrots and talking softly to her in a foreign tongue.

‘May I introduce Kaung, our elephant-whisperer? Kaung, this is Dr Roux. He wants to borrow Asha as a mother for his baby.’

Kaung put his palms together in front of his face and bowed. Roux nodded, gave him a ‘Hello’ and turned back to Pellegrini.

It was already getting dark when Pellegrini went to get changed for the performance. The bad-tempered woman was garishly made up, and sitting at the evening box office, waiting for the first spur-of-the-moment customers.

18

The same day

Kaung’s father had been an oozie too, as had his father. They lived near Putao, in the very north of his country, and worked in logging camps. At the age of five Kaung was already riding a bull elephant that dragged teak trunks weighing tonnes.

When he was eleven Kaung ran away, and after months of roaming the country he ended up as a boy monk in a Buddhist monastery to the north of Mandalay. He was a good pupil and was sent to university.

On 8 August 1988 he took part in the demonstrations against government oppression, which later became known as the 8888 Uprising. The military killed thousands of people and tortured tens of thousands more.