My name’s Jumbo, and I’m an elephant. The pretty thing opposite me wearing a collar is Tom-Tom, my partner. In my native country, Jumbo means “hello”. I have the misfortune of being likeable, and friendly, and now, all the way across the Atlantic, some nine million spectators have come to applaud me. Here in New York I’m famous, yet a prisoner. They call me the greatest monarch of my species, and yet I dream of only one thing, which is to return to Abyssinia to live in peace and anonymity. I miss my homeland. I don’t know if Abyssinia is far from here. I remember clearly the moment of my capture – an elephant never forgets, you know. A dozen or so men of my country came up to me, bearing bananas and wide smiles. I believed they were friendly, for I was young and naive. I went over to them, and without a second thought they tied ropes around my waist, chained me by the feet and covered my eyes. I trumpeted and struggled, but in vain. They transported me; I felt the rocking of the boat, but I was still blinded. They whipped me hard anytime I tried to escape my blindfold or my chains. I arrived in France, in the animal house of the Paris botanical gardens, if you please – an auspicious dwelling indeed. Many visitors came to see me, looking upon me as a curiosity, a freak even. It was the first time I had been looked at like that. In my country there was nothing extraordinary about me. I was proud, despite my captivity; I liked the feeling of those admiring eyes on me. But one day I came to understand how little I was truly worth. That was the day my replacement arrived – a huge, pretentious rhinoceros, who strutted and swaggered around the enclosure with that ridiculous horn on his forehead. I was sent off to London Zoo, where I tried to be even nicer so as to keep my spot. I didn’t want to make any more journeys in one of those cold, wet crates, for I feared I might die on one of those interminable journeys. So there was no beast friendlier than I at London zoo. I let the children ride on my back, and I walked around with them as if they were jungle folk. The children of all the great families came to ride on my back, princes and heirs of great fortunes even. I stayed at London Zoo and grew big and tall there, until I was as big as a house. That was a rather nice time of my life. But then an American named Phineas Taylor Barnum, a great circus master, heard tell of my fame and decided he wanted to get his hooks in me. He was a powerful man, and he always got what he wanted; nobody dared refuse him. Ten thousand dollars changed hands, and my fate was sealed. When I arrived in New York I cried often in my cage. Perhaps you did not know that elephants cry. Tom-Tom rubbed her trunk against mine, as we do to console one another when one of our herd dies.
I made friends at the circus in New York. Elizabeth the trapeze artist likes to dress me up in front of the mirror, and she knows that inside I’m laughing. She tells me that I'm the only animal from the savannah that can recognise itself in a mirror. She teaches me and gives me instructions, and is always very kind and patient. I have a lot of admiration for Elizabeth, for she puts her life in danger every day when she does her stunts high up in the air. She even works without a net to make things more exciting for the audience. My tamer doesn’t have her patience, or her courage. All he does is teach me silly routines using a whip and handfuls of peanuts. Tom-Tom is more docile than I am, but then I hear that Asian elephants are easier to tame than us Africans. I wonder why that is. Before our number comes Fakir, the madman who swallows swords and spits fire. What a strange idea! I must admit that I'm glad I didn’t end up doing that. But at night, the circus folk gather round a fire to tell stories, and I envy the fact that they are not kept in cages. Luckily Tom-Tom is never far away, and her friendly face helps me sleep.
Alan Alfredo Geday
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