Hanging from its tail on the coat nail, smudged into a tattered
knob, I found it again the other day. The green elephant that used to sit on
our window sill and watch us have sex. Every night for three months, it would
sit next to our bed -- a preening green at the time --- and watch us, mouth
open, trunk quivering.
Eyes oblong, dark circles --- surprised, it would frequently climb
down and try to join. More than once, I would find it lodged between our
bodies, squashed and blushing. I would always take the time to put it back
first, before going back to brushing your hair and kissing your face. Our
four-legged peeping Tom. Our own, personal pervert.
We made jokes about it. We demanded to know why it looked so
innocent every time its trunk tickled my back and nudged your breast when you
were expecting the tip of my tongue and I was expecting yours. Instead I would
feel a furry softness that would make me giggle inside your surprised mouth.
And for you, it would make the skin around the nipple pucker, inviting me to
take you into my mouth. We wanted to know how it is that we repeatedly
found it thus, shameless. Riding our wave, tumbling with our rhythm until we
were obliged to make it a part of our bodies, let it play a role in our story.
It had no partner, of course. There was your over-sized watch
sitting next to it, uninterested and ticking its disapproval. On the far
corner of the window sill was my prim, white ring box -- chipped, it had a
faded pink orchid painted on the top. Pretty, but alas, no rings inside. Just
cushion, empty of any promises or proposals. After all, my green elephant was
only a small, furry stuffed animal --- eternally surprised by its own
sexuality, its ache. So in desperation, it looked to us humans to caress its
trunk and play with its long, harmlessly soft teeth that knew how to prick
nonetheless.
And of course, it liked to watch.
It liked to watch the humans dancing below. We knew it got turned
on by our sweat, our gasping need for each other. Paavum. Poor thing. How does
one live without making love every night, lying in your lover’s arms, sighing
into their neck? It was therefore understandable that the green elephant would
leap to the chance, and press itself onto our bodies, interrupt our rituals. We
never thought to put it away, turn it around, leave us in our peace. We were
generous with our lovemaking.
We had learned to see each other’s bodies as geographical spaces,
not biology -- your belly-button told me I was home.
In our bodies, we chartered not only each other’s pleasure, but
also our own. I came to know your lobes by the one silver loop hooked through
your ear. I know how your earrings taste. The familiar, metal taste signaled
for me how to reach a place that let me hear you suck in your breath. Sharp, as
if you cut yourself on my skin which has become warm and shiny. I know what to
do when I hear it. I know to wait until I hear it. I know it is time to make
you writhe. That sound is how I know to touch your nipples softly while I kiss
the dip of your pelvic bone. A chaste kiss, using only my lips. My tongue comes
later. And that too unexpectedly. In the middle of kissing you, I will
tire of your discourteous mouth and my tongue will want the inside of limbs, softer
more yielding skin.
Damn you, I know what you look like when you come. Eyes shut,
mouth surprised. I know the profundity of your post-coital fugue state. So does
my green elephant. We hold this information furtively, guarded in our
knowledge.
The day you left me, I threw the green elephant at you. It fell,
shocked, on its side --- unused to us looming above it. Its legs thrown up in
defense. I pleaded with you and said, “Please, I cannot keep this and I cannot
throw it away. Take it from me.”
I said, “Please don’t go.” My green elephant heard me beg, heard
me fall on my knees, heard me break. When you grabbed it off the floor, it hid
inside your pants pocket, stuffed with fear.
For weeks after my green elephant stopped watching us make love, I
would remember it and cry deep into the night. My grief was an open, raw wound
for all to see, to look away from --- to cringe at. By the time, you
owned the green elephant alone, without me in your life, it had lost its bright
green color and had become a gray, dingy thing. Its fur was no longer
smoothed down daily. No one spoke to it. You looked away every time you saw it,
and it wasn’t uncommon for you to stack books or tea-kettles carelessly on top,
hiding it from view. Ashamed of its puzzled vertigo. It could never quite stand
on its own four feet anymore, it had to lean on walls like a fake elephant.
Much later, unable to bear it any longer, I called you and made my
demands. I wanted my green elephant back. Abruptly, cruelly, you said, you
didn’t know where it was. Back bent, trunk folded up, I imagined it lying ---
forgotten under some too-heavy sofa cushion misshaping its too-soft teeth.
Crazed, I screamed over and over again.
I was being unreasonable. You tried to tell me. It’s only an
elephant, stop this drama, this natak. I couldn’t. I shook at the thought of it
lying discarded on top of dirty laundry or used dishes or worse, terribly alone
in the corner of some empty room --- out of place and lost.
You better find it.
You did.
Some time later, I came to own my green haathi again. Hanging
forlornly from a nail, I took it down and greeted it with care. I tried to pry
straight its trunk and its coiled tail. “Hi, my friend” I was glad to see that
it still held inside all of our shared secrets. But I stopped myself from
asking what was new. I could tell from its shining eyes that I wouldn’t want to
know.
***
Sonia is an activist, writer, educator and general troublemaker who
lives in Brooklyn, New York City.
