The Calf in the Sketchbook
Mr. Elephant's trunk is like a hand, they say.
Give him a cookie, and he'll take it with his nose.
Just as in the nursery rhyme they used to sing as children, an elephant uses its trunk like a hand.
It drinks with it. It pinches leaves from a tree one by one and tugs them free. And beyond work that fine, it can also put on a display of monstrous strength—enough to rip an entire tree out of the ground.
All of that from a body part with neither joint nor bone, built of nothing but pure muscle.
That was precisely why the people who had backed away were so tense. They were afraid Tata, angered by the sketchbook that had fallen in front of her, might swing that trunk. A single blow would kill a person where they stood.
Kwak Suho, the one responsible for this entire mess, was drowning in guilt besides. His face had gone pale as he blamed himself for bringing the sketchbook in the first place.
Aigoo, how did that even fall there? What if Tata loses it and goes on a rampage? Hahh… all this because of me?
You lunatic. Dragging that thing all the way out here. What's a drawing even worth!
That was when it happened.
Tata's trunk, which had been lifted high, bent downward.
Fwoom!
Lying there in pain, Tata looked as if she hadn't a scrap of strength left, and the people around her had already edged so far back they were a good distance away. Even so, the moment that trunk swept through the air, everyone went rigid.
"Hup!"
"Hahh!"
Involuntary sounds spilled out of them in a moment stretched taut as a wire. Every gaze locked onto the arc Tata's trunk was drawing, and everyone made the same guesses.
She would shred the sketchbook that had soured her mood. Or she would fling it far away with that trunk. And after that, she would come for Kwak Suho, the source of this whole disaster—or simply swing that trunk at all of them.
While everyone else held their breath, only Lee Jun watched Tata with a flicker of puzzlement.
She doesn't actually look angry, though.
There were any number of reasons he might have thought so, but the first thing Lee Jun caught was her breathing. He knew perfectly well how ragged an angry animal's breath could get.
Seorak's breathing was enough to make your skin crawl. I don't know how it compares to an elephant's, but still.
It wasn't only that. The atmosphere around Seorak when he was furious and the Tata in front of him now were nothing alike. Call it presence, call it aura—whatever it was, it was different. Holding onto that thought, Lee Jun studied her closely.
Every eye, in any case, was on Tata's trunk.
Tap.
Tata's trunk touched the sketchbook. And that was all.
None of the things they had braced for came to pass. She neither flung the sketchbook aside nor smashed it to pieces.
"Hooo…"
"Aigoo…"
Relief washed through the group—but Lee Jun alone kept watching that trunk to the end.
Is she… rubbing the sketchbook?
He cocked his head, then stretched his upper body forward. The distance was still far too great to make anything out. All he could do was guess.
Is her trunk itchy? Was that why she was rubbing it on the sketchbook? Did a leaf get stuck in it, maybe?
If that was it, he ought to go pull it out for her. Lee Jun started walking.
"Jun, that's dangerous."
Jerome's voice was low, but urgency bled through every syllable.
"Yeah, Jun, you stay right there."
"Hyungnim! That's dangerous, y'hear!"
Kwak Suho and Go Gi-jin were of one mind with Jerome. Faced with his colleagues' worry, Lee Jun gave up on getting any closer to Tata.
Instead, he pulled out his phone, opened the camera, and framed her on the screen. Then he zoomed in.
Tata's trunk was still nuzzling the sketchbook. Watching her, Lee Jun felt something off.
"That doesn't look like itching."
Then why was she doing it?
Could the sketchbook smell like something tasty? The thought sent him rummaging through everything they had eaten—and not only that. He even ran back through the shopping list from Nairobi.
They did say elephants have the keenest sense of smell of any land animal.
He had heard as much from Park I-chan, during the crash course on elephants before they came to Africa. That was why he was mentally unpacking everything they had loaded into the jeep, zeroing in on the food.
Snacks, bread, drinks—and fruit.
Right. Fruit. They love sweet fruit, don't they?
The fruit they had packed into the car had been bananas, watermelon, papaya, and mango.
Does she want fruit?
On the way in, he didn't remember seeing any fruit around the elephants under the shade canopy. Nothing but a thick press of leaves.
Ah—Hope said so just a moment ago. The leaves don't taste good.
So that was why she was reacting so sharply to a delicious smell.
How badly would she have to want something tasty, to caress it like that—like it was precious?
The thought made him huff a quiet, incredulous laugh at himself.
Aigoo, I've gone way too far with this. However much she wanted a snack, she wouldn't stroke it that tenderly. There's got to be another reason, hasn't there?
Lee Jun kept watching Tata through the phone. Then, all at once, the drawing on the sketchbook caught in the frame.
An adult elephant and a baby elephant, standing side by side.
Something flashed through Lee Jun's mind.
Ah. It wasn't food she wanted. She wanted to see her baby.
It was possible Tata had been with her calf when the poachers attacked. What they needed was Tata's tusk—the ivory. The calf would have meant nothing to them.
In the moment she was struck, Tata would have cried out to her baby. Run. She would have kept shouting it until the instant she went down. Then she would have been rescued unconscious, and brought here.
The thought carried him all the way to her face, and he could see it clearly now.
She's grieving. She looks like she's aching for someone. Is she thinking her calf might already be dead?
Ah. Was that why she had been refusing treatment?
The moment the idea took hold, Lee Jun's legs began to move of their own accord. He understood what was in Tata's heart, and he wanted to turn it. He wanted to get her to accept treatment.
As he started forward, Kwak Suho caught his arm. He was not about to lose a friend over his own mistake.
"Where do you think you're going?"
"To Tata."
"Hey, she's dangerous right now."
Lee Jun held the phone out to the friend trying to stop him, angling the screen so the image of Tata caressing the drawing was plain to see.
"Can you see this?"
"See what?"
"Tata's stroking the baby elephant in the drawing."
Kwak Suho stared at the phone, a little dazed.
"Oh. Yeah, she is."
He studied Tata as she touched his own drawing, and then he reached a conclusion.
"Jun. Doesn't it look like she wants to see her baby?"
He said it, then turned the question on Jerome.
"Jerome—is Tata a female? I mean, does she have a calf?"
"She is. She probably had a calf, but when we found her, she was alone."
Jerome answered as he walked over to stand beside them. It wasn't only Lee Jun and Kwak Suho. Jerome, too, had gathered that Tata was not going to come at them.
As Jerome drew near, Lee Jun spoke.
"I think Tata believes her calf is dead. She seems to have sunk into despair."
"Ah, so that's why… that's why she refused treatment. You really do have a gift for reading animals, Jun."
"It's only a guess. There could be other reasons. Like you said, people might remind her of the poachers who attacked her, and she can't stand the sight of us."
"That could be it, too."
As he talked with Jerome, another thought rose in Lee Jun.
If I could just talk with Tata, that would be enough. I could tell her that not all people are bad.
He wanted to tell her he wanted to help her, too.
But Tata can't speak, so… wait. No. I can just talk to her. Did Seorak even speak from the start?
It hadn't only been Seorak. Timid animals sometimes wouldn't try to talk at all. Even so, Lee Jun had kept explaining—during exams, while placing injections. And somewhere along the way, the conversation would start to go through.
His footsteps fell, steady and unhesitating. Kwak Suho, standing beside him, moved to follow, but Lee Jun put up a hand and stopped him.
"Wait here a second. Let me go alone first."
"B-but still—"
Having held Kwak Suho back, Lee Jun came to a stop in front of Tata.
Hssshh!
A blast of breath burst from her trunk. To Tata, Lee Jun was a stranger. Coming this close meant she didn't like it.
He spoke quickly, before that breath could become something worse.
Having said that much, he took a position within her line of sight—far enough from the sketchbook she was caressing as if it were something precious. Then he asked.
"Tata, do you miss your baby?"
Puh-huhhng!
The blast of breath from her trunk was far stronger than before.
"Tata, let's get you treated. Get healthy again, and then we'll go find your calf."
Puh… puh-puh.
She snorted hard, then struck the drawing with her trunk.
Thwack-thwack-thwack!
After that she swept the trunk through the empty air, waving it back and forth.
What does that mean? Is she saying no?
Trying to read the gesture, Lee Jun's gaze drifted, almost on its own, to Tata's eyes. The moment he met them, a sigh slipped out of him.
Ah, no.
It was a look he had seen before, if only now and then. That was the look in the eyes of animals who had given up on living.
And when he met that look, what had he always done?
He didn't even have to think about it. He had breathed will back into them. This was one of those moments.
"So let's get you treat—"
Lee Jun stopped mid-sentence. He had no choice. Tata was staring at him with startled eyes—as if asking, in astonishment, how he could possibly know that.
"Tata, you can understand me!"
If that was true, he could persuade her. Hope kindled in him, and the words came pouring out.
"Tata, your mouth hurts, doesn't it? And you're hungry, too. I'll treat you. Treatment means I'll make it so it doesn't hurt. And I'll help you get back on your feet. Then we'll go find your calf, okay?"
As she listened, a flicker of life returned to Tata. Then, the instant the calf came up again, she blew a sharp snort through her trunk.
Prrruh, prrrruhhh.
The sudden change in her made Lee Jun cock his head.
That was when a little more light came back into Tata's eyes. She tapped the sketchbook again with her trunk.
Lee Jun's gaze went to it at once—and a different drawing had opened there than a moment before. Her breath must have turned the page.
A baby elephant stood alone. It looked lonely. It also looked frightened.
Tata was touching that drawing with her trunk. A moment ago she had been stroking the picture as if it were something precious. She was not doing that now. The trunk tapped at the page in quick, irritable little jabs.
"What's gotten her so upset?"
"She looks anxious."
An answer, to a mutter he had meant for himself. Lee Jun turned toward the voice. Kwak Suho was walking over.
"Anxious?"
"Doesn't she?"
"Does she? Now that you say it, yeah, maybe."
"The way I see it, Tata's worried about her calf. Like the little one might be out there shivering all alone."
"Ah. That… that could be it."
"A baby elephant without its mother—surviving is no small thing. Unless Tata had a herd, maybe."
"Ah… yeah. That's true."
A calf surviving on its own was close to impossible. Even after losing a mother, it might be adopted into an elephant herd—or, as Kwak Suho had said, it might have had a herd to begin with. Otherwise…
"It starves, or it gets taken by a predator…"
"Yeah. I think that's what Tata's afraid of."
"So that's why she sank into despair. Because she thinks her baby might already be dead."
"Could be."
Watching Kwak Suho agree, something else flashed through Lee Jun.
"Suho. There are elephant orphanages around here, right? Sanctuaries that take care of the calves."
"Quite a few, yeah."
"Could we try calling them?"
"We could, but would that actually find Tata's calf? It's not like she can go look herself."
"Ah. Right."
"If she could move, she'd have gone looking a long time ago."
Lee Jun answered weakly, looking at Tata where she lay. Then, for a moment, silence.
Gazing at her with a helpless ache in his chest, he remembered an article he had read years ago.
"Hey, Kwak Suho. You ever see an article like this?"
"What article?"
"The one about smelling her daughter's dung twelve years after they were separated."
Kwak Suho's face scrunched up.
"What kind of article is that? So she smelled some dung, and then what?"
"You know elephants have an incredible sense of smell, right?"
"I know. Wait—that's an elephant story?"
"Yeah. There's a research team in Germany that studies African elephant olfactory genes. While they were working, one of the elephants caught the scent of dung from a daughter she'd been separated from twelve years earlier—and she let out this big excited pwoo."
"Yeah? That's incredible."
"So I was thinking—what if we used that?"
"Used what? Don't tell me you want us to go pick up every baby elephant dropping we can find."
"That's a bit much. First, let's ask Tata what her calf looks like."
"And how exactly are we supposed to ask her that?"
Lee Jun pointed a finger at him.
"That's your job, Kwak Suho."