San Diego Noir

The elephant enclosure wound around the mesa like a broad, lazy river of packed brown dirt and sand. They followed it, watched an elephant use its trunk to retrieve items stashed up in the branches of a metal tree. “Look at that,” she said, pointing. “Look at the end of his trunk! It’s like …” She stopped, puzzled. “I don’t know. Like a finger, but with no bones. Like what an octopus has.”

“A tentacle.”

She laughed. “Yes! Like that.”

They reached the Elephant Care Center. From the front, it looked ordinary, a small building that could have been a vet’s, or a dental office, or anything. Then around in back, it opened up, like someone had unfolded a pop-up book, into a huge sort of barn, as big as a jet hangar. Banners of elephants’ legs hung above massive steel bars—cages. It looked like a science fiction movie, she thought. Like there should be monsters inside. But it was empty. Dark.

“Is that where the elephants sleep?” she asked. “Or just where they go when they’re sick?”

“I don’t know,” David muttered. He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. The sun had finally come out, late in the afternoon.

The greatest danger to elephants is the encroachment on theirhabitat by man, she read on one of the plaques. It took her a few times but she understood it. She got it right.

“We need to leave soon,” David said, “so we can go home and get changed for dinner.”

“Dinner?”

“We have a reservation at Tapenade. I told you that.”

She nodded. She didn’t think that he had, but it wasn’t worth arguing about. Sometimes she thought that he pretended to tell her things and didn’t, but she wasn’t sure why.

Maybe so she would think that she needed him more than she did.

They took one last walk through the rainforest, into cool mist and vegetal darkness. There was one place she particularly liked: a giant walk-through aviary, taller than jungle trees. Birds flew overhead, emitting alien cries and chatter. She and Jake used to play here when they were little, race up and down the greening cement paths until their parents lost patience. She remembered that, suddenly, smelling the mossy water, hearing the birds call.

“Let’s walk a little longer,” she said. There was still so much she hadn’t seen.

Below the aviary was a series of paths and grottoes. There were sun bears. Tapirs. Monkeys with names she’d never seen before. Golden-bellied Mangabey, with the Do Not Feed warning next to it. A sleeping snow leopard. A North American lynx. She read the placards on each, mumbled the names of the animals to herself.

Status—Endangered. Status—Threatened. Loss of habitat.Extinction.

“Are you crying?” David asked. “What’s wrong?”

“Just … it’s sad.”

Do Not Feed.

“Let’s go home,” David said. “You’re tired. You get stressed out when you’re tired.”

“I’m not. I’m not … tired. Or stressed.” She pulled her arm away from him and continued down the path.

Here were some smaller enclosures, containing little monkeys and birds.

Did you know … the sign said on one.

“Did you know,” she repeated aloud. “Like people, not all animals are … are physically perfect. It is the, the policy of the San Diego Zoo to allow … to allow these … individuals to, to live normal lives …”

“Let’s go home, Kari,” David said. “We’re going to be late.”

“I know what I want to do now, with the money,” she said over dinner.

David had just taken a sip of his wine. He held onto the glass, frozen in place. “Oh?”

“I want to, to do something … for animals.”

David put the glass down. “What?”

“I’ve been thinking a lot about it,” she said slowly. “Like when I’m out feeding the cats. And then today, at the zoo.”

“Kari, what are you saying?” His voice rose. “You want to give your money to cats?”

“No,” she answered, her voice sharp. “I still understand a few things. I’ll have … a foundation … or a nonprofit. I’ll pay myself a salary from it. I’m not stupid.”

“Look, honey …” He took a gulp of wine and lowered his voice. “You’re doing a lot better. You’ve really come a long way … but you’re not ready to take something like that on.”

“I know,” she said, and she felt calmer again. “I’ll hire someone to help me decide what kinds of projects. I was thinking, maybe, helping animals that get hurt. Or buying land where they live so they’ll be safe.”

“Kari …”

“It’s my money,” she said. “I get to decide.”

Maybe that hadn’t been very nice.

It had been a few days, and David was still mad at her, she could tell, no matter how many times he said he wasn’t. “We just need to think about this a little more,” he kept saying. “Talk it over.”

That wasn’t all he wanted to do.