Ornamental elephant head on inner forearm

I am writing this on the train because the border guard at Calais kept me for forty minutes over the carving in my bag, and I want to tell you before the feeling wears off. He unwrapped the thing from its towel, turned the elephant head over under the strip light, and asked where I had bought it. I said Jaipur, which is true, from a man called Anil who sits under a neem tree near the step well and pricks dots into wood with a nail and a little hammer. Every ear is a mandala, Tomas. Anil told me each circle is a day he spent on it, and he did not hurry for anyone.

The guard was young and kind and wanted to know if the tusks were ivory. I said no, they are bone-coloured paint, and he laughed and asked whether I was sure, so I showed him the small chip on the left one where it had been dropped in Delhi. He put the stamp down. Then he asked why the trunk curled inward the way it did, and I had no answer except that Anil said an elephant which curls its trunk like that is keeping something close.

Outside, the sky over the car park had gone the colour of the red wash Anil laid behind the head, that soft bleed like the light had been pressed too hard into the paper. I thought of you at the station in Lille, waiting with the wrong coat and pretending you had not been worried.

Come and see it on the mantelpiece. I will put the kettle on and unwrap it slowly, with the guard's fingerprints still on the towel.

Love, Clara