Ornate elephant on the lower abdomen

The customs officer at Dover took the whole of Wednesday to decide the elephant was not contraband. He turned it over three times, scraped a thumbnail along the beads of its blanket, and asked whether the chains were real silver. I told him they were pewter, that Baba had wanted silver and could never afford it, and that the ankle bands had been pressed by a man in Jaipur who had a cough and a radio that only played cricket. He wrote something on his clipboard and let it through.

I am writing so you know it is coming, because I know you will be cross that I went alone. The trunk is the part I worry about. It is raised the way Baba used to lift his arm when a bus he wanted would not stop, as though the whole animal is calling out to someone at the end of the street. I wrapped it in your old green shawl, but the tip keeps poking out.

Last night I set it on the windowsill of the flat in Southall, where the light from the bus stop comes in orange and makes the grey parts look almost silver. The little bands catch it. The chains swing whenever the heating clicks on. I sat with a cup of tea and realised I had been carrying a sound in my head for thirty years, a brass bell on a cord, and that the elephant had been making it all along.

Come on Saturday. Bring the good spoons. I will tell the whole story then, including the part about the cough.

Love, Meena