"In the beginning was the deed."
Totem & Taboo, Sigmund Freud, 1913.

"There was a fine display at Hampstead Town Hall today when taxidermists from all over the country displayed their skills. The highlight was the largest bull elephant ever stuffed, measuring fourteen feet from nose to tail."
Hampstead and Highgate Gazette, May 8th 1951.

THE ELEPHANT slumped, as if sitting in an armchair. The flesh had withered away from the bones and hide, even in life, for elephants do not enjoy war and his diet had suffered along with the rest of them. The skin was loose like an enormous Macintosh, draped loosely over a hat-rack. No harder than re-covering a leather chair in some ways, thought Kenneth, appraising the situation professionally. Emperor's eyes were closed and his small, Indian ears were folded back on themselves like rhubarb leaves after a storm. Kenneth folded the left ear back off the animal's face and saw the gash which had probably done the job. A sharp spike, from a window had been driven into the skull. At least the skull would not be too crushed to work with. The animal's feet were unusually tender, the toes cleaned and varnished in recent times. It reminded him of an amazing umbrella holder one of the girls in service had told him of:

"An elephant's foot Kenneth, fancy, just to keep umbrella's neat in the hall." A sad habit that, slicing off an animal's foot, hollowing it out to put in old sticks. No, Kenneth wouldn't do that to Emperor. He would give him back his dignity. But it would not be easy.

For several days, Kenneth worked to fully free the raincoat skin, in one piece from the flesh he would have to discard. Even though rationing was still in force, there was no market for elephant meat in the town. Kenneth knew, because he asked the butcher when he went to borrow a cleaver.

"Tha'art mad Kenneth Brookes if you think folk round here won't know an elephant when they taste one."

"I just thought it worth a mention," looking down to test the blade with his finger.

"Th'all have to clean that up thy'sen Kenneth," said the butcher going back to skinning rabbits. It was only after Kenneth had gone that he began to wonder what elephant might taste like and whether they might come to some agreement.

Kenneth had to section the animal into pieces which could fit in the tin bath for rendering. Planning each step engrossed him before swift execution. He sat for an hour on his haunches, occasionally making marks on the sheet before him in pencil working out how it was done. "If it had been a sheep I could have looked in Mrs Beeton," he thought, but even she did not give advice on carving up elephants.

At last he had a chart, worked out the approximate cubic inches of flesh and length of bone each part would contain and set to work. Already the elephant was beginning to sag more. It was now three days since the roof had pierced its brain, although the days were still cold enough to give him time. It would be more a case of the stomach acid eating away from the inside until, if Kenneth did not intervene, the bottom half of the elephant would melt down into it's own feet, even more than a wizened man in an armchair, melting into his own shoes.

With love he had cleaved the flesh from the magnificent bones, packing the sacks of meat into the sidecar of his motor-bike. No-one would ever guess it was elephant meat up on the moorland where he'd leave them for the crows: their one taste of the East. The butcher had other ideas. He waited until the public had closed and waited in the alley which led from the taxidermist's yard.

"They'll nivver know," he said simply.

Next day Kenneth faltered as he gouged out the eyes. They still held a look of sadness, the milky swirl of the lights going out and elephant memories gone. The trembling skin of the face had just enough holes now, like a soft mask. "I'll give thee better eyes," Kenneth muttered companionably. He was feeling more confident now. He had begun. He had taken the hardest step and taken all that was rotting and temporary away.

It took two full days of steaming the bones in sections in the tin bath. Like a primitive tribesman, Kenneth kept the heat up beneath with kindling and damp logs from his special store of wood. He smiled inside and thought of putting a jaunty bone through his nose, but it didn't take his mind from the task until all fat and flesh were melted away.

That was months ago now. Lifting the tarpaulin, Kenneth saw his familiar, his Emperor, almost complete. "Just your manhood now young fellow-my-lad." He almost blushed at the task he had still to do. Yet, he could not leave it undone. From the bottom shelf of his store room, Kenneth uncoiled the long cylinder, like a vacuum hose or a black pudding. "Six feet," chuckled Kenneth as he clambered on all fours under the beast. It was like sitting under the table as a child, cloth hanging down, deciding whether to play a trick. In the thick, dark, Kenneth began his stitching, hoping nobody would find him thus engaged. Of all the things he'd stitched, this was his finest. No-one could have seen the tiny grey pearl-like threads that caught this wild appendage into it's correct resting position. "Shame none'll see it, but perhaps better that way," he mused, content for he had healed it whole, the soul of the beast in its full glory, for ever.

"Must get the Reverend Devereux to bless him now we're ready."

Catherine Haines