Just over there, through the trees, was Fifth Avenue: cars and buses roaring, people hurrying, apartments, shops; the trees were budding, everything turning green, and there was a feeling of life in the sharp air around Central Park Zoo. It is a pretty little zoo, red brick covered with ivy, and at the entrance is a charming rotating clock tower: our childhood animals, cast in bronze, each are playing a different musical instrument, and as the clock turns it chimes a tune: the hippo is playing the violin, the kangaroo the trumpet, the goat the pipes, the penguin the drum, the jolly elephant the concertina.
This Saturday afternoon a young man was standing in Central Park, just outside the zoo gates, listening to the musical clock. He was twenty-eight years old, average height, lean, his thatch of hair jet-black, his skin clear and unlined; he was wearing a tracksuit and sneakers and his face was flushed from running. It was a strong, nice-looking face, but what struck you most were his eyes: they were beautiful—bright, deep blue, almost mauve, in certain light nearly black, and penetrating, and very warm, with thick lashes and dark eyebrows. Now his eyes were on the musical clock as it chimed five, and they were sad.
For down below in the zoo is very different from the musical clock. Over in the corner the great, solitary polar bear paced up and down in his cage, pad pad pad to the corner, blink, turn, pad pad pad back, blink, turn, pad back to the corner again; over and over, and over and over. His feet covered exactly the same spots, and his body went through exactly the same turning movement every time. All day, every day, for the rest of his life. In the Elephant House the great mammals shuffled back and forth, back and forth, their great trunks curling and slopping, curling and slopping, nothing to do, enormous feet shuffling over the same few yards of concrete, big eyes blinking. Sometimes they trumpet, an old primitive scream out of the great forests that crashes back off the Victorian walls. In the Big Cat House, the lions and the tiger and the jaguar and the snow leopard and the panther are prowling back and forth, back and forth, powerful hunting animals pacing four paces to the corner, blink, turn, four paces back, blink, turn; over and over. The lions are fortunate, for there are two in one cage, but in their pacing they get in each other’s way and have to make an identical movement to avoid each other, a terrible ritual, over and over. The other big cats are alone in their cages, and they cannot see each other. The puma is always trying to paw down the steel partition to get in with the jaguar. For the rest of their lives, four paces up, four paces down. It would make a difference to the big cats if they could just see each other, for solitary confinement is one of the worst punishments. But opposite their row are the cages of the gorillas, big hairy animals each twice the weight and size of two very big men, with faces and eyes that are almost human, and the male gorilla can see the female gorilla in the next cage just fine, but they just sit there and stare and eat their own excrement.
As the clock chimed an old black man came down the path.
‘Hello man.’
The young man turned with relief. ‘Hello, Ambrose.’
Old Ambrose looked up at him worriedly, then nodded his silvery head at the gates. ‘You not goin’ to knock this place over too, are you?’
‘No.’
Ambrose took a deep, apprehensive breath, and glanced side-ways. He reached up to the young man’s top pocket and dropped a bunch of keys in it.
‘Thanks, Ambrose.’
Ambrose looked up at the young man anxiously.
‘You only got an hour. Midnight to one. While we’re all havin’ dinner.’
The young man nodded.
‘And,’ Ambrose said, ‘the east gate will be open.’
The young man nodded again. ‘Thanks, Ambrose.’ Then he pulled two letters out of his tracksuit pocket. They were both stamped, and had express delivery stickers. ‘Will you mail these? Tonight, as soon as it’s over?’
Ambrose took the letters without looking at them and stuffed them in his pocket. He looked up at the young man, and now he had tears in his old eyes.
‘For God’s sake, Davey, do you know what you doing?’
‘Yes.’
Ambrose stared at him, then blurted: ‘They’ll shoot you, Davey—like an animal yourself …’
Davey just shook his head slightly. Ambrose blinked, then grabbed his hand emotionally.
‘Lord bless you!’
He turned and hurried back down the path.
Down in the vast basements of Madison Square Garden, seven long-distance haulage trucks were lined up. One each was painted in big, old-fashioned Western lettering, The World’s Greatest Show. The crews were hurriedly loading circus gear. Four of the huge vehicles were for the animals, each divided into adjustable compartments, with sides that folded down to form ramps. But at this moment all the animals were upstairs in the circus ring, parading in the grand finale.
Applause roared above the oompah-oompah of the orchestra. At the front, two elephants pranced on their massive hindlegs. The big male held a top hat in his trunk tip which he waved to the crowd, while the female flounced in a massive polka-dot skirt and held a parasol in her trunk tip. Hanging onto her tail was a baby elephant called Dumbo, dressed in dungarees. Behind them came two huge grizzly bears, also on their shaggy hind legs, dressed as people, and behind them pranced a little bear dressed in a pinafore, waving to the crowds with his paw. Next came four chimpanzees—three big females and one small male—dressed as cowboys, brandishing sixguns, Stetsons jammed down over their ears, and chomping on cigars. Behind came the magnificent performing horses, prancing in time to the music. On their backs rode three African lions and a Siberian tiger, leaping from back to back in time to the orchestra’s beat; then came the sea lions, flapping along, balancing balls on their snouts, and the clowns clowing and the trapeze artists somersaulting and the leggy girls wearing sparkling tights, and the jugglers juggling.
And in front of the whole parade strode a tanned, handsome, middle-aged man in a scarlet coat and a white pith helmet,
