The donkey was a very ordinary donkey, shabby and abstracted, and he stood with drooping head and half-closed eyes at the entrance to a circus tent that had been erected on the only patch of green land left close to the big city.
This was the first circus the city had seen for a year and along the roads that led to the vacant plot of ground, long lines of cars moved and stopped then moved again. People, walking rapidly, crossed footpaths and stepped over kerbs. They moved in groups and lines that met and converged till, when the plot was reached, a mass of people advanced across it, their heads lifted to see over shoulders ahead of them.
Way down beneath this layer of lifted, superior faces, down to where big hands gripped little hands, were other faces, excited and smeared with ice cream, that peered ahead through a bush of legs to where other legs were moving like those around them. In this world of trousers and silk stockings the little girls and boys who owned the faces could not see the tent or the elephants moving loosely near the painted wagons; they just had to wait till powerful arms came down to them and they emerged to a lift that raised them above the heads of the people. And there, confronting them, was the wonder of the donkey, standing just inside the entrance to the circus tent.
The tent was a large one. The bright posters that, for some weeks had been halting people in front of stained brick walls in back streets and alleys, announced that the tent was the biggest in the world and held four thousand people. Since the donkey, tethered to a peg by a worn rope, was directly in the pathway of the people hurrying towards the tiers of seats that rose back from the lighted ring, they all had to pass him after they had purchased their tickets.
Each Saturday three separate shows were held; thus twelve thousand people passed the donkey on those two days.
At least three-quarters of those twelve thousand people patted or touched him as they passed, therefore nine thousand hands beat a tattoo somewhere upon the donkey in the course of the day. It would be hard to calculate how many tiny blows fell upon him during a week.
The pattings took various forms. Some were demonstrations of superiority, others were apprehensive gestures of need. There were pats that denoted love of self and some that denoted love of donkeys. Some were the boastful displays of fathers wishing to impress their children while others were gentle pats transformed by imagination into magical experiences.
A mother being dragged along by an excited little boy would stop while he moved a timid hand gently on the donkey’s shoulder. Smaller children held aloft by proud fathers, bent and scraped their pudgy fingers along his back, or scratched the top of his head, or pulled his ears.
Unaccompanied children with no parents to restrain them, exhibited a hastily manufactured bravery by leaning on the donkey or rubbing his nose while they looked around for approval.
Sometimes kind people would try and force peanuts or lollies between the donkey’s lips but this was hard to do since he kept his teeth firmly closed and shook his head when he felt their hands on his mouth.
About every ten minutes a Man Who Understood Donkeys came along.
‘Ah, a donk!’ he would say with an impressive familiarity that made the patting people withdraw their hands and look at him.
The Man Who Understood Donkeys would then slip his arm round the animal’s neck and address it in terms that established him as an authority.
‘So you’ve come to this, old chap, eh! No more hard work for you! Well, that’s how it is!’ Then in a change of tone he would explain to the listening people, ‘In the East they carry more than their own weight, you know—regular beasts of burden.’
The people murmured their understanding and gave the donkey a final pat of sympathy before they passed on.
The donkey accepted the attention of this multitude of people with a submissiveness that suggested he was reconciled to a lifetime of pats.
If there were times when he felt the stirrings of rebellion within him he never showed it. He stood on three legs, one hip dropped, his unkempt hair disordered by hands that failed to disturb the dream in which he was lost.
On the final day of the circus a stout man with a navy blue suit stretched tightly upon him came confidently through the entrance. He paused in front of the donkey and subjected the animal to a critical survey. He pursed his lips and shook his head then moved back so that he could look at him from rear. He moved round to the other side of the donkey and examined him from there. He completed the encircling of the donkey by a long contemplation of his head. Now there was nothing more he wished to know about this donkey. In the same movement he made to turn away he let his hand fall heavily on the animal’s back. It was the eight thousandth pat of the day.
The donkey had seemed asleep but the sudden weight of the man’s hand upon him affected him as if it were some signal for which he had been long waiting. He lifted his heavy head with a jerk, turned and snapped at the man’s arm with teeth that went off like a rabbit trap.
They closed on the sleeve of the man’s coat and ripped from the material a ragged patch of blue cloth that remained projecting from the donkey’s mouth as the animal turned his head away to continue his dream.
The man was astounded. He staggered back against the people with startled eyes and open mouth. He clutched his arm with his hand and looked at the people for confirmation of the amazing thing that had happened to him.
‘He bit me!’ he exclaimed in horrified tones then added, as he looked unbelievingly at the donkey, ‘What a vicious brute!’
The people passing had all stopped to look at the man and at the donkey with the piece of cloth in its mouth. They all nodded approval at the man’s words. This donkey was indeed a vicious brute. He had bitten the stout man on the arm and all the man had wanted to do was pat him. What an ungrateful, vicious creature!
For quite five minutes after that no one patted the donkey. It must have been his first taste of peace for years.