“Please try,” I urged him.

“Sure,” he said, and gave it another go.

He finally managed to recall what he knew about the dwarf three hours later, as the sun was going down near quitting time.

“That’s it!” he exclaimed. “The old guy in Stage Six! You know, the one who plants hairs. C’mon, you know: long white hair down to his shoulders, hardly any teeth. Been working here since before the revolution.”

“Oh,” I said. “Him.” I had seen him in the tavern any number of times.

“Yeah. He told me about the dwarf way back when. Said it was a good dancer. I didn’t pay much attention to him, figured he was senile. But now I don’t know. Maybe he wasn’t crazy after all.”

“So, what did he tell you?”

“Gee, I’m not so sure. It was a long time ago.” He folded his arms and fell to thinking again. But it was hopeless. After a while, he straightened up and said, “Can’t remember. Go ask him yourself.”

AS SOON AS the bell rang at quitting time, I went to the Stage 6 area, but there was no sign of the old man. I found only two young girls sweeping the floor. The thin girl told me he had probably gone to the tavern, “the older one.” Which is exactly where I found him, sitting very erect at the bar, drinking, with his lunch box beside him.

The tavern was an old, old place. It had been there since long before I was born, before the revolution. For generations now, the elephant craftsmen had been coming here to drink, play cards, and sing. The walls were lined with photographs of the old days at the elephant factory. There was a picture of the first president of the company inspecting a tusk, a photo of an old-time movie queen visiting the factory, shots taken at summer dances, that kind of thing. The revolutionary guards had burned all pictures of the king and the royal family and anything else that was deemed to be royalist. There were pictures of the revolution, of course: the revolutionary guards occupying the factory and the revolutionary guards stringing up the plant superintendent.

I found the old fellow drinking Mecatol beneath an old, discolored photo labeled THREE FACTORY BOYS POLISHING TUSKS. When I took the stool next to him, the old man pointed to the photo and said, “This one is me.”

I squinted hard at the photo. The young boy on the right, maybe twelve or thirteen years old, did appear to be this old man in his youth. You would never notice the resemblance on your own, but once it had been pointed out to you, you could see that both had the same sharp nose and flat lips. Apparently, the old guy always sat here, and whenever he noticed an unfamiliar customer come in he’d say, “This one is me.”