The Elephant Keepers' Children (10 page)

The brochure was a huge success. It reversed a declining market and since then people have been coming in droves.

The most immediate consequence was that Tilte and I were compelled to mete out corporal punishment in the playground of Finø Town School, since a number of myopic individuals insisted that our brother Hans looked like a village idiot in that photograph of him wearing local costume. Furthermore, our brochure seems to have given rise to some uncertainty among the wider population as to the exact nature of Finø's flora and fauna.

It is this uncertainty Tilte now turns to our advantage by saying that what is in the basket is a Finø monitor lizard.

And what happens now is that the bishop pulls back her hand and performs another one of those leaps that could win her a place in the Århus Ballet if ever she should tire of being a bishop.

“My younger brother brought it with him,” Tilte explains. “But Rickardt says it's too dangerous to have on the loose.”

I hear the count gargling his mouthwash again, and then the basket is lifted, more respectfully this time, carried downstairs and along corridors and eventually placed in what must
be the boot of Thorkild Thorlacius's Mercedes. People get in, and all I can do is hope that everyone is present: the professor, his wife, the bishop, Vera the Secretary, Tilte, and Basker. The engine starts and the car rolls forward. Words are exchanged with the guard at the gate. And on this, one of the darkest days of our lives, Tilte, Basker, and I are suddenly on our way out into freedom again—though I must hasten to stress that it is a kind of freedom that is highly restricted and almost totally inside the building and wholly unfree in respect of the infinitely greater freedom all this is actually about.

The rectory is situated directly opposite
the church, only a kilometer or so from Big Hill, a trip that takes ten minutes in a horse-drawn carriage, fifteen minutes on foot, and a couple of minutes at most in a Mercedes. Yet these two minutes are entirely full of what I can only refer to as drama.

The first thing that happens is that I feel a sneeze coming on.

I don't know what kind of treatment Thorkild's New Regional Hospital offers those unfortunate enough to suffer from asthma and dust mite allergy, but I would certainly hope they warn against curling up in a ball at the bottom of a wicker basket.

At this point, as I struggle to hold in a sneeze, Anaflabia Borderrud says, “It would be best if we could explain this in terms of mental breakdown on the part of your parents. Last time, we were able to pull through. But many of us bear wounds that have yet to heal, wounds that continue to bleed and that mustn't be picked at.”

To which Tilte replies by expressing her complete agreement, because, as their children, we feel that way, too.

“The police seem to believe that something criminal is afoot,” says the bishop. “We would look very dismally upon it in the diocese and in the Ministry of Church Affairs.”

Tilte says that we children couldn't agree more and declares us to be fully in line with the ministry.

“But if the matter were to be explained as the result of breakdown,” Anaflabia goes on, “or depression, something requiring hospitalization … That's why I should like to inspect the rectory. Thorkild will assess the situation, drawing on his professional expertise. His words will weigh heavily in the final outcome. But we must locate your parents before the police do likewise. The professor and I will take it from there. What was your impression of your parents, prior to their disappearance?”

“It's very hard for a daughter to concede,” says Tilte. “But I think the word
unbalanced
would be the most appropriate.”

If Tilte hadn't said that, I'm fairly certain I would have been able to hold back my sneeze. And I would have done so simply by adhering to the profound guidelines for attaining freedom that one may find in all spiritual systems and that invariably involve trying to listen inward as one asks oneself: Who is the individual who feels he must sneeze? Or: From which source within the consciousness would the sneeze be perceived, if it should transpire?

But one must face the fact that consciousness training is a phenomenon that requires mental acuity, at least to begin with, and at this moment, when I hear what Tilte is saying, I am utterly lacking in it, and with those words she thereby joins
the long line of candidates for greatest traitor in world history, along with Judas, Brutus, and Karl Marauder Lander, who besides those gulls' eggs has cleared several of my chanterelle locations in Finø Woods, and I haven't even mentioned yet how one time, together with Jakob Aquinas Bordurio Madsen, he duped me into getting up on stage to join the Mr. Finø contest.

You could never get me to subscribe to the view that our mother and father are unbalanced. Certainly not. Firstly, the inherent lunacy of one's parents is a matter that belongs in the department of well-guarded family secrets that ought never to be divulged to anyone. And secondly, at the time of their departure, Mother and Father had in no way exceeded their average level of madness.

So the shock triggers the sneeze.

Not even Anaflabia could give height to a leap initiated from a seated position in the back of Thorkild's Mercedes, but I hear her make the attempt regardless and bang her head against the roof.

And at that moment, mercifully, we are there. The car stops, and everyone piles out.

“We must remove the basket,” says the professor. “It can't be left in the car without supervision, I've just had the interior done.”

The basket and I are lifted from the car and placed on the ground with great caution, my sneeze and Tilte's warning still salient.

Then all around me is silence. It lasts perhaps a minute, and then the lid is raised.

“Petrus,” whispers Tilte, “do you remember when we drove to the lighthouse and back?”

I glance up and note that we are alone and that darkness is falling.

Tilte's question is superfluous and she knows that, because neither of us could ever forget it. We took the Maserati, Tilte worked the foot pedals and changed gear, and I steered. It would be a rather vast understatement to say that our drive to the lighthouse and back was Tilte's way of saying sorry to me after she and Jakob Bordurio and Karl Marauder had duped me into getting up on stage in front of twelve hundred people in the belief that I was to receive Finø FC's Player of the Year award, whereas actually I had unwittingly joined the annual Mr. Finø contest. This was an occurrence that left me not merely wounded but traumatized, and it was to make amends for it that Tilte lay down on the floor and operated the pedals.

“This will be easier,” says Tilte. “Thorkild's Mercedes has automatic transmission and you should just about be able to see through the windscreen. I suggest you remain in the basket and slowly count to five hundred. Then drive the car into the lane and return here.”

And then she is gone. Normally, my pride, which I mentioned earlier, would forbid me to work with Tilte on a purely need-to-know basis. But our situation is desperate and fraught with danger, so I curl up in my basket, pull the lid back on and begin to count while thinking about all the advantages enjoyed by the dead of the Finø Town Churchyard in their cool, spacious, and above all dust-free coffins.

When, like me, you're an inquiring soul, meaning that you never miss an opportunity to feel for the door, then much of what others would consider to be idle waiting time may be filled with meaning. And that is what happens now, because I haven't even reached one hundred before I hear dragging footsteps approaching. Someone spits. And then my basket receives an almighty kick.

Many in my position would have groaned. But I remain quite still. Perhaps you're familiar with the expression
Know your lice by the way they walk
? Well, in this particular instance that saying is apt indeed. I know my louse by the way it walks.

Then a hand is inserted beneath the lid. It's too dark to see if the hand is stained with blood. But I know that it most certainly is stained by the juice of the chanterelles that Karl Marauder Lander, our neighbor's abominable snowman of a son, has stolen from my possession.

So there's no reason for me to wait. I pop up like a jack-in-the-box and hiss, “Looking for something, Karl?”

For Anaflabia's sake, I hope Karl Marauder Lander keeps well away from her audition at the Århus Ballet, because otherwise the competition will be fierce indeed. The leap Karl performs is rare, so rare that one fears he may never return to earth again.

But return he does, and hits the ground running, as soon as his feet touch. If you know the saying that fear sprouts wings, then you'll have a rather accurate picture of Karl on his way down Rectory Lane.

When a boy loses his parents, he is in need of comfort, and some of that comfort may derive from watching Karl disappear into the horizon.

As I devote myself to savoring this feeling, footsteps sound again from behind.

Many a person would have panicked at the thought that it might be Vera or the bishop approaching through the darkness and that now we have been discovered and Tilte's plan, whatever it may have involved, has been foiled. But I keep my cool and remain standing, because once again, without yet having seen him, I know my louse by the way it walks.

I would like to take this opportunity to present Alexander Beastly Flounderblood, the ministerial envoy to Finø, because he plays a small but important part in these events, and it is he who now approaches.

Alexander Flounderblood has been posted to Finø by the Ministry of Education as a replacement for former headmaster Einar Flogginfellow, popularly known as Fakir. Einar was a dearly loved and highly respected headmaster, but seen from the mainland he was making a nuisance of himself, not only on account of his being chairman of the Breakaway Party, which has a seat on the Grenå local council and is committed to working actively for the secession of Finø from the Kingdom of Denmark in order that the island may be recognized as a sovereign state with its own foreign policy and rights of self-determination as to whatever may be of value within its subsoil, but also on account of his being chairman and high priest of the local branch of the association called Asa-Thor, whose members
offer sacrifices to the ancient Nordic deity at every full moon on top of Big Hill. Yet still there are many who believe that Einar could have continued in his position had he not at the same time been the first-team coach of Finø FC and firmly believed that sitting on one's backside for thirty-odd hours a week was acutely damaging to the health of anyone under the age of eighteen. And since the teachers of Finø, all of whom were born here, were in wholehearted agreement with Einar's viewpoint, much of our time at school was spent playing football and swimming in the sea and going on trips to the Bothersome Islets, and delightfully little time was spent in the classroom, and eventually the Ministry of Education and Grenå Kommune dispatched an expedition whose objective was to mete out appropriate punishment.

It did not comprise Thorkild Thorlacius-Claptrap and Anaflabia Borderrud, but rather Alexander Flounderblood in the company of selected thugs, and I have to say that the results they achieved are pretty much of the same caliber.

Though he has only just passed his thirtieth birthday, Alexander has already completed his postdoctoral dissertation, and the look in his eyes says that life is a long cross-country run and that he is anticipating a hard, steep climb and intends to come first. How he managed to reach this stage in his life remains a mystery to us, but it certainly hasn't benefited his motor functions, because when he walks he somehow adds extra lift to each step he takes, and this lends him a gait that might be appropriate for someone performing in a circus but that seems rather rash if, like Alexander Flounderblood, one happens to be on near-permanent display for a couple of hundred children and
youngsters, all of whom believe that when Einar Flogginfellow was deported, the golden age of their childhood went with him.

This gait it is that I now hear approaching from behind.

My keen sense of hearing is renowned on Finø, so long before Alexander Flounderblood appears in my field of vision, which at this point remains restricted by my still standing with the lid of a wicker basket on my head after having sent Karl Marauder so emphatically on his way, I hear that he has with him his Afghan hound, called Baroness.

I readily admit to never feeling quite as natural and relaxed with Alexander as one should in the company of one's teachers. But such uncertainty may be offset by seeking refuge in the polite manners one has been taught at home, so now I lift the lid and bow as well as a person who happens to be standing in a wicker basket is able.

And then I say, “Good evening, Dr. Flounderblood. Good evening, Baroness.”

On those rare occasions on which the first team loses a match, Einar Fakir will often comfort us by saying that as long as you've done your best, you can never ask for more. So I have no reason to blame myself even now. But one's best may sometimes be insufficient, for example in this instance, because although the look Alexander gives me may be taken in any number of ways, it most certainly does not point toward him ever wishing to adopt me should my parents fail to return.

At the very moment he passes me by, Tilte taps me on the shoulder.

“Petrus,” she whispers, “time to be off.”

I cannot claim to be
in possession of a valid driving license. But I have passed my cycling proficiency test and like most other people I do possess at least some driving experience, having driven a tractor and a soapbox cart, and a golf buggy and a horse-drawn carriage, and Mother's and Father's Maserati, so when I climb in behind the wheel of Thorkild Thorlacius's Mercedes it feels like I'm at home in my own room. And I must admit it's a treat with all this brand-new interior and automatic transmission.