We all fell asleep on the bus. You can’t imagine how loudly the Mayor snored, and how wonky my Auntie Clodomira’s hat was!
The Conductor had to wake us with a shout:
“Next stop: Miserere Squaaaaare!”
The Mini-Secretary had fallen asleep in my mother’s arms.
We all got off, terribly embarrassed, and ran to catch the train to Ituzaingó.
11
Of course, we fell asleep on the train, too, and when I woke up all of a sudden, I saw that we’d come to a stop at Moreno, the end of the line.
With a great deal of effort I managed to wake the others, shaking them and shouting in their ears, and with even more effort I managed to get them off the train to wait for another train to take us back to Ituzaingó.
On the journey from Moreno to Ituzaingó I put my fingers in my eyes like this to keep them open, because somebody had to stay awake so we wouldn’t all just go right back to Miserere Square again, and from there back to Moreno, and from there to Miserere Square, and so on.
Once we’d reached Ituzaingó station, the Captain of the Firemen lined us all up, counted us off and, plugging his hose into a tap, gave us a good shower so we’d finish waking up.
We had all been planning to go straight to the Union of Kite-Flyers, but my mother cried:
“Just a moment, gentlemen!”
“What’s going on, Mum?” I asked, in alarm.
“I’ve only just remembered,” replied my mum. “Here in Ituzaingó is where your granddad lives—that is, my father. We should go fetch him so that he can come with us on our expedition.”
“No, Mum. Please,” I replied, “there are far too many of us already. Leave Granddad in peace.”
But my mum said:
“No, no and no.”
So we had no choice but to set out, all of us together hand in hand, for Granddad’s house, which was thirty-five blocks from the station.
12
You don’t know what my granddad’s like, of course. He’s a little old man with a beard and spectacles, very wise and scholarly, but a terrible grouch. I wasn’t especially close to him, because he was always trying to make me go back to school. Actually, the truth is, he’s always trying to make everybody go to school.
Which was why when we were at Ituzaingó station I’d been trying to persuade my mum that we shouldn’t go fetch him.
Meanwhile, the people who were waiting for the train started looking at us as if we were the most peculiar creatures. When we set off towards Granddad’s house, three newspaper salesmen attached themselves to our group, along with two guards, four tramps, a wafer seller and four altar boys who’d escaped from church.
At last we reached Granddad’s house, all muddy, scratched by nettles and bitten by mosquitoes, because the house is at the back of beyond—“where the devil lost his poncho”, as they say around here. The Superintendent even had to pick up my Auntie Clodomira to get her over a puddle…
Granddad was sleeping like a little cherub.
We tried waking him but it was quite impossible. He’d covered his head with a pillow and pulled his nightcap down over his ears.
My mum got him up and dressed, while Granddad, who was still half asleep, put up a fine grumbling and kicking.
When he was dressed and his face washed, he asked what all this upheaval was about, since today wasn’t a school day and anyway this, that and the other.
We explained that we’d come to fetch him to join a glorious expedition, and then Granddad livened up at last.
He went over to a cobweb-covered trunk and took out an explorer’s helmet, a pop-gun, a butterfly net, a compass, a cap-gun and a tin sword.
Thus equipped—and when it looked like he’d finally been convinced—Granddad, who’s temperamental as the devil, sat down on the floor and said:
“No, I’m just not going. I don’t want to.”
So, to persuade him, I said:
“But Granddad, you have to come, so that when we find Dailan Kifki you can make the official speech!”
Since he absolutely loves making speeches, and he loves school overalls, blackboards, herbariums and all those kinds of things, he agreed enthusiastically, on condition that we sang the San Lorenzo March on the way. Which we did quite reluctantly, as we were hoarse from so much chattering, dancing, planning, bus-riding, train-riding, arguing, etc.
Finally, with Granddad at the head of the party, and singing the San Lorenzo March, we walked across puddles, over ditches, past wire fences and through marshes till we reached a farmhouse in the middle of wide open countryside, where a sign with several spelling mistakes read:
“UNION OF KITE-FLYERS”
At last!
13
We knocked on the door of the Union and a boy appeared. He was freckled and idle, and had clearly never washed his face in his life. And as for his knees—well, the less said, the better.
Granddad looked him up and down, and right then and there gave him a fierce telling-off. Then he grabbed him by the ear and made him stand facing the wall as punishment.
“But Granddad,” I said, “you shouldn’t be fighting with people from the Union because then they won’t want to help us fish for Dailan Kifki and the Fireman.”
It was no use.
Granddad just went right on scolding and threatening the poor boy, who was looking at all of us in complete amazement, as if we were wild beasts from a circus or a collection of museum animals.
Then I gently pulled Granddad aside and with a big smile said to the Union kid:
“Good morning, little boy!”
“What’s with the ‘little boy’!” he replied. “Have a bit more respect! I’m the Secretary of the Union of Kite-Flyers, don’t you know?”
“Well then,” I replied, alarmed at his cheek and lack of manners, “well then, Mister Secretary, we’ve come to ask you a big favour.”
“We want you to wash your face and learn to spell!” roared Granddad.
And the Superintendent had to shut him up by waving his truncheon and giving a long blow on his whistle.
“What the devil do you want from us at this time of day?” asked the Secretary of the Union, most rudely. (I hope he’s not a friend of yours.)
Then I told him the whole story: that my elephant Dailan Kifki had flown off with a fireman riding on his back, and that we wanted to find out whether he had become tangled in the tail of some kite.
“Whoah…” was all the boy said, his mouth open and a finger to his temple as though I were barmy.
“But it’s true!” I protested. “Why else do you think so many important people have come here, all of them exhausted and bitten by mosquitoes, if we aren’t dealing with a truly catastrophic and abominable calamity?”
But the rude child, who was ready to close the door in our faces, just replied:
“All this trouble for one good-for-nothing elephant!”
“Actually this is a very serious matter…” I said, my bottom lip about to quiver again.
“What do I care?” he answered, which made my brother Roberto want to give him a good whack, and he didn’t do it only because he was holding a croissant in each hand.
Then the Captain of the Firemen, furious at such insolence, summoned up all his authority and said:
“You either help, you naughty pup, or mark my words, we’ll lock you up.”
“That’s right, that’s right,” said the Ambassadors in unison.
The boy was alarmed and replied:
“Fine, what do you want me to do?”
“First,” said the Superintendent, “tell us whether any of the last few kites flown have got tangled up with any elephants or Firemen.”
“But are you all totally barking mad?” asked the boy. “When have you ever seen a flying elephant?”
“Never,” I replied, “but it turns out Dailan Kifki isn’t like other elephants. And we can’t just allow him to remain lost in the sky without anyone to make him his lovely oats soup.”
Right th
ere, I started to cry on the shoulder of my Auntie Clodomira, who had to open her umbrella.
The Captain went back to being all authoritative again and said:
“We need to fly kites urgently until we have rescued our astronauts from the skies of the Fatherland!”
“Fine, very well,” said the Secretary, resigned. And he ran off, whistling through his fingers to gather his fellows from the Union.
We sat down on the grass and waited patiently for him to return.
14
Loads of boys appeared all at once, each filthier and more ragged than the last, pulling behind them dozens of sumptuous-looking kites.
We all applauded and said “Oooooh!” at the beauty of the kites. Everyone, that is, except for Granddad, who objected:
“Well, that’s a fine way to behave! Flying kites when you’re supposed to be practising your times tables!”
When the whole gang had assembled, the Secretary of the Union made us line up and, marking time, we all marched over to a neighbouring paddock and got ready to fly the famous kites.
Meanwhile word had got around Ituzaingó that a whole lot of important people were fishing for an elephant in the sky, which meant that an enormous number of busybodies began to descend on us to take a look. The schools proclaimed an official holiday, and various schoolteachers and principals appeared with their pupils. The priest also arrived, absolutely furious, having come to fetch his escaped altar boys. Kids on bicycles came too, and milkmen in their carts, gentlemen in cars, a dog with two tails, countryfolk on horseback and several sheep on foot.
Suddenly we heard some lovely music. Naturally, it was the Boy Scouts’ band. There was a volley of cannon-fire, and we all started flying kites.
We were so happy that for a moment we forgot that our aim was to find Dailan Kifki and the Fireman, who were shipwrecked in the sky.
The sun was shining brightly, and there was a lovely breeze.
There were peanut sellers, wafer sellers and ice-cream sellers.
In short, there was everything we could have wanted.
Granddad went off to sulk by the wire fence, grumbling to himself, but when nobody was looking he started flying a kite, too.
But he was so unlucky at it that his kite dragged him off and picked him up and carried him into the air.
“Ker-BLAM!” I said.
“We’re toast,” said my brother Roberto.
“Now what if Granddad flies off and we’ll have to fish for him, too?” said my dad.
Fortunately Granddad got caught on a eucalyptus tree and the Captain, with his ladder, went up to rescue him.
The moment Granddad came back down to earth, he started lecturing us on How to Fly a Kite.
Anyway, we worked all morning, and we were just about ready to give up because there was no trace of Dailan Kifki anywhere in the sky, when the Captain decided to climb a tree and look out from there with a telescope, to see whether he could spot them flying behind a cloud, or sitting, roasting hot, on the sun. We were already giving up all hope of recovering our astronauts when the Captain shouted:
“Haaaaaaalt! There they go! Fly those kites on the double! One—two!”
We were off in a flash. In our haste all our lines got tangled up and some of us knocked into one another with a real bump.
And that was when I saw them!
There, all the way up there, far away amid the clouds… There they flew: Dailan Kifki and the Fireman.
15
We started such an uproar when we spotted Dailan Kifki that the Manager of the Ituzaingó Post Office came running over, furious, because all his stamps had come unstuck.
The crowd of busybodies was growing. Some were yelling, others were placing bets.
“I’ll bet you three chocolates they won’t catch them,” one was saying.
“I’ll bet you three caramels that they will!” said another.
“Higher, Dailan Kifki, don’t let them catch you!” shouted one.
“Work those kites, don’t let them get away!” shouted another.
And however much Granddad may have wanted to maintain discipline, holding up a baton in an attempt to keep order, he could not shut them up.
I was afraid the noise would scare Dailan Kifki.
We already had aching arms and quite bad cricks in our necks from so much kite-flying, but the elephant went on fluttering about like a fat butterfly, fooling around, turning somersaults, always just a little higher than the kites, so all our efforts were in vain.
“Dailan Kifki!” I shouted up to him, “why don’t you fly a little lower, sweetie?”
No response from him at all.
The Mini-Secretary of Aeronautics started shouting instructions to the Fireman.
“Mister Fireman, come down, switch off the engines, turn to the right, bank towards the west. It’s time you had a rest. Truly, it’s for the best!”
No response from the Fireman either.
Some big lads climbed a eucalyptus tree and started throwing stones at him. A lot of us had to give up our kites for a bit to go get those meanies under control. Granddad climbed the tree and started chasing them along the branches. They looked like a tribe of monkeys.
But the worst of it was that the Ambassadors started squabbling. And my mum could find nothing better to do than sidle over to me and tell me in my ear:
“Listen, my girl, I do hope that when the Fireman gets down you are going to marry him, aren’t you?”
“But Mum,” I replied indignantly, “do you really think I’m only trying to fish him down so I can marry him?”
“Why not? He’s a fine fellow, and very brave,” my mum insisted.
“That’s enough, Mum,” I said. “I don’t want to get married, I just want to get Dailan Kifki back.”
“But you can’t be thinking of marrying an elephant!” replied Mum. “That I simply will not allow. What would the neighbours say? What would Auntie Clodomira say? And above all, what would Granddad say, because I’m quite sure the elephant can’t read or write.”
“That’s enough, Mum,” I said, impatiently. “Stop that now, I’m busy.”
Then my mother wandered off whimpering and complaining at the top of her lungs so that everyone could hear her:
“Ay ay ay, such terrible misfortune! My daughter wants to marry an elephant!”
You cannot imagine the stir this caused among the audience.
They immediately started placing bets: She will marry him, she won’t marry him, she will she won’t she won’t she will…
And my mum, who hadn’t understood a thing, went off to fetch Granddad to try and persuade me against it.
“Wherever have you heard of such an idea?” Granddad was telling me off. “When have you ever seen a young lady marrying an ignorant elephant, huh?”
“But Granddad,” I said, “why on earth would you believe I’d want to marry an elephant? Mum just misunderstood. That wasn’t what I said.”
“If that’s what she said, there had to be a reason,” replied my granddad, and then added, “I’m telling you right now I don’t approve of this marriage. You must marry a qualified schoolteacher or, even better, a university professor.”
“Yes, very well, Granddad. But please, leave me alone now. My kite is getting tangled and Dailan Kifki is going to get away.”
Of course, in the meantime the rumour had spread and the journalists arrived, and the TV newsreader and the photographers. They approached me with their cameras and bits of paper and pencils in their hands, asking questions:
“Is it true, miss, that you’re fishing for an elephant in order to marry him?”
“Of course not,” I said desperately, “the very idea is utterly preposterous!”
And since they couldn’t hear very well with all that commotion, they wrote down “rhinoceros” instead of “preposterous”.
“It’s a bombshell!” another shouted. “For the first time in history, a young woman is going to marry an elephant!”
“
Is the groom going to wear a top hat for the wedding?” one of them asked.
“Will you be spending your honeymoon at the zoo?”
Then, fortunately, my Auntie Clodomira scared them off with blows from her umbrella, saying:
“No sir, absolutely not, we don’t approve of this marriage, not in the least.”
I moved away, utterly fed up with the whole mess, and went on flying my kite.
Dailan Kifki was still floating in the sky, without any sign that he might be getting tired. But when I looked closely I could see his wings were in a wretched state: all the buttons and bows had come untied, the silver-paper trimmings were worn ragged, the tulle was quite moth-eaten, and the rosette had come off. I didn’t think he’d be able to go on flying very much longer in that condition.
My brother Roberto just kept shaking his head as he watched him, saying over and over:
“We’re toast.”
My Auntie Clodomira threatened him with her umbrella.
My father signalled towards him with his pipe, as though indicating which way to land.
And at that moment a huge collective disaster happened.
16
Oh yes, a huge disaster.
Several people, including Granddad and the Ambassadors, wanted to sit down for a bit on the grass to rest and… they had to sit down with their arms up in the air! They had all become stiff from flying their kites for so long and they couldn’t bring them down!
I tried to move Granddad’s arm back into place, but it was as though it had turned to stone.
“It’s an outrage!” Granddad said. “It’s like I’m permanently asking permission to come up to the front of the class.”
Fortunately at that very moment we heard a siren, horn blasts and a noisy squeal of brakes.
It was the ambulance.
Out came five lovely doctors and three lovely dentists, all in starched white, with carnations in their ears. They were carrying little saws, screwdrivers, bottles, scissors, bandages, hammers and erasers.
An Elephantasy Page 4