You see how clever Mister Carozo is? Such a simple idea, and it hadn’t occurred to any of us, in spite of our fingers and eyebrows being quite numb from so much thinking.
“Very well, then, Mister Carozo,” I said. “So what should we disguise him as, too-loora-loora-lay?”
“Elephants are really big, right?” replied Mister Carozo. “So we have to disguise him as something really tiny so nobody notices how big he is.”
Once again the crowd murmured their amazement at such vast intelligence in such a small gentleman.
I asked again:
“So what should we disguise him as, too-loora-loora-lay?”
“As something terribly small!”
And we all went back into our merry-go-round of thoughts, fingers back on our foreheads, frowning and muttering:
“Something terribly small… something terribly small… something terribly small…”
“That’s it!” said Mister Carozo at last. “A butterfly! He’ll be very good at pretending that because he used to be a flying elephant.”
My brother Roberto said:
“We’re toast.”
“But why?” we all asked.
“Because a butterfly is an animal,” Roberto answered, “so we’ll just end up having the same problem: you aren’t allowed to travel with animals.”
“A butterfly isn’t an animal, it’s a creepy-crawly,” I said, “just a little creepy-crawly that could easily have come in through the window without buying a ticket.”
“Yes, but a butterfly as fat as Dailan Kifki will arouse too much suspicion,” Roberto insisted, being a big old spoilsport as usual.
“And so what should we disguise him as, too-loora-loora-lay?” I asked once again.
“There is one solution,” said Roberto. I have no idea how he was able to think so much at this time of night.
“So what’s the solution?”
“We have to disguise Dailan Kifki as a person, not a creepy-crawly or an animal.”
Such intelligence astounded us.
My brother Roberto thanked us modestly, his eyes lowered, as the crowd went wild with applause.
43
Roberto became the centre of everybody’s attention. Within a few moments he had lost all his modesty and he was talking like an old politician, signing autographs and looking at us over his shoulder. He gave a kind of speech, in which he said two things:
First: so that the elephant wasn’t seen by the guard or the train passengers, we would have to disguise him as an actual passenger himself.
Second…
I don’t actually remember what bit of nonsense he said after that.
“And how do we disguise him, then, too-loora-loora-lay?” I insisted.
“That’s what we have to think about,” everyone said, and they went back to their frowning and putting their fingers to their foreheads and walking in their merry-go-round formation.
Everybody seemed excited at the idea of the whole thinking game, but frankly I was a bit bored with it. So I clapped my hands and made them break ranks.
“Enough thinking!” I ordered them. “Now it’s time to act: we have to disguise Dailan Kifki as a train passenger.”
“And what kind of outfit does a train passenger wear?” asked my mother, who was as fast asleep as a table.
“One with lapels and buttons… and sleeves, Mum.”
“But the things we’re wearing are never going to fit Dailan Kifki!” everyone protested, though really out of complete stinginess, because they just didn’t want to lend the poor animal any of their own clothes.
“Come on now, don’t be selfish,” I said. “Start giving him any items of clothing you’ve got that aren’t absolutely essential. Even if they’re small we can join them up. We can add some buttons and sew it all together, one piece at a time.”
And do you know what they all did?
They clung like crazy to their overcoats and their suits and their top hats and their wallets.
And so I took off my pinafore.
And so they were all embarrassed.
And so, slowly, bit by bit, one of them donated a hat, another a button. That man over there gave a sock, another gave a tie, someone very stingy gave a little bottle-top, my aunt a small hankie.
Everyone lined up and, in complete silence, threw their donations at Dailan Kifki’s feet.
I soon found myself standing beside a pretty decent pile of clothes. But how would we arrange them so they could be used as a disguise for Dailan Kifki?
My mother and Auntie Clodomira tried to join together several overcoats with safety pins and put them over him like a huge cloak. But Dailan Kifki just looked like a mountain in disguise, and not a train passenger.
We also put several hats on him, one on top of the other… Useless.
As for me, I tried just throwing all the clothes on top of his back and ears, all higgledy-piggledy… Then I took a few steps back to see how he looked.
A complete mess.
The most disheartening thing of all was that he looked just as much an elephant as ever.
And so, practically in tears, I returned everybody’s clothes, and thanked them.
Naturally they all started fighting, pushing and shoving and arguing over the clothes.
To make matters worse, Mister Carozo, who seemed to be the only sensible person in the retinue, had disappeared.
And to cap it all, the postmaster showed up to complain that with all the commotion of people taking off bits of clothing, all the stamps had come unstuck again.
Oh, give me patience!
We were just about ready to give up and set off on foot when some painters arrived with their paint-spattered overalls, ladders, brushes and tubs of paint.
They began to daub the station walls with big letters that said HOORAY FOR! and DOWN WITH!
We looked at them vaguely, since we had nothing better to do now than yawn and despair.
And then, as I looked at them, and looked at them again, my little bulb suddenly lit up.
I had THE IDEA.
Why not paint a train passenger costume on Dailan Kifki?
Aren’t there circuses where they paint their elephants?
Why not?
Eh?
I’m not very good at painting, but you know, in an emergency…
I didn’t say anything to anyone, because I was sure my brother Roberto would just answer:
“We’re toast.”
So I approached the painters on tiptoe.
“Good evening,” I said.
They took off their little newspaper hats.
“Would you be so kind as to lend me a bit of paint and a thick paintbrush?”
“Certainly,” they said. “But what are you going to be painting at this time of night?”
I didn’t tell them I was planning to paint an elephant, as they would think I was crazy.
One of the painters looked me up and down, scratching his paper hat, and finally asked:
“Are you with all those strange people?”
“Actually, those people are very important,” I replied.
As it was very dark and very crowded, it wasn’t easy to make out Dailan Kifki, but the painter could see there was definitely something very big there indeed.
“And that kind of mountain thing over there… what’s that?”
“What mountain?” I asked, acting all absent-minded.
“That mountain,” the painter insisted.
“A mountain?” I replied, pretending to squint towards it. “Oh, I don’t know, I’m sure Ituzaingó must be full of mountains. Or maybe it’s one of the ones from the Córdoba mountain range who’s just decided to take a little walk…”
And I asked again for the paint and the paintbrush, but again he changed the subject and went on asking me questions.
Finally, half an hour later, he lent them to me.
I ran over to where Dailan Kifki was standing.
Everyone was quite baffled when they saw m
e run past, because they couldn’t imagine what I was planning to paint at that hour.
I bet you can’t imagine, either.
44
So what did I do?
I painted Dailan Kifki a lovely train passenger outfit!
Would you like me to describe it to you in every last detail?
Well, standing on tiptoes, and occasionally lifted up by the Fireman, I managed to paint Dailan Kifki an enormous polka-dot tie.
I took a few steps back to examine the effect, and saw that it needed a couple more strokes.
But don’t for a moment think that I did the painting carelessly and in a slapdash way.
No, sir, I did the painting very carefully and very un-slapdashly indeed.
I painted the lapels of his jacket, first one, then the other.
And then, of course, I drew three very big, very round buttons, just like the Fireman’s.
Then, nearly down to his knees (the elephant’s knees, not the Fireman’s), I painted some jacket pockets.
You’ll be wondering now how I drew the trousers?
Very simple: a single vertical, ever-so-straight line right down his legs. I painted the left first, and it came out very nicely.
I began painting the other side, starting from the top. It was coming out as perfectly straight as a ruler, and I was nearly done when… Ker-BLAM!
Supisichi!
Something hit me on the head, hard.
I couldn’t even cry for help.
I only managed “Hel…”
And I fainted.
The blow to my head was as calamitous as it was unexpected.
All of a sudden I saw seven hundred and eighty-nine little stars and I flopped down onto the platform of Ituzaingó station. I thought I’d died.
45
Nope.
When I awoke from my faint, everyone was standing around fanning me, slapping me and throwing cold water over me.
Granddad was consulting his First Aid manual.
The Fireman was connecting his hose up to the tap to give me a good drenching.
My Auntie Clodomira was twirling her umbrella, wailing:
“How many more accidents are we going to have to put up with from this pesky elephant?!”
I managed to open one eye. Then I managed to open the other. Then I managed to open my mouth a little.
And then I asked:
“Wh—wha—ha—happ—happened?”
“That nasty, rude, horrible elephant!” said my Auntie Clodomira.
“I won’t let you call him such horrible things, Auntie,” I said, waking up properly now.
“You ought to know, he was the one who knocked you out with his trunk and nearly killed you,” explained my aunt, colouring with rage.
“That’s not possible,” I said. “It must have been an accident. Dailan Kifki has never hurt anybody, except when he’s being attacked.”
“No, sir, this is a terrible elephant, an errible, errible telephant,” my aunt insisted, jumbling her words in sheer rage and banging on the platform with her umbrella.
I went to find the rest of the retinue to see if someone calmer and more serene might be able to explain the really truthful truth to me.
What ever could have happened?
Well, apparently, while I was starting to paint Dailan Kifki’s outfit, the poor thing was fast asleep, with that curious habit he has of sleeping with his trunk up in the air.
And just as I was crouching down to paint the stripe of his trousers, it seems the poor thing had a bad dream and Ker-BLAM!… Down fell his trunk.
Naturally, it fell on my head.
Poor Dailan Kifki was looking at me in great distress, as if to say: “I didn’t mean it, I didn’t mean it, my trunk just fell, I had no idea you were down there.”
I finally managed to clear my head, and I saw that my work had all been wasted. Because when Dailan Kifki’s trunk was down, it completely covered the necktie and the pretty buttons I’d painted on him.
“Get that trunk back up!” I said as forcefully as I could.
Nothing.
“Lift that trunk up now!”
Nothing.
“Trunk! Up!”
Nothing.
But then my brother Roberto appeared, elbowing his way through the crowds, and he said:
“Leave it to me. I understand about elephants.” He approached Dailan Kifki, lifted his ear with some effort and shouted:
“Either-you-hold-your-trunk-up-this-minute-or-there’s-no-more-lovely-oats-soup-for-you!”
Then Dailan Kifki did raise his trunk nice and high and finally the necktie and buttons shone.
“Don’t you think Dailan Kifki could pass for a train passenger, now he’s painted like that?” I asked.
“Of course,” everybody replied. “You can hardly tell he’s an elephant now.”
And I was so pleased with my handiwork that I did a few little folkdancey steps right there on the platform.
46
Would you like me to tell you how we all travelled back from Ituzaingó?
Well, we travelled back, returning home, that is, by train.
Dailan Kifki, with his trunk curled up the whole time and his passenger outfit, settled himself into a seat, with a pretending expression on his face.
Fortunately the compartment was empty, so all the rest of us hurried to fill the remaining seats.
Fortunately the guard was a bit short-sighted and he didn’t notice a thing.
Fortunately we all arrived safe and sound at Miserere Square.
From there we walked over to my house, which is all the way up in the neighbourhood of Palermo.
It was pretty tiring, and don’t forget that by now our shoes were in a wretched state.
At that time of the morning the streets were practically deserted, so we didn’t draw too much attention to ourselves.
Finally we arrived at my house, and everyone who could came in for breakfast.
I took Dailan Kifki out into the garden. He seemed really happy.
I left him there chatting away with the flowers and the ants, and went back into the kitchen to make him a nice barrel of lovely, milky oats soup.
We all had our breakfast, and then the sad moment came for us to say our goodbyes.
The truth was, we had become quite fond of one another, and nobody wanted to go home.
I had to promise them a party very soon, and only then did they start to file out, with tears in their eyes.
The Superintendent, using his truncheon and his white gloves, was able to keep everyone more or less in order.
We were first presented with the farewell greetings of the Ambassadors, then the Mini-Secretary, who had become tinier than ever with all this adventuring.
Then came the Mayor, then the director of the La Plata Astronomical Observatory, then the Admirable Admiral, then the Captain of the Firemen, then the ice-cream sellers, and finally the dog with two tails.
And there was so much weeping from all of them that they made quite an impressive uproar.
At that moment the doorbell rang.
When I opened it, I found a handsome postman the colour of milky coffee.
Ker-BLAM! I thought to myself. He must have come to complain that with all the uproar the stamps have come unstuck again at the post office.
Nope.
The postman took off his cap and asked:
“Is there anyone living here by the name of Dailan Kifki?”
I needn’t tell you that all the people who’d already said goodbye just stood there, as they were much too curious to leave now.
“Yes, Mister Dailan Kifki lives here,” everyone answered.
“All these letters are for him,” said the postman, taking three million envelopes out of his bag.
I took the envelopes in my arms and ran out to the garden, followed by the whole retinue, which now included the postman, to read them to Dailan Kifki.
Very nervously I opened the first.
It was from the D
irector of the zoo, and it said something like:
“The Director of the Zoological Gardens invites you and your family to the grand bazaar and party in honour of Dailan Kifki, the first flying elephant in the whole republic.”
Can you imagine anything more exciting?
The next letter was from the aviators’ club, who wanted to give Dailan Kifki a medal.
Another was from an ambassador, who wanted to bestow some honour or other on him.
Another was from the Astronautical Phantasmagorical University of Calamuchita, who wanted to name him Doctor Honoris Causa.
And so many more like them.
Letters from everyone!
It took me, like, three hours to read them all.
When I’d finished, I could see that Dailan Kifki was moved, and he had big thick tears running down his trunk.
Everybody was hugging one another and crying. They decided to head home for a change of clothes and come back tomorrow to go to the big party at the zoo.
When I had finished saying goodbye to everyone, I closed the door and was alone at last.
I was just about to take a little nap when…
The doorbell rang:
Ring,
ring,
ring.
Who could it be?
47
I opened the door to see an impressive-looking gentleman with very black skin standing outside.
I could tell at once that he was a king, because he had a lovely gold crown on his head, with little pearls and diamonds.
He was wearing a richly coloured shirt all embroidered in silver and gold, covered in decorations and tassels and trinkets.
Behind him was a train of fourteen people who had just got out of six golden cars.
Ker-BLAM! I bet it’s King Balthasar! I thought, suddenly remembering it was nearly Christmas.
I invited the King and his guests inside.
My whole family watched with their mouths open.
You can’t imagine how embarrassed I was not to have a single chair to offer such an important visitor!
An Elephantasy Page 11