An Elephantasy
Page 12
And how embarrassed I was that he should see my house looking so dirty and topsy-turvy.
I invited him to sit on the floor, and we all joined him down there to talk.
The King opened his mouth and said something like:
“Bayumba bombé tangolé golé golé.”
I was all ready to send Roberto off to buy a dictionary, when one of his people, the interpreter, explained the whole thing to me.
This man was indeed a king, but not King Balthasar. He was the King of a distant African kingdom called Ugambalanda.
But besides being a king, do you know who else he was?
He was the owner of Dailan Kifki’s mother!
It turned out that newspapers all over the world had printed stories about the extraordinary feats carried out by my elephant, which was how Mister King had learnt about him, and putting two and two together, he’d come to the conclusion that Dailan Kifki was the son of a famous elephant he had in his African palace.
And it turned out that once upon a time, a hunter had stolen the baby elephant away from his mother and sold him to the owner of a circus, who brought him here to Argentina.
The circus owner had gone broke, closed the circus and abandoned poor Dailan Kifki, who, as you will remember, showed up one morning at my front door.
“And his mum?” I asked King Pochoclo (because that’s what His Majesty was called).
“His mum is not far away,” said the King, “and tomorrow she’ll be coming to the party at the zoo to be reunited with her baby.”
Once he had finished saying this, King Pochoclo and his whole retinue got up and said goodbye till the following day.
And once again, I was completely astonished.
48
The following day—that glorious day of great public tributes to Dailan Kifki—we were awoken by a volley of cannon-fire.
I got up and ran to the garden to give my elephant a bath. King Pochoclo had sent a gift: some opulent apparel for Dailan Kifki to wear on this very grand occasion.
A saddle of golden velvet, braids and tassels for his head and ears, and an honorary astronaut’s helmet.
Roberto helped me bathe Dailan Kifki before saddling him up so luxuriously.
Then we all put on our finery and walked out the front door to where our retinue of the previous days was waiting for us. They were all so dolled up we hardly recognised them!
Granddad had put on—and I honestly have no idea which museum he’d got it from—a lovely uniform of a Patrician Guard.
My Auntie Clodomira was dressed in sky-blue organdie.
My dad had a new poncho.
I don’t even have to tell you that the numbers of TV cameramen, journalists, photographers, busybodies and ice-cream sellers had multiplied a million times.
Since the zoo isn’t too far from my house, we all went on foot. Dailan Kifki led the parade.
We all walked very slowly, in time with the Boy Scouts’ band, who played a slow, stately march.
At the zoo we were met by the most senior officials and King Pochoclo with his whole retinue.
But there was one thing I couldn’t stop wondering about, and I was already getting emotional just thinking about it: what would it be like when Dailan Kifki met his mother?
Because we hadn’t told him a thing.
And what if King Pochoclo was wrong and it turned out that his elephant wasn’t Dailan Kifki’s mother after all?
But I supposed he wouldn’t have taken such a long journey if he hadn’t been completely sure that she was.
Finally we entered the zoo, which was decorated with flags from every country.
There was another volley of cannon-fire, applause, cheers, shouts, a few faintings and a shower of confetti and streamers.
Still moving in time with the Boy Scouts’ band, we made our way solemnly towards the official stage, beside which stood—looking very serious and decked out with a gold saddle—Dailan Kifki’s mother.
When Dailan Kifki saw her, he forgot all about the retinue, the party, the solemnity and the order we’d managed to keep up to that moment.
As though he’d been pricked with a knitting needle, he tore off towards the stage where he embraced his mother, snorting with excitement.
The two of them stood with their trunks wrapped around each other’s necks for nearly an hour. They whispered and puffed away to each other, lifting their ears as a sign of happi ness.
Then the speeches started, which naturally I shan’t transcribe so as not to bore you. And finally we all were served hot chocolate with croissants, right in front of the monkey cage.
I don’t need to tell you the day had been declared a national holiday.
Once the ceremony was over, we decided it was time for us all to go back to our respective homes, but now a real puzzle presented itself.
Nobody had thought about it, nobody had a clever, practical solution for such a terrible problem.
We couldn’t separate Dailan Kifki from his mother, could we?
Nor could I be separated from Dailan Kifki, because I’d become so attached to him, right?
So that was the problem: where on earth were the two elephants going to live?
Even just one could barely fit in my garden.
We began to discuss the problem.
The Director of the zoo, very obligingly, offered to house them in his distinguished institution.
King Pochoclo offered to take them back to Ugambalanda.
Granddad offered to take care of them in his house in Ituzaingó.
But I didn’t want to be separated from them.
When I was just about ready to start crying at the hopelessness of the whole situation, someone put his hand on my shoulder and said sweetly that I needn’t worry, that we were going to live together and everything would come up roses, we’d eat partridges for dinner and we’d also blow our noses.
It was the Fireman.
And right there, quite unexpectedly, he asked me to marry him, and he said we could go and live on his aunt and uncle’s farm, where there was more than enough space for two well-behaved elephants.
I was dumbstruck again, and slowly looked at everybody, one by one, as though asking their advice.
Everyone had fallen impressively silent, and they were all looking down at their newly shined shoes.
Then, hesitant and shy, I looked at the Fireman, and once again I saw what a good fellow he was, and how brave, and kind, and affectionate, and sweet-smelling, and, above all, how much he loved elephants.
I told him I’d think about it.
Everyone gave a sigh of relief.
Mister First Officer of the Capital Fire Brigade, Don Agapito Campolongo, has the pleasure of inviting you and your family to his wedding, which will take place very early next Wednesday morning. The bride and groom will make their way to the ceremony riding on the back of Dailan Kifki, and from their positions up on top they will greet their guests and offer them magnificent hot chocolate in pretty little porcelain cups.
The bride and groom would also like to invite their guests to accompany them to the port of the city, from where they will be departing, together with their two elephants, for the Kingdom of Ugambalanda on their honeymoon.
Photographs of Dailan Kifki and his mother will be distributed free to members of the public, and commemorative pennants will be donated by Mister Don Carozo Minujín.
Translator’s Note
This book was translated at The Banff Centre in June 2015, under the auspices of BILTC, the Banff International Literary Translation Centre. The translator is enormously grateful to all the programme’s staff for the warm welcome, the hospitality, the food and the views; and to director Katie Silver and his fellow participants for three unimprovable weeks packed with all the myriad delights of their company. Translators don’t typically get to dedicate their books, but if we did, this one would be for them.
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Copyright
Pushkin Children’s Books
71–75 Shelton Street
London WC2H 9JQ
This translation of An Elephantasy was first published by Pushkin Press in 2016
Originally published in Spanish as Dailan Kifki in 1966
© Heiress to María Elena Walsh
c/o Schavelzon Graham Agencia Literaria
www.schavelzongraham.com
English Translation © Daniel Hahn 2016
Illustrations © Aurora Cacciapuoti 2016
ISBN 978 1 782691 35 8
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