The Elephant Keepers' Children

by Peter Høeg

  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 wishi
ng 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.”

  15

  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.

  The perfect situation would be if only I could see through the windscreen, because on that account Tilte was too optimistic. But then you can’t have it all, and so I comfort myself with the thought of how often I’ve heard Mother say that driving a car is a matter of intuition rather than vision, and I can see the sky and part of the wall surrounding the rectory perfectly well.

  The key is in the ignition. I start the engine and roll carefully along the lane and around the corner.

  I have every reason to believe that the coast will be clear as I make the turn and that Alexander Flounderblood has long since gone. So imagine my surprise when the top of his head suddenly appears in my field of vision.

  I manage to avoid him and Baroness, but though I am driving at a snail’s pace they must surely be startled, because they leap aside as though their lives depended on it, and in a way I’m thankful there’s no time for me to return the glaring looks they undoubtedly send in my direction.

  The reason there’s no time is that when I swerve to avoid them I catch a glimpse of Karl Marauder Lander through the side window, which means that since I’ve straightened my course again he must now be directly in front of me. So my only option is to press hard on the horn in order to alert him.

  A lot of good things have been said about Mercedes cars. Now I feel able to add to the list that the horn ranks right up there alongside the foghorn of the Finø ferry. Moreover, the sound it makes is amplified as it reverberates against the garden walls along the lane. So now Karl appears again because he has once more felt compelled to leap into the air, providing further evidence of his exceptional powers of vertical propulsion.

  I stop the car and get out.

  Neither Karl nor Baroness nor Alexander has yet found their feet. This is one of those situations that clearly demand some reassuring gesture, so I wave to them as though to demonstrate that things are under control, and then I lock the car remotely, in part because the most sensible policy when Karl Marauder’s around is to lock everything that isn’t bolted to the floor, and in part to demonstrate that I am also in complete charge of the vehicle. And after that I jump over the wall into the garden of the rectory.

  16

  When I land on the lawn I see three things that cannot easily be explained.

  The first of these is that the long ladder has been taken from the outhouse and leaned against the gable end of the rectory. On its own, this would seem reasonable enough, as the rectory’s cellar is so deep that the ground floor is actually almost a first floor, and the window of Tilte’s room, at which the ladder has been placed, corresponds in terms of height to what normally would be considered the second floor.

  Rather more difficult to comprehend is the fact that four people are on their way up the ladder. Uppermost and at the window is Professor Thorlacius, then comes his wife, in turn followed by the bishop of Grenå, and finally, almost halfway up, Vera the Secretary, who is making a cautious ascent.

  The sight of all this prompts the immediate thought that none of the four has climbed a ladder in a good many years, if at all, and for that reason they are under the impression that a ladder is a sort of stairway capable of accommodating several individuals at a time.

  The third thing I see is the most difficult with which to reconcile myself. Crouched behind the big rhododendron in front of me are Tilte and Basker, and beside them, in a little huddle, are Finø Town’s policeman, Finn Metro Poltrop, affectionately known as Finn Flatfoot, and his police dog Titmouse.

  Experts claim that dogs resemble their owners, or perhaps vice versa, that dog owners resemble their dogs, and it does seem to be rather a neat theory. For instance, I find that Basker in many ways resembles everyone in our family, including Great-Grandma. Flounderblood and Baroness are definitely a case in point. They could even be man and wife. And the theory fits Finn Flatfoot and Titmouse just as well, because Titmouse isn’t your everyday police dog in terms of breed. His more specific origins would be a matter for genealogical research, but like Finn he has hair falling down into its eyes, wears a beard, and is rather corpulent, and like Finn he loves all kinds of food, but especially my father’s. Finn Flatfoot weighs in at one hundred and fourteen kilos and says he’s proud of it, and to keep his weight up he frequently stays for dinner at our house.

  Like Finn, Titmouse is a friendly creature whose forceful impression derives mostly from his appearance. Both are unkempt and chronically unshaven, and look like something that stepped out of Borneo’s jungle, but behind the frightening exteriors beat two hearts of gold.

  And yet I would never personally venture to tease either Titmouse or Finn Flatfoot, just as I would never stick my head into a hive of bumblebees, because even the fluffiest exterior may conceal a sting that could have you howling with pain. Although Finø is a quiet place in the winter, members of the fishing community have nonetheless been known to take it into their heads to clear the Nincompoop’s cellar bar of all inventory, and in such cases Finn and Titmouse have been on the scene within minutes. I have witnessed them step forward to face twenty-five fishermen who have just trashed the place leaving only powder behind, and after a moment the fishermen have paid for the damage and offered their apologies and sloped off into the night with their tails between their legs.

  So now, as ever, I’m glad to see Finn Flatfoot, though I’ve no idea why he might be here, or why he and Tilte, and Titmouse and Basker, might be hiding in the bushes, and so I join them.

  Finn gives me a pat on the back. His hand is like one of those spades they use for digging ditches.

  “Have you seen them before?” he whispers.

  “They’re from Big Hill,” Tilte whispers back.

  “They’re older than the usual crowd,” Finn whispers again.

  “One said she was a bishop. And another said he was a professor,” Tilte whispers back again.

  Finn watches intently.

  “The brain goes out when the weed goes in,” he says.

  And now I see what the world looks like through Finn Flatfoot’s eyes. Whereas before I saw four pillars of society on their way up a ladder on important business, I now see what Finn Flatfoot and Titmouse must see, which is four criminal substance abusers about their shadowy deeds in the darkness. I begin to pick out the awe-inspiring contours of Tilte’s strategy. My thoughts drift to our religious studies, from which we have learned that all the great spiritual figures point out that to a very great extent the world is made of words.

  “Shouldn’t they be stopped?” Tilte whispers.

  Finn shakes his head.

  “We’re waiting for two things. Firstly, for them to break open a window. That makes it burglary and caught red-handed, section 276. And secondly, we’re waiting for John, because I’ve just called him. This lot are the violent sort.”

  John the Savior is with us a moment later, like a shadow in the night, but a shadow of the kind cast by a brewer’s dray, because that’s about the size he is. Ordinarily, he’s in charge of Finø’s rescue services, which is to say the lifeboats and the fire station and the ambulance service, as well as the Finø Security Corps, and if I were to describe him in brief I would say he was a friend of the family and a man you would want by your side in any situation other than the Annual Spring Ball for the benefit of Finø FC, because no one has ever seen him wear an
ything other than overalls and ambulance-colored safety boots size 52 with steel toe caps.

  Meanwhile, Professor Thorlacius has managed to open Tilte’s window and has half his corpus inside her room, thereby now technically guilty of breaking and entering, even though Tilte and I know that her window is only ever pulled to and never locked. Now Finn Flatfoot and John the Savior and Titmouse step forward out of the bushes and give the ladder a gentle shake.

  Whoever has stood on a ladder with someone shaking it from below will know that keeping a cool head in that situation requires at the very least an ice pack, something that is on hand only rarely whenever you’re up a ladder. The four individuals on this one roar in unison. And Vera the Secretary is the first to come tumbling down.

  I’m not sure how a bishop’s secretary is used to being received, but I think in the fading light I glimpse a slight sense of surprise on her face as John and Finn whirl her around and snap on a pair of handcuffs.

  “Release that woman immediately!”

  Anaflabia Borderrud has raised her voice, and it is a voice of such authority as would prompt army battalions to lie down on their backs and wave their arms and legs in the air.

  But Finn Flatfoot and John the Savior are men who have stood face-to-face with hurricanes without it affecting them in the slightest, so the only thing that happens is that the bishop of Grenå, too, suddenly and perhaps for the first time in her life is placed in handcuffs.

  Now John and Finn shake the ladder again as one would shake a pear tree, and they make ready to catch Minna Thorlacius-Claptrap in their arms as though she were ripened fruit falling from that very tree.

  “Thorkild! Help!”

  Her cries bring the professor to the window of Tilte’s room and back down the ladder again with all the assurance of a man used to putting things in their place and making sure they stay there.

  Standing on the lower rungs of the ladder he seems to realize that he now must attempt to talk sense to the broader population.