The Elephant Keepers' Children

by Peter Høeg

  Tilte and I exchange a glance. What we communicate is that we’re now going to come clean and tell it like it is. I run a hand through my hair, moisten my lips, and prepare to smooth the troubled waters with well-chosen words.

  Because Tilte and I both have our eyes on the coffin, as though to bid Maria a final farewell, we notice immediately that the lid begins to tremble.

  It’s obvious the police officers carrying the coffin have noticed it, too, and yet they wisely resolve to ignore the fact, a choice one can well understand, for do we not all of us shrink away when confronted with the inexplicable?

  Again, Tilte and I send each other a look.

  For a moment, the situation is uncertain. The natural reaction of those such as Tilte and I who are practiced in matters spiritual is to seek to restore one’s inner balance, and with this aim in mind I now proceed toward a peaceful bench against the outer wall of the main building.

  A woman is seated on the bench. She is wearing what looks like a witch’s garb, with the pointed hat pulled down over her eyes. One of the problems with all religions is that women are so poorly situated, so whenever one sees a woman of prominent office, one is invariably pleasantly surprised and will often wish to show one’s respect, and this is what I endeavor to do now, regardless of my own personal distress, by bowing deeply.

  By this movement, I am accorded a view of the woman’s face underneath the brim of her hat, and it transpires that she is Maria from Maribo.

  I take her hand and find it to be cold as a cube of ice. Tilte appears beside me and grasps the situation at a single glance.

  “Henrik,” she says. “He’s put her in one of Rickardt’s costumes. And taken her place in the coffin.”

  Now it’s imperative we win the hearts of Lars and Katinka.

  At that moment, the taxi from before pulls up in front of the steps and out pile, once again, Anaflabia, Thorlacius, Vera the Secretary, Thorlacius’s wife, Alexander Flounderblood, and Bodil Fisker.

  We never learn how they managed to get through the gate. Perhaps some people simply possess such an abundance of charisma and what is sometimes referred to as nobility of soul that they have no need of identity papers, their mere presence being sufficient to identify them and moreover allow them to proceed—as they do now across the courtyard of the castle—with a natural right to be present in their surroundings.

  If this indeed is the correct explanation, it must be added that Lars and Katinka have a different understanding. In their defense, however, it should be recalled that Alexander Flounderblood has been out for a swim in the lake. How he returned to dry land is a matter of uncertainty. All we can say is that he has had no time to clean himself up in any way that might make him seem like the confidence-inspiring individual his appearance otherwise tends to indicate.

  Few Danish lakes remain crystal clear all year-round, those of Finø perhaps being the only exception. The average Danish lake has its ups and downs during the course of a year, and in bad periods may look mostly like a natural slurry tank, and the lake of Filthøj Castle is going through just such a period now. Alexander Flounderblood, therefore, resembles something that would frighten his own mother, and when Lars and Katinka catch sight of him and Thorlacius and Anaflabia, they’re out of their blocks as though the starter’s pistol had just been fired in an Olympic final.

  Which leaves me and Tilte and Basker and Hans and Ashanti and Jakob Bordurio and Pallas Athene with a completely open goal leading straight into the heart of the Grand Synod.

  65

  The room we now enter, the same room we have seen on our parents’ video file and that has hardly been absent from our thoughts these past twelve hours or however many have passed, is larger and more splendid than we had envisaged. It is a room one could imagine a great many of Leonora Ticklepalate’s clients might consider as a potential backdrop to their private coaching sessions. The ceiling is as high as a cathedral’s, and the location commands a magnificent view of the evening sky above the Sound.

  The exhibition case, too, is larger than we have been able to assess, and the light that shines from it is brighter.

  Moreover, there is something rather overwhelming about standing face to face with eight hundred people who have gone to great pains with their appearance.

  And yet, what strikes us most forcibly is something else entirely: the atmosphere.

  Let me say right away that I do not believe that all eight hundred individuals contribute equally to this atmosphere. Most likely, some are here because they consider their religion to be their livelihood. These are people who might just as easily earn their daily bread doing something else entirely, and who perhaps ought to be doing so now, for their own sakes at least. But aside from such slackers as will be found on any team, regardless of how meticulous the selection procedure, I would say that gathered in this room are so many people who have passed through the right door, the one that leads to freedom, leaving it ajar behind them in such a way that one senses the stir, that it almost knocks us off our feet. If you imagine the kind of keenness possessed by Tilte, and an ability such as my great-grandmother’s to take even the likes of Alexander Flounderblood and Karl Marauder into her heart, and if you multiply these two qualities by one hundred and fifty thousand, then you’ll have at least some idea of the atmosphere in this room at Filthøj Castle immediately prior to the opening of the Grand Synod. It’s the kind of atmosphere that could be cut into thick slices with a cake knife, if one only had such a thing about one’s person.

  The stage is some distance away, and yet I am in no doubt as to who now appears upon it, because that person is Conny.

  My heart rate leaps to two or three hundred, so the details of what’s said are lost to me on account of the blood rushing in my ears, but what I do catch is that she presents herself as one half of a host couple who will be providing the musical entertainment, and her partner is—and at this juncture she throws open her arms—Count Rickardt Three Lions.

  You could have knocked me down with the fluff of a fledgling’s feather. Fortunately, no one in the vicinity appears to have such a thing or seems even in the slightest bit interested in knocking me down, because I am invisible in the throng. What has affected my balance in such a way is not the fact that Conny is the evening’s musical hostess, even if she is only fourteen, because it seems only reasonable that this should be so. Truth be told, from now until the end of our days I am expecting nothing but one long, uninterrupted demonstration on Conny’s part of the immeasurable distance between her galaxy and mine. What makes such an impression on me is rather how on earth those responsible could ever have been duped into letting Rickardt in on the act.

  Before I even have time to reflect on the matter, Rickardt takes the stage and has changed into a garment that could easily be Wee Willie Winkie’s nightshirt, and on his feet are a pair of long-toed poulaines.

  It’s a sight from which no one under normal circumstances would be able to wrench himself away. But now something happens that commands my full and undivided attention.

  The four police officers have placed Maria’s coffin on three chairs, and a tall Indian gentlemen wearing a robe of much the same cut as Count Rickardt’s is leaning over it. Tilte and I know straightaway that this must be Polly’s American-Indian guru, Da Sweet Love Ananda, now preparing to bless Maria and help her onward on her journey into the afterlife.

  We leap into action immediately. But too late. Polly removes the lid of the coffin, Da Sweet Love Ananda places his hand on the forehead of the deceased and begins to whisper some words.

  Then he removes his hand, this being a movement rather less dignified than the first, because he does so as though he just came into contact with an electric fence.

  At which point Black Henrik sits up in the coffin.

  He’s pale, his skin having almost the same color as his hair, and the reason for this is obvious: the cooler in the coffin is designed to keep anyone who happens to be inside at a temperature just above freezing
.

  A number of the journalists present are quick to discover what’s going on. Flashbulbs go off. A TV camera is turned toward him.

  Henrik climbs out of the coffin. With by no means the same elegance he might otherwise tend to demonstrate in such a situation, but still fast enough for him to be over the hills and far away by the time we reach the scene.

  Given my size, I’m now able to duck down and spot Henrik between the legs of the assembled delegates, whereupon I set off in pursuit. He’s headed for a doorway, beyond which a flight of stairs leads upward. I’m on his heels and catch up with him on the floor above.

  We come out onto a kind of gallery, which affords us a full view of the old chapel below, meaning this would be the former organ loft, and indeed the organ is here still.

  Henrik turns to face me. I shy behind the keyboard. Henrik flexes his fingers to wake them up after his layover in the coffin. I find myself thinking about a hundred and twenty-eight rats.

  “Henrik,” I say, “don’t do anything you might regret.”

  It’s not the kind of comment that clears the table and compels the mighty to fall to their knees, unlike my famous statement about the nape of Conny’s neck. But it does cause Henrik to pause and scrutinize me for a moment.

  “Do we know each other?” he asks.

  “Not yet,” I tell him. “But one of the beautiful things about life is the new friendships that lie ahead.”

  It’s cutting no ice. Instead, he begins to move toward me.

  But then a shadow falls upon him. It’s the shadow of my brother, Hans. At once, Hans has his arms around Henrik and has locked him in a tight embrace.

  Although, as I’ve said, a clear majority of the population considers Hans to be distinctly princely, it’s an undeniable fact that when it comes to defending the weak and innocent from the misdeeds of others, Hans is able to take on a demeanor more reminiscent of Frankenstein’s monster, prompting one to think that by the time he’s finished with his opponent there’ll be little left but hair and fingernails and a sprinkling of bone-meal. And that’s exactly what he looks like now.

  Henrik is clearly aware of it, for which reason he chooses to remain calm.

  “If you don’t mind,” I say.

  I frisk him, finding only a small, flat camera.

  What I was hoping to find was a remote control. For one cannot help but think that if a man such as Henrik has been on a jaunt through the secret tunnel while in the possession of plastic explosives, the purpose of his expedition will most likely not have been to experiment in peace and quiet with new methods of rat catching.

  “Henrik,” I say, “could we ask you to tell us where you’ve hidden the explosives?”

  He smiles at me. But it’s a smile devoid of the warmth and understanding one always hopes to elicit in grown-ups.

  “You’ll know soon enough,” he says.

  This is a tricky situation. I look down on the room below. The delegates have turned toward the stage and taken their seats. Rickardt Three Lions has everyone’s attention.

  “I would like to remind you of Goethe’s final words,” Rickardt says.

  This is a thing he has learned from Tilte, who has drawn up a lengthy list of famous last words, from which she often quotes, asking people to think about what their own last words should be. Right at this moment I could have done with something rather more upbeat, but no one asked me.

  “More light!” says Rickardt.

  At once, the lights are turned up. Rickardt has arranged the lighting himself and was overilluminated to begin with, but now a further twenty thousand watts burst upon the proceedings. I catch sight of my mother and father standing in the wings.

  Then a voice comes from the stair behind us, and it belongs to Tilte.

  “Henrik,” she says, “your mother would like to speak to you.”

  A female figure now looms into view, this being the bishop of Grenå herself, Anaflabia Borderrud.

  It’s hard to imagine some women having husbands and children. I don’t mean that in any negative sense. It may be that women such as Joan of Arc or Teresa of Ávila or Leonora Ticklepalate were born to carry out duties too great for them to bother with nappies and parents’ evenings. To my mind, Anaflabia is such a woman.

  But when, nevertheless, she turns out to be the mother of a child whom she has bounced upon her knee and whose rosy red cheeks she has kissed, it comes as no surprise to me that her child should be Black Henrik. Now that they’re standing so close to each other, I sense a commonality in their steely character. And there’s a physical similarity, too, a firmness of the jaw, as though it were hammered out of steel plate at the Finø Boatyard.

  But motherly love is not foremost in Anaflabia’s heart at this moment in time.

  “Henrik,” she says, “is it true what I’m hearing? That you have contrived some despicable bomb?”

  The change that comes over Henrik is so profound one can only think that against the feelings even a full-grown man has for his mother, the crusader inside stands not a chance. His body begins to squirm, and what it wants to do is plain: it wants to extricate itself and run for its life.

  But Hans has a firm grip on Henrik. And now Anaflabia steps forward.

  “Mother,” says Henrik, “you told me other religions were the devil’s work.”

  There’s a lump in his throat.

  “Henrik,” says Anaflabia, “you shall switch off that bomb and you shall do so right away!”

  Tears begin to slide down Henrik’s cheeks.

  “It’s too late,” he says. “The timer’s been started. It’s sealed. Fixed to the box in the vaults. But, Mother, it’s only a small bomb. To blow up the heathen treasures.”

  Anaflabia stares at him. Though motherly love is unconditional, it may still on occasion stand and gawp.

  “Then what are you doing here now?” she asks.

  Henrik dries his eyes.

  “I wanted to take some pictures for the scrapbook. So I could show the children. Your grandchildren, Mother.”

  66

  I know what many people would now say, Tilte among them. They would say that the present situation is, of course, tragic, yet it provides a magnificent opportunity to consider that all of us at any time may find ourselves in the middle of an explosion with objects flying through the air around us. And if indeed that were to happen, they would say, and if Henrik’s bomb should prove to be larger than he himself believes, causing some of us to be lost in such an explosion, all the major religions indicate that the best death you can wish for is when one or more saints are present who can walk in and out of the big door as though it were the swing door of the Finø Gentlemen’s Outfitters.

  Therefore, I am sorry to say that this is not a chance I am prepared to take. Instead, what happens is that my legs intervene. And one thing I’ve learned from the spiritual pathway of football is that on certain occasions much of one’s higher consciousness resides in the legs.

  I float down the stairs and fly through the old chapel, slipping swiftly past the security guards. I can tell from their faces they think I’m a choirboy or a novice monk, or a spiritual version of the ball boys at Wimbledon, and then I’m where I want to be, standing in front of Mother.

  The events my mother has lived through since the last time I saw her have clearly left their mark. It’s plain that she has seen things not even the most effective antiwrinkle cream would be able to reverse. The furrows that have appeared on her brow are here to stay, provided we survive Henrik’s bomb. And now they deepen even further as she sees me standing here before her.

  “Mother,” I say, “there’s a bomb under the floor. It’s attached to the security box. Can you send that box out of the tunnel?”

  The great majority of us will feel compelled to have words with our mothers on occasion. However, it is not often that one must ask one’s mother to wave goodbye to a couple of hundred million and go straight to jail for four years with one year off for good behavior. Nonetheless,
this is exactly what I am asking of my mother now, because what she must do is reveal to everyone the presence of soft soap in the tunnel and thereby the plan she has cooked up with Father, and this is a fact of which she is aware, and she stares at me with what I would call a look of panic in her eyes.

  “I can’t,” she says.

  I’ll be frank and say that I’m disappointed. After all, what’s two hundred million kroner and four years in jail compared to making Tilte and Hans and me and all the world religions happy and saving a billion kroners’ worth of glitter, and moreover cleaning up some of the mess she and Father have left behind?

  “We’ll visit you in jail,” I tell her. “Father can help the prison chaplain out. And you can play at the services. I’ve heard they have a new organ at the Læsø High Security Prison. They say some of the prisoners don’t want to leave because of it, even when they’ve finished their sentences.”

  She shakes her head.

  “It’s not that,” she says.

  I venture to glance behind me, only to discover that my mother and I now have the full attention of the assembly. It’s not just your average sort of attention; this eclipses even what I was accorded when duped into appearing on stage during the Mr. Finø contest. And in the brief glimpse of what I see over my shoulder I sense that the assembled notables are naturally curious to discover the state of Danish spirituality, and thus far they have seen Conny, who of course is a delight to any retina, though still only a child star of fourteen, and besides Conny they have seen Rickardt Three Lions, and now my mother and me.

  “Haven’t you got a remote control?” I ask.

  “It’s in the rubber dinghy,” my mother says.

  I begin to feel dizzy.

  “There must be some speech recognition in there somewhere,” I say. “There always is.”

  Powerful emotions surge silently though visibly through my mother’s organism. And I well understand her predicament.

  “ ‘Monday in the Rain,’ ” I say. “That’s what sets it off, isn’t it?”