The Elephant Keepers' Children (30 page)

“Early this morning I visited the clinic,” he says. “For treatment.”

Katinka takes time to swallow the last of a cinnamon whirl.

“Sounds like a good idea to me,” she says.

To Tilte and me it seems obvious that regardless of their having fallen in love with each other, and despite the coffee and the cinnamon whirls, Katinka and Lars are rapidly tiring of the company on board, and perhaps especially of Alexander Flounderblood.

“It was five o'clock,” Alexander says. “I awoke in peristaltic distress. Stomach cramps. My first thought is: The canapés! My second is to waken you, Professor! But I've no idea which cabin is yours.”

At this point it would seem that Thorkild's relief at not having been woken at five in the morning to attend to Alexander Flounderblood's digestion has caused him to forget all about Tilte and me, if only for a moment.

“So there I am staggering down the corridor. And then all of a sudden, I find myself outside the ship's hospital and literally fall through the door. Imagine my relief to see the female physician in front of me. I explain to her my predicament and ask to be examined. I remove my trousers and lie down on the couch. She seems oddly unconcerned by my pain. I fall down before her and reach for her hand. Only to discover that the woman is as cold as ice. I feel for her pulse and there is none. She's dead!”

Bullimilla has now approached and is standing behind Alexander, and one can tell that the insinuation that her canapés may have been the cause of a bad turn has given rise to disapproval.

“The woman from the carriage,” says Thorkild. “She must be the ship's doctor. I warned her. ‘You are dying, madam,' is what I told her.”

But Alexander Flounderblood hasn't finished yet.

“I stumble through the ship. Racked with pain. Meeting not a living soul until finding a man on the bridge. An officer of the ship. He refuses to believe a word, but I persuade him to come back with me to the clinic. We open the door. The room is empty. The corpse is gone.”

Tilte and I exchange glances. Our timing was apparently such that Flounderblood was away when we collected Maria and reinstalled her in her coffin. It's the kind of coincidence that can make a person reconsider the concept of cosmic justice.

“I demand an investigation. People are making me out to be a fool. Casting aspersions concerning alcohol consumption. So now I have come here. To report a death. Perhaps even a crime. The body has been removed.”

The
White Lady
rocks slightly. We have now docked at the Langelinie quayside. A rumbling vibration from the hull indicates that the gangway is being positioned.

Katinka rises slowly to her feet.

“If I may sum up,” she says. “The ship's doctor, who is dying, is driven by horse-drawn carriage to the ship. Once on
board, she retires to the restaurant cold store for a little rest. I'm sure we all recall looking for her there last night. From the cold store she at some point removes to the ship's clinic, there to carry out her duties as ship's doctor. Only she dies instead and is subsequently whisked away sometime early this morning.”

“Indeed,” says Thorkild. “Such must be the chain of events.”

“There's just the minor detail of where the body is,” Katinka adds.

“Indeed,” says Thorkild. “The only uncertainty.”

From my position opposite him I sense that Thorkild is impressed by Katinka's ability to draw together the facts, though rather less aware of the sarcasm that oozes from her recapitulation.

“Yesterday,” Katinka goes on, “when Lars and I released you from custody, a decision we now realize to have been a severe mistake, you, sir”—and at this juncture she indicates Thorkild—“presented yourself as a neural scientist. I suggest now that you and your companions remove yourselves from Langelinie to a place where you all can have your brains examined. What's more, I think you should take that gentleman with the sticky-up hair with you.”

This she says with a nod in the direction of Alexander Flounderblood.

And with that she removes her gaze from Thorkild.

One should always be careful about removing one's gaze from Thorkild. Recent events have opened Tilte's eyes and mine to the fact that the professor is equipped with the temper
of an Italian donna, and this fate of nature has been reinforced by the blows that have been dealt him of late. Added to which is the man's long-standing membership of the Academical Boxing Club.

And sure enough, Thorkild now springs to his feet like a jack-in-the-box and launches a fierce uppercut toward Katinka's abdomen.

It is a blow invested with his full body weight. Had its delivery been completed, Katinka would most certainly have had a struggle on her hands. But the punch falls short. Or rather, a hand as heavy as a meat cleaver is brought down on the professor's arm to foil his attack. And the hand belongs to Bullimilla.

“What was that I heard about my canapés?” she says.

By rights, Thorkild is not the one to ask, but he readily provides Bullimilla with a reply, which takes the form of a left hook aimed at her temple.

This punch, too, is thwarted as Katinka comes in from behind, grabs the professor's hand, and twists until he is forced down onto the table. In the same seamless movement she produces a pair of handcuffs, and for the second time in less than twenty-four hours the professor finds himself with both hands cuffed behind his back.

Tilte and I have read with interest about how patterns of the opposite sex always form around the great mystics, like, for instance, the female attendants of Jesus and Buddha and Einar Flogginfellow, who never goes anywhere unless accompanied by his mother and his daughters and at least two
top-flight players from the women's team. Tilte and I have discussed whether some system kicks in every time a major personality unfolds, and this is a theory that is nourished empirically here at this breakfast table, where it becomes clear that the women surrounding Thorkild Thorlacius have not the slightest intention of retreating to their Danish pastries while their alpha male is led away.

One minute his wife is sipping her herbal tea and nibbling her crispbread without butter, the next she's spitting flames and smoke is coming out of her nostrils as she hurls herself at Katinka and Bullimilla.

Tilte and I choose this strategic moment to sneak away. As we depart, I see Lars place a hand on the arm of Vera the Secretary, presumably to prevent her from putting her oar in.

“I can't stand to be touched,” says Vera.

She says this in a voice that would have prompted Lars to let go if only he had heard it. But he is fully entangled in the catfight that is now ensuing and soon will be out of control.

“Release her!” Anaflabia orders. “She's my secretary!”

“I don't care if she's your makeup artist or your personal shopper,” says Lars. “You two are coming down to the station where you can explain everything in a statement.”

At this moment, Vera reveals the truth of her claim that she cannot stand to be touched, and she does so by planting her knee firmly in Lars's abdomen.

And this is the last thing Tilte and I and Basker see before we escape down the gangway.

Awaiting us on the quayside
is not only a welcoming committee but also a crowd perhaps a hundred strong, including journalists and photographers and people with television cameras, which again goes to show the importance of Finø in the greater scheme of things.

Tilte and I are looking to disappear into the throng, because now that we've got this far without being recognized by Lars and Katinka it would be tragic indeed if that were to happen at this point, so we're the first to hit the quayside.

But we forgot to take account of the journalists, and it now transpires that this is a section of the population that can organize a defensive wall worthy of any set piece involving Tilte and me on the edge of the penalty area, and they are upon us like hawks, sticking their microphones under our noses and wanting to know what confession we belong to and what our expectations are as to the conference, and I have to admit they catch us unawares.

In this kind of situation, in which all your plans fall apart, the great systems of spiritual guidance will tend to rub their hands together in glee and say that it is at this point exactly that the world becomes fresh and open in all its shocking
unexpectedness, and the Zen Buddhists would say that one should concentrate on one's breathing, and the Vedantic Hindus would say that one must ask oneself who exactly is experiencing this outlandish breakdown, and the nuns of St. Teresa of Ávila's convent somewhere in Andalucia would say that one must recite the Lord's Prayer, and in a way all of this is what Tilte and I attempt to do at one and the same time.

But this is also the point at which forgetfulness and distraction enter, and I forget to keep hold of Basker, who has tired of being kept underneath Svend Sewerman's curtains and instead wants out and in on the action, and so he wriggles himself free and runs back up the gangway to gain a view of what's going on.

And at this very moment, the worst possible of all, Alexander and Thorkild and the three women appear, all of them handcuffed, and behind them come Lars and Katinka.

Lars is sporting a black eye that is already so swollen that one ought to have a word and recommend he and Katinka putting off the wedding for at least five or six months until the swelling goes down. But his injury does not prevent him from spotting Basker, and now Katinka sees him, too. And not only do Lars and Katinka both see Basker, they also recognize him and draw the reasonable conclusion that Tilte and I cannot be far away. Their searching gaze falls upon us, at which point their common thought process grinds to a halt, foiled by our disguises. But then logic steps in to sweep all doubt aside, and now they realize that they have found the individuals they were supposed to have been guarding
but who nevertheless managed to escape from their watchful eyes.

Until this point, Lars has been keeping hold of Alexander and Thorkild, but now he lets go of them both and starts to run toward us.

In a way, it's rather touching for Tilte and me to witness how eager a detective constable can be to carry out his duty, even in such a tight spot as this. It's the kind of diligence that means we all may sleep soundly in our beds at night.

Unfortunately, it now undermines his cool, detached thinking. Personally, I would never leave two such individuals as Alexander Flounderblood and Thorkild Thorlacius unattended at any time, certainly not in their current state of mind. Because all it takes is just such a moment's inattention for everything to go to pot.

I turn to the journalists in front of us. It seems they've noticed very little of all this, and what they have noticed they lack the deductive premises to comprehend. So they're still standing waiting to find out who Tilte and I are.

“We're singers, that's all,” I tell them. “We accompany the two trance dancers, Alexander and Thorkild. That's them up there on the gangway.”

“They're handcuffed,” says one of the journalists.

“Indeed, but only to make sure they don't hurt themselves when they're in a trance,” I tell them.

“Which is when they make contact with the dead,” Tilte adds.

Tilte and I have no real notion of how journalists prioritize their time, but it becomes clear that trance dancing and contacting the dead are right up there at the top of the list, because now the defensive wall moves as one organism up the gangway, pinning Lars against the railing in the process.

Here, however, his superior physical shape prevails. Half a dozen journalists are swept aside as though they were bowling pins, and for a brief and rather threatening moment Lars has a clear view.

But then he is engulfed. And what engulfs him is Lama Svend-Holger, Polly Pigonia, Sinbad Al-Blablab, and their respective entourages, and the whole process looks rather haphazard, as though they merely want to get a look at what's happening, but Tilte and I can see the gleam in their eyes, and in it we see the noble compassion that is the hallmark of all the great religions.

We are about to turn and vanish into the crowd when the first journalist claws his way forward to Thorkild Thorlacius and in a clear voice asks him if he believes trance dancing will be a big thing at the conference and if he would mind showing the viewers a couple of steps.

We're spellbound, and thereby also able to hear the second question, which is put to Alexander Flounderblood and concerns whether he might have been in contact with any dead person recently.

It is a question that is followed by a scream, from which it is apparent that Alexander, whose hands are cuffed, has
delivered a kick to the groin of the inquisitive journalist. And after that, all hell breaks loose and the gangway dissolves into what most often would be referred to as a scuffle. By this time, Tilte and Basker and I have already made ourselves scarce.

We weave our way through the crowd
and past the waiting cars. If like us you've been cooped up with a shipload of lunatics and then suddenly discover the whole wide world lies open at your feet, you will no doubt feel an urge to expel a whoop of joy, and this is indeed what we are about to do when the claw of a crane grips us tight and lifts us into the air.

Many people in this situation would incline toward throwing in the towel, but not me. I've scored heaps of goals from positions such as this, hemmed in by four defenders who could have made a name for themselves in Hollywood as stand-ins for King Kong without even having to wear a mask. I have only a hundredth of a millimeter in which to maneuvre. But for the strong of faith, a hundredth of a millimeter is enough, so I whirl around and put the boot into the bloke behind us.

It feels like kicking a fully inflated tractor tire, which is to say that it gives slightly, though without moving, and makes no sound. I know only one person with that kind of resilience, so I tip my head back to look straight into the blue doll's eyes of our brother Hans.