The Elephant Keepers' Children (39 page)

Regrettably, I must now break down the walls of that room. I slap my palms hard against the windscreen, then duck down between the front wheels and slip beneath the bus.

From this point on I can see only as much as can be viewed from underneath a bus. But even this is encouraging. I see Alexander halt, and from the expression on his face it would seem that he has caught sight of Lars and Katinka and that they have caught sight of him and recognized him through the remains of the cake. Alexander turns on his heel, as indeed do Thorkild Thorlacius and Anaflabia somewhat farther away.

It is testimony to the mental agility of these three individuals that in a split second they can switch their attention from a heartfelt desire to apprehend and mistreat me to an entirely different one involving them making themselves scarce. In the manner of the true cons they are rapidly becoming, they split up and leg it in different directions, thereby forcing their pursuers to divide themselves. The last I see is the three of them at full pelt on their way over Kongens Nytorv, dispersing to various corners of the globe with Lars and Katinka hot on their heels.

I bow to Pallas Athene.

“All clear,” I say.

Her gaze follows the absconding trio and their pursuers.

“I've only known you for just over two hours,” she says. “But I must say that if you keep this up you're going make yourself a lot of enemies.”

“At least I've no record of violence,” I tell her. “Unlike some.”

“You're only twenty-one,” she says. “Wait till you get to my age.”

We step inside the bus
. The driver's area is separated from the rest of the bus by a partition wall, and when we open the door, it becomes clear that using this vehicle for a sightseeing business would be a total nonstarter, because all the windows are blacked out and all the seats have been removed to make room for elecronic equipment comprising maybe fifty monitors, in front of which sit four people equipped with headphones and microphones, all four so absorbed in their work that not one of them turns to look up as we pass.

In the middle of this space, a small winding staircase leads us upward into an almost identical room, once again containing four dedicated individuals immersed in whatever it is they're doing. This space is only half as big, constrained as it is by another partition wall with a wide door in it, which I now proceed to open without knocking.

The room we enter amply makes up for the blackout of the rest of the bus, because here there are windows from floor to ceiling, as well as in the roof. The glass must be polarized and tinted in a special way, because none of this is visible from the outside, though inside it is like a very comfortable aquarium.

The man seated comfortably here is Albert Winehappy. I know this immediately, and Anaflabia hit the nail on the head: the man is a cardinal, maybe even a pope, because cardinals presumably have someone higher ranking above them, but the man who reclines here in his chair does so in such a way as to suggest that he could lift off without ever banging his head against another living soul, if you understand what I mean.

The only problem he would encounter about lifting off would be of a quite different nature altogether, to do with the fact that he's as fat as a prize sow at the Finø Agricultural Fair, and there's absolutely no reason to believe that his superfluous weight has been an easy thing to achieve. Rather, it has obviously involved some considerable work, work that he is just as obviously willing to perform, because in front of him is the biggest packed lunch I've ever seen in my life, and as he considers us, he unwraps it to reveal at least twenty slices of rye bread, all generously heaped with delicacies.

He has cottoned on to my gaze.

“One hundred and sixty kilos,” he says. “I'm aiming for one hundred and eighty.”

“I'm sure that won't be a problem,” I tell him.

“Some of it's comfort eating,” he says. “On account of having run into your family.”

A more impolite individual would say that in that case he must have run into us generations ago, but I was brought up in a rectory.

I place the flash drive containing the footage from the old chapel in front of him and write down the registration number of the black van on a pad.

“My sister, Tilte, has been kidnapped,” I tell him. “An hour ago, in a van with that registration. That's the first thing. The second is that there are four people, three men and a woman, intending to blow up the exhibition that's going on alongside the Grand Synod. On that flash drive are image and sound files that show them in dim light for a minute and a half.”

He must have pressed a button, because now a woman enters. She's thirty years younger than him but in full possession of the aura of power needed to succeed him as pope. She picks up my notes and the flash drive, and then leaves.

Pallas Athene and I have both taken a seat. Albert Winehappy considers us for a moment. Perhaps he abandons himself to the pleasure of the sight before him. Perhaps he is merely thinking. My guess is the latter.

“If you'll allow me to be frank,” I say, “and speak freely to a civil servant of high rank and advanced years. We've never met before. But it seems to me that you have been personally responsible for warrants put out for the arrest of my parents and my older brother, and for my sister and me being taken into custody and banged up in a rehab center for substance abusers. Moreover, it seems that you gave the go-ahead for us to be forcibly removed from our home by the authorities, that it is your doing that our same childhood home has been taken apart and gone over with a fine-tooth comb, and that a
bishop, a neural scientist, and a representative of the Ministry of Education have been let loose upon us. Not to mention your issuing the order that our dog, Basker, be put down.”

Albert Winehappy wears a beard, and this is an insightful move on his part, because his face would otherwise be devoid of contrast, rather in the manner of a full moon. Now he strokes that beard pensively. I sense his intelligence. It's as though just behind his frontal lobes is a buzzing hive of bees.

The female successor returns.

“The vehicle was stolen this morning,” she says. “From a carport in Glostrup. The owner's away. We got hold of him on his mobile. It wouldn't have been missed for another week. We've had a look at the footage. It'll take awhile to go through it all. But we've got a positive ID on the four floaters.”

Albert Winehappy fixes his gaze on Pallas Athene.

“I run a brothel,” she says. “I did three men and a woman last night. We've got a card number for one of them. A Dane by the name of Henrik.”

She writes some digits on the pad that's lying on the desk as she consults her mobile. She must have investigated while I was serving cake to Alexander Flounderblood.

Albert Winehappy turns back to me.

“Do tell me what you've been up to since you gave us the slip.”

I give him the short version, though with all the relevant headlines: our escape from Big Hill, the trip to Finøholm, the crossing on the
White Lady
, and our morning in Copenhagen. As I relate these events, I sense unease on the part of Pallas
Athene. Perhaps it occurs to her that life may hold more severe fates than being bothered by men in traffic. But Albert Winehappy reveals no emotion, apart from profound satisfaction with his
smørrebrød
. By the time I reach the end of my tale, all twenty pieces have departed whence nothing ever returns.

“You're fourteen years old,” he says. “Technically, a child.”

“But my soul has age. And I have reached deep into my being.”

These are words I'd be reticent about uttering in the dressing room of Finø FC. But it's imperative the man in front of me takes me seriously.

He stares at me. His eyes seem to widen. And then he chuckles.

He reaches a hand the size of a plum pudding under the table and produces what looks like a pirate's chest. And from it he takes out his real lunch, the twenty pieces of
smørrebrød
heaped with delicacies merely being an appetizer. He senses my gaze.

“I had a difficult childhood,” he says.

“You should come and see mine,” I tell him.

He lifts an open sandwich that seems to be little more than one great dollop of mayonnaise with the occasional shrimp peeping out coquettishly. He places it on his tongue and then closes his mouth, whereupon the whole thing disappears. From a folder on his desk he takes a sheet of paper on which are affixed four photographs of three men and a woman. Pallas Athene gives a start. One of the men has hair so white it looks like it's been bleached with peroxide. I assume him to be Black
Henrik, enemy number one of rats and the indebted alike. It's hard to say anything about his appearance other than that this is a man of confidence who doesn't mind demonstrating that fact.

“You've heard of
fundamentalism
,” Albert Winehappy says. “Well, religion didn't invent it. Most people are fundamentalists, and the world is a den of thieves.”

Behind him is a small cask of draft beer. With pleasure and pride I note that Finø Brewery's Special Brew seems to be winning market shares across the country. He fills a half-liter glass and pours the contents down his throat.

“Cheers,” he says.

I find myself thinking that if anyone should ever wish to discover Albert Winehappy's weakness, all they'd have to do would be to take away his packed lunches or his draft beer and they'd have a fundamentalist on their hands before they could say Jack Robinson.

“Globalization is putting the squeeze on the great religions, and their response is to go fundamental. The whole fucking lot of them. Fundamentalists are everywhere. Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Islamists, and whatever else they all choose to call themselves. There's only one safeguard, and that's the police and the armed forces.”

At this point, I'm very close to asking if we shouldn't also mention Asa-Thor, which on Finø has recently demonstrated clear fundamentalist tendencies. Its membership has plummeted from seven to five since word got out that Einar Flogginfellow is considering sacrificing his son, Knud, who's
in the same class as Tilte, to Odin in order to compete with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Denmark, not to mention Polly Pigonia and Sinbad Al-Blablab and Lama Svend-Holger, which consideration I warmly applaud seeing as how Knud is a habitual criminal second only to Karl Marauder Lander in despicability. But again my sense of timing tells me the moment would not be well chosen.

“Fundamentalism begets terror,” says Albert Winehappy. “And most people harbor a terrorist inside them. It's only a matter of time before he appears, and for that reason people have to be kept on a short lead. Ninety-five percent of the earth's population needs to be told how to behave. That's why terrorists work within organizations. Not one in a thousand ever works alone.”

His eyes pick out a piece of
smørrebrød
. One must assume the towering heap of delicacies to rest somewhere upon a slice of rye bread, but this is nowhere visible. What is visible is a hunk of liver pâté as thick as a loaf, on top of which lies the greater part of the country's annual yield of mushrooms, elegantly topped by rashers of crispy bacon from half a pig.

“Those who do work alone are the tricky ones. We call them floaters. No permanent fixpoints and always on the move. They're my area of expertise. And I'm going to tear their fucking heads off!”

He drums a finger on the sheet of paper in front of him.

“This lot here are floaters. We've known about them individually for more than ten years. What we've not seen until now—and what has never been seen before in history—is that
they appear to have joined forces. And how the hell they can do that without murdering each other is something we've had more than a little trouble getting our heads around. So much so that we're almost off our food.”

I feel an urge to comfort him and tell him how confident I am that his appetite will survive, but at the same time I've no wish to distract him from the worthy successor to his liver pâté, which involves roast beef and would seem to require the aid of a forklift truck in order to successfully make the journey from plate to mouth.

“The world's a filthy place,” he says. “And when people get together they do so only out of need. We think that what brought these four hooligans together is something they believe to be even more dangerous than each other. And that something is the Grand Synod.”

He now feels compelled to get to his feet and stand by the window. Propelling himself those few steps would seemingly equate to a marathon.

“All the great religions have two sides to them. And if you ask me, one's dafter than the other. There's a side that faces outward. They call it
exoteric
, and it's what the vast majority of adherents relate to. Then there's the side that faces inward. That's what they call
esoteric
, and it's reserved for the chosen few. The exoteric, outward-facing side is what's practiced in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Denmark, in the Catholic Church, in mosques, temples, synagogues, and
gompas
all over the world. It's all about external rites and rituals comforting believers, telling them that while they might be going through a
rough patch right now, everything will be all right once they're dead. The other side, the esoteric part, is for the loonies.”

From the window, he casts a long glance back at the ten open sandwiches that remain alluringly on his enormous plate.

“It's for those who can't make do with just a taste. The ones who can't wait until they die, but who want all the answers here and now.”

“You're like that, too!”

I blurt it out, with no idea why. But all of a sudden, I'm in no doubt that Albert Winehappy is an elephant keeper.