The Elephant Keepers' Children Read Online Free PDF Page A

sun. On them, people of all kinds are seated. Mothers with children, young people our own age playing basketball, pensioners, kids with shaved heads and safety pins stuck through their lower lips who are sitting around contemplating their future, perhaps thinking of joining the police. There are men and women who are suntanned and tattooed and who have arrived at that crucial point in their career planning where they must decide whether they should roll their next joint now or leave it for another fifteen minutes.
    Tilte is standing up in the box. She waits for a moment until she has the attention of the entire park. Then she points directly back at the two men.
    â€œHonor killing!” she bellows.
    Tilte is only a tiny bit taller than me, and slightly built. But her hair is thick and curly, and the same color red as a letter box. She has extensions, too, and if you add to her hair what some would call her aura of military leadership, you will have some idea as to what happens now.
    Reality once again begins to change. It is suddenly obvious that we are driving a bridal carriage, that Hans and the girl are the newlyweds, Tilte is the bridesmaid, I am the page boy, and Basker is the bridal dog. It is also clear that the two men rapidly approaching are prospective murderers bent on preventing young love from prevailing.
    This abruptly brings Nørrebro’s history as a working-class district of the city into prominence. It’s a subject we have only touched upon in school, on a day when my intellectual curvewas not at its apex, so its details aren’t particularly clear to me, and it’s hard to say how many of the people taking in the sun in the park one would justifiably call industrial workers, if one were to be exact about it. But we learned at school that if the Danish working class holds one image dear, it is that when love is true, young people must be permitted to follow their hearts, and that image rises to the surface now and becomes visible. Another thing is that the BMW and the suits cast an air of capitalism over the two men, a state of affairs that in Nørrebro may quickly prove detrimental to the health, and then there’s Tilte’s charisma. Everyone in the park can sense that she is a sovereign queen calling to arms, and deep, deep down the Danish people have always cherished their royal house.
    So what happens is that a barricade is extended across the road, consisting of mothers with prams, kids in baggy jeans and hoodies, and men and women who are not to be messed with. Their backs, which are turned toward us, exude warmth and protection, and their fronts, which are facing the other way, say that one more step and the two gentlemen in suits will be afforded the opportunity of witnessing a historical event, namely, the reintroduction of the death penalty in the Nørrebro district of Copenhagen.
    Tilte sits down again, Hans flicks the reins, and the four jet-black horses leap forward like kangaroos. Far behind us I can see our pursuers once more picking up speed, but this time they are fleeing, away from us and their firing squad, back to whatever is left of their BMW.
    We cross a main road and continue along sun-drenched streets, and so powerful is the effect of what has happened and what Tilte has said, that for a moment we have forgotten all about what might have happened to Mother and Father. We are just happy on behalf of Hans and his divinely beautiful bride, and cars honk their horns in congratulation and we wave back.
    We pass a large square and follow a street lined with trees, and then our singer says, “This is where I get off.”
    From her bag she has produced a pair of running shoes, which she is now wearing, and a sweater she has put on over her green dress, and she has placed a scarf over her head and managed to dull some of her starry luster, though only slightly so, for it is forceful and enduring, and quite frankly I will still say, between you and me, that