The Elephant Keepers' Children Read Online Free PDF

were it not for the fact that I had sworn eternal devotion to Conny and moreover firmly believe that an age difference of more than two years between lovers is tantamount to cradle snatching, then I, too, would be in immediate danger of falling in love with her.
    So now we all look at Hans.
    It makes no real sense to say that Hans had been bowled over by a woman, because every second of the day he is not merely bowled over but knocked for six by the very fact that women even exist. And yet I will say that even though I have seen him look quite ridiculous so many times and in so many different ways when confronted with a girl, this time completely demolishes all previous records. He is utterly dazed by that first, naked impression that Tilte and I have drawn upour theory about, so dazed that he is transformed into a cuddly teddy, helplessly gazing at this dark beauty with his big watery-blue eyes.
    Tilte takes charge.
    â€œWhat’s your name?” she asks the girl. “Ashanti.”
    And then she adds, “You’ve all been wonderful.”
    â€œWe know,” says Tilte. “And now you can do one of two things. The first is that you can keep all that wonder and put it away inside your heart to treasure like a pearl and carry it with you until the day you lie upon your deathbed.”
    I don’t know why Tilte always has to bring death into everything, but that’s the way she is.
    â€œAnd the second?” asks the girl.
    â€œThe second,” says Tilte, “is that we give you Hans’s phone number. With two admirers like yours, you could be needing help again in a hurry.”
    The girl whose name is Ashanti looks at Tilte.
    â€œThey’re bodyguards,” she says.
    She gets out her mobile.
    â€œThey looked like prison guards,” Tilte says.
    â€œThat’s the problem,” says Ashanti. “When it gets hard to tell the difference.”
    You can hear that somewhere deep within her perfect Danish resides a foreign dialect, rather like if you were to bump into a coconut palm in the woods of Finø.
    Tilte gives her Hans’s number and she adds it to her contacts. When she looks up again we all think she’s going toclimb down from the carriage. But first she gives Basker a kiss, me a kiss, Tilte a kiss, and finally she presses her lips to Hans’s lifeless body, a kiss that lasts just a moment longer than all the others. And then she climbs down and floats away.
    Some people take daylight away with them when they leave. After she has gone, everything seems that much darker, and then reality returns with the phone call from Bodil Hippopotamus and the certain knowledge that Mother and Father have disappeared.

4
    We’re waiting in the courtyard
of Hans’s student residence facing the Fælledparken. The street outside is all sunshine and traffic and church bells pealing and people going to buy milk and newspapers at the twenty-four-hour store, an abundance of life. But in our own immediate space everything is bleak.
    â€œThey’ll be here in a minute,” says Tilte.
    â€œNo one’s going to take you away,” says Hans.
    Perhaps all of us have other people inside us, but I do know that inside my older brother lives someone who wants to protect us. It’s not often that person appears, but when he does, all readings go off the scale and things begin to tumble. The best restaurant in Finø Town is down by the harbor and is called the Nincompoop, and on several occasions Hans has passed by the place, swirling around some girls who are taking him for a walk, and from out of the Nincompoop three or four young men have appeared who have taken it into their heads that the perfect conclusion to a hearty five-course meal with a selection of fine wines during an idyllic holiday break in surroundings of natural beauty and historical significance would be to beat the living daylights out of some of the locals, and they have beenunder the