The Elephant Keepers' Children Read Online Free

greengrocer’s lemons turn out to be composting, and the old lady with her Zimmer and her cat food looks at us as if we’re driving a hearse and she’s going to ask if she can see the deceased one last time.
    Then I say, “Bodil’s frightened.”
    We all heard it, and in a way that’s the scariest part. All of us heard something in Bodil’s voice that can be understood only in one way: that she has run into something bigger than herself.
    And then the singing begins.
    It comes from inside the church, and the voice is female. She must be using a microphone, and BlÃ¥gÃ¥rds Plads is at the same time a funnel that amplifies sound. The song is a foreign hymn and swings gently like gospel music.
    The words are inaudible, but it doesn’t matter as long as the voice is there. It is a voice big enough for us to park our whole carriage inside, and it is so warm that we would not be cold for one second, not even on a winter’s day, and so cozy that we would gladly run the risk of a parking ticket, because we would never want to leave ever again.
    For a brief moment, it lights up BlÃ¥gÃ¥rds Plads. It puts the greengrocer’s lemons back on the trees, it makes the men on the bench consider joining Alcoholics Anonymous, and it causes the old lady in front of us to let go of her Zimmer and prepare to dance the fandango.
    It prompts Hans to get to his feet, Tilte to stand up on the seat, and me to move up close to Hans and elbow him in the side so that he will lift me up to see, the way he has done ever since I was small.
    A procession emerges from the church. I can see several clergymen in chasubles, a lot of people dressed in black, and in front of them walks the lady who is singing.
    At first one wonders how someone so small could possess such a large voice, and then one thinks that she is not a person at all, because it seems like a long green dress is floating of its own accord, and above it a green silk hat like a turban with nothing in it. Then the dress turns and a face becomes visible, her skin is light brown like the stone of which the church is built, and that is what makes her face disappear.
    Then she looks toward us, and as she holds the final note she takes off her golden high-heeled shoes, removes her green turban, allows it to fall to the ground, and grabs a bag froma person standing next to her. In her hand she is holding a wireless microphone that she places on the ground, and then she lifts up the hem of her dress and begins to run. She runs toward us on her bare feet, over the snow and past the men on the bench. And before she is halfway across the square I can tell that she is the same age as Tilte or slightly older, and that she can do the four hundred meters in under a minute.
    As she reaches the carriage, she leaps like a grasshopper onto the box next to Hans, and even as she is still suspended in the air, she yells, “Drive! Now! I’m the one who booked you!”
    The procession is in disarray outside the church, people are shoved aside, two men in suits break out of the crowd and start running toward us. We know, all four of us, that they are after the singer. And we know, too, that we are on her side. I’ll tell you straight out why. She could have been a child pornographer or an abuser of animals, but with that voice I would have tried to save her anyway, and I know that Tilte and Basker feel the same way.
    But we need Hans, and for a brief moment we have no idea if he is up to the job.
    Regrettably, Hans has yet to discover women.
    Which is all the more embarrassing given that women have long since discovered him. When he stands in for Finø’s harbormaster in June and July and finishes cleaning the toilets at about eight o’clock every night and is done collecting mooring fees from all the boats, at least three of the sweetest girls of summer will be waiting to take him for a walk. But taking Hans for a walk is easier said than done,