let in their austrian conquerors. Others, equally bemused by the captain's submissive attitude, felt that his first mistake had been to arrive at the castle and, without more ado, declare, Hand over the elephant, we have no time to lose. Any austrian, born and brought up in central europe, knows that in circumstances such as these, you have to know how to talk and charm, that you should first inquire after the health of the family, make some flattering comment about the excellent condition of the portuguese horses and the imposing majesty of castelo rodrigo's fortifications, and only then, like someone suddenly remembering that he had some other matter to deal with as well, Ah, of course, the elephant. Still other soldiers, more aware of the harsh realities of life, argued that if things had gone as their colleagues had wished, they would now be on the road with the elephant, but with nothing to give him to eat, because it would hardly have made sense for the portuguese to dispatch the ox-cart, laden with the bundles of forage and the water trough, while they stayed on at castelo rodrigo for who knows how long, waiting to go home, There's only one explanation, said a rather studious-looking corporal, which is that the captain did not, in fact, have orders from the archduke or whoever to demand that the elephant be handed over immediately, and it was only later, en route or once he had reached castelo rodrigo, that the idea occurred to him, If I could cut the portuguese out of this game of cards, he thought, all the glory would go to me and my men. It would be reasonable to ask how anyone harboring such thoughts and so totally lacking in sincerity could possibly have been appointed captain of a troop of austrian cuirassiers, because, as even a child could understand, that friendly allusion to the soldiers was a mere tactic to disguise his own, all-excluding ambition. A shame really. We are, more and more, our own defects and not our qualities.
...
AS IF IN PREPARATION for a major procession, the city of valladolid had decided to put on all its pomp to receive the long-awaited pachyderm, even going so far as to adorn the balconies with draperies and some rather faded bunting that fluttered in the now almost autumnal breeze. Dressed as cleanly as was feasible in those unhygienic times, families filled the not so clean streets, impelled by two principal objectives, finding out where the elephant was and what would happen afterwards. There were a few spoilsports who declared that the elephant was just a rumor, who might possibly appear one day, although there was no telling when that might be. There were others who swore that the poor, exhausted creature had been resting since its arrival yesterday, after the long, hard road it had traveled in order to reach valladolid, first from lisbon to figueira de castelo rodrigo, and then from the portuguese frontier to this city which, for the last two years, has had the honor of being home to those lofty personages, his royal highness the archduke maximilian and his wife, maria, daughter of the em peror charles the fifth, in their roles as regents of spain. We note this only to show the importance of these people, all of them belonging to the most royal of royalties, who lived in the time of solomon and, somehow or another, not only had direct knowledge of his existence, but also of his epic and so far pacific exploits. Right now, the archduke and his wife are watching, entranced, as the elephant is being washed, in the presence of distinguished members of the court and the clergy and a few artists expressly summoned in order to immortalize on paper, wood and canvas the animal's face and his imposing physique. The elephant's alter ego subhro is in charge of operations, which, once again, feature large quantities of water and that same long-handled broom. Subhro is happy because, since he arrived more than twenty-four hours ago, he has seen no sign of a replacement mahout, although he has been told officially by the archduke's steward that, from now on, solomon will be called suleiman. He disliked this change of name intensely, but, as they say, you might lose your rings, but you still have your fingers. Suleiman, let us resign ourselves, we have no option but to call him that, was greatly improved by this general clean-up, but he became truly splendid, dazzling even, when a few servants, after much effort, managed to throw over him a vast saddlecloth on which twenty embroiderers had labored ceaselessly for weeks, a work whose peer it would be hard to find anywhere in the world, such was the abundance of gems, which, while not all precious stones, glittered as if they were, not to mention the gold thread and the opulent velvets. A ridiculous waste, grumbled the archbishop to himself, from his seat not far from the archduke, instead of squandering money on that beast, they could have embroidered a magnifi cent canopy for the cathedral, so that we don't always have to process beneath the same old one, as if we were some second-rate village somewhere, not the city of valladolid. A gesture from the regent interrupted these subversive thoughts. There was no need to understand his words, the movements made by the royal hands were enough, pointing first up, then down, it was clear that the archduke wished to speak to the mahout. Accompanied by a minor court dignatory, subhro felt as if he were dreaming a dream he had already dreamed, when, in the filthy enclosure at belem, he was led over to a man with a long beard who turned out to be the king of portugal, joao the third. The gentleman who has just summoned him has no beard, his face is perfectly clean-shaven, and he is, we can say without fear or favor, a fine figure of a man. Beside him sits his beautiful wife, the archduchess maria, the beauty of whose face and body will not last long because she will go on to give birth no less than sixteen times, ten boys and six girls. Monstrous. Subhro is now standing before the archduke, waiting for the questions to begin. As was perfectly foreseeable, the first question was inevitably, What is your name, My name is subhro, sir, Sub what, Subhro, sir, that is my name, And does your name mean anything, It means white, sir, In which language, In bengali, sir, one of the languages of india. The archduke fell silent for a few seconds, and then asked, Are you from india, Yes, sir, I traveled to portugal with the elephant two years ago, Do you like your name, It wasn't my choice, it was the name I was given, sir, Would you choose another if you could, I'm not sure, sir, I've never thought about it, What would you say if I made you change your name, Your highness would need to have a reason, And I do. Subhro did not respond, he knew all too well that one is not allowed to ask questions of kings, that must be why it has always been so difficult, not to say impossible, to get an answer out of any of them regarding the doubts and perplexities besetting their subjects. Then archduke maximilian said, Your name is hard to pronounce, So I have been told, sir, No one in vienna will be able to understand it, That will be my misfortune, sir, But there is a remedy, from now on you will be called fritz, Fritz, said subhro in a pained voice, Yes, it's an easy name to remember, besides there are an enormous number of fritzes in austria already, so you'll be one among many, but the only one with an elephant, If your highness permits, I would prefer to keep my own name, No, I've decided, and I warn you, I'll be angry if you ask again, just get it into your head that your name is fritz and no other, Yes, sir. Then the archduke, rising from his sumptuous seat, said in a loud and sonorous voice, Listen closely, this man has just accepted the name of fritz, which I have bestowed on him, and this fact, as well as the responsibility he bears as keeper of the elephant suleiman, leads me to determine that he be treated by all of you with consideration and respect, and anyone disregarding my wishes will suffer the consequences of my displeasure. This warning was not well received, the momentary murmur that followed was full of all kinds of emotions, disciplined deference, benevolent irony, wounded irritation, imagine, having to behave as respectfully toward a mahout, an animal-tamer, a man who stinks of wild beasts, as if he were a peer of the realm, although one thing is sure, the archduke will soon forget this caprice of his. It should be said, for truth's sake, that another murmur quickly followed the first, one devoid of any hostile or contradictory feelings, because it was a murmur of pure ad miration, when the elephant lifted the mahout up with the aid of his trunk and one of his tusks and deposited him on his ample shoulders, as spacious as a threshing floor. Then the mahout said, We were subhro and solomon, now we will be fritz and suleiman. He was not speaking to anyone in particular, he was talking to himself, knowing that those names meant nothing, even though they had replaced their original names, which did mean something. I was born to be subhro, not fritz, he thought. He guided suleiman into the enclosure assigned to him, a courtyard in the palace, which, despite being an inner courtyard, had easy access to the outside, and there he left him with his food and his water trough, as well as the company of the two assistants who had come with them from lisbon. Subhro, or fritz, it's going to be hard to get used to that change of name, needs to speak to the commanding officer, our commanding officer, for the captain of the austrian cuirassiers has not reappeared, he must be doing penance for the pathetic figure he cut at figueira de castelo rodrigo. It isn't quite time to say goodbye, for the portuguese don't leave until tomorrow, he simply wants to talk a little about the life that awaits him and to tell the captain that his name and the elephant's have been changed. And to wish the captain and his soldiers a safe journey home and, yes, to say goodbye forever. The soldiers are camped a little way from the city, in a leafy place with a clear stream running through it, a stream in which most of them have already bathed. The commanding officer went to meet subhro and, seeing the worried look on his face, asked, Has something happened, They've changed our names, I'm fritz now and solomon is suleiman, Who changed them, The only person who could, the archduke, But why, He presumably has his reasons, but in my case it was because he found subhro too hard to pronounce, We got used to
