it, Yes, but he doesn't have anyone to tell him that he ought to get used to it. There was an awkward silence, which the commanding officer broke as best he could, We're leaving tomorrow, he said, Yes, I know, replied subhro, I'll come and say goodbye then, Will we see each other again, asked the commanding officer, Probably not, vienna is a long way from lisbon, That's a shame, now that we're friends, Friend is a big word, sir, and I'm just a mahout who has been ordered to change his name, And I'm just a captain of cavalry who has undergone some inner change during this journey, Was it seeing wolves for the first time, Oh, I saw one years ago, when I was a child, I can't quite remember when, Seeing wolves must change people a lot though, They weren't the reason for the change, The elephant then, That's more likely, although, while I can more or less understand a cat or a dog, I can't understand an elephant, Cats and dogs live side by side with us, and that makes the relationship easier, even if we get things wrong, that continuous intimacy is sure always to resolve any problems, on the other hand, we don't know if they, too, get things wrong and are aware that they do, And the elephant, As I said to you once before, the elephant is a different matter altogether, every elephant contains two elephants, one who learns what he's taught and another who insists on ignoring it all, How do you know, When I realized that I'm just like the elephant, that a part of me learns and the other part ignores everything I've learned, and the longer I live, the more I ignore, Your word games are beyond me, It's not me playing games with words, it's them playing games with me, When does the archduke leave, In three days' time, I be lieve, Well, I'll miss you, And I'll miss you, said subhro, or fritz. The commanding officer held out his hand to him, and subhro shook it very gently, as if not wanting to hurt him, We'll see each other tomorrow, he said, Yes, we'll see each other tomorrow, repeated the captain. Then they turned their backs on each other and walked away. Neither of them turned round.
Early the following day, subhro returned to the encampment, this time with the elephant. He was accompanied by the two assistants, who had immediately climbed aboard the ox-cart, looking forward to the most pleasant of rides. The soldiers were awaiting the order to mount. The commanding officer went over to the mahout and said, This is where we go our separate ways, Well, I wish you and your men a good journey, captain, You and solomon still have a long journey ahead of you, it will be winter, I reckon, before you reach vienna, Solomon carries me on his back, so it won't prove too tiring for me, Those lands, I've heard, are very cold, full of snow and ice, things you never had to suffer in lisbon, Although you must admit it could be chilly sometimes, sir, Yes, lisbon is, of course, the coldest city in the world, said the captain, smiling, what saves it from being so is its geographical position. Subhro smiled too, he was enjoying the conversation, they could stay there all morning and afternoon and leave the next day, what difference would it make, I wonder, to arrive home twenty-four hours later. It was then that the commanding officer decided to make his farewell speech, Soldiers, subhro has come to say goodbye to us, and to our great joy, he has brought with him the elephant whose safekeeping has been our responsibility for the last few weeks. Sharing my time with this man has been one of the happiest experiences of my life, perhaps because india knows things that we do not. I couldn't say with confidence that I know him well, but I can say with absolute certainty that he and I could be, not just friends, but brothers. Vienna is a long way away, lisbon is farther still, and we probably will not see each other again, and perhaps it's better that way, to keep the recollection of these past days so that it can be said of us modest portuguese soldiers that we, too, have the memory of an elephant. The captain spoke for another fifteen or so minutes, but he had said what was most important. While he was speaking, subhro was wondering what solomon would do, if he would behave as he had when he said good-bye to the porters, but repetitions almost always disappoint, the shine goes off them, they noticeably lack spontaneity, and if spontaneity is lacking, so is everything else. It would be best if we simply parted, thought the mahout. The elephant, however, thought otherwise. When the speech had ended, and the captain came over to subhro in order to embrace him, solomon took two steps forward and with the end of his trunk, that vital, feeling lip, he touched the captain's shoulder. The farewell to the porters had been, shall we say, more theatrical, but this, perhaps because the soldiers were used to a different sort of farewell, Do honor to your country, for your country's eyes are upon you, that kind of thing, touched their hearts, and not a few, with some embarrassment, had to wipe away tears with the sleeve of their pea coat or jacket, or whatever they called that item of military clothing then. The mahout accompanied solomon on this inspection, which was also his way of saying goodbye. He was not a man to show his feelings in public, even when, as now, invisible tears are running down his cheeks. The column of men set off, with the ox-cart at the front, and that was that, we will not see them in this theater again, but such is life, the actors appear, then leave the stage, as is only fitting, it's what usually and always will happen sooner or later, they say their part, then disappear through the door at the back, the one that opens onto the garden. Up ahead, the road curves, the soldiers rein in their horses in order to raise one arm and wave a last goodbye. Subhro does likewise and solomon trumpets in his loudest, most heartfelt way, and that is all they can do, the curtain has fallen and will not rise again.
It was raining on the morning of the third day, which was especially irritating for the archduke, because, although he did not lack for people to organize the convoy in the most useful and efficient way, he had insisted on deciding for himself just where in the cortege the elephant should be. This was a simple matter, suleiman would travel immediately in front of the carriage that would transport the archduke and the archduchess. A trusted confidant begged him to consider the well-known fact that elephants, like horses, for example, defecate and urinate while on the move, Such a spectacle will, inevitably, offend the sensibilities of your highnesses, said the confidant, adopting an expression of the profoundest civic concern, but the archduke told him not to worry, there would always be people in the convoy who could sweep the road whenever these natural depositions occurred. The worst thing was the rain. The rain would affect neither the mood nor the pace of the elephant, indeed, so accustomed was he to the monsoon that, for the last two years, he had missed it greatly, no, the problem requiring a solution was the archduke. It's perfectly understandable really. Crossing half of spain behind an elephant and not being able to use what was, perhaps, the finest embroidered saddlecloth in the world, which he himself had ordered to be made, simply because the rain would leave it so badly damaged that it wouldn't even serve as the canopy for a village church, that, as far as the archduke was concerned, would be the worst disappointment of his entire reign as archduke. Maximilian would not move one step until suleiman was properly covered, with the ornate saddlecloth glinting in the sun. This is what he said, The rain is sure to stop at some point, so let us wait until it does. And so it was. The rain did not stop for two whole hours, but after that, the sky began to clear, there were still a few clouds, but not so dark, and suddenly, it stopped raining, and when the sun finally showed itself, the air, in those first rays, grew lighter, almost transparent. The archduke was so pleased that he allowed himself to give the archduchess's thigh a mischievous squeeze. Then, having recovered his composure, he summoned an aide-de-camp whom he ordered to gallop to the head of the convoy, to where the glittering cuirassiers were waiting, Tell them to set off at once, he said, we have to make up for lost time. Meanwhile, the relevant servants had arrived bearing the vast saddlecloth and, with some difficulty, following fritz's instructions, they spread it over suleiman's powerful back. Then fritz, wearing a suit of clothes, which, in quality of fabric and luxury of cut, far outshone the one he had brought with him from lisbon and which had made such a dent in the treasury's coffers, was lifted onto suleiman's back, from where, to front and rear, he enjoyed an imposing view of the whole convoy. No one was above him, not even the archduke of austria with all his power. The archduke might be able to change the names of a man and an elephant, but with his eyes at the level of the most ordinary of people, he was being car ried along inside a carriage where all the perfumes in the world could not quite disguise the foul smells wafting in from without. You will probably want to know whether this whole convoy will be going to vienna. The answer is no. Most of those traveling here in great state will go no further than the seaport of the town of rosas, near the french border. There they will say farewell to the archduke and archduchess, will doubtless watch the embarkation, and, above all, observe with some trepidation what effect suleiman's four brute tons will have on the ship, if its quarterdeck will withstand such a weight, or if they will have to return to valladolid with the tale of a shipwreck to tell. The gloomier among them foresee the damage that could be caused to the vessel and its safety if the elephant, alarmed by the swaying of the boat, became nervous and unable to keep its footing, I don't even want to think about it, they said woefully to their companions, savoring the possibility of being able to announce later on, I told you so. Ignore those wet blankets, this elephant has come from far away, from distant india, fearlessly facing the storms of the indian ocean and the atlantic, and here he is, steadfast and determined, as if he had never done anything all his life but travel by boat. Now, though, it is a matter of covering distances, long distances. A glance at the map is enough to make you feel tired. And yet it looks as if everything were so close, within easy reach, so to speak. The explanation, of course, lies in the scale. It's easy to accept that a centimeter on the map equals twenty kilometers in reality, but what we tend not to consider is that, in the process, we ourselves suffer an equivalent dimensional reduction, which is why, being but specks on the earth's surface, we are still smaller on maps. It would be interesting to know, for ex ample, how much a human foot would measure on that same scale. Or the foot of an elephant. Or archduke maximilian of
