Incommunicado (Mythklok Interstitial)
Jun. 7th, 2012 05:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tikificTitle: Incommunicado (Mythklok Interstitial)
Author: tikistitch
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Ganesh does charity work.
Warnings: Spoilers for Writersklok
Notes: This is another of those where I try to keep my AU in line with the show.
Ganesh, Charles thought, was not a being inclined to envy.
Now, jealousy: that was an emotion you could kindle in him, if you knew exactly which buttons to push. Charles knew how, but was wise enough to refrain. Well, most of the time. (He was, after all, half angel.)
But this morning, envy was much on Ganesh’s mind: he had confessed as much earlier. As Charles stood in the long hospital room amid the rows of sick beds, gripping Elias’ hand, watching his husband grasping for the right words to tell his translator, Charles knew Ganesh, who counted amongst his many centuries of accumulated knowledge facility with at least 200 Indian dialects, was nevertheless envying Raziel for her gift with languages. Ganesh longed to give comfort to the miserable girl in the bed they were all crowded around.
The reason she was miserable - her body turned now away from Ganesh and the translator, eyes downcast - was readily apparent as soon as you moved near: even in this tidy place she absolutely reeked of urine. Ganesh had explained that the incontinence was a relatively common injury of childbirth. If the girl in the bed had been born in a more developed country she would have received prompt medical care. Instead, she had lived – perhaps for years, Charles wasn’t really sure – as an outcast in her small village.
And to cap off the misery, this one had apparently also lost the child.
Charles unconsciously regripped Elias’ hand, and the boy looked up at him, his dark eyes questioning. He reached for the tie that wasn’t there. Ganesh had persuaded him to go without a jacket today. It was probably wise, as the air conditioner here did little else besides hum, but he felt half dressed.
Fortunately for the unfortunate woman in the hospital bed, Raziel, on some kind of charitable whim (the sort of mood which seemed to strike her more often now she was with Wotan), had first established a women’s hospital here, and then dragooned Ganesh into volunteering his surgical skills.
Ganesh had decided that Elias was now old enough to accompany him on this trip, so Charles, who hadn’t a whole lot of interest in charity work other than when it served as a tax deduction, had followed along on a sort of diplomatic mission, to prevent upset on either the part of their child or the patient. He figured as the boys were busy working on their new album they probably couldn’t get into too much trouble, probably spending the entire time, if the past was any guide, in an alcoholic haze.
“And so she understands this, and consents to proceed tomorrow?” Ganesh was softly asking the translator, Sarah, a large, sunny woman wearing a bright printed kanga. Charles shook his head as the translator repeated the inquiry in Swahili. Really, what choice did she have? Would you rather stay miserable or let this good looking foreign guy try to help you?
He looked up and down at the rows of beds all pushed neatly against the long hallway. This wasn’t the kind of country to have private hospital rooms. Some women were actually out of their own beds, sitting and gossiping or making beaded handicrafts.
He looked down, sensing something, and discovered to his surprise that Elias was no longer holding his hand. Charles looked around.
“Hewwo!” piped Elias, who had somehow come to stand on the opposite side of the girl's bed from Charles, Ganesh, and the translator.
“Elias!” warned Charles, starting after him.
Ganesh gestured for Charles to remain. “Eliu,” Ganesh told his son, “she does not speak English.”
“Namaste!” said Elias without skipping a beat.
Charles noticed the patient didn’t shrink from him, as she had done with Ganesh and the other adults, but seemed to be looking up, meeting the boy’s eyes.
Ganesh tried desperately to stifle his smile. “I do not believe she speaks Hindi either, dear one.”
“Bonjour!” Elias tried, obviously now remembering his visits with his Papa Jacque. Now it was Charles’ turn to restrain a smile.
“Bonjour.” It was said so softly, Charles was not convinced anyone in the room but an angel might have heard. He shot a glance at Ganesh, who looked back, offering an imperceptible shrug.
“Je m’appelle BOON!” their son was telling her. “An’, j’ai trois ans!” he added, holding up three small fingers.
“Bonjour, Boon,” said the patient.
“Is she…. Is she perhaps a refugee?” Ganesh asked Sarah, the translator. There was a quiet exchange in Swahili.
“Yes,” said the translator, her accent smoky and musical, “she was originally from the Congo. She walked many miles, many days.”
“Parlez Francais?” Ganesh asked the girl.
“Oui, monsieur,” the patient said softly, reaching out a cautious finger to smooth Elias’ crazy, ever-tangled hair.
“Nous allons effectuer l'opération de demain. C’est bon?”
“Oui monsieur,” she replied as Elias grinned at her. She turned over in her bed, though the movement seemed painful. She blinked shyly at Ganesh. “Merci, monsieur.”
“De wien!” piped Elias.
Charles thought even the patient might have smiled.
“So, you wanna see monkeys?”
“Uh-huh!” piped Elias. “An tigey?”
“No, there’s no tigers here,” Charles explained as he helped his son into the jeep. “Tell him what we’ll see,” he urged the guide, an affable man named Andwele who was carrying a high powered rifle.
“No tigers, young one,” Andwele grinned. “But we have lions who may climb in the trees here!” he bragged.
“Uh-huh,” said Elias, not visibly impressed.
Andwele frowned. “The boy doesn’t like lions?” he asked, perplexed.
“Uh, he’s got a dog who climbs trees. Long story. What else?” Charles prompted.
“Hippopotamus!” Andwele told Elias, raising his eyebrows.
“Oooo!” said Elias, who Charles suspected was probably impressed by the long, complicated name more than anything. But, he kept his peace, not wanting to spoil the guide’s fun. “Hip-hop-hip-ba-mus!” the child repeated.
“Well, almost,” grinned Charles. The safari had been Ganesh’s idea, as he would be busy in surgery all day today. Charles had gone along with the idea, although he was skeptical that the boy would see anything that would impress him more than a normal playdate with his cousins at Valhalla. But better to go out than be bored in the hotel room, he thought. Besides, this would put him out of phone and internet contact for several hours: a great blessing. He had gleefully left his Dethphone in his briefcase this morning, and all of it on a table somewhere back in the city.
The driver put the vehicle in gear, and they were off on a rutted dirt track. As they bumped along, Charles found his mind drifted back to the last patient they had talked to yesterday: the girl from the Congo. Even though the hospital bunks here were narrow, she was so small she had seemed lost in it. She was shorter even than Raziel. How old was she? 17? 18?
“What’s that, Boon?” he asked, feeling his sleeve being tugged. He hadn’t even noticed the jeep come to a halt.
“Hip-spot-moose!” Elias shouted, waving his arm excitedly at the wide river now come into view.
“Yeah, that’s sure them!” laughed Charles, looking at the huge beasts playing in the mud. Almost as big as one of Wotan’s wolves, he thought
“Bidchure, Daddy?”
“Oh, Daddy is sorry, he almost forgot,” said Charles, unconsciously lapsing into his weird third person parent-speak. He scrounged on the floor of the jeep and brought up a camera case. “Now, keep the strap around your neck,” he cautioned, pulling it over Elias’ head.
“Uh-huh. Woun da neck!” Elias echoed, though he had already seized the camera and was now mucking around with the settings.
“He is your photographer?” asked Andwele.
“Yup. He’s the artist. I’m just a business guy,” explained Charles. In truth, his three-year-old probably could operate a camera better than he. They had given Elias a small digital camera to practice on prior to the trip. Elias, who already “borrowed” Daddy’s phone innumerable times a day to use the camera function (among other things) had quickly seized on it, expertly documenting every aspect of his young life at Mordhaus as well as that of his fathers, and his “uncles” in the band. Charles grinned, remembering with amusement the extensive blackmail material there had been contained just in the images on that very first memory card.
With Charles holding him steady, Elias stood up on the seat and snapped several photos. Charles took a look, and then proudly showed them off to Andwele and the driver, the latter of whom let out a low whistle. They seemed quite honestly impressed, aside from fishing for tips.
The driver pulled the gearshift and they were off again. They repeated the same general pattern several times, a stop for spotting wildlife as they congregated along the river, or perched in the trees overhead, and Elias snapping away. Charles had to admit he was surprised: prey and predator alike spanned the river bank, all intermingling, mostly peacefully.
After a time, Elias asked Charles, “Lelephan? Fo' Baap!”
“Oh, yeah,” said Charles. Among the giraffes and zebras and Thompson's gazelles and even the promised tree-climbing lions he hadn’t noticed the absence of pachyderms. “You guys have elephants, right?”
“Of course! Does the little one fancy elephants?” asked Andwele.
“Yeah, they’re his favorite.”
Andwele and the driver pattered in rapid Swahili. “I don’t see the herd by the river today. Shall we turn inland?”
“Wanna see elephants, Boon?” asked Charles.
“Uh-huh, da lelephan!” he agreed. The driver, without waiting for Andwele’s translation, had already grinned and jammed the jeep in gear and tore off the path near the river and into the bush.
They continued for a while until they came to a hill (it looked just like any other hill to Charles), at which point the driver slowed to a crawl, grinding to a halt at the crest. Charles blinked in surprise. They had come up just a few meters from a great herd of African elephants. Charles had now seen his share of Indian elephants, but these guys were massive by comparison: the biggest bull looked nearly as bit as Basil the Old One in his elephant guise.
Elias was the first to recover himself, scrambling up on the seat once again and hoisting his camera and snapping while muttering, “Lelephan!”
Charles, however, found himself strangely nervous. “Are we all right here?” he asked Andwele.
“They know us,” the guide answered, although he was frowning into the distance. Charles followed the man's eyes.
The biggest elephant (Charles had decided he was Basil) was standing quite still, and appeared to staring back at them.
Andwele and the driver exchanged a few words.
And then, as Elias obliviously continued to take pictures, Basil started to move directly towards them. He did not run, but walked in a stately fashion.
Charles noticed Andwele now had his hand on his rifle. “He's not gonna charge us, is he?” Charles asked.
“I do not think so. Best to keep still though.”
Charles tightened his grip on Elias. In reality, he knew, he could True Form and whisk his son from any potential trouble in an instant. But he wanted to avoid angelic visitations in public today, if possible.
The other elephants has paused in what they were doing as well. A few now also slowly approached the jeep, albeit at a much more casual pace than Basil.
Andwele and their driver were muttering to each other, something in Swahili.
The big bull was very near, less than 20 meters.
Charles noticed how silent it was. He could only hear the long grass blowing in the wind. They were surrounded now by elephants.
Ten meters away. Basil was enormous, maybe as big as his namesake after all.
He stopped.
“Lelephun!” giggled Elias, pointing to him. “Da Keen Lelephun, Daddy.”
“He is the king?” asked Charles softly. Yeah, he could believe it. The guy was not only huge, he had a … regal bearing.
And then, in a move that made Andwele gasp, Basil laboriously hunkered down onto on front elbow joint, and then the other. He bowed his great head, while the herd looked on. Every elephant eye was fixed on them.
“Bonjour!” said Elias, who smiled and waved, and then happily clicked a picture.
Basil, who evidently did not speak French, got to his feet. He turned and walked away, as the rest of his heard silently followed him.
“Aboir!” called Elias.
Andwele looked down at his rifle. His knucles were white. “I- I have never seen the like!” he told Charles.
“Don't worry,” said Charles, as the driver, who also looked a little shaken, put the car in gear. “Weird stuff happens when we're around.
“I have thought upon it all night. I can offer no explanation. I do not know the elephants of this continent as I do my Indian elephants,” said Ganesh, wrapping his stethoscope around his neck.
Charles shook his head, and looked down to make sure Elias was still holding his hand as they walked through the hospital corridors. “Oh! How did it go yesterday? I guess I never asked.” It was true. After everyone had gotten back to the hotel, they had spent the evening (and a couple bottles of wine) poring over Elias' pictures and wondering what the fuck.
“Forty surgeries!” bragged Ganesh. “And we have trained four local physicians in our surgical techniques.”
“Uh. How about the girl from the Congo?” Charles asked.
“Matters look to be successful, although it is too early to tell conclusively,” said Ganesh. “However, her attitude is improved. My translator tells me she has expressed a wish to some day again bear a child – a son, like Boon!”
“Oh, well, that's nice,” said Charles. And it honestly was.
“Would you care to visit her?”
“Wanna see your friend and say Bonjour, Boon?” Charles asked.
“Uh-huh!” Elias told them. Ganesh was already on the move, so Charles followed.
“Bonjour!” called Ganesh, his hand on the curtain that now separated the bunk from the other beds.
Charles was surprised to hear a light, female “Bonjour,” in return. He peeked around the curtain. He had seen post-op patients enough to expect to find her hopped up on painkillers and in some amount of discomfort: pretty much like hisDethklok boys after a night on the town. But even though the girl looked a little drawn, she seemed somehow … healthy, was the only thing Charles could come up with. She had a sort of glow to her. Charles wanted to accuse Ganesh of using magic, but decided against it. Elias had already broken free of Charles' grip and padded over to say his bonjours.
Charles looked down, annoyed, at his clamoring Dethphone. He stepped back outside the curtain to answer. “Yeah, Toki, I’m kind of- Sorry I was out of cell phone contact yesterday. You’re where? Uh, why did you- I'm sorry? Where’s the Dethjet? Uh-huh. Why didn’t you take Klokateers for that? Wait, a tiger? A tiger wanted a blowjob? And you did a concert? Hang on, OK? Just hang on!” Charles leaned into the patient's curtained area again. “I’m really sorry, I gotta take this,” he apologized. Ganesh smiled and Charles took the phone and hustled outside.
Ganesh and Elias found him, some time later, sitting on a bench, looking as if he wished he had a cigarette. Elias scrambled up to sit beside him. “Look, Daddy, look!” he said, displaying his new beaded wrist band. Charles took his arm to see. He had seen a lot of these at the local markets. But this one was unique: beside the bright geometric shapes spanning the band there was the tiny figure of an elephant.
“Uh, wow,” said Charles.
“Some of the women enjoyed conversing with Boonie yesterday, evidently,” smiled Ganesh. He sat down next to Charles, pulling Elias into his lap. “Did you manage your crisis?”
“Uh. That new producer, Remeltindtdrinc or whatever?”
“She is still around?” said Ganesh.
“Yeah, I figured she would have been crushed by a gargoyle by now. Anyway, she sent the boys off on a trip.”
“A trip? To a recording studio abroad perhaps?”
“No. Some crap ass Middle Eastern Sultanate I’d never heard the fuck of. I dunno. It was pretty garbled, but it sounds like they ended up trying to play a concert for the sultan all on their own, and you can guess the rest.”
Ganesh cringed. “And the sultan...?”
“That was it for him. I guess it ended up being pretty much a coup d’état. I sent the Dethjet off to pick ‘em up first before they come get us today.”
“They do not have the Dethjet there?” asked Ganesh.
“No, get a load of this! They flew on a commercial airline! In coach!”
“That ought to have been instructive,” chuckled Ganesh.
“I feel like I can’t turn my back for a minute.”
“But you say everything turned out all right?”
“Well, yeah,” Charles admitted.
“And you will see them soon?”
“Oh, that reminds me, we gotta go shopping.”
“Shopping?” asked Ganesh.
‘Yeah, they had an urgent request,” said Charles, standing up.
“I shall call our driver,” standing up as well and taking out his cell phone. “I can imagine they were feeling … out of sorts, trapped in a war zone,” said Ganesh, standing up as well.
“They want quality hair care products,” said Charles, holding out his hand for Elias.
The two men stared at each other for a long moment.
“OK, you smiled first,” said Charles, starting to walk off.
“I most certainly did not!” insisted Ganesh, who nevertheless broke into a broad grin, and followed along.
Author: tikistitch
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Ganesh does charity work.
Warnings: Spoilers for Writersklok
Notes: This is another of those where I try to keep my AU in line with the show.
Ganesh, Charles thought, was not a being inclined to envy.
Now, jealousy: that was an emotion you could kindle in him, if you knew exactly which buttons to push. Charles knew how, but was wise enough to refrain. Well, most of the time. (He was, after all, half angel.)
But this morning, envy was much on Ganesh’s mind: he had confessed as much earlier. As Charles stood in the long hospital room amid the rows of sick beds, gripping Elias’ hand, watching his husband grasping for the right words to tell his translator, Charles knew Ganesh, who counted amongst his many centuries of accumulated knowledge facility with at least 200 Indian dialects, was nevertheless envying Raziel for her gift with languages. Ganesh longed to give comfort to the miserable girl in the bed they were all crowded around.
The reason she was miserable - her body turned now away from Ganesh and the translator, eyes downcast - was readily apparent as soon as you moved near: even in this tidy place she absolutely reeked of urine. Ganesh had explained that the incontinence was a relatively common injury of childbirth. If the girl in the bed had been born in a more developed country she would have received prompt medical care. Instead, she had lived – perhaps for years, Charles wasn’t really sure – as an outcast in her small village.
And to cap off the misery, this one had apparently also lost the child.
Charles unconsciously regripped Elias’ hand, and the boy looked up at him, his dark eyes questioning. He reached for the tie that wasn’t there. Ganesh had persuaded him to go without a jacket today. It was probably wise, as the air conditioner here did little else besides hum, but he felt half dressed.
Fortunately for the unfortunate woman in the hospital bed, Raziel, on some kind of charitable whim (the sort of mood which seemed to strike her more often now she was with Wotan), had first established a women’s hospital here, and then dragooned Ganesh into volunteering his surgical skills.
Ganesh had decided that Elias was now old enough to accompany him on this trip, so Charles, who hadn’t a whole lot of interest in charity work other than when it served as a tax deduction, had followed along on a sort of diplomatic mission, to prevent upset on either the part of their child or the patient. He figured as the boys were busy working on their new album they probably couldn’t get into too much trouble, probably spending the entire time, if the past was any guide, in an alcoholic haze.
“And so she understands this, and consents to proceed tomorrow?” Ganesh was softly asking the translator, Sarah, a large, sunny woman wearing a bright printed kanga. Charles shook his head as the translator repeated the inquiry in Swahili. Really, what choice did she have? Would you rather stay miserable or let this good looking foreign guy try to help you?
He looked up and down at the rows of beds all pushed neatly against the long hallway. This wasn’t the kind of country to have private hospital rooms. Some women were actually out of their own beds, sitting and gossiping or making beaded handicrafts.
He looked down, sensing something, and discovered to his surprise that Elias was no longer holding his hand. Charles looked around.
“Hewwo!” piped Elias, who had somehow come to stand on the opposite side of the girl's bed from Charles, Ganesh, and the translator.
“Elias!” warned Charles, starting after him.
Ganesh gestured for Charles to remain. “Eliu,” Ganesh told his son, “she does not speak English.”
“Namaste!” said Elias without skipping a beat.
Charles noticed the patient didn’t shrink from him, as she had done with Ganesh and the other adults, but seemed to be looking up, meeting the boy’s eyes.
Ganesh tried desperately to stifle his smile. “I do not believe she speaks Hindi either, dear one.”
“Bonjour!” Elias tried, obviously now remembering his visits with his Papa Jacque. Now it was Charles’ turn to restrain a smile.
“Bonjour.” It was said so softly, Charles was not convinced anyone in the room but an angel might have heard. He shot a glance at Ganesh, who looked back, offering an imperceptible shrug.
“Je m’appelle BOON!” their son was telling her. “An’, j’ai trois ans!” he added, holding up three small fingers.
“Bonjour, Boon,” said the patient.
“Is she…. Is she perhaps a refugee?” Ganesh asked Sarah, the translator. There was a quiet exchange in Swahili.
“Yes,” said the translator, her accent smoky and musical, “she was originally from the Congo. She walked many miles, many days.”
“Parlez Francais?” Ganesh asked the girl.
“Oui, monsieur,” the patient said softly, reaching out a cautious finger to smooth Elias’ crazy, ever-tangled hair.
“Nous allons effectuer l'opération de demain. C’est bon?”
“Oui monsieur,” she replied as Elias grinned at her. She turned over in her bed, though the movement seemed painful. She blinked shyly at Ganesh. “Merci, monsieur.”
“De wien!” piped Elias.
Charles thought even the patient might have smiled.
“So, you wanna see monkeys?”
“Uh-huh!” piped Elias. “An tigey?”
“No, there’s no tigers here,” Charles explained as he helped his son into the jeep. “Tell him what we’ll see,” he urged the guide, an affable man named Andwele who was carrying a high powered rifle.
“No tigers, young one,” Andwele grinned. “But we have lions who may climb in the trees here!” he bragged.
“Uh-huh,” said Elias, not visibly impressed.
Andwele frowned. “The boy doesn’t like lions?” he asked, perplexed.
“Uh, he’s got a dog who climbs trees. Long story. What else?” Charles prompted.
“Hippopotamus!” Andwele told Elias, raising his eyebrows.
“Oooo!” said Elias, who Charles suspected was probably impressed by the long, complicated name more than anything. But, he kept his peace, not wanting to spoil the guide’s fun. “Hip-hop-hip-ba-mus!” the child repeated.
“Well, almost,” grinned Charles. The safari had been Ganesh’s idea, as he would be busy in surgery all day today. Charles had gone along with the idea, although he was skeptical that the boy would see anything that would impress him more than a normal playdate with his cousins at Valhalla. But better to go out than be bored in the hotel room, he thought. Besides, this would put him out of phone and internet contact for several hours: a great blessing. He had gleefully left his Dethphone in his briefcase this morning, and all of it on a table somewhere back in the city.
The driver put the vehicle in gear, and they were off on a rutted dirt track. As they bumped along, Charles found his mind drifted back to the last patient they had talked to yesterday: the girl from the Congo. Even though the hospital bunks here were narrow, she was so small she had seemed lost in it. She was shorter even than Raziel. How old was she? 17? 18?
“What’s that, Boon?” he asked, feeling his sleeve being tugged. He hadn’t even noticed the jeep come to a halt.
“Hip-spot-moose!” Elias shouted, waving his arm excitedly at the wide river now come into view.
“Yeah, that’s sure them!” laughed Charles, looking at the huge beasts playing in the mud. Almost as big as one of Wotan’s wolves, he thought
“Bidchure, Daddy?”
“Oh, Daddy is sorry, he almost forgot,” said Charles, unconsciously lapsing into his weird third person parent-speak. He scrounged on the floor of the jeep and brought up a camera case. “Now, keep the strap around your neck,” he cautioned, pulling it over Elias’ head.
“Uh-huh. Woun da neck!” Elias echoed, though he had already seized the camera and was now mucking around with the settings.
“He is your photographer?” asked Andwele.
“Yup. He’s the artist. I’m just a business guy,” explained Charles. In truth, his three-year-old probably could operate a camera better than he. They had given Elias a small digital camera to practice on prior to the trip. Elias, who already “borrowed” Daddy’s phone innumerable times a day to use the camera function (among other things) had quickly seized on it, expertly documenting every aspect of his young life at Mordhaus as well as that of his fathers, and his “uncles” in the band. Charles grinned, remembering with amusement the extensive blackmail material there had been contained just in the images on that very first memory card.
With Charles holding him steady, Elias stood up on the seat and snapped several photos. Charles took a look, and then proudly showed them off to Andwele and the driver, the latter of whom let out a low whistle. They seemed quite honestly impressed, aside from fishing for tips.
The driver pulled the gearshift and they were off again. They repeated the same general pattern several times, a stop for spotting wildlife as they congregated along the river, or perched in the trees overhead, and Elias snapping away. Charles had to admit he was surprised: prey and predator alike spanned the river bank, all intermingling, mostly peacefully.
After a time, Elias asked Charles, “Lelephan? Fo' Baap!”
“Oh, yeah,” said Charles. Among the giraffes and zebras and Thompson's gazelles and even the promised tree-climbing lions he hadn’t noticed the absence of pachyderms. “You guys have elephants, right?”
“Of course! Does the little one fancy elephants?” asked Andwele.
“Yeah, they’re his favorite.”
Andwele and the driver pattered in rapid Swahili. “I don’t see the herd by the river today. Shall we turn inland?”
“Wanna see elephants, Boon?” asked Charles.
“Uh-huh, da lelephan!” he agreed. The driver, without waiting for Andwele’s translation, had already grinned and jammed the jeep in gear and tore off the path near the river and into the bush.
They continued for a while until they came to a hill (it looked just like any other hill to Charles), at which point the driver slowed to a crawl, grinding to a halt at the crest. Charles blinked in surprise. They had come up just a few meters from a great herd of African elephants. Charles had now seen his share of Indian elephants, but these guys were massive by comparison: the biggest bull looked nearly as bit as Basil the Old One in his elephant guise.
Elias was the first to recover himself, scrambling up on the seat once again and hoisting his camera and snapping while muttering, “Lelephan!”
Charles, however, found himself strangely nervous. “Are we all right here?” he asked Andwele.
“They know us,” the guide answered, although he was frowning into the distance. Charles followed the man's eyes.
The biggest elephant (Charles had decided he was Basil) was standing quite still, and appeared to staring back at them.
Andwele and the driver exchanged a few words.
And then, as Elias obliviously continued to take pictures, Basil started to move directly towards them. He did not run, but walked in a stately fashion.
Charles noticed Andwele now had his hand on his rifle. “He's not gonna charge us, is he?” Charles asked.
“I do not think so. Best to keep still though.”
Charles tightened his grip on Elias. In reality, he knew, he could True Form and whisk his son from any potential trouble in an instant. But he wanted to avoid angelic visitations in public today, if possible.
The other elephants has paused in what they were doing as well. A few now also slowly approached the jeep, albeit at a much more casual pace than Basil.
Andwele and their driver were muttering to each other, something in Swahili.
The big bull was very near, less than 20 meters.
Charles noticed how silent it was. He could only hear the long grass blowing in the wind. They were surrounded now by elephants.
Ten meters away. Basil was enormous, maybe as big as his namesake after all.
He stopped.
“Lelephun!” giggled Elias, pointing to him. “Da Keen Lelephun, Daddy.”
“He is the king?” asked Charles softly. Yeah, he could believe it. The guy was not only huge, he had a … regal bearing.
And then, in a move that made Andwele gasp, Basil laboriously hunkered down onto on front elbow joint, and then the other. He bowed his great head, while the herd looked on. Every elephant eye was fixed on them.
“Bonjour!” said Elias, who smiled and waved, and then happily clicked a picture.
Basil, who evidently did not speak French, got to his feet. He turned and walked away, as the rest of his heard silently followed him.
“Aboir!” called Elias.
Andwele looked down at his rifle. His knucles were white. “I- I have never seen the like!” he told Charles.
“Don't worry,” said Charles, as the driver, who also looked a little shaken, put the car in gear. “Weird stuff happens when we're around.
“I have thought upon it all night. I can offer no explanation. I do not know the elephants of this continent as I do my Indian elephants,” said Ganesh, wrapping his stethoscope around his neck.
Charles shook his head, and looked down to make sure Elias was still holding his hand as they walked through the hospital corridors. “Oh! How did it go yesterday? I guess I never asked.” It was true. After everyone had gotten back to the hotel, they had spent the evening (and a couple bottles of wine) poring over Elias' pictures and wondering what the fuck.
“Forty surgeries!” bragged Ganesh. “And we have trained four local physicians in our surgical techniques.”
“Uh. How about the girl from the Congo?” Charles asked.
“Matters look to be successful, although it is too early to tell conclusively,” said Ganesh. “However, her attitude is improved. My translator tells me she has expressed a wish to some day again bear a child – a son, like Boon!”
“Oh, well, that's nice,” said Charles. And it honestly was.
“Would you care to visit her?”
“Wanna see your friend and say Bonjour, Boon?” Charles asked.
“Uh-huh!” Elias told them. Ganesh was already on the move, so Charles followed.
“Bonjour!” called Ganesh, his hand on the curtain that now separated the bunk from the other beds.
Charles was surprised to hear a light, female “Bonjour,” in return. He peeked around the curtain. He had seen post-op patients enough to expect to find her hopped up on painkillers and in some amount of discomfort: pretty much like hisDethklok boys after a night on the town. But even though the girl looked a little drawn, she seemed somehow … healthy, was the only thing Charles could come up with. She had a sort of glow to her. Charles wanted to accuse Ganesh of using magic, but decided against it. Elias had already broken free of Charles' grip and padded over to say his bonjours.
Charles looked down, annoyed, at his clamoring Dethphone. He stepped back outside the curtain to answer. “Yeah, Toki, I’m kind of- Sorry I was out of cell phone contact yesterday. You’re where? Uh, why did you- I'm sorry? Where’s the Dethjet? Uh-huh. Why didn’t you take Klokateers for that? Wait, a tiger? A tiger wanted a blowjob? And you did a concert? Hang on, OK? Just hang on!” Charles leaned into the patient's curtained area again. “I’m really sorry, I gotta take this,” he apologized. Ganesh smiled and Charles took the phone and hustled outside.
Ganesh and Elias found him, some time later, sitting on a bench, looking as if he wished he had a cigarette. Elias scrambled up to sit beside him. “Look, Daddy, look!” he said, displaying his new beaded wrist band. Charles took his arm to see. He had seen a lot of these at the local markets. But this one was unique: beside the bright geometric shapes spanning the band there was the tiny figure of an elephant.
“Uh, wow,” said Charles.
“Some of the women enjoyed conversing with Boonie yesterday, evidently,” smiled Ganesh. He sat down next to Charles, pulling Elias into his lap. “Did you manage your crisis?”
“Uh. That new producer, Remeltindtdrinc or whatever?”
“She is still around?” said Ganesh.
“Yeah, I figured she would have been crushed by a gargoyle by now. Anyway, she sent the boys off on a trip.”
“A trip? To a recording studio abroad perhaps?”
“No. Some crap ass Middle Eastern Sultanate I’d never heard the fuck of. I dunno. It was pretty garbled, but it sounds like they ended up trying to play a concert for the sultan all on their own, and you can guess the rest.”
Ganesh cringed. “And the sultan...?”
“That was it for him. I guess it ended up being pretty much a coup d’état. I sent the Dethjet off to pick ‘em up first before they come get us today.”
“They do not have the Dethjet there?” asked Ganesh.
“No, get a load of this! They flew on a commercial airline! In coach!”
“That ought to have been instructive,” chuckled Ganesh.
“I feel like I can’t turn my back for a minute.”
“But you say everything turned out all right?”
“Well, yeah,” Charles admitted.
“And you will see them soon?”
“Oh, that reminds me, we gotta go shopping.”
“Shopping?” asked Ganesh.
‘Yeah, they had an urgent request,” said Charles, standing up.
“I shall call our driver,” standing up as well and taking out his cell phone. “I can imagine they were feeling … out of sorts, trapped in a war zone,” said Ganesh, standing up as well.
“They want quality hair care products,” said Charles, holding out his hand for Elias.
The two men stared at each other for a long moment.
“OK, you smiled first,” said Charles, starting to walk off.
“I most certainly did not!” insisted Ganesh, who nevertheless broke into a broad grin, and followed along.
