At last I spoke: I understand nothing.
The elephant thrummed out again.
"You understand but do not know you understand," said Arek. "You’re not a prophet."
The elephant had made me tremble, but it was Arek’s word that made me stumble. Not a prophet. And you are, my son?
"I am," said Arek, "because I hear what he says and can turn it into language for the rest of you. I thought you could understand him, too, because he said you could."
The elephant was right. I did understand. My mad guesses were right, or somewhat right, or at least not utterly wrong. But I said nothing of this to Arek.
"But now I see you do understand," said Arek, nodding, content.
His temporal glands were dripping, the fluid falling onto his naked chest. He wore trousers, though. Old polyester ones, the kind that cannot rot or fade, the kind that will outlast the end of the universe. He saw me looking, and again supposed that I had understood something.
"You’re right," he said. "I’ve had it before. Only lightly, though. And it did me no good." He smiled ruefully. "I’ve seen the world, but none like me."
Had what before?
"The dripping time. The madness."
Musth, I said.
"Yes," he answered. He touched the stream of fluid on his cheek, then streaked it on my cheek. "It takes a special woman to bear my child."
What if there isn’t one?
"There is," he said. "That’s why I came here."
There’s no one here like you.
"Not yet," he said. "And besides, I had this gift to give you."
What gift?
He gestured, as if I should have understood all along. The building that the elephants were pushing at. "You always told me how much you hated this building. How ugly it was. I wanted to give you something when I came again, but I couldn’t think of anything I could do for you. Except for this."
At his words, the elephants grunted and bellowed, and now it was clear that all their pushing before had been preliminary to this, as they braced themselves and rammed, all at once, again and again. Now the building shuddered. Now the faзade cracked. Now the walls buckled.