Kemali put his lamp down on one side of the box, Zogolli put his lamp down on the other and, for a time, inside that black cave at the bottom of the world, we stood in silence.
At last Kemali said, “Majesty, almost five hundred years ago a great hero arose in Albania. He fought, as I have fought, as Zogolli has fought, to free this land from Turkish rule. His name was Gjergj Kastrioti Skanderbeg, the Dragon of Albania who threw off the yoke of the Ottomans—if only for a little while. He is loved and admired by all free Albanians to this day. Skanderbeg stands for all that we have achieved.”
The old man stopped speaking and then, with a mother’s tenderness, he opened the red leather box.
“Behold the crown of Skanderbeg.”
The crown of Skanderbeg was not what I expected, and I think it’s safe to say I had never seen anything like it before. For one thing, it wasn’t a crown. A crown is made of gold. A crown is lined with red velvet and trimmed with fur and covered with jewels. Above all else, a crown is sort of crown-shaped. But this crown—my crown—wasn’t a crown at all. The crown of Skanderbeg was a soldier’s helmet, the sort of helmet a knight would have worn in the olden days. This thing was burnished blue steel, made to withstand the blows of Turkish scimitars. Around the base there was a band of burnished leather with enormous brass bolts, like you’d use to fix a ship’s boiler. Stuck through it all the way round and about halfway up there was another leather band, edged top and bottom with gold and studded, north, south, east and west, with big golden roses, each the size of a pocket watch.
Now, it would be unkind to say that the crown of Skanderbeg was the ugliest thing I have ever seen, but if we had offered it as a prize in the shooting gallery I don’t think there would have been many takers. The strangest bit about the whole thing was the golden goat’s head sitting on top, large as life, horns and all, ears pricked up and staring out at me with nasty goaty eyes. I picked the helmet up and I held it in my two hands and I stared back.
“Your Majesty is moved,” said Zogolli.
“I don’t know what to say.”
“I understand. It is no small thing to hold in your hands the helmet of our country’s hero.”
“I don’t know what to say,” I said again. “I just can’t think of what to say. But it’s absolutely lovely—it really is—and in surprisingly good condition after five hundred years and all those battles.”
Zogolli cleared his throat. “Actually, Majesty, it is only a few weeks old. We had it made specially.”
Kemali gave him one of his special looks. “Perhaps it would be fair to say that this is not so much the crown of Skanderbeg as ‘symbolic’ of the crown of Skanderbeg and all that it represents to the free and independent Kingdom of Albania. The real one is in Vienna.”
“This one is real!” Zogolli squeaked.
“It certainly seems real to me,” I said, and I gave it a knock with my knuckles. “Yes. That’s real enough. I think, maybe, once I’ve put it on and I really am king, we should have a word with old Franz Josef, man to man, and ask him if he wouldn’t mind sending the other one back, postage paid.”
“Majesty,” said Kemali, “you must understand that when you put on this crown in the presence of your people today you will become the new Skanderbeg, the defender of a free people. Like me, you are a Turk and a Mussulman. We represent everything that Skanderbeg—a Christian prince—struggled to oppose but, like Skanderbeg, we are Albanians, Zogolli and I by birth, you by choice. Today you will be invested with the belt and sword of a Mussulman prince and crowned as a Christian king, uniting all your people under the crown of Skanderbeg.”
“I regard that as a high and holy duty,” I said, and I meant it. If I was going to be the King of the Albanoks, then I was going to be the best bloody king those Albanoks could wish for. “I will do my best, Kemali, I promise you. I pledge my life in service to this country and its people. Now, don’t you think I should try it on?”
I don’t imagine you have ever worn a crown, and even if you could, even if you found yourself alone in some royal treasury, I bet you wouldn’t try one on, just for a laugh. There’s something more than superstition that goes with a crown. It’s more than metal and jewels. It stands for something and it can only ever belong to one person at a time. That’s why we make paper crowns at Christmas—or we used to—because it’s funny, it’s ridiculous, it’s a mad idea that just anybody can go about as a crowned king.
And that ugly metal thing I was holding in my hands, it wasn’t even a real crown. It was just a soldier’s helmet, but all of us in that dark cave agreed that it was a crown and that made it a crown. It was the crown.
I lifted it up. I hesitated. I turned to Kemali. “Shouldn’t you do this?” I said.
“Someone will assist you later, Majesty. For now, if it is too tight, we will remove a little of the padding. If it is too loose, we add a handkerchief. Go ahead.”
I dipped my head. I fitted the crown to it. I stood up at my full height, shoulders back, whiskers bristling. Nobody said a word.
Later, after we had packed the crown away in its leather box, after we had climbed the stairs back to the blinding half-light of the little whitewashed room and just as we were about to get back into the Rolls, Kemali took me by the hand and whispered, “I worry about poor Zogolli—his little outburst about the crown, you know. Sometimes the poor boy can’t seem to tell the difference between what is real and what is imaginary.”
“Very few of us can, Prime Minister. The important part is to tell the difference between what is real and what is true. If he can do that, then he’ll do for me.”
My back hurts. And my ribs. Maybe it’s from when I fell off the ceiling earlier, when I was trying to do that “allezoop” through the trapdoor of the Budapest cellar, remember? But I don’t think so. I think it’s from the bomb this afternoon. That gave me an awful shake-up. I felt all my bits jangle inside me and that’s not nice. I have pains in my heart. I can feel it beating in my chest. That’s not nice either. For a long time now I’ve been falling apart. When I was a young man, which was the day before yesterday, I never noticed my body. It just worked the way a watch works, all the little bits knitted together and sliding past each other and doing their job, tick-tock.
Nowadays I can feel my heart beating and I can’t help but wonder when tick-tock is going to reach tick-stop. I can feel the air going down into my lungs. I can feel the food sliding down my gullet and landing in my stomach—when I can get food. I have to be careful what I eat—although I can’t afford to be fussy—but some of the stuff they give us well, you know, if it doesn’t bung me up it shoots right through me and, whatever it does, I can measure it every inch of the way. My knees click, my hips click, my ankles and my shoulders and my wrists click and every bone in my back is a separate, aching bead on loose elastic. It’s like old age has got me up on a butcher’s block and taken me to bits, joint by joint. It’s as if my body is starting to break up while I’m still using it, like a ship falling to pieces just short of port.
But maybe that’s nature’s way. Maybe it’s easier for us to move out of a house that’s already falling down—not that it matters to me since the Royal Air Force is quite likely to serve a notice of eviction before morning so I’d better get on with this story.
When we arrived back at the palazzo in the Rolls, with Zogolli holding the crown of Skanderbeg on his knee like his granny’s big red handbag, the place was in an uproar.
More staff had arrived—before he left, promising to send back the car, Kemali said he’d sent them—and they were running in and out of the house, carrying sides of beef and cases of champagne and crates of crockery and working away to titivate the ballroom ready for a night of celebration while the girls, Sarah and Tifty and Mrs. MacLeod and the rest, were running about in between them, carrying smoothing irons and crimping irons and curling tongs and lots of other dangerous stuff that could set light to the curtains.
Sarah hurried past me on the stairs, “I’ll
make you a sandwich for later, Otto, love. You’ll need something to keep you going!”
“You can’t go about making me sandwiches. We have staff for that kind of thing.”
Max said. “You can make as many sandwiches as you like for me.”
“And what about your aged father?” the Professor said, but she was already running off, trailing a long dress over her arm.
I watched her go. Sarah was always nice to watch and I spent a lot of time doing that, one way or another. Watching her go away was as heartbreaking as watching the swallows go at the end of summer. Watching her coming back was like finding crocuses broken out along the path. Watching her standing still was like drinking hot chocolate on a winter’s evening—hot chocolate with a dash of something in it. By God, she was lovely.
The vizier put his arm through mine and leaned in close. “Do you think I might have a private word, son? There’s something I want to say to you.”
“Me too,” said Max.
“Why don’t we go to your room? You can show me the way.” And he looked at me with those black goggles and squeezed my arm.
Don’t you hate that, when somebody says, “We must talk,” and then says nothing at all? There’s this thing that simply must be said but it can’t be said there and then, only someplace else and a bit later on. And the way he called me “son” was odd. And the way he held my elbow. It wasn’t like an old blind man looking for help. It was as if he had gripped me so I couldn’t run away, as if he was pushing me along, through the crowds of housemaids running about with their arms full of plates or waddling under great nodding vases of flowers, past the sweaty red-faced soldiers with their too-tight collars buttoned up, rehearsing where to stand, and the men teetering on stepladders, unsheeting the chandeliers.
We made our way back to the royal apartments, the ones with the questionable statues and the steamrollered eagle over the door, me arm in arm with the Professor, Max and Arbuthnot a little behind. But when we reached the door and, naturally, I stood there like the village idiot, waiting for Max to demonstrate once again how it worked, the strangest thing happened.
Sure enough, Max flung back the door and stepped into the room, holding it wide so the Professor and I could pass through, but when Arbuthnot stepped up, Max threw out an arm and said, “Not you!”
All credit to Arbuthnot—his hand flew to his sword and he looked ready to use it, with that jaw of his set and his wolf’s teeth showing, but Max never moved. He just stood there like a tree, one arm out, daring Arbuthnot to chop it off, if he thought he could.
I said, “It’s all right, captain. These are my friends. They don’t mean me any harm.”
Arbuthnot let his sword slide back into its scabbard. “I’ll be waiting right here, Majesty. You need only call,” and the door slammed in his face.
I think the Professor took that as a signal to begin. He folded his arms and took a deep breath but I wanted to keep him off balance for a bit so, before he could start, I cut him short.
“You don’t mean me any harm, do you, Max?”
“Now, you know better than that, Otto.”
The Professor coughed. “Maybe I could explain.”
“I’m talking to Max!” I said. “So, we’re still pals, Max?”
“Still pals, Otto. You know that.”
“There you are then, Professor. That’s me and Max still pals. All sorted out. Now, what can I do for you?”
I suppose that, just by being a little bit short and a little bit disrespectful, I hoped to show the old bugger that he couldn’t boss me around, and I think it was pretty clear that Max wasn’t going to be doing any bossing around on his behalf. “Yes, Professor. Go ahead.”
“Otto, I was wondering how long … that is, Max and I were wondering how long you plan on keeping up with this pretense?”
“What pretense?”
“How long do you intend to continue with the charade that you are the King of Albania?”
“But, Professor, I am the King of Albania. Haven’t you noticed? You are standing in my palace. My servants are scurrying about every place, doing my bidding. I have a castle and a government and an army. Only a few minutes ago I was wearing my crown and it fitted like a glove, and a few moments from now I will wear it again to the acclaim of the entire nation. Are you suggesting I’m not the king? Are you suggesting all those people are misguided?”
What a fool I was. Not half an hour before I had shaken hands with Kemali, spouting all that high-minded nonsense about being able to tell the difference between what was real and what was true, and there I stood, half an hour later, ranting at a blind old man. He knew I wasn’t the king. From behind his black glasses he could see the truth that I refused to see.
He leaned on his cane and sighed. “Otto, did you mean that stuff you told Kemali, all that stuff about doing your best?”
“I always do my best, you know that.”
“And pledging your life in service to the Albanian people, did you mean that too?”
“Of course I meant it.”
“Your whole life?”
“My whole life.”
“My boy, sometimes a lifetime can be painfully brief. You may have pledged the Albanian people only the rest of the week. Otto, we can’t get away with this. The Great Powers won’t allow it. Somebody is going to want their country back.”
“It’s my country!” I said, in the sort of voice you hear in the playground, the sort of voice that yells, “It’s my ball!”
“Otto, please, if not for my sake, then consider Sarah. Let’s fill our pockets, grab what we can and run for the back door.”
It was the wisest advice I ever had, but I would not be told. A man has to listen to his friends but, damn it, kings don’t. Kings have a higher calling. Kings answer to a higher power. They call it duty or destiny or the national interest or sometimes they just call it “God,” but whatever they call it, it puts them beyond advice and it excuses them from picking up the bill.
“What do you think, Max? You’re in this too,” I said.
“Whatever suits you suits me, mate. That’s how it’s always been. On the other hand, fun’s fun, but keep your ass off the pillow. That’s what I always say, and I have found it a useful maxim for life.” Actually, he did say that a lot, along with, “There will be tears before bedtime,” and, “It’s all fun until somebody gets an eye out,” and “Don’t come running to me when you break both your legs.” Max was a surprisingly cautious bloke considering that he spent his working life swallowing swords and lifting small ponies over his head.
Anyway, I flopped down into the big sofa in front of the fire. “Lads,” I said, “you’re looking at this all wrong. You’re looking at this like you were part of a gang of carnies on the run with a stolen camel. I’m seeing this from the point of view of a king. We can do some good here. Schools. A hospital. Port improvements. Drains. This is a chance to make the world a better place, introduce a bit of law and order.”
The Professor snorted. “Otto, do you really think an impostor and a camel thief is the man to bring law and order to anybody? Dear God, man, you’ve even lost the camel. How you plan to keep control of an entire nation when you’ve got no idea where your camel might be is beyond me!”
“It had nothing to do with Otto,” Max said. “It was me. I lost the camel.”
“Nobody’s blaming you, mate. But look, this is exactly what I’m talking about. I can’t be wasting my time all day worrying about what happened to the damned camel.”
“It was a bloody good camel.”
“And I know you loved it dearly, Max, but still, I have to think about other things. Arbuthnot is outside that door with the British Empire at his back and, worse than that, those madmen from the Companions. They could be anywhere. I have no idea who they are or where they are. I have no idea if the whole town is choked with them or if he simply invented them. I don’t know. The Turks are to the south, and they might not know much but they know they didn’t send me. The Ser
bs are to the north, spoiling for a fight, and the Royal Fathers-in-Law must be pacified.”
“All the more reason to cut and run,” said the Professor. “You’ve been to the Treasury. Four millions of leks, Otto. It’s enough.”
“No. I’m staying. I’m riding a tiger here and the one thing I can’t do is get off. But if you want to go, I won’t stop you. Whatever money is in Kemali’s desk is yours. We’ll shake hands on it and I’ll send you on your way with no hard feelings and more to follow once things settle down a bit.”
I looked hard at Max. “Go or stay?”
“Stay, Otto.”
“That’s it sorted then.”
There was never much to see on the Professor’s face. If the eyes are the windows of the soul, he had nothing but drain covers, those hideous black glasses that seemed to soak all expression away into them. Still, he looked relieved. He heaved a sigh and his shoulders relaxed.
“Thank you, Otto. You are very understanding toward an old man. I’ll get Sarah and we’ll be on our way.”
“Sarah stays,” I said.
“You can’t be serious.”
“She stays. You can go if you want to, but Sarah doesn’t want to leave.”
“You mean you don’t want her to go. You mean you’ve decided for her. You’ve decided to hold her here. To spite me.” His spectacles glittered and his knuckles were white on the handle of his cane, but I was calm.
I said, “Do you want to put this to the test, old man? I’ll accept her answer if you will. Arbuthnot!”
The door opened.
Sarah was wrapped in a dressing gown I did not recognize and which was clearly not her own. It went round her twice, the sleeves were doubled over in gigantic cuffs and it fell in an awkward, tripping pool of cloth at her feet. She looked like a girl caught in the middle of getting ready to go out, after she had finished pinning her hair up but before she had finished doing her face, and she did not look pleased.
If You're Reading This, I'm Already Dead Page 21
