If You're Reading This, I'm Already Dead

by Andrew Nicoll

  “We can go,” said Kemali.

  The gilded priest, with many pleas for forgiveness and humble apologies for the audacity of his intrusion and much deep bowing, formed us up into a line and led the way back into the church.

  Do you remember what I told you about the bomb in the afternoon and the way I felt it growl and rumble in my chest, how it gripped my heart and shook my lungs against my ribs? My coronation was like that. I felt it in my bones as much as I saw it through my eyes.

  I’m not a coward—you know I’m not—but I don’t mind telling you the blood was pounding in my ears as we stood there with the doors of the church closed against us.

  And the chanting started: deep, treacle-colored singing like the slow, rolling, grinding music of a turning mill. Imagine standing under the trees of a forest when a storm is coming, when every bough is shaking and trembling, when every tree is whispering a different note and every whisper joins to become a shout that you can hear for miles, when every leaf is singing a different color, when every sound is a motion, when you can hear every movement and see the music of it passing overhead, the way that Adam and Eve saw God passing through the garden. That’s what we heard from the other side of the door—the sound of bearded priests booming like bassoons.

  Then the doors swung open and the sound of the singing washed over us in waves.

  The golden priest stepped forward, leading us into a darkly shadowed interior, but as I entered they began to light candles as if the arrival of the king had brought a new dawn. A tiny pinprick of yellow light appeared at the far end of the church; it dipped in the shadows and then there were two, then four, then more and more, passing from hand to hand, each lighting a candle for his neighbor until light filled the church like a rising tide. The place was packed with Albanoks jammed in like sardines, elegant ladies in fabulous hats, husbands who proudly bankrupted themselves to pay the haberdashery bills, the finest families in the city, the politicians, the clan chiefs, the officers, the brigands and the bashi-bazouks, each of them holding a leaping candle, each of them turning to let its light fall on me. The glow filled the church, reaching up to the icons of sad-eyed saints painted on every column, on every tiny bit of wall up and up until they disappeared into the shadows under the roof.

  The chanting rolled on and, from the very heart of the crowd, two huge chandeliers began to rise on chains toward the roof, like a slow explosion of light, like great, bronze balloons creeping upward, little by little, until every glorious, glowing, painted, gilded inch of those columns was on show and there, in the roof, was the face of Christ, looking down at me like a dreadful reproach. I couldn’t look him in the eye, and luckily I was too busy getting crowned to wrestle with my conscience just then.

  The priest’s boy took Max and Arbuthnot and Kemali off to one side, but the boy with the saddlebags refused to leave me. He had his instructions—to stand by my side—and he would obey them like a dog, but I patted him on the shoulder and sent him away with the others so I stood alone, surrounded by priests and acolytes.

  My bodyguard of priests closed ranks and shuffled me forward, down to the front of the church, where my throne was standing in front of a wall of icons and, most surprising of all, where Kemali was waiting with a clutch of bearded Mussulmans. I have no idea who those people were. It might have been the Grand Mufti; it could have been Ali Baba and his Forty Thieves—I didn’t know then and I don’t know now—but I was delivered into their tender care for one of those “little additions” Kemali had explained about.

  The priests fell back, the fathers-in-law surrounded me, one grasping each hand, one supporting each elbow, one pushing me along from behind, and they frogmarched me to a wooden stand heaped with fancy carpets where I was made to pose, like a prize boar on market day.

  There were some magical passes of the hands and some no-doubt-very-sacred mumblings which Kemali hastily translated, but I couldn’t hear a word of it for the Red Indian whoops of the harem girls, a howling and a shrieking such as I have never heard since—well, not until that bomb came down across the park.

  The fathers-in-law silenced their daughters with scowls and threatened backhanders, then they took me by the wrists and raised my arms high.

  “Keep your hands raised to heaven,” said Kemali and, like a good and obedient king, I did.

  The Mussulman clerics approached and wrapped me round the waist with a scarlet sash and a sword belt of white leather, which they buckled into place.

  “Keep your hands high,” said Kemali, so I did, and then another set of Mussulmans arrived, this time bearing a sword with a gorgeously jeweled handle in a scabbard which, if it was not gold, was very highly polished brass.

  They jabbered at me in their outlandish tongue and Kemali said, “By this sword you are invested as the Great King of the Albanian people, from the sea to the mountains, their master and their lord, their keeper and protector, upholder of justice, chosen of God, we acknowledge your reign. For goodness sake put your arms down.”

  The fathers-in-law signaled, “Now you can scream,” and, as Aferdita and the girls set up their howling again, I discovered why I was made to stand on that fancy step. One after another the menfolk began to fall on their faces, taking turns to come and touch my shiny boots—the clan chiefs, the captains of the brigands, the officers of bashi-bazouks, they all bowed to acknowledge me as lord. It was quite a chest-puffing moment, but it went on for a bit and then it just got to be embarrassing. I have that much to say in my own defense. There are some—and I don’t think we need to mention any names here—who could never tire of people slobbering on their boots. There are certain political figures who would be quite content to have the whole world form an orderly queue and file past for a bit of vigorous bootlicking, with occasional breaks for meals, cigarettes and the usual necessaries. There are some who would take that sort of thing as their right, but I am not one of them and, if truth be told, I found the whole thing a bit awkward and uncomfortable, but it was beyond my power to stop it. I could hardly let one hetman grovel and then forbid the next. Come one, come all. No, I just had to stand there until they had their fill until, at last, even my ministers, even Zogolli and, last of all, good, kind, wise, loyal Kemali took their turn to bow the knee. That was too much to bear. I got down off my step and helped the old man to his feet.

  “Most kind,” he said, “most kind, Majesty. But we are not done with you yet.”

  Kemali backed away, bowing respectfully, revealing at his back a wall of grim-faced, golden-robed priests. I stood up straight to face them, as a man would face his firing squad, and then, after a moment of silence, the chanting began again, rolling like waves, boiling like clouds, rising and falling, singing songs about God alone knows what.

  Four of them broke out from the crowd, including the man with the biggest beard I ever saw, a thundercloud of a beard that exploded from his chin down to his chest and up to where his bristling eyebrows were crowded down by the weight of his golden hat. They never stopped booming and singing, not even for a moment, as they processed around me. And as they went they wrapped me about in a fine blue shawl which hung around my shoulders. The man with the gigantic beard produced a thing like a big nappy pin and fixed the two sides of the shawl shut over my breast and he began to mumble music at me again.

  Kemali said, “Say ‘I do.’”

  “Une nuk,” I said.

  And then there was more chanting and more mumbling before the gilded priests grabbed hold of my shawl—one to each corner—and took me off on a grand circuit of the church. I was guided along as if with my head sticking out from the top of a tent, two priests on either hand, Archbishop Big Beard strolling along in front, swinging a censer on a chain, trailing clouds of perfumed smoke as we went and with a regiment of clergymen coming along in convoy and singing as they came.

  Wherever we passed there was a furious storm of crossings. Men and women—and by God there were some damned pretty women—bowing their heads as we went by and marking lips
and breasts with the sign of the cross; honest, upright, respectable Mussulmans who had never given a thought to such heresy before, joining in with their neighbors because it was the thing to do, because their neighbors were doing it and it was suddenly the fashion.

  And we know how that goes, don’t we, you and I? We know where that sort of thing ends up. We know what happens when dearly held beliefs are put aside because everybody else is doing it. We know what happens when it’s suddenly all right to steal because everybody else is stealing, when it’s all right to throw stones through windows because everybody else is, when it’s all right to be a bully, when it’s all right to say nothing because nobody else is saying anything. You know where that ends up? You know where that ends up. It ends up with an old man blown to bits in a shitty little tin caravan.

  Forgive me. I got carried away, but it’s passed off now. I went for a walk, or at any rate I stood up from the table and stamped up and down the length of this caravan for a bit. I might have gone further, I suppose, if I had dared to go outside, but I lacked the courage. I am too afraid to open my door in case the bombs get me, so I stay here, inside my caravan, where I am safe from bombs. It’s nonsense. It’s madness. It’s as stupid as blaming those good people in that church all those years ago for the bombs that are falling on me now. I went to make a cup of tea but I forgot I haven’t any tea. Forgive me. I have come to mistrust crowds, that’s all. It’s all right now. As I recall, I was telling you how the priests dragged me round the church in my tent of a shawl.

  Round the church we went, everybody turning in their places as we passed, the way that daisies turn to the sun, only I was the daisy and a thousand tiny candle-suns were turning toward me.

  The priests led me back to my throne and began a new bout of chanting. To tell the truth, it was boring. I had no idea what to do or even what I was supposed to be thinking while all this singing was going on. I tried to think high-minded thoughts. I strove to prepare the inner man for the awesome duty I was about to undertake. More than anything else, I struggled to keep a straight face. My eyes found Sarah standing near the front of the crowd, her weight on one foot, the other leg a little to one side so she stood like a capital R with that curve sweeping down to her heel. Do you remember what we used to say about “a prettily turned ankle”? In the old days that was just about all there was to see and, although I’d seen all the rest, seeing that gorgeous, swan-neck curve was as good as seeing her naked again. And there was Tifty, standing near her, glowing in that daring dress. Mrs. MacLeod, I knew, would be close by, too short to spot in the crush, but I could see Max, looking solemn, and Arbuthnot looking the same as he always did. He never changed, that man.

  I turned my kingly gaze on each of them in turn, as if my private thoughts could reach them, but my eyes lingered on Sarah and stayed there. That dress. That hat. Those eyes. The candlelight falling on her face. The tiny, locked world of the railway-carriage sleeping car. The taste of her. The smell of her. The warmth of her. I was so deep in love with that girl and I wanted it to show in my face. I wanted her to look in my eyes and see herself reflected there and know that I loved her. She did. I hope that she did. I know she did because I saw it in her eyes when she looked back at me and, more than that, I saw it in Tifty’s eyes, saying, “Goodbye.”

  The priest-song halted for a moment.

  “Say, ‘Une nuk,’” said Kemali.

  So I did, and in exchange the priests gave me a scepter to hold and then we had another procession all the way round the church and back to the throne for some more singing.

  “Say, ‘Une nuk,’” said Kemali, when they reached another break in proceedings, and then they gave me a golden orb to hold. Off we went round the church again, only this time we stopped in front of the great wall of icons, pictures of Christ and his mother, pictures of this saint and that saint, endless rows of them, with their long beards and their sheep’s eyes. Each of them had to be asked for a special blessing. Each of them had to be saluted by name.

  “Bow when they bow,” said Kemali, so I stood there in my little tent shawl, with my orb and my scepter and, when the priests bowed, I bowed and we all got on very well. There was another age of bowing and picture kissing before we went back to the throne for another sing, but this time when they all fell silent and Kemali said, “Say …” I beat him to it and said, “Une nuk.” I never had any problems with learning my cues.

  The priests surrounding me let go of my little shawl, took a few steps back and returned with an enormous red cape that any self-respecting cardinal would have dismissed as a bit ostentatious. There was so much gold embroidery stitched into it that I reckon the damned thing could probably have stood up by itself. It was absolutely rigid, like a suit of armor. God knows how many poor little nuns must have bled their fingers white in stitching it, and when they put it round my shoulder and buckled it up across my throat it felt like somebody had emptied a sack of coal into my pockets.

  Luckily I still had my pageboy priests with me and they gathered round and helped me bear the load as we set off for another tour of the church, but this time, thank God, when we got back to the throne, they let me sit down.

  The singing stopped. I was sitting bolt upright in my seat with my orb in one hand, secretly resting on my knee, and my scepter crossed over my chest and sort of leaning, just a little bit, on my shoulder, because the damned thing was starting to get heavy, and the whole place was absolutely dead silent. The whole place was holding its breath. There was a window open. I remember the cry of a blackbird that sounded out like a fire alarm and I remember the sweat, a tiny trickle of sweat, running down between my shoulder blades and the heat and the weight of that cape and I realized that it was my turn to say something and I took a big breath, ready to shout, “Une nuk,” in my kingliest voice, but Kemali held a finger up to his lips, so I sat there, very still instead, saying nothing at all.

  Silence. Absolute silence. Then four priests came in a squadron, each one carrying a pole and, stretched between the poles, corner to corner, a sheet of cloth, like a portable roof with a tasseled fringe. They stood around me so the sheet was above my head, and then Archbishop Big Beard reached into his sleeve and produced a cut-crystal perfume bottle. He stood close to me. The priests lowered their poles. They came closer to the throne. They let the cloth sag. It fell in folds around us, hiding us in a tiny private world, a big top where we were the only performers. But that’s not right. It’s not respectful enough. It wasn’t a big top, it was a little sanctuary, a holy place in the middle of that holy place, where holy things were done, things so holy that they could not be looked on—not by anyone.

  That fat old man, with his bristling beard, was standing so close to me I could smell his breakfast and, when he pulled the stopper off his perfume bottle, I swear to you it rattled in his trembling fingers as if he was handling nitroglycerine. He tipped a tiny flood of oil into his hand and dabbed it on my head with many murmurings. I felt it, cool and wet, in my hair, running down on to my scalp, trickling over my head, and I knew enough to know what it meant. It was more than a crown. It was the blessing and authority of God.

  The priest wiped his hands across my ears and over my eyes and, last of all, with more garlic-sausage whispered prayers, he touched my mouth and then the moment was over. He straightened himself under our private little tent, and the pole carriers took that as their sign to lift the canopy high again.

  I wonder if the anointing left me changed. I wonder if I was different to look at. Certainly I felt different and they looked at me differently—even Sarah, who put her ankle away and stood up straight and looked at me solemnly and then turned her face away and looked at the floor. Fool that I was, I liked that. The singing started again.

  The canopy was back in place over my head. The priest handed his bottle to an acolyte, backed away from the throne and vanished through a door in the middle of the wall of icons. I couldn’t see where he had gone, but I knew why he had gone and, when he came back carrying
the crown, the music burst like a thundercloud.

  Don’t forget, those hundreds of people inside that church had never seen the crown before. Kemali and Zogolli had seen it. They imagined it, or rebuilt it or something, and I’d tried the damn thing on for God’s sake, but the people had been waiting for it to arrive the way that children wait for Christmas and far, far more than they had been waiting for me. When I arrived in the church they were all suitably respectful and properly excited, but nobody gasped, nobody stood there with their hands clamped over their mouths the way they did when they saw the crown. Nobody burst into tears for me.

  The priests sang. The people sang back. The priests sang. The people sang back and slowly, slowly, the priest with the big beard drew closer to the throne, bearing the crown before him, carrying it with his hands folded inside his sleeves like a thing red-hot from a furnace.

  He reached out to me. The priests holding the canopy stretched out their free hands toward him until, when he stood over me, all four of them were touching him, as if to say that they were crowning me too. The crown was close. Closer. Closer. The crown was poised over my head. I could feel the electric crackle of it. I wanted to sit staring to the front, dignified and imperious, and I tried, but I’m only flesh and blood and I know that my eyes flickered upward once or twice, just to see what was going on, and then there was nothing at all to see. My vision was filled by a theater curtain of golden robes and then the priest stepped away and I knew it had happened and I could feel the crown on my head and I knew that I was the king and all the other priests stepped away and the people could see me—me and the crown together—and they went crazy with their God Save the Kinging.

  Well, we had to have another parade after that, all the way round the church again and back to the throne so I could sit to receive the homage of my people, one after another, kneeling to kiss my hand, and when that was done at last, Kemali said, “Now, Majesty, we must leave. It is time for the people to see their crowned king.”