After Zenda

by John Spurling

  ‘I’m tired,’ said Yelena to the men opposite and she looked as if she could hardly stay on her feet.

  I put my arm round her again, this time to support her, but she gently removed it for the second time and instead put her arm through mine and started to walk along between the windows and the backs of the chairs. We progressed up the first room and then the two others to the exit at the far end of the whole suite, while everyone stood and no one spoke. At the door Yelena withdrew her arm, turned briefly with a smile and a brief nod to the long lines of standing soldiers, and went out like a sleepwalker.

  I returned to my seat as conversation began again and the banquet deteriorated into a drunken racket. Balalaikas and guitars were produced, the tables pushed back, songs sung, bottles knocked over, glasses smashed, and lines of dancers, stamping and leaping, shook the floors to their joists. It must have been extremely disturbing to our imprisoned landlord in his tower next door, but I didn’t give much thought to him: I was singing, dancing and drinking with the best and stayed behind, when most had staggered away to their cell-beds below, with the hard core of revellers who finally sank down and slept on the spot.

  I was not, however, as drunk as my comrades and when I’d dozed for an hour or two and the whole place was quiet, I got up and opened a window. The cold air eased my headache. When I was sure no one else was awake I pulled myself on to the sill and jumped down. It was a long drop, but the alcohol I’d consumed made me relaxed and I landed softly in the snow. It was snowing again now, which I was glad of. Fisher hadn’t told me exactly where he’d hidden the statue, but I’d seen round the castle before the banquet and not noticed any likely hiding-places - unless it was in an attic or with the heating-system in the basement. It occurred to me, though, that while they were discussing the secret export deal, the Count might have taken Fisher for the same walk into the woods as he’d taken me. I wanted to check Fisher’s assurance that the thing was still at Previce, but I didn’t want to leave a row of footprints leading straight to the spot. The snow would cover my tracks by morning and save me taking a long way round now to disguise them.

  There were no sentries this side of the castle. They were posted at the gates leading into the courtyard more for form’s sake than anything, since there was no conceivable enemy to be feared and the count and Vladek had no transport and would hardly attempt to escape on foot. I walked as fast as I could through virgin snow to the watch-tower at the edge of the wood and climbed the rickety stairs on the outside. It was very dark inside - the windows were filthy - and I couldn’t see what state the floor-boards were in, so I felt my way carefully round the edge, past each of the three windows, collecting cobwebs in my hair and clothes as I went and once putting my foot through a rotten board. Finally, just before I came round to the door again, I bumped into a hard object leaning against the wall. It was wrapped in sacking and tied with string. I felt it over. It was certainly a human form.

  Then I heard a movement on the staircase outside. I remained completely still beside the sacking parcel. Whoever it was outside stopped moving too. We both waited like this for some time, but he got tired or his nerve cracked first.

  ‘Karl?’

  It was Fisher.

  ‘Hello, Fisher! It’s very late. How did you guess I’d want to check your facts?’

  ‘That was not difficult to guess, Karl, since you were given the room next to mine to sleep in. When you didn’t come down, I went up to see if you’d passed out and found the window open and tracks in the snow. You’ve got an obsession about this thing, haven’t you?’

  ‘Your facts seem to be correct, Fisher,’ I said, stepping round the statue towards the doorway, ‘so I can lay my obsession to rest.’

  ‘I’m glad, Karl,’ he said.

  He was standing about two steps down - snow falling thickly on his hair and half-length coat - and he put his foot on the next step up as he saw me appear in the doorway.

  ‘Laying that obsession to rest is what I’m here for.’

  He suddenly lunged at me with a large knife and would probably have spitted me straight through the stomach if the step hadn’t caved in under his sudden pressure. The point of the knife grazed my right thigh, tearing the jeans. I leapt back inside the doorway as he recovered his balance and came on.

  ‘I’m going to get you anyway, Karl, because quite apart from that obsession of yours I think you’re very bad news.’

  I went back behind the statue as he entered the doorway, his knife flashing momentarily as it caught the light from the snow outside. I had no weapon of any sort and although I was stronger I was reluctant to jump on him in case the floor gave way and broke my impetus as it just had his. On the other hand he was presumably using a knife instead of a gun because he didn’t want to make any noise, whereas I had nothing to lose if the whole castle heard us. As he took a step towards me I pushed the Virgin at him. It toppled very slowly and he had time to push it aside with his free arm, so that it rolled across between us and fell towards the middle of the floor. There wasn’t a lot of noise, because of the sacking, but its weight broke through part of the boards. The whole place must have been riddled with dry rot. At least I hoped it was. As he made his second lunge I jumped sideways and landed as heavily as I could beside the statue. The boards gave way comprehensively and with one bound I was free, lying shaken and bruised, but still mobile, in the snow under the watch-tower.

  Did Fisher really mean to kill me? (I asked myself as I loped with a limp towards the castle) but what then? How could he have got away with it? Of course, he could have pitched the body over the cliff where it wouldn’t be found until at least the spring, left the snow to cover the tracks, returned the knife to whatever kitchen-drawer he’d found it in and hey presto! Disappearance of the heir to the throne! ‘A pity, but he wasn’t really up to the job, was he?’ And so back to the True Faith, unsullied by a person with an evil impulse and too much knowledge of Fisher’s own evil impulse. Without me, he might still have hoped to export the statue and persuade the people of Chostok that I’d been fantasising. What he didn’t know was that I’d told the whole story to Yelena. Would she have missed me enough to investigate my disappearance more thoroughly or even suspect Fisher of being involved? That question I couldn’t honestly answer.

  I was now quite close to the castle. Fisher wasn’t following -he couldn’t run as fast as me, could he? But what would he do if I sent the guard for him? Claim it was me that attacked him and was wounded as he got the knife away from me? Run away into the snowbound forest? Bluff it out with some story about seeing a man making for the watch-tower and stabbing him in the darkness, not knowing it was me? He was probably putting the same options to himself at this moment.

  There was no sign of anyone outside the castle. The watch-tower was too far away and the noise of the statue falling and the rotten board breaking too muffled to alarm the guard; if they’d heard anything they’d probably assumed it was a small avalanche of snow off the cliff or a tree falling. I decided to let Fisher off his own hook for the moment. Yelena wouldn’t like having to choose between him and me; Michael would most likely stick by him if he was really the source of the guerrillas’ funds; and if I appealed direct to Vakisch and the soldiers I’d be forcing them to make a choice of allegiance. Best to pretend nothing had happened, keep Fisher sweating until further notice and make sure he had no second chance. Of course, I’d have to choose a safer place to spend the rest of the night than the room next door to his, but I could easily doss down in any of the ex-cells where there would be friends and weapons to protect me. Then as I passed the tower I had a better idea. It was very unlikely Michael would allow me any kind of conference with the Count and Vladek, but if I could somehow get in there now I could have a working breakfast with them before anyone missed me.

  The small windows of the tower were not barred, but none of the ground-floor ones were unlatched. The only door was round the inner side, opening on to the courtyard. There was, however, a smal
l one-storey extension built out of one wall - the Count had needed extra space for his kitchen - with a flat sloping roof. I got up there by way of a window ledge and from there, through an unlatched window, into the bathroom I’d used on my previous visit.

  I washed my wound - it was only a long scratch - and went through to the bedroom. It was too dark to see who was occupying the bed -probably Vladek. I took the blanket spread over the top of his duvet without waking him and went downstairs to the sitting-room, where there was the remains of a fire. Here I slept the rest of the night on the sofa under my blanket and was woken early in the morning by an astounded Magda.

  22 The Borgia Solution

  Magda not only patched up my scratch with plaster, brought me coffee and picked the cobwebs out of my hair, she found some stout thread and sewed up the rent in my jeans; meanwhile I lay on the sofa in my underpants and asked her how they had all been enjoying the winter at Previce. She and her mother, she said, had been free to come and go, but the Count and Vladek had been allowed out only under supervision: in consequence they were ‘as angry as bees’. She gave me back my mended jeans, roused my hosts and made us all breakfast. Vladek was pleased to see me, but the Count extremely grumpy:

  ‘I know you are a natural weathercock, Karl Marx, but you have been stuck too long in the bad wind from these terrorists. Dr Moritz told me you were under some duress, but he also told me you were not making too much effort to escape it. I must tell you that you will not be forgiven by the German interests in Strelsau and you have probably ruined your chances of ever becoming king. Colonel Danzing, for example, was so shocked by what he heard of your conduct that he resigned his post as ambassador in London.’

  ‘A bit extreme,’ I said.

  ‘Not for a man of honour like him. He felt responsible for inflicting you on our country.’

  I asked if by the ‘German interests’ he meant the German part of the population in general.

  ‘I don’t think they are aware of your existence and probably just as well.’

  ‘Then it’s only a few hard-liners who won’t forgive me?’

  ‘Hard-liners? I am talking about the people with the power.’

  ‘Won’t they have less power now if the government’s given way over the Kapitsa affair?’

  ‘Don’t rely on that!’

  ‘They’ve promised an inquiry and the inquiry will surely weaken the position of the hard-liners, if not actually destroy it.’

  ‘You are too optimistic’

  He became more friendly when I told him about my feud with Fisher and its violent outcome in the watch-tower.

  ‘It’s a pity you didn’t kill this snake instead of just breaking up my floorboards, but as soon as spring comes we’ll round him up with the others and I hope he may be shot. It’s very clear he’s the prime mover of all the trouble in Karapata as well as its source of funds.’

  I disagreed. Yelena was now the prime mover, I told him, though Fisher might have set her going in the first place. I also said that simply crushing the guerrillas would do no good at all, except to return the country to its previous state of ethnic division and leave the ground fertile for more unrest.

  ‘Are you becoming a serious politician, Karl Marx, or is it just that you’re under the spell of this witch of the mountains?’

  ‘If you are a serious politician,’ I said, ‘I wonder why you should see the time I’ve spent with the nationalists as counter-productive. Bring over the moderate German interests, get rid of the hard-liners, and you’d have a ruler acceptable right across the ethnic divide.’

  ‘Very easy,’ said the Count, ‘to win the hearts of outlaws grasping at any distant hope of power. But to win the hearts of those in power and persuade them to share it with you, that is next to impossible. They don’t need you, Karl Marx, and I’m not rich enough to bribe them to believe they do.’

  ‘What would make them need me?’

  ‘Nothing but the prospect or fear of losing power.’

  ‘So they only need to be sufficiently frightened?’

  ‘You are clutching at straws, dear boy. Yes, I saw yesterday how popular you are with your ragamuffin terrorists, but you might as well lead a mob of mafia in the back streets of Strelsau. These people are only fit to scare mountain crows and they will be destroyed in the spring if not sooner.’

  I turned to Vladek, who had taken no part in the discussion and looked very gaunt and nervy, as if he was suffering from permanent constipation or perhaps just from spending the winter closeted with the Count. They both gave the impression of living on the edge of each other’s tolerance.

  ‘What’s your opinion, Vladek?’ I said. ‘Have you any ideas?’

  ‘I’m just an artist, Karl. I can paint your portrait, I know journalists who might publish stories about you, but I have no influence with important people. I always thought Wunklisch did, but it seems not enough.’

  After all my recent encouragements over the past months this made me feel as sour as the Count looked. Was I really no further forward than when I’d first arrived in Strelsau? It seemed I was further back, since Grabenau had actually written me off for execution, while Vladek and the Count had obviously lost all enthusiasm for my cause. I wasn’t allowing, of course, for the depressing effect on them of being shut up all this time in the tower together.

  We returned to the subject of the statue.

  ‘On this matter at least your terrorist friends and I can agree: the carving should be returned to Chostok, but to whom it will belong then is another thorny problem. I think you will find that once order is restored in Karapata this valuable antique as well as the building it comes from will be reclaimed by the Catholic Church.’

  The Count walked over to the window as he said this and exclaimed:

  ‘Look! Your friends are already taking action.’

  Two soldiers, accompanied by several others, were carrying the statue, still in its sacking and looking like a corpse, across the broad expanse of snow from the watch-tower to the courtyard entrance. Snow had stopped falling sometime in the night and it was a brilliant sunny day. Standing next to Vladek and watching the scene -which could have been a funeral procession from an art film, except that several of the men were laughing and talking in loud voices - I remembered a previous idea.

  ‘We still haven’t located Flavia’s body,’ I said. ‘It’s surely worth looking in King Rudolfs grave at Zenda? Then we can use the occasion of a state funeral for Flavia to reveal that she had descendants.’

  ‘This is not a bad idea,’ said the Count, ‘except that we are in no position to pursue it.’

  ‘Perhaps I might persuade my friends to set you free for this purpose,’ I said.

  ‘That would be most acceptable.’

  The prospect made both of them more cheerful. It was agreed - very reluctantly on my part - that Vladek should take photos of me and use them as the basis for painting a series of portraits and selected scenes of my adventures in Ruritania, so that he could organise an exhibition in Strelsau.

  ‘And, of course, Karl, I will include your head-stand in front of the palace, which is one of my masterpieces.’

  I had grave doubts about the thought of those masterpieces being used as PR for me - they’d make even statues of Stalin and Lenin look friendly - but at least the real thing, if they ever saw it, could only be an improvement. Vladek fetched his camera and took several rolls of film, solo as well as in groups with the Count and himself and also Magda - dressed, of course, in her fetching ethnic costume and beaming with pleasure at being included.

  ‘Magda is really photogenic,’ said Vladek. ‘I should think this may easily launch her on a career advertising trips by Air Ruritania to the ski-slopes of Karapata.’

  ‘Our problems do seem trivial,’ I said. ‘All I’m really asking is to be Chairman of the Ruritanian tourist industry.’

  ‘An excellent approach,’ said the Count, ‘which could be suggested very seriously to our moderate friends in governing
circles. You may be a weathercock, Karl Marx, but you have glamour - not only your story and mysterious ancestry but even I must say - with your newly grown hair - your personal appearance. Take some more shots of Karl with Magda, Tarlenheim! What could be more attractive to tourists and therefore to investors than a small romantic kingdom with mountain scenery in a cheap currency area?’

  ‘The Switzerland of the East!’ said Vladek.

  ‘The Norway of the South!’ said the Count.

  ‘But unless your German friends make it up with my friends the terrorists,’ I said, ‘the ski-resorts and mountain scenery will be unsafe for tourists.’

  I returned to the other part of the castle to negotiate their release and found the whole place in turmoil over my disappearance. Fisher had come back, but said nothing about seeing me. His story was that, not being able to sleep, he’d heard a noise in the watch-tower, gone to investigate and found the statue fallen over and the floor disintegrating. This was why orders had been given to bring the statue into the castle. Obviously Fisher would have preferred not to reveal its whereabouts, but had settled for pre-empting any confrontation with me. Yelena was still sleeping and had not been disturbed; Michael and Vakisch questioned me about where I’d been. I admitted that I’d slipped away to talk to my friends in the tower and, before they could accuse me of double-dealing, broached my plan for releasing them so that they could try to discover Queen Flavia’s body and start the process of softening up Strelsau for the restoration of the monarchy. Michael was suspicious, of course, but Vakisch immediately saw the advantages:

  ‘We lose nothing by letting them go. Even if they fail to achieve anything positive, we at least can only gain by demonstrating our confidence and good-will in this way, ahead of the results of the inquiry at Kapitsa.’