After Zenda
Page 38
Tourism is what we are pinning our hopes to for the country’s revival; plus, of course, foreign aid and the excellent opportunities for businessmen - briefly described in an article written by my trade minister over my royal signature in the latest number of Open Sesame -in a country now so united and, I must say, contented. And - to allay any superstition in financial circles about lending money to countries with green in their flag - there is now a measure before parliament to eliminate both green stripes from our national flag and substitute royal (or pollution) yellow, blue and white, with a gold circlet superimposed. I should finish by inviting you warmly to book your next holiday - winter or summer - in laughing Ruritania and by urging other still woebegone nations with dismal pseudo-democracies to consider restoring their kings - they’re a link with tradition, more glamorous than presidents and as long as you get the right bloke in charge and give him real power, they work. It is, after all, a much more tried and tested system than democracy. Anyway, as the old barge-woman said, Ruritania without a king is like a man without a bulge. I should finish there, but it would be pointless.
I’m writing this, as I said, in Slobodjak’s library, which, although it is pitifully short of books since he moved his out, does at least contain a brand-new copy of The Prince. I sent Hackney Library’s copy back with Freddy and Jennifer - she said it would save the postage, but made sure I gave her the outstanding fine in hard currency. It was a translation dating from before The Prisoner of Zenda and, incidentally, not the same edition as the paperback bought by Danzing for our coded correspondence: he never understood a single message I sent him. My reason for writing this, while the facts are fresh in my mind, is that if I have any descendant in, say, 2094, he or she will be able to know as much about me as I do about Rudolf Rassendyll and Flavia and perhaps something too about Yelena - she might be back on earth about then - and learn from my mistakes as well as my positive qualities. Well, perhaps the real reason is that I’m a bit pleased with myself for not living up - or down - to the family motto. But for that same reason and although this narrative is mainly true and I’m happy with the style - especially considering my lousy education - it’s not, obviously, brilliant PR for a new and much loved King. People still treat Machiavelli with suspicion five hundred years after his time. So I hope you’re not reading this in my time and, if you are, it must be because someone has stolen the manuscript or I’ve lost my crown and am trying to scrape a living in retirement like other has-been personalities. Or it could be, of course, that I’m dead; unless I’m shamming dead, like my great-grandfather the waxwork.
KR
The Royal Palace, Strelsau