by Mark Helprin
“I do.”
“Is that where you were when I was with the president at Camp David and you threw a fit?”
“Yes.”
“Who is she?”
“He,” said Fredericka.
In the leafy darkness near the Turkish Embassy, Freddy stopped still. “He?” He felt his stomach floating about, just as it had before his first parachute jump.
“Yes, he.”
“But I was gone for the entire weekend.”
“And so was I.”
“Oh, Fredericka,” Freddy said, almost in tears, his mind absolutely swimming. “Oh, Fredericka, did you stay . . . did you . . . ?”
“Do you know how many times,” Fredericka asked without any sympathy whatsoever for his jealousy, “while we were propagating, as you call it, or in your sleep, you have screamed the name Phoebe?”
As if to plead guilty and take his punishment all in one breath, a beaten Freddy asked, “Who is he?”
“Jus d’Orange.”
“That little French military attaché with the manners of a headwaiter? That brilliantined little slug in a pillbox hat? Him?”
“Oui,” said Fredericka.
Now that they were walking, Fredericka had a difficult time keeping up with Freddy’s pace. “He was at Spithead last time. If I had known, I would have killed him.”
“He’s very kind,” said Fredericka, “and gentle. . . .”
Freddy wanted to die, but, before he did, he wanted to kill. “We’ll go to Georgetown,” he declared, to the bewilderment of some passers-by. “I’ll put the squeeze on Jus d’Orange and throw his filthy body into the Potomac.”
“No, Freddy, you can’t.”
“And why not?”
“Because then I’d have to kill Lady Boylingehotte a thousand times over, would I not? You have many faults, but you are eminently fair when put to the test. Tell me that you won’t touch Jus d’Orange.”
“What if you got pregnant by him?” Freddy asked angrily. “The next king of England would be a bloody grapefruit.”
“It was more than a year ago, Freddy. Put it out of your mind.”
Deeply hurt, Freddy passed through Dupont Circle as Fredericka, many steps behind, followed the sound, like that of an idling outboard motor, of his grumbling. She was relieved when instead of turning south-west toward Georgetown he pointed them down Connecticut Avenue. Just after a store filled with wonderful things to eat, he halted in front of a movie theatre. On one of several publicity posters a magnificent-looking woman was pictured, mainly in the nude, in a most seductive pose. Her body was taut and long, with every bit of definition precisely where it belonged, and other areas enticingly lax. But it was her face and its expression that did the seducing, her eyes mainly, and her mouth, and the slight numbness of her cheeks that, even in a poster, proved that she was intoxicated with desire. It was hell for Freddy, because the movie was French, and its title in English was Anyone but My Husband. It was as if knives were cutting into his interior all on their own, and he almost cried. Though Fredericka was happy to have vengeance, and could have kicked his Jamaica-clad rear quarters like a football, she did love him. She didn’t know why, but she did.
A passing bus left them in a night-cloud of bittersweet diesel exhaust, the scent of which, Freddy had told her one night long ago in Scotland, reminded him of Rome. “It’s like Rome, isn’t it?” she asked, as the streetlights shone through the trees, dappling the sidewalk according to the intervention of swaying branches.
“It is,” he answered. “When I was young, they let me stay in the English Cemetery for a few hours to honour our dead. I was alone. I sat by a wall and breathed the air, which was sweet despite the exhausts of buses and Vespas. For that short time, I was like everyone else. I pretended that I could walk out of there and no one would know I was a prince, that I would not have to ride in a motorcade, that I could see the city as if I were invisible. I’ve always wanted to be anonymous.”
“Now that you’ve got your wish,” she said, “what are we to do?”
“Connecticut Avenue,” he told her, with the voice of someone who was just coming out of a dark place and in great danger of falling back, “leads to the White House.”
“The coup d’état ?”
“No, a hot bath.”
“But we’re not supposed to tell anyone, Freddy.”
“We weren’t supposed to tell Plaffy, either, or Jus d’Orange. We just need a little respite, and then we’ll be pulled back into the quest.”
“What would Mr Neil say?”
“I really don’t care what Mr Neil would say. I think that tonight we should sleep in Blair House. I would like to have a hot bath, with salts. I would like to start off tomorrow on a new foot. I don’t exactly have to say who I am. That’s the point. The president has a name for me that only he and Evita would know, a name that will both get us in and keep us from betraying, technically, what Mr Neil expects from us.”
“But only technically,” said Fredericka. “What name?”
“At Camp David, in the bowling alley, I heard him refer to me by this name. I had gone toward the tenpins to try to get my bowling ball free of the machinery, and because I was far away they thought I wouldn’t be able to pick up their conversation, but the acoustics gave me a leg up. I don’t know exactly what it means, but I believe it’s a word that in the American idiom signifies a close and faithful friend. And if he’s forgotten that, there are a number of intelligence passwords and replies, known only to heads of state and heirs, that I can use to bring him to the gate.”
“Freddy, I don’t know. . . .”
“Don’t worry, I have it down to a science. Princes, presidents, kings, we’re all part of the same fraternity. I promise you, Fredericka, that we shall, as they say here, blow right into the White House.”
EVEN BEFORE the two gap-toothed and golden Rastafarians reached the north-west gate of the White House, a radio call went out and a man in a vest too bulky for a hot night appeared as if from nowhere to stand in the shadows, from which he could rake the path to the West Wing with shotgun fire if someone were to make a mad dash. Inside the White House, amber lights on several consoles began to flash, and the approach was logged.
The Rastas pushed through scores of dangerous exhibitionists moving at high speed on Rollerblades over what had once been Pennsylvania Avenue and was now a playground for narcissists who wanted mainly to be seen by President Self or the television cameras with their celebrity correspondents working on the front lawn (they did not, of course, cut it), which was just, because President Self himself, the chief narcissist of the Western World, wanted mainly to be seen by the other narcissists and the television cameras. Freddy assured Fredericka that within half an hour, as soon as they could tear themselves away from the president’s greetings, they would be across the way in Blair House reading the British papers and eating sushi.
But just as they approached the sidewalk by the White House fence, a purple-clad behemoth in lobster-scale helmet and pads came rushing at them out of control. He was headed for Fredericka in such a way as to make collision unavoidable, so Freddy did the chivalrous thing and stepped between them to take the blow. The concussion was tremendous, at least for Freddy, who was thrown to the ground like the head of a gavel rapping on a slab of walnut. The skater was gone in an instant.
“Freddy? Freddy?” Fredericka pulled him to his feet. “Are you all right?”
“I’m all right. What was that?”
“One of those idiots knocked you down.”
Freddy bled from a cut under his right eye. “He must have hit me with an edge of his armour.”
“Shouldn’t we recover before we see the president?”
“All the more reason to go now.”
They walked ahead until they came to the guardhouse, where they greeted a uniformed Secret Service officer. “Good evening, sir,” he replied.
“I usually arrive in an automobile and get out under that lantern,” Freddy sai
d. “Do you recognise me?”
“No, sir.”
“We would like to see the president, please.”
“The president is not available. If you would like to see the president, he often appears at public functions. Should you have need of an appointment, write to the White House, Washington, DC.”
“No no no,” said Freddy, laughing politely, “I’d like to see him now.” He lowered his voice and sounded urgent but assured. “Call upstairs to the family quarters and tell the president or Evita that the nudnik is here.” Freddy pulled back, as if this would do it. When the guard appeared not to react, Freddy thought to clarify. “That’s my secret name. That’s what they call me, in there.”
“You’d better move on,” said the guard. “There’s a procedure that we have to follow, and at this point you’d best go.”
“You don’t believe us. I thought you might not. I also thought that the president himself might not remember his name for me. That’s forgivable,” he said, holding up his hands magnanimously, “and not a problem. Just tell him that . . . the yellow crow of Baghdad . . . is in . . . the cross-hairs of the tenth stooge.”
“I will,” said the guard. “Wait here.” He went inside.
“Freddy, what if the passwords have changed?” Fredericka asked.
“You’re right,” said Freddy. “I’ll have to go deeper. Officer? Officer?” he said, shouting very loudly and pounding on the bulletproof glass. With the shouting came, invariably, a high level of gesticulation. “I’m Chuckles! I’m here to see the Dalai Lama, and we’re going to play . . . cross-dressing. Tell the president that I’m going to plunge my knife into his breast. He’ll understand, and if he doesn’t, he can ask the Director of Central Intelligence.”
“Freddy, he’s not going to call the president.”
Freddy looked into the gatehouse, where several officers were unfurling a net. Others were briskly walking down the driveway. “Funny,” said Freddy, “another net. I think perhaps we should go.”
They burst through the narcissists, knocking quite a few off their skates, which seemed just and was certainly enjoyable, and then went west toward Georgetown, a place that Freddy mistakenly thought was named for his favourite king. “I’m hungry,” said Fredericka as she ran.
“I am, too,” her husband added. “Do you think trendy little restaurants in Georgetown take sterling?”
“They might,” she answered, “but we’ll never know.”
“Why not?”
“Because they won’t let us in.”
TOO EMBARRASSED to sleep on the street, though it might have been safer, they walked along the canal and found a wide doorway with a broad granite step. There they stretched out, too tired not to. “Do you think it’s safe here?” Fredericka asked.
“No,” said Freddy.
“We could go to Jus d’Orange.”
“That Franco-citric bastard? I’d sooner kill him.”
“Then what do we do?”
“Suffer until the banks open. Tomorrow we’ll change our nine thousand pounds. With more than twelve thousand dollars, we’ll go to a hotel for two nights, where we can rest and have a bath. That and some decent food will set us back only a thousand dollars, leaving eleven. Then we’ll have our teeth fixed at a public dispensary. . . .”
“Public dispensary?”
“We can’t afford to have it done privately.”
“What if they don’t match?”
“Why wouldn’t they?”
“That would be awful. Colour-matching is a subtle art.”
“Don’t worry. Say that’s another thousand at most. We’ll have ten left. If we spend a thousand on passable casual clothes and shoes. . . .”
“A thousand dollars for the two of us? A thousand dollars won’t even buy a brassière!”
“Those days are over. It will buy, as it will have to, some khakis, cotton shirts, and strong shoes for both of us, as well as belts, underwear for you, socks, toilet kits, and backpacks. We’ll need sweaters and jackets for cold nights or when we go into the mountains. With the nine thousand left we can buy a secondhand car—something rugged with four-wheel drive—and still have enough left over for a few weeks on the road.”
“Where are we going?”
“I don’t know, but I can feel the mountains rising to the west, and, beyond them, in the thousands of miles stretching onward to the sea, a promise that we will succeed.”
“Where do you get such confidence?” she asked.
“It wells up in me like a spring. Even when the spring seems drained and I’m prostrate with shame, I need only rest, and it reappears like a mad river rushing down from the Himalaya.”
“I never had that,” Fredericka told him, her voice slurred with fatigue, “but, then again, I haven’t needed it. What would we have done had we not had the ten thousand pounds?”
“For one thing, we wouldn’t be in these clothes, would we? And we’d still be white.”
Soon they fell asleep. It was not too bad a place to be. Often the canal was drained of water, mud-bottomed, and foul, but some event far away, where rivers ran over sharp rocks and had risen to foam, filled it with clean water as black as obsidian and saturated with oxygen. The long, dark run of the canal was covered in thick overhanging boughs heavy with summer leaves, not a one of which had yet died, and lights shone through, as they do on summer nights, making luxurious shadows, frosted patterns, and optical illusions. The step upon which the prince and princess slept was cool, and because their headgear was so huge and puffy they did not need pillows.
They had been in America for a day. Here, colours were neither soft nor light and sound was not muted as in England. Now in their dreams they were carried over dark plains where lights were at war, and the daylight of these dreams was as clear and bright as the modern paintings Freddy did not like. In this country everything had an edge, and where there was no edge, where time and tradition had worn against the blade of the new, rebellious angels floated invisibly alongside, honing without sound and sharpening with glee. As they slept, the prince and princess shuddered and moaned: you would have thought purely from the soundtrack not that they were sleeping but that they were in a battle. In their dreams they saw devils, angels, blinding colours, cities that arose in ambered towers, obelisks sheathed in flame, wheels, knives, engines, and all things and everything floating freely and cut loose from the past.
THIEVES
WHEN MORNING CAME in a half froggy light, some leaves that had fallen, their still-green stems cut by a force unknown, floated upon the canal like lily pads. Stiff from sleeping upon stone, the prince and princess slowly awoke. “What’s this?” asked Freddy, propelling himself instantly into a seated position and inspecting the many ribbons into which his clothes had been cut. “I’ve been julienned.”
“What do you mean? Oh! I have, too, like a potato. Why would anyone want to do such a thing?”
Freddy patted himself down. “They’ve taken the money. We have no money, not even a farthing.”
After making their way across the District of Columbia to the squid shop in Benning Road, they had to wait because it had not opened. Watchless, they did not even know how long they had remained in the doorway in expectation of Raphael as the afternoon sun turned their forsaken quadrant of Washington into the Rub al-Khali.
“Did you notice all those people whom normally we look down upon,” Freddy asked, “looking down upon us? People clutching briefcases and newspapers in a clearly barbaric way and scurrying to their upper-middle-class jobs in monumental buildings and glass boxes, asserting with every step their status in life?”
“I did.”
“They viewed us with revulsion, pity, and amusement. I’ve never treated people that way.”
“Not ordinary people, they were too far below you, but you did treat the nobility as these people treat us. Did you see their women? They were all wearing business suits and running shoes. It’s like a tribe in the Amazon.”
“We’re
all God’s creatures,” Freddy proclaimed. “We all moulder in the grave. What foolishness to believe that we can lord it over others because of some meaningless variations that we ourselves have made up.”
“Look who’s talking,” Fredericka said.
“Get the hell outa here,” Raphael ordered, moving between them to unblock his decaying wooden door.
“Are you Raphael?” they asked, following him inside.
“We’re not open yet.”
“Kitten sent us—Sal. Would you ring him up?”
“I’m busy,” Raphael said, as he began to cut apart the first squid of the day.
“But we have no other avenue,” Freddy told him.
“Lots’a avenues out there,” Raphael informed them, gesturing with his knife. “This is a squid shop, not AT&T.”
Taking Fredericka tenderly by the shoulder, Freddy pointed at an exhaust fan so encrusted with congealed grease that it looked like an illustration in a cardiology textbook. “I’ve never seen anything like that,” he said. “Think of the vast amount of cold blue ocean entrapped and distilled on that frame and fan. This five pounds of the most ethereal oil of the squid is the raffinate of ten thousand cubic miles of ice-blue seas. Here is the conqueror of Moby-Dick, the biggest living thing in the world, a nightmare of the ancients, clinging to a fan and covered with the dust of Benning Road. God, it’s just like Ozymandias.”
“You know that cat?” Raphael asked.
“Shelley?” Freddy answered.
“No, Ozzy.”
“Yes . . . Ozzy. Of course.”
“Why didn’t you say so? I’ve been cool with Ozzy since we were five years old—like, before there were birds. Any friend of Ozzy’s is a friend of mine.”
As Raphael washed his hands so he could use the telephone, Freddy turned to Fredericka and said, “I must be destined for the throne.”
KITTEN BEGAN to go over the plan even before the car door was closed. Though it may have been foolish to drive up and down the streets of Kalorama in a stolen Cadillac so conspicuous that it might as well have been Titanic, he did, passing the Clovis mansion forty times. “Wait a minute,” he said. “It just grabbed me. You’re white people.”
