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

by Andrew Nicoll

  “Yes, Erlaucht.”

  “There are no railways in Albania.”

  “No, Erlaucht.”

  “Therefore, I shall complete the journey by sea.” I was kicking myself as soon as I said that. For all I knew, Albania might be landlocked. The stationmaster said nothing. He sat with his pen poised.

  “Go on then, man. Make the necessary arrangements.”

  “But which sea, Erlaucht?”

  I sat up. “Are you playing with me, Mister Stationmaster? Which sea, indeed? The Atlantic, of course!”

  You know, I think he was teasing me. I think that might have been one last test. I think he might have been unsure about me even then and I failed his test. But, whether it was because I put enough aristocratic sarcasm into my voice or whether it was because he was just glad to see the back of me, the stationmaster never turned a hair of his magnificent silver mustache.

  “Forgive me, Erlaucht. A ridiculous question. Of course, our only sea coast is on the Adriatic. I imagine you will be joining the fleet there.”

  I simply rolled my eyes to the ceiling again.

  “I will make out the appropriate documents for Fiume.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Fumey. You do that!”

  The stationmaster picked up the gilded telephone from his desk and turned the crank. He yelled into the mouthpiece, “Stationmaster here,” he said. “The Graf von Mucklenberg, Keeper of His Imperial Majesty’s Camels, will be leaving on the night train for the Adriatic with a party of four and a camel. Make all necessary arrangements. I will supply the papers.”

  And then he said, “Outside.”

  And then he said, “If you go outside the station and find a camel, I imagine that will be the appropriate camel.”

  He put the telephone down and he picked up that big black pen from his fancy inkstand. The stationmaster wrote carefully. He took his time, writing in a book of printed forms. He tore six of them out, one at a time, and folded each into an envelope.

  I waited. It took nearly half a cigar. The stationmaster struck another match and lit the wick on a long block of sealing wax. He took the envelopes, sealed every one of them with a big red blob of wax and stacked them up and then he turned to me again.

  “Honored my lord …” He stood up and came round the desk. “Honored my lord, your tickets.”

  He was making a bit of a fuss. I suppose I should have made a fuss too, stood up to receive them or something, that would have been nice, and Otto Witte would have done that, but not the Graf. Oh no. The Graf just held out his hand, shifted his cigar into his cheek and said, “Thanks a lot, old man.”

  The stationmaster was disappointed but he tried not to show it. “If you will follow me, Erlaucht—” he took his hat from the stand by the door and stood aside to let me out—“the train is waiting.”

  I stood up and brushed some of the stationmaster’s scented cigar ash from my trousers. That fine gray ash. Fine gray ash like those little burning bits of paper blowing past my windows. It’s hard to remember which one was first. It’s hard to think which one was thirty years ago.

  I followed. He waited for me at the bottom of the stairs, straight as a poker, face like a carved mask. “This way, Erlaucht.” And then he never said another word. Too proud, I suppose, too humiliated, too angry, too ashamed. He made his way through his station and I walked alongside until we reached the gates at the end of Platform One and then, at some secret signal, the band started up. The Radetzky March. Lots of lovely Imperial oompah, and there was Max on the platform grinning like an idiot, and Tifty looking good enough to eat, with the Professor on her arm and Sarah smiling at me and, down at the other end of the platform, the camel was being loaded into a nice comfy wagon.

  The stationmaster made a smart bow. “I leave you here, Erlaucht.”

  “Very grateful,” I told him and then, because I was feeling generous, I offered my hand. “The Emperor will hear of your excellent work.”

  He held my hand and leaned in close. “Those tickets in your pocket—strictly one way. I have no idea who you are, but you are somebody else’s problem now. I will report to the capital on your safe departure, inform the Palace that the Keeper of the Imperial Camels is safely on his way to the sea. I don’t expect that they will ever have heard of you and I doubt that we will ever meet again.” And then he said, “Erlaucht.” But he said it like he didn’t really mean it.

  He was a wise old bird. I liked him a lot.

  And, like I said, that was how we came to be on the night train out of Budapest: me, Otto Witte, acrobat of Hamburg; my mate Max; Professor Alberto von Mesmer; Sarah and Tifty. And the camel.

  I like a train, don’t you? It’s ages since I’ve been on a train. I don’t even know if they are still running. There are no railway lines near me so I wouldn’t hear them on the tracks, and the Allies bombed the station and, I suppose, most of the trains are needed for moving troops and guns and stuff like that. Still, there must be trains, surely.

  I was often on a train in the old days and I liked it a lot. I remember one time, it must have been when we moved the whole damned circus from Heidelberg, way down to Ulm for the spring fair. By God, it was hot that day. A real warm spell. So we got everything loaded up in the wagons, and I don’t know how she did it but, somehow or another, Tifty managed to keep a whole compartment for herself. Everybody else was jammed in tight, hanging off the luggage racks and sitting on one another’s knees, and I was just about to squeeze my way into the third-class smoking car —I was actually holding on to a leather strap in the roof to haul myself inside—when Tifty grabbed me by the shirt tails and dragged me back out.

  “I know a better place,” she said, and she slammed the door on the carriage, took me by the hand and trotted off down the platform to her own little compartment.

  Trains were different in those days. No corridors. Just a room on wheels with a door at either side. We had that one to ourselves, and once it started moving it was a little world of its own. No way in or out. Completely private.

  I was standing at the window, looking discouraging, just in case any latecomer might want to spoil the party and, I swear, by the time that train was out of the station, Tifty had her clothes off.

  When I turned round from the window there she was, as naked as God made her and smiling up at me with her dress all folded up like a pillow beside her.

  “May I examine your ticket, madam?” I said.

  “Otto, darling, you can examine anything you want.”

  I think that was the second-nicest train ride I ever went on. Everything was so sunny and green and the cows looked so happy in the fields and there were flowers waving and twinkling all along the sides of the railway and flashes of emerald-colored light splashing off the young leaves of the trees. Maybe I have just imagined that. Maybe that’s just one more lovely thing that memory has added in to make that trip even more perfect because, to tell the truth, I don’t think I spent too much time looking out the window. A couple of coaches along, my mates were jammed in together, clinging to the luggage rack, hanging off the straps and having a great time—just like Tifty and me!

  But everybody was respectable when we drew into the next station. I jumped out and ran back to the third-class smoking car and banged on the door. “All change,” I said. “There’s plenty of room further up.”

  I don’t know how many of them fell out on the platform when I opened the door but there must have been at least a dozen, and they all ran off along the platform, laughing and yelling, and they jumped in beside Tifty.

  We were always having fun in those days, always happy. Well, mostly. When I got back into third class and sat down, Sarah was there on the bench opposite. I smiled at her and she smiled back but she looked a little sad, as if she knew what I’d been up to and it hurt her. Sarah and I didn’t. Not at that stage, you understand. She had no right but, still, it made me sad that she was sad and I think I felt a little ashamed. It took the gilt off the gingerbread a bit and that’s why the tr
ip to Ulm is officially only my second-nicest train journey ever.

  Now, my very favorite train journey ever was the one on the night train from Budapest.

  I’ve had some great times in third-class smoking cars, but this was nothing like that. No slatted wooden benches for us, but a saloon car with big, button-back velvet armchairs as plump and curvesome as Tifty herself. They have dirty tin oil lamps in third class, oil lamps with bare wicks, but we had proper lamps with glass globes and polished brass reservoirs and we had carpets where they had bare boards. We even had a steward—not that he had much to do once he’d filled the champagne glasses.

  And Tifty had a bag full of gold, enough to pay for anything we wanted. The steward brought us cold chicken and, after Tifty had crossed his palm with silver and he withdrew again, she asked me for the tickets.

  “You can have this one, Otto. I’ll put the Professor next door to you, then Sarah, then me and dear Max right at the end.”

  My mate Max took his ticket and gave me one of his big bear grins. “Right at the end,” he said. “In case the camel needs a glass of water in the night.” But Max wasn’t only next door to the camel. He was next door to Tifty, and camels can go a long time without a drink.

  And, as well as making sure that Max was right next door to her, Tifty had also made certain that the Professor was between me and Sarah so, no matter how often that camel got watered, I was going to be pretty far from the oasis.

  “I’m sure we’ll all be very comfy,” Tifty said.

  “I’m sure we will.” I was trying not to sound huffy. “And now we are safely on our way and heading south to the Adriatic and Albania.”

  “West,” said the Professor. “We’re heading west toward the Atlantic and America.”

  “West!” Everybody jumped up and started looking out the windows and I must have snorted half a glass of champagne out of my nose.

  “West,” I said, as if I’d known that all along. “You’re sure?”

  A train could be a comfy little love nest on wheels, but it would make just as good a jail cell, and I was beginning to wonder if the stationmaster had decided to have the last laugh by sending me and the Imperial Camel straight back to Vienna.

  “West,” said the Professor.

  Max shrugged from the window. “It might be west. It’s hard to say. Too dark.”

  Sarah looked at me and nodded.

  “Sarah says I’m right and you may take it that I am right.”

  “Professor, darling, you are uncanny.” Poor Tifty flopped down in a velvet armchair and poured herself some more champagne with the look of a woman who expected not to see any more for a very long time.

  The Professor held out his glass. “There’s no trick to it, even for a blind man. There are signs anybody can read: the wind, the prevailing weather in Central Europe at this time of the year. Also the railway timetables. It is a well-known fact that all the trains from Budapest to the Adriatic first go west, not south, avoiding the mountains. Tonight we will travel along the shores of Lake Balaton—I’m sorry to miss it. I hear it is quite lovely—and we’ll be at the Adriatic in the morning.”

  The old bugger was showing off again, but I knew I couldn’t afford to deal with him as I had the stationmaster. Even looking me full in the face, the stationmaster wasn’t quite sure that he could see me, but the Professor’s inky glasses might as well have been fitted with X-rays.

  “Why don’t we have a brandy before we turn in?” I said. Max obviously thought that was a great idea, but I said, “Just you and me, Professor?”

  “I am quite tired. I think I should go to bed.”

  I put my hand on his arm, just to show that I meant it, and I said, “Please. Important state business for the King of the Albanoks and his grand vizier,” and, although he was halfway out of his chair, the weight of my hand on his elbow was enough to make him sit down again. Some things, I have discovered, weigh a lot heavier than you might think. A kiss, for example, can be a weighty thing, or those little bits of ash drifting by on the wind. They float along on a breath of air but they crush everything they land upon.

  “Very good,” he said. “I am at Your Majesty’s command.”

  I signaled to the steward and ordered a couple of stiff ones and my mate Max suddenly noticed that he was awful tired and, funnily enough, so did Tifty. Sarah patted her dad on the back of the hand and said, “Don’t sit up too late,” but, as she passed my chair she let her fingers trail on my shoulders. “Goodnight, Otto.” That was all she said.

  After a bit, after the saloon door had clicked shut, after I had swilled my brandy round in its glass for a bit, after I had let the train go clickety-clack through the night for a bit, I said, “How did you get on with that telegram, Mr. Grand Vizier?”

  “Very well, I think. I sent it, with the help of the Countess Gourdas of course, and we paid an extortionate sum, but such things are always so much less painful with someone else’s money and, almost before we left the counter, a reply was coming through.”

  “What did it say?”

  “I have it here.” The Professor took a regulation slip of blue telegraph paper from his inside pocket, unfolded it and held it out to not quite where my hand was. “According to the Countess Gourdas they are thrilled to hear of your approach, they are wondering why you are currently in Budapest and they demand further details of your arrival.”

  “And what did you tell them?”

  “I gave them a full and detailed account of the celebrated rogue and camel thief Otto Witte—and every word of it in code 17c, of course. A few drunken streams of letters, that’s all. Then I broke off the line.”

  “You did well, Mr. Grand Vizier. No king ever had a more able minister.”

  He took a sip of his brandy and said, “Your Majesty is most generous.”

  Then it was my turn to do some brandy-sipping. It’s a useful thing, a glass of brandy. It can help the time pass without anybody noticing that nothing is happening and nothing is being said. Looking out the window is just as good, but it was night and there was nothing to see, just inky panes of glass shining back as flat and black as the Professor’s spectacles. I said, “A king and his chief minister should be able to speak frankly with one another, don’t you think?”

  “I think it’s essential.”

  “Then tell me frankly, what do you think of our chances?”

  “Slim.”

  “Slim? Didn’t I get us on this train—and the camel?”

  “I expect to suffer death by impalement within the week.”

  “And yet you’ve come along.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you don’t trust me.”

  “No. You are a libertine and a camel thief. You are not to be trusted.”

  I had no idea what a libertine was, but I knew it was not good, just as I had known the landlord coming down the stairs in Budapest was not happy. The words made no sense, but their meaning was clear enough.

  I said, “It’s no job for a choirboy, you know, this snatching countries business. Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun—they probably knocked off a couple of camels in their day. Nobody minds a camel thief as long as he’s a successful camel thief. The trick is to steal thousands of camels. Grab everybody’s camels and call them your own and you’re not a camel thief any longer—you’re a king.”

  “An interesting political theory,” said the Professor. “But it doesn’t really amount to a plan. Have you worked out how you’re going to grab all the camels?”

  I had to admit that I had not. “I got us on the train, didn’t I?”

  It was pathetic, and if he had owned a pair of eyes, the Professor would have given me a hard look.

  “I’ll think of something,” I said. “I’ll improvise. How can I plan for something when I don’t know what it is I’m supposed to be planning for?”

  “Tomorrow, when we reach the sea, what then?”

  “Then, Mr. Grand Vizier, I’ll put you on a boat.”

&nb
sp; “A boat? Just any old boat? Do you expect the Albanians to strew petals in your path as you step off some peeling trawler, stinking of fish guts? Time is of the essence. We have to get there before the other king; don’t you see that?”

  “I promised you a boat and you’ll get a boat. That’s a damned sight more than the Children of Israel got. They had to walk.”

  The Professor turned his blank eyes to the roof and sighed. “We’re doomed,” he said.

  “And yet you’re coming along. You don’t believe I can do this, but you’re coming along anyway!”

  He buried his nose in his brandy glass and he said, “I don’t have to believe. Sarah believes.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. Sarah believes you can become the King of Albania. She even believes you will make her your queen.”

  And then everything made sense. They had talked about that newspaper story long before I ever got home to the circus. It was Sarah’s idea all along. It was Sarah who described that picture in the paper—after she went into the Professor’s caravan with his coffee, after she had said God knows what to him—it was Sarah who stuck up for me when her father was sneering over how little I knew about the railways of Albania, Sarah who got me dressed up in the ringmaster’s tailcoat. “You’ve always been a king to me.” That’s what she said. “Like a bridegroom.” She’d said that too.

  “Now you know!” said the Professor, and he drained his brandy glass at a gulp.

  “Now I know.” I finished my brandy too. “So what will you do?”

  “I will come with you and die too. What else can a father do?”

  “No dying,” I said. “Nobody’s dying. This is about having a bit of fun and getting stinking rich. I won’t let anything happen to her. I promise you.”

  He said nothing.

  “The word of a king,” I said, and I clinked my empty glass off his, “and, in exchange, you have to promise me something, all right? No more showing off. No more trying to make me look silly. Save your brains for the Albanoks. Let’s make fools out of them.”