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

by Andrew Nicoll

  I had nothing at all to say. I could’ve said, “What business is it of yours?” but that was the sort of thing only a king could say, and nobody knew better than Sarah that I was no king. Anyway, it was her business entirely, and mostly because I agreed that it was. Sarah and I had said things to each other and meant them. I loved her. But I wasn’t used to all the things that went with that yet—as Mrs. MacLeod had proved.

  The silence went on. The girls of the harem stood there in line, looking sheepish and embarrassed, and then the fat one said something which Arbuthnot helpfully translated.

  “She wants to know if this is your chief wife.”

  “Tell her to shut up.”

  “Yes,” Tifty said, “tell her to shut up. Come on, Sarah, darling, let’s go to bed. It’s been a trying day.”

  They were halfway up the stairs, linked in, arm in arm, Tifty blazing with indignation, Sarah frosty with rage, when the door to the dining room opened and Max came out.

  “Dinner in half an hour,” he said. “That’s a pretty good cook. He got the stove going in no time with a bottle of something. Turns out you can drink it as well.”

  Tifty called down to him, “We’re going to bed, darling. Bring the bags.”

  “But don’t you want your dinner?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Stay for dinner.”

  “Is that a royal command, darling?”

  When I didn’t answer they continued up the stairs with, “The bags, please, Max.”

  I stopped him as he passed. “Find some place to put these ones as well—and for God’s sake don’t tell me where, in case I get any big ideas.”

  Max whistled at the harem girls and they followed him dutifully up the stairs, stopping at the bottom to shake hands with me, one after the other, as they went.

  “I think I will go to bed too,” said the Professor.

  “No dinner for you either?”

  “I seem to have lost my appetite,” and off he went, tap-tap-tapping his way behind Max.

  “Turn right at the top,” I said.

  And that just left Arbuthnot and Mrs. MacLeod. “Won’t you go in to dinner?” I said, and I waved them toward the dining room. “Forgive me if I don’t join you.”

  I couldn’t have stood it. I went upstairs to find a bed. It wasn’t hard in that big house, and I chose the room with the balcony, big double doors with a gilt eagle over them and a really quite rude statue of a girl with no clothes on standing on one leg. When girls do that sort of thing in theaters, the cops try to shut the place down. If they do it in art galleries, Sunday-school teachers bring their grandchildren to look at them. Life is strange.

  Anyway, I lay down there on the big bed and I suppose that was how I was when Max found me with his plate of fried chicken and his two bottles of brandy and his heartfelt concerns about the provision of harems.

  “Arbuthnot and the woman are sitting down there gabbling in foreign,” he said. “I was like a spare bride at a wedding so I thought, blow that, I’ll go and see Otto and we can celebrate.”

  “I don’t feel much like celebrating.”

  “Well, you should. It’s not every day that you get to be King of Albania. By God, for a while there I thought we were done for, but you pulled it off.”

  I found myself wondering if there was any point in being King of the Albanoks if Sarah didn’t like me, and whether it might not be better to be with her in a little caravan than without her in a palace. Of course, I didn’t say any of that to Max but it must’ve shown in my face.

  “Have a drink,” he said, “she’ll come round. She has to understand that you’re a king, with kingly duties to perform.”

  “There are kingly duties and then there are kingly duties. It’s not like launching a ship or cutting the ribbon on a new bridge, you know.”

  “Otto, I’m telling you, if you don’t start cutting a few ribbons off those girls and launching a few of their boats, there’s going to be trouble. It’s expected. It would be rude not to.”

  He was right, of course. A harem is a handsome gift and it wouldn’t do to turn it down. Those warlords from the north might take that as a personal insult, and we wouldn’t want gossip. It wouldn’t do if the word got round that the new king didn’t like girls, and it just goes to show that you should be careful what you wish for.

  So we carried on in that vein for a bit, speculating on which of them should be the first to have her boats launched or whether it might not be best just to jump in with a fullscale review of the fleet, and we were pretty much through the first bottle when there was a knock at the door and Arbuthnot arrived, with the tip of Zogolli’s carrot nose poking through the door behind him.

  Arbuthnot announced his arrival with a lot of exuberant saluting and foot stamping and, while Zogolli was waiting to make his entrance, my mate Max got his boots off the royal bed, grabbed the bottles and ducked into the next room.

  “My dear Zogolli, what a pleasure!” I stuck out my hand and I could’ve sworn he flinched. He was probably still upset with me for saying “Boo!” to him earlier. “What can I do for you?”

  “Majesty, Prime Minister Kemali presents his compliments—”

  “Let me get you a refreshment. Max! Max! Have we any brandy? I beg your pardon, you were saying, Zogolli?”

  “Majesty, Prime Minister Kemali presents—”

  “Won’t you have a seat? I don’t believe in undue formality, although maybe we should see about some sort of audience chamber. I don’t really know my way about the place yet. Yes, go on.”

  “Majesty, Prime Minister Kemali—”

  “Do you think you could arrange that?”

  “Arrange what, Majesty?”

  “A chamber of audience. A proper one.”

  “It will be arranged, Majesty.”

  “Forgive me, you were saying …”

  “Prime Minister Kemali presents his compliments, Majesty. He is unavoidably detained at the castle.”

  “As a hostage.”

  “Entertaining Your Majesty’s fathers-in-law. He has instructed me to present the plans for Your Majesty’s coronation for your comment and approval.”

  “Wonderful. I promise I’ll look at them thoroughly in the morning.”

  “Majesty, they require your immediate attention.”

  “But when am I to be crowned?”

  “We thought about three o’clock.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “At three o’clock.”

  “But the King of England can’t possibly be here by three o’clock! What about the Kaiser? What about the Emperor Franz Josef? What about the President of the United States and the King of Italy? If the free and independent kingdom of Albania is about to take its place in the family of nations, we need them here to see it.”

  “Majesty, these matters are addressed in the papers you hold in your hands. There is no time to lose. The free and independent kingdom of Albania cares nothing for the approval of other world powers. There will be time enough for your brother monarchs to welcome you to your throne, but first we must get you on it!”

  And the truth is, that suited me fine. The faster the better, as far as I was concerned. I flipped through the pages in my hand. “Will there be children?”

  “Majesty?”

  “I want children scattering petals as I go. Symbolic of the rebirth of the nation, looking to our strong future.”

  “We will provide children.”

  “Try to provide clean ones.”

  “Majesty.”

  “No rickets. No scabies.”

  “Of course, Majesty.” He scribbled some notes in a little leather folder.

  “Very important, children. I’d like to open a school as soon as possible.”

  “Yes, Majesty. I’ll look into that.”

  “And will I go to the coronation by coach?”

  “We have no coach, Majesty. We can offer you a Rolls-Royce.”

  “Ah. Yes. But the roof?”

  “Easily repaired, Majesty.�
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  “Perhaps I could go by camel.”

  “Your Majesty’s camel appears to have been mislaid.”

  “Really? Oh, well, never mind. I’m sure it’ll turn up. How are we placed for horses?”

  “We have some very fine horses, Majesty.”

  “Then I’ll ride. The Royal fathers-in-law can be my Companions of Honor and him—” I gestured flappily at Arbuthnot, who stood slouching by the door—“he can be the Captain of the Guard.”

  “But, Majesty, that man is a mere sergeant.”

  “Promote him. Make a note.”

  Max appeared at my elbow with the brandy and poured two considerable glasses and Zogolli stood up to toast me.

  “I drink to you, my king, and to Albania, free and independent. A long life and a long reign and—” he clicked his heels as he had seen somebody do sometime—“to victory!”

  “To victory,” I said, with all the bloodthirsty, baby-on-a-bayonet relish that only a man who has no intentions of getting any place near the front can muster. “So, if that’s all, Zogolli, I’d better turn in. Busy day tomorrow, you know. Thank Kemali for all his work with this …” I waved the papers at him, “this very valuable advice. You can assure him that I will read it thoroughly to prepare myself for tomorrow and I’m relying on you to make those arrangements we discussed—some clean and attractive children.”

  “No rickets,” said Zogolli.

  “Exactly. Petals, horses, fathers-in-law, guards, oh, a nice school to open as soon as possible, and that visit to the Treasury.”

  Zogolli put his glass down and looked quickly at his notes. “The Treasury, Majesty?”

  “Yes, the Treasury. Didn’t I mention? Make a note.”

  “The Treasury, Majesty?”

  “Isn’t that where we keep the crown?”

  “Yes, Majesty.”

  “Don’t you think I should try it on? Perhaps before the coronation? Just to check for the fit?”

  “Of course, Majesty. Essential.”

  “Good. Shall we say nine o’clock? My man will see you to the door.”

  We waited quietly, Arbuthnot and me, until Max came back up the stair and then it was time for another toast.

  “I don’t mind telling you,” Arbuthnot said, “I had my doubts but, credit where credit’s due, I think you might just pull this off.”

  I raised my glass. “You know, I think we might.”

  And then there was another knock on the door.

  Remember I warned you about all the things I couldn’t possibly know and all those conversations I couldn’t possibly hear. Well, not long after Arbuthnot arrived in my room with Zogolli trailing along behind, a sign should have flashed up on the screen, a black sign with curlicue borders and big, white letters that said, “Meanwhile, in another part of the palace …”

  Then the letters disappear, the black sign fades and reveals a shadowed corridor, dungeon dark, and there, at the turn of the stair, there comes a light—a lamp carried in a woman’s hand. The woman is very small. She walks quietly but with a firm tread. She wears a modest dress of plain gray wool. Her hair is tied back from her scrubbed face. She wears no jewel. It is Mrs. MacLeod, the woman who commands the myrmidons of the Companions and who, for the promise of a kiss, could send any one of them, laughing, to meet death, and here she comes now, as dull as a June sermon, as modest as a butterfly.

  Mrs. MacLeod comes on quiet feet. She stops outside a closed door. She hears familiar voices. She knocks. The voices are stilled. The door opens.

  Mrs. MacLeod says, “Good evening, Countess Gourdas. I apologize for disturbing you so late at night. May I have a word with Miss Sarah?”

  Tifty says nothing. Tifty throws a glance back into the room. Tifty nods. She turns back to Mrs. MacLeod and says, “Please come in.”

  Sarah and Tifty had established their angry little nunnery in a pretty rose-colored room at the back of the house, overlooking the darkened garden.

  Standing there, with the yellow light of a dozen candles bouncing back from fancy gilded mirrors and the wind sighing in the trees beyond the window, Mrs. MacLeod looked like a suitable penitent, seeking admission to their order.

  She said, “I have come to talk to you of the king.”

  Sarah finished dabbing her eyes and tucking up her hair and blew her nose noisily on a tiny scrap of handkerchief. “I suppose you mean Otto,” she said.

  “Otto is the king. The people have acclaimed him. The government, such as it is, has been obliged to accept him, and the army is eager to obey him. Otto is the king because everyone agrees that he is.”

  Sarah smoothed down her skirt and stood up straight. “What is it you would like to tell me about the king?”

  “Only that you are about to make a terrible mistake.”

  “You need not concern yourself about that, Mrs. MacLeod. I am well aware of the kind of man he is. For a little while I was badly mistaken, but now I see my way clearly. I’m sure Mr. Witte will make a very good king, but he is not the man for me.”

  “Forgive me,” said Mrs. MacLeod, “but that’s exactly why I came to warn you. The king is a good man and, again, forgive me, if you don’t know that it is because you have not met enough of the other kind.” Without taking her eyes off the fireplace Mrs. MacLeod said, “If the Countess Gourdas has a different view on this matter, I will defer to her and say no more.”

  There was a long moment of silence. Tifty had spent most of the evening examining my character and finding nothing good in it, but that was just to go along with Sarah for the company and because they were friends and part of the great, suffering sisterhood of wronged women, but she couldn’t honestly believe that I was a bad man?

  Mrs. MacLeod took a deep breath and said, “Countess Gourdas and I, well, we are part of a kind of freemasonry of unhappy women who have seen things, known things, done things and suffered things which you have not. We ‘meet on the level and we part on the square’ and we recognize one another by the secret signs of our society. Some clubs are more exclusive than others, but ours is unique. Other clubs attract new members by advertising. Ours wishes to have no new members recruited. We advertise in order to drive new members away.”

  Mrs. MacLeod stared deep into the fire. After a time she said, “You have a father. I had one too, but not like yours. I could hardly wait to flee from him, so one day, when I saw an advertisement in the paper from a respectable officer looking for a wife, I shook the dust of my little Dutch town from my feet and I ran. I ran to the other side of the world, as far as I could go without starting to come back.

  “My father had taught me what a bad man is, so I knew at once that Captain MacLeod was a worse one. He planted two babies in me and he took them from me, but before I left he gave me something else too, something vile and unclean, a little souvenir, a promise of a mad, ugly death.”

  Sarah’s hand flew to her mouth but Mrs. MacLeod went on telling her story to the flames.

  “I lived with the women of the islands. I watched them. I learned from them. I danced their dances. I walked amongst their gorgeous statues, their blossoms, those tinkling temple bells chiming in spice-scented breezes; I played with their children and I remembered my own and my heart became flint. And I changed. Little Grietje went to sleep and, when she woke up, I had taken her place. I made myself new, like some terrible black butterfly emerging in a new day. Grietje was gone. I was the Eye of the Dawn. I was Mata Hari. I danced the temple dances the women had taught me, but I danced alone—and I danced naked.

  “All things were provided for those who could pay. Men loved me. How could they not? And when they loved me, I stung them with my secret sting. I took their love and their money, perfume, fine jewels, everything they could offer me. I took their hearts and crushed them, but my revenge was not enough. Always I thirst for more. Their stupid careers, their politics, their wars, governments, kingdoms and empires, I will tear them all down and still it will not repay my babies.”

  Sarah was standing
, gray-faced, at the window. “And Otto? You came to tell me that you have destroyed him too, that you stung him with your secret sting?”

  “My dear, no. I assure you, he is quite safe, believe me. I care nothing for King Otto. This has nothing to do with King Otto. A man like that will go on through life without doing too much harm to himself or anybody else, with or without a woman like you. My concern is only for you. I want to warn you. I hold myself up to you as a terrible example. I made myself into a dagger to attack the world of men but, my dear, that dagger cuts on both sides. With every thrust, I slice through my own soul.”

  Sarah said, “What do you want me to do?”

  “Do what you already want to do. Otto is a good man. They are scarce. Bind yourself to him as if with iron chains.”

  Tifty said, “She’s right, darling. She’s right. You should grab him. It’s not every girl who gets a king.”

  And then Sarah started sniveling again and the tears she had tried to hide came back. “How can I when he’s taken a harem? He’s down there just now, planning which one to have first, like an old granny with a box of chocolates.”

  Mrs. MacLeod took her gently by the hand. “Oh, don’t you worry about that, my dear. I think we can sort something out.”

  I’ve been for another pee. I don’t like doing that in an air raid. What if I was doing that and a bomb suddenly dropped on me? Imagine if that’s how you found me. That’s not a very dignified way for a king to die. What a stupid thing to worry about—as if it matters, as if there’s any dignified way to die. Anyway, I expect I’ll be spread over half of Hamburg by the time you get here and I very much doubt that my underpants will survive enemy action. All the same, I don’t like going in an air raid, but there’s no help for it. You wait until you’re old and you’ll find out. Everything changes. When I was a young man it seemed like I had a brain the size of a walnut and a bladder as big as a coal scuttle. Now I’m so old and wise it’s as if my brain has filled out in my head like a schoolboy in last year’s trousers, but I can’t go half an hour without pissing. So I went—air raid or no air raid. And my hotwater bottle is cold again. I don’t think I can be bothered putting the kettle on, and anyway, if I had to watch it spitting and dribbling again, that would probably just set me off too.