by Mark Helprin
“These are modern times. One murders differently. I will murder them with headlines, and my dagger will be speech. My poison will be the half-hidden mockery in a sentence read by millions, forgotten, and then recalled unknowingly by the reading of a sentence laden with half-hidden contempt. Their bodies shall be untouched. I will assassinate only the public persona, which, though it cannot be touched and has no weight, which though it merely floats through the imagination and has only the ethereal blood of words, exists nonetheless. When we kill the public persona of a man, Didgeridoo, his physical body, though it may not die, reels and retreats. He goes to ground as if wounded. He breathes hard. He thinks only of rest. He surrenders and is grateful to live out his days in obscurity.”
“But, my good Psnake, you can’t possibly hope to be king, can you?”
“Of course not. My deepest hope is to live another two years. And even were I twenty I would have no desire to be king. Why would I?”
“Why then are you contesting the throne?”
“I want the new king, whoever he might be, or the new queen, to be different. I contest the throne to change the king, even though the king be the same. I care not about which body seats its arse on the fancy chair, I care about which soul. The soul is what I will contest. The soul is what I will change. The soul is what I will . . . shake up.”
“But why?”
“Because I loved my father. He was a good man. He gave his life for king and country, and the king did not even notice. In this the king was wrong, for he should have noticed. He should have laboured all day to do so. He should have given the shirt from his back to those who, in his name, suffered and died in Flanders and France. For the sake of God, it was in his name. If I were king I would never cease to honour and serve the widows and young children of the men who fought for England in my name. I would pray for the rest of my life, and give up everything I had, for the sake of those who died in my name.
“That would be royal conduct, royal rectitude, and royal honour. Though kings who would comport themselves so have been few and far between, they have existed. These royal children must be pushed hard in that direction, to save the idea of monarchy, to give it substance, to restore its honour, to make it worthy of my father.”
“My God, Psnake,” said Didgeridoo, “this is real stuff, isn’t it.”
“In every age, there’s always someone who moves the real stuff, and, at this moment, I’m it.”
“But it’s madness, Psnake. You cannot expect a modern sovereign, especially one from this bunch, to be a saint.”
“On the contrary, the age calls for it. The royals and the people both have drawn precisely the wrong conclusions. They imagine that in modern times the king must be loose in his ways, lack morals, and drift as if there were no God and no task in life. But they are wrong. In modern times, with sin and death magnified and the king’s armies so immense and battles so bloody that not hundreds but millions of men die in his name, the king must be medieval. He must be pious and devout. He must be holy, bookish, and restrained. He must be naturally full of sorrow. If he is any other way, the monarchy will fall.”
“You want the king to be an ascetic? With no money and no palaces? You want a bicycle monarch as in Holland and Denmark?”
“No, I want the monarchy to be filled with glory and state treasures, but I want a king whose way of life makes the bicycle monarch look like a sumptuary.”
“How will you get that?”
“First,” said Psnake, “I have an ally, a fifth column in place at the heart of the matter, ready to move.”
“Who?”
Psnake paused with delight, and said, “Freddy.”
Then began a curious recitation of Freddy’s name, almost an incantation, as Didgeridoo, in disbelief, questioned it, and Psnake, understanding the astonishment, patiently and insistently confirmed it.
“Freddy?”
“Freddy.”
“Freddy?!”
“Freddy.”
“Freddy?!”
“Freddy.”
“You mean, Freddy?!”
“Yes.”
“Oh!” said Didgeridoo.
“I have been watching him,” said Psnake, “since he was born. And, let me tell you, had he been born a year later he would have been truly a child of the twentieth century, and thus, for my purposes, hopeless. But his mother felicitously gave birth just before the midpoint, when the tendrils of the previous century were still strong enough not merely to make an impression upon him, but to claim him. That, in my view, is the source of all the troubles. Though he may not fully understand it, he is one of the last of his age.
“His difficulties stem from the fact that his nature and ideals are a hundred years or more behind the times. Not only do they clash with the loose and sybaritic mores of today, they clash with some of his own characteristics. He is, after all, a relatively young man. He does not know that he is of the last century, except in his heart.
“I saw it in him even during his infancy, when I beheld him for the first time, in a newsreel. Soon after I had bought my first daily, I went to a motion picture house near the Strand to get ideas for using images in the paper. Images had begun to gallop at us like the cavalry of an invincible army, and I wanted to play the odds correctly. I was young. I had survived the war. I thought, why not be comfortable even as everything I cherish slowly dissolves, with its great champions, like Churchill and Lloyd George, senescent or dead.
“And then a little baby appeared on the screen, and I sat bolt upright, corrected in my lack of resolve, ashamed that I might weaken. He was an infant who could not even walk, and yet in his face I saw a quality of seriousness and reflection that his father could not match in a million years and that even his mother did not have. Here was someone to be reckoned with once he was free to make his own imprint. Here was someone of truly independent mind, who understood as if by instinct that there is a purpose for every one and every thing, and especially for him. He seemed totally possessed of destiny.
“I watched as he grew. He was isolated from the first, left to his own devices, bullied at school, ignored at home, misunderstood. And yet he came out of it with gravitas and good humour. Had he been able to raise a family and practise a profession, to learn the normal lessons and suffer the normal slights, I am sure he could have made history on his own. But the lessons and slights were royal, he has had neither his own family nor a real profession, and he must spend his life waiting for something that may never come.
“Didgeridoo,” Lord Psnake said, looking into the eyes of his guest, “his temperament—by accident of history or birth, by nature, circumstance, coincidence, or plan—is exactly what the monarchy and England need in this most dissolute hour. The problem is that all advice and influence runs contrary to it. They want him to be modern, when, indeed, he must be medieval.”
“I have to say,” said Didgeridoo, “that I must be mad, because I see just what you mean and I agree with you. Tell me, then, how you mean to make this prince more medieval.”
“He must be pious.”
“Yes, he must.”
“He must be grave.”
“Oh yes.”
“He must be ascetic, and spiritual.”
“Of course.”
“And he must have a quest.”
“Well, yes, I suppose so, but that doesn’t answer my question. How are you going to do it? You can’t just say, ‘Now, Freddy, go fetch the Silver Chalice,’ can you?”
“That’s right.”
“Then how will you do it?”
“I’m going to shake them up, make them fight back, force them to bring in Mr Neil.”
“Mr who?”
“Mr Neil.”
“Who’s that?”
“If you don’t know who Mr Neil is, Didgeridoo, you don’t know a thing.”
“Oh,” said Didgeridoo, ashamed that he did not know, “Mr Neil! I thought you had said, ‘Mr Eel.’ ”
Lord Psnake shook his head to
indicate that he had not, in fact, said “Mr Eel.”
“How’re you going to do this?” asked Didgeridoo, meekly, and wondering in a chamber fairly close to the front of his mind who, exactly, was Mr Neil, or Mr Eel, or whoever he was.
Lord Psnake raised his left index finger, pointed upward and slightly to his left, closed his left eye, and nodded his head knowingly. “Do you know,” he inquired, “why you sit on a mountain of cash and I sit on the flat?”
“The great number of your former wives?”
“That’s part of it.”
“The yachts, cars, and houses?”
“Another part.”
“Your Indonesian chicken farm schemes?”
“Definitely a contributing factor.”
“So I do know.”
“But you don’t know why.”
“Why what?” asked Didgeridoo.
“Except for the wives—I married for love even if they did not—it was all to intertwine my fortunes as much as I could with those of the royal family, so that when it was time to budge them I wouldn’t have to do it with a guided projectile from four thousand miles away.”
“All for that?”
“All for that. For almost thirty years, I have been at the edge of their circle. The chicken farms in Indonesia? Freddy invested a great deal of his money in Indonesian egg farms that had not a single chicken. I positioned myself to be his main chicken supplier, and was there when he needed me. Yes, I took a loss, but it was worth it. Although he is unaware of my purposes, I have known Freddy since he was a boy. He likes me, I think. We speak of things that have consequence. I have measured his wit, liveliness, and intelligence. He is what I thought he would be, though it will take something like an earthquake to bring out the true king in him.”
“But how, Psnake, how?”
“Ah. I have my own mountain.”
“Of cash?”
“Of what use is cash? Of enough stuff on Freddy, and, of late, Fredericka, to drive him from the throne ten times over.”
“You do?”
“I do.”
“But if you want him to be king, why drive him from the throne?”
“I want a king who will by his own devices meet all challenges and beat me back, or I want no king at all.”
“Are you going to release what you have?”
“Indeed.”
“What does this have to do with me, except that, when you do release it, you’ll kill us. What will we run on our front pages, two-headed alpacas? We’ve already done that, and so have you.”
“You think,” said Lord Psnake, “that I’m about to steal your mountain of cash.”
“I do.”
“What would I do with it? Would I keep it in my coffin as a cushion? Would I reside upon it, as on a bed of crisp lettuce, for eternity? Would I use it to fluff the silks of my catafalque? Why in heaven’s name would I need it? Don’t worry, Didgeridoo, I’m not going to make you fake any more two-headed alpacas. I’m going to share with you what I have, split right down the middle.”
Didgeridoo was excited but not exactly overwhelmed, and he said, “I see, and I think I see why.”
“Certainly you see why. If only Psnake papers carry these stories, people will think I’ve got it in for Freddy.”
“And of course you don’t!”
“Not really, given the splendid outcome that may result. If just the Psnake papers run them, they will be dismissed, but if for every Psnake bombshell there is a Didgeridoo bombshell, no one will be able to say anything, and, believe me, I have the stuff.”
“How much?”
“If you tease it out, enough to last for years. It’s amazing what you can do with things like that. People don’t care about history or astronomy, they care about what Sheila told Teddy.”
“Oh splendid Psnake! You’re just going to give it to us?”
“I’m going to give it to you,” Psnake replied with a quiver of delight, “and then you and I will give it to them.”
THE NEXT MORNING at ten o’clock Didgeridoo brought his son and heir, Jerry, and Lord Faintingchair, editor-in-chief of The Noon Behemoth, Britain’s largest newspaper, to a meeting with Psnake at Moncay House. In keeping with Psnake’s desire for secrecy, the Didgeridoos and Faintingchair were disguised as charwomen. In flower-print dresses, scarves binding their hair, heavy lipstick, and stockings, they carried mops and buckets. It was not unusual for Noon Behemoth investigative reporters to don disguises, and the delegation was untroubled by its attire.
That The Noon Behemoth was the country’s (and, if you discount Japan and China, the world’s) most popular newspaper did not upset Psnake as it might have, given that the second and third biggest papers, his own, bracketed it every day and together claimed one and a half times its readership. These were, as everyone knows, The Morning Psnake and The London Afternoon Omelette. The three organs combined had a circulation of eight million and sold as reliably as the tide. Elaborate marketing studies and surveys done several times a year indicated consistently that if the regular page-two (in the Psnake), page-three (in the Omelette), and page-six (in the Behemoth) photographs of voluptuous nude women were to have been discontinued, combined circulation would fall from eight million to 2,420. When first instituted, they had been a scandal. Then the scandal had become the norm. Knowing how these things worked, the press lords had inscribed above the doorway of their association the motto Whatever it takes.
Psnake’s publisher and protégé, Watson Axelrod (who was used to hearing, after stating his name, “It’s what goes between the wheels”), received the Didgeridoos and Faintingchair. When everyone had sat down, stirred his tea, eaten a biscuit, looked into the fire, and observed that the rain was pounding on the gravel paths in the garden, flying back up into the air a foot or two as it bounced, and slanting now and then against the windows so that, wind driven, it washed them clean, Axelrod began. Psnake said nothing, and listened carefully. Axelrod was casually but extremely well tailored. He wore the thin, entirely round, tortoise-shell eyeglass frames popular in Britain until the 1960s, and spoke like an Oxford don, which, once, he was.
“Gentlemen,” he said, hesitating as he looked at their lipstick and head-scarves, “very kind of you to come. We are exceedingly grateful. As you know, we would like to share with you a series of news stories, for purposes that the Lord Psnake has outlined to the Lord Didgeridoo. The question of scheduling, order, and timing will have to be studied after first release and initial reactions, but, notwithstanding that, let me acquaint you with the substance of our material.”
“Yes, do,” said Jerry Didgeridoo.
Axelrod opened a portfolio, exposing a typed, coded, and colour-keyed list of eighty or ninety entries. “I’ll acquaint you with some of the more volatile of these,” he said, “which the others serve as dunnage, spacing the hits and allowing oxygen to rush the fire.
“For instance, the rather infamous dinner at the Royal Historical Society, at which the Prince of Wales appeared in. . . .”
“That’s not news,” protested Lord Faintingchair. “The Behemoth’s chewed that one until there’s not a bit of gristle left.”
“We understand,” said Axelrod, “but we have three hundred colour photographs of Freddy and Fredericka at the occasion, not a single one of which anyone has seen.” He produced a portfolio. “They’re all like this,” he said, holding up a picture of Freddy with closed eyes and a contented smile, happily staring into inner space, the bow atop his head emphasised by the angle of the shot. “You see, it’s all a matter of juxtaposition. You take anything he says, anything—‘Good morning,’ ‘Delighted to be here,’ ‘England’s youth are its future,’ ‘Yes, I did fall from my horse’—and run it with this picture, and it will be like a V-2 in Grosvenor Square.
“Looking through at random . . . yes . . . for example, from Major Fattiston, retired, formerly RAF Moleturd and now chief aviation correspondent of the Psnake Group, we have a long and detailed account, backed up by tape reco
rdings, of the Prince of Wales’ claim to have seen UFOs on the streets of London—repeatedly and as a matter of routine.”
“Is that true?” asked Didgeridoo.
“Quite so. He keeps a running tally, and claims to have seen almost a thousand over a period of twelve years, in broad daylight and in places like Chelsea and Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Taken directly from the tape, we have the following statement, in what is clearly the prince’s own voice. ‘Fattiston, you’ll never guess what. I saw a UFO in Marylebone, right in front of Wigmore Hall. We had no idea what it was, but an African woman jumped out and disappeared into the night. It was very big, and it moved off toward Portman Square. We were going the other way and couldn’t track it. You don’t get many UFOs up here, do you, but they’re all over London. I see them from my windows every day, and feel like crying out in frustration. They do distract one from one’s work.’ Note this,” Axelrod said: “ ‘It was Mummy who introduced me to them, you know, but I wouldn’t repeat that if I were you. It might be misinterpreted.’ ”
“You have the tapes?” Faintingchair inquired.
Axelrod nodded.
“Extraordinary, extraordinary. Go on.”
“It seems that since time immemorial the Prince of Wales has been carrying on an absolutely stupendous, totally uninhibited, wall-banging, roller-coaster-screaming, positively thermonuclear sexual affair with Lady Phoebe Boylingehotte, and although we have far more than we can use, it’s a doomsday weapon if we’re ever backed into a corner.”
“Then what good is it?”
“We can freely use parts of it: tape recordings of telephone conversations, for example.”
“How did you get these? It’s against the law.”
“We took them off the air. The royals are as promiscuous with cellular telephones as they are with money, hot water, and mistresses. Listen.” He produced a tape recorder and played a static-laden phone transmission. It was Freddy, who said some things that were very embarrassing, and some that were only mildly embarrassing.
“What’s that? What’s that?” asked Faintingchair. “Play it back.”
“I wish,” said Freddy, recognisably but clouded with static, “that I could be your tarpon.”