The Emperor: Downfall of an Autocrat

by Ryzard Kapuscinski

  Here let me mention that His Majesty did not oppose reform. He always sympathized with progress and improvement. But he could not stand it when someone undertook reform on his own, first because that created a threat of anarchy and free choice, and second because it might create the impression of there being other charitable ones in the Empire besides His Magnanimous Highness. So, if a clever and astute minister wanted to carry out even the smallest reform in his own backyard, he would have to direct the case in such a way and so present it to His Majesty that it would irrefutably, in the commonly accepted fashion, seem that the gracious, concerned innovator and advocate of the reform was His Imperial Highness himself, even if in reality the Emperor did not quite understand what the reform was all about. But not all ministers have brains, do they? It sometimes happened that young people unacquainted with Palace tradition or those who, guided by their own ambition and also seeking popular esteem—as if the Emperor’s esteem weren’t the only one worth seeking!—tried independently to reform some little matter or other. As if they didn’t know that by doing so they violated the principle of loyalty and buried not only themselves but also their reform, which without the Emperor’s authorship didn’t have a chance to see the light of day.

  I’ll come right out and say it: the King of Kings preferred bad ministers. And the King of Kings preferred them because he liked to appear in a favorable light by contrast. How could he show himself favorably if he were surrounded by good ministers? The people would be disoriented. Where would they look for help? On whose wisdom and kindness would they depend? Everyone would have been good and wise. What disorder would have broken out in the Empire then! Instead of one sun, fifty would be shining, and everyone would pay homage to a privately chosen planet. No, my dear friend, you cannot expose the people to such disastrous freedom. There can be only one sun. Such is the order of nature, and anything else is a heresy. But you can be sure that His Majesty shined by contrast. How imposingly and kindly he shone, so that our people had no doubts about who was the sun and who the shadow.

  Z. T. :

  At the moment of granting the assignment, His Majesty saw before him the bowed head of the one he was calling to an exalted position. But even the far-reaching gaze of His Most Unrivaled Majesty could not foresee what would happen afterward to that head. The head, which had been bobbing up and down in the Hall of Audiences, lifted itself high and stiffened into a strong, decisive shape as soon as it passed through the door. Yes, sir, the power of the Emperor’s assignment was amazing. An ordinary head, which had moved in a nimble and unrestrained way, ready to turn, bow, and twist, became strangely limited as soon as it was annointed with the assignment. Now it could move in only two directions : down to the ground, in the presence of His Highness, and upward, in the presence of everyone else. Set on that vertical track, the head could no longer move freely. If you approached from the back and suddenly called, “Hey, sir,” he wouldn’t be able to turn his head in your direction, but instead would have to make a dignified stop and turn his whole body to face your voice.

  Working as a protocol official in the Hall of Audiences, I noticed that, in general, assignment caused very basic physical changes in a man. This so fascinated me that I started to watch more closely. First, the whole figure of a man changes. What had been slender and trim-waisted now starts to become a square silhouette. It is a massive and solemn square: a symbol of the solemnity and weight of power. We can already see that this is not just anybody’s silhouette, but that of visible dignity and responsibility. A slowing down of movements accompanies this change in the figure. A man who has been singled out by His Distinguished Majesty will not jump, run, frolic, or cut a caper. No. His step is solemn: he sets his feet firmly on the ground, bending his body slightly forward to show his determination to push through adversity, ordering precisely the movement of his hands so as to avoid nervous disorganized gesticulation. Furthermore, the facial features become solemn, almost stiffened, more worried and closed, but still capable of a momentary change to optimism or approval. All in all, however, they are set so as to create no possibility of psychological contact. One cannot relax, rest, or catch one’s breath next to such a face. The gaze changes, too: its length and angle are altered. The gaze is trained on a completely unattainable point. In accordance with the laws of optics, an appointee cannot perceive us when we talk to him, since his focal point is well beyond us. We cannot be perceived because he looks obliquely, and, by a strange periscopic principle, even the shortest appointees look over our heads toward an unfathomable distance or in the direction of some particular, private thought. In any case, we feel that even though his thoughts may not be more profound, they are certainly more responsible. We realize that an attempt to convey our own thoughts would be senseless and petty. Therefore we fall silent. Nor is the Emperor’s favorite eager to talk, since a change in speech is another postassignment symptom. Multiple monosyllables, grunts, clearings of the throat, meaningful pauses and changes of intonation, misty words, and a general air of having known everything better and for a longer time replace simple, full sentences. We therefore feel superfluous and leave. His head moves upward on its vertical track in a gesture of farewell.

  As it happened, however, not only did His Benevolent Majesty advance people; unfortunately, upon perceiving disloyalty, he demoted people as well. If you will excuse my vulgar words, he kicked them into the street. Then one could observe an interesting phenomenon: upon contact with the street, the effects of promotion disappear. The physical changes reverse themselves, and the one who has hit the street returns to normal. He even manifests a certain exaggerated proclivity to fraternize, as if he wanted to sweep the whole affair under the rug, to wave it away and say, “Let’s forget all that,” as if it had been some illness not worth mentioning.

  M.:

  You ask me, friend, why, in the last days of the Emperor’s reign, the plebeian Aklilu, a man with no official functions, exercised more power than the distinguished Prince Makonen, head of the government? Because the degree of power wielded by those in the Palace corresponded not to the hierarchy of positions, but rather to the frequency of access to His Worthy Majesty. That was our situation in the Palace. It was said that one was more important if one had the Emperor’s ear more often. More often, and for longer. For that ear the lobbies fought their fiercest battles; the ear was the highest prize in the game. It was enough, though it was not easy, to get close to the all-powerful ear and whisper. Whisper, that’s all. Get it in, let it stay there if only as a floating impression, a tiny seed. The time will come when the impression solidifies, the seed grows. Then we will gather the harvest. These were subtle maneuvers, demanding tact, because His Majesty, despite amazingly indefatigable energy and perseverance, was a human being with an ear that one could not overload and stuff up without causing irritation and an angry reaction. That’s why access was limited, and the fight for a piece of the Emperor’s ear never stopped.

  The course of this fight was one of the liveliest topics of the gossiping Palace, and it echoed around the rabid town. For instance, Abeje Debalk, a low official in the Ministry of Information, enjoyed access four times a week and his boss only twice. People whom the Emperor trusted were scattered even among the lowest ranks, and yet because of their access they enjoyed powers that their ministers and the Crown Councillors couldn’t dream of. Fascinating struggles were going on. The worthy general Abiye Abebe had access three times a week, and his adversary Kebede Gebre (both since shot) only once. But Gebre’s lobby so managed things and so undermined Abebe’s decrepit lobby that Abebe fell to two, and finally to only one, while Gebre, who had valuable international connections and had done well in the Congo, jumped to four times a week. In my best period, my friend, I could count on access once a month, even though others thought it was more. But even that was something, a significant position, because below those with access stood another whole hierarchy of those with no access at all, who had to go through one, two, or three others to reac
h the Emperor’s ear. Even there you could see the claws: struggles, maneuvers, subterfuge. Oh, how everyone would bow to someone with a lot of access, even if he wasn’t a minister. And one whose access was diminishing knew that His Majesty was pushing him down the slippery slope. I will add that, in relation to his modest size and pleasing form, His Supreme Majesty had ears of a large configuration.

  I. B.:

  I was the purse bearer to Aba Hanna Jema, the God-fearing confessor and treasurer to the Emperor. The two dignitaries were of the same age, of similar height, and they looked alike. To speak of a personal resemblance to His Distinguished Majesty, the Chosen One of God, sounds like a punishable impudence, but I am allowed such boldness in the case of Aba Hanna since the Emperor held him in the highest confidence. Aba Hanna’s unlimited access to the throne proved the intimacy of this relationship. You could even call it continuous access. As keeper of the cashbox and confessor to our much-lamented monarch, Aba could look into the Imperial soul and the Imperial pocket—in other words, he could see the Imperial person in its dignified entirety. As his purse bearer, I always accompanied Aba in his fiscal activities, carrying behind him the bag of top-grade lambskin that those who destroyed everything later exhibited in the streets. I also took care of another bag, a large one that was filled with small coins on the eve of national holidays: the Emperor’s birthday, the anniversary of his coronation, and the anniversary of his return from exile. On such occasions our august ruler went to the most crowded and lively quarter of Addis Ababa, Mercato, where on a specially constructed platform I would place the heavy, jingling bag from which His Benevolent Majesty would scoop the handfuls of coppers that he threw into the crowd of beggars and other such greedy riffraff. The rapacious mob would create such a hubbub, however, that this charitable action always had to end in a shower of police batons against the heads of the frenzied, pushy rabble. Saddened, His Highness would have to walk away from the platform. Often he was unable to empty even half the bag.

  W. A.-N.:

  . . . and so, having finished the Hour of Assignments, His Indefatigable Majesty would move on to the Golden Hall. Here began the Hour of the Cashbox. This hour came between ten and eleven in the morning. His Highness was accompanied by the saintly Aba Hanna, who in turn was assisted by his faithful bag bearer. Someone with good ears and a good nose could tell how the Palace rustled with money, smelled of it. But this called for special imagination and sensitivity, because money was not lying around the chambers, and His Merciful Highness had no inclination to spread packets of dollars among his favorites. No, His Highness cared little for that sort of thing.

  Even though, dear friend, it might seem incomprehensible to you, not even Aba Hanna’s little bag was a bottomless treasury. The masters of ceremony had to use all sorts of stratagems to prevent the Emperor from being embarrassed financially. I remember, for instance, how His Majesty paid the salaries of foreign engineers but showed no inclination to pay our own masons after the construction of the Imperial Palace called Genete Leul. These simple masons gathered in front of the Palace they had built and began asking for what was due them. The Supreme Master of Palace Ceremony appeared on the balcony and asked them to move to the rear of the Palace, where His Magnanimous Highness would shower them with money. The delighted crowd went around back to the indicated spot—which enabled His Supreme Majesty to leave unembarrassed through the front door and go to the Old Palace, where the court awaited him.

  Wherever His Majesty went, the people showed their uncontrolled, insatiable greed. They asked now for bread, now for shoes, now for cattle, now for funds to build a road. His Majesty liked to visit the provinces, to give the plain people access to him, to learn of their troubles and console them with promises, to praise the humble and the hardworking and scold the lazy and the disobedient. But this predilection of His Majesty’s drained the treasury, because the provinces had to be put in order first: swept, painted, the garbage buried, the flies thinned out, schools built, the children given uniforms, the municipal buildings remodeled, the flags sewn, and portraits of His Distinguished Highness painted. It wouldn’t do if His Majesty appeared suddenly, unexpectedly, like some poor tax collector, or if he merely came into contact with life as it is. One can imagine the surprise and mortification of the local dignitaries. Their trembling! Their fear! Government can’t work under threat, can it? Isn’t government a convention, based on established rules?

  Imagine His Worthy Highness’s having the habit of arriving unannounced! Let’s say our monarch is flying north, where everything has been prepared, the protocol spruced up, the ceremonies well rehearsed, the province gleaming like a mirror, and then suddenly in the airplane His Distinguished Highness beckons to the pilot and tells him, “Son, turn this plane around. Let’s fly south.” In the south, there is nothing! Nothing ready! The south is loafing around, a mess, in rags, black with flies. The governor is off in the capital, the dignitaries asleep, the police have slithered off to the villages to plunder the peasants. How badly His Benevolent Majesty would feel! What an affront to his dignity! And, not to mince words, how ridiculous! We have provinces where the people are depressingly savage, pagan, and naked; without instructions from the police they might do something that would offend His Highness’s dignity. We have other provinces where the benighted peasantry would flee at the sight of the monarch. Just imagine it, friend. His Most Extraordinary Majesty steps off the airplane, and around him—nothing. Silent emptiness, deserted fields, and everywhere you look, not a living soul. No one to speak to, no one to console, no welcoming arch, not even a car. What can you do? How can you act? Set up the throne and roll out the carpet? That would only make it more ridiculous. The throne adds dignity only by contrast to the surrounding humility. This humility of the subjects creates the dignity of the throne and gives it meaning. Without the humility around it, the throne is only a decoration, an uncomfortable armchair with worn-out velvet and twisted springs. A throne in an empty desert—that would be disgraceful. Sit down on it? Wait for something to happen? Count on someone’s showing up to render homage? What’s more, there isn’t even a car to get you to the nearest village to look for the viceroy. Our distinguished monarch knows who he is, but how to find him? So what remains for His Majesty to do? Look around the neighborhood, get back into the plane, and fly north after all, where everything waits in excitement and impatient readiness: the protocol, the ceremonies, the province like a mirror.

  Is it surprising that in such circumstances His Benevolent Majesty did not sneak up on people? Let’s say that he would surprise first one, then another, here and there. Today he would surprise the province of Bale, in a week the province of Tigre. And he notes: “loafing around, filthy, black with flies.” He summons the provincial dignitaries to Addis Ababa for the Hour of Assignments, scolds them, and removes them from office. News of this spreads throughout the Empire, and what is the result? The result is that dignitaries stop doing everything except looking at the sky to see whether His Distinguished Highness is coming. The people waste away, the province declines, but all that is nothing compared to the fear of His Majesty’s anger. And what’s worse, because they feel uncertain and threatened, not knowing the hour or the day, united by common inconvenience and fear, they start murmuring, grimacing, grumbling, gossiping about the health of His Supreme Highness, and finally they start conspiring, inciting others to rebel, loafing, undermining what seems to them an uncharitable throne—oh, what an impudent thought—a throne that won’t let them live. Therefore, in order to avoid such unrest in the Empire and to avoid the paralysis of government, His Highness introduced a happy compromise that brought peace to him and to the dignitaries. Nowadays, all those who destroyed the monarchy point out that in each province His Most Worthy Majesty maintained a Palace always ready for his arrival. It is true that some excesses were committed. For instance, a great Palace was constructed in the heart of the Ogaden Desert and maintained for years, fully staffed with servants and its pantry kept full, and
His Indefatigable Majesty spent only one day there. But what if His Distinguished Majesty’s itinerary were such that at some point he had to spend a night in the heart of the Desert? Wouldn’t the Palace then prove itself indispensable? Unfortunately, our unenlightened people will never understand the Higher Reason that governs the actions of monarchs.

  E.:

  The Golden Hall, Mr. Kapuchitsky, the Hour of the Cashbox. Next to the Emperor stand the venerable Aba Hanna and, behind him, his purse bearer. At the other end of the Hall people are crowding in, apparently without order, but everyone remembers his place in the line. I can call it a crowd, since His Gracious Majesty received an endless number of subjects every day. When he stayed in Addis Ababa the Palace overflowed. It pulsated with exuberant life—though, naturally, a hierarchy was to be found here as well—rows of cars flowed through the courtyard, delegations crowded the corridors, ambassadors chatted in the antechambers, masters of ceremony rushed around with feverish eyes, the guard changed, messengers ran in with piles of papers, ministers dropped by, simply and modestly, like ordinary people. Hundreds of subjects tried to finagle their petitions or denunciations into the hands of the dignitaries. One could see the general staff, members of the Crown Council, managers of Imperial estates, deputies—in other words, an excited and exhilarated crowd.