The Emperor: Downfall of an Autocrat

by Ryzard Kapuscinski

  So now, my friend, let’s look below the top levels. The lower Imperial officials also cook up decrees, and the commoners stagger around, untangling. That is what the stabilizing role of His Majesty’s favorites amounted to. These courtiers, once they had driven the cultured, educated dreamers and the stupid, uneducated common people to untangling, reduced all disloyal tendencies to zero—because where could you find the energy for aspiration if all your energy has been spent on untangling? Thus, my friend, was maintained the blessed and amiable balance in the Empire over which His Exalted Majesty ruled so wisely and so kindly.

  The Hour of the Ministers, nevertheless, caused anxiety among the humble ministers, since no one knew exactly why he was being summoned, and if His Majesty did not like what the minister said, or detected in it some reticence or beating around the bush, he could be replaced the next day during the Hour of Assignments. And in any case His Majesty was in the habit of constantly shuffling and reshuffling the ministers so that they would not get too comfortable or surround themselves with friends and relations. His Gracious Majesty wanted to reserve control of promotions to himself, and for that reason he looked with a malignant eye on any dignitary who tried to promote someone on the side. Such arbitrariness—immediately punished—threatened to upset the balance that His Distinguished Majesty had established; a bothersome disproportion would creep in and His Highness would have to worry about restoring the balance, instead of occupying himself with more important affairs.

  B. K.-S.:

  At noon, in my function as cloakroom attendant in the Imperial Court, I used to put upon the shoulders of His Most Extraordinary Highness a black, floor-length robe in which the monarch opened the Hour of the Supreme Court of Final Appeal, which lasted until one o’clock and was known in our language as chelot. His Majesty enjoyed this hour of justice, and when he was in the capital he never neglected his duty as a judge, even at the expense of other important duties. In accordance with tradition, His Majesty spent this hour standing, listening to cases and pronouncing sentences.

  Our Imperial court was once a camp that moved from place to place and province to province in response to reports by the Emperor’s secret service, whose task it was to determine in which region the harvest looked promising and where a bountiful birth of cattle had been noted. In such blessed places the itinerant capital of the Empire would arrive and the Imperial court would set up its innumerable tents. Afterward, when the grain and meat were gone, the Imperial court, directed by the ubiquitous secret service, would strike camp and move along to the next province on which an abundant harvest had been bestowed. Our modern capital, Addis Ababa, was the last stopping place of the Emperor Menelik’s court. That illustrious Emperor ordered the establishment of the town and built the first of the three Palaces that adorn the city.

  During the itinerant period, one of the tents, a black one, was a prison in which those suspected of particularly dangerous offenses were kept. In those days the Emperor, enclosed in a covered cage because no one was allowed to see his radiant face, presided over the Hour of Justice in front of the black tent. His Majesty of our days performed the function of supreme judge in a specially constructed building next to the main Palace. Standing on a platform, His Highness would hear the case as it was presented by counsel, and then pronounce his verdict. This was according to a procedure established three thousand years ago by the Israelite King Solomon, of whom His Most Exalted Majesty was a direct descendant—as established by constitutional law. Verdicts announced on the spot by the Emperor were final, without appeal, and if he imposed the death penalty it was carried out immediately. That was the punishment that fell on the heads of conspirators who impiously and without fear of anathema reached for power. But His Majesty’s judgment showed its benevolent side when by accident—whether it was because of the guard’s negligence or because of some amazing cunning—some smallest of the small would manage to appear before the face of the highest judge, begging for justice and denouncing some nobleman who had victimized him. Then, His Benevolent Majesty would pronounce a sentence recommending the scolding of that dignitary, and the next day during the Hour of the Cashbox he would order Aba Hanna to pay a generous amount to the one who had been wronged.

  M.:

  At one o’clock His Distinguished Highness left the Old Palace and proceeded to the Anniversary Palace, his residence, for dinner. The Emperor was accompanied by members of his family and dignitaries invited for the occasion. The Old Palace quickly emptied, silence filled the corridors, and the guards fell into their midday slumber.

  IT’S COMING, IT’S COMING

  One often observes a fear of falling in people. Yet even the best of competitive figure skaters can fall. We also meet with falls in everyday life. One has to learn how to fall painlessly. Of what does a painless fall consist? It is a directed fall, which is to say that after losing balance we direct the body so that it lands on the side where the least damage will be done. As we fall, we relax our muscles and roll up, protecting the head. A fall that follows in accordance with these principles is not dangerous. On the other hand, trying desperately to avoid a fall often causes a painful spill at the last moment, when there is no chance to prepare for it.

  (Z. Osiński, W. Starosta, Speed- and Figure-Skating)

  Too many laws are made, and too few examples given.

  (Saint-Just)

  There are public figures about whom nothing is known except that one should not offend them.

  (Karl Kraus, Aphorisms)

  Courtiers of all ages feel one great need: to speak in such a way that they do not say anything.

  (Stendhal, Racine and Shakespeare)

  They . . . have walked after vanity, and are become vain.

  (Jeremiah)

  You have sat long enough unless you had done more good.

  (Cromwell, to the members of the Long Parliament)

  F.U.-H.:

  Yes, that was ’60. A woeful year, my friend. A venomous maggot began to infest the robust and succulent fruit of our Empire, and everything took such a morbid and irreparable course that instead of juice, alas, the fruit oozed blood. Let the flags fly at half-mast and our heads droop sorrowfully. Let us lay our hands upon our hearts. Today we know that it was already the beginning of the end and that what came next was irreversibly fated.

  I was then serving His Most Sublime Majesty as an officer in the Ministry of Ceremonies, Department of Processions. In only five years of zealous and unblemished service, I bore so many tribulations that every hair on my head turned white! This happened because each time our monarch was to go abroad or leave Addis Ababa to honor some province with his presence, savage competition broke out in the Palace for places in the traveling Imperial party. There were two rounds in this struggle. During the first, all our notables contended to be part of the Imperial party. In the second round, those who had triumphed in the preliminary stage strove for high and honorable places in the party. We officers at the very head of the procession, its first ranks, weren’t involved in the struggle, since His Benevolent Highness chose those ranks himself, and an Imperial assistant passed his decrees to us by way of the master of Palace ceremonies. At the top of the list stood members of the royal family, the Crown Council, and luminaries that His Ineffable Highness had decided to keep within his royal view because he suspected that in his absence they might foment a conspiracy in the capital. Nor had we any problems defining the servants in the party: bodyguards, cooks, pillow bearers, valets, purse bearers, gift bearers, dogkeepers, throne bearers, lackeys, and maids. But between the top and the bottom of the list yawned an emptiness into which the favorites and the courtiers tried to insinuate themselves.

  We ceremonial officers lived as if suspended between two great millstones, waiting for one of them to crush us. It was we who had to compile the list and send it on to our superiors. On us the crowd of favorites descended, attacking first with pleas and then with threats, first with laments and then with solemn vows of revenge; one as
ked for mercy while another proffered bribes, one promised heaps of gold while the next threatened to submit an informer’s report about us. Patrons of the favorites dunned us constantly, and each recommended putting his chosen one on the list, backing up his words with threats. Yet who could blame these patrons? They themselves acted under pressure. All the while their underlings were making demands, and they themselves were jostling each other, for what a disgrace it would be for the patron who failed if another patron managed to place his favorite. Yes, the millstones began to turn and we ceremonial officers watched our hair turn white. Any one of these mighty patrons could crush us to a pulp, but was it our fault if the whole Empire could not fit into the traveling party?

  And when everyone possible had been squeezed in and the list determined, pushing and undermining and elbowing began anew. Those who were lower were determined to rise. Number forty-three wanted to be twenty-sixth. Seventy-eight had an eye on thirty-two’s place. Fifty-seven climbed to twenty-nine, sixty-seven went straight to thirty-four, forty-one pushed thirty out of the way, twenty-six was sure of being twenty-second, fifty-four gnawed at forty-six, sixty-three scratched his way to forty-nine, and always upward toward the top, without end. In the Palace there was agitation, obsession, running back and forth through the corridors. Coteries conferred, the court thought of nothing but the list until the word spread from office to salon to chamber that, yes, His Highness had heard the list, made wise and irrevocable corrections, and approved it. Now nothing could be changed and everyone knew his place. The chosen ones could be identified by their manner of walking and speaking, because on such an occasion a temporary hierarchy came into being alongside the hierarchy of access to the Emperor and the hierarchy of titles. Our Palace was a fabric of hierarchies and if you were slipping on one you could grab hold of another, and everyone found some satisfaction and reason to be proud of himself. Everyone spoke with admiration and jealousy of those who had made the list: “Look who’s going!” Any dignitary distinguished several times in this way became a respected veteran.

  All the machinations intensified greatly when His Highness was to visit a foreign country, from which one could return laden with presents and glorious decorations. In late 1960, our Emperor was preparing to visit Brazil. The court Whispered that there would be abundant feasts, much buying, and the chance to stuff a bundle of cash into one’s pockets. Thus a tournament for places began, and so fierce and grave was the jousting that no one noticed the malignant growth of a conspiracy in the very center of the Palace. But did no one catch the scent of it, my friend? Later it became evident that Makonen Habte-Wald had detected its stink early on, got hold of it, and reported it.

  This Makonen, now deceased, was a strange personage. A minister, one of the select few, he had as much of a claim on the royal ear as he wanted, and yet he was a true favorite, a dignitary, who never thought of lining his own purse. His Majesty, even though he had little use for saints, pardoned his minister’s bizarre weakness because he knew that Makonen forsook self-enrichment only to give his every thought to serving the Emperor. Makonen, my friend, was an ascetic of power, the Palace’s great example of self-abnegation. He wore old suits, drove an old Volkswagen, and lived in an old house. His All-Dispensing Majesty liked Makonen’s whole family, a humble clan who had climbed up from the dregs of society. He raised Makonen’s brother Aklilu to the dignity of premier and made another brother, Akalu, a minister. Makonen himself was Minister of Industry and Commerce, but only rarely and unwillingly did he see to the duties of that station. He dedicated all his time and money to fostering his private network of informers. Makonen built a state within the state; he sowed his vassals in every institution, in offices, in the army, and in the police force. Day and night he reaped and winnowed his information, sleeping little, wearing himself out until he looked like a shadow. He was a penetrating man, but he penetrated quietly, like a mole, without theatricality, without rodomontade, gray, sour, hidden in the dusk, himself like the dusk. He tried to burrow deeply into the precincts of the competing spy networks, drawn by the scent of danger and treason, and—as we now know—rightly so. According to His Majesty’s precept, if one sticks one’s nose in deeply and well, it stinks everywhere. Yes . . .

  He tells me that in Makonen’s cabinet, the private files of this fantastic dirt-collector, the folder with Germame Neway’s name on it suddenly began to swell. The history of folders is strange, he says. Some linger for years on the shelf, thin and faded, like dried leaves. Closed, gathering dust, forgotten, they await the day when, untouched until that moment, they are finally torn up and thrown into the stove. These are the folders of loyal people who have led exemplary lives of devotion to the Emperor. Let’s open the section marked “Activities”: nothing negative. “Statements”: not a single sheet of paper. And let’s say there is one page, but on it, by order of the venerable Emperor, the minister has written fatina bere, which means “a slip of the pen,” “an inkblot.” This means that the Emperor considered the report a mere dry run by a young employee of Makonen, who hadn’t yet learned whom one can denounce with confidence, and when. So there is a page, but it is invalidated, like a canceled invoice.

  It can also happen that a folder which for years has remained thin and yellow comes to life at a certain moment, rises from the dead, starts getting fat. There is a well-known odor that comes from a place where an act of disloyalty has been committed. Makonen’s nose is particularly sensitive to that odor. He begins to follow the scent, he watches, he increases his vigilance. Often the life of such a folder, which has begun to stir and gain weight, ends as abruptly as the life of its hero. They both disappear, he from the world and his folder from Makonen’s cabinet.

  There is a sort of inverse proportionality between the corpulence of folders and of people. He who wears himself out, loses weight, and wastes away in fighting against the Palace has a folder that grows fatter and fatter. On the other hand, he who plants himself with dignified loyalty at His Majesty’s side grows fat with favors while his folder remains as thin as the membrane of a bladder. I mentioned that Makonen noticed the swelling of Germame Neway’s folder. Germame came from a loyal and noble family, and when he finished school the benevolent monarch sent him on a scholarship to the United States, where he graduated from a university. He came back to the country at the age of thirty. He had six years to live.

  A. W.:

  Germame! Germame, Mr. Richard, was one of those disloyal people who, upon returning to the Empire, threw up their hands in exasperation. But they did that secretly. In public they displayed loyalty, and in the Palace they said what was expected of them. And His August Majesty—oh, how I reproach him for it today—let himself be taken in. When Germame stood before him, His Compassionate Majesty looked on him with a loving eye and made him governor of a region in the southern province of Sidamo. The good soil there yields rich coffee. Hearing of this appointment, everyone in the Palace said that Our Omnipotent Ruler was laying open the path to the highest honors for the young man.

  Germame left with the Emperor’s blessing, and at first things were quiet. The proper thing for him to have done was to wait patiently—patience is a cardinal virtue in the Palace—for His Benevolent Majesty to summon him and elevate him to the next grade. But forget that! After some time, dignitaries from the province of Sidamo began to appear. They came and loitered around the Palace, circumspectly inquiring of their cousins and friends about whether or not one could submit a denunciation of the governor. It is a slippery business, Mr. Richard, to denounce one’s superiors. One cannot do it haphazardly, without first buckling on one’s armor, because the governor might just have a mighty patron in the Palace. The patron could fly into a rage, look upon the dignitaries as backstabbers, and perhaps even rebuke them. So the dignitaries started their denunciations in monosyllables, hints, whispers, but then more and more boldly (even if still informally), delicately, dropping hints in conversational lulls—that Germame took bribes and used them to build schools.r />
  Now just imagine how worried these dignitaries must have been. After all, it was understandable that a governor accepted tributes; all the dignitaries accepted tributes. Power begat wealth, as it had since the beginning of the world. But the abnormality of it was this, that a governor should use these tributes to build schools. And the example at the top was a command to subordinates, which meant that all the dignitaries should give money for schools. Now just for a moment let us admit a base thought. Let us say that a second Germame springs up in a second province and starts to give away his bribes. Immediately we would have a mutiny of the dignitaries, protesting against this principle of giving away bribes. The result: the end of the Empire. A fine prospect—at first a few pennies, and finally the fall of the monarchy. Oh, no! The whole Palace cried out, “Oh, no!”