Alan Judd - The Kaiser’s Last Kiss

COPYRIGHT Copyright Praise Dedication One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Postscript P.S. Ideas, Interviews & Features … About the Author About the Book Read on Also by the Author About the Publisher

Harper Perennial

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

This edition published by Harper Perennial 2004

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers in 2003

Copyright © Alan Judd 2003

PS Section © Josh Lacey 2004

Alan Judd asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

HarperCollins Publishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication

Source ISBN: 9780007124473

Ebook Edition © MAY 2016 ISBN: 9780008193195

Version: 2016-04-28

PRAISE Praise Dedication One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Postscript P.S. Ideas, Interviews & Features … About the Author About the Book Read on Also by the Author About the Publisher

From the reviews of The Kaiser’s Last Kiss :

‘Fascinating … if one of the hallmarks of a good novel is that the characters do not remain static but are subtly transformed by events, then this is a very good novel indeed.’

Sunday Telegraph

‘A haunting tribute to a near-forgotten figure – the German Kaiser who spent his last years in Dutch exile. Judd has complete command of the subtleties of character, ambition and emotional ambiguity in extreme circumstances – an unusual and intelligent treatment of the Third Reich.’

ANNE MCELVOY

‘Alan Judd’s new novel is extremely appetising. It’s like seeing a waiter bringing a beautifully arranged dish towards you. Judd has written scenes that perfectly combine fear and embarrassment … this is a story that shows us how the nastiest of regimes are composed of real people. Brilliant.’

Daily Telegraph

‘A fascinating and imaginative exploration of a seminal episode of 20th-century history.’

Irish Examiner

DEDICATION Dedication One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Postscript P.S. Ideas, Interviews & Features … About the Author About the Book Read on Also by the Author About the Publisher

To Katie

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright COPYRIGHT Copyright Praise Dedication One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Postscript P.S. Ideas, Interviews & Features … About the Author About the Book Read on Also by the Author About the Publisher Harper Perennial An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk This edition published by Harper Perennial 2004 First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers in 2003 Copyright © Alan Judd 2003 PS Section © Josh Lacey 2004 Alan Judd asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books. HarperCollins Publishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication Source ISBN: 9780007124473 Ebook Edition © MAY 2016 ISBN: 9780008193195 Version: 2016-04-28

Praise PRAISE Praise Dedication One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Postscript P.S. Ideas, Interviews & Features … About the Author About the Book Read on Also by the Author About the Publisher From the reviews of The Kaiser’s Last Kiss : ‘Fascinating … if one of the hallmarks of a good novel is that the characters do not remain static but are subtly transformed by events, then this is a very good novel indeed.’ Sunday Telegraph ‘A haunting tribute to a near-forgotten figure – the German Kaiser who spent his last years in Dutch exile. Judd has complete command of the subtleties of character, ambition and emotional ambiguity in extreme circumstances – an unusual and intelligent treatment of the Third Reich.’ ANNE MCELVOY ‘Alan Judd’s new novel is extremely appetising. It’s like seeing a waiter bringing a beautifully arranged dish towards you. Judd has written scenes that perfectly combine fear and embarrassment … this is a story that shows us how the nastiest of regimes are composed of real people. Brilliant.’ Daily Telegraph ‘A fascinating and imaginative exploration of a seminal episode of 20th-century history.’ Irish Examiner

Dedication DEDICATION Dedication One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Postscript P.S. Ideas, Interviews & Features … About the Author About the Book Read on Also by the Author About the Publisher To Katie

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Postscript

P.S. Ideas, Interviews & Features …

About the Author

About the Book

Read on

Also by the Author

About the Publisher

ONE

The Kaiser was chopping logs. In the summer air his strokes echoed through the trees, across the park and gardens and into Huis Doorn itself, where those of the household would be listening. So long as they could hear him, they would know that all was well with their Kaiser that morning. They could relax, he thought, and be happy, or busy about their work, which was to his mind the same thing.

His strokes were regular but the pauses were longer now. At eighty, it was an achievement to split a log at all – to see it, even – let alone do it daily. Nearly every day since his exile in 1918 he had chopped or sawn. At first he had imagined the logs his enemies, the poltroons who had betrayed him and urged him to flee so that they could grab power for themselves. Gradually, he had ceased to care about that bunch of pigs but had continued felling because it made him feel better, restoring his sense of achievement. Twenty thousand trees felled in the first eleven years of exile; that was something. Since then another twelve years during which he had not kept such meticulous records; not quite another twenty thousand, perhaps, but still a good number. His best was 2,590 in one week – Christmas week – after he had moved here to Doorn after Amerongen, the other Dutch place. What would the Englishman, Gladstone, another elderly tree-feller, have said to that? It might have silenced him, and his tribe. Tree-feller, tree-fella, it punned in English. He would entertain people with it.