Antal Szerb: Oliver VII

“So, all we need now is for you gentlemen to put your names to this document, and to send it on to the other signatory. With this I call the Royal Council to a close, and take my leave. Before it gets dark I would like to test-drive my new car, which arrived from Paris yesterday. And so, goodbye.”

“Your Highness … ” the Prime Minister began, hesitantly.

“Well?”

“If you would grant another respectful request from your concerned well-wishers. Your Highness must surely be aware that the population is waiting in a fever of excitement for the signing of the treaty. Sadly, the opposition press has inflamed their feelings. It would seem advisable, in the interests of Your Highness’ personal safety and of public order, that Your Highness should not leave the palace for one moment. At least, not before the wedding. The people will be calmer after that delightful ceremony.”

The King hammered angrily on the table.

“This is outrageous. For two weeks now I have been under virtual house arrest. I can’t go and play golf, because the road runs beside the military barracks. I can’t go to the theatre, because the low light might favour an attempt on my life. I can’t dine in the palace, because the head chef has republican sympathies. I can’t go walking alone on Mt Lilión, or lie under an apple tree reading Dante. To say nothing of this damned coat … Who am I, to be debarred from every pleasure in life that any citizen of Alturia can enjoy? Everyone else can play golf and drive a car. Everyone, except me. So what am I then?”

The Prime Minister rose, bowed deeply, and declared:

“You are the King!”

The King’s face darkened, and he muttered, very quietly:

“Indeed.”

“Your Highness well remembers,” the Prime Minister continued, “those wonderful words of our great poet Montanhagol: ‘duty is not a bed of roses’.”

“Yes, of course. And on the subject of rose beds, I shall stay in tonight. But now I really must leave you gentlemen. My bride is waiting for me.”

With much ceremonial bowing, the ministers departed. Pritanez set off at speed to the Palace Hotel, where Coltor’s emissaries were waiting anxiously to know whether the King had signed or not. The favourable news was like a galvanic charge to their cold Norlandian blood. They shook Pritanez’s hand warmly, and decided to celebrate the happy occasion with an expensive dinner later that evening. Then they talked over the final details of the down payment.

Pritanez left the hotel in a buoyant mood. His life’s great work had come to a successful conclusion, and he would be a rich man. He was filled with an ecstatic sense of well-being. Everything in the world was wonderful: the ladies in horse-drawn carriages promenading under the palm trees in Montanhagol Avenue, the little coffee houses and their customers sitting outside on the pavements taking their ease, the clouds in the sky … for the first time in his life he noticed the clouds.

In that instant something utterly revolting smacked into his face. Something brown, moist, and excessively putrid. He recognised it from the smell: something horses were wont to leave behind them on the roads of that pre-war age.

Like thunder after lightning, this bull’s-eye hit was followed by a loud yell; then a rotten egg came flying towards him, an onion, and sundry other objects. Confronted by the fact of his unpopularity, Pritanez ducked his head this way and that. But a crowd was advancing towards him with menacing gestures. He barely had time to leap into his car.

He was driven home, filled with disgust at his person and his clothing, which still retained the distinctive smell of each individual greeting in its ripe particularity. His house was a few steps away from the Palace Hotel.

But as they turned into the street where he lived, the chauffeur suddenly braked.

“Look, Your Excellency!”

An already substantial crowd was waiting outside the house, brandishing little flags and yelling. They too had no doubt equipped themselves with projectile materials. A chill went down Pritanez’s spine.

The chauffeur did not wait for instructions. He reversed rapidly, and only after making his three-point turn did he ask where to go next.

“The Royal Palace,” came the reply.

Gradually darkness fell. Huge crowds were milling around in the streets, faces never seen before in the capital. The plain-clothes security men had simply given up and melted into the throng.

In the general stir and bustle no one noticed the twenty conspirators making their way one by one towards the palace down various streets. There was a servants’ door opening onto a neglected part of the park, used by delivery men during the day. This was where they broke into the building.

No force was actually needed. They knocked and gave the password of the day: The Ides of March. The door opened and a lieutenant of the Twelfth Regiment, armed to the teeth, admitted them one by one. It was not actually the fifteenth of March but the eighth. However, they rather liked the chilling reference to the great conspiracy that ended the life and sway of Julius Caesar.

A soldier led them down a series of dark corridors into the basement area, where they regrouped. An officer was waiting for them in a sort of hall, where he checked that all were present and immediately left.

Sandoval and Delorme were among them. Sandoval knew most of the others, either personally or by sight. They included a couple of rather wild, desperate characters — a newspaper delivery man famous for his strength, and an intensely evil-looking waiter. But the great majority seemed not too grimly aggressive, grim aggressiveness not featuring much in the Alturian character. Sandoval also noticed some of his more intellectual friends among them: a lawyer, a doctor and a writer.

A worrying thought suddenly struck him. It occurred to him that he had in fact received no instructions about what to do once they had broken into the palace. Delorme had said that they would work it out when they got there. At all events, Sandoval had brought his revolver.

“If this thing turns out badly,” he thought, “I’ll shoot myself. Or rather, I won’t shoot myself. Who can say?”

Sandoval was a great raconteur. He had already given thought to the adventure he would narrate once he was free to talk about it at leisure amongst his fellow painters, around the club’s dinner table at the Kina coffee house.

The door opened, and a respectful silence descended as the conspirators were joined by the imposing figure of Major Mawiras-Tendal.

“So, everyone’s here. Follow me in absolute silence. No one must know you are in the building.”

They made their way along a complicated and winding route through rooms and corridors, which the Major had carefully plotted to prevent them meeting a single soul — a feat made possible by the vast size of the palace, with its ancient, long-deserted wings and side-buildings.

Finally they arrived at the foot of a spiral staircase.

“Keep your wits about you,” the Major said in a hushed voice: “This leads directly to the King’s apartments.”

They went up the creaking staircase, stopping and starting, and glaring recriminations at one another. One of them, a man with a permanently startled expression on his face and very little hair, turned suddenly to Sandoval:

“Zizigan. Cardboard box manufacturer,” he announced, choosing his moment rather strangely.

“Torrer. Rubber heel salesman,” Sandoval returned instinctively, preferring not to tell the truth.

“Tell me,” the other whispered: “What are we actually supposed to do, if in fact the King …?”

“Ssssh!” Sandoval hissed fiercely.

The winding stairway went on forever, leading them to higher and higher levels. Then an iron door swung open and they found themselves in a small room, barely able to contain their number.