Ivan Vladislavic - 101 Detectives

The room I emerged into had the atmosphere of a health spa. Remember that place in Guangdong? Towers of folded towels, potted plants with enormous leaves, pebbles, steam. A young woman in a nursemaid’s pinafore and a beaded cap showed me to a cubicle with a shower. When I had freshened up, she said, I should put on the national dress laid out in the cabinet.

I did as I was told.

From what I’d seen of local habits, I expected cotton pants and dashiki, sandals, perhaps a skullcap — or a homburg! — but this is what I found: a linen leisure suit, very finely made, a silk shirt with side pleats, and leather loafers (tan, fringed) that might have been cobbled to fit me — you know the trouble I have with my mismatched feet! There was no mirror to judge the full effect but it felt splendid. My own clothes, which seemed shabby by comparison, I placed in the basket as requested. The nursemaid assured me that they would be returned to the Ambassador — which indeed they were, freshly laundered, along with the nutcracker in its wrapping.

At the nursemaid’s invitation, I passed into an antechamber where the servitor who was to accompany me to the audience stood waiting. He took my elbow and steered me towards a wheelchair in the middle of the room. I assured him that I was quite fit for a man of my age, but he insisted that I sit in the chair. Kneeling before me, he lifted my unequal feet onto the footplates and bound my ankles with leather straps. It was done so deftly, I scarcely had time to object, not that I was inclined to do so. When in Rome…

Giving my shoulder a reassuring squeeze, my servitor pushed me along a passage to a larger reception area. A dozen men, each clothed like me in a pale linen suit and seated in a wheelchair attended by a servitor, were waiting there. Apparently I was the last guest to arrive, for as soon as we entered a bell rang, a door opened and we proceeded in convoy into the banqueting hall.

The banqueting hall was a circular enclosure with low stone walls and a conical grass roof that reached almost to the ground (there are similar things in the files). In the middle of the hall was an immense radiation pit with iron racks on which slabs of protein were broiling. The servitors positioned the wheelchairs at intervals around the pit and stood ready behind us. I was curious, of course, to make the acquaintance of my dinner companions, but their distant mien no less than the gaps between our chairs did not encourage conversation.

The royal chamberlain, or perhaps he was simply the maître d’, welcomed us one and all in the fourth or fifth of the languages. I could not follow much of it, but I gathered from the sprinkling of ‘Excellencies’ and ‘Worships’ that I was among ambassadors and judges and other important people. At the end, he bowed deeply towards a shadowy sector of the circle, which I had thought unoccupied, and thus made me aware that the King was already present, reclining on a divan. Just then a golden light sifted down, illuminating the dome of his head and the folds of his silk pyjamas. He looked like a gilded idol in a temple.

It was silent in the hall. Though I craned my neck for a closer view, my companions averted their eyes. The pit smoked and the protein sizzled.

Two stewards came bearing a spatula as long as a dragon-boat oar and a deep-bowled spoon to match. Leaning out over the pit, and propping the spoon on the spatula, they scooped the fatty heart out of the largest slab of protein and held it up before the King. After a moment he stirred and then he slumped forward with his face in the bowl. By the squirming of his shoulders I could tell he was feeding.

There was a murmur around the room. Turning to the man on my left, I greeted him in the first of the languages and then the second, but my servitor took my head firmly in his soft hands and twisted it to face the front.

We sat in silence again with the fragrance of the protein in our nostrils.

At last, the King raised his hand and the spoon was withdrawn. Figures slipped from the shadows, propped his glazed head against some pillows, and wheeled him swiftly away.

It was our turn to feast. Portions were scooped and carved for us by the stewards and laid in platters on our knees. It was indeed a meal fit for a King and we set upon it like famished beggars, tearing off chunks with our fingers and stuffing our mouths until the juices ran down our chins. A tastier food never crossed my lips. We chewed and snuffled and swooned.

When we had eaten our fill, the servitors mopped our faces with hot scented towels. The familiar digestif was served. Then music and magic tricks — I cannot remember clearly. Then the first of my companions was wheeled away for his audience with the King. Five or six others followed at intervals. The shrinking band left in the hall dozed in the heat from the pit and sipped the liquor. From time to time, a servitor would take a goblet gently from a sleeping hand.

At last, only I remained. Was it an omen? I reminded myself that I had been the last to arrive. Presumably protocols were being observed and I was the least important guest. Or the most? Surely not.

I’m going on, I know. Forgive me. This is the last part.

My turn came. I was wheeled from the banqueting hall. I expected to be brought before the King in an adjoining room, but found myself instead beneath the stars. Yes, my servitor said in a kindly voice, the sparkles I saw above were actual stars. It was refreshingly cool outdoors and the air seemed perfectly breathable. We set off down a path.

The Royal Palace is a vast complex of circular buildings, large and small, linked by catwalks and cowpaths, and serving as bedrooms, nurseries, larders, armouries and refrigeration rooms (my servitor said). It does not have the grandeur of the Palace of the People — how could it! — but it is impressive in its own way. The thatched roofs seem crude to my eye, but are much admired by the locals. As we passed among them in the starlight, I had to admit that they lent a rustic charm to the scene.

We entered one of the smaller huts, my servitor stooping so deeply through the doorway that his chin pressed on my shoulder.

Who should be waiting there under a knuckle-bone chandelier but Bhuti Khuzwayo.

Let’s get straight down to business, he said, hooking a stool closer with his toe and laying his feverish hands on mine. At our first meeting his manner had been jovial, but now he was solemn.

He began by acknowledging our long, loyal business association. He thanked me for our ongoing efforts to preserve Papa’s legacy, extending his gratitude explicitly to you, Fei, and to all our comrades in the factory, managers and workers alike. Your likenesses, and I quote, are unsurpassed. Instantly recognisable but never literal, always capturing the essence of the man.

We are committed to keeping Papa’s memory alive, Bhuti Khuzwayo said (and by ‘we’ I understood him to mean the government). Every standing order will be filled, no lines will be discontinued without proper consultation. But new values demand new symbols. We have therefore decided to launch a new range of official merchandise in the image of the King.

This was the moment to ask about the monarchy, but Bhuti Khuzwayo’s earnestness defied interruption. The fresh air had cleared the fog from my brain and the last few wisps of it now melted away.

When the time is right, we will talk numbers, he said. We have the usual lines in mind — plastic figurines, bronze sentinels, at least one stone colossus. For now, we are simply concerned to establish a likeness. Our experts tell us — and by ‘us’ I understood him again to mean the government — that there is no substitute for empirical observation, for the eye, Bhuti Wu. Your eye.

Bhuti Khuzwayo raised a finger and the servitor, who had been waiting unremarked, bent over me. I expected him to untie my ankles, but with a few quick movements he strapped my wrists to the arms of the chair. The next moment he was hovering with a bridle. I cried out in panic, but Bhuti Khuzwayo smoothed my hands with his hot palms and brought his lips close to my ear. A small precaution, he said. It won’t hurt.