Kristopher Jansma - The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards

“That was fantastic ,” she cries, any semblance of royal propriety quite out the window, and then her eyes have locked steady onto mine. “And it was you, too, wasn’t it? Of course, it was. Stay here, until it’s completely finished. You must be starved. The chef will whip something up for you.”

Jeffrey strides after her toward the dining room as if he’s lived here his entire life. To an apple-cheeked maid he says, “Yes, I’d like two slices of wheat toast. Crusts removed. Then two poached eggs with smoked salmon. No sauce. And he’ll have—”

Jeffrey is gesturing in my direction. “Oh. Uhm. Steak, then. Bloody.”

The princess adds, “Just have Marcel throw something together for me.”

She takes us into a grand dining room, where a long table is covered in tomorrow’s fine breakfast china. On the walls hang gigantic portraits of the former dukes and duchesses of Luxembourg, milky skinned and red nosed, always looking just a bit malnourished, as if they’d left sitting for the portrait off until they were actually on their deathbeds. At the head of the table is a massive golden throne, cushioned in red velvet. I expect that the princess will sit there, but she takes a seat to one side. The Panther sits behind her, and Jeffrey and I sit across. Wine is poured and Jeffrey chugs a glass down triumphantly before I can remind him he’s stopped drinking.

“Where’s the head honcho?” he asks, thumbing his finger at the throne.

The Black Panther speaks cordially to Jeffrey, “The duke is with his three sons in Argentina.”

“Argentina!” I say. “What’s in Argentina?”

“Don’t tell anyone,” she replies sweetly. “This country’s getting a bit small for us. We’re thinking of invading the Falklands. Do you think anyone will mind?”

She raises her eyebrows devilishly at me, and while Jeffrey bursts into laughter, I feel my heart begin to flutter.

“Nothing wrong with Argentina. Some of us might like to be in Argentina,” the Panther says, making eyes at Jeffrey, which, surprisingly, Jeffrey makes right back.

“Don’t pout now,” she says, giving his hand a light smack. “Cyrus was left behind to guard me.”

“Seems some rather disreputable foreigners had taken up residence in the Hotel Luxembourg,” he said, eyeing me. “Do you believe that?”

“Is that right?” I cough. “Well. Foreigners. Good for trade, I expect.”

“Only if you count sales of luxury cigarettes and fire repairs to hotel rooms.”

Jeffrey tips back his empty wineglass and taps it with one finger. “We bought some theater tickets! And a lot of room service. And judging from the crowd tonight I’d say there can’t be a vacant hotel room for miles!”

Cyrus grins wolfishly, and, if I’m not mistaken, there is, again, the briefest lingering in his looking at Jeffrey.

“So,” I say, desperate for any reason to look in the princess’s direction. “Is that why you didn’t go to Argentina? These, uhm , ‘disreputable foreigners’?”

Her eyes glint like the light on the rim of her wineglass as she drinks from it. “They don’t have much need for me when it comes to things like that. Negotiating trade agreements. Four percent this for two percent that. Amortized over six years. Steel for soybeans. Very dull stuff.”

Cyrus smiles. “Her Majesty is in charge of the Get Fit Luxembourg! initiative.”

She punches the air gently, as if quite gung ho about it, and then she and Jeffrey explode into laughter.

“You know what they’re making out of soybeans now? Lemonade! And tuna fish! Out of beans ! The other day I met three men who use it to make synthetic peanut butter. Isn’t it just as easy to grow peanuts? I asked them. Apparently not. That’s what it all is now. Everything reinvented! Nothing genuine. Next thing you know they’ll be injecting pregnant women with it so the children can breast-feed soy milk! This is how I’ll be remembered. ‘The Synthetic Princess!’”

“You should have them carve a statue of you out of tofu!” Jeffrey cries.

The idea seems to delight her. “If I put it over on the throne and snuck off, do you think they’d know the difference?”

Their laughter fills the empty dining hall, and in an instant there are tears in the corners of her eyes. Then she reaches both hands across the table. Jeffrey takes one and I take the other — and her fingers slip around mine as if I had held them only yesterday. “You have to stay here a few more weeks. Please. It’s just like the good old days,” she says, smiling as the servers arrive with our food.

And as we drink, and Jeffrey and I entertain Her Majesty with stories about our years apart, it does feel as if very little has changed. It’s only when I lean back in my chair and into the dead eyes of the portraits on the wall that I remember that we are not having brunch in some ritzy New York hotel. This is her home now. High up on one wall is an empty space. I can’t help but think that it is waiting for a portrait of her.

• • •

After dinner I am shown to a magnificent guest suite, done up in Far Eastern crimsons and golds. There is a huge canopy bed, a black bearskin rug on the floor, a huge bookshelf filled with leather-bound classics, a wardrobe the size of a New York apartment, and a spacious writing desk in the corner. A Spanish boy named Roberto brings me silk pajamas. The moon is high and full in the sky outside the window, and after the meal and the wine and a few hours with my old love, I am desperate to write. But I check all the drawers in the writing desk and there is no paper. I could ask Jeffrey, but he’s in the neighboring room, and judging from the way things were looking between him and Cyrus as we left dinner, I think that perhaps I will not disturb him. I hear an occasional faint thumping noise that makes me blush. It’s nice having the old Jeffrey back, I think to myself, but I’m worried for him at the same time. Will one bottle of wine lead to twelve? Will the good reviews, already streaming onto the blogosphere, go to his head even more quickly than the wine? And how long until Russell Haslett comes calling?

Just as I’m considering tearing some pages from the back of one of the ancient books on the shelf, I am interrupted by the sound of the door opening.

“Roberto, do you think you could find me something to write on?” I ask.

But it is not the Spanish boy.

The Princess of Luxembourg studies me a moment, her eyes curious, as if surprised to find me where she’d left me. Should I bow? I’m half tempted to curtsy.

“Good evening, Your Majest—” I begin, but before I can get it out she’s rushing toward me. Her hands grip my cheeks firmly, her lips devour mine, and though her golden hair keeps falling in our faces, she does not close her eyes, as if she needs to be sure it’s really me.

“Don’t you dare call me that,” she says, holding me tighter.

It’s what I’d dreamed of for nearly a decade, and yet something about her suddenly makes me nervous. I’d imagined myself all this time as some sort of world-weary knight, a lovelorn Lancelot come to free her from this prison. Instead I feel more like a confused Quixote, lost in lovely La Mancha, tilting at the same old windmills. Would that make Jeffrey my Sancho Panza? If anything, I must admit, it’s all the other way around.

“I thought you didn’t even want me to come up to the palace,” I manage.

Her eyes burn at a thousand watts. More. “I’ve told you,” she says. “You always make me forget my lines.”

She kisses me again and the nine interceding years begin to fly away. Yet as they do I find myself grasping at them with both hands. My heart is hummingbird-pounding, and I feel a faint throb in my leg as she pushes me toward the canopy bed — but we don’t even get there — we end up on the floor, and I feel the pricking of the bearskin against my cheek. She’s heavy on top of me and behind those carefully painted lips I feel the faint tensing of her teeth against my tongue. Her hands are on my shoulders, in my shirt, and all I can see is a frenzy of golden hair.