The Grasshopper King (19 page)

The howl was coming from the garden. When we got there, we saw that the chief butler had been right. (That was why he was chief!) Arno, the Empress's German Shepherd, had something up a tree. A man! He
was up there in the highest branches, which with his weight rose and fell, bringing him closer and closer to where Arno could reach him with his high leaps. He made no sound at all. He just stayed hanging there.

“Hah, Arno,” I said, and the dog came to my hand. Warily climbed the man down. He pulled his rain-hood away from his face. This was my first sight of Henderson. That queer fellow! I remember him well. He was very tall and thin—just as you have said, Professor. Also had he a sort of nervous way of looking about, which reminded one of a schoolboy. He was all wrapped up in a poor sort of rain-coat, in one pocket whereof—which you have also mentioned—was a writing-tablet. There was water pouring down his face and out of his sleeves. I recall this because good old Hieronymus joked, “Look! Arno's treed a fountain!” And how we laughed!

As I write this, recall I also that Henderson had a great gold tooth, on the left side of his mouth, a very bad one that stuck out in a funny way, which I am surprised that you have not put in your letter, for it was what one would notice first of all about him.

Anyway: I stepped forward. (Though it's just me saying it, I was a sort of leader of all the boys.) “Who are you?” I asked the stranger quite commandingly. “Don't you know you're trespassing on the Imperial Court of Germany?”

“I need to see the Emperor,” said the man. Then we shared a good chuckle! Ha! This wet beggar who no doubt had gotten himself lost on the road from Amersfoort! “You're surely a joker!” I told him.

“No,” he said, seeming confused. “I am a poet.”

Well! A poet! I didn't know whether to believe him or not. I had thought of all poets as looking like my uncle Walther, who was very fat, a bachelor, his veins always breaking and thereby making blue lines on his face: and he wasn't even a proper poet of the sort found in books. He only made up little rhymes about the girls in town. You can see I haven't much education! Well, it's a fine thing, a “country bumpkin” like me is writing to a Professor about a poet! Chance is a funny trick player!!

Of course, we should have turned the intruder away on the spot. But as I have told you there was a very terrible storm. The stranger
seemed harmless. And after all hadn't he given us a bit of fun? So we brought him back to the servants' quarters and made up the spare bed for him. This was all quite against the rules—but we were the boys! I think boys are never any different than we were, isn't that right? Then afterwards returned we to the party, telling the chief butler it was a squirrel Arno had caught.

“The biggest squirrel I ever saw!” said Hieronymus.

How we laughed!

After that, Mr. Henderson became a sort of secret mascot for all the servants. We brought him pocketfuls of food from our own table; the girl servants—we'd let them in on it soon enough, that's no surprise!!—sewed him a new coat out of scraps, all different colors, so he looked always like a gay marionette going about. Each day he would remind us that he needed to see the Emperor. He told us he was bearing a very important message. “His Majesty is very busy!” we'd tell him. “You're on the list! Be patient!”

Of all the boys, it was I who knew Henderson best. I was interested in him right away since I was a bit of a Communist back then (not anymore!!) as very many young people were in those days. Well, when I found out Henderson was a Soviet I was naturally excited! I wanted to hear all about “the workers' paradise.” But it turned out Henderson was no Communist at all. This is what he said to me once: “The Communist Party is a wretched galleon manned by fleas, adrift upon a sea of mucus and spit.” Well, what do you think he meant by that?! Have I any idea? Well, you see why he was the poet and I just a stable boy! I hope you can figure it out, Professor!

And here's a queer thing! Whatever Henderson said—sense or nonsense—captivated us! It did not matter that he was so poor at German speaking. It only made us listen more carefully. And even when we had not the littlest idea what he was saying we never became bored or wandered away. Well, somehow there was always an idea that he was saying something important and with patience we stupid boys would understand him. But we never did!

Henderson and I used to roam through the woods that grew around the edges of the estate, which was the only place, where would we not be seen. What kind of a pair of friends we were! Well, but he kept me laughing all right. He called the other servants “curs” and “locusts.” The lords and ladies who visited the palace were “pustulating parasites and whore-diddlers, abomination-hawkers, nation-out-sellers.” The only person to whom he gave any respect was the Emperor himself. Each day asked he me, when his meeting with the Emperor could be scheduled. “Soon,” I always was telling him, “any day now. You are close to the top of the list.”

Of course there was not any such list! But one day—and with no help from me—Henderson got his meeting! Well, that's quite a story!

This was in September of 1932. By that time I had moved a bit upward and at last had I gotten out of those very bad-smelling stables. Now I sat all day long in the entrance lodge, where my job was to sort through the hundreds of letters that arrived each day for the Emperor. Such tales of woe! Such misery! Germany brought low! Terrible times! I picked out one sad letter from every bundle for the Emperor to read. When he was finished—I can see this now in my eyes!—he marked his imperial seal “
IR
” on the top corner of each page.

Well, with my new job I had not as much time to spend walking about with my friend Henderson, you can guess it. I left him in the morning and came back to visit him in the night time. Now one day I came back to the servants' quarters and what do you think? No Henderson! Well, was I afraid! At once started I a search for him, praying all along that nobody had found him first; then were our secret all finished!

Soon enough I spied him far away on a garden path; but oh no! He was conversing with a certain Baron Pfaffenrot! I was ruined! I thought, the Emperor will certainly be done with me now! Now it's back to Germany with me! My parents throw me out! I am a beggar on the street!

But when I drew closer saw I, that the Baron looked unangry; let it be said, he was laughing! Well, this made me not so afraid, and I joined them to see what all this laughing was about.

“Hello, boy,” Pfaffenrot said. “Your friend Henderson here was just explaining to me how I was like the sow that roots about in her own excrement.”

“You might also,” Henderson told him, “be called a two-legged pestilence. Or a bicycle whose front wheel is stupidity and whose back wheel is treason. And whose foot pedals are an idiot's love of British foppery.” At this laughed Pfaffenrot all the harder.

Well, let me explain a little. Pfaffenrot was not really much of a Baron. In fact, he was the very last of seven sons and so his whole life expected he to enter a trade. But then the other six boys got the Spanish flu! And just like that he was a Baron! I've said it already—chance is a funny trick player! Anyway, Pfaffenrot was not only very bad-mannered, he was also a British spy! He was always hanging about House Doorn asking questions to the nobility. Spying on the Emperor's court was the least important of all British spying; so nobody bothered him about it. Well, those were funny times, that's all I'm saying!

So Pfaffenrot said to me, “Boy there, my amusing new friend tells me you've been putting off his appointment with the Emperor.”

“Well, no, Sir,” I said, “not exactly. Any day now his Majesty will be free.”

“Still,” Pfaffenrot replied, “since I'm seeing his Majesty in a few moments, I thought I might bring Mr. Henderson along with me.”

Well, what was I to do! I stood there with my mouth fully open!

“Oh, do not worry, boy,” Pfaffenrot said. “I won't expose you.”

And the two of them strolled off toward the palace. Well, what do you think I did then? I sneaked along behind! When I came into the house I hid in a storeroom wherefrom I knew I could overhear people speaking in the Emperor's chambers. One of the house girls had shown it to me once, ha ha ha! Boys!

I settled myself in the little room and waited. Before long were the Baron and Mr. Henderson let in. The Baron introduced Henderson as his new manservant. Not very likely! Henderson in his torn-up
every-colored coat! But as I have said, Pfaffenrot was not well known for his good manners!

Mr. Henderson kept quiet at first, while talked Pfaffenrot and the Emperor of their mutual friends in London and Berlin. I could hear the Baron taking notes in his little pad, all the while, and sometimes he would ask the Emperor to repeat himself—well, you see why he wasn't a more important spy! After some time came the conversation around to politics. This was one of the favorite topics of the Emperor; I heard him lean forward on his creaky seat, which was just his old saddle, actually, fixed upon a post behind his desk, and the two men spoke about issues of state of every kind.

And then: Henderson spoke up!

“Hirohito, that little mongoose with grotesque fangs,” Henderson growled suddenly. “He will eat the eaters of spoiled eggs under the ground.”

What a surprise for the Emperor, when the manservant so spoke! For one thing, it was Italy the two men had been discussing! But Baron Pfaffenrot did not seem so surprised. “My man refers to British possessions in China,” said Pfaffenrot. “They are seriously endangered by Japan, he is quite correct.”

“All emperors, except the Emperor, should be mashed up in the gears.”

“I like the way you're talking!” said the Emperor. Then he asked Henderson what he thought of Mr. Hitler and his National Socialists.

“Pah,” Henderson said, “A stupid puppy who does not know enough not to defecate in his vomit before eating it. Soon enough he will sicken and choke on his own soil.”

Now, the Emperor did not care for Hitler a great deal. For at one time Hitler was every month sending us flattering notes—the Germans needed to claim again their past, the Emperor would sit again on his throne, and so forth. And at that time Hitler's name was spoken about very sweetly in House Doorn. Not any more! Now it was clear who wore the hat, if you see what I mean!

“Yes,” Pfaffenrot said, “there are many people in England—I have heard—who think that Hitler is the least of the dangers that they face.”

“The English are in more danger of breaking off their own noses while trying to straighten their absurd hats,” Henderson answered him. I heard Pfaffenrot make a great laugh at that one.

It's a funny thing! A wandering poet instructing a Baron and the Emperor about matters of state! But that's just how it happened! As I told you, Henderson's talking had a curious effect on people!

“Surely you're no servant,” said the Emperor.

“Indeed, no.” replied Henderson. “I am a poet, and I have come to Doorn to deliver an important message to you.”

“Well then, poet,” said the Emperor, “let us hear it.”

Henderson took a deep breath. “His Majesty,” he said, “is a demented old ass.”

“I say,” said Pfaffenrot.

“By rights he ought to have expired with his hand-fantasies of world conquest. He is like a toad sick with constipation who boils himself in his own reeking fluids. He ought to be eaten from the feet up by wasps. His mind is gone and replaced by a chamberpot in the shape of a human head, which is filled with a vile soup of sweat, rotten meat, and worthless notes. He is to be pitied by idiots and pilloried by besotted dwarves. The Dutch ought to burn his house down and sprinkle the ashes with lye. Hail the Emperor!”

Well, what do you think? After all these years I remember every word! I was shocked! Even merry Pfaffenrot couldn't manage a laugh!

The next thing I heard was Henderson running out of the room, and the Emperor shouting for the guards. I burst out of my hiding spot; but I couldn't catch up with Henderson. Neither could the guards. So that was the end of the poet's visit to House Doorn! And I the last of all the boys still alive to tell about it! Lucky your letter found me when it did!

Well, anyway, I'll finish! Soon enough the trouble in Germany became worse. But, you know, Pfaffenrot was always saying from then on just what Henderson had said; that Britain should only wait and
let Hitler come to his own grief. And I suppose he was saying that same thing to his employers in London too. Well, I don't want to be the one to say that Henderson's poor advice kept the Nazis around long enough to start all their trouble! You, an educated man, know better than me: things have all kinds of causes! I'm an old dullard! I'm only telling you these things I've seen!

Now I'm still not quite done. By chance I ran across Henderson one more time, in Berlin, in 1940. By then I am sorry to say had I fallen a little distance in the world—so I was quite excited to see a reminder of happier times! And you know, Henderson had not changed a bit! In fact, he still wore the rag-coat the girls had made for him! It turned out he was about to move to London; apparently something he had written had made angry the Nazis. Well, there's old Henderson, always getting in trouble with his talking! I couldn't resist having a little fun with him!