The Short Reign of Pippin IV (15 page)

“Find out what's bothering him—”

“Maybe just being king is bothering him.”

“Nonsense,” said Marie. “Anybody would want to be king.”

Marie steered her husband to Sister Hyacinthe's cell. “This is my old friend,” she said, and then cleverly, “Oh! There's something I forgot. Excuse me for a moment.” And she went out.

The king looked casually at the nun.

“Sit down, Sire.”

“I haven't been very dutiful toward the Church. Since I was a child,” he said.

“You might say I haven't either. I was twenty years on the musical stage.”

“I thought you were familiar.”

“In this costume? I am complimented, M'sieur. Very few ever looked at my face.”

He tried for gallantry. “Then there must be incredible beauties . . .”

“Under this habit? Thank you. I went to school with Madame. You may have heard her speak of me as Mademoiselle Lescault. I don't think she will have mentioned my profession. Marie is one of those fortunate people who forbid existence to matters they do not approve of. I envy her this gift.”

“My wife is remarkable in many ways, but not in subtlety. It is true that quite often I do not know what she is up to but I have never any doubt when she is up to something.”

Suzanne put her head back and closed her eyes. “You wonder why she brought you here and left you here?”

“I imagine that is what I wonder.”

“She feels that you are uneasy, restless.”

“I have often been uneasy and nearly always restless. This has not troubled her before. She attacked it with sauces and small delicious sweets.”

“That is the housewife's remedy. I hope it cured you, or at least that you said it did.”

“I hope I tried, Sister.”

“You are amiable, M'sieur. Could you tell me why you are uneasy now? Something I can twist around for Marie? She worries about you.”

The king said, “I would help you if I could. Many of the causes I do not know myself. I did not ask to be king. I was picked like a berry from a bush and placed in a position where there are many precedents, nearly all of them bad and all of them successful.”

“You cannot, like a berry, let happen what will happen?”

“No,” said the king, “it is the misfortune of men to want to do a thing well, even a thing they do not want to do at all. You will not believe this, Sister, but once I wanted to dance well. It was ridiculous.”

“You are afraid you will make mistakes?”

“My dear Sister, the path is solid with mistakes. Even the best of kings failed.”

“I am sorry for you.”

“No, you must not be sorry. My uncle told me I had the choice of cutting my wrists. I did not take advantage of it.”

Sister Hyacinthe said, “There have been kings who put the whole business in others' hands—the ministry, the council, the team—and went about enjoying themselves.”

“I think, Sister, that was only after they had given up. There is a strong pressure on a king to be a king. The purpose of a king is to rule and the purpose of rule is to increase the well-being of the kingdom.”

“It is a trap,” said Sister Hyacinthe, “like all other virtue—it is a trap. Where virtue is involved it is very difficult to tell oneself the truth, M'sieur. There are two kinds of virtue. One is passionate ambition and the other simply a desire for the peace which comes from not giving anyone any trouble.”

“You are thoughtful, Sister,” said the king, and she knew from the brightness of his eyes that she had captured his attention.

“I have not been without this problem,” she said. “When after twenty years of standing nude on a stage, inspiring dreams, I hope, in lonely men, I took the veil, it would have been very easy to assume a holy impulse—I could recite you all the ways of saying it. But I knew that I was simply tired.”

“You are honest.”

“I don't know. Having admitted that my impulse was less than pure, I found in myself kindnesses, understandings, that even I can find no fault with—by-products of the initial laziness—I didn't even have to worry about virtue once I took the weight off my feet.”

“How about the ritual—the rising, kneeling, reciting of magic religious formulae?”

“It is no more than breathing after a little while. Easier to do than not to do.”

The king got up and scratched his elbows, walked around his chair, sat down.

“It seems a big jump,” he said, “from sinner to—saint.”

Sister Hyacinthe laughed. “Sin is difficult to isolate in oneself,” she observed. “In others it is easy to discern, but in ourselves it has a way of being based on necessity or good intentions. Please don't repeat this to Marie—”

“Pardon? Oh! I don't think it would occur to me.”

“Marie is a wife—that's different.”

“She is very kind to me,” said the king.

Sister Hyacinthe regarded him in amazement. “I hope that was said only in courtesy,” she said, “not as a truth.”

“I don't know what you mean.”

“There is no kindness in women,” said the nun. “There is love, but that is a subjective thing. If I had ever married I might have convinced myself otherwise.” She regarded him narrowly. “What is the best thing that ever happened to you, Sire?”

“Why—”

“If you can tell me, perhaps I can tell you what it is you are missing and mourning for.”

“Why, I guess—I guess it was when the comet appeared in my reflector and I knew I was the first human ever to see it. I was—I was filled with wonder.”

“They had no right to make you king,” she said. “A king only repeats old mistakes, and if he knows this in advance—I understand now, Sire—but I can't help you. You didn't cut your wrists and now it is too late. A comet. Yes, I can see . . .”

“I like you, Sister,” said the king. “Will you permit me to call on you now and then?”

“If I were sure your feeling was purely intellectual . . .”

“But Sister—”

“I should forbid it,” said Sister Hyacinthe, and her laughter was reminiscent of the ladies' dressing room backstage. “You are a good man, Sire, and a good man draws women as cheese draws mice.”

 

 

One of the great burdens on the king was his lack of privacy. He was followed, fawned over, protected, stared at. He had considered the use of disguises in the manner of Haroun-al-Raschid. At times he locked himself in his room simply to get away from the eyes and voices of the people who surrounded him.

At about this time he made a happy accidental discovery. The queen, finding it necessary to clean his office, sent him out until she could get it swept and dusted. He was wearing his corduroy jacket, a little frayed at the elbows, flannel trousers in need of a press, and espadrilles. He slipped some papers in a briefcase and went to the gardens to finish his work. As he sat on the coping of a fish pond, a gardener approached him.

“It is not permitted to sit here, M'sieur,” said the gardener.

The king moved to a place in the shade on a great stairway. Immediately a gendarme touched his elbow.

“The visiting hours are from two to five, M'sieur. Please go to the entrance and await a guide.”

Pippin gaped at him. He gathered up his papers and sauntered to the entrance. He paid his fee for the guided tour. He bought postcards and peered with the crowd into rooms guarded by velvet ropes.

All through the palace he saw servants and nobility and ministers of state and not one of them looked at the man in the corduroy jacket and espadrilles. Even the queen bustled by and did not notice him as the tour stared after her.

In delight he followed the tourists back to the entrance and boarded the chartered bus for Paris. His heart was light. To test himself thoroughly he strolled up the Champs Elysées and no one saw him.

He took a table at the Select and ordered a Pernod and water and he watched the passing throng. He listened to tourist talk, and his freedom grew on him like wings.

He indulged himself in a mildly anti-monarchist argument with a correspondent from
Life
magazine, who retorted, “I suppose the king hasn't yet been able to clean out all the Communists.”

Pippin sneered, borrowed a cigarette, and strolled across the Champs Elysées, past Fouquet's, and into the Avenue George V, past the Hotel Prince de Galles, and to the entrance of the Hotel George V itself. As he entered the lobby, he was stopped by an official.

“You wish something?”

“I wish to see Mr. Tod Johnson.”

“You are delivering something? Leave it at the—”

“I have his briefcase,” said Pippin. “He has asked me to hand it to him personally.”

“The hall porter—” began the official, his eyes fastened on the espadrilles.

“Please call Mr. Tod Johnson's suite, M'sieur. Tell him that Mr. King has brought his briefcase from Uncle Charlie's Gallery.”

Tod welcomed Pippin at the door to his apartment, tipped the suspicious guide, and clapped the king on the back.

“Well, I'll be damned,” he said.

“Isn't it wonderful? I had a hard time getting in,” said the king.

Tod said, “I have a friend who claims that, if you want to hide, get a job as a waiter in a good restaurant. No one ever looks at a waiter. Sit down, sir. Can I get you a drink?”

“A—how do you call it?—mar—mart—?”

“Martini?”

“Exactly, a martini,” said the king happily. “Do you know, a tourist nearly had me arrested for lèse majesté.”

“Won't they be looking for you, sir?”

“I hope so,” said the king. “But they won't look here. You said yourself that the French do not come here. . . . Now that, my friend, is a better one than my uncle makes.”

“He can't bring himself to use enough ice,” said Tod.

“One of my own guards ejected me from my own garden,” said the king happily.

“I guess people see what they expect to see. They don't expect a bareheaded king with a bald spot. Did you think of it yourself, sir?”

“Oh, no! It was an accident. You see, Marie wanted to clean my little office. And then a gardener wouldn't let me sit down on a coping.”

“You aren't insulted?”

“How do you mean, insulted? I've never been happier.”

“Well, I know some great stars of Hollywood who disguise themselves with dark glasses and pulled-down hats. They're pretty upset if no one recognizes them. Then there's the owner of three of our biggest magazines. He has a real hatred for publicity but he just happens to get photographed all the time. Take my father, now—”

Pippin broke in. “I wanted to talk to you about your father.”

“Had a long letter from him this morning. He doesn't approve of me going around with Bugsy, with the princess.”

“He doesn't?”

“No. He's a snob. You see, he's a self-made man, and there's no snob like a self-made man. They say he only looks up to his maker. The second generation can relax a little—even be democratic.

“My father's letter is funny. He's interested in what is going on here. He says for me to tell you that you've got a real chance here, if you play your cards right. But he doesn't believe you will.”

“Do you think he would come here to advise me?”

“Oh, no!” said Tod. “He's a snob. He might come over later and criticize. There's a dividend here.” And Tod filled the king's glass.

“I came to see you because I want to ask you some questions. It is true that at first your father actually raised chickens?”

“Sure he did, and he hates chickens.”

“Is it not also true that many of the heads of your greatest corporations worked up from the bottom? I seem to remember . . .”

“Sure. Knudsen was an iron puddler; Ben Fairless worked on an open hearth, I think. I could name you lots—Charlie Wilson—oh, lots!”

“Then they know their business on all levels—”

“True,” said Tod. “But don't think that makes them democratic. It's just the opposite.”

“I've never understood America,” said the king.

“Neither do we, sir. You might say we have two governments, kind of overlapping. First we have the elected government. It's Democratic or Republican, doesn't make much difference, and then there's corporation government.”

“They get along together, these governments?”

“Sometimes,” said Tod. “I don't understand it myself. You see, the elected government pretends to be democratic, and actually it is autocratic. The corporation governments pretend to be autocratic and they're all the time accusing the others of socialism. They hate socialism.”

“So I have heard,” said Pippin.

“Well, here's the funny thing, sir. You take a big corporation in America, say like General Motors or Du Pont or U.S. Steel. The thing they're most afraid of is socialism, and at the same time they themselves are socialist states.”

The king sat bolt upright. “Please?” he said.

“Well, just look at it, sir. They've got medical care for employees and their families and accident insurance and retirement pensions, paid vacations—even vacation places—and they're beginning to get guaranteed pay over the year. The employees have representation in pretty nearly everything, even the color they paint the factories. As a matter of fact, they've got socialism that makes the USSR look silly. Our corporations make the U.S. Government seem like an absolute monarchy. Why, if the U.S. government tried to do one-tenth of what General Motors does, General Motors would go into armed revolt. It's what you might call a paradox, sir.”