A gigantic fortress loomed up, its fantastic turrets and battlements silhouetted black against the dark blue dawn. Clouds of jackdaws wheeled away with deafening screeches. A yellow light glimmered high in the black facade. Anastasia honked impatiently. With an eerie creak, the drawbridge lowered unsteadily into place over a wide moat. The Ferrari roared over the drawbridge into an enormous cobbled courtyard. A stooped old man hobbled out, sleepily fumbling with the buttons on his livery. Anastasia acknowledged his deferential bow with a regal nod. The old man hurried across the courtyard and opened a large door. A man and a woman stood in the doorway dressed in matching scarlet velvet dressing gowns lined with white fur. I recognized Pipi. She ran over, kissed Anastasia on the cheek and nodded at me coldly. Her companion, a very tall man with a mane of curly white hair, stood in the doorway, leaning on a walking stick. The deep furrows in his scowling face seemed set in stone. We walked towards him slowly. Pipi looked frightened.
Anastasia curtsied formally. The man pulled her towards him with his free hand. "You there!" he called out in a gravelly voice to the aged servitor. "Kill the fatted calf!" Echoes rumbled around the courtyard. A smile cut open the old retainer's wrinkled face. He hobbled away, excitedly nodding his head. "Did you want to make sure that I really was dying, daughter?" the tall man inquired ironically.
"No, I was sure enough," Anastasia replied flippantly. "I even brought along a mortician." She introduced us to her father, Prince Ludwig von G and T.
Prince Ludwig nodded cursorily to Saure and then turned to me. "Are you an actor? Or, perhaps, a director?" he asked with cold courtesy. His hooded eyes probed mine as he tightened his grip on his stick.
"Neither, I'm afraid," I replied, feigning regret. I tried to meet his cold green unwinking stare. "But I do my best to be melodramatic. It's fun, isn't it?"
As we marched through a long winding dark corridor, Anastasia smiled at me. Her green eyes glittered in the darkness. "Good answer," she murmured. "He likes people who stand up for themselves." The fragrance of her hair wafted into my nostrils along with the distinctive odor of burning jet fuel. "I'm so glad that my father likes you," she confided. "You are only the second of my lovers whom I have ever introduced to him. And what he did to the first..." I felt her shudder. "Even I couldn't have come up with such cruelty."
"I'm sure you could have," I said, kissing the side of her curly head. "You're definitely your father's daughter."
"Do you think so?" Anastasia scowled.
"The resemblance is unmistakable."
We walked into a huge room. A strip of thick red carpet ran like a stream of blood across the flagstone floor towards a high platform with two thrones. Prince Ludwig seated himself and beckoned Pipi to his side. Saure, Anastasia, and I sat before them in audience. Massive rafters of timber held up a soaring vaulted ceiling hewn out of rough grey stone.
"Breakfast will be ready soon," Prince Ludwig rumbled. "Let us fill the time with small talk. I take it you are my daughter's lover. Tell me about yourself."
"What would you like to know?"
"Who are your parents?"
"My mother is indescribable," I answered. "My father was a Mongolian diplomat."
Prince Ludwig nodded. "As I thought. You are clearly not Japanese," he observed. "They are polite. And I didn't think you could be Chinese. Centuries of civilization have made them soft. However, I don't know what effect this latest revolution has had on them..."
"Has there been a revolution recently?" I asked, interested. I wondered if my dissident friends had finally pulled off the coup they were always planning, hissing softly through their blackened teeth as they sat late at night in shady opium dens and university seminar rooms all over the world, a scattered community of bitter young exiles who had escaped being run over by tanks like their friends on that stifling June night in Tienanmen, survivors who had sworn vengeance and pledged allegiance to the ruthless mastermind who had held together their exile community in its darkest days through a combination of surreptitious electronic communications, strong-arm tactics, selective leaks to the media, carefully calculated political assassination, and computerized burglary from international banks, a shadowy figure known to all only by his codename of Fu Manchu, but it just so happened that I had grown up with him in El Salvador and later on in Kalifornia and I knew that this dark wizard was actually a mild mannered giggly genius with an addiction to Carlos Schreiber's recordings of Tristan und Isolde and 1983 Chateau Latour who taught philosophy of science at Harvard under his implausible but real name, Frankie Sei.
"No, I was referring to the Communists. It could be that the hardship endured by the Chinese has made them tougher. In which case the Russians will finally have a challenge..." Prince Ludwig rubbed his hands.
"You won't be around to see it anyway," Anastasia murmured.
"Don't be so sure, daughter. Perhaps we will have ringside seats in the other world. Or else I will be burning away in some infernal pit along with the rest of the damned and we will look up and ask ourselves what all the noise is and we will see a huge crowd rushing in, being driven along with pitchforks, billions and billions..." Prince Ludwig smiled. "It's only a matter of time. The Russians will get strong again and their greed knows no bounds. Europe is no challenge. We are worse than the Chinese. We have let ourselves grow fat. We are the pampered little lapdogs the Amerikans have held too long on their knees and to whom they have fed little tidbits..."
"Breakfast is served," the stooped old retainer announced deferentially. We walked for about a mile through a mirror-lined corridor until we reached another large room. One side of the room crackled with flames and the appetizing smell of roasting flesh permeated the air. A large animal turned lazily in the flames, rotating on a spit hanging in the middle of the large fireplace hewn deep into the stone wall. Another side of the room was all glass, offering a fabulous view of distant mountain valleys deep in snow, a cool pink sugary landscape in the red glare of a winter sun. We sat at benches on either side of a thick slab of black granite mounted on massive blocks of marble. An array of delicate crystal and china stood in bewildering profusion on the table. The old servitor hacked at the carcass and brought us heaping platefuls of veal, sliced loaves of fresh black bread, potato dumplings, sauces flavored with paprika and bechamel, garlic butter, clover honey; champagne corks popped at Prince Ludwig's order and noble vintages freshened our palates as we ate ravenously. It was a very satisfying breakfast and I made a mental note to get an exact recipe for the paprika sauce.
"You came just in time, daughter." Prince Ludwig laid his hand on Anastasia's shoulder and rose with an effort. We all got up and walked back to the throne room. The Prince gingerly settled himself into his throne. "I will die tonight."
"How can you tell, Your Highness?" Saure asked meekly.
"I will commit suicide, obviously," Prince Ludwig replied curtly. "Poison. Or perhaps I will commit hara kiri. I have not yet decided. I have invited a few friends to the wake."
"You have friends?" Anastasia asked curiously.
Prince Ludwig glowered at her. "I call them friends only because I have known them longest."
"In that case they must all be relatives," Nasty interrupted indifferently. "How boring."
"No, the only relative I have invited is our cousin, his Eminence the Cardinal. It should be interesting to see how a prince of the Church reacts to suicide in his presence." Prince Ludwig smiled broadly.
"Is Baron Axel going to be here?" Saure quavered, casting a nervous look at Anastasia.
Prince Ludwig sighed. "No. His catholic principles would not allow it. He even insisted on taking little Ulrich away with him. My death would have been an edifying spectacle for my grandson. He is still impressionable enough to viscerally grasp the frailty of mortal flesh. But Axel would not allow it. I believe he took Ulrich to a brothel instead."
"Just as well, really," Anastasia said in her usual calm monotone but her eyes flashed fire. "Instead of a simple solitary suicide, the evening could have turned into a wholesale massacre. And that would spoil all the fun." She turned to her father. "Incidentally, do you expect me to clap this evening? Or would you prefer that I cry?"
"No, Anastasia, it will be enough if you just watch for a change. You won't need to act this evening."
"I'll cry," Pipi whimpered. Her little face was contorted in practice for the tears she would shed later. "I'll miss you, Ludi."
"Ah, but a billion dollars should soak up an ocean of tears, my dear Olympia," Prince Ludwig said pleasantly. "Your first marriage has been a success by any standard. The stuff of fairy tales, even, I might say, if the newspapers had not already said it. Cinderella, they called you. A fair enough comparison if it were not for the fact that your prince was fifty years older than you."
"And the wicked stepmother was the stepdaughter in this case," Anastasia added, staring pensively at her father.
Prince Ludwig shrugged. "I didn't say that, my dear," he retorted.
"You thought it." Anastasia got up and took my hand. "I am tired," she announced. "At what time will you kill yourself, father?"
"At midnight, I think. The party begins at nine," Prince Ludwig replied. "Your wing of the castle is as it was when you left eleven years ago."
Anastasia raised her eyebrows. "I thought you would have turned it into a hotel annex by now. I am touched." We walked towards the door. At the door, she hesitated. Scowling hard, she stalked back quickly, taking the steps to the platform three at a time, pushed her father's head back, and kissed him hard on the mouth. He put his arm around her waist for a moment. She ran back to the door and led me down endless corridors and up winding staircases until we reached an enormous bedroom. She threw herself onto the four poster bed and buried her head in the pillow. I held her close to me, rocking her in my arms, her body shuddering as she finally let herself cry, painfully, silently, choking hard on every bitter sob. The hot tears slowly seeped through my silk shirt, searing me with her anguish. I felt very tired. I wondered how my mother would greet her prodigal son if he ever returned.
Anastasia curtsied formally. The man pulled her towards him with his free hand. "You there!" he called out in a gravelly voice to the aged servitor. "Kill the fatted calf!" Echoes rumbled around the courtyard. A smile cut open the old retainer's wrinkled face. He hobbled away, excitedly nodding his head. "Did you want to make sure that I really was dying, daughter?" the tall man inquired ironically.
"No, I was sure enough," Anastasia replied flippantly. "I even brought along a mortician." She introduced us to her father, Prince Ludwig von G and T.
Prince Ludwig nodded cursorily to Saure and then turned to me. "Are you an actor? Or, perhaps, a director?" he asked with cold courtesy. His hooded eyes probed mine as he tightened his grip on his stick.
"Neither, I'm afraid," I replied, feigning regret. I tried to meet his cold green unwinking stare. "But I do my best to be melodramatic. It's fun, isn't it?"
As we marched through a long winding dark corridor, Anastasia smiled at me. Her green eyes glittered in the darkness. "Good answer," she murmured. "He likes people who stand up for themselves." The fragrance of her hair wafted into my nostrils along with the distinctive odor of burning jet fuel. "I'm so glad that my father likes you," she confided. "You are only the second of my lovers whom I have ever introduced to him. And what he did to the first..." I felt her shudder. "Even I couldn't have come up with such cruelty."
"I'm sure you could have," I said, kissing the side of her curly head. "You're definitely your father's daughter."
"Do you think so?" Anastasia scowled.
"The resemblance is unmistakable."
We walked into a huge room. A strip of thick red carpet ran like a stream of blood across the flagstone floor towards a high platform with two thrones. Prince Ludwig seated himself and beckoned Pipi to his side. Saure, Anastasia, and I sat before them in audience. Massive rafters of timber held up a soaring vaulted ceiling hewn out of rough grey stone.
"Breakfast will be ready soon," Prince Ludwig rumbled. "Let us fill the time with small talk. I take it you are my daughter's lover. Tell me about yourself."
"What would you like to know?"
"Who are your parents?"
"My mother is indescribable," I answered. "My father was a Mongolian diplomat."
Prince Ludwig nodded. "As I thought. You are clearly not Japanese," he observed. "They are polite. And I didn't think you could be Chinese. Centuries of civilization have made them soft. However, I don't know what effect this latest revolution has had on them..."
"Has there been a revolution recently?" I asked, interested. I wondered if my dissident friends had finally pulled off the coup they were always planning, hissing softly through their blackened teeth as they sat late at night in shady opium dens and university seminar rooms all over the world, a scattered community of bitter young exiles who had escaped being run over by tanks like their friends on that stifling June night in Tienanmen, survivors who had sworn vengeance and pledged allegiance to the ruthless mastermind who had held together their exile community in its darkest days through a combination of surreptitious electronic communications, strong-arm tactics, selective leaks to the media, carefully calculated political assassination, and computerized burglary from international banks, a shadowy figure known to all only by his codename of Fu Manchu, but it just so happened that I had grown up with him in El Salvador and later on in Kalifornia and I knew that this dark wizard was actually a mild mannered giggly genius with an addiction to Carlos Schreiber's recordings of Tristan und Isolde and 1983 Chateau Latour who taught philosophy of science at Harvard under his implausible but real name, Frankie Sei.
"No, I was referring to the Communists. It could be that the hardship endured by the Chinese has made them tougher. In which case the Russians will finally have a challenge..." Prince Ludwig rubbed his hands.
"You won't be around to see it anyway," Anastasia murmured.
"Don't be so sure, daughter. Perhaps we will have ringside seats in the other world. Or else I will be burning away in some infernal pit along with the rest of the damned and we will look up and ask ourselves what all the noise is and we will see a huge crowd rushing in, being driven along with pitchforks, billions and billions..." Prince Ludwig smiled. "It's only a matter of time. The Russians will get strong again and their greed knows no bounds. Europe is no challenge. We are worse than the Chinese. We have let ourselves grow fat. We are the pampered little lapdogs the Amerikans have held too long on their knees and to whom they have fed little tidbits..."
"Breakfast is served," the stooped old retainer announced deferentially. We walked for about a mile through a mirror-lined corridor until we reached another large room. One side of the room crackled with flames and the appetizing smell of roasting flesh permeated the air. A large animal turned lazily in the flames, rotating on a spit hanging in the middle of the large fireplace hewn deep into the stone wall. Another side of the room was all glass, offering a fabulous view of distant mountain valleys deep in snow, a cool pink sugary landscape in the red glare of a winter sun. We sat at benches on either side of a thick slab of black granite mounted on massive blocks of marble. An array of delicate crystal and china stood in bewildering profusion on the table. The old servitor hacked at the carcass and brought us heaping platefuls of veal, sliced loaves of fresh black bread, potato dumplings, sauces flavored with paprika and bechamel, garlic butter, clover honey; champagne corks popped at Prince Ludwig's order and noble vintages freshened our palates as we ate ravenously. It was a very satisfying breakfast and I made a mental note to get an exact recipe for the paprika sauce.
"You came just in time, daughter." Prince Ludwig laid his hand on Anastasia's shoulder and rose with an effort. We all got up and walked back to the throne room. The Prince gingerly settled himself into his throne. "I will die tonight."
"How can you tell, Your Highness?" Saure asked meekly.
"I will commit suicide, obviously," Prince Ludwig replied curtly. "Poison. Or perhaps I will commit hara kiri. I have not yet decided. I have invited a few friends to the wake."
"You have friends?" Anastasia asked curiously.
Prince Ludwig glowered at her. "I call them friends only because I have known them longest."
"In that case they must all be relatives," Nasty interrupted indifferently. "How boring."
"No, the only relative I have invited is our cousin, his Eminence the Cardinal. It should be interesting to see how a prince of the Church reacts to suicide in his presence." Prince Ludwig smiled broadly.
"Is Baron Axel going to be here?" Saure quavered, casting a nervous look at Anastasia.
Prince Ludwig sighed. "No. His catholic principles would not allow it. He even insisted on taking little Ulrich away with him. My death would have been an edifying spectacle for my grandson. He is still impressionable enough to viscerally grasp the frailty of mortal flesh. But Axel would not allow it. I believe he took Ulrich to a brothel instead."
"Just as well, really," Anastasia said in her usual calm monotone but her eyes flashed fire. "Instead of a simple solitary suicide, the evening could have turned into a wholesale massacre. And that would spoil all the fun." She turned to her father. "Incidentally, do you expect me to clap this evening? Or would you prefer that I cry?"
"No, Anastasia, it will be enough if you just watch for a change. You won't need to act this evening."
"I'll cry," Pipi whimpered. Her little face was contorted in practice for the tears she would shed later. "I'll miss you, Ludi."
"Ah, but a billion dollars should soak up an ocean of tears, my dear Olympia," Prince Ludwig said pleasantly. "Your first marriage has been a success by any standard. The stuff of fairy tales, even, I might say, if the newspapers had not already said it. Cinderella, they called you. A fair enough comparison if it were not for the fact that your prince was fifty years older than you."
"And the wicked stepmother was the stepdaughter in this case," Anastasia added, staring pensively at her father.
Prince Ludwig shrugged. "I didn't say that, my dear," he retorted.
"You thought it." Anastasia got up and took my hand. "I am tired," she announced. "At what time will you kill yourself, father?"
"At midnight, I think. The party begins at nine," Prince Ludwig replied. "Your wing of the castle is as it was when you left eleven years ago."
Anastasia raised her eyebrows. "I thought you would have turned it into a hotel annex by now. I am touched." We walked towards the door. At the door, she hesitated. Scowling hard, she stalked back quickly, taking the steps to the platform three at a time, pushed her father's head back, and kissed him hard on the mouth. He put his arm around her waist for a moment. She ran back to the door and led me down endless corridors and up winding staircases until we reached an enormous bedroom. She threw herself onto the four poster bed and buried her head in the pillow. I held her close to me, rocking her in my arms, her body shuddering as she finally let herself cry, painfully, silently, choking hard on every bitter sob. The hot tears slowly seeped through my silk shirt, searing me with her anguish. I felt very tired. I wondered how my mother would greet her prodigal son if he ever returned.
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