If You're Reading This, I'm Already Dead Page 7

  It looked as if things were about to get very boring indeed, but for some reason not one single bandsman broke rank. Instead they all came to attention—except for the bandmaster, who was sitting on the ground shaking his head with his legs spread out like a starfish. Just for a minute I thought my natural air of authority must have won through—that or the terror of a poke in the pants with Tifty’s hatpin—and I was just about to congratulate myself on another job well done when a voice behind me said, “What’s going on here, then?”

  I am sorry that we seem to have fallen out of love with whiskers. All over the Austro-Hungarian Empire, back then when there was an Austro-Hungarian Empire, people set great store by whiskers. You could tell a man of standing by his whiskers, and nobody who wanted to get on in the world would ever leave his top lip exposed to the elements. Every officer of the empire from the humblest to the highest, every village postman, every sergeant major, every archduke and general all the way up to old Franz Josef himself, knew exactly where he stood by the size of his whiskers. And, even at home in Germany, we knew a thing or two about facial hair in those days. Bismarck unified the nation under the shadow of his magnificent mustachios, and the Kaiser sat in Berlin wearing a big brass helmet with a thing like a shellacked sparrow on his upper lip. Everybody had a mustache. Mustaches were everywhere.

  Now there is only one mustache that counts and it’s a pathetic, pitiful, weedy, silly little thing, one stupid thumbbroad stripe on one single top lip, a woeful nosebleed of a thing, the sort of mustache that’s worn by a bandy-legged, pigeon-toed clown in the picture shows and by our great leader. Our schoolboys have let us down badly. They could have prevented all this. A little mockery, a few gentle catcalls: “Call that a mustache? My grandma could grow better!” A little bit of tittering and that mustache would have shriveled up and fallen out by the roots. But, no, we all had to pretend that we took it seriously. We treated that mustache with a great deal more respect than it deserved. And look where that got us.

  But when I turned round, well, there was a set of whiskers worthy of a proper regard, enormous whiskers which started out as sideburns and grew into a vast handlebar mustache, hanging down and out, rigidly, like a pair of scallop shells attached to a face, a dress-circle balcony of a mustache and, to crown it all, it was flaming red, past ginger, past carrot and damned near vermilion. I don’t know if you have ever seen hair of that color but, in my experience, it almost always goes with a complexion like a day-old corpse and this man had that too. He was only a short little fellow, barely up to my shoulder, and slightly built, but he stood there, with his soft cap sitting on the back of his head, his hands jammed in his trouser pockets and his legs apart as if he was braced against the rocking of the storm. He looked so fine in his uniform, his jacket as blue as the deep-sea waves, a shirt as white as a gull’s wing, his neat little bowtie hanging down limp as a flag in the tropics and gold on his cap, gold on his shoulders, gold on his wrists. Gold everywhere. Every little bit of him that could be covered in gold was covered in gold.

  “What’s going on here, then?” he said.

  You know, I really think I learned more about being a king in those half-dozen words than you ever could from a library of books—not what he said but the way it was said, no yelling and shouting, no pushing anybody around; he just said what needed saying, knowing that the right to say it was his.

  “What’s going on here, then?”

  The bandmaster spat a bloodied lump of tooth out on to the ground and said, “He broke my stick!”

  “You poked my camel!”

  “And he punched me in the mouth.”

  “You poked my camel.”

  “And he obstructed the band. Walked in front of it and wouldn’t get out of the way.”

  “I see,” said the little red-haired man. “You obstructed his band, he poked your camel and you broke his stick and knocked his tooth out.”

  “Two teeth,” the bandmaster said.

  “Really? Two?”

  “Well, he poked my camel twice.”

  “So it’s a case of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a camelpoke, is it? Anyway, it’s all most unfortunate. I hope it’s done nothing to spoil your rugged good looks, Herr Oberstabs-bootsman. Now get up off the ground, there’s a good fellow. You’re making the place untidy. Get up and place these people under arrest—and take their camel away. I can’t have it cluttering up my dockyard.”

  This was a setback, but the red-haired man had taught me a valuable lesson. I decided to take a leaf out of his book and speak as if I meant to be obeyed. “That won’t be necessary,” I said, and I stuck out my hand. “Graf von Mucklenberg. I imagine you’re expecting me. Forgive me, I was in the cavalry. Never really got up to speed with navy ranks. Whom do I have the honor of addressing?” I was very proud of that little pronoun.

  And he took one hand out of his trouser pocket, and he shook me by mine and he gave me his name—I remember it to this day. He said, “Fregattenkapitän Imre Varga, at your service. Be so good as to place yourselves under arrest.”

  “Delighted,” I said. “For my own part nothing could please me more, and of course my associates will obey without question, but as a brother officer and, speaking as a friend, thinking of your future prospects, I would strongly advise you against arresting the Emperor’s camel.”

  I think his pale face might have turned half a shade paler, but his mustaches were set solid and his top lip gave never a tremble. “Nobody mentioned that this was the Emperor’s camel.”

  “Nobody told you?” I said. “Nobody told you we were coming? Oh, I beg your pardon, Varga, I thought you were in charge here.”

  “I am in charge.” There was just the tiniest falsetto squeak in his voice. He cleared his throat. “I’m in charge. Me. I’m the one in charge. Nobody mentioned the Emperor’s camel was coming.”

  I took him by the arm and walked a little way off, for a confidential chat. “Look, there seems to have been some dreadful misunderstanding. I, and, of course, my associates, we are transporting His Majesty’s camel as a gift to the new King of Albania. I take it you know about the new King of Albania.”

  Varga snorted under his whiskers. “Pwah! I may be a humble sailor, but I keep up with events. We’re not completely cut off from affairs of state in Fiume, you know. Everybody knows about the new King of Albania.”

  “Obviously. So I needn’t explain that the Queen of Albania is simply camel crazy.”

  “Everybody knows that too. Do you take me for a complete idiot?”

  “Oh come now, how could an idiot become Fregatten-kapitän in His Majesty’s navy?”

  “You’d be astonished,” Varga said.

  “Then I needn’t explain another thing. Naturally I assumed you were expecting us and, when I saw the band—very fine band, by the way, Varga—when I saw the band coming down the street I stupidly jumped to the conclusion that it was intended for us. Then there was that little misunderstanding between your bandmaster and my camel handler. One feels very foolish.”

  “Think nothing of it.” With his arm linked in mine, Varga spun me round and we turned back the way we had come, strolling along together side by side and chatting like old friends. I noticed that the camel was now under armed guard.

  “Forgive me,” he said, “but your remarkable and unbelievable story does nothing to alter the fact that you and your party are guilty of a dreadful assault on one of my men—to say nothing of the damage inflicted on the bandmaster’s baton, which is Imperial property every bit as much the camel. In fact, probably more so.”

  “So you do intend to arrest the Emperor’s camel, after all? That is a courageous and potentially career-limiting decision.”

  “Yes. I’m afraid I must insist that you remain here, as my guest, while I investigate further.”

  There was no point in making a fuss. We couldn’t fight our way out, not after the guns had come out. In my heart of hearts I knew that our little adventure had hit the buffers, but I wasn’
t ready to give up. I said, “Varga, this is a matter of national policy. We are mere pawns in a vast European intrigue, and the fate of the Balkans may hinge upon it. I would urge your discretion. Even if public failure means nothing to you, consider how you might endanger my mission.”

  But the little sailor seemed not to hear me. As we approached, Tifty stepped out from behind the camel, her delicious hat re-pinned on her lustrous hair, dark eyes gleaming, sinuous as a treble clef, holding her gloved hand out to be kissed, letting it droop from the wrist like a broken flower.

  Varga said, “Won’t you introduce me to this beautiful creature?”

  “Forgive me. Countess Tifty Gourdas, permit me to present Fregattenkapitän Imre Varga.”

  Tifty smiled. She wiggled her fingers. She wiggled them some more. But her hand went unkissed.

  Varga looked at Tifty and he looked at me and he said, “Not her. The camel handler. Introduce me to the camel handler. My God, those muscles!”

  Now, I’m a man of the world—I hope that much is clear—and I hope I’m pretty much a live-and-let-live kind of bloke. I don’t really care what people get up to so long as they don’t do it in the street and frighten the horses and, although it does me no credit, I have to admit I would have been quite willing to let little Varga try his luck with Tifty.

  Tifty was up for it too. For God’s sake, that was Tifty’s hobby! She was a real sportsman and, as the old saying goes, “You never miss a slice off a cut loaf.” Anyway, it was all for the greater good. Invading Albania was a team effort, after all. The Professor brought his encyclopedic knowledge, Max brought his muscles, I brought my kingly bearing and a little rat-like cunning, I wasn’t altogether sure what Sarah was adding to the cake, but Tifty was definitely the glamour. Tifty was the pretty girl who wiggles her bum just as the magician makes the rabbit appear. So, no, I admit, I would have had not one moment’s concern about throwing her right into the slavering jaws and quivering red whiskers of the little Fregattenkapitän—no more than that bloke in the Bible who turned his daughters over to the mob to stop them doing the dirty with those angels who had unexpectedly dropped in for coffee and cakes. But, somehow, I was not willing to hand my mate Max over to a fate worse than death. Greater love hath no man than that he lay down his friends for his life and all that, but, no, offering up Max’s peachy ass to that little ginger shirtlifter was asking too much.

  And Tifty wasn’t impressed either. She stood there, her tiny hand unkissed, with a face like thunder. “Gentlemen who are short and ginger should make more of an effort to be likable,” she said. “I think you are very rude.”

  “Oh I am! I am! Now who’s your big friend?” The little sailor went skipping over to Max and said, “Nice camel!”

  Max said, “Thanks. I’m fond of him,” and looked at his shoes.

  “Lovely camel.”

  “He’s not mine.”

  “No. I hear he belongs to the Emperor!” He stuck out his hand and said, “I’m Fregattenkapitän Varga but you can call me Imre.”

  They shook hands. “Schlepsig. Max Schlepsig.”

  “You know—” Varga wagged his little white finger—“I shouldn’t like you, Max. You hit my bandmaster and that was very naughty, but I have the feeling we’re going to be firm friends. And, since you’re under arrest anyway, why don’t we go for a walk before lunch?”

  Max said, “All right.” What else could he say?

  “Excellent.” And little Varga reached out, took the camel’s rope out of Max’s hand and gave it to Tifty, who was every bit as horrified as he hoped she would be. “Why don’t you bring it along?” he said. “For the exercise, you know.”

  Tifty couldn’t think of a single thing to say and she fell in, as meek as a lamb, but dragging that damned camel around was too much for her so I took it and suggested she might like to take care of the Professor instead. “Be his eyes,” I said. “Tell him everything you see. We might need it later.”

  Of course that left me free to walk side by side with Sarah and we started along, Sarah, the camel and me, behind Tifty and the Professor with Max and Varga leading the way and a couple of sailors bringing up the rear, their rifles slung over their shoulders.

  Tifty swayed along the gravel path, one arm linked in with the Professor, her free hand wandering idly to caress that vicious hatpin as she glared at Varga’s pale neck. “We’re just coming up to some sort of processional arch. There’s a long garden. I can see the Naval Academy up ahead.”

  “How many columns on the arch?”

  “None. It’s all one big block with a hole through the middle.”

  “Roman, like the Arc de Triomphe.”

  When I was sure the Professor was listening to Tifty and not to me, I gave Sarah’s arm a squeeze and I said, “Thank you so much for last night.”

  She put a finger over my lips. “Shh. You say that, you make it sound like a transaction. It’s not. You didn’t pay me for it and you can’t thank me for it.”

  “I can say thank you if somebody does a nice thing for me. I say thank you if Max buys me a drink or gives me a fill of my pipe—but I’m not allowed to say thank you to you?”

  Sarah gave an exasperated little sigh. “Why don’t you understand this? Some things are too big. Some things make ‘thank you’ too small. You can’t say thank you for the stars. You can’t say thank you for the Grace of God. Some things are so big you just have to accept them. That’s what I’m like.”

  “As big as the stars or the Grace of God?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Good God.”

  Sarah laughed at me then. “If Max buys you a beer or gives you a fill of tobacco, you have to say thank you; because you owe him until it’s your turn to buy. But you don’t owe me. You repaid me magnificently.”

  I twirled my mustaches and puffed my chest like a pigeon then. I always took a foolish pride in those accomplishments. Very silly.

  “Anyway—” she cocked an eyebrow up ahead—“do you think Max knows what’s expected of him?”

  “Oh, Max isn’t stupid. He’ll catch on quick enough, if he hasn’t worked it out already.”

  “And what do you think he’ll say if the little sailor offers to fill his pipe for him?”

  “A man who’s prepared to take on the navy to defend the honor of his camel? I don’t think it will go well.”

  At the front of our little procession, Varga flung his head back and tittered. He turned to look back at us confidentially. “Your friend! So funny!” and then he laughed some more and squeezed Max by the arm.

  Tifty looked back at us and made a great pantomime of throwing up. “What are we going to do?” she hissed.

  Varga put his hand up and waved, “Everybody, everybody! You must stay for lunch.”

  “But we just had breakfast,” said Sarah.

  “Varga, it’s very kind,” I said, “but we really must get on our way. I’ve got a camel to deliver.”

  “Nonsense. A few hours won’t make any difference Anyway, we’re having such fun and, as I mentioned, you’re all under arrest while I carry out my investigations—even you, Maxxie,” and he reached up and gave my mate Max a little tug on the nose. Max was beginning to catch on to something and I thought he might have been working up to another one of his famous haymakers, but he looked at me first and I shook my head.

  Varga said, “I can’t have you shot before you’ve had something to eat. That wouldn’t be nice.”

  “Varga, be serious! You can’t have anybody shot.”

  “Oh, I can. I do it all the time. I am the Lord of Life and Death. Have ’em flogged, have ’em shot—it’s all the same to me. I have absolute Pharaonic power. I can have you all shot—oh, not you, Maxxie!” He gripped Max by the elbow and his thin, sing-songy voice went all husky and reassuring. “Not you. We’re friends forever, but those others, starting with Little Miss Hatpin there …”

  Max said, “You are not allowed to shoot my friends.” He was a man of few words, my mate Max.
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br />   “No, Maxxie. No.” Back to the lullaby voice again. “Naughty Imre won’t shoot anybody if Maxxie doesn’t want it, but if, just supposing, I did decide to have that one—” his finger poked out, white as a root, and pointed straight at Tifty—“if I decided to have her shot, she would have to face the firing squad in her corsets. That’s such a pretty dress—far too nice to make holes in—and it’s just my size too. Now hurry along, everybody, keep up. There’s something you must see.”

  He marched us off around two sides of the Naval Academy and down a path between two low hedges. When he turned the corner and while he was out of sight, one of the sailors walking behind said, “He’s not joking, you know. He means it. He’s done it before. Mad as a box of frogs. You watch yourselves.”

  And then Varga was in sight again, hopping about and clapping his hands and tittering, “Look everybody, a croquet lawn! It’s so fashionable. They play it all the time in England, you know. Now get into your teams—Maxxie’s on my side.”

  “I am blind,” said the Professor.

  “We’ll make allowances,” said Varga.

  And so we all had to play his damned stupid game, except for the camel, who stood cropping the ornamental bushes with his big purple tongue while we fooled around with croquet mallets. None of us understood what was going on, of course, and I doubt that Varga did either. He seemed to make up the rules as he went along and he wasn’t afraid to add in a new one any time it suited him. He could whack our balls out of the way if he felt like it, but we couldn’t hit his because it was red or he got two free kicks at somebody else’s ball if it went through one of those little loops stuck in the grass, but we never did. It was all madness, and he went through the whole thing like a spoiled child with a new toy, never letting anybody else have a turn and always threatening to throw a tantrum, which is bad enough with any child but a million times worse if he’s armed.