The Frog Prince (30 page)

I follow Roman inside, dutifully shaking a long line of hands and saying
Freut mich
over and over again as enthusiastically as possible. For variety I throw in an occasional
Hallo
and
Guten Tag
. After repeating this twenty times, I start to feel like a flight attendant deplaning passengers. I buckle down and focus so I don’t accidentally greet anyone with a “Bye-bye, now” or “Thank you for flying with us.”

The red carpet goes on and on down a yellow marble hallway. When I run out of hands to shake I look up to see Roman already at the end of the hall and rounding the corner.

“Okay,” I say to Jason, who has trailed me like a hound dog all the way from the limo. “Roman said that the police have the entire building sealed off. You are officially off-duty.”

Jason looks both ways down the hallway. “You’re going to get me in a lot of trouble.”

“A deal’s a deal. Just shut up and try not to look so official and so…deadly.”

“Leigh, I was joking. I can’t just walk away and leave you. I’d be fired.”

“If you don’t do it, then I’ll escape. With this many people and your focus on Isabella’s cleavage, it shouldn’t be too hard.”

Jason sighs. “Roman’s going to wait in the
Säulenhalle
for the ceremony to begin,” he says. “I’ll take you to the
Abgeordnetenhaus
. You have a seat in the first gallery.”

Ahead of us I can hear hundreds of voices echoing inside a very large space. We emerge from the corridor into an enormous rectangular hall of thirty-foot burgundy and gray marble pillars carrying a gabled skylight.

I spot Roman across the hall by a pillar. Over the tops of the heads of people surrounding him, I see the back of Menen’s long, graceful neck. Next to her is Isabella, her blonde hair rolled into an elegant French twist. The two of them work their way through the throng to reach him. Roman smiles when he sees Menen, but his face breaks into an absolutely delighted smile when he sees Isabella. His hug for her is enthusiastic enough to make me grit my teeth.

I gesture to Jason and stride in their direction, trying to keep my face calm.
Just family friends, just family friends
, I chant to myself. Not until I’m closer do I realize the hair color is wrong, that the blonde is a little too silvery to be Isabella’s…

“Kat?” I say, unsure if it’s her. Then I’m sure it’s her and I scream, “Oh, my god!” Conversations halt and people freeze as my voice bounces off the marble walls. I lose all attempts at refinement and run as fast as my shoes will allow across the polished floor. By the time I reach her I can feel my eyes tearing up. I fold her into a hug even bigger than the one Roman gave her. “I thought you couldn’t come, you liar!”

“Blame your boyfriend,” she says, jutting her chin in Roman’s direction. “He thought it would be fun to surprise you.”

I narrow my eyes at him as I’m hugging Menen.

Roman laughs as he nods at Jason. “Listen, I’ve got to go over the oath with the President one more time. Mikhail is around here somewhere. There’s a box reserved for all of you in the gallery.” He kisses me on the cheek and is gone.

Kat sighs as she watches him walk away. “God, I love a man in uniform,” she murmurs. She turns to Jason. “Hey there, assassin. Kill anyone today?”

Jason kisses her on both cheeks. “No, but the day is far from over.”

I grab for Kat’s and Menen’s hands. “Let’s go find Mikhail and get to the box. Then at least I’ll be sure that I’m sitting with people I know.”

I turn around and almost run over Roman’s mother. “Elfriede!”

“Hello, Leigh. You look lovely,” she says.

“Thank you.” The corner of my mouth turns up into a smirk and I point at my dress. “It made it out of the car in one piece.” I see Kat and Menen exchange shrugs and “don’t ask me”
looks.

Elfriede smiles. “I am glad. I tore a perfectly good dress one time getting out of car. I had to wear a shawl wrapped around my waist for the rest of the night.” She turns to Kat and Menen. “It’s very nice to see you both again. I am so glad you could come.”

“Why am I the last person to know about everything?” I mutter. In a louder voice I say, “Elfriede, I would like to introduce you to Jason Steibler, my bodyguard.” I quickly add, “But he is here tonight as my guest.”

The two of them exchange handshakes and pleasantries in German.

“I was wondering if I could persuade you to sit with me,” says Elfriede to me. Seeing the look on my face she adds, “And Catherine and Menen and your other guests, of course.”

“I’d really like that,” I say.
More importantly
, I think,
Roman will
love
it
. “Do you have room though? I thought the family box was full.”

Elfriede sniffs. “I haven’t seen most of these people in thirty years. It’s very strange how they are very eager to know us now,” she says, sliding her arm through mine.

We stumble across Mikhail on the way to the elevator, looking ever the debonair playboy with his swept-back golden hair and bored expression. He is instantly in charm mode when he sees us, kissing Elfriede and Menen on both cheeks, and pronouncing himself “delighted” when I introduce him to a near-swooning Kat.

“Leigh,” Mikhail says, taking my hand. I feel my face turning hot as he bends over my hand and kisses it. “You are lovelier than ever,” he murmurs.

He seems intent on keeping my hand afterwards, and I have to tug it away from him to introduce Jason. His handshake for Jason is perfunctory, and I see Jason’s mouth press into a tight line. “Uh, Elfriede has invited us to sit in the family box,” I say, hard at work to smooth things over. “Would you like to join us?”

Mikhail flashes his megawatt smile. “That’s very kind of you, Elfriede,” he says without looking away from me. I break eye contact, relieved when the elevator doors open. As we all crowd in, Mikhail takes advantage of our forced proximity to whisper to me, “I will, of course, insist on sitting next to you.”

I pretend not to hear him. The doors open and I practically leap into the hallway when I feel his hand on my back. An official-looking man greets Elfriede as we leave the elevator, and waves his hand down the hallway in a “follow me” motion. He leads our party down the wide, curved hallway, past evenly-spaced double doors. When it feels like we’ve walked about one quarter of the circle, he stops and speaks to Elfriede in German.

“The Assembly is seated, the President is ready,” Elfriede translates for me. “When we enter the box, I will sit in the front middle seat. Leigh, you will be to my left. Isabella is already seated and will be on my right.”

I wink at Jason and nudge him with my elbow.

“There are ear pieces at each seat if you would like to listen to the ceremony in English,” says the man, more to me than anyone else. “Turn the channel selector to two.”

With that he opens the double doors with a great flourish and steps out of the way. The box is large with around twenty chairs arranged in two clusters with an aisle down the middle. Necks turn to watch our entrance. Most of the chairs are filled with people I’ve never met, but the weight of their eyes make me eager to get to my seat. I find Isabella immediately, and quickly count two seats to the left of her to figure out where I’m supposed to be.

As I get closer to my seat I can see over the balcony into the chamber. The
Abgeordnetenhaus
looks like a Greek amphitheater with a false-front of the Parthenon serving as the stage backdrop. In the niches between the columns are statues of important, toga-wearing men. Every one of the hundreds of floor seats is filled. A blast of camera flashes alert me to the cluster of photographers sitting on the floor in the well of the
Abgeordnetenhaus
like kindergarteners waiting for story time.

I smile and sit down as quickly as possible. Behind me Kat and Menen find seats. I watch, amused, as Jason boldly positions himself behind Isabella. True to his word, Mikhail plops himself down next to me, causing the cameras to flash all over again as he leans in towards me.
Can’t wait to see
that
in the papers
, I think.

My annoyance is cut short by Elfriede’s entrance. It starts with the people in our box, who all stand deferentially for her as she makes her way down the aisle of the box to her seat. Suddenly everyone in the
Abgeordnetenhaus
is on their feet, hundreds of faces peering up at her from the floor, dozens of others watching from the private boxes circling the hall.

The clapping doesn’t start in any one particular place, but seems to burst simultaneously from every side and level. Roman’s mother is touched–and how could she not be?–her soft blue eyes welling with tears as she smiles and waves. The applause goes on and on, and I wonder if they’re going to save any of their enthusiasm for Roman. Finally, Elfriede sits down and the cheering dissolves into a great shuffling as the audience does likewise.

Their butts have barely warmed the seat bottoms when a man in the well of the chamber announces in a loud, clear voice, “Blah, blah, blah…” Actually, he’s speaking German so it’s more like “
Blabla Blabla
…”

I grab for the ear piece and jam it into my ear just in time to hear the translation, “…President Lukas Baumgartner!”

More standing and applauding, this time to the strains of bouncy, patriotic music as a stocky, gray-haired guy enters from stage right of the
Abgeordnetenhaus
. He appears to have no use for the pomp as he jogs to the podium and cuts the applause and music short by barking, “Thank you, please be seated!” into the microphone.

He waits just a few seconds before beginning his teleprompter speech in a rough, no-nonsense voice. “In nineteen-eighteen, Karl the First formally relinquished his claim to the Austrian crown, thereby ending the monarchy.” The president raises his arm and sweeps it around in a grand gesture. “Construction on our Parliament Building was completed in eighteen eighty-three. The Hall of Pillars you passed through to get to this chamber was originally intended as the place Emperor Franz Joseph would give the annual State Opening of Parliament and the Speech from the Throne.” He pauses, looking over the parliamentarians, and the audience in the galleries. “However, the emperor had an intense dislike of the parliamentary body, and never set foot in the Hall of Pillars. In fact, no Austrian monarch has ever graced the Parliament Building with their attendance—until now.”

The audience applauds and, sensing another standing O is on the way, the president holds up his hands to silence everyone and keep them in their seats. “And yet our country has never entirely reconciled its break with the monarchy. Many felt that we treated the Habsburg family harshly, forcing them into exile, and not allowing them to return to the country for forty-five years. Laws specifically forbidding the Habsburg family from standing for the office of the president are still in force.

“And yet for decades tens of thousands of citizens attended the annual birthday celebration of the Emperor Franz Josef, reveling in the chance to address the surviving Habsburg family as ‘Your Imperial and Royal Highnesses.’ Despite the events of nineteen-eighteen, Austrians love the monarchy still.”

Baumgartner goes on about how the parliamentary legislation passed on New Year’s Eve created the Kingdom of Austria and a constitutional monarchy. I keep my eyes on the president, but I’m beginning to wonder where Roman is, and how they plan to get him into the hall. Will he walk from the front like the U.S. President at the State of the Union? Or will they roll him in on a caisson like the King at Mardis Gras?

As if to answer my question, President Baumgartner says, “Chancellor Engemann, Members of Parliament, Citizens and Subjects of Austria…let us welcome His Majesty King Roman the First.”

At that point a choir above our heads in the second gallery begins belting out a royal welcome as Roman enters the hall through a door opened at stage left. The crowd jumps to its feet and goes absolutely
affe scheisse
. Through the din I also hear a lower, muffled roar that I realize must be coming from outside.

Through it all the translator perseveres by somberly and tunelessly translating the German words sung by the choir: “He shall lead us by his wise hands. Let us shelter the crown which he has inherited from his fathers against each enemy. Deeply shall be united with the Throne of Habsburg the future fate of Austria.”

The choir repeats the verse, and the bored monotone of the translator is so far removed from the passion and feeling in the hall that it puts me on the verge of laughter, so I tear it from my ear. That’s when I notice that Elfriede is weeping openly beside me, touching her eyes again and again with a white handkerchief. I look away quickly; for me, crying is as catching as a yawn, and I am very much aware of the television cameras still pointing in my direction.

And then I don’t know where to look because it seems that everyone is bawling except me and Roman. By now he’s reached the podium. President Baumgartner bows very formally to him, and then the two of them shake hands and clasp shoulders. Roman studies the crowd, a big smile on his face. Every few seconds he raises one arm or the other and waves. Eventually the president speaks into the microphone, which seems to be the signal for everyone to pipe down.

I sit down only when Elfriede does, replacing my ear piece in time to hear President Baumgartner say, “Sir, is Your Majesty willing to take the Oath?”

Roman turns to face him, standing at attention. “I am willing.” He raises his right hand.

“Will you solemnly promise and swear to observe our Constitution and our laws, to maintain the national independence, and to defend our freedom?”

“I solemnly promise and swear so to do.”

“Will you to your power cause law and justice to be executed in all your judgments?”

“I will.”

The president shakes his hand, and Roman turns to the audience and smartly salutes. Then it’s all over but the cheering.

Chapter Twenty-Six