The Short Reign of Pippin IV Read online

  “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 US 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 US Government seem like an absolute monarchy. Why, if the US 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.”

  Pippin shook his head. He got up and went to the window and looked down on the tree-shaded Avenue George V. “Can you explain why they do these things?” he asked.

  Tod Johnson poured gin by eye into the tall mixer, dashed a few drops of vermouth in, and stirred ice cubes round and round in the mixture.

  “That is the oddest thing of all and the most reasonable.” he said. “Do you like a squeeze of lemon peel, sir?”

  “Yes, please. But why?”

  “They don’t do it out of kindness, sir. It’s just that some of them have found out they can produce and sell more goods that way. They used to fight the employees. That’s expensive. And sick workers are expensive. Do you think my father likes to feed his chickens vitamins and cod-liver oil and minerals and keep them warm and dry and happy? Hell, no! They lay more eggs that way. Oh, it wasn’t quick and it’s far from finished, but isn’t it strange, sir, that out of the most autocratic system in the world the only really workable socialism seems to be growing? If my father heard me say that he’d string me up by the thumbs. He thinks he makes the decisions.”

  “And who does, Tod?”

  “Circumstances and pressures.” said Tod. “If he hadn’t gone along with the pressures he wouldn’t be in business.” He drained the new martini gently into the glasses. “I’m going to send for a sandwich, sir. These things are murder if you don’t eat.”

  The king sipped at his drink. “These changes didn’t come easily?”

  “Hell, no. It took about a hundred years and a lot of fighting, and some of it is still going on.” Tod laughed gently. “You know, sir, I think my old man’s itching to get his fingers on this operation. He wrote me nine pages in his letter, mostly questions to ask you. When my old man asks a question, he’s telling you.”

  The king said dreamily, “Perhaps I had better wait for the sandwich before I hear the questions. How do you get along with—what do you call her, Bugsy?”

  “It’s kind of off and on, sir. I’m fond of her, but every once in a while when she goes royal on me I want to kick her in the pants.”

  “She matured early,” said Pippin. “By the time she was eighteen she had lived several lives.”

  “That’s just it. She didn’t have a decent adolescence when she was fourteen and fifteen, and now it’s snapping back at her. She jumps from little kid to Mrs. Astor, back and forth.”

  Pippin said a little thickly, “I am basically a scientist and a scientist is or should be an observer. Now, young sir, the artistic, the creative side of a scientist indulges in hypothesis. Watching Clotilde and her friends, I have formulated a maturity hypothesis.” His speech had the slow precision of mild intoxication. “Those drinks are very strong,” he said.

  “It’s not their strength, it’s their inherent meanness,” said Tod. “Look, King, you’ve got me talking that way too. What’s your maturity business?”

  Pippin’s eyes had closed, but they opened a slit and he shook his head as though his ears were full of water. “The human fetus is born upside down,” he said solemnly. “But it is not true that a child becomes upright after birth. Observe the feet of children and young people when they are at rest. The feet are nearly always higher than the head. No matter how hard he may try, the growing boy, and particularly girl, cannot keep the feet down. The fetal position is very strong. It takes eighteen to twenty years for the feet finally to accept the ground as their normal home. It is my hypothesis that you can judge maturity exactly by the relationship of the feet to the ground” *

  Tod laughed. “I have a sister—” he began.

  The king suddenly arose. “Please—” he said, “please direct me to the—”

  Tod leaped up and took his arm. “This way, sir,” he said. “Here—let me help you. Mind the little step here.”

  The dawn was breaking when the king awakened in one of Tod’s twin beds. He looked in wonder about the room. “Oú suis-je?” he asked plaintively.

  “You're all right, King,” said Tod from the other bed. “How do you feel?”

  “Feel?” said the king. “Why—all—I feel all right.”

  “I loaded you with aspirin and B1 tablets,” said Tod. “Sometimes that will head off a hangover.”

  The king sat up. “My God!—Marie! She’ll have the police out.”

  “Take it easy,” said Tod. “I telephoned Bugsy.”

  “What did you tell her?”

  “I told her you were drunk,” said Tod.

  “But Marie?”

  “Don't worry, sir. The princess has informed Her Majesty that you are in a top-secret conference with Your Majesty s ministers—a matter of international importance.”

  “You’re a good boy.” said the king. “I ought to make you a minister.”

  “I’ve got enough trouble.” said Tod. “Did you ever have a Bloody Mary?”

  “What is that?”

  “Had to change the name in France. You had no Queen Mary in France, so the name seemed a little sacrilegious. Here it is called Marie Blessée.”

  “Wounded Mary,” said the king. “What is it?”

  “Leave it in my hands, sir. It is elixir, it is pretty close to a transfusion.” He reached for the telephone. “Louis? Tod Johnson, ici. Quatre Maries Blessées, sil vous plait. Vite. Oui—quatre. Trés bien. Merci bien.”

  “You speak abominable French,” said the king.

  “I know,” said Tod. "I won’t be surprised if Louis sends four wounded girls.” And then he said irritably. “You might have a little trouble with language in New York, King.” “But I speak English.”

  “They don’t,” said Tod, and he went to the door to receive the tray of Bloody Marys.

  By nine o'clock the king had recovered, and a little more. “I should go back,” he said.

  “Make the most of it, sir. You may never get out again.”

  “You must beware of my Uncle Charles,” said Pippin. “There are times when I feel he is not quite—”

  “He certainly
isn’t-but do you know, sir, he hasn’t sold me a single picture. He is charmed with my resistance. He admires me. Do you feel well enough now to hear some of my father’s questions?”

  The king sighed. “I suppose so. I wish I could forget the throne for a little while. I would rather be a corporation. Are all of your pajamas silk, my friend?”

  “No, the ones you have on are my social pajamas. I sleep in a T-shirt. It doesn’t bind.

  “My father says you’ve got to break it down. He always says you’ve got to break everything down. What have you got to sell and who is going to buy it and have they got the money?”

  “Sell?”

  “Sure—now we sell eggs and pullets and supplies.”

  “What has a government to sell? It is a government.”

  “Sure, I know, but it has to sell something or you wouldn’t need a government.”

  The king frowned. “I hadn’t thought of it that way. Well, perhaps peace, order—perhaps progress, happiness.”

  “That’s quite a business,” said Tod. “Now my father wants to know have you the capital and organization to do it?”

  “I have the throne.”

  Tod said, “Seems to me the throne has some assets but it has some liabilities too. Take that bunch of freeloaders out at your place. You ought to get rid of them. They’ll eat up the profit.”

  “But they are the nobility, the foundation of the throne.”

  “More like termites in the foundation. Maybe if you had a sinking fund you could pension them off. One thing is sure, you can’t put them to work.”

  “Heavens, no!”

  “How did they get to be nobles in the first place?”

  “By service to the throne,” said the king. “Spiritual, military, financial.”

  “There—you see? Those old boys weren’t stupid. Now spiritual is taken care of, military is out of your hands, but financial—you could use.”

  “Most of the nobility through misfortune—”

  “Are broke,” said Tod. “So let’s put them out to pasture and get in a new crop.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Look, King, I could sell titles in Texas and Beverly Hills for anything I want to ask. Why, I know people who would give the bottom dollar of a big stack for a patent of nobility.”

  “That isn’t right.”

  “What do you mean, right? That’s how these boys got it. The British still do it. You don’t have to own a distillery to sit in the House of Lords, but it helps.”

  “My friend, you are speaking of tradition.”

  Tod said, “The Dukedom of Dallas?—why, ten billionaires would be after it. I could do it by sealed bid. Only trouble is the Earl of Fort Worth might declare war on the Duke of Dallas. Say, this is wonderful! I can see those dames snooting each other. All they’ve got to throw at each other now is oil wells and air conditioning.”

  “You make jokes, my friend.”

  “Don’t you believe it! Drink up, King, and I’ll order another round. These things don’t trick you like martinis.”

  “Don’t—shouldn’t we have some breakfast?”

  “Breakfast is right in them—good healthy tomato juice, and then there’s liver in Worcestershire.”

  “Well, in that case—” said the king.

  “How about it? We can put out the word privately like a stock issue—dignified.”

  “I believe,” said the king, “that you have laws forbidding your citizens to hold titles.”

  “Forget it,” said Tod. “If those oil and cattle boys can rig the tax laws and the utilities laws, they aren’t going to have any trouble with a little old law against titles. We could guarantee a knighthood for every congressman who voted in favor—but the big titles, that’s where the money is.”

  The king said, “I have met some Texans. They seemed very democratic. In fact, they usually announce themselves as ‘little old country boys.’ ”

  “Yes, King, and those little old country boys usually have half a million acres, three airplanes, a yacht, and a house in Cannes. But we don’t have to limit it to Texas. Think of Los Angeles, and when we’ve worked that over there’s Brazil, Argentina—the field is unlimited.”

  “The whole thing smacks of my uncle,” said the king.

  “Well, I did discuss it with him. There’s pots in it, King. I can arrange the whole thing.”

  The king was silent so long that Tod looked at him in alarm. “You feel bad again, sir?”

  Pippin was staring straight ahead and, although his eyes crossed slightly, his chin was firm and his bearing regal.

  “You have forgotten, my friend, that the purpose of a king is the well-being of his people—all of his people.”

  “I know,” said Tod. “But it’s like my father says. You’ve got to have capital and organization. The people who put you in didn’t do it for nothing. Sooner or later you’re going to have to fight them or join them.”

  “How about simple honesty—simple logic?”

  “That has never worked,” said Tod. “I hate to remind you of your own history. Louis the Fourteenth was a spendthrift. He busted the nation. He was at war all the time. He drained the treasury and wiped out a generation of young men. But he was the Sun King and he was adored, while France was flat on its pants.

  “Then along came Louis the Sixteenth and he was simple and honest. He brought in efficiency experts. He called assemblies, he tried to listen, to understand. He tried everything and—” Tod drew his hand across his throat.

  Pippin’s head sank on his chest. He said sadly, “Why did they have to make me king?”

  “I’m sorry,” said Tod. “I guess I haven’t helped much. But you get a thing like a throne in your hands and pretty soon you want to use it.”

  “I want peace—and my telescope.”

  “You’ll want to use it,” said Tod. “Everyone does. Look, I’ve been lousy to you. Let’s you and me go out on the town and see how the other half lives.”

  “I must go back.”

  “But you may never break loose again. Besides, you owe it to your people to associate with them.”

  “Well, if you put it that way.”

  “I’ll lend you some clothes,” said Tod. “Nobody will ever recognize you.”

  “Do you want to call Clotilde?”

  “No,” said Tod. “Let’s you and me stag it.”

  At three-thirty in the morning, the Life Guard, Lieutenant Emile de Samothrace, on duty at the gate of Versailles, was alerted by a disturbance in front of the palace. In the half-darkness he was able to discern two men who clung solicitously together while they marched to the gate, singing:

  “Allons, enfants de la Patrie

  All the livelong day.

  Le jour de gloire est arrivé

  And the monkey wrapped his tail

  around the flagpole.

  Baa! Baa! Baa!”

  Lieutenant de Samothrace intercepted the two while he shouted for the guard, whereupon they charged him with umbrellas, shrieking, “To the Bastille!”

  The lieutenant’s report read: “One of these men claimed to be Crown Prince of Petaluma while the other continued to mutter ‘Baa! Baa! Baa!’ I turned them over to the commandant of the palace for questioning.”

  The next evening, coming on duty, the lieutenant found that his report had been removed from the book and in its place was the notation: “Three hours and thirty minutes and all is well.” And it was initialed by the commandant.

  Lieutenant de Samothrace found that the words of the song kept running through his head. “Baa! Baa! Baa!”

  And meanwhile France enjoyed such peace and prosperity and profit that the newspapers began to refer to the time as the Platinum Age. The New York Daily News called Pippin “The Atomic King.” The Readers Digest reprinted three articles it had commissioned: one in the Saturday Evening Post, called, “Royalty Re-examined”; one in the Ladies' Home Journal, “The Glorious Present,” and one in the American Legion Monthly, “A King a
gainst Commonism.”

  Citroen announced a new model.

  Christian Dior introduced the R line with the highest waistline and the most bursting bodice since Montesquieu.

  The Italian Couture out of jealousy maintained that the R line made breasts look like goiters. Gina Lollobrigida, always loyal to Italy, said, on arriving at Idlewild en route to Hollywood, that she refused to look out between herself. But criticism of France was largely grounded in envy of the Platinum Age.

  England smoldered and waited.

  The Soviet Purchasing Agency ordered four tank cars of French perfume.

  In America the excitement rose to fever pitch. Bonwit Teller named one whole floor L’Etage Royal.

  A benevolent autumn slipped warmly over France, moved up-Seine and then up-Loire, spread over the Dordogne, climbed the Jura, and lapped against the Alps. A great wheat crop had been harvested, and the grapes were warm and fat and happy. Even the truffles were benevolent- black and full, almost leaping out of the limestone earth. In the north the cows staggered cream-heavy in the pasturage, while the apple crop for once was ready and sufficient for the champagne the English love.

  At no time in history had the tourists been so openhanded and humble nor their French hosts so happily sullen.

  International relations reached fraternal heights. The most conservative peasants bought new corduroy pants. The red rivers of Bordeaux flowed from the wine presses. The sheep gave milk of a milkness for the cheese.

  Vacations being over, parties and sub-parties met in Paris to complete their contributions to the Code Pippin to be adopted in November.

  The Christian Atheists achieved a clause imposing an amusement tax on church services. The Christian Christians were ready with a law for compulsory attendance of mass.

  Right and Left Centrists walked arm in arm.

  Communists and Socialists took to raising their hats to one another.

  M. Deuxcloches, Cultural Custodian, but actual leader of the Communist party of France, put into words what every party was thinking. Speaking in secret caucus, he outlined a series of traps and deadfalls so artfully conceived that no possible move by the king could avoid being disastrous.