Dismissed - biofiction

1

“Your highness, they phoned from Bucharest”, the young man informed, entering my private suite. As big and intricate as the Peles Castle’s chambers were, the expectative silence made it unbearably empty, the messenger’s voice echoing slightly through the hall.  

“What is it?” 

“They want you to come to the capital tomorrow morning. Family affairs.” 

“It must be about the wedding”, my mother said, her eyes alert at all times.  

“But they’ve refused my request.” 

As king, everything I did had to be approved by the Government. Including my wedding. 

Someone in my shoes might have found that unfair. And it was, looking back. Most of the things they’ve done to me have been, but back then it all seemed natural. Part of my job.  

My father hadn’t been loved. His totalitarian spirit didn’t match our people’s intrinsic need for freedom. Romanians needed leaders, not masters. So one can imagine what my crown came adorned with: the heavy burden of expectation. It wasn’t a matter of choice; I had to do better.  

I was six when they first crowned me. I had no power to rule, so they ruled for me. My father, busy with his mistresses, had no thought of ruling then, his ambitions only springing later when the regency decided they couldn’t rule without a proper king and called for him. They’ve asked him to stay by my mother’s side, be a proper father figure for me and our country. A country we were given to rule over many years ago, but one my grandmother had loved so much, she considered herself to be more Romanian Queen than princess of the United Kingdom.

And I’ve always been a Romanian King. 

My father came back, brought his mistress with him and exiled my mother. They were letting me see her once a year, and what I lacked in affection, I made up for in knowledge.  

When the Second World War started, I was 18. My father fled again, and our country fell under the ruling of the Germans. Hitler’s rising was unstoppable, and so was whoever stood by his side. Scared and lost doesn’t begin to describe what I’ve felt then. Thing were bigger than me, yet they all stood on my shoulders.

I was young, so I took advantage of the fact that they believed me to be a fool too. There was only one way out of that war, and that was ditching the Axis as soon as possible. 

On the 23^rd of August 1944, I called General Antonescu, Hitler’s right hand in my office under the pretext of discussing war affairs and arrested him. That day would later be remembered as the Turning of the Weapons and I, as the king that fooled Hitler. Or so the documentaries would call me. I’ve never quite got the need for these titles. Or the decorations they adorned my uniform with afterwards, as if pieces of shiny metal would have helped my in any way in front of the new enemy. Nothing more than a tentative to clean their own conscience.

For making friends with the Devil had its costs. 

Soon enough, the Americans forgot their promises and the help we gave them during the war.

Russia began growing greedy and Romania was technically under occupation. I had once again no power as I stood by, watching their abuses. My own government turned its back on me. The very historical parties that united what we now know to be Romania were removed by frauded elections. Russia was demanding more, and it was served by people within our own homeland. 

So I rebelled. By Constitution, they still needed my signature on their decrees, so I just wouldn’t give it to them.

On my name day, my people went on the streets and shouted against the communists. They were beaten and arrested; the women raped - mere students my age, locked up because they stood by my side. 

My hands were tied, so when I got invited to Queen Elisabeth the Second’s wedding at the Buckingham Palace, I knew that would be my only chance to ask for advice and help. 

“From your position”, they said, “we are afraid there is nothing left to do.” 

Some laughed at me. Some pitied me, a 26-year-old king against the Iron Curtain. The only monarch left in the Balkans, fighting off the windmills.

Even though some advised me not to, I returned home, empty handed.

Well, almost. 

Me and my future wife, Anne of Bourbon-Parma, found each other in turbulent times, at a rejoiced royal wedding that contrasted so much with the grief slowly spreading in the East. Maybe it was exactly that circumstance that kept our love strong till the very day she was buried in the crypt I would one day join.  

But the communists wouldn’t allow a royal wedding when all they were seeking was the complete undermining of anything the royal family meant to the people. The stability. The hope. 

Which was exactly why I assumed this was the matter I was summoned now for.

2 

“What we request from you is an amiable divorce”, Groza informed, the Communist prime minister welcoming me and my mother in my office at the Elisabeta Palace. “A divorce between the country and the monarchy.” 

It was absurd.

I knew Groza for the sly man he was. Disdain dripped off his every word and it was then I felt the bitter twist of fate. I could almost see the royal coat of arms on the Palace’s gates cracking, the slogan above it, Nihil sine Deo, replaced with the red hammer and sickle. 

Groza had brought an ally, Gheorghiu-Dej, whose very presence broke the royal protocol. My mother stood silent beside me, assessing him. I could feel her disgust brimming, even though her perfectly trained expression gave away nothing. She had always been royal to the very bone.

“There will be great trouble in the country if this does not get signed as soon as possible” Groza informed as he handed me the document. 

My sweating hands damping the paper’s edges, my eyes caught words that my mind could not piece together. Terrible, impossible words. 

I consider that the monarch institution does no longer meet the current conditions of our State life, representing a serious obstacle to Romania’s development. 

Fully aware of the importance of the act I make in Romanian people’s interest  

I ABDICATE. 

“It’s not legal, it won’t mean anything without a people’s referendum”, my mother explained.

“You can’t expect me to sign this. I do not have the right to leave without asking them. Shall they express the wish for my withdrawal, I will comply, but… I do not have the right to take the crown from my heirs.”

“Beautiful education, you’ve given your son”, Gheorghiu-Dej smiled at my mother.

“There is no time for such procedures”, Groza cut off. “But there are other ways this can be done.”

They were bluffing. Killing me would have been too messy. It would unleash an uprising they couldn’t afford.

“I have 1100 students still locked up.”

Oh. 

The ones that dared to support me during my strike, two years ago.

“Put simply, if you don’t sign, I will shoot the lot”, Groza stated as if he announced the weather.

“Majesty”, one of my guards whispered in my ear, “they surrounded the palace. Artillery, troops and tanks. All the phone lines were cut. The palace guard has been replaced too.”

One breath in. One breath out. Head up. Head always up.

“Leave me to consider”, I raised my voice as I moved to the next room, followed by my mother. Her eyes burned with questions she expected me to answer, but it felt like my mind stopped connecting dots. After all we have endured, it all came down to a piece of paper on my own desk. A choice that wasn’t really a choice.

It wasn’t the first time I knew I could die any second. But it wasn’t just my life on the table now.

“Do not cry, mother.”

But she wouldn’t have.

“There will be no blood spilled on my account.”

I emptied my mind when I returned to the office; when I took the pen in my hand. I kept it that way when the ink hit the paper and my name was signed at the bottom of the page.

Groza’s smirk was a thing of satisfied malice.

On their way out, Gheorghiu-Dej took my mother to the side. Grinning, he removed the side of his coat to reveal the gun hidden in his pocket.

“So that what happened to Antonescu wouldn’t happen to me” he told her in German.

Why German, I didn’t know.

3

That night they escorted us back to Sinaia. We packed our lives in a few suitcases, closely followed by the officers.

“Nothing more than clothes”, we were instructed.

I would come to know various conspiracies of the great wealth I ran away with, though. We haven’t been allowed to grab an ashtray from the table.

 Soon we were heading for the train that was waiting for us at the Royal Station. An aisle of soldiers welcomed us. As soon as we stepped on the platform, they shifted, turning their backs at us. One final attempt to punch us in the gut, yet I could only feel disgusted.

            But these have been my men.

            And as I inched forward, my eyes caught the glimmer of one single tear, falling shyly on the first soldier’s cheek as he kept his back at me.

They were terrified. Would it have terrified them even more had they known their king - former king – was as lost as them? As lonely?

Or that somewhere, in the back of my mind, underneath all that shame, laid a tiny trace of pride that my banishment was worth mourning?

The train ride had been quiet. Eerie, as if the dismissal meant we were no longer part of this world.

            But they have made sure our travels wouldn’t too peaceful. Railway workers shouted as we passed by, instructed by the new governance.

            Long live the Republic!

            I wondered what life could there be after so much death.

“Only God knows what could be crossing their minds” mom said, as we wondered if the train would take a different routes. For all we knew, we could have ended up in Siberia.

But we didn’t. After a few days, the trains stopped. From our calculations, we could be in Austria by now, the Russian side. After ten minutes, the train moved again and we heard a river as we crossed it.

Then it stopped once more. A Jeep approached and an American captain entered our compartment.

“You are free now” he said, yet I have never felt more helpless.

For it was death I carried in my heart when I left Romania, and I kept carrying it for the following 45 years.

My exile has been mundane. No great wealth I ran away with, no hidden gold. I worked as a carpenter, a pilot, a farmer. I had five daughters that spoke the language of a country they have never been to.

But my people still loved me. So much, I presented a threat to those ruling even after the Revolution, in 1989 - the communists were supposedly gone.

When they finally let me come home, the Easter of ’92, over one million people gathered to see me in Bucharest. The number frightened the then president and he forbade me to return for the next five years. It wasn’t until 1917 that I got my citizenship back.

            But there hadn’t been a moment of exile I felt any less Romanian.

Now I am 96. My wife has died before me. My crown is nothing more than a symbol. My country…

Well, my country is still brave.

There is a long way to go that I will not be here to see. But for what time I had, I saw today’s Romania not as an inheritance from our parents, but as the country we burrowed from our children.

---

Image source: maria via Pinterest