The Tsar's Dwarf. Peter H. Fogtdal
obviously belonged to a child, and it’s too big for me.
“We don’t have much time. Do you understand?”
“Time for what?” I retort.
“Time before the big banquet.”
Æreboe turns around and speaks a few words to a man I can’t see. Then he gestures for me to follow. I don’t move from where I’m sitting. A moment later a footman appears. He comes toward me with an unyielding expression on his face. I hiss at him angrily. The footman sweeps me off the floor, grabbing me under the armpits, as if he were picking up an infant. Then he holds me away from his body, as if hanging me out to dry. As we move along, I dangle helplessly between Heaven and Hell. The footman turns left, going past a workshop where sedan chairs are made. Finally we end up in a small room with a window and a table. The notarius is already sitting there. He looks friendly and at ease. We’re talking about an idiot.
The footman sets me down so hard that pain shoots up from the balls of my feet, through my ankles and knees, and into my lower back. I always feel pain whenever a human being wants to display his propensity for power, but I never show it. I wouldn’t give a varlet like that the satisfaction.
“Now, now, show a little restraint,” Æreboe says.
The notarius is a man of average height with big, guileless eyes, a sensitive mouth, and a straight nose, belying a generous but fussy nature. His complexion is transparent, but an ugly scar on his forehead lends him a certain gravity.
“We want you to sing a song,” he says.
At first I have no idea what the notarius is talking about, but then I happen to think about the cake, and about my role in that ridiculous episode.
“…for His Majesty the Tsar. You will be an important part of the banquet.”
“What banquet?”
“For Peter Alexeyevich. The tsar is coming here tomorrow to dine at the castle. The plan is for you to jump out of the cake and sing a song in Russian! I have no doubt that it will be greeted with cheers.”
Again I glare at this ridiculous notarius who has taken over Callenberg’s role. What sort of an eye-servant is he? To my chagrin, I have no idea what a notarius does. I know only that it sounds miserably dreary—a position that allows admittance to the castle and the opportunity to practice the art of arse-kissing.
“…because you see, the Tsar loves midgets!”
I can feel my face wincing.
“Or dwarves, if you prefer that term.”
“I’ll be damned if I’m going to jump out of any cake. Do you think that I’m some kind of performer at the flea market?”
The footman grabs me by the scruff of the neck and throws me against the wall. There is something impersonal about his action—as if he has never done anything else in life but toss dwarves about. I peer up at the human beings and get to my feet. My shoulder feels bruised, but nothing is broken. It’s a good day.
Æreboe smiles.
“You’re a feisty midget.”
“And you’re a mama’s boy who thinks he can control me!”
The footman reaches out for me again, but this time I’m too fast for him. I flee under the table and hide behind a leg.
“Leave us for a moment,” says Æreboe.
The footman nods and goes out the door.
Rasmus Æreboe stares at me. His lips are pressed together in fury.
I crawl out from under the table.
The human being always wants to exert his will. There is only one thing of interest to him: submission. That’s why it’s impossible to trust this reputable notarius with the reputable silk tongue.
I smile and await his malice.
“You’ll end up in the stocks or condemned to hard labor. Do you realize that?”
“Ha!”
Rasmus Æreboe regards me like a castigator who doesn’t dare castigate me.
“You ought to be proud, Sørine. You have been chosen to perform for the king. At the same time you will have the opportunity to meet His Majesty the Tsar—the most splendid of all sovereigns in Europe. When I was stationed in Russia, I met him several times. First as private secretary to the Danish envoy; later as emissary extraordinaire for His Royal Highness Frederik IV.”
“I won’t perform for the Muscovites’ tsar.”
“Why not?”
“Because I refuse to denigrate myself before a flock of overstuffed spendthrifts. I am not a court jester. Laughter doesn’t come easily to me.”
“But it’s so amusing to look at you, Sørine.”
I cross my arms and glare at the rogue.
“You’ll earn a couple of skillings for your performance,” he says kindly.
I laugh loudly.
Rasmus Æreboe gives me a look of disappointment. I sit down on a footstool and peer up at him.
A dwarf is always looking up at human beings, but only in a physical sense. Never anything more than in a physical sense.
7.
DUSK SETTLES OVER THE HARBOR LIKE A SHADOW. IT slips quietly through the sports hall, the rope works, and the windows of the castle. The last rays of the sun cling to the church towers, dance across the red rooftops, slide over the ramparts, and disappear. But the sun will be back. Everything repeats itself. Everything repeats itself.
Outdoors the city prepares for the night, for the arrival of the stars.
My life is about to change soon; there is nothing I can do about it. Everything is out of my hands. That ought to make me feel calm, but I’m anything but calm.
I look at the congenial notarius publicus—or rather, the apparently congenial notarius publicus, because no one can truly know a human being. No one has any desire to know a human being.
Rasmus Æreboe keeps on talking about his days in Russia—how cold and raw it was, how everything froze solid during the long winters: the rivers, the poultry, the Hungarian wine. He talks about the barbaric inhabitants, about the funereal language that sloshes in the mouth like pea soup.
I watch Æreboe. I see how his eyes grow bigger when he speaks of the beautiful Church of the Ascension in Moscow, after which the cake has been modeled; about the flickering of the pine torches over the nighttime snow; about the decorated sleighs that were pulled by Siberian tigers. And suddenly I have the feeling that Æreboe could keep on this way for hours, that he can’t be stopped once he gets started. The past turns to tears in his eyes as he speaks of the mighty tsar, who is both cultivated and barbaric. A giant of a man who can drink any foreigner under the table, an awe-inspiring despot who keeps a collection of molars he has pulled from the mouths of his own soldiers. And the more Æreboe talks, the more I have the impression that he’s bored in Denmark, that he misses the frozen steppes of Russia. And I wonder yet again what a notarius publicus actually does. Maybe it’s a post that is just as dreary as it sounds.
“Nowadays I work at the stock exchange, so there’s no time to keep up my Russian,” says Æreboe, as if he could read my mind.
I nod.
“But right now the plan is for me to teach you a song or several verses of poetry that you can recite for His Majesty the Tsar.”
“I refuse to sing.”
“At least you can read the words.” Æreboe gives me an encouraging