The Princess

  “None whatever. Everyone has been very kind,” she lied.

  “Did you see General Brooks yet?”

  “I will see him tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow? What did you do today?”

  She wanted to scream at him that she had waited in line, been laughed at, had to deal with a maid who hated her, and been accused of being the enemy. “I washed my hair and spent hours in a tub of hot water.”

  “Of course. I should have known. A princess would put luxury before everything else. I’ll call tomorrow night and see what he said.”

  “Please do not bother. I’m sure your government will rid itself of the imposter.”

  He paused a moment. “I guess you haven’t seen the papers. That princess is a dead ringer for you and she’s a hit wherever she goes. Maybe Americans will like her so much they won’t want the real princess.”

  She glared at the telephone then slammed it down. “Hideous man!” she said as she left the bed and went into the living room of the suite. They had brought a newspaper with her dinner but she had left it where it lay.

  On the second page was a photograph of a woman who looked very much like her, smiling at two men in uniform and cutting a wide ribbon. The caption told how Her Royal Highness, Princess Aria of Lanconia, was spreading peace across America. Instantly, she recognized her cousin Maude. “Were you always jealous of me, Cissy?” she asked in wonder, calling her cousin by the royal family’s pet name. As she looked closer at the photo, she saw that in the background, smiling and hovering, was Lady Emere, Cissy’s aunt. It was obvious that Lady Emere was protecting Cissy, probably keeping Aria’s other attendants at a distance, but surely, Aria thought, one of them must be suspicious.

  “Doesn’t anyone know that’s not me?” she said, blinking back tears.

  She went back to bed but she didn’t sleep very well.

  Morning brought more problems. The woman she had hired to be her maid walked out when Aria held out her leg for her hose to be put on, so it took Aria three hours to get dressed. She was very glad for the black, veiled hat that covered her attempts at hairdressing.

  When she left the hotel, she was feeling less than confident, but she kept her head high and her shoulders back. Once again she heard those low whistles from the men as she walked through the lobby, but she ignored them.

  The doorman was someone she understood. She told him she wanted to see General Brooks, he blew a whistle, and a taxi came forward. Aria pointed at a long black Cadillac with a chauffeur leaning against the hood. “I want that car.” The doorman walked across the traffic and talked to the chauffeur, who nodded.

  “He’ll take you to the Pentagon.”

  Aria had already realized that every American expected to be paid for everything he did. She handed the doorman one of the bills with the two zeroes on it, and he nodded gravely to her, then opened the door to the limousine.

  Aria leaned back against the seat and closed her eyes. In the back of this luxurious car she felt at home for the first time since she had been kidnapped.

  The chauffeur opened the car door for her and later, held the door that led into the Pentagon.

  “I have been paid,” he said solemnly when she offered him one of the few bills left in her purse.

  She smiled at him, glad for any kindness from an American.

  The time in the car was only a pause before the storm. Nothing she had experienced so far prepared her for the Pentagon during war. Everywhere people rushed back and forth, machines printed, people shouted orders, radios played news.

  She stopped at a desk and asked for General Brooks.

  “Over there,” the woman said, her mouth full of pencils. “Ask over there.”

  Aria walked down the corridor and asked again.

  “I’m not his secretary,” a man snapped. “Don’t you know there’s a war going on?”

  Aria asked a total of five people and they all shuffled her to someone else. Twice she started down hallways and men drew rifles on her. Someone told her to come back next week. Someone else told her to come back when the war was over. Someone else grabbed her arm and half shoved her out the door into a parking lot.

  She straightened her suit jacket, squared her hat, and went back inside. If Americans didn’t want to listen to the truth, then she would give them a good story. She walked into the middle of the busiest room and said in a normal voice: “I am a German spy and I will give my secrets only to General Brooks.”

  One by one the people stopped what they were doing and stared at her. After one brief second of absolute silence, all hell broke loose. Soldiers with guns came from every corridor and seized her.

  “Do not touch me,” she called, the men lifting her by her arms so her feet did not touch the ground.

  “I knew she was German the minute I saw her,” Aria heard a woman say.

  She was pulled down a long corridor, people leaving their offices to have a look at her. Aria was glad her hat had slipped down to obscure half of her face. I am never leaving Lanconia again, she vowed to herself.

  After what seemed to be ages, the soldiers dropped her into a chair.

  “Let’s have a look at her,” said a voice with a great deal of anger in it.

  Aria lifted her head, and pushed back her hat to look up at General Brooks. “So good to see you again,” she said as if they were at a gala reception, and extended her hand to him.

  General Brooks’s eyes widened. “Out!” he commanded the many soldiers jammed in the room.

  “But she may be dangerous,” said a man holding an ugly black pistol aimed at Aria.

  “I will somehow manage to fight her off,” the general said sarcastically. When they were alone, he turned to Aria. “Your Royal Highness?” He took her hand, touching her fingers lightly. “The last I heard, you were in Virginia.”

  “Not me but someone who looks like me.”

  The general looked at her for a long while. “I’ll send for tea and we can talk.”

  Aria ate everything that was on the tea tray, then lunch was ordered, and still the general asked her questions. He made her repeat nearly every minute of their time together in Lanconia. He wanted to know anything that would make him sure she was the real princess.

  At two he had her taken to a small sitting room where she could rest. At three-thirty she was led into a room where four generals and two plainclothesmen sat and had to tell everything over again.

  Throughout this time she showed no impatience, no anger, no fatigue. The seriousness of the matter was coming through to her. If these men did not believe her and therefore did not help her get back to her country, she would lose everything. She would lose her identity, she would lose the people she loved, and she would lose her nationality. And Lanconia would have an imposter for queen—a woman eaten with jealousy who must want something besides the good of Lanconia.

  She sat upright and answered their questions—over and over and over again.

  At ten o’clock they sent her back to the hotel under armed guard. A WAC drew her bath and, Aria knew, searched her new clothes. Aria stayed in the tub until her skin wrinkled to give the woman plenty of time. At midnight, she was at last able to go to bed.

  * * *

  The big Pentagon room was filled with a blue haze of cigarette and cigar smoke. The mahogany table was littered with empty glasses, overflowing ashtrays, and crumbs from a meal of dried-out sandwiches. The preeminent smell was a mixture of sweat and anger.

  “I don’t like it!” General Lyons shouted as he shifted the wet cigar butt from one side of his mouth to the other.

  “I think we have more than enough evidence that she’s telling the truth,” Congressman Smith said. He was the only one of the six men to still look somewhat fresh; nevertheless, there were dark circles of sleeplessness under his eyes. “Did you see the scar on her left hand? Our records say she fell while on a hunting trip when she was twelve years old.”

  “But who knows which princess is better for America?” General
O’Connor said. “Lanconia doesn’t really mean much to us except that now we need the vanadium. If the imposter princess will give us the vanadium, I don’t think we should involve ourselves.”

  “Lanconia lies near Germany and Russia. Russia is our friend now but it is a communist country. After the war—”

  “Who knows what will happen to Lanconia after the war? Say we restore this princess to the throne. Didn’t that report say she was related to some German royals? What if she marries one?”

  The six men began to talk at once.

  General Brooks slammed his fist on the table. “I say we need her on the throne. You heard her promise to give America the vanadium if we help her. And she would be sure to give it to us if she were married to an American.”

  “An American?” Congressman Smith gasped. “Those bluebloods marry only bluebloods. We abolished monarchy in this country, remember? So where do we find an American prince?”

  “That little girl will do anything for her country,” General Brooks said. “You mark my words. If we told her we’d help her only if she married an American and later made him king, believe me, she’d do it.”

  “But didn’t we hear she was already engaged?”

  “I met him,” General Brooks said. “A pompous little runt, old enough to be her father. He only wants our princess for her money.”

  “Our princess?” General Lyons snorted.

  “She will be ours if we help her and put an American there beside her. Think of having military posts so near Russia and Germany.”

  The men considered this.

  “So who do we choose to make king?” Congressman Smith asked.

  “Someone we can trust. Someone who believes in America. None of these bleeding hearts.”

  “He has to have a good family history,” General Brooks said. “We can’t ask a princess to marry a gangster or an imbecile. We put only America’s finest on the throne.”

  General Attenburgh yawned. “I vote we adjourn and present some names tomorrow.”

  The men readily agreed.

  The next morning six sleepy-eyed men met. Four of them, without giving away the actual facts of the problem, had asked their wives what American would make a good king. Clark Gable won hands down, with Cary Grant a close second. Robert Taylor also received a few votes.

  After four hours of arguing, six names were selected. Two of them were young congressmen, one a wealthy businessman not so young, and three were sons of America’s oldest families, one of whose ancestors came over on the Mayflower.

  Each name was given to a committee and rated as top priority. The men were to be researched as thoroughly as possible and it was made clear that the staff was to look for dirt. If this man was going to be crowned king, whatever skeletons were in his closet had better come out now.

  “And check out that man Montgomery,” Congressman Smith said as an afterthought. “Let’s see if we can trust him to keep his mouth shut.”

  * * *

  For three days Aria was kept as a prisoner in her hotel room. Two men with rifles were outside her door twenty-four hours a day and more soldiers were stationed on the street below her windows. On the morning of the second day a large package of magazines was delivered courtesy of General Brooks.

  Aria sat down and got her first real look at Americans. They seemed to be a frivolous lot, interested mainly in movie stars and nightclub singers. A Life magazine had several pages neatly cut from it and the contents showed that it had been an article on Lanconia’s regal princess.

  At six A.M. on the fourth day, three WACs came to her room to help her dress. They were very professional and very cool, did what Aria asked, and made no complaint.

  At eight she was again at the Pentagon, seated at the end of a long table with the same six men as before. They explained that she was to marry an American and crown him king.

  Aria did not let her horror show. It seemed that these Americans believed they could ask anything of her. Patiently, she tried to explain why an American husband was an impossibility. “My husband will be prince consort and no American has a kingdom to unite with mine.”

  “You have the ‘kingdom’ of America,” one man said sarcastically.

  “It cannot be done,” she answered with less patience. “I am engaged to be married. My people would not like my breaking my engagement, nor will my grandfather, the king.” She was sure that would end the matter but it did not. A Congressman Smith began to explain to her an utterly preposterous plan.

  “If we switch you with the imposter without first knowing who set this whole thing up, your life could be in danger. You make one error and you’re a dead duck.”

  “Duck?”

  “Dead princess, then. We have to find out who tried to kill you and who doesn’t want America to have the vanadium. It had to be someone close to you.”

  Aria didn’t respond to that but she knew the man was right. She tried to control the blood she could feel leaving her face. It was no use telling them her cousin was the imposter because she knew quite well that Cissy was not the instigator. Cissy was a nervous, easily frightened weakling, and if she was acting in Aria’s place, it was because someone else was telling her what to do and how to do it.

  “We have a few things going for us,” said a large, gray-haired man with a chestful of medals. “First of all, they have no idea you’re alive, so they won’t be looking for you.”

  “So here’s the plan we’ve come up with,” said another man. “We let the imposter princess finish her tour, return to Lanconia, then we take her. At the same time you will appear in Lanconia and we figure someone will approach you to take the place of the missing princess.”

  “That way we can find out who engineered the switch,” Congressman Smith said.

  General Brooks cleared his throat. “The only catch is that you will have to be an American with an American husband.”

  Aria wasn’t sure she was understanding. They were going too fast for her. “But I am not an American. How will they think I am American?”

  “We’ll teach you.”

  “But why?” she gasped. Suddenly, she just wanted to go home. She was tired of strange food, of strange customs, of using a language she had to think about before every word. She was tired of people acting as if she were a spy and maids who cursed her because she wanted her hose put on. She was tired of dealing with things and people that she did not understand. Desperately, she wanted to go home.

  General Brooks took her hand and squeezed it and she didn’t pull away. “If we take the imposter princess and then you show up talking as you do, walking as you do, eating cookies with a knife and fork, the men who first tried to kill you are going to do it again—but this time they may succeed. We want to create a need for another woman who looks like you, then we hand them an American who they’ll probably want to train to be a princess.”

  “Train me to be a princess?” The absurdity of that statement brought her out of her homesickness.

  General Brooks smiled at her but the others watched with faces of great seriousness.

  Aria decided she had better try to comprehend their plan. “I am to learn to be an American and then learn to be a princess?”

  “Think you can do it?” Congressman Smith snapped.

  She looked down her nose at him. “I shall do quite well at the princess impersonation.”

  All the men except Congressman Smith laughed.

  “But I do not need an American husband for this,” Aria said. Perhaps if she went along with part of their plan, they would forget the more ridiculous aspects.

  General Lyons leaned forward. “The fact is, the only way we’re willing to risk our necks for you is if you put an American on the throne beside you. If you don’t agree, you can walk out that door and we’ve never heard of you.”

  She took a moment to respond. They could not be serious. “But I have agreed to give you the vanadium.”

  Congressman Smith looked at her and his eyes were cold. “The trut
h is, we want more. The vanadium is for now, during the war. We want military bases in Lanconia after the war. We want a place where we can keep an eye on Germany and Russia.”

  “If you win this war,” Aria said, some of her growing anger showing. “If Germany wins, then Lanconia will have an American prince consort—an enemy.” She had to protect her own country.

  “We won’t lose and he’s to be made king,” Congressman Smith said in a cold, cutting voice.

  “I cannot—” Aria began, but closed her mouth. They asked so much. They asked for diplomatic sacrifices and military sacrifices as well as personal sacrifices. She looked at her hands. But if she didn’t agree, what did she have? America was the strangest place she had ever encountered and to have to live here forever…

  She looked up and saw the men staring at her. The door opened and a woman in uniform came in and whispered something to General Brooks. He nodded at the others.

  “Princess,” he said, rising, “we have to leave you for a while. I will have someone escort you to a rest area.”

  The men walked out, leaving Aria sitting. She would never get over being horrified at American manners but at least they had given her time to think. She followed an armed guard to a waiting room.

  The six men walked into a room that held fourteen tired, red-eyed enlisted personnel. None of them had had any sleep in the last three days as they had gathered information on the candidates for Princess Aria’s husband. They had been given carte blanche for military transport to return to hometowns to talk to anyone who remembered a candidate. One woman had had three permanent waves in three days in three towns because she knew that the best place for gossip was the beauty parlor. Now, the fourteen researchers were too tired to do anything but sit and stare.

  As the six men entered, the group wearily stood and saluted, and one lieutenant stepped forward, papers in hand.

  “What did you find out?” Congressman Smith asked impatiently.

  “I’m afraid it’s not very good. Charles Thomas Walden,” the lieutenant read. He told of the magnificent family tree of this young man.

  “Sounds pretty good to me,” General Brooks said. “What’s wrong with him?”