Читать книгу The American College of Switzerland Zoo - James E. Henderson - Страница 9

About a week into the school year I hopped down the stairs to visit Willie and was stopped by the sight of a man in a suit at the other end of the hallway. The sight was so unusual that I stood staring at him for a while. I recognized him as one of the prince’s bodyguards, and he appeared to be posted outside the end room. After a moment, he motioned me over. I moved hesitantly forward wondering what he wanted and stopped a few feet in front of him. He nodded his head slightly with his dark eyes focused on mine, and in a heavy, harsh accent, he said, “You may go in.”

Calling on the prince hadn’t even occurred to me. What the hell! I thought, although I managed only a meek “Ah… okay…” The bodyguard knocked, waited for a response from inside that I couldn’t quite make out, and opened the door for me to enter.

As the door swung open, the first thing that I saw was a deep red carpet hiding the wooden floors. As I walked onto its luxurious pile, I wondered how clean my shoes were. I thought about taking them off when I turned to find the African prince sitting on a chair in front of a rather large desk. He looked over his right shoulder at me, his head tilted slightly to the left with a curious smile on his lips. His long black hair framed his high cheekbones and ended at the line of his strong chin. “Come in and join me!” he said with an excellent British accent while he held up his left hand and opened his fingers, exposing the lighter colored skin on his palm. “You are my first visitor.”

“Wow, you have a nice room, here!” I said lamely.

“I am glad that you like it. Sit.”

I grabbed a wooden chair by the wall and moved it toward the prince, who had swiveled in his chair to face me. Okay, so he also has some kind of fancy office chair. After all, he is a prince, I thought.

I had no idea what to say, so I sat there drowning in the silence.

“I am Prince Paul –” it went on forever and ended with “– Makonnen of Ethiopia. Call me Paul,” he said and held out his right hand.

I grabbed his hand to shake it, but he caught my hand and held it lightly between his forefingers and his thumb. I hoped that I hadn’t messed up the proper protocol, but the bodyguard got me into this so I really wasn’t prepared. I told him my name and that I currently lived in Germany but that I was an Army brat so I had lived in a lot of places and had no real place to call home. I mentioned that the longest I had lived in one place was the four years at my boarding school in Ohio.

“Boarding school?” he said. “I was in a boarding school in Scotland, called Gordonstoun. Have you heard of it?”

“No.”

“My cabin was much larger there, but I had to share it with a roommate, Prince Charles of England.” The name sounded familiar, but there were a lot of royalty called Charles in English history. We talked a bit about our past roommates. It seems that Prince Charles had large ears and was the butt of some nasty teasing because of it. Prince Paul didn’t approve of the teasing but couldn’t help much because they were always making fun of his accent.

“Your English accent is definitely better than mine!” I said with a smile.

“Yes, well that was a number of years ago. Besides, you speak American quite well,” he joked back.

“Thanks!” and we both laughed.

We then compared experiences on boarding school for a while. While his seemed more rigorous academically, we both agreed that the schools tried to schedule every minute of your life so you didn’t get into any trouble. Also, both tried to keep you isolated from the local towns. It was interesting that I seemed to have had more fun on my campus with social events and local outings while Prince Paul had weekend trips to Buckingham Palace and other places throughout Europe and the U.S. He had access to the Ethiopian embassy airplanes. That seemed amazing! When I left, I asked if I could come back with some friends, and he said that he would enjoy meeting other of his classmates.

Man, I was exploding with the story as I left Prince Paul’s room. Yes, I said Prince Paul. In spite of my ancestor’s reluctance to show deference to royalty, I never learned to call him Paul. Although, I will admit that Prince Paul became more of a dual name in my head, like Billy-Bob or Marsha Ann, than a sign of true deference to his noble birth. Anyway, I couldn’t wait to tell someone. Willie wasn’t in his room, so I bounded back upstairs to Wilds. I threw open his door without knocking, spotted Wilds, and the words started tumbling out of my mouth: “Prince Paul’s downstairs…, Red carpet…, Buckingham Palace…, boarding school…”

I am not sure what Wilds was doing when I barged in, but he was sitting on the bed with his back to me and sounded a little embarrassed when he said, “Geez, Jim, knock first! Prince Paul is in our dorm? I thought that he’d have a chalet somewhere at the very least!”

Whatever it was that he had been doing, he rebounded quickly, and we were soon making plans for finding Gil and going back. I headed down to the second floor to find Gil while Wilds started searching in his secret stash in the wallboards. We were in luck, Gil was in his room, and when the two of us came back up Wilds met us on the third floor by the stairs. He had pulled on a baggy jacket that hung on him like an XXL shirt on a wire coat hanger, and he walked sheepishly behind us as we approached the guard. The guard gave what appeared to be a grim smile and nod in recognition and opened the door without knocking. As we shuffled onto the thick carpeting, something glass under Wilds’ shirt clinked, and the guard gave him an alert, questioning look. To which Wilds only smiled, bowed, and backed into the room, closing the door behind us.

I am not sure that the prince was expecting me to return this quickly, but he took it in stride. Then, when Wilds pulled four beers out from inside pockets under his jacket, he grinned and held out a hand for one. A prince with a weird haircut or not, if we had anything to do with it, he would soon be just one of the guys. There weren’t enough chairs for all of us so Wilds planted himself on the carpet. I then slid off my chair and followed him to the floor. Watching us, amused, the prince joined us on his push carpet. Finally, Gil grudgingly slid off his chair as well.

As we sat together on the carpet, we talked about a lot of things, but Prince Paul’s life was the real story. For one thing, it turned out that the Prince Charles he had mentioned was the crown prince of England and they were buddies. In fact, his trips to Buckingham Palace were not touristy walks around the outside. He had slept in the palace and played through the halls with the other prince. Also, Prince Paul explained that he was a prince because he was Emperor Haile Selassie’s grandson. His distant ancestors were King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. Unbelievable! He admitted that he was only second to the crown in Ethiopia. It seems that his uncle was the crown prince. But Paul had been crown prince for a while when his uncle attempted an assassination of Emperor Haile Selassie and fell from favor. Once the uncle regained favor, he was reinstated, and Prince Paul moved back to second place again. None of us had the nerve to ask Prince Paul what a person had to do to regain favor after an assassination attempt.

During that first bull session, even sitting on the carpet, Prince Paul had a special poise and a grace that set him apart. Soon after, many other students were vying for his attention, and we saw less and less of him. And it wasn’t long before our dorm mates perverted him and brought him down to our level. In fact, once he cut his Prince Valiant hairdo, he was often mistaken for one of the guys at Le Nord. Also, I suspect that being the prince’s first visitors gave the three of us a little extra recognition. While he didn’t often seek out any of us, he didn’t ignore us, like many of the upper crust.

Prince Paul also had one very interesting habit at school. Once the coeds were used to his skin tone, he was giving a ring and getting engaged almost monthly. He must have brought a box of engagement rings in all sizes from Ethiopia. It was definitely a way to bed a willing young female, who, for her part, could tell her grandchildren of the time she was engaged to a prince and that she had the ring to prove it! However, I suspect the story would omit or edit his complexion and the name of his kingdom.