Princess Caroline, Part 21

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Length (rounded up): 1700 words, 7 min.
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Princess Caroline, Part 21

Daddy had really kept his promise, and he had resigned...

Right now, I’m just sitting in a comfortable chair. My healthy arm gently caresses the fibreglass-casted right one. My fingers lovingly touch the padded rim that starts below the elbow, feeling the rough texture of the stiff shell that runs along my forearm until it reaches the wrist. There I sense my cast-free skin again.

Oh my God, how good it feels to wear a cast! This is a short arm cast. For the next six weeks, it will be an integral part of my body. I’ll wear it constantly all day and all night, in the palace, in the garden, in the bed, in the bathroom, in the church, and at the ceremony.

So, I’m sitting in a chair, in front of a mirror, watching in silence as an enthusiastic hairdresser is styling my hair. Strangely enough, I can see not only my appearance in the mirror but all my past, too.

Of course, I’m not totally cracked. These images are merely from my mind. Like film frames, taken from various stages of all the forty-something years of my life. (Never ask a lady her age.) Okay, it doesn’t sound too much, however, hell a lot of things happened to me.

I feel a little nostalgic. I close my eyes for a moment to reminiscence about the whole journey as I had become the official royal princess, gradually transforming from Daddy’s naive little princess into the sophisticated Heir Number One to the German throne.

It’s incredible but true.

I can remember everything. My childish dreams of being a queen. My very first accident when I experienced the tight and sweet hold of plaster casts for the first time in my life. The marvellous months when I worked in a hospital as a nursing intern to learn how to make plaster and fibreglass casts.

Then the day I joined the Special Vehicle Safety Test Inc., and started my voluntary living crash test dummy career. The exclusive clinic where I met some good friends like Jamie Bond. Then the happy day when I reunited with my twin sister Emma and my mum.

The terrible accident when I was dying, alone, lying motionless on the ground, staring with infinite sadness at the setting sun, which was as red as my own blood. My marriage of convenience to Roland von und zu Hannover. The gloomy hour when I expelled Emma from our family. And I never forget the heated debate, when I asked Herr Rossbach to kill the ambassador of the United States to Germany.

Yes, all these events happened to me. I’m far from a saint. Maybe I have never been the good-hearted angel you wanted me to be. But surely, I had solid reasons for all that I did. Even for the most heinous sins and crimes I committed.

The accident killed the Caroline you knew and you liked. And what is left is nothing but a... heartless c*nt? I can only hope that I’m not as evil as you think. I’d like to believe that I remained the same, however, I don’t want to lie to you. And now, please judge me after you've heard the whole story.

So, let’s start again. I’m currently in Aachen, in the City of Charlemagne, waiting for my crowning ceremony. In a matter of hours, her (‘My’) Royal Highness, the Royal Princess of Saxony Karolina Mathilda von Kessler und Hannover is going to be the Queen of Germany.

My thoughts wandered to the past, but now, a few loud words suddenly brought my mind back to the present.

‘Her Royal Highness, Royal Princess of Brandenburg Emma Charlotte Davies Watson,’ a servant announced the arrival of my sister.

The room door opened to admit the guest.

I was she. She was me. We were twins. Tall, blonde-haired, blue-eyed, barely distinguishable women. Although we hadn’t talked to each other for a long time, we weren’t really able to hate each other. Or, at least, I hoped so. But, since she had been sent to New Zealand, Emma used our mother’s maiden name Davies to distance herself from the official von Kessler und Hannover dynasty. For years, she had been so angry with me, because of her expulsion from Germany, that she hadn’t invited me even to her wedding.

I waited in vain for seconds for her to come in. The door remained opened, but no one entered. All I heard was a noise of rhythmical ‘bangs’ accompanied by much fainter ‘clinks’. Finally, Emma limped into the room, leaning on a pair of elbow crutches, and dragging a long cast on her right leg.

I stood up to give her a hug. She clumsily put her crutches against the wall near the entrance.

‘It’s so good to see you again,’ I said, embracing her.

Hearing my words of welcome, Emma laughed. ‘Oh, my God, you speak English with a German accent!’

‘Really?’ I smiled, not believing my ears. ‘Can you forgive me for...?’

My question recalled my decision to send her away to protect my marriage.

‘It’s f*****g hard.’ She didn’t give me a clear answer. Perhaps, my hands seemed dirty for her, but she thanked me. ‘It was very kind of you to invite me to your coronation ceremony.’

How strange! It should have been the other way around. Emma was the elder twin (by fifteen minutes), but she had messed up her life. She was the one who should have been a queen. And not me.

‘Would you like to sit down?’ I offered my chair, peering at the chunk of fibreglass that swaddled her leg.

Indeed, Emma was a little handicapped, slowed down by the massive shell that disabled her limb. Although the upper half of the cast was hidden beneath her long skirt, it was obvious that she was sporting an LLC.

The solid casing started at the uppermost part in the thigh, unstoppably flowing down to the toes, stabilising each portion of the upper and her lower leg. Captured in the rigid shell, she was denied of bending the knee, and she was stopped from flexing the ankle, so she seated herself in an awkward style, keeping the casted leg forward, and gripping the armrests firmly.

I noticed as Emma was turning around, most probably to search for a second chair. Surely, it would be comfortable is she could rest the stiff fibreglass casing in a horizontal position.

‘Would you like to put your leg up onto something?’ I asked.

‘Yeah, it would be much better.’ She sighed, exhausted by fighting with the weighty fetter and the two crutches.

‘I’m sorry. This is just a dressing room, and not a perfect place to receive guests.’ I excused myself for giving her a simple chair instead of a footstool.

She grinned, and lifted her leg and manoeuvred it neatly onto the seat. Her healthy limb remained outstretched, with the heel held down on the floor. She wiggled the toes sticking out of the cast opening. The white colour of the fibreglass shell contrasted with the crimson skirt and the costume she wore, but this combination of colours wasn’t dissonant at all.

‘Is it real medical?’ I adored her bright white casing. It almost made me want to physically examine it.

‘For sure. Skiing accident,’ Emma said. ‘There was a tree that was unwilling to move out of my way.’

It must have been the truth, since she grimaced when recalling the mishap. Vainly massaging her injured leg, she placed both of her hands on the knee that inflexible dressings wrapped and secured.

‘We should have had the same kind of cast. Because we are twins,’ I said.

She pointed at my casted arm. ‘And yours?’

‘Just to have a bit of fun.’

‘Oh, you lucky bastard.’ She tilted her head and looked at me knowingly. ‘Did you suppose that I’d wear a fake cast just to seduce Roland?’

‘I swear that my question had nothing to do with it,’ I said.

Emma pursed, disliking my answer, but she didn't want to get into an argument today. So she talked about something else instead.

‘How does it feel to be a queen?’ she asked.

‘I’m not a queen, yet,’ I said. ‘This must have been your business.’

‘Never mind,’ Emma lied, secretly envying me.

The sound of the opening door interrupted our bumpy conversation. She turned around in the chair to see my husband and my children coming in. ‘What a lovely family.’

Accompanied by my advisor, the three kids, Paul, Anna and the youngest one, Kristina, politely greeted their Aunt Emma. Saying hello, Roland and Emma exchanged brief glances, too. He took a strikingly close look at the long shell adorning the her leg. Obviously, her shiny, shape-fitted LLC acted like an attention magnet.

‘Don’t worry. I won’t be spending too much time here,’ she said to me quietly, thinking of my concerns about the alleged relationship between Roland and her.

I was about to reply, when Mr Rossbach approached our little group.

‘You look splendid, Your Majesty,’ he said.

‘Thank you, Mr Rossbach. However, isn't it a bit early to bestow this title on me?’ I asked. Indeed, it was a greeting in advance, because the crown wasn’t on my head, and he called me a Queen prematurely.

‘Forgive me for my terrible mistake, Your Royal Highness!’ Herr Rossbach put his finger on his wristwatch to politely remind me of the strict schedule of the ceremony. ‘It’s high time to go to the Cathedral. I’ll check the limousine.’

He disappeared, followed by Roland and the kids. Soon, I will have to leave this room, too. I looked through the windows in silence, didn’t stop watching the towers of the distant Cathedral of Aachen.

To recharge my confidence, I closed my eyes. I am going to be the Queen of Germany within an hour. I will become a part of history: Karolina die Erste.

I stood up and stretched out my arms to offer my help to Emma so that she could overwhelm the stiffness of her fibreglass-casted leg, and she could get up from the chair. She accepted my helping hands.

‘Please, come with me!’

The End

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