The Paper Crown

6. After the Wedding

We return to the palace. Act two of the performance begins in the throne room. Mariusz and I must hold hands and neither move nor blink while a photographist makes a daguerrotype of the happy couple. Then Mariusz is to sit on the throne and I must stand over him with one hand on his shoulder. The photographist cannot be satisfied with my posture and rearranges my hand and fingers by minute degrees. He mutters directions under his breath which Mariusz lazily translates for me.

"He wants soft hands. Kind hands."

"I don't what that means."

"Gentle, friendly."

"How can hands be friendly?"

Mariusz shrugs and dislodges my unfriendly hand.

The photographist gives up and instead makes me lean over the throne with my arms crossed on its back. I look down at the top of Mariusz's pondweedy blond head with what I hope passes for softness.

After that comes an interlude of preparation. Maidservants descend upon me to unpick the train from my dress and veil from my head. The royal chamberlain directs palace attendants to primp bowls of roses, adjust drapes by quarter-inches, and smooth invisible wrinkles in the long red carpet. Mariusz drifts idly around the room, nibbling at nuts, which he seems to have secreted in the pocket of his wedding suit. My own stomach grumbles. It is well into the afternoon and I did not eat breakfast. A valet enters the throne room, bearing a red silk cushion upon which rests a silver and black velvet crown. Mariusz appears not to notice him and ambles to the other side of the room. The valet hurries after him in small, mincing steps, careful not to jog the crown on its cushion. Mariusz turns on his heel, blind to all but the cracking of nuts, and drifts optimistically in the direction of a half-open window. The chamberlain darts to shut it, and the valet corners Mariusz against it. With a heavy sigh, Mariusz places the crown on his head.

When my train and veil are removed, I join Mariusz at the doors to the throne room, uniformed attendants at our side, and the longest scene of the entire performance begins.

Guests arrive. Hundreds of them. We shake hands and greet each in turn, starting with the highest of rank in foreign princes and ending with disgruntled gentlemen and their tired wives. It takes over three hours, and though I am supposed to smile at each person, I give up before the end of the first hour. Mariusz does not even try.

I have memorized a few key phrases of welcome in Selician, which I rotate endlessly through without understanding any replies in kind. Some of our guests kindly try my French, or offer some tentative, hopeful German, which I can understand if not speak. One misguided woman tries Russian, and when that fails gives me a pitying smile.

Mariusz, scowling next to me, is nonetheless much more successful. It seems he has a passing acquaintance with nearly every language spoken in the room. Even a dark-skinned diplomat receives a few stumbling words in his own tongue, though Mariusz's accent affords him much amusement.

It is late afternoon by the time we have greeted every last one of our thousand-odd guests. My feet are numb and I have long since ceased to be aware of hunger except as a dull weakness inside me. We lead our guests to the great hall for the wedding banquet. I and Mariusz and his family and my uncle sit at a small table at the front of the hall, with other, longer tables set perpendicular to us. It is a very formal banquet, interrupted by much bell ringing and many speeches. Everybody is now speaking Selician and I understand nothing. I eat and drink in a cacophony of chatter that might as well be silence. Only once I have fortified myself on champagne and roast duck and baked apples and pancakes with sweet cheese and cherry jam do I notice that Mariusz is silent too. He speaks not a word until the time comes for him to give his speech.