The
Days of the King
(Zilele regelui, 2008), by Filip
Florian, is the follow-up to The Băiuţ Alley Lads. Moving further back in time, it covers the
period 1866 to 1881. Romania is in the
slow process of throwing off the Ottoman yoke and finding its identity. The two principalities of Wallachia and
Moldavia are united, but in order to secure their stability and continued
recognition by European powers invite a Prussian aristocratic army officer,
Karl Eitel Friedrich Zephyrinus Ludwig of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, to become
the Prince of the United Principalities.
He accepts, and after many travails eventually becomes King Carol I.
While still in Berlin, Karl, then a mere
captain of dragoons, has urgent need of attention for a nasty abscess in his
gum, and he invites the dentist, Joseph Strauss, to follow him to
Bucharest. Accompanied only by his
faithful and philosophically-inclined tomcat, Siegfried, Joseph leaves his bachelor
lifestyle among his friends, says farewell to the Eleven Titties brothel, of
which he is an habitué, and follows Karl in a convoluted journey across Europe
(the Austro-Prussian War being in progress).
He establishes a practice in Bucharest’s Lipscani Street, even though
Romanians do not greatly prize dental hygiene.
The novel interweaves Joseph’s story with
that of his adopted country against the backdrop of political
manoeuvrings. Joseph gradually makes a
living and immerses himself in the city’s German community. Meanwhile, the Prince undertakes the task of
modernising and strengthening the principalities, imbuing in them a sense of
nationhood, combatting corruption, and turning Bucharest from a dingy backwater
with only one properly-made road into a capital worthy of an independent
country. Joseph witnesses the arrival of
the railway, road improvements and, always symbolic of nationhood, the city’s
first statue. Siegfried, who possesses
an almost mystical aspect, has his own narrative, and we follow his love life
as well as Joseph’s.
The Prince takes Joseph with him to
Constantinople when he goes to see the sultan, during which Joseph administers
him a tea brewed from fly agaric, leading to an amusing scene with the supposed
vassal getting high and forgetting his royal etiquette; but he gradually
distances himself, as Joseph is a reminder of events best forgotten, notably
having procured for him the services of a blind prostitute. A turning point in Joseph’s life comes when
he meets and marries a Serb nanny, Elena, and they have a child. They are deeply in love, though there are
many things Joseph keeps from her.
Unfortunately, the Prince’s liaison with the prostitute leads to the
birth of an illegitimate child, of which Karl is unaware, and Joseph’s desire
to protect his reputation leads to a misunderstanding with Elena, who assumes
the boy is her husband’s.
The novel’s elegantly slow pace evokes the
city’s character, and Joseph’s improving fortunes as Bucharest’s residents come
to care about the state of their teeth.
He is a sympathetic character, and through him we see the changes over
the course of the years as Romania begins to take its modern shape. The German community integrates well, though
that does not stop rioters damaging their property during the Franco-Prussian
War as an expression of sympathy towards the French (an act for which the
German victims exact an appropriate revenge).
Joseph becomes a fully-fledged Romanian
when, somewhat under pressure from his wife, he participates as a doctor with
the rank of major in the Russo-Turkish war.
Significantly, when he has an audience with Karl, he speaks Romanian
rather than German. The novel ends in
1881 with Romania free of Ottoman control and taking its place as a
fully-fledged kingdom, the prince crowned as Carol I. As Siegfried’s long life comes to an end,
marking the end of an era in more ways than one, indeed the days of the king
have begun, perhaps Bucharest’s (not to mention Joseph and Elena’s) finest
ones.
Like The
Băiuţ Alley Lads, The Days of the
King was translated by the indefatigable Alistair Ian Blyth. There is a useful section at the end of the
book elucidating the novel’s political, military and religious background, and
Bucharest’s topography, which helps the reader unfamiliar with this period of
Romanian history understand the larger forces shaping Joseph’s life in his
adopted land.
