Kalistan

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The Empress at Home
Princess of the Empire recalls her Life in Kalistan in wide ranging La Moda interview
Everai, Grand Duchy of Ananto
July 20, 5623


Prince William Ananto-Sandoval and Princess of the Empire Carolina Ananto at Ananto Estate in Eveari

It has been a dozen years since Her Highness, the Princess of the Empire Lady Carolina Ananto-Hulanevek retired from public life.  Since then she has seen the Empire she governed for more than thirty years descend to an inevitable war with the land of her birth, and once more find some peace.  She left office just as tensions between Kalistan and Kundrati were about to hit their nadir, and has since had a lot of time to reflect on her own Reign, and how the events that preceded her during her mother's reign were resolved during her son's ongoing reign.  And now she sits down with me, John Henderson, reporter for La Moda to offer a post script on what turned out to be one of the most consequential and tumultuous periods in Kalistani History.  I let her guide the often meandering discussion--I figured that as a Kalistani, I owed her that at the very least, but also know I and so many million Kalistanis owe her so much more.

"First, I want to say thank you for coming to see me here in Eveari," she started and smiled lightly.  When I told her it was an honor to meet and speak with her, I also asked why she was smiling.  "Do you know, Mr. Henderson, how long I was Empress of this nation?"  I answered that I knew her reign lasted just under 33 years.  "In all that time, whenever I spoke to youngsters like you in the press, I could never call myself I.  Do you know how good it feels each time to just have that little bit of my personality back?  I am very happy."

The Empress has grown very old in the dozen years since then.  "I started as a young woman," said Princess Carolina, who is now free to dispense with a lot of the other little formalities associated with her high office.  "I started before I was crowned, you know:  My mother was declining by the time I even entered college, and she stayed in her office maybe longer than she should have, so she could help me as long as she could.  But by the time I was named Empress, I had already been doing the job for more than a year.  Its been a very long time, and all that time seemed to catch up to me.  I am 76 years old now.  76...  that means my mother met my father seventy years ago, in Kundrati."

I asked her if she remembers when her mother met her father.  "Oh, well, I wasn't there," she said with a smile.  "I think I must have been in a hotel room somewhere, in Clovisport, if you can believe it.  The Likatonian government had a very different outlook on the world at that time.  It seems so long ago, but it is true.  They were more, shall we say, Seleyan oriented.  The President of that nation put my mother and father together at the same table.  He didn't ask either of them what they thought of that.  But:  I think he thought he was doing Fredrick a favor by introducing him to my mother.  And you might say, the magic happened."

"Would you say it was love at first sight?" I asked.

"Well, if not, it was something like that," said the Princess.  "My mother always said my father liked her because she was so smart and because she always knew what she wanted, and I think my mother loved my father's sense of humor, his kindness and his honesty.  These are admirable characteristics in anyone taken by themselves.  But for them to be grouped together in such quantity in two people who only accidentally met one another, well, I think was what you might call complete serendipity.  They were a perfect match for one another, and during their whole time together, those were some of my happiest memories in my early life.  I've had a lot of other happy times together, but none come close to that.  And then it was all over."  The smile fades from her face, but after a moment quickly returns, as if the Princess had suddenly become away that her mind was drifting.

"You know, my mother was really a very tragic figure," continued the Princess.

"I have heard this about Pavlina," I answered.

"Yeah.  She really tried hard to keep things together after my father was taken from us.  Much of the Kalistan you see today really found fruition under her Reign.  Kalistan may very well be one of the more powerful nations in the world.  It wasn't like that even under Nicolette The Great.  But it all seemed to get so much bigger during the time my Mother was Empress; All that work led to a massive bounty of power and influence in the world.  And she sat at the top of all that.  She had everything she could ever imagine.  And yet after my mother lost my father, she was never happy ever again.  My father's loss killed part of her, a very vital part of her.  Living with her was very soon unbearable:  She would weep for hours.  There was one time we found a bird that had fallen out of a tree, just outside this window, actually.  It was right there in the grass," Carolina said as she motioned out the window.  "My mother saw that, and went outside to check on it, as I watched from the window.  She saw that the bird was suffering, and I will never forget her face when she looked up at me with tears in her eyes, and yelled at me to get away from the window.  I was scared of her at that moment, so I ran up to my room.  She came back in five minutes later, and I didn't see her for a day.  See, she had to put the bird out of its misery.  She had to kill it to show it compassion, and it affected her seriously.  She was always on the edge of an emotional collapse."

"How did her emotional state affect you as you grew up?" I asked.

"Well, I tried to be this little miss Sunshine.  I started doing drugs in my teen years, partly to kind of tune her out, but also because it helped me feel better about life.  I was drinking a bit and smoking a lot of weed, you know...  taking acid and mushrooms and everything.  My views about the world were opened a little bit, and I think they kind of saved me, you know.  My friends turned me on to some good music, and I met some different people.  I was a kind of a wild child.  And my mother, I was pretty sure she knew about all of it, but didn't really come down hard on me for it.  She was suffering too, but had to keep it together for everyone else, you know.  So she didn't have the chance to escape the way I did.  When I went into National Service, and got to be outside all the time, doing real work, I think I realized there was more to life than living in this place which at that time was kind of like a crypt.  And then college was a lot of fun, and going to work on the Metro, all of that fortified my understanding that the problem my mother was facing didn't have to be mine.  And when I became Empress, and moved to Kaliburg, I think I had the distance from my mom to make sure I could also help care for her, while also doing the job.  I think the experience may have hardened me, but it also taught me a form of compassion for others too.  No matter how hard my life was on my worst day, it was always better than my mother's day on her best day.  It helped me be a better Empress in a way."

"In what way?"  I asked.

"I was born in a pretty lousy situation in Kundrati," said the Princess, "but I don't remember that.  My mother took me in when I was a baby.  So I have never known how hard some people have it.  I moved into an Imperial Palace and was treated like a princess by literally everyone around me.  Like very VERY powerful people were afraid to look me in the eye, and were not even allowed to call me by my first name.  Keeping my mother's situation in my mind helped me remember that there are many who suffer in this Empire, and I don't know if I would have even thought of that if I didn't have my mother there to teach me that lesson, daily, firsthand.  I think it made me a more compassionate person.  At the end, we, William and I had to make the compassionate decision for my mother like she made for that bird.  But for me, there were no tears when I finally signed the paperwork for compassionate end of life care.  My mother, the woman I had loved my entire life, wasn't there anymore.  Dementia had taken her away from me long before then.  I had already done my grieving.  The only thing there was left to do was to say good bye to her.  But her life helped me make peace with that, and realize that the kindest thing I could do for my mother was to let her go."

"Do you think your relationship with your mother affected how you raised your own children?"

"Certainly," Carolina answered with a smile.  "You all know Fredrick well.  He was a bit of a hell raiser.  Such a practical joker--sometimes I needed him to be serious, but it was exactly then that he decided that it was time to climb up a book shelf and damn near kill himself.  He was never serious about anything.  The exact opposite of my mother, who was dead serious about everything.  He was maybe closer to what I remember my father as.  And little Michelle, well, she's not so little anymore, she was different too:  She cares for everything.  She is so kind and gentle and vibrant and passionate.  Both of my children are very special to me.  But I always also wanted to prevent my kids from ever feeling that they had to take care of me, or worry about me at all.  The job I did for three decades was one I knew my own son was destined to do if he didn't tip a bookshelf over on himself or run out into the street and get killed by a car or something.  So I tried to shield him from that as long as I could.  I worked as long as he would let me, to get him ready for this hellish job.  But Michelle, I could indulge her as much as she wanted.  She has never known sorrow or suffering, and I think it has given her the freedom to care about the things that need caring about.  She reads to children.  She really feels strongly about otters and manatees and seals.  Both of my children are good.  Nobody will ever call Fred "the Black Emperor", even with this war, and all the bad stuff they did during that war.  And that is as much their character as my mother's legacy."

"Are you happy, Madame?" I asked.

Carolina smiled softly.  I know she is in her mid seventies now, but for a moment, I could see, in her face, the first photo that was published of her when she was 12.  She still has soft features despite her deep wrinkles, and radiant green eyes that can captivate, and I can say that she is still remarkably beautiful.  "I am.  William keeps me company most days.  And I will say I have more freedom now that I have ever had, really, since I first set foot in Kalistan and became a Princess.  We can walk to the Bay and watch the sea birds fish.  Or we can go play golf with Queens of foreign Countries at the country club.  We can sit in Meeting and not worry about being interrupted while we are listening for the still small voice of God.  I am even surprised that they let me into the Senior Center:  They have cribbage tournaments there each Thursday and I have won it so many times, that I only get to play non-contest rounds now to give other people a chance."  She laughs.  "How's that?!  What more can a girl ask for?"

"Do you ever travel to Kaliburg?"

"There's not much for me in that town anymore," said the Princess.  "We have to do stuff with the Order a few times a year, but many of the things I remember from when I lived there are either gone or changed.  I almost have to hire a tour guide these days like I'm some kind of tourist in my own town!  Fredrick and Monica and the girls usually come to Eveari to visit, and you know they lived up here for so long when he lost Wilson House.  Maybe Kaliburg is way busier than it used to be, maybe I'm just older and slower."

"You're still young, Madame," I declared, almost involuntarily, to try to cut off her attempt at self-deprecation.  Later I wondered why I did that, but I suppose it has something to do with the fact that for the first half of my life, this woman who is objectively old, was Kalistan's Civic Goddess of Beauty, Wisdom and Justice.  We had the Empress' coronation portrait framed and mounted in our home, right near our bookshelf in the living room, for all to see.  Her veneration was not required:  My parents, and the parents of millions of my peers did it out of respect.  Seeing her as an old, physically diminished, and very obviously mortal human, woman might have deflated that image, and I still don't think I am quite ready to let that image of her go just yet.

But:  then without missing a beat, she instantly and effortlessly re-deified herself to me.  "Haha, correct answer, young man," she said wryly.  "I do get to Dulnerstaad when I can.  Michelle and her family always take me out to see the good work she is doing at the aquarium.  She is very busy too, but the work she is doing is very good work.  Both she and Fred make me very proud."

I asked her about her plans for the future.  She smiled, and confidently said "You are looking at it kid.  You can come back every day and interview me every day if you want.  But until then, I want to keep doing what I am doing.  I am retired.  My future is a lot shorter than yours is.  So I don't really have to plan for the future anymore.  Everyday above ground with William is a blessing to me.  We read to one another, you know?" 

"I did not know that," I answered.

"We read Bennots very often.  I should have been a socialist," the former Absolute Sovereign of the Empire of Ananto and Kalistan and the Empress of the Anantonese Empire said with a laugh.  "My daughter gave me this book, Ethical Socialism for my birthday last year.  William is, I guess a little more sympathetic to that communist's ideas than I am, but the more I read them, the more they make sense.  Couse, he's Kalistani.  That populist mantra is more in his blood than mine.  I only saw the value of popular participation in Government when I was no longer in charge of it."

"Would you recommend it to His Imperial Majesty?"

The Princess looked at me as if I just asked the most absurd question imaginable.  "Absolutely not!"  She laughed heartily at the irony of the question.  "Besides, Michelle has probably already given him a copy.  I have no doubt it is buried on his desk under a mountain of far more important reading.  Like flow reports from the Nevaran dams.  But me, I can read it and not have to worry about how it will ruin this nation."

We spent another half hour talking while I finished a refreshing glass of lime punch.  We were ultimately rejoined by the former Prince Consort, His Highness Prince William Ananto-Sandoval, and the two elderly Kalistanis posed for a picture for my magazine before I bid them both farewell.

"Thank you, so much for coming by," said Her Imperial Majesty, Empress Carolina I Ananto, one final time.  "I really enjoyed talking with you today."

@LaModa