Page 19 of The Winter Princess
I’m puzzled by Père’s half-smile, the way Clara is stifling a laugh behind her hand, and how touchy my brother looks about something that shouldn’t matter. When the meeting rushes on, I feel the heavy drag of a current I don’t understand.
At the conclusion, Caroline draws me aside to put my request to Mama.
“Yes.” Mama’s eyes narrow and she begins to nod. “Yes. He holds the purse strings. but let’s see if we can box Torbald into a corner,” she says, rattling off a list of instructions to Caroline as she sweeps from the room. That’s the first hurdle cleared.
By mid-afternoon, I’m in Mama’s sitting room as Prime Minister Torbald is announced. He’s the ninth prime minister of my mother’s reign, and though I’ve never asked her to rank them, most agree that the worst was Prime Minister Miecyslaw, whose personal aide—and mistress—was an actual communist spy. With his overweening narcissism, his barely-veiled attempts to dethrone Mama, and his ever-ready willingness to stab people in the back, I suspect creeping, disheveled Minister Torbald is on the next rung up.
You wouldn’t know it to observe her in action. Mama rises when he enters the room, just as she would have for any of them, and extends her hand. He slouches over it and nods to me.
After dispensing with official business—the citizenship proposal he’s putting before Parliament, the appointment of a new Work and Pensions Minister—Caroline brings a tray of coffee, moving through the room as quietly as a mouse. I pour out and pass cups and saucers around, listening with half an ear as conversation shifts to the unseasonably fine weather, the harvest festivals, and the prime minister’s two young daughters.
“I’ve long admired what an involved parent you are,NeerTorbald. I’ve brought my daughter today because she’s the patron of The National Museum and is concerned about its future. It would be a great favor to me if you heard one another out.”
Nicely done, Mama.
“Ah,” he says, rubbing a spot behind his ear.
“The press has given you quite a difficult time,” I say, carefully laying the groundwork. “Feelings are running high.”
Mama has arranged this meeting and given me tips about how best to approach Torbald, but I must do this on my own. The prime minister’s decision to cut funding was rash, she told me. He’ll want to wriggle out of the worst of the consequences, and I can provide a way for him to do that.
“If I can’t take a punch on an editorial page, I don’t belong in this business,” he says, inhaling a cinnamon cookie and wiping the crumbs from his mouth with a thumb and forefinger. “The Nat is hemorrhaging money, even if you account for Director Knauss’s excesses, and I have to consider the needs of my people.”
Mama’s brow notches and I can almost see a thought bubble forming over her head, spiky with irritation.My people.
I set my teacup down, fastening a pleasant smile on my lips. “Perhaps there’s a happy solution that might benefit everyone.”
Even as these words leave my mouth, I feel how inane they are. As Mama likes to say, there are no elegant answers, only messy compromises.NeerTorbald needs to catch a break with the press. I need to restore funding to the museum. There must be some trade-off he’d accept.
“Would you reverse your decision if we raised the percentage of operating costs that comes from charitable donations? From twenty-one percent,” I offer, “to, say, twenty-six?”
NeerTorbald barks a laugh. “So more of the rich can park their millions and dodge tax penalties?”
I swallow. This hurdle would be easier to clear if Prime Minister Torbald was a stupid man, but stupidity is not one of his sins. For the sake of The Nat, I try again. “I hope we can find some area of compromise that doesn’t involve withdrawing funds from such a well-loved institution.”
The prime minister’s eyes narrow.
“It’s not though, is it?” he answers. “The numbers don’t lie. The name over the door says ‘The National Museum’ but every time I go it’s either very empty or full of the very wealthy.”
“On the contrary,” I counter, scrambling for concrete information to bolster my argument. “Just yesterday I saw a young mother with a stroller. And…there was an older gentleman with a cane. The young and old together, the very breadth and depth of Sondmark.”
Mama’s thought bubble readsThis is not our finest moment.
Torbald’s eyes gleam. “What specific illustrations.”
I do hate it when one’s adversaries have a point. Worse, when it’s a good one. One of the reasons I love The Nat so much is because, except at the height of tourist season, I can wander for hours without the jostling of crowds.
NeerTorbald strikes his palm against his thigh. “I’ve absolutely made up my mind. The Nat must justify itself. If people don’t come, why bother having a museum at all?”
My eyes meet my mother’s, and she tips her head in sympathy. She can’t do more than this and what power she holds in Sondmark must be exercised strategically. Though the museum is important to me, it’s not high on her agenda. If she spends political capital here, she won’t have it to spend on some other project.
I take a breath.
“You say The Nat needs more visitors. What if we improve in that area?”
He gestures for me to proceed, and my mind explodes, spitting out an entire projector screen’s worth of brainstorming in less than a second. I quickly strike through several ideas—some of them bad (free tote bags with a verified visit), some of them very bad (compulsory museum attendance for the right to vote in the next election). I light on one that sounds sane.
“I propose a trial period. We don’t change the funding until the staff has a chance to get the numbers up.”
