in the middle of fields, usually wearing a silvery-looking suit with matching trilby and carrying a bunch of flowers, like a prodigal son, who has made it successfully into the ranks of the bourgeoisie, returning to visit an aged mother in a hut. Sometimes he was depicted, but usually only in more sophisticated surroundings such as the foyers of tourist hotels, straining to his bosom pampered little girls, of the sort popular with his hero and mentor, Stalin, some of whom were wrapped in equally silvery furs.
‘Shall we be able to see him in Tirana?’ was the first question we asked the Albanian interpreter who would be accompanying us on our tour and who was about thirty-five with streaks of black hair plastered down over a brainy-looking noddle, like a baddie in a Tintin book. He looked at us as if we were a couple of loonies.
The first Albanian I ever met, and the last for some twenty-five years, was Zog, the King of Albania.
It was in Egypt in 1942, and I was spending my leave from the Western Desert in a rather grand house in Alexandria. While I was breakfasting with my hostess, the chef appeared, as he always did at this time of the morning, in order to receive his instructions for the day.
‘There will be twenty to luncheon,’ she said as she did more often than not, at least whenever I was staying in the house, addressing him in French, and the chef inclined his head without batting an eyelid. And to me, ‘I do hope you will come. I am sure the King will enjoy talking to you.’ They then went on to consider the menu in detail.
The King was then forty-nine years old, very tall and very thin and dark with a razor-sharp moustache of the sort I later learned was much affected by Albanians. His Queen, Geraldine Apponyi, a Hungarian countess, was extremely good-looking, if not downright saucy-looking.
The King spoke French with his host and hostess and the various other guests of high rank who were present. From what I could hear he appeared, rather like Edward VIII, to be interested in trivia; but he looked a tough customer. I never spoke to the King or the Queen, being a very junior officer of no consequence. Instead, I got a rocket from a general who was also present for wearing a flannel suit instead of uniform. I told him that my uniform was in a bad state of repair and that it was being mended by an upstairs maid, which impressed him. ‘I don’t have an upstairs maid,’ he said, with unconcealed regret. He also asked me what I was doing and I told him that I wasn’t allowed to tell him as it was supposed to be secret, which was true but didn’t go down very well either. Altogether, it was not a luncheon easily forgotten.
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