Biografi by Lloyd Jones Page B

black colours around her shoulders, the crowd gathered below took this as a promising omen and roared its approval. On the day of the wedding, King Zog declared a three-day celebration. Tribesmen from all over the country—the Ghegs from the north and the Tosks from the south—gathered in Tirana to witness the event. Fifty other couples who had chosen this day for their marriage gathered in Skanderbeg Square. They were all given a Queen’s dowry consisting of a bed, blankets and two pillows.
    Among the wedding gifts received by Zog and his new queen were four prancing white Lipizzaner horses from the Regent of Hungary—a handsome phaeton to transport the bride on her wedding day. Hitler sent a ‘long scarlet supercharged Mercedes with a removable roof and white leather upholstery’. Mussolini gave four copper vases.
    Zog was suff iciently moved to declare an amnesty for hundreds of his political enemies, many of whom had sworn to kill him after the Albanian tradition of blood feud.
    Queen Geraldine cut the three-metre-wide wedding cake with the King’s sabre—and later they drove to Durrës for the honeymoon. In Durrës the King gently ushered his young bride over the threshold of a marble pavilion he had built especially for her.
    The King showed his bride the large reception room furnished in Louis XIV style. They ‘discovered’ the bedroom. The King cleared his throat and left the room briefly. A maid handed Geraldine a white silk nightgown. She disappeared, and Geraldine slipped between the sheets and waited.
    â€˜Quickly and passionately Zog possessed her. Not as a King but as a proud son of the Eagles…His bride was no different from other virgins. No one can explain the deep personal shock and physical discomfort of a woman when she is made love to for the first time…[Geraldine] lay softly whimpering into her pillow as the King left her side and retired to a chaise longue at the other end of the room.’
    There was a moment’s embarrassment in the morning. The maid was terribly upset because she had lost the Queen’s nightgown. And when Geraldine put the matter to the King, Zog blushed. He said he had required the nightgown as proof of her virginity. Parliament required such proof. It was a matter of protocol and accordingly Zog had sent Geraldine’s silk nightgown along to the President.
    The birth of Leka I was celebrated by a military parade, the largest Albania had ever staged. As the people cheered ‘Our life for the King and the Crown Prince’, a squadron of Italian planes swooped low over the city and white leaflets carrying a slanderous attack on King Zog fluttered down into the streets.
    It was a difficult time for Zog. Mussolini’s Fascists had presented him with a list of demands—military bases to be established on the coast and inland, the harbours and roads were to come under control of the Italian army, and Italian interests were to be observed by revising all civil service appointments. In return, Zog could keep the throne and receive a new loan.
    Two hours after rejecting the Italian demands, the Albanian Parliament decided that Zog and his ministers must leave the country at once.
    At 3 a.m. the Italians started their invasion on the coast south of Tirana, in Vlorë. Geraldine, who was still recuperating from the difficult birth of Prince Leka, had to be carried down the palace stairs on a mattress and bundled into a waiting car. So hasty was the departure that Geraldine left Tirana in only the nightgown she wore—the maid had packed her furs but overlooked the need for dresses and underwear. Geraldine and Leka sat in the back of a Chrysler. In the door the King bowed and kissed the baby on the head. To Geraldine he said, ‘Oh God…It was so short.’
    The next day Mussolini’s son-in-law, Ciano, who had attended the wedding of Zog and Geraldine, arrived in Tirana on a new errand. He rushed from