Thursday, September 8, 2022, will be remembered as a historic day perhaps no less than September 11, 2001. Rumors about the imminent death of Queen Elizabeth II exploded all over it. The WhatsApp arena was boiling and was like a concoction. The BBC entered into an emergency procedure, with “special broadcasts” from the bed of a unit in Scotland (that is, not from the bed itself, but from the gates of Balmoral Castle) of His Highness, and grim-faced broadcasters in black clothes conveyed to us, even if they were actually there, in the field and in the studios (even If they wore purple and giggled non-stop), the unequivocal message: It’s happening. It’s going to happen. It may have actually already happened (as they started to spread on WhatsApp), and we’re just waiting for the family’s and the palace’s approval to issue an official announcement.
In WhatsApp as in WhatsApp, they have already started arguing and haggling over the circumstances of death: stroke, heart attack, fall, you name it. And every speaker of course declares that he knows for sure, from a first source, or at least a seventh source. Still, you have to kill time until the official announcement.
And it was not too late to arrive. She caught me in the rain on the way to a premiere at the Young Vic. It was 6:33 p.m., and my friend H., a resident of London, texted me the news with one terrible word: “It’s over.” People were hurrying from all over to go about their business, with umbrellas or makeshift plastic covers, and it seemed that the world was going on as usual, as if an era had not ended and was beginning Another era, as if they don’t understand that Britain will never again be the Britain it was, as if people won’t ask themselves where they were when the Queen died.
Inside the entrance of the theater, the faces were already different and told most of the story. The key word was shock. The deceased was 96 years old, and how much shock can cause death at such an age, one may wonder, but you probably already know the answers. We thought she was eternal. We thought she was divine, or at least not mortal (just ask her eldest son). We thought she was the last symbol of stability in an unstable world. She is the face of Britain. The presenter of the kingdom. She is irreplaceable, in short. What will?
Back to Young Vic. The show must go on, and the line at the bar didn’t get any shorter, but it was clear that this was no ordinary premiere. The representative of the theater welcomed the guests in the full hall with these words: “An announcement has just been made about the death of the queen. We ask all of you to respect this sad moment, and the Queen, with a moment of silence, and we suggest to everyone who finds the news particularly difficult to leave the hall and return to the show another time.”
Like in that song by the trackers, nobody got up. No departures were recorded, and the minute of silence (which lasted almost two minutes) was conducted in sitting, politeness and masterly uniformity. No one messed with their phone, a woman didn’t worry about her friend’s ears, and many bowed their heads. Immediately after the performance of the single began, a morbid adaptation appropriate for the occasion (adapted by the celebrated Belgian director Yvo van Hobe, and if Belgians, the theater is in the Waterloo district, so named after the famous Battle of Waterloo that took place in Belgium in 1815 between the French army and the British and Prussian forces) of Edouard’s autobiographical book Louis, “Who Killed My Father” (without a question mark). If I may estimate, 80% of the audience was not interested in the play (poor Dutch actor Hans Casting, who carried the business on his back) and pondered what happened. More “Who Killed My queen”. Yes, mine, yours, ours, even if you came from a place where the only king is called Bibi, and what about us and all this actually.
The book by Louis, a 30-year-old Frenchman (next month), who was born when the queen was in power for only 40 years, recreates his tough childhood in a poor coastal town, as an abnormal child in a macho and violent environment, and is structured as a letter to a father who was ashamed of him and denied him (until he learned to love and respect him) . The book – and the show – soon spill over into a political “I blame” document, in which the young Louis names all the recent French presidents, as being responsible for his father’s physical and mental deterioration. Jacques Chirac, for example, canceled the subsidy for drugs for chronic diseases and sentenced his father to death , Sarkozy tightened the unemployment policy, called the unemployed “lazy” and completely closed his eyes to cases like the father who broke his back doing hard work in a local factory and then, when his disability allowance was also canceled, was forced to work as a street cleaner in a distant town, which broke his back even more.
These leaders are criminals and cold-blooded murderers, according to Louis, and they should not be allowed to escape responsibility, if not actual punishment. He calls for the breakdown of the existing system and a revolution. And then the thoughts again wander to Elizabeth II, who, despite her excessive privilege, strove – and succeeded – all her life to be the queen of all and never, as far as is known, harmed the poor and disadvantaged populations, did not interfere in politics and stayed away from revolutions like a fever. The Republican faction that calls for the abolition of the royal house is always blowing in the background, and who knows what riots it will cause at the end of the mourning period.
The rain continued to fall after the show. I boarded the subway with the Oyster card issued for the celebrations of the 60th Jubilee (Diamond Jubilee) of the Queen’s reign, exactly ten years ago, which I have kept in my wallet ever since. It was difficult to read the general atmosphere of the new world outside the theater hall. But Leumi was announced immediately, but how do you see him? How do you really feel? The trains continue to run, and nothing seems to stop. Several shops in my neighborhood were closed for a day or two, and at least one pub. People – and most of the residents in the neighborhood are first and second generation immigrants from Poland, Sri Lanka and Iran, some of whom don’t even speak English – have been talking all week just about this. At the fish and chips buffet. In the Lebanese grocery store. at the post office. All the stamps there bear the Queen’s portrait. This too will change.
The huge royal funeral (some are already protesting its “extravagance”) will be another event to be talked about for many days. I was also here when Princess Diana was killed. So the shock was complete and justified, and you could actually touch him. Diana was 36 years old and not 96. Exactly the age when the Americans’ Marilyn Monroe died (whom photos are now emerging of her at a royal premiere with the young Elizabeth), and she would like a site for the Israelis. like a candle in the wind How did such beautiful and talented women get picked so early. Where is the justice? More questions without a question mark. So what do they say now? Probably only: God, we will besiege the new king.