Around the World With Auntie Mame (18 page)

“Don't think this is any big comedy, Dollfeather,” I bellowed over the roar of the motor.

“It's a riot—in every sense of the word—Cupcake,” she yelled back. “I think we'll catch the next train for Austria— Vienna, I guess. After all, Vienna lot of trouble. Ha
ha
ha
ha
ha
ha
!”

“You're damned right we are and don't forget that this is a police state, we're driving stolen property, and
you're
the hottest thing in Italy. We'll probably get a gallon of castor oil apiece when they catch us.”

“Nonsense, my little love.” Auntie Mame laughed. “In Italy what could be better—a police boat with a monk at the helm. Why, I couldn't be safer with Il Duce himself. Now, off to the station.
Precipitevolisimevolmente!
”

Auntie Mame in Her Mountain Retreat

“AND OF COURSE WE WENT TO AUSTRIA,” I SAID. “Auntie Mame was violently anti-Nazi and refused to go near Germany. However, you never used to run into that sort of thing in Austria—at least not in 1937.”

“Austria seems an odd place for a woman like your aunt to visit. What was she up to?”

“My aunt is a jewel of many facets,” I said pompously. “Actually she was interested in a real-estate venture and made quite a pretty penny during her Austrian visit. It was also very healthy for both of us, as we spent most of our time high in the Tyrolean alps. In fact, I think I have some snapshots upstairs. I'll show them to you. Excuse me, dear.”

I went upstairs and counted to a thousand. At 956 I was saved. The telephone rang. When Pegeen finally finished talking, she'd more or less forgotten about the whole thing. Feeling safer, I took a cautious sip of my drink.

ACH, MY LITTLE LOVE, ”Auntie Mame said, pushing back from our table at Am Franziskanerplatz, “such a good dinner—Rindsuppe mit Nudeln, Butterteigpastetchen mit Geflügelragout, Rahmschnitzel mit Hausgemachten
Nudeln, Essiggurken
, and
Nussrollade mit Schokoladeüberzug
. Too
gemütlich
!”

“Kind of fattening, also,” I said.

“Nonsense, darling. Now be a dear and give me a light. Are you
sure
you wouldn't like one of these?”

“No thanks,” I said. “Lucky Strikes are good enough for me.”

“
Ach
, no spirit of adventure.” Auntie Mame poked a cigar at least a foot long into one corner of her mouth, inhaled deeply, and had a frightful coughing fit.

“Do you really
like
smoking those stogies?” I asked, knowing that she didn't.

“
Ja
wohl, Liebchen
!” she lied. “It's so utterly Viennese.” She blew a big smoke ring up over my head, said, “
Rechnung,
bitte
,” to the waiter and, the cigar still clenched between her teeth, began to draw on her long, black gloves.

In less than a week Auntie Mame had grown more Viennese than the Danube itself. She began each morning in her big tufted bedroom in the Hotel Sacher with an early snack of coffee and rolls, then
Gabelfruhstuck
—which usually included a couple of big sausages, a schooner of beer, coffee, and maybe a side order of goulash—at eleven. That usually held her until she was able to make it to lunch. Around four in the afternoon there was her
kleine Jause
, which featured coffee, lots of whipped cream, and several dozen pastries. We dined at seven or eight. She spent her days strolling the Ring, saying “
ja
” and “
bitte
” for no reason at all, and going to Farnhamer on the Kärntnerstrasse for a lot of new costumes which were straight out of
The Merry Widow
. I mean her getups were so very Viennese that even the Viennese stared at her. But as though the picture hats, the plumes, the boas, the muffs, and the ten pounds she had already gained weren't enough, the big cigars were the newest fillip to transform Auntie Mame into the true
Alt Wien gnädige Frau
. It was just too much.

“Now, my little love,” she said, inexpertly flicking an ash, “off to the Volksoper for
eine kleine Nachtmusik
.”

“Oh God, what's for tonight?
The Student Prince? The White
Horse Inn? Der Zigeunerbaron?
”

“No,
Liebchen
, it's
Die Pillangóprinzessin. Auf Wiedersehn
,” she said to the waiter and tripped out to a waiting taxi in an aura of plumes and cigar smoke.

Auntie Mame puffed furiously away at her cigar all the long distance to the Volksoper and said, “
Alt
Wien
!” several times. I was quite dizzy from the cigar smoke, and it seemed to me that Auntie Mame was looking a trifle peaked. Nonetheless, she descended from the cab with a twitch of her boa, tossed her cigar butt into the gutter, and minced into the theater, all satin and feathers and saucy light-operatic tosses of her head.

Die Pillangóprinzessin
had already begun, but since I'd been dragged to an operetta every night since we'd arrived in Vienna, I knew just about what to expect. It was the usual Austro-Hungarian strudel about a lovely Graustarkian princess who, in order to avoid marrying the unknown princeling her mean uncle, the regent, is trying to foist off on her, runs off to a quaint alpine village disguised as a goose girl, where she falls in love with a dashing young lieutenant of the guards, little wotting that he is a Graustarkian prince who, in order to avoid marrying the unknown princess his mean uncle, the regent, is trying to foist off on him, runs off to a quaint alpine village disguised as a lieutenant of the guards, where . . . Well, you get the idea.

The first act drew to a thundering finale with a sweet duet between the two stars—whose combined age was just over a hundred and whose combined weight was just under five hundred—that established their love pretty firmly. Although considering their years, sizes, and corseting, I couldn't imagine how they'd ever be able to consummate it. The Viennese adored it. Auntie Mame pretended to. I didn't even try.

“Well, off to the lobby for a good cigar,” Auntie Mame said without too much conviction. She looked awfully pale, but she was still full of the old Viennese spirit. “Isn't
Die Pillangóprinzessin
tuneful, darling, and have you ever seen anything so lovely as that sweet butterfly ballet?”

“Not since the Hippodrome closed,” I said.

“
Pillangó
means butterfly in Hungarian,” she said, ostentatiously flourishing her petit-point cigar case.

“Do tell,” I said. “Are you sure you're feeling all right?”

“Nonsense,
Gansel
, I never felt better,” she said, lighting up her cigar to the horror of all the dumpy
Hausfraus
standing nearby. She took a couple of drags and got even paler.

“What's the matter, Auntie Mame?” I asked, watching her go from white to yellow to green to gray.

“N-nothing, Patrick, it's just that it's so . . . so very close in here,” she stammered, puffing weakly again at the cigar.

“I think maybe those cigars are bigger than you are,” I ventured. “Or
almost
as big.”

“D-don't be silly, darling. All the smart Viennese women smoke them. Besides, I love the bouquet of a good . . .” Her eyes rolled heavenward and then Auntie Mame swooned, with a flutter of feathers, into the thick of the crowd. There was quite a lot of commotion and people shouting things I couldn't understand in German. Then I saw Auntie Mame being carried out to the street in the arms of a tall, handsome young man.

Pushing my way through the crowd, I got to the pavement just in time to see Auntie Mame being deposited in a taxi. “
Achtung
!” I called. “
Halte
!” thus exhausting my German. “
Attendez!
Hey, wait a second!”

Auntie Mame's savior turned and gave me a charming smile. “You need not worry, sir,” he said, “I speak English.”

“Oh, that's nice,” I said. “Well, thank you very much.”

“At your service,” he said, clicking his heels smartly. I tried to do the same and knocked my ankle bones together most painfully.

“Well, thanks again,” I said. He didn't look like the sort of person one would tip, dressed as he was in a faultlesaly tailored English suit. “I'll just take my aunt back to the hotel.”

“Please,” he said. “I insist. I shall accompany you. What gentleman could do less?”

“That's very nice of you, but I can manage,” I said crowding into the cab beside Auntie Mame's supine body. “Besides, the operetta isn't over yet.”

“Nonsense,” the man said forcefully, getting in behind me. “I am, after all, a Hodenlohern.”

“W-we're Americans,” I said.

“Your address?” he asked, cutting off any further protests.

BY THE TIME WE GOT BACK TO SACHER'S IN THE Philharmonikerstrasse, Auntie Mame was moaning softly, her eyelids aflutter. I tried to pay off the driver, but Auntie Mame's knight in armor, flaunting an alligator billfold and a torrent of colloquial German was there ahead of me. “Well, thank you very much again,” I said decisively. “We really can't ruin your whole evening. I can get my aunt upstairs alone. Thank you very much.”

“Shut up!” Auntie Mame said out of the corner of her mouth. She gave me a vicious jab with her elbow, then her arm fell limply, and she sighed, “
Ach,
Gott
!” She stepped weakly down from the taxi and then managed another neat faint, right into the arms of her good-looking swain. That just about took care of that. He picked her up and carried her to our suite, where she reposed—all pale languor—in her tufted bonbon box of a sitting room. The picture of limpid frailty was somewhat diminished the three times Auntie Mame scooted off to the bathroom to be sick and when the physician I had summoned told her that the only thing the matter with her was gluttony and cigars. But she managed to keep her cavalier around long enough to change into a filmy peignoir and to send down for a bottle of champagne. Neither of them paid much attention when I excused myself and turned in.

I awakened the next morning to find Auntie Mame already up. She was doing a pretty hesitation waltz all by herself in the sitting room, humming “
Ich
War So Gern Einmal Verliebt
” (Kreisler), her nose buried in a huge bouquet. I watched and listened for three asinine bars before she saw me. Flustered, she said good morning and set to work arranging her floral tribute.

“Feeling better?” I asked.

“Oh, divine, my little love,” she said, humming away. “And aren't these flowers lovely? The
Zimmermädchen
just brought them up.”

A card fluttered out of the bouquet. I picked it up. It read simply:
Freiherr Werner von Hodenlohern
.

“Who's this?” I asked, flashing the card.

“Why, dear, that's Baron von Hodenlohern, the charming gallant who rescued me at the Volksoper last night.”

“My God, is he expecting you to die?”

“Certainly not! But isn't he nice? So handsome and so polished. Bursting with healthy youth and yet so
weltlich
.”

“So
what
?”

“Worldly. I really haven't met a man who interested me so since . . . well, since . . .”

“Since last week?” I said.

“Oh, this is nothing like that. But last night's chance meeting with Putzi . . .”

“With what?”

“Putzi. That's Werner's . . . I mean the baron's nickname.”

“I see. Go on.”

“Oh, well, it's nothing really, Patrick. But I
do
find it so interesting to get to know people from other lands—I mean really well. That is, I mean to say . . .” The telephone interrupted her. “Oh!” she said into the mouthpiece. “Oh,
yes
!
Do
come up.”

“Who was that? The doctor again?”

“No, Patrick, it's Putzi. I mean Baron von Hodenlohern. He's asked me to luncheon at the Kursalon. Keep him entertained while I make myself presentable.” For a sick woman, she moved awfully fast toward her bedroom, and I could hear her singing just as there was a rapping on the door.

Putzi—I can think of him by no other name—clicked his heels smartly and marched in, a symphony in browns from his Homburg right down to his suède shoes. On a lesser man the outfit might have been considered foppish, but Baron von Hodenlohern was so natural, carried himself with such a relaxed military bearing that the total effect was very pleasant.

“My aunt will be ready in just a few minutes,” I said. “Please sit down.”

He seated himself elegantly on one of the little Maria Theresa chairs, smiled, and offered me a cigarette from an alligator case.

A little hard put for any common subject of conversation except Auntie Mame's cigar smoking, I said, “Do you go to the Volksoper often?”

“Oh, yes,” Putzi said charmingly. “Whenever I'm in Vienna I try to go. I'm very fond of music.” Well, after that there was no need to try to make conversation. Putzi told me all about his favorite operas at the Staatsoper, his favorite operettas at the Volksoper, his favorite Heurige singers at Grinzing, how he had organized a glee club as a young cadet in the Theresianum, how he and his brothers had always sung back home, and how he never missed the music at Christmas Eve mass in the Church of St. Maria am Gestade. That was the nice thing about him, you didn't have to work to keep a conversation going—just throw Putzi a line and he was on. I've probably made him sound like a windbag, but he wasn't. Everything he said was interesting and it was always said with great warmth and friendliness.

“You certainly speak English well,” I said.