Around the World With Auntie Mame (22 page)

Maxl, who had an eye for handsome women—and rich ones—was putting himself out to charm Vera and he fairly bubbled over with new and interesting topics of conversation. “Yes, dear lady, before the Great War things were different for us. We had our great house in Vienna, convenient to the palace, and of course our
Kronlands
in Mähren. Our estate was huge and it was a latifundium—entailed, as you English say— passed down from father to son, not to be sold. Of course we never had to do anything about them. We noble families simply hired some smart Jew to run them at enormous profits.”

“Re-ahlly?” Vera said. “Well, it's nice you don't have to do that here. Samuel Insull himself couldn't put this place in the black.”

I sniggered into my soup, sending a fine spray of consommé into the centerpiece.

“Vera,” Auntie Mame said and cleared her throat.

“Ay mean,” Vera said, again in her elegant British English, “the terrain araound Stinkenbach is so glawdious that it would be crrrriminal to rrrruin it with anything that made mere moneh.”

“Quite right,” Basil said, looking uneasy.

At that point Putzi took over the conversation, all winning smiles and courtly nods, the very picture of the charming aristocratic worldling. Granted that he had once charmed me, too, I now saw him as nothing but a suave, slick, slimy con man who'd sell his name, his country, his own mother for a well-made suit of clothes, first-class accommodations, and the vague promise of being made a
Gauleiter
once his people had been properly betrayed. “Ah, yes, you're so right, Lady Fitz-Hugh.” Vera wouldn't have a title until Basil's father died, but Putzi was laying it on thick. “As I told Mame when she bought this land, there is a fortune to be made here—especially in the winter when we have snow.”

Friedl shuddered and hugged her thin blue arms.

“With this huge house as a hotel—a few minor improvements, naturally—Stinkenbach would be a great winter resort. Of course, no one in our family could go into trade, but with you Americans it's different. You know we Austrians have never been a very clever people when it comes to being opportunistic or being smart at business. But think what a joke it will be when skiers from all over Europe are coming to this very house to make Stinkenbach a rich village and Mame a richer woman. Naturally, I would remain to . . .”

“I don't quite see what you mean about Austrians not being very clever
or
very opportunistic, Putzi,” I said, unable to stop myself. “Why, look at your little Austrian house painter, Adolf Schicklegruber. He started from nothing and now he's climbed over everybody's neck to the very top. And when it comes to being smart at business . . .”

“Patrick!” Auntie Mame snapped. She half rose from her chair and her eyes were blazing. “That's enough,” she said more quietly. “Please don't interrupt when others are talking.”

I noticed that Putzi's knuckles were white—white as Friedl's face—as he gripped his wineglass.

“Come now, old boy,” Basil said blandly, “Hitler's done some jolly good things in Germany.”

I was so shocked that I was just barely conscious of Poldi racing up the three flights of stairs that joined the dining room to the kitchen with a hot, puffy
Salzburger Nockerln
.

“Of course he has,” Vera said. Hannes's handsome automaton's head bobbed wildly up and down.

“Ah, poor young American boy,” Putzi said with a maddening smile, “you make a mistake so common to countries where there is a classless society. Of course Hitler is a hero, but only a peasants' hero. The aristocracy—even the upper classes—hardly consider him at all.”

“It seems to me that there are quite a lot of so-called aristocrats around here who are only too happy to sell their souls to Hitler—for money, of course.”

“
Patrick!
” Auntie Mame cried. She was standing now. “Leave the room immediately! I will
not
have my friends insulted by a rude, know-it-all schoolboy. Go to your room!”

“You're damned right I will,” I bellowed. Throwing down my napkin I stalked out.

“Pleece . . .” Friedl murmured, but I heard no more.

For the third time that day I slammed into my room in a fury. I ripped off my clothes and got into bed. But it was still too early to sleep. I tossed and turned for who knows how long. Finally, just as I was beginning to doze off, I was awakened by the sound of talking out on the battlement. Listening a moment, I recognized the voices of Maxl and, of all people, Vera.

“Ah, the visssssta!” Vera was saying.

“Yes, gracious lady,” Maxl purred, “below us the lights of Stinkenbach-im-Tirol.”

“Yais,” Vera said, “both of them.” Then she giggled prettily and said, “Oh, Baron,
please
!”

“Oh, gracious lady,” Maxl groaned, “if only I had a beautiful, understanding goddess like you to love me instead of stupid Friedl. Tell me—a friend of mine has a shooting lodge at Zell am Ziller. Could you come there with me?”

“Aoh, Bedden von Haodenlohern, Ay hoddly knaow what to say!”

“Say yes, gracious lady. Think, just you and me in the mountains.”

“Ay'm tawn—teddibly tawn. May hot says yais—yais, yais, yaiss. But rrreason tells meh nay. Thiss grahnd ah-moo-ah we now knaow mate well tunn into a sssawdid beck-street ah-fay-ah.”

“No, no, no,” Maxl moaned.

“Yais, yais, yais! End be-sades, there is may husband. Ah, yew may think of him as the calmest of men—plessid and maild. But let meh tell yew, he is a beeeeessst! Yais, a beast! Aoh, yew dun't knaow haow Ah suffah! He gaoes med with jealouseh. He
beats
meh! And he has killed—yais,
slaughtered
— innocent young subalterns for even
looking
at meh. If he but knieuw that yew end Ay hed staolen away from the potty faw thiss brief maoment togethah, Ay kent eemejin
what
he mate do.”

“Maxl! Maxl!” It was Putzi's voice.

“Gao naow, quickleh,” Vera said, “Ay heah the othahs coming. Ay shall give yew may ahn-sah tomoddaow!”

“That's right,” I bellowed, “get the hell off the back fence and give human beings a chance to sleep! And you on your honeymoon, Vera Charles!” With that I banged the French door shut so hard that one of the panes shattered. “My God,” I said aloud, “the whole world's gone crazy.” Only later did I realize that Vera was repeating word for word the big love scene from one of her greatest Broadway hits,
The Heart of
Lalage de Trop
.

After a night of horrible dreams, I was awakened by the sound of something scraping on the floor of my room. I looked up just in time to see a note being slid under my door. Snatching it up, I opened it and read it. There, in Hannes's carefully drawn Germanic script, was an invitation, of sorts. It read:

Will you join my brother Maximilian and me on a walk
in the mountains? We would be happy to show you the
old Schloss Stinkenbach. We can be ready to go when it is
convenient for you.

Faithfully,
Johannes von Hodenlohern

Next to attending my own wake, I couldn't think of many things I'd rather do less, but as dreary as Maxl and Hannes were, at least they weren't actively in the pay of the Nazis. I opened the door and stepped out into the cold corridor just in time to see Hannes starting down the stairs. “Fine,” I said. “Just swell. I'd love to come with you, just as soon as I get dressed.”

“Fifteen minutes, then?” Hannes said with one of his rare smiles.

“Fifteen minutes.”

THE THREE OF US MADE ANODD PICTURE AS WE SET off. Hannes, all boots,
Lederhosen
, muscles, and sun tan, looked like a
Jugend
illustration for the Hitler youth movement. Even Maxl was dressed for the rugged life, his big rear end bifurcated by too-tight leather shorts. He also carried a great long rope, a revolver, and a first-aid kit. “Are we planning to scale Mount Everest or just take a hike in the hills?” I asked. I was less and less enthusiastic about this trip, but it did offer certain advantages in that I could get away from Auntie Mame and her Nazi boy friend long enough to make a few simple plans.

As we set off, I heard Auntie Mame calling, “Patrick! Patrick! Where are you going?”

I turned around. She was up on the battlement, leaning over the parapet. “Out,” I said coldly.

“No, darling. No! We're going on a picnic—Basil and Vera and Putzi and Friedl. I-I'll need you to round out the party.”

“Maybe you can get the Görings to join you—a charming couple. Where are you going, Berchtesgaden?” Maybe I shouldn't have said that, I thought, because Hannes and Maxl exchanged the fisheye with one another.

“Patrick. Wait! I forbid you to . . .”

I turned around and thumbed my nose at her. “Come on,” I said.

THE OLD, ORIGINAL, RUINEDSCHLOSS STINKENBACH didn't
look
terribly much higher up than the fourteenth-century version, but it was quite a hike and almost all of it straight up. It was some climb, and more than once I was grateful for Maxl's length of rope. Maxl was puffing like a grampus after the first hour, I was parched and winded, and even Hannes, our Strength through Joy boy, was panting a bit.

“Let's rest here, shall we?” Hannes said. Again he favored me with a frosty smile and tossed down his rucksack. “You are thirsty?” he asked, taking out two tall thin bottles of wine.

“A little,” I said.

“Here.” Hannes poured a tremendous amount into a cup and passed it to me. It looked like quite a lot of wine for so early in the day—especially since they had urged me not to wait for breakfast.

“Isn't—isn't there any water?” I said.

“Ah, water. Oh, yes, but not until we get up to the old fortress. Drink this now. We are nearly there.”

I gulped the wine down, and before I could say no, Hannes had filled the cup again.

“D-don't you two want any?”

“Oh, no,” Hannes said, thumping his chest. “I'll wait until we get to the water. Too much wine is bad for the body. Just look at my brother Maxl.” Maxl was, indeed, a sight, lying there in the shade of some trees and panting like an old mastiff.

I finished the second cup of wine and wisely refused a third, although I was still very thirsty.

“Now come look at the view,” Hannes said. “Over here.”

I was a little weary of looking at views, which seemed to be the sole occupation of Stinkenbach, but I trudged dutifully after Hannes as he strolled athletically to the very lip of an abyss. “See,” he said genially, “all Austria at our feet.” He put his arm around my shoulder affectionately. I rather wished he hadn't. From time to time Hannes made me think of those rare types who are never happier than when chinning themselves and being manly—
except
when, behind locked doors, they find solace in a blonde wig and Mother's old evening wrap. Besides, there was a sheer drop of several hundred feet right at the tips of our shoes.

“Look,” Hannes said, squeezing my shoulder slightly, “directly below you can see the
Schloss
and all the people there—like little insects.” I looked down dizzily. What he said was true. There, indeed, was Schloss Stinkenbach, sprawling out in all directions. I could see Poldi putting out a wash behind the castle. Auntie Mame's Rolls and Basil's two-seater were standing in the driveway. I could also see fields and outbuildings I had never known existed. “Look,” I said, pointing to two brightly colored specks, “there's Auntie Mame and there's Vera—Mrs. Fitz-Hugh, I mean—but what are they doing over there in that field so far from the . . .” I said no more. Hannes's grip on me tightened and I felt something cold and metallic at the back of my neck. It was sleepy old Maxl with his revolver.

“Now my fine young socialist friend,” Hannes said, “prepare yourself for an accident while climbing in the mountains of your aunt's estate. The rope, Maxl.
Der Strick
.”

“Hey,” I said, “what do you think you're . . .”

“I think I am binding you with this rope,” Hannes said. “We shall wait until they leave for their picnic. Then will be the time for your fatal fall. The poor American drank too much wine, and . . .”

Realizing that I was dealing with a pair of lunatics, I tried to be reasonable. “But, Hannes, if they find me all tied up they'll know it wasn't an accident.”

“You will be untied—at the bottom. When you are discovered you will look entirely naturalistic. Maxl . . .” Hannes began saying something in rapid, colloquial German as I felt the rope tightening around me. No need to struggle, however. One false step and I'd have been over the edge and dead—quite naturalistically enough.

“Hannes! Maxl! This is . . .” I said no more. A wide strip of adhesive tape from the first-aid kit was slapped over my mouth. Hannes and Maxl worked with calm efficiency, laughing and joking in German. For such feckless slobs, they were pretty good operators. I was bound and gagged to a fare-thee-well before I even had much time to consider that this was The Bitter End.

When I was nicely trussed up, Hannes smiled at me and said, “Ah, look down below. See. The cars are leaving.” Then he slapped me calmly back and forth across the face. “This is for good-by. Maxl . . .” Just then there was an explosion that rocked the whole mountain. I mean the impact of it knocked all three of us down. Lying there with my head hanging over the edge of the cliff, I could see smoke and flames belching from one of the outbuildings down at Schloss Stinkenbach. There was another explosion that shook the whole mountainside, and yet another building on the estate went up.

“
Gott!
” Hannes screamed. “
Der Zeughaus!
”

Together the two Von Hodenlohern brothers started running down the hill, leaving me there halfway over the edge of the precipice. I struggled, but rather gingerly—considering my delicate position. The second explosion was followed by a third and then a fourth. Then I felt a hand on me, tugging me backward. I flipped over and looked up into the red-brown face of Captain Basil Fitz-Hugh. Well, I thought, it doesn't really matter
who
finishes me off—one Nazi is just as good as another.