Around the World With Auntie Mame (37 page)

“Good morning,” I said, not bothering much with formalities. “Tell me. Is the Red Sea always this rough?”

“Ssiss not Rrred Sea.”

Realizing that he was drunk, I tried another tack. “But when are we going to land at Aden?”

“Odden? We arrrre not going to Odden. Pass Odden two, ssree days. Boat stop fairrst at Singapore in pairrheps two weeks.”

“Two
weeks
? But what about Aden, Bombay, Columbo?”

“Oh, no. Never. Always go from Piraeus to Port Said to Singapore.” With that the wireless started sending all sorts of messages, and El Greco passed out.

I put off telling Auntie Mame the news for several hours. The scene that took place when she learned that she had two more weeks aboard the
Lesbos
is too painful to relate.

The next day was worse and the day after that still worse. I saw no one save Auntie Mame on her numerous trips across the corridor. But she hadn't spoken one word to me since I told her that Singapore would be the first stop. Ito, the color of chartreuse, only pitched in his bunk babbling prayers that I was sure Dr. Shumway would never approve. I realized that we were in the midst of the equinoctial storms and, bored as I was with El Greco, I took to spending all my waking hours in the radio shack. I did this for three reasons: First, El Greco was the only person who could speak English and who had any contact with the world beyond the rickety railings of the
Lesbos
; second, because the radio shack was more comfortable than any place else; and third, because storms made El Greco so nervous that he always got drunk and stayed drunk until they were over. Considering the condition of the
Lesbos
and El Greco, I felt that it would be nice if
someone
else knew how to send an SOS. So I made El Greco teach me and even looked it up in one of his books to make certain—three dots, three dashes, three dots. And I don't think that on the fourth and worst day of the storm I wasn't sorely tempted to send out that very message when the
Lesbos
was pitched entirely out of the water and El Greco opened his sixth bottle of Retsina.

And then, as suddenly as it had begun, the storm stopped. I had slept in my life jacket after deciding that a night spent lashed to the mast would be just
too
uncomfortable and awoke to find the sea as calm as a lagoon, the sun shining, and cool breezes flapping the shredded tarpaulins of the
Lesbos
. Looking out of my porthole, I half expected to see a dove flying overhead with an olive branch in its beak. What I did see, however, was an American naval ship, the U.S.S. Hoboken, bobbing on the calm water, its personnel in hastily improvised bathing suits diving cheerfully into the water, laughing and splashing.

The sight of the U.S. Navy at play did a lot to bolster my spirits. It meant not only that the storms were over, that we were in calm water, free from shark and shipwreck, but that I was getting closer and closer to home. I dressed and went above with a song in my heart.

The captain and his men were bickering amiably, and even El Greco, fearfully hungover, offered me a wan smile and announced that Ambrose and his orchestra could be heard over the BBC.

Just before noon, Auntie Mame came up on deck in a fetching sun dress. Having been told most definitely that I was never to speak to her again, I tried to get out of her sight, but she was sunshine itself. “Good morning, my little love! Isn't it a lovely, lovely day!”

“Auntie Mame,” I said. “Are you all right? Did you suffer much?”

“Hideously, my little love. Ah, the sacrifices we make for our young! But
look
at me. I'm a size ten again. This little Vionnet model simply
hangs
on me! No diet would ever do this. Yes, I forgive you, Patrick. Now tell me, how's the
grand
amour
coming? I hope you haven't gone too far.”

I was saved from telling Auntie Mame the shameful truth by the appearance of Dr. Shumway. He, too, was thinner, but sweating just as much, even in the cool weather.

“Dr. Shumway. Good morning! Just the man I wanted most to see,” Auntie Mame said. “I've spent days in my cabin just reading my Bible so that I can discuss things intelligently with you. And I have another bit of good news: My man, Ito, also speaks Chinese, so that you can help him with his Bible study. But first there is a great favor I want to ask of you.”

“Uh, what is that? Harrrumph.”

“A prayer of thanks for our deliverance from this ghastly storm that might have finished us both off. I think it would be fun to call Ito and the whole ship's crew and your daughter, then you could do it in Chinese, Greek, and English. Please. Just for me.”

“Well, dear lady, harrumph, I don't know if there
is
such a . . .”

“Nonsense, dear Dr. Shumway, I know that if you'd simply browse through your Book of Common Prayer, you'd find something most appropriate.”

“My what?” With that Dr. Shumway went into such a barrage of throat clearing that no voice could be heard. Perspiration poured off him again.

“Excuse me, Dr. Shumway,” I said, “but isn't Rosemary coming out now that it's cool and calm?”

“Uh, harrumph, um, no. No, Rosie—my daughter is unwell. She is still, harrrrumph, fasting.”

“With all those trays I see carried to her room?” Auntie Mame said. “For all her religious fervor she certainly seems to eat better than . . .”

“Excuse me,” Dr. Shumway said and he went harrrumphing below.

“Auntie Mame!” I said. “You shouldn't have said that.”

“Why not? It was true. ‘Great is Truth, and mighty above all things.' Apochrypha Four, Forty-one. Oh, Patrick, I've been boning up on all this down in my cabin just hoping for a cosy little chat with our spiritual guide, Alfred Shumway— once the weather got cooler and he stopped oozing like a pig on a spit.”

“Auntie Mame!”

“Well, that's true, too, and I'll also tell you something else that's the plain truth. Dr. Shumway doesn't know as much about religion as I do, which is precious little. He's a shabby, shoddy little fraud and so is his daughter;
if
she's his daughter, which I sincerely doubt. My cabin is next to hers and the things I've overheard from those two weren't the Lord's Prayer. I don't know what that bogus old skunk is up to, but whatever it is he's using us as a front for those embarrassing moments when officials . . .”

“Damn it,” I said hotly, “that's a lie. Rosemary is a fine, upstanding girl. I love her and she loves me and . . .”

“Then go to her, Patrick. Go to her this instant. I insist.”

“I will!” With that I stamped down the stinking stairs. My emotions are difficult to describe. I was furious with Auntie Mame; not so much for what she had said, but because, deep down, I was afraid that she was right. Dr. Shumway was a vulgar, stinking old grease ball who didn't know the Begats from the Beguine. I also knew that I wasn't having any love affair with Rosemary. But what really hurt was knowing that Auntie Mame knew it, too. It's one thing to be a sucker, but it's even worse to have other people find out about it. I decided to go straight to Rosemary for an explanation, and I was about to pound on the door when I heard the two of them quarreling inside.

“A fine pair you picked, Rosie, my girl,” Shumway was saying in the least churchly of tones. “Here you go an' tell me you've got the ideal couple—rich Yanks an' her without a brain in her head. An' wotta yuh turn up with but a blasted Christer an' her kid.”

“Oh, bugger off, Alf,” Rosemary said, her voice thick and slurred. Gone was the delicate speech; if it wasn't quite Cockney, neither was it exactly Mount Street. “I seen her in the hotel, the travel agent's, the bar—her an' the kid an' the servant an' that big posh car—she didn't look like she knew her arse from . . .”

“Well, she does, Rosie. She knows a lot more than you do, my girl. An' small wonder, you sittin' down here on your bloody bum with your nose in a gin bottle till it looks like a cork . . .”

“Oh, come off it, Alfie.”

“No, I won't come off of it. Just eighteen,” Shumway mimicked shrilly. “My little daughter. Well your years for pullin' that are over, Rosie. Eighteen! There's a laugh. You look forty.”

“Shut your bloody mouth. I'm not yet thirty and Christ knows I oughta look old. A fine life you lead me, Alf—a bloomin' bed of roses. Sellin' guns to whoever'll pay for 'em. Mixed up with the Spanish, the Eyetalians, and now a pack of bloody Chinks. Oh, a fine life. Who'd blame me for takin' a drop now and again? Floatin' from place to place in some bloody bucket of a boat like this here one. Lookin' like Shirley Temple. No decent hair treatments. Lovin' it up with any greasy gangster you say to—an' now this kid not dry behind the . . .”

“Since when did you ever mind a little tussle, Rosie? I recall . . .”

“Well, I liked it better with the kid than with you. At least he's clean . . .”

I grasped the doorknob just as a loud report was heard. I ran up to the open deck in time to see a large, Japanese destroyer sending a second shot across the bow of the
Lesbos
.

“My God,
now
what?” Auntie Mame said, grasping my hand.

“Auntie Mame, the Reverend isn't holy at all. He's a gun-runner and that organ and all those Chinese Bibles . . . they're contraband.”

“But, darling, it's a neutral ship.”

“It's still contraband. The Chinese-Japanese war.”

The
Lesbos
came to a halt, and the Japanese destroyer, not a hundred feet away, prepared to send over a boarding party.

“What can we do, darling? They'll probably draft Ito.”

“Stall them,” I said. “Stall them as long as you can.”

Then I dashed up to the radio shack. El Greco was lying on his bunk listening to Hal Kemp and easing his hangover with the dregs of a bottle of Retsina.

“Hhhhello,” he said furrily.

“Hi!” I said. “How about cracking out another bottle of that delicious resin wine?”

“Ah, guud,” he said getting unsteadily to his feet.

I followed him to his closet, waited until he opened the door, then shoved him in and locked it. Then I sat down and started sending out the SOS message El Greco had taught me.

I sent and sent and sent until I thought my arm would fall off. Then I picked up El Greco's empty wine bottle and went down on deck, prepared to defend Auntie Mame against the gunrunners of the world and the Imperial Japanese Fleet.

I'd halfway expected to find Auntie Mame walking the plank, but when I got down from the radio shack, I found Auntie Mame seated on the deck surrounded by admiring Japanese officers. She was going through the somewhat formal ritual of the tea ceremony and—with Ito interpreting— seemed to have them all in stitches.

“Do kick off your shoes, Patrick, and join us,” she said. “This attractive gentleman with all those stripes on his sleeve has been
so
understanding of a poor widow's plight. He also seems to be suffering under the delusion that Ito is some sort of cousin of his and I see no reason to contradict. One lump or two?”

I was about to answer when I saw my dream girl, Rosemary. She had been brought up on deck just as she was, a sorry sight. Not having been out of her cabin for more than a week, she blinked blindly into the sun, the limpid blue eyes veined with red, puffy, and swollen. Her unkempt hair, now decidedly dark at the roots, flew in every direction. She wore a sluttish, molting dressing gown that had once been white marabou, and filthy mules, one feathery pompom of which had long been lost. Alf was right; she may have been under thirty, but she certainly looked better than forty. At any rate, she was no eighteen. I felt my heartstrings give one last tug and then I looked away.

Then an American light cruiser, the U.S.S. Hoboken came splashing into sight and, with it, another boarding party.

“More cups, Ito,” Auntie Mame called as the U.S. Navy hit the deck, “and you might just crack out some of our liquor. I know that, through some tiresome regulation, our valiant seafaring men never get a drop to drink when they're off shore. Now do slip out of your shoes, gentlemen, while I do all the introductions.”

Half an hour later Auntie Mame managed to take the American lieutenant commander into the lounge and explain our plight—or some plight—because after a lot of waving of flags and blinking of signal lights and bawling back and forth through megaphones, yet another boat was rowed over to the rusty starboard side of the
Lesbos
. It was for Auntie Mame's luggage.

After slipping into a smart traveling suit, Auntie Mame was perfectly able to supervise the loading herself. “Careful, boys,” she said to two strapping sailors. “Those alligator bags go into my stateroom. None of the rest of the things will be wanted on the voyage unless you give a costume ball or something the last night out.”

“But, Mrs. Burnside,” the lieutenant commander said, “we're on maneuvers.”

“Then you can just maneuver a party. I can't
tell
you how bored I've been on this tatty little scow. Besides, I have gallons of refreshments in the trunk marked ‘Fragile.' My, but aren't you American boys strong! Good-by, captain,” she said. “I shall expect a refund for the unused portions of our tickets. Come, Patrick! Ito! Next stop San Francisco!”

JUST WHAT AUNTIE MAME TOLD THE AMERICAN naval officer I will never know, and she herself has always been maddeningly vague about it. The official report in the log read: “Evacuated three American nationals from imminent danger in connection with provocative incident in the Sino-Japanese War. A gunrunning vessel . . .” Well, it doesn't get any more informative from there. Whatever became of Rosemary, Alf, or the jolly crew of the
Lesbos
I neither know nor care.

WE WERE SEATED IN THE LAUNCH ON OUR WAY TO the U.S.S. Hoboken with Auntie Mame regaling the young officers with her plans for a party. “La, will I ever forget those jolly hops at Annapolis when I was a girl. And now it'll be my turn to repay the Navy for all it's done for me!”