by Tom Powers
“She’s my aunt,” I says, and by this time it didn’t seem like a lie. “The prince, he’s just a friend,” I says, “and he gave us a lift.”
“How far are you going with the prince?” he says.
But how could I tell him when I didn’t know myself? So I says, “How far you going, Mr. Bosco?”
“All the way,” he says. “I have business.”
“Where?” I says.
“All the way,” he says again. “Business here with the Brazilians,” he says, “in India, with prince’s brother and the prince, too. Much business, very important. You don’t know the prince’s brother?”
“No,” I says, “I don’t know any of the family except just this one prince,” I says.
“You wait till you see the old prince,” he says. “He is a very good man.”
“You mean this gentleman’s father?” I says.
“Yes,” he says. “The old prince, he’ll be very glad see you.”
“Why?” I says.
“You see,” he says, and he laughed and took a little green bug out of his pocket and held it out in the flat of his hand. It was made out of some kind of little green stone and carved like a cockroach, only without those little pinchers in the front. It had a little link on it that looked like gold to hang it on a chain if you had one.
“What’s that?” I says.
“Present,” he says, “for you. Keep it always,” he says. “It will bring good luck.”
“Thanks,” I says.
I wanted to know what had made him say all of those things like that. Only I didn’t want to hurt the feelings of such a nice little smiling poor man, even if he was from a country that we’re the enemy of.
“Where do you live at when you’re home?” I says.
“Japan,” he says, and something that sounded like “Nagasacki.”
I knew he would tell the truth so I went on. “I understand,” I says, “from the prince, that his pop wasn’t very pleased with him, and so he gave him a kind of a state and sent him off to live on it by himself,” I says.
“That true,” he says, “but the old prince will be very glad see you.”
“What is a state, Mr. Bosco?” I says.
“It is like a small country. It has land, many people and the prince has his own army, like a small country. The prince is like a king there, he kills anybody that doesn’t do what he tell ’em,” he says. “His brother has the same. The old prince will be glad to see you.”
“I don’t get it,” I says.
“Prince Halla Bandah’s father,” he says, “sent his younger son away like the older son because the two boys got into a scheme with their neighbors to do what the English will not like. The boys work together. They are blood brothers. They made an oath to each other,” he says. “The neighbors do not like the English,” he says, “the neighbors do not like the old prince much, either.”
“How far is Japan from their country?” I says.
“Not so far,” he says.
I couldn’t think of much to say to that so he got up.
“You keep my little present,” he says, and then very soft, “Maybe also papa sent his young son away because his young son has no wife. You keep present. It bring you much luck, and you have many children and grandchildren, too.” And he took off his little black hat and put it right back on again. Then he laughed louder than ever, and “Merry Christmas,” he says, and he went back to where he was sitting, laughing. I sure wished he had stayed there, because I had forgotten all about it being Christmas and I didn’t like to be reminded.
The little green bug felt cold in my hand. I didn’t like to interrupt Aunt Mary when she was writing in her little book. It was a funny kind of a book, because in a book the pages stay in it after you’ve wrote on ’em, like my compostion book at school. But this book of Aunt Mary’s, it had pages in it, too, but when you pinched the back of it the pages would come right out without ever tearing and could be folded once, just to fit in some envelopes she had in a pocket on the back of the book. She sent one home from wherever we were at, like Panama, where a young American man came for it to a hotel we had lunch at, and he had coffee with us.
And when we were in Rio we stopped at a place with a big American flag, and she gave that envelope to somebody while I was getting a drink of water, but I saw her do it and I came back and neither one of us mentioned it but we just sat there and had a cup of tea.
So after Mr. Bosco left me, I waited till Aunt Mary got through writing and came and sat with me. So I told her about Mr. Bosco, but not all, and I showed her the bug.
“That is a great compliment,” she says. “Americans or Englishmen that I have known, when they want to compliment you, they says they want you to come and sleep with them,” she says. “A Brazilian pinches you as you go by, but in my experience an Asian,” she says, “he wishes you many grandchildren. And often, if you don’t look out, he’ll give ’em to you.” And she said the bug was good luck just like he said. “It’s a scarab,” she says.
Then I told her I didn’t want the prince to make any mistakes about my intentions. I said I didn’t mind visiting him up here in the air while I was waiting till I could go back to Chicago and get my job back, if I could get it back. I said I was glad of the trip as travel sure gives you an education, but I wouldn’t for the world have the prince get any idea I was expecting anything like that.
So she said I wasn’t to worry, and I said all right I wouldn’t, anyway, as far as Natal, where we was nearly getting to, and where I supposed we would be saying goodbye to ’em all.
“Listen, child,” says Aunt Mary, “first think what this is. It’s something you can talk to your grandchildren about,” she says. “Why not take the whole trip and enjoy it?”
“But Aunt Mary,” I says, “if I decide I don’t want my grandchildren to be Indians, and that’s what I expect to decide, how will I ever get back from India? Suppose Mr. Hoover goes broke?”
“There’s always the king,” she says.
“What king?”
“George.”
“I never heard of him,” I says. “Is the king of India named an ordinary name that every waiter in the world has been called by?”
“He’s Emperor of India,” she says.
“And named George?”
“Certainly. He’s also the king of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales.”
“Oh, I didn’t know he had anything to do with our friends here,” I says.
“He has a lot to do with them,” she says, “and but for him, my dear, I wouldn’t be here, or you, either.”
“King George?” I says.
“The same,” she says.
“I don’t get it,” I says.
“You will,” she says. “What are you worrying about?”
“Just this,” I says, “it’s one thing to thumb a ride halfway around the world, if you need it. But it wouldn’t be polite to do that, and then if the prince makes you an honorable proposition—like everybody seems to be hinting that he might do—to say no, thanks, bud. Manners is manners,” I says. “It’s one thing to walk home from Humboldt Park, but quite another thing to start back from India, with nothing to your credit but that you’ve tried to live right,” I says.
Aunt Mary’s laugh made everything seem all right. “Will you trust me?” she says.
“Sure,” I says, “but don’t you come to me some dark night over there and say, listen, honey, he’s a nice boy, and his folks are right well-to-do, and hadn’t you better just go ahead and be a princess? Because if you don’t his bad brother has got a snake farm and he’s going to put you in it to think it over. I seen it in a movie and I couldn’t sleep for a week.”
“Don’t you worry,” she said, so I didn’t.
We didn’t see much of Natal. We went in and we got the gas and oil checked, and we turned to the right and went right out of Natal again. Bing, right out over the water.
It was the biggest thing I ever saw, and I’ve lived
on Lake Michigan for years.
Before we got to Natal, the prince talked to Aunt Mary for awhile, and then he leaned over to me and “Thank you,” he says.
And “Thank you,” I says. After all it was his gas and oil and his boys waiting on me and his flowers on the trays and his airplane seat I was getting used to sitting in.
But then I thought, “And it’s his friend that’s Japanese, and that sits talking to him all the time so serious. Maybe Aunt Mary don’t think much about the fact that we’re at war with Japan,” I thought, “but then she hasn’t got a letter in her bag from a long lean Texas cowpuncher that’s quit driving a yellow taxi to go and fight those fellers—one of whom could be a friend of the man whose airplane I’m getting this free ride in.”
But Aunt Mary didn’t seem to pay any attention to Mr. Bosco, and I didn’t like to bring up the subject of his Japaneseness, so I didn’t. And that’s what was in my mind as we left Natal.
It was night, the lights were on and the black curtains were pulled over the windows. We were to Hell-and-gone out over the water when the copilot came back with a paper in his hand. He said we couldn’t go to Dakar, which it seems we had meant to do, because of something about some German people and some French people, and so we was going to Libeeria. And I certainly didn’t care, because neither one of those countries—Dakar or Libeeria—had I ever heard of till that minute, and so while they were talking about it in all the languages I couldn’t understand, I went to sleep.
Something woke me up as if a gun had gone off. But it wasn’t a noise, it was the lack of noise that did it. One of the engines quit and the lights got dim, and then it seemed like our plane was going over a rough road because I was shaken nearly out of my seat and people looked scared. The prince brought me a lifesaver—not the kind you eat, with a hole in it so your wife won’t know you’ve stopped at a bar on the way home, but another kind, with a hole in it, too, that you put your head in, instead of your tongue. It was like a bustle of my grandma’s that Aunt Helga let me put on once to be Martha Washington at school, but my wig fell off and everybody laughed.
Well, this bustle was like that, only it wasn’t for the same place where a real bustle is made to go. No, this bustle sits right up on your chest, and another bustle sits right up on your shoulders in back. And the prince made big eyes, and he said we was sinking down. Not in the ocean he didn’t mean, not yet, but I guess sinking down even in the air is a pretty bad thing to be doing. So no wonder his brown eyes was big.
And Aunt Mary, she was as calm as any princess that ever died for her country. She sat there by me, next to the window in her bustle. “Listen,” she says, “if we hit the water,” she says, “the plane will float for a little while, so we can get out of the emergency door. Now don’t get scared, I’ve done it before,” she says, “only in a big storm. This is a calm sea,” she says.
“Then why can’t we settle down on the sea and just go ahead like a boat?” I says. “I’ve seen ’em do that on the lake.”
“Because this is a land plane and has only got wheels—they don’t run very well even on the smoothest water,” she says.
“What do we do?” I says, and I had to laugh. “It sure looks like you was right and I am going to turn into a water lily after all.” So we both laughed a little.
Mr. Bosco saw us laughing and he came over to us. He smiled at me over his little bustle.
“There are a lot of ships,” he said, “mostly German,” and he looked as pleased as if he had said, “Nice dinner, Italian cooking.” But then I thought, “What’s it to him? He ain’t at war with Germany. He’ll go free and we’ll all get shot—if we ain’t drounded or crack our skulls when she hits, like Tyrone Power when his did.”
Now the copilot come back and yelled something. The prince said something to the copilot, then came to me and took both of my hands.
“When she hits,” he said, “I must save you. If everybody dies you must be saved.”
“Thank you,” I says, “but if I get saved Aunt Mary’s got to be saved, too.”
“You are not afraid?” he says.
“What of?” I says, and his mouth stayed open.
“No, I mean it,” I says. “Getting scared sure won’t save any of us.”
“You do not blame me?” he says.
“For what?” I says.
“For bringing you.”
“Forget it,” I says. “I was glad enough to be invited.”
“My life I would give to save you from danger,” he says, and he meant it. He would have, and as it turned out he nearly did later.
Now the copilot come in again and just stood there looking at us. “This is it” was written all over him.
We all buckled our belts like he had shown us and like we always did when we landed, but this time it looked like we was going to do it just like always, only without the land.
We could hear the water coming up to meet us, or maybe the sound of everything changed as we got nearer the water. Anyway you could just about tell when we were going to crash onto it by the different sound the engine made as we got nearer and nearer. We were still going forward, but sinking down at the same time. You could feel us sinking in the air and, like I said, the ocean coming up to meet us.
Suddenly there was the prince, out of his safety belt. His arms around me were strong, and he braced his feet. He was nearly in the seat with me, holding me against the jolt of however we hit.
“Get in your seat,” I yelled.
Everybody was yelling now except Aunt Mary and Mr. Bosco.
“No,” he says, “I must save you, I must be with you.”
The copilot yelled at him, and he said, “No.”
One of the four sweets said what must have been something like, “Please, prince, if you get killed we’ll lose our jobs because there won’t be anybody to sweet for.”
But he said right back at ’em, with a tight little smile, what I guess meant, “God bless you boys, but you won’t be fit to sweet for nobody when the bump and splash is over.”
So we all sat tight and waited for that splash.
It took about a year, and while we sat there time just stopped.
And I let my mind run on to where it wanted to because I didn’t want it to run on to what was about to happen. And then it did happen. We hit the water, and it was like when I was at the Springfield Fair riding on one of those pop-the-whips and I got jerked around a corner. Well, we was sure jerked around a corner.
It was like one wing had hit that big rock that you see pictures of that has got Prudential written across the front of it. But it sure gave us a jolt. And it put the prince right in my lap, still protecting me with all his might.
Well, what happened could only be explained by somebody that knows about miracles, because I guess that’s about what it was.
A long time after this, I asked a nice English boy I was on a raft with if he thought it’d been a miracle, and he said that of course it was, and that miracles happened so often to everybody that flew in this war that the only times they got surprised was when a miracle didn’t happen. But he was pretty feverish by that time from loss of blood but still he’d sure seen a lot of miracles. To tell the truth, him and me had just been through one at that time, that’s how we got on that raft.
But I’m getting ahead of myself—I was trying to tell what happened between Natal and Dakar. The wing must have hit a wave because there was this jolt that loosened your wisdom teeth. Then we turned a corner, like I said, and the plane shook and righted itself and shuddered. Our ears were nearly split a second later by a new roaring—one of the engines that had quit working was working again. It kept on doing that, and so we got to Libeeria.
Aunt Mary and me stayed in a hotel and there was a young man we met there who worked for Firestone tires. He kept looking at me—he was a college boy, I guess. Anyway he said he was a friend of the actual Firestone boys, and there seems to be quite a lot of ’em. Five, I think he said. I thought all this time that Fi
restone was something strong that the tires were made out of, and come to think of it, maybe I was right at that.
Well, he got me to one side and talked a lot, with his hands clasped so you could see the knuckles greenish-white pressing together, and he said he was lonesome so far from home.
He told me he wasn’t the usual kind that tries something the first minute he meets a girl, and something about his pink eyelids reminded me of that Presbyterian minister that was always burying his cold nose in my neck. And then he got to talking about me and he asked who I was traveling with. I told him and then it seemed like he went kind of crazy. So I tried not to listen to all the names he called the prince and his sweet, but he wouldn’t stop and kept on and on. Then I got mad.
I was sorry afterward that I had slapped him so hard, but it did get his attention and made him stop. So then I told him a few home truths.
Well, sir, instead of making him mad, or to go away like it ought to have done, it just made him feel that we was well enough acquainted for him to quit holding on to himself. I felt sorry for him and so I let him hold on to my hand and tell me all about how he was saving himself for the girl he married, but couldn’t he kiss me just once. But I didn’t let him and I decided to slap him again—hard enough to knock his hornrims off, but they didn’t break. He came at me again, and that made me remember Pop and me sparring under a big elm tree at the Lutheran picnic, and me in my plaid taffeta and Pop saying, “Even a little quick punch in the stomach with your left will make his face come over toward you, and then you’d be surprised what a little uppercut on the point of the chin will take all the fight right out of him.”
Well, like always, Pop was right.
And that’s all I remember about Libeeria.
But it made me feel somehow different about the poor little prince and not the way this college boy wanted me to feel at all.
It seems that there is a real place by the name of Timbuktu. I had always thought it was just a made-up name, but it’s not, because we flew right over it. Mr. Bosco was sitting with me then and he told me.
We got to talking about the prince, and Mr. Bosco said that he and his brother and his father owned just about everything where they lived except for money. He said money is not always easy for rich people to get, which I didn’t know before because I always thought being rich meant you had money, but it don’t.