by Tom Powers
This stumped me for a minute. Here was this English lady telling a lie and pretending to think I was what she must have known I wasn’t. And old Sir Gerald agreeing too with his mouth full of toast and marmalade, though not talking, but just opening his big pale blue eyes and saying “Woof woof,” which meant, “Yes, I remember it, too.”
“Why would they do this?” I thought, especially with nobody in the big room for ’em to fool, but then I saw Mr. Bosco standing behind my chair, and I knew that this niece talk was for his benefit.
So I just ate the strawberries, like they did, by taking ’em by the stems that was left on ’em and swabbing ’em first in powdered sugar and then swabbing ’em in the thick cream and I knew I was among friends. Strawberries never give me a rash and I love ’em.
But I knew more than they did about Mr. Bosco, and he was a pretty hard little man to fool.
When the four men had taken the tea things away, Sir G. took Aunt Mary away down to the other end of the room, about half a square away, and Mr. Bosco and Lady B. and me sat down.
Lady B. smoked one cigarette right after another and talked about the war, and I was sure surprised at things she said about her own government. “Stupid, bungling British war office,” she says, and, “Damned old British fuddy-duddies at Singapore that are so busy singing Brittania Rules the Wave, they never think of looking up to ask who rules the sky.”
She cussed and swore, all the time lighting one cigarette from the other and swearing worse than Millie when Curly left her.
So I thought she was maybe against her own country and for the Japanese, but I was pretty ignorant about the English then.
I didn’t really understand ’em till we was on that rubber boat for so long, and me getting cooked in the sun like a piece of veal. It was then that I asked Sir Rodney Carmichael about it, and he did the same thing, talking about the government like that. It seems that all the English do it, and they go right on doing it all the time, and die like heros to keep anybody from changing the very things they have spent their lives cussing at, and that’s England. Roddy tried to explain it, but I still can’t quite understand it.
Lady B. had on an old black georgette dress, long but not the same length all around. It had a pattern of pink tulips on it and a pink satin girdle and two pink bows on the sleeves. It had been cleaned pretty often, but not often enough, so it was pretty limp. Her gray hair had never been done, it was just twisted up. Her shoes were gray kid oxfords with flat heels and her skin was like a piece of leather with brown spots on it. She had too many teeth and they were long and pretty crooked. She had a lot of gums too but her eyes was as bright and pretty as they had ever been. And somehow even with all of this she looked like a queen, and wasn’t scared of the devil.
“You Burmese are going to be the crux of the whole thing in the East,” she says, looking down at Mr. Bosco.
“Granted,” says Mr. Bosco, “but fortunate for you, some of us are very loyal to your side.”
“I hope so,” says Lady B. and that was that.
Sir Gerald barked at Mr. Bosco to go and find out what time dinner was as if he was Simon Lagree in a play we gave at school. But Mr. Bosco didn’t get mad like he might of, seeing as he was as rich as Rockefeller; he just got up and went to find out.
“Well,” says Lady Burroughs, “you are an extraordinarily beautiful child.”
“Thank you,” I says.
“I thought all American girls were apainted, like our own,” she says. “Why is your face so clean like a peach?”
“I wash it,” I says, and she laughed.
“Listen,” she says, “how much do you know about all of this business?”
“What business?” I says.
“This Indian business,” she says. “Have you got any idea of marrying Halla Bandah?”
“No, ma’am,” I says.
“Good,” she says, “I was afraid you might have. He’s rich and very powerful,” she says, “but we aren’t sure of him,” she says. “That’s why you are here, you know that.”
I didn’t know what to say so I kept quiet.
“You see,” she says, “no matter how beautiful his eyes are, he’d still have to go to jail if he is arrested.”
“He’s really not like his brother,” I says.
“That remains to be seen,” she says. “Do you smoke?”
“No, ma’am,” I says.
“Filthy habit,” says Lady B. “Go over there and ask Sir Gerald to send me another packet of mine, and don’t trip over that damned tiger’s head on that rug.”
When I got the cigarettes, Aunt Mary says, “I asked Lady Burroughs to explain some things to you.” So I came back for more.
Lady B. didn’t say “Thank you,” but the way she said “Sit here,” meant “Thank you,” I guess.
“As I say,” she began, “the old prince is all right, and we are reasonably sure of him. You see, he went to Oxford.”
She didn’t say when, and I didn’t know where that was or whether he hadn’t gotten back yet, but I didn’t ask any questions.
“As I say,” she says, “Halla Bandah is our problem. His brother is a stinker, a proper stinker,” she says. “You see, their states being so near to Burma, they could be dangerous. So my husband, whose job it is know about such things, tried to get around Halla Bandah to find out their sympathies in all this business and he simply ran into a stone wall. Halla Bandah became a perfect clam. Before Gerald could learn anything, off went Halla Bandah to England. And Gerald found out that he was hoping to get a lot of money in your country, taking with him enough precious stones to sink a channel boat. And so your aunt Mary got the job of flying to America. Of course the prince didn’t know he was being followed. Her job was to find out whether the money was to help the Japanese or not. Then he picked up the plane that our fat-headed intelligence didn’t even know he had ordered, and then your Aunt Mary was troubled as he was about to get away from her altogether. But then this young American,” says Lady B., meaning Mr. Wens, “thought up this fantastic scheme about you, so from then on your aunt Mary could not only follow him but travel with him. Is this all a great surprise to you?” she says.
“No,” I says, “except that it seems like Aunt Mary is working for England in this. Is that right?”
“Yes,” she says.
“What about Mr. Bosco?” I says.
“Who?” she says, and I told her I called him that.
“A good name for him,” she says. “We don’t quite know, but that little tea caddy knows quite a lot.”
“He’s nice,” I says.
“Nice, yes,” she says, “but nice to which side? We do know that Halla Bandah’s brother is building an airfield, but whether Mr. Bosco is in on it, we are not sure. He’s lived in Japan, did you know that?”
“He’s all right,” I says.
“Well,” she says, “if Halla Bandah hasn’t given us the slip he will be here at dinner, and when he comes don’t be surprised if things pop.”
“I won’t,” I says. “Do you think maybe he’s run away?”
“Time will tell,” says Lady B.
“I guess you work for the government,” I says.
“My husband does,” she says, “and though you’d never think it, he’s very good at his job.”
Mr. Bosco came back about then and said dinner will be at eight and that the old prince would ask to be excused from seeing all of them till then. But the old prince would like to see me right now in his room.
Well, believe me after what I went through with those Soodans, I was scared to go, but Aunt Mary says, “Go,” so I went.
Mr. Bosco took me along a narrow hall and up a set of stairs that I thought I was nearly to heaven when I got up it. And he opened the door and told me to go ahead, and I went on by myself through a gallery like, I mean it was a hall with one wall made out of stone lace that you could see out of.
It was getting dark and I felt like I was in jail.
I got to the e
nd of it, and there was a door and it was a little bit open.
I waited a minute and then I just opened it and there was a big, big room with pretty near no window at all and just about as much furniture as there was window.
I couldn’t see for a minute, and what I saw when I got so I could, I will surely never forget until I am too old to remember anything and that will be when I am dead.
I believe Pop was right about me having a good memory, but I didn’t trust too much to it. Like Aunt Mary, I would write down if people said words that I wasn’t use to and might forget, and that’s how I remember now.
But I don’t think I would have ever forgotten the prince’s old father.
He looked just like God—not the Old Testament God, full of fire and war and eyes for eyes and teeth for teeth—he had a face that was old, but without a cross or a mean or a worried line in it. And gray hair in a long bob and a beard and a gray gown with some white and black on it, and he came towards me and I sure felt like crossing myself when I looked up into that beautiful face.
He smiled and held out both of his hands, and his hands were firm and warm. After we had looked at each other for a while, he spoke to me in a kind of English I had never heard, but it was the best English there is, you could feel that.
“I’m glad to see you,” he says, “so glad.” And we went to the only two chairs in the room, facing toward a dark wall, and we sat down.
“You are a Catholic, aren’t you?” he says.
“Yes, sir,” I says.
“Do you know Saint Cecilia?” he says.
“I’ve seen her pictures,” I says, “playing the organ, with little angels dropping roses on her hands.”
“I always thought that wasn’t much of a blessing,” he says, “having to play the organ with a lot of roses to get in the way of your fingers. Well, I think you look like Saint Cecilia.”
“And I was thinking,” I says, “that you look like God.”
“Thank you,” he says.
“Oh, that’s all right,” I says, “but you do.”
“My son is in love with you,” he says. “He wants to have you for his wife.”
“Don’t you worry about that,” I says.
“I’m not worried,” he says. “I only wish it was possible, but I know it is not,” he says.
“You mean because I’m a Catholic?” I says.
“No,” he says, “I mean because you are not in love with him.”
“How do you know?” I says.
“Your friend Mr. Bosco told me,” he says, and he smiled and so did I.
“He tried to get me to,” I says. “Did he tell you that, too?”
“Yes,” he says, “he did. But now he knows you won’t do it.”
“I couldn’t,” I says, “but I feel sorry for him.”
“So do I,” he says.
“Do you know what is happening at that cathedral, where I left him?” I says.
“Yes, I do,” he says.
“Please tell me, is he safe?”
“What is safety?” he says. “In this world it is one thing we should not seek. Being safe is not as important as being right, and if we die for what we know to be right, is it not better than living for what we know to be safe?”
So we sat there quiet for awhile. And soon a little door opened, and two shave-headed priests came in with little tiny lanterns and then two more and two more, till there were quite a lot. From the light of the lanterns I could see that at the back of this arch was a kind of an altar. There seemed to be things, hooks like, or little brackets in the wall on each side of it, and they hung their little lanterns on both sides. And the light got bright enough for me to see that the altar was just two gold doors.
“That,” he says, “is a shrine.”
“I see,” I says.
“There once was a great statue on a hill before this house,” he says, “and there came an earthquake, many years ago, and the statue fell down and was broken to bits.”
“I know,” I says, “and the stone hand fell and rolled down the hill in the front door, with the ring on it, and so this house was blessed, and that’s why you put the ring around your boy’s neck like a holy medal. And the stone in the ring is called Hankah.”
“And when Hankah was lost,” he says, “you know who risked her life to get it back. But who told you the story of Hankah?”
“A Mr. Swift,” I says, “in Chicago, that I always call Mr. Wens, like I call Mr. Bosco, Mr. Bosco.”
“Is Mr. Swift a butcher?” he says.
“No, sir,” I says, and I sure was surprised how much he knew about American history. “He’s an FBI man.”
“Oh, yes,” was all he said. And we didn’t say anything more till all the priests had gone out, two by two.
“Well,” he says, “the wise men have come to bring Hankah back here, and I thought, since it was you that saved it for us, you might like to be here when it came home safe to rest,” he says.
There was a clacking now, like the galloping of ponies that I had heard back there in the cathedral, only here they seemed to be mighty little ponies.
“What is that?” I couldn’t help asking.
“Prayer wheels,” he says, but I still didn’t know what that meant.
The door on each side of the arch opened, and four of the same wise men come in, two at each door. And two of the wise men had a little pillar and on it was my old friend the big ring.
We stood up and the gold doors swung open. There, in a bluish light, was the big stone hand broken off at the wrist.
They said prayers and the old prince bowed over three times and I did, too. And the blind wise man came in, led by the two little boys, and he took the ring and held it up and red and blue lights shot out of it. While a soft, deep gong kept sounding he put the ring on the stone finger of the hand.
The men shut the doors and went out, and the priests took the little lantern down and walked out two by two, and the ponies galloped for a second, and the gong went, and that was all.
The old prince turned and took my face in his hands and he kissed me on the forehead, like I was being blessed by the bishop.
Then the other door away down where I had come in opened, and Mr. Bosco came in and took me away to the outside of what I guessed was my room. I guessed, too, that we weren’t going to dress for this dinner. I hadn’t brought anything as I didn’t know how long we were coming here for.
But I didn’t know what we had come here for, either, or I would have been more nervous than I was. So I waited for Mr. Bosco to say what he looked like he wanted to say, and when he said it I was sure surprised.
“You want to go home now. You finish your work, so, after tonight, you can go.”
“You mean it?” I couldn’t hardly keep from crying.
“I will miss you,” he says. “What will you want to take with you?” he says.
“I don’t know,” I says.
“I have a present,” he says, and he went away down the hall.
So I went in, and there was Aunt Mary combing her white hair and Lady Burroughs talking and smoking her cigarettes, and there was my best formal and slippers and lingerie and everything all laid out, and two girls to help dress with marks on their foreheads and all wrapped up in loose things like scarfs.
So we were ready to dress, so Lady Burroughs left us to do it, and I guessed she was going to, too.
I looked nice all in white, Aunt Mary said, and she wore everything deep blue. When we were ready we sat down until we were called to come and eat. While we were waiting I found out I was going to go home alone, by myself.
It seemed that Aunt Mary had to go to England, where she said she was with the intelligence, which I didn’t understand, but that’s what she said because I wrote it down, and that book I wrote it in was one of the three things the Lord didn’t mean me to get home without.
Well, it was time and we went down.
We all met in another great big room with tapers like they light candles
with in church, thousands of ’em, all around the walls. And there was Mr. Bosco in his same little suit, but everybody else, you bet, done up like for Cinderella’s ball. Sir Gerald had his uniform on, instead of the old hunting coat and the wrinkled pants he had worn before. And he sure had a good corset to hold his belly in, and it did, too.
He had colored ribbons with teeny weeny little medals all over one side of his bosom, and his hair brushed straight up on the sides and his mustache straightened out real nice.
And there was Lady Burroughs, not looking like a rummage sale like she had in the afternoon. She was thinner, too, in her corset and a black velvet formal and rhinestones in her hair in a little crown like—or maybe they were—diamonds—and a cigarette holder to match. Aunt Mary and me were dressed like I said.
The doors opened and two soldiers came in wearing uniforms and big striped things on their heads like Franchot Tone and Gary Cooper in Beau Geste—that was the first movie I can remember, but I sure never forgot it.
They got out of the way, and we waited and then the old prince came in.
He was all in a fine quality white woven gown and a long white coat thing to the floor. But the prince wasn’t there. And he didn’t come and he didn’t come. Finally I guess the old prince knew we couldn’t wait all night so we went to the table and sat down.
I talked to Aunt Mary, like you do, with just my eyes, indicating the place across the table that was set for him but stayed empty.
Aunt Mary just shrugged her shoulders.
So we ate, and it was good. Each of us had a man to take care of feeding us, but the man to serve the prince had nothing to do.
I felt like the old prince was taking his time with the dinner. And after awhile we sort of ran down and couldn’t think of much to say, except Lady Burroughs, and everybody was glad, I could see, for her to go on and on.
The food was all served in a most civilized way, with silver and gold dishes, but after awhile we couldn’t just go on forever and so we went into still another big room. The room was on the ground floor and along one wall of it were tall windows, round at the top with stone lace over ’em and no glass. They opened right out into the black night. Lady B. went on talking.