Around the World With Auntie Mame

by Dennis, Patrick

  “Hah!” Friedl said, rising unsteadily and helping herself to more brandy. “Horses! The Von Hodenlohern chentlemen ride two horses—the Austrian horse and the Cherman horse in Berchtesgaden.”

  My mouth dropped open. “Berchtesgaden? You mean Hitler’s place?”

  “Ja. Berchtesgaden. Chust a few kilometers. So very nice for the fine Hodenlohern chentlemen. The great barons of Austria now vorking for a poor Austrian . . .” Her English broke down but her gesture clearly meant paper hanger.

  “Do you mean to stand there and tell me that they’re Nazis—all three of them?”

  “No, not all three.”

  “Oh,” I said, relieved. I knew that Putzi at least would have his feet on the ground.

  “No, my Maxl iss fat, stupidt, lacy. Ven Hitler comes here Maxl vill not mind. If he doesn’t come Maxl also will not mind. Maxl iss oldt, dumm, dünkelhaft. Hannes iss a baby yet— young and albern.” She tapped her head significantly. “He dreams only alvace of being the big Schutzsta fel officer for sports with boys. Those two are a big nothing.”

  “Well,” I said, “I’m glad to hear that at least Putzi is . . .”

  “Putzi!” she spat. “Putzi iss the vorst! He iss a how you say a Landsknecht! You understand?” I didn’t. “Putzi for years vork for the Nazis. Every veek to meetings he goes. To Berchtesgaden, to Innsbruck. He hass no money, yet alvace he travels. To Paris and London and Rome he travels—alvace in beautiful clothes, alvace in lovely varm hotels. Andt alvace for the Nazis!”

  I was too stunned to speak for a moment. Then I suddenly realized that Putzi and the whole pack of Von Hodenloherns would soon be moving on anyhow. “Well,” I said heartily, “I guess that won’t make any difference to you or me. I mean, I’m leaving here today. My aunt has bought the Schloss—I suppose you knew that—and so you’ll be going, too. Then you won’t be cold, and whatever Putzi does won’t . . .”

  “No,” Friedl said flatly, “I am not going. Ve are staying—all of us.”

  “Oh, but you can’t really. I mean after the place becomes my aunt’s property you won’t be staying on. Who’d want to any . . .”

  “Ve vill be here. Ve vill stay on in dis coldt house until ve die or until ve are all killed. My money iss gone—all. The fine Von Hodenlohern barons need a new Mitgift—a new rich voman to be a new Friedl. Putzi will marry Frau Burnside. I promise you.”

  “Hey, listen. He’s at least ten years younger than she is. He . . .”

  Friedl clutched at my arm. “You! You lissen to me. Take her. Take her avay. She iss a good voman. She iss kind. Gay. Foolish. Like me. Take her avay now before like me she iss a prisoner in this terrible place.”

  “A prisoner? Auntie Mame?” Of course I knew she was drunk, but a certain urgency in Friedl’s manner kept me listening.

  “Ja! A prisoner like me. A prisoner in this house, this terrible house. There are things in this terrible place you vould not belief. There are rooms that . . .”

  “Friedl!” Maxl called. “Friedl!”

  Friedl’s face turned white, her eyes popped. “They are back. The men are back. I must go.”

  “Hey, wait,” I began.

  “No, I must go now. Pleece. Don’t say nothing what I told you. Pleece.” With that Friedl was gone—to trim Maxl’s toe-nails I learned later. I began unpacking.

  I WAS ABOUT TO GO STRAIGHT TO AUNTIE MAME AND tell her to clear out and clear out fast. Instead she came to me. “Oh,” she said airily, “you still here? I expected you to be halfway to New York by now, burdened with tennis racquets, pennants, and No Parking signs for your college education. If it’s money you need for transportation, I’ll be happy to . . .”

  “Listen, Auntie Mame,” I said. “There’s something I’ve got to talk to you about. It’s vital that . . .”

  “Thank you, no,” she said with hammy grandeur. “You’ve said quite enough. Howsomever, as long as you’re still enjoying my hospitality beneath my roof, there is something you can do for me. You can take me to the Kirchtag. I wish to learn the Schuhplattler and . . .”

  “Take you to the what?”

  “The Kirchtag. It’s the village market day in the church square, and as long as I’m to be more or less the patroness of Stinkenbach, it’s my duty to be with the people on these festive occasions. Believe me, I wouldn’t be wasting your valuable time except that Putzi and his brothers have been called to some sort of landowners’ meeting and . . .”

  “But if they’re not landowners any longer, why did . . .”

  “Don’t talk to me. Don’t speak at all. Just try to look as pleasant as possible. Oh, and be sure to wear those cute LederhosenI bought you.”

  Looking and feeling like a damned fool, I stomped down to the village while Auntie Mame, the new chatelaine of Schloss Stinkenbach, rode grandly in the Rolls. The village, a little less sleepy than usual, was decked out in some faded bunting. There were a few stalls set up with some incredible Kitsch on sale—bad carved figures, gaudy embroidered aprons, rustic barometers; junk like that. Beer, local wine, and crullers the size and weight of cannon balls were being listlessly hawked, and a four-piece band tooted away in front of the local saloon. There were a lot of village girls, looking like butter tubs in their tatty dirndls, some middle-aged village women, and a few old gaffers. None of the younger males seemed to be around.

  “Not much of a stag line at these affairs is there?” I said.

  “Never mind that,” Auntie Mame said coldly. “They’re undoubtedly waiting for me to open the festivities. If you’ll simply help me to start things off with a gay Schuhplatter, I shall make no further demands on you.”

  “Der Schuhplattler, bitte,” she called to the band leader. “Come, Patrick.”

  The next thing I knew, I was out in the center of the square trying to follow Auntie Mame through the intricate inanities of a Tyrolean native dance. She was pretty good at it, and what she didn’t know she could bluff her way through. I was not. “Listen, Auntie Mame. I don’t care if you’re mad or not, but . . .”

  “Don’t talk, child, concentrate. Now, clap your hands, slap your knees, and . . .”

  “But I’m trying to tell you about Putzi. He’s a dyed in the wool . . .” Before I could finish, Auntie Mame was out of sight. She turned up again behind me, bumping her rear end against mine in rhythm with the band. “Auntie Mame. Can you hear me?”

  “I’m not listening. I’m dancing. Now kick.” The crowd was almost wetting itself with merriment. “Clap your hands, slap your thigh. Kick again.”

  In my embarrassment and confusion I slipped and sprawled flat on the cobblestones. The villagers were in stitches. I’d struck my head pretty hard and all I was conscious of was a kind of aurora borealis going on in front of my eyes and the laughter of the local girls. Then the laughing stopped and there was utter silence for a couple of seconds, interrupted only by that phony, mellifluous voice so dear to the hearts of theatergoers everywhere. “Jesus,” the voice rang out through the mountains, “do we have to be dragged all the way to Shangri-La for one lousy, God-damned gallon of gas?”

  I looked up. Coming down the main drag of the village I saw a team of oxen dragging behind them a glittering English sports car. Sitting on the folded-back roof were Captain the Honourable Basil Fitz-Hugh and his wife, Vera Charles.

  “Vera!” Auntie Mame squealed. “Basil! What on earth . . .”

  “My God! Mame!” In a moment the two ladies were embracing in the middle of the church square. If the citizens of Stinkenbach-im-Tirol had found Auntie Mame foreign and exotic, they hadn’t seen anything until they caught a glimpse of Vera Charles, her mahogany hair, her diamonds, the long lynx cape, the svelte suit, the pert Paris hat. “Mame, dahling,” Vera shrilled theatrically, “Ah cahn’t tell yew haow too uttahly divane it is to see a friendly face in the gudfawsaken countreh! Bezzle end Ay wuh maotorring beck from Bed Gastein when . . . And speaking of godforsaken,” she said in her purest Americanese, “what in the hell are you doing in this ho
le got up like that?”

  “I, Vera? I own it,” Auntie Mame said. Then she babbled on. “Oh, but it’s too wonderful to have you and Basil here! You must come up and see my Schloss. And of course you’ll stay the night. I won’t hear otherwise. Ito! Do see to the Fitz-Hughs’ baggage.”

  After that, any hope of getting a word in was madness. Auntie Mame and Vera, talking a mile a minute, swept Basil into the Rolls, and I was left to find gasoline for Basil’s car and drive it back up to the Schloss . By the time I got back, Auntie Mame and her guests were nowhere to be seen—or even heard—in any of the main rooms. Depressed, I went upstairs to lie down and think things over. But no sooner had I hit the bed than the resonant voices of Auntie Mame and Vera came wafting in from the battlement outside my room. “Yes, Mame, yes,” Vera was saying, “it’s all very old-world and quaint but why the hell would you want to buy it? The place is older than God, bigger than the Waldorf, and as cold as Belasco’s heart. Basil, ducky, fetch my cape.”

  “Righto, dearest.”

  “Oh, but Vera. The view! The view! Look at all that scenery and every bit of it mine!”

  “So get a magic lantern. Besides, all these krauts give me the creeps. There’s just something in the air around here that . . .”

  Encouraged by what Vera was saying, I went out to join them on the battlement. There they were, passing the binoculars back and forth and looking out onto the valley. “No, Mame,” Vera went on, handing the glasses to her, “you’ve bought a pup. You’ll be miserable in this . . .”

  “Be still, Vera, I’m trying to see. . . .”

  “That’s right, Vera,” I said. “It’s just what I’ve been telling her. She . . .”

  The binoculars clattered from Auntie Mame’s hands. “Patrick!” she said sharply, wheeling on me. “How many times must I tell you not to come eavesdropping. Now go back to your room and wait there until dinner.”

  “Hey, Auntie Mame, I only . . .”

  “Do as I say this instant!” she snapped. “Now march!”

  Hurt and angry, I started back to my room. I was just closing the French door behind me when I heard Auntie Mame say, “Vera. Take the glasses and look over there.”

  IF IT WEREN’T FOR WHAT FRIEDL HAD TOLD ME, I’D have packed up and left the Schloss then and there. But I swallowed my pride, got dressed, and went downstairs when Poldi sounded the dinner gong. Auntie Mame was obviously putting on the dog for Basil and Vera. Dinner was a black-tie affair and the food was better than usual. As always, Maxl presided over the table with Vera at his right, while poor Friedl, looking cold and puffy-eyed in lackluster lamé, sat opposite.

  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.