Around the World With Auntie Mame

by Dennis, Patrick

  The following day, after no breakfast, the Group held an impromptu meeting without Auntie Mame and there was an overwhelming majority decision to wake her up and get her to cable the bank again. Auntie Mame has always been famous for a sweet, if erratic disposition, but being roused in the morning is one thing that she never permitted. I know that she was seething all the way into Psplat on the truck, but at least the Group had lunch that day.

  Having weakened to the extent of allowing Auntie Mame to spend some more of her money on the Outside, the Ways and Means Committee, under the leadership of Sid, decided that it would be economical to let her buy some practical, productive things like live chickens and cows to tide the farm over until the machinery arrived and we all started producing. So Auntie Mame cabled the bank again and the faithful Mr. Johnson drove the truck all over Georgia buying hens. A lot of chickens that Mr. Johnson didn’t buy also turned up after the merchant mariners and some of the Young Intellectual Faction from the Eastern colleges went out for an evening stroll. Mrs. Johnson said that it was just plain stealin’ and it was a sin, but Boris told her that conscience was a bourgeois affectation that must be replaced by reason, pure reason, for the sake of the Movement.

  Then Auntie Mame and Dr. Whipple returned from a sylvan walk, leading the ricketiest looking cow I’ve ever seen. She said she’d bought it from a sweet old peasant and it only cost the equivalent of four hundred dollars. Pandemonium broke loose. Natasha said how dared she spend the money that way and Soso mentioned the frivolous excesses of a depraved aristocracy. There was a terrible scene and everybody screamed things about Mechanistic Thinking and the Individual versus the Party and High-Handed Monarchistic Gestures. Finally a meeting, and a rather noisy one, was held. There was a lot of bickering. Mr. Johnson, as the Agrarian Authority, mumbled that, in his opinion, the cow was mighty sick and not worth four dollars. Dr. Whipple kept repeating something about the Means and the End and what was right for the Party was right for them all. Auntie Mame wailed things about milk and dear little calves and dairy produce. A fist fight broke out during which I floored Desmond McLush. Auntie Mame was led to her room in tears.

  The following day the cow died. Auntie Mame wept tenderly over its rawboned old corpse and Natasha, her face a mask of bitter triumph, accused Auntie Mame of bourgeois sentimentality. There was another big meeting and Auntie Mame was publicly reprimanded.

  The Group divided itself into two factions and another big argument ensued. About four o’clock everyone decided to cool off with a dip at the swimming hole and we young people were sent back to work in the garden with Mr. Johnson while Mrs. Johnson cooked dinner.

  The adults all seemed sort of restive sitting around with nothing to do. Dr. Whipple organized a series of Round Table discussions on subjects like “Resolved: Bloodless Revolution Is In Itself a Contradiction of Terms” but they only led to more passionate rows. Ralph and Auntie Mame tried to get up a bridge tournament but Natasha said that cards were the decadent pastime of a rotten monarchist regime, and wouldn’t allow the women to play. Auntie Mame cried again.

  That night there was a terrible fracas on the second floor and we all jumped out of bed to see what was the matter. One of the school teachers was screaming awful things at Sid and I noticed that a lot of the Group seemed to be coming out of the wrong rooms. I was curious, but Auntie Mame said that the whole mess wasn’t anything I should hear and to go back to bed. Ralph flew up the stairs in a batik dressing gown, his face glistening with cold cream. He told Auntie Mame that I was upset and he’d be more than happy to spend the night with me. But Auntie Mame said firmly that Ralph’s staying with me was the last thing she needed that night. Eventually the house settled back to sleep.

  The next morning Auntie Mame remarked casually that the house was filthy, in fact that it never had been decently cleaned and it was a slothful crime. Natasha sprang to this bait like a tigress with a T-bone steak. She bit Mame.

  At that point, Dr. Whipple and Masha and one or two other members of the Conservative Element decided that idleness was what was causing all the trouble and that something could be done about it until the farm equipment came. The garment workers got some money from Auntie Mame and made Mr. Johnson drive them all the way to Psplat to buy needles and patterns and yard-goods. That afternoon a sewing bee was inaugurated for all the women and the gentlemen garment workers. They all gathered in the Meeting Hall and stitched and cut amiably. Even Mrs. Johnson took time off from her cooking to come in and sew. Auntie Mame, who never knew one end of a needle from another, gave up after ruining a whole length of cloth and entertained the group by reading Das Kapital aloud. It seemed very peaceful and idealistic until Natasha stuck her finger and jumped up screaming, “I can’t stand anymore of that God damned, cultured society bitch-voice yammering in my ear.” Auntie Mame had a crise de nerfs and stayed in her room for a couple of days until Natasha commanded her to come out for calisthenics. Auntie Mame looked awfully sad and sort of disillusioned to me. But she got back something of her old fight when she discovered that Natasha had distributed all of her imported from France Russian peasant costumes to the other women under the share-and-share-alike clause.

  The whole thing came to a boil when Auntie Mame had been lax about sweeping the third floor corridor and had neglected to make her bed. Natasha gave her such a terrible bawling out that Auntie Mame flounced out of the house, dragging me with her. “Come, dushka, darling, I mean, you’re the only one in this whole God damned dump who understands Auntie,” she whimpered.

  We went to the woods and Auntie Mame had a good old-fashioned cry. “Oh, Patrick, sometimes I ask myself if I’ve done the right thing. I’d hoped for so much and this has all been such a bitter disappointment.”

  I really felt sorry for her, in what I confess was a patronizing sort of way; but it occurred to me that if I was ever to get out of Georgia and back home to college, this was the time to strike.

  “Well,” I said, “why don’t you just face up to it and admit you’re not cut out to be a Communist? You can make a big confession of it and they can all have a hell of a time reading you out of the Party. Then . . .”

  “What do you mean, Communist?” Auntie Mame said, bristling. “Here I go and spend all this time and money with a noble experiment in socialized living and you go besmirching it with one of the filthy labels applied to the workers by a bunch of money-grubbing Wall Street despots!”

  “Doesn’t the money for this rat race come from Wall Street?”

  “Oh! What’s the use in even trying to talk to you, Patrick? What with that ghastly boarding school that’s crowded all compassion for your brother man out of you and fed you nothing but dreams of capitalism, class against class and Republican snobbery . . .”

  I’ll admit that she had something of a point as far as St. Boniface Academy was concerned. The school had had a social science department, but about all we were ever taught was that Calvin Coolidge was a perfect peach and Herbert Hoover a living doll. Republicans, the history master had said, were all gentlemen. Democrats were common and had no breeding. When I asked about Franklin D. Roosevelt, I was told that he was a traitor to his class and then given ten demerits. But I had never gone along with the precepts of St. Boniface Academy any more than I did with those of the Mother Bloor Communal Farm (English Speaking).

  “All right then,” I said, “call it an experiment in socialized living, call it a free love colony, call it the Morris Plan, call it anything you like. But at least be honest enough to call it quits. It was a beautiful dream; but it was also a lousy idea. It isn’t working. You hate those people and they hate you. Now cut your losses and get out.”

  “What do you mean it was a lousy idea, you little devil. It was my idea, mine and Dr. Whipple’s, to start an ideal communal farm where people of all sorts and colors could work together in the soil to build a rich . . .”

  “What in the hell do you know about working in the soil? You’ve never been on a farm in your life. You couldn�
��t even grow snake weed in a window box. And as for Dr. Whipple . . .”

  “Dr. Whipple is one of the greatest thinkers of our time. He has degrees from . . .”

  “Dr. Whipple,” I said, “is a platitudinous old windbag, one of the most fatuous old farts ever to come my way. He may have degrees from here to the Kremlin, but he hasn’t got sense enough to pour piss out of a boot with the instructions on the heel.”

  “How dare you, you arrogant young . . .”

  “And you know it, too. You’ve had to blow his nose and button his fly for him ever since you found him. He’s a blathering old weakling and even if this fiasco is his idea, his and yours, he’s nothing here. You two starry-eyed idealists have simply been taken over by a couple of real Moscow-trained Commies like Boris and Soso and a hard-boiled little tramp like Natasha. They’re running the show and you’re paying for it.”

  “Oh, they are, are they?”

  “Yes, they are. And as for the rest of this grand gang of comrades, what have you got, a few rabble rousers and jail birds, some half-assed college kids, a gay decorator and a pack of malcontents who are having a dandy vacation on you. The only people here who are worth the powder to blow them to hell are the Johnson family and they’re working like slaves, along with your poor, silly Ito, in your wonderful classless society.”

  “Shut up, damn you!” Auntie Mame shouted, her eyes blinded by tears. “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! This is my experiment and these people are my friends.”

  “They’re your jailers,” I said flatly.

  “Oh, indeed? We’ll see about that, young man. I’m absolutely free to do anything I like here. This is my farm as much as it’s anybody’s. I can come and go as I . . .”

  “I’ll bet you ten rubles you can’t. Go on. Try. Just ask Boris to lend you your own truck, or the bus, for an evening in Tiflis. Go on. I dare you.”

  “Very well, you smart little so and so,” she said, rising. “Just watch.”

  Auntie Mame marched down to the swimming hole, where Boris lay stretched out in the sun with Soso and Soso’s girl friend, Masha. Boris was no oil painting, even fully dressed, but the sight of him naked, his back and arms covered with running sores, was enough to put anyone off his feed. Auntie Mame took one look, recoiled and then marshalled her strength.

  “C-comrade,” she said gaily, “I wonder if I c-could borrow either the truck or the bus to run into Tiflis for the . . .”

  “Certainly not,” Boris said calmly, scratching his rear end. “B-but I only . . .”

  “Vy not, Boris?” Masha said. “Tiflis. The Rustaveli Theatre. The . . .”

  “Shut up,” Boris said coldly. “No, Comrade, you may not leave. Now go back to the house.”

  Auntie Mame trembled as we trudged over the meadow, whether from rage or fear I did not know. But all hell broke loose when we got to the house.

  As we entered the front hall, Ralph was waiting there, whitefaced and trembling.

  “Oh, Mame, darling, I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” he blubbered. “The most awful thing!”

  “What?” we chorused.

  “Oh, Mame, you poor angel. That Natasha . . .”

  “What about Natasha?” Auntie Mame trembled worse and her lips were white.

  “She’s . . . she’s . . . oh, I can hardly say it,” Ralph sobbed.

  “Tell me, Ralph. Tell me quickly. What’s happened?”

  “Natasha took Boris up to your room and said that all of your lovely old Russian decorations were decadent and totemistic and were demoralizing the Experiment and that they were the relics of a dead and corrupt civilization. And then she . . . Oh, I can’t!”

  Auntie Mame clutched his arm. “Yes, you can. Go on. Then what?”

  “Oh, Mame, darling, I tried to stop her. I told her those things were priceless and that your room was the only one in the whole house that had any real friv, but she . . . oh . . .”

  “She what?” Auntie Mame asked evenly.

  “She threw all your lovely things down the cesspool! And then . . .” Auntie Mame raced up the three flights of stairs. Sure enough, her room had been stripped, first her elegant peasant outfits, then her Russian decorations. All that remained was a cot and her empty trunks. Adding insult to injury, Natasha had also scrawled, “Dirty Trotskyite!” across the wall with Auntie Mame’s lipstick.

  “That bloody bitch!” Auntie Mame said in a manner that implied very little feeling of brotherhood. She looked around the barren room, then her face crumpled and she threw herself onto the hard bed and sobbed convulsively.

  That night she didn’t come down to dinner. Mrs. Johnson cooked a magnificent meal that night, but she looked haggard and miserable as she served it and even when I told her how good everything was, she didn’t smile.

  Masha had finally got around to observing that it was Mrs. Johnson and Ito who did all the cooking, serving and washing up. “But dot’s not de right teeng, ees eet, Tashka?” she said to Natasha during dinner. “Mebbe ve should oll peetch een and help, eh, Comrade?”

  “Listen, Comrade,” Natasha said airily, “there are some who were just born to be slaves and no amount of education, no amount of revolutions can get ’em out of that class. Like they say, you can take a servant out of the kitchen, but ‘you can’t take the kitchen out of a servant.’ Leave her alone, she probably likes it.”

  It made me sore to hear Natasha talk that way about Mrs. Johnson, who was one of the great women of any color I’ve ever met. But after dinner, when I tiptoed out to the kitchen to help her with the dishes, she was sprawled over the table, weeping noisily, her children standing silent and miserable in a dim corner.

  “I thought maybe you’d like me to help you with the dishes,” I said.

  She only glared dully at me.

  “But Mrs. Johnson,” I said helplessly, “we always do the dishes together. Besides,” I added, “I thought maybe there’d be something to take up to Auntie Mame. She’s been crying in her room ever since Natasha threw all of her decorations down the cesspool.”

  “Okay,” said Mrs. Johnson, balefully. “I’ll just fix up a little mess of something an’ then we go up and see your Auntie togethah.”

  Silently we climbed up the back stairs. No sound came from Auntie Mame’s room and when I opened the door, she was sitting glumly on her bare cot staring into space. Mrs. Johnson closed the door and said, “Mrs. Burnside, the boy and I thought you better eat a little somethin’.”

  Auntie Mame seemed to brighten a little at the sight of Mrs. Johnson’s famed corn bread.

  “Mrs. Burnside, come to the party, this commu-nal farm just ain’t workin’ out. It ain’t like I thought it was goin’ to be. It all sounded so happy and grand when we first thought of comin’ here. But it ain’t like Dr. Whipple said. All these folks sit around and live off your money an’ my cookin’. Booker hated bein’ on the re-lief, but it was better than this place. These people gonna suck you dry, then turn you out. You know that. These people ain’t like you. You may be excentric, Ms. Burnside, but you’re different. You’re a lady.” She paused. “And so am I.”

  Auntie Mame sat silent for a long dreadful moment and then she said quietly, “you’re right, Mrs. Johnson. I see that now. You’re absolutely right.”

  “Ms. Burnside,” Mrs. Johnson said wildly, “we gotta get outta this place before it’s too late. It’s desperate. I heard what happened when you tried to get out just for an evening. We’re trapped and I’m scared.”

  Auntie Mame’s tear-swollen face began to recapture a little of its old brightness. “I think I have a plan, Mrs. Johnson, a plan that will work.” She looked at me. “Patrick,” she said in a businesslike voice. “Mrs. Johnson and I want to have a little talk. Why don’t you just run off to bed, and remember, not a word to anyone about this evening.”

  The next morning Mrs. Johnson was bustling around the kitchen, singing at the top of her lungs. Breakfast was especially delicious and Auntie Mame was up before ten o’clock. She was avidly cor
dial to everyone, especially Natasha. Auntie Mame swept the corridor as it had never been swept before, then she dusted all the public rooms, humming The Russian Lullaby with determined cheer, and then she went out to help Mrs. Johnson with lunch. The meal that day was a triumph.

  During dessert, Auntie Mame rose from her place and made an announcement in clear, bell-like tones. “Comrades, I have a little surprise for you. Today is my birthday!” There were cheers. “Yes, there comes a time when a woman doesn’t like to be reminded that she’s a year older, but out here with all you grand people, I don’t care who knows it.” I could have sworn that Auntie Mame was born in November, but I was intrigued. “And so,” she said, incorporating one or two of the Stanislawski Method gestures, “I’m going to give a big birthday party for myself! Tonight we’ll have cocktails and dinner and music and dancing and all the gin we can hold and all be jolly comrades together!” She sat down, beaming, among loud huzzahs.

  Auntie Mame spent all afternoon in the pantry, making gallon jugs of gin. I’d seen her do it dozens of times. Her gin was famous; but it seemed that this time she was putting a lot more of her soul into it. There were tubs of it. Added to the local wine and the vodka, I could see it would enhance the festivities. I felt kind of lonely and useless and wandered out to the driveway where the Johnson kids were watching their father tinker with the old London bus. Its motor made an exhilarating roar and late in the afternoon, Mr. Johnson siphoned all the gas out of the truck and put it into the bus. The kids asked a lot of questions and so did I, but Mr. Johnson just smiled mysteriously.

  At five Auntie Mame took a deep, hot bath and told me to take one too. While the others were swimming, she’d managed to retrieve all of her jewelry, except a rose quartz bracelet which Natasha had fancied, and also a great deal of her expensive clothing. I noticed that she smelled strongly of Nuit de Noel again.

  The kitchen was even more fragrant. Mrs. Johnson appeared to have slaughtered dozens of hens and they were roasting to a delicate gold in big, black ovens. With a rattle of bracelets, Auntie Mame stirred up four gallons of the very special dry martinis she used to make. “Now remember,” she whispered to Mrs. Johnson, “take plenty of time serving the dinner. Let everyone have all the cocktails he can drink and don’t let Mr. Johnson near them. We’ll need clear heads tonight.”