Around the World With Auntie Mame

by Dennis, Patrick

  “That’s right. We haven’t been introduced. Let me do the honors. I am Patrick Dennis of New York City. Traveling with my widowed aunt, Mrs. Beauregard Burnside.” Oh, was I worldly! “We are doing a cultural tour before I return to my university to finish off my studies of archaeology.”

  “Oh, you’re in college then?”

  “Well, uh, practically out of it.” That certainly was true enough. At the rate we were getting back home, it looked as though I’d never get to any school. “I’m in my last year, of course. After all, I’m going on twenty-one. Now do just sit down here and I’ll call for some tea. Ask your father to join us, if you like.” Clapping my hands like a pasha, I ordered tea.

  She sat, ankles demurely crossed, prim but provocative, if you know what I mean. “Very well,” she said, “but I can’t stay longer than a moment. My name is Rosemary Shumway. My father is a poor but dedicated missionary and we are on our way back to the remote little Chinese settlement—oh, I’m sure you would never have heard of it—where Daddy does his humble bit in the service of Our Lord.”

  “Say, Miss Shumway, that must be a very fascinating life. I’ll bet you speak several dialects of Chinese.”

  “No, alas. Poor Daddy has been out there all these years without even me to lean on in his loneliness, while I have been at school in England. You see, I’m only eighteen.”

  “Gee. Same as I . . .” Then I said patronizingly, “How wonderful to be eighteen again.”

  “All these years Daddy and I have been separated it has been my fondest hope to be at his side spreading God’s word among the luckless infidels. And now, with this ghastly war raging between China and Japan, I’m so happy at last to be able to help Daddy.”

  “Well, that’s just fine,” I said. It didn’t sound like much of a life to me. “And I’m awfully glad you’re staying here at this hotel. My aunt and I have to wait eleven days before we can get a ship bound for New York. But it won’t seem nearly as long now that I’ve met you. Port Said isn’t exactly Paris, but there’s an orchestra here in the hotel and . . . Well, I mean we could have some very stimulating . . .”

  “Oh, but I’m afraid we can’t,” Rosemary said, her lashes sweeping her cheeks. “Daddy and I just haven’t the means to sit in expensive hotels waiting for luxury liners. We leave at dawn on a Greek freighter as soon as Daddy’s shipment is put aboard.”

  “Shipment?”

  “Oh, yes,” Rosemary said, an ethereal light coming to her face. “It’s always been Daddy’s fondest wish to have enough Chinese Bibles for his whole parish and a lovely big pipe organ. And now he has them! I’m so happy for him! And so we set sail at dawn aboard the Lesbos for who knows what exciting adventure—two Christian Soldiers spreading His word.”

  “Gosh,” I said, “that’s too bad—for me, I mean. I’ve got to get back to America, but the idea of sitting around this dreary . . .”

  “But the Lesbos is going to America. San Francisco. Actually, it’s quite an interesting trip. Through the Suez Canal and the Red Sea to Aden—I’ll be so eager to see the Red Sea. . . .”

  “Do you think it’ll part?”

  “Then, possibly, Bombay, Columbo in Ceylon, Singapore, Saigon, Shanghai . . .”

  “Shanghai? Hey, don’t you know there’s a war going on there? From what I see in the newspapers, Shanghai’s in ruins.”

  “Well, as close to Shanghai as possible for the Bibles and Daddy’s organ. And then . . .”

  “Rosemary!” a man’s voice called. “Rosemary, dearest, Daddy’s been looking everywhere for you.” I glanced up, and there, standing at our table, was the Reverend Dr. Shumway in his tropical-weight clericals. But, thank God, Rosemary resembled her father in no way. Dr. Shumway was a middle-aged, middle-sized man, florid, egg bald, and glossy with sweat. He had a rather large moon face, gooseberry eyes, a great, long, meandering sort of nose, and a prissy little drain hole of a mouth. “Rosemary, dear, you know that Daddy doesn’t like you to talk to . . .”

  “Oh, please, Daddy,” Rosemary said, jumping up in girlish confusion. “This young American gentleman is Mr. Dennis. He’s staying here at the hotel and, had it not been for his quick wit and chivalry, everything I own—my money, my traveler’s checks, my passport—would have been hopelessly lost. Mr. Dennis, this is my father, Dr. Shumway. I’ve been telling him of our missionary work in China, Daddy.”

  “How do you do, sir,” I said, taking his clammy hand. “Won’t you join us?”

  “Ah, indeed I shall,” he said sitting down. “What a fearful blow it would be for a poor servant of the Dear Lord to be left destitute in this soulless city. As the Bible says, ‘Who steals my purse steals trash. . . .’ But even losing our, harumph, ‘trash’ would be a brutal blow for my daughter and I. Harumph. Lemon, please, no milk. Would you hand me a serviette, daughter dear?”

  “And, Daddy dearest,” Rosemary said, “Mr. Dennis tells me that he and his sweet old widowed aunt will be forced to stay in this dreadful place for nearly a fortnight before they can book passage back to America. Isn’t that frightful?”

  “Shocking. Those little gâteau cakes look monstrously good, Rosemary. Would you hand me one, dear girl?”

  “From what Rosemary—I mean, from what your daughter tells me, sir, your trip sounds most interesting. I’ve never been to the Far East. But I’m sure that trying to buy a passage would be impossible. Everything seems to be pretty tight just now. So I guess that all my aunt and I can do is . . .”

  “Mightn’t there be something on our . . .” Rosemary began.

  “How very strange that you should ask me that, dear girl,” Dr. Shumway said, wiping his lips. “As the Bible tells us, ‘God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform.’ But only today did I learn that Dr. and Mrs. Partridge—a dear couple doing the Dear Lord’s work—have had to cancel their passage at the last moment. A death in the family,” he added in that confidential tone one usually employs to discuss criminal abortion. “So there just happen to be two extra berths on our ship. One of those éclairs, please, Rosemary dearest.”

  “Gee, that would be wonderful! But we actually need three places.”

  “Three?”

  “The other is for Ito. He is my aunt’s . . . he is a Japanese boy whom my aunt has instructed in the Christian way of life, Dr. Shumway. The car’s already been sent home, but I don’t think Auntie Mame would trust Ito in a town like . . . I mean she wouldn’t want to leave him here under so much Moslem influence.”

  “Japanese?” Dr. Shumway said, furrowing his brow, his mouth puckering.

  “Well, yes.” Then I said hastily, “But thoroughly Americanized—and Christianized. My aunt is a very churchly woman. I mean Ito isn’t even really Japanese. He was born in California. Well, I mean, Ito’s what you’d call a neutral.”

  “Splendid! Splendid, dear boy!” Dr. Shumway said. “And it is again the hand of the Dear Lord, for I had quite forgotten that Dr. Partridge’s manly little son, John Wesley, has had to give up his booking as well, owing to this unforseen tragedy. So, indeed, there is space enough on board for all of you. But remember, it’s not one of them—er, one of those—de lukes Cunard boats. It is a simple, informal little craft—oh, neat as a pin—captained by an Athenian gentleman who I had the happy fortune to save from Greek Orthodoxy.”

  “Oh, my aunt has very simple tastes. I could go upstairs and speak to her right now and let you know immediately. Oh, and I wondered if you would object, sir, to my inviting your daughter to dinner tonight.”

  “Oh, Mr. Dennis, I just couldn’t,” Rosemary said, blushing entrancingly.

  “Why, I should not mind at all, young man,” Dr. Shumway said. “As a matter of fact, I have some last-minute business to attend to and I should do my labors for the Dear Lord with lighter heart knowing that my dear daughter was in good hands. Now we shall wait right here for your reply. Oh, and would you just signal to that waiter for more tea and perhaps some sandwiches and another platter of those delicious petit-fourbiscui
ts.”

  I BURST INTO OUR ROOMS CALLING AUNTIE MAME.

  “Who was that lady I seen you with?” she said. “I was just going down to tea when I spied you through the potted palms. Rather attractive. I wonder what she uses on her hair. So I went to the bar, instead. And when I came back, my God, you were with the whole Epworth League. What has come over you, Patrick?”

  “Her name is Rosemary Shumway,” I said stuffily. “She and her father are missionaries in China. They’re English and she’s just eighteen.”

  “Patrick! I’d hate to be hanging since she was eighteen. Anyhow, where shall we dine? Certainly not that hovel with the fortuneteller.”

  “Well, gee, Auntie Mame, I sort of made this date for dinner—thinking of course, that you’d be holed up with Proust.”

  “I see,” she said, giving me a quizzical glance.

  “But, Auntie Mame, this is what I came to tell you. Dr. Shumway and Rosemary are leaving tomorrow morning on this very nice Greek ship—a sort of yacht, actually. And they say that they can get us three tickets. And it sounds like a very interesting trip—educational. We go to all sorts of interesting places like Aden and Columbo and Bombay and China and . . . Well, I mean since we’ve come so far around the world, we might as well keep on going. It lands in San Francisco eventually, and I’ve never seen California, either. It would be much faster than waiting for the Rex to get here and . . .”

  “Patrick! I have all the time in the world, but I’d always thought that you were the one who was so eager to hustle back to college. This Rosalie girl hasn’t . . .”

  “Rosemary, Auntie Mame. Rosemary Shumway. Oh, Auntie Mame, she’s a lovely girl. So beautiful and well bred and with such a spiritual quality. And her father is a truly dedicated man of God. I mean here they’ve gone out of their way to befriend us and offer us berths on this really cultural pleasure cruise and . . .”

  “All right, darling,” Auntie Mame sighed. “I may not recognize spiritual qualities and truly dedicated men at first glance, but I do know sex when I see it. You can have your shipboard romance. Besides, I like to visit places with a hot climate and political unrest. Go down and tell this Rosalind creature that we’ll join her. A Greek yacht does sound sort of fun. How much are the tickets and what time do we sail?”

  ROSEMARY AND I DINED TOGETHER IN THE DINING room of the hotel that evening. Having told her that I was twenty-one, practically out of college, and quite the man of the world, I really put on the dog—white tie, tails, bottle of champagne cooling next to the table. Rosemary looked ravishingly English in tulle and, while she seemed shocked that I had ordered champagne, she managed to finish off quite a lot of it and then—bless her heart—suggest another bottle. We danced to the strains of such new imported song hits as “Too Much Mustard” and “Dardenella.” At first Rosemary was very reserved and standoffish, but later I was able to hold her quite closely on the dance floor and even to manage a little cheek-to-cheek.

  It was two o’clock when I took her up to her room. She looked at me with dewy eyes and said, “I never knew that going about with men could be such fun. I’ve led so sheltered a life, you know.” She squeezed my hand fiercely and I took it as a sign that she might be ready for at least a good-night kiss.

  “Ah, but just wait for all those nights at sea. The ports of call—smart supper clubs and . . . Oh, Rosemary, I’ve never met a girl as beautiful as you.” With that, I threw my arms around her—and none too aptly. The door opened and Dr. Shumway appeared in a dirty old flannel dressing gown.

  “Rosemary, child,” he said, “it’s ever so late. You must come right in. Good night, dear boy. Until we sail!” That was the end of my big clinch.

  I HAD JUST ABOUT TIME TO GET OUT OF MY EVENING clothes and into something more suitable for ocean travel when I heard Auntie Mame’s traveling alarm clock go off. She got up spitting tacks. “My God! It’s still as black as your hat outside! Ito!” Her mood was not much improved in the fleabitten old taxi that took us to the harbor, and I was worried for fear she might see that the Lesbos was not sailing from one of the more fashionable piers, if, indeed, Port Said could be said to have a fashionable pier. But it was so dark that nobody could see where we were. From its indistinct outlines in the mole-gray dawn, the Lesbos looked small enough to be a yacht, but its dimly illuminated interior didn’t boast of any of the niceties—shiny brass, glossy paneling—that one usually associated with the Corsair . Its pungent companionway was dirty and noisy with odd, murky puddles. There was a constant hissing and clanking of pipes, interspersed with loud and untranslatable curses in what I supposed was Greek.

  A wiry little Greek steward—he was wearing a raveled old maroon sweater instead of a natty white jacket, but I guess he was a steward—shambled forward with a sneer and took a look at our baggage. Auntie Mame was never one to travel lightly.

  he said.

  “Good evening!” Auntie Mame said, forcing a bright, false smile. “Or should I say good morning?”

  the steward said.

  “Naturally I won’t want all this luggage on the voyage,” Auntie Mame said. “And I’ve done it all very efficiently. I’ve put my sports clothes and a few simple dinner dresses in those alligator bags. Those other bags and the trunks in the canvas covers can go right down to the hold. Is that clear?” She squandered a bewitching smile on the steward.

  “Uh, perhaps he doesn’t understand. Parlez-vous français? ”

  “Uh, sprechen Sie Deutsch?”

  “Habla usted español?”

  The steward said, again and then he mumbled something like, and spat. With that he called to some sort of side-kick, a tall, morose-looking sailor from Samos.

  The tall sailor picked up seven or eight of Auntie Mame’s bags and said in English, “You come dis way.”

  For a ship as small as the Lesbos, it was a surprisingly long trip to our staterooms—not that those seagoing telephone booths should be dignified by so grandiose a term. We went down to what seemed almost the very hold of the old tub. It was awash with bilge and everywhere there was an odor as sour as an old dishrag. I thought at the time that the Reverend must have been transporting enough Bibles for everyone in China, because the ship sat so low in the water that it was sheer madness to open any of the portholes on our deck.

  the steward said, indicating three tiny cabins situated just over the screw.

  the sailor roared, with a fine show of gold teeth.

  “Just the alligator bags in my stateroom, please,” Auntie Mame said. Then, with a few expressive gestures, she said, “Seulement les portemanteaux—I mean to say le baggage d’alliga teur. . . . How in the hell do you say ‘alligator,’ darling? . . . Seulement le baggage crocodile dans ma cabine. Oh, no!” The steward and his chum, not even understanding her, piled the bags in.

  Auntie Mame’s cabin was a filthy affair about six by seven. It contained a bunk, a chest complete with pitcher and bowl, a straight chair, a life jacket, some complicated instructions in Greek about what to do in case of shipwreck, and eighteen pieces of luggage.

  “Dove il stanza di bagno?” she tried in Italian.

  the steward said and slammed Auntie Mame’s door on the rest of her language lesson.

  Ito’s cabin and mine were even smaller than Auntie Mame’s, but then we hadn’t quite so much stuff to cram into them. The steward had just disappeared when Auntie Mame came banging into my room. “Greek yacht? This wretched boat is so old I’m sure it’s one Homer was talking about.”

  “Oh, it’s not so bad, Auntie Mame,” I lied weakly.

  “Not so bad? It’s perfectly . . .” There was a blast of the whistle, and the engines directly beneath us started churning with a vibration that set the furniture to dancing.

  “Hey, Auntie Mame! Let’s go above and watch ourselves set sail.”

  “Now see here, young man, you’re not going anywhere except where I’m going and that is back to bed for a few hours’ sleep. You’re not eighteen and I won’t have you ruining your . . .�
�

  “Please,” I said. “Not so loud. Rosemary thinks I’m twenty-one and a senior at college. You won’t say anything will you?”

  “Oh?” Auntie Mame said. “Well, I don’t care how old you say you are. Get to bed. I know I’m not old enough to stand much of this. You’ll have plenty of time to see her tomorrow. And really, Patrick, this despicable ship isn’t actually so terrible, darling. I mean if it’s what you want. It’s different.” She kissed me good night and went back to her cubbyhole. I stretched out on my bunk for just a second. The next thing I knew it was nearly noon.

  I awoke in a pool of sweat, the air in my tiny cabin flat and still. Wanting to look my best for Rosemary, I got into a robe and groped my way down the dark, filthy companionway looking for a bathroom. All the doors were labeled in Greek so I had to try all of them. The first three doors I approached were locked. The fourth led to a man who was snoring in a bunk. A rat ran out of the fifth. The sixth, marked turned out to be the right place—a hot, stinking chamber containing a filthy toilet, two scummy washbasins, and a big, old-fashioned tub with a velvety ring around it and a nest of hairs clogging the drain.

  Only slightly refreshed, I dressed and made my way up to the open deck. I’d never seen the Lesbos except in the pitch dark. It was better that way. The ship Rosemary’s father had described as “simple, informal,” and “neat as a pin” was unbelievably filthy—its decks thick with rust, its paint peeling and untouched for years. Great flecks of soot fell from its single funnel directly onto its crew and passengers, the canvas awnings having long ago deteriorated to tatters. Mentioning crew and passengers reminds me that there were hardly any of either. If I had ever wondered why three vacancies suddenly came up at a time when space was at a premium, I didn’t now. And as for a crew, what little work was done on the Lesbos was done by a miserable handful of sullen Turks, all of whom must have been shanghaied.

  We were creeping down the Suez Canal by this time. It was hideously hot on deck and there wasn’t a breath of air stirring. I found a biggish but sordid-looking room designated as which I took to be the ship’s lounge. Picking my way through the auction-room clutter of old wicker furniture, I sat down to wait for the radiant appearance of Rosemary. A fan in the dirty ceiling whirred away in a slow dispirited fashion. There were some dog-eared Greek magazines called and some copies of The Modern Priscilla, which had obviously been left out for the entertainment of the passengers at around 1907 and did nothing to tempt me. Hot and hungry and thirsty, I waited.