Around the World With Auntie Mame (5 page)

“Mahvellous, dulling, simply soo-
pub
,” Vera said as she was getting Auntie Mame into her final costume—a court dress of solid seed pearls and chinchilla, a wig that towered four feet above Auntie Mame's head, and a picture hat with nodding plumes that towered four feet above the wig. “Now,” Vera said, “this is where you go down to the dungeon and condemn your lover to death.”

“What for?” Auntie Mame asked.

“Why, for taking liberties with the Empress, silly.”

“Well, he really hasn't done anything so terrible except to eat garlic sausage for the past forty-eight hours.”

“Don't ask a lot of foolish questions, Mame. This is almost over. You use the dogs in this scene. Come! Come Yascha, Sascha, Pavel, Vanya, Boris, Morris!” The six wolfhounds bayed joyously and bounded over to yet another flight of steps leading to a high platform. Auntie Mame followed unsteadily but at the bottom step she stopped dead.

“What's the matter?” Vera whispered. “The curtain's going up.”

“I—I can't make it.”

“Can't make what?”

“Vera, this Empress drag is so heavy I can't manage the stairs.”

“Oh, that's easy,” Vera said. She gave one of the dogs a whack across the rump and all six of them bounded to the top, hauling Auntie Mame up with them.

This setting—a dungeon far beneath the icy waters of the Neva—was one of the Folies-Bergère's more sordid attempts at grim realism. Folies-Bergère muscle men in breechclouts were avidly torturing Folies-Bergère chorus boys, also in breechclouts, on wheels and racks. The boys squealed like stuck pigs, and tormented shadows were projected onto the sweating walls. The audience loved it. The romantic young officer was led in, stripped to the waist. I felt that this was something of a mistake since he was pitifully thin and had forgotten to put any of his robust brown make-up on his chest and arms. Then there was another fanfaronade of trumpets and Auntie Mame appeared at the top of the stairs in a mass of yelping wolfhounds. And let me tell you that the audience wasn't exactly sitting on its hands when
that
happened.

“L'Imperatrice!” two flunkies bawled.

Then Auntie Mame began descending the stairs and, aided by all those Russian wolfhounds, she got down a lot faster than she had got up, her hat and wig rocking violently. She managed to keep her footing—
just
—and the house roared with admiration.

“
Oh,
mon amour
,” she sobbed.

“Take it off, Queenie!” that voice called up from the audience.

“This is where she condemns him to death,” Vera whispered to me.

I was feeling so relieved to think that this was almost over that I began to take a little more interest in the
mise en scène
. “I don't quite follow the plot, Vera,” I said. “It's a little like
Elizabethand Essex
except that . . .”

“The French don't care about
plots
, de-ah,” Vera said, “as long as they've got enough costumes and scenery and biggish effects.”

Well, they certainly had plenty.

Some way—don't ask me how—the Empress indicated that she wanted her innocent admirer broken on the rack, then flayed alive, then drawn and quartered by shouting, “
Oh,
mon
amour
.” A trap door opened, flames licked out of it, and the hapless young man was thrown in with a hideous scream and a chillingly realistic thud. Then the massed offstage chorus sang the
old
Russian anthem (in French), Auntie Mame shrieked, “
Oh,
mon amour!
” and slumped to the floor as the curtain fell.

The house was in an uproar with cries of “
Brava
” and “
Bis!
Bis!
”

Fortunately, the Folies-Bergère never grants encores, but the curtain was raised and lowered four times and still Auntie Mame stayed on the floor, struggling weakly to rise while the dogs wagged their tails feverishly and sniffed at her wig.

“Vera! Patrick!” she called piteously. “I can't get up. This damned dress has me weighed down.” The orchestra was playing hell-for-leather as Vera and I with two stagehands got Auntie Mame out of the pearl dress and disentangled from the wolfhounds, but even over the sound of the music and the rumble of the shifting scenery I could hear the audience cheering and calling the name of Vera Charles. I could also hear the voice shouting “Take it off!”

There wasn't a dry eye backstage. As I led Auntie Mame to her dressing room, performers and stagehands alike stopped whatever they were doing to cheer for Vera Charles. “
Oh,
mes
amours!
” Auntie Mame cried, quite carried away with her triumph, and the company cheered again.

UP IN THE DRESSING ROOM AUNTIE MAME AND VERA collapsed into each other's arms while the dogs fell to scratching and licking themselves. “Mame,” Vera cried emotionally, “you were magnificent. Only
I
could have done it any better. What I need now is a drink.”

“What
I
need,” Auntie Mame said, “is a general anesthetic. Come on. Let's get out of here.”

“Oh, but Mame de-ah,” Vera said, “you've forgotten the grand finale.”

“What grand finale?” Auntie Mame asked blankly.

“Why, there's
always
a grand finale, Mame.”

“I didn't see one last week,” Auntie Mame said.

“That's because you didn't stay until the end, de-ah. Now, your costume for that is . . .”

“Vera Charles, you didn't say one mumbling word about any grand finale. I've gone through hell for you and now I . . .”

“Perhaps it did slip my mind, Mame dulling,” Vera said. “But you'd better make your change right away. It comes on right after the Arabian Nights number.”

“Now see here, Vera,” Auntie Mame said crossly, lighting a cigarette, “if I have to wear another one of those public monuments that I can hardly breathe in . . .”

“Not at all, dulling,” Vera said, lifting the wig off Auntie Mame's head and substituting a towering headdress of jet beads and black monkey fur, “this outfit is coolness itself.”

“That's good,” Auntie Mame said. “Now just what do I have to do?”

“First of all,” Vera said absently, “take off that brassière and put this one on. Same with your pants. Well, you simply wait until you hear the master of ceremonies call Vera Charles and . . .”

“I don't need fresh underwear, Vera,” Auntie Mame began, “I put this on just before we . . .”

“Do stop chattering, Mame, and hurry,” Vera said, unhooking Auntie Mame's brassière. “Turn your back, Patrick. Then you and the wolfhounds come down this long flight of stairs. . . . Now the pants, de-ah. Put these on. That's right. . . . Oh, there's also a page boy—this very nice unemployed juggler from Lyons—to carry your train. There! You look divine. Now for the train. Then you simply walk along the promenade that encircles the orchestra pit, go back onto the stage, smile, bow, and that's that.”

Vera knelt down behind Auntie Mame and snapped a long train made of black monkey fur to the seat of her pants, if indeed that garment could be dignified by the term pants. It was flesh-colored net with a scattering of jet beads where jets were needed most. The brassière followed along the same general lines.

“And,” Vera said, getting up, “
you
get to wear the
longest
train of anybody in the company. Not even the mannequins or the
danseuse nue
have anything that comes within two yards of yours.”

There was a tap at the door.

“
Entrez
,” Vera called.

The door opened and a morose young man came in. He was wearing gold pantaloons and a big gold turban trimmed with monkey fur. “Ah good,” Vera said. “Here's your page boy. Good luck, dulling.”

“But where's the rest of my costume?” Auntie Mame looked down at the considerable expanse of herself relieved only by the scattering of jet beads.

“Oh, I'm so glad you reminded me,” Vera said. “Here are your gloves and here's your fan.” Vera handed Auntie Mame a pair of long black gloves and a big fan made of monkey fur.

“
And?
” Auntie Mame said.

“And
what
, dulling?”

“Do you mean to stand there and tell me that this is
all
you expect me to wear? Well, Vera Charles, if you think I'm going out there in . . .”

“But, Mame,” Vera said, “it's the most expensive costume in the whole finale. Real jets and genuine monkey fur. It's . . .”

“I don't care if it's made of the Missing Link. I'm not going out there practically naked with a totally strange unemployed juggler holding up my . . .”

“Oh,” Vera said airily, “if
that's
all you're worried about, Patrick can do the train bit for you. Here you,” she said to the page boy, “dis-robez. Strip. Shuck. Peel.”

“Hey, listen,” I began. But Vera had my shirt off and was plucking at my belt and the callboy was rapping at the door.

I CAN'T TO THIS DAY RECALL EXACTLY HOW EVERYthing happened, but the next thing I knew, the six wolfhounds were pulling Auntie Mame, cursing and protesting, down the dressing-room stairs. I followed blindly behind in gold pantaloons, clutching at Auntie Mame's monkey-fur train with one hand and trying to get the gold turban out of my eyes with the other hand. The dogs dragged us up to the top of another flight of stairs. I heard Auntie Mame cry, “I won't go on. I'm damned if I . . .” A Romanian tenor was squealing something about Paree,
les belles de nuit
, something-something
cher ami
.

I got the turban out of my eyes just as the master of ceremonies called, “Mees Verah Sharl.” The orchestra struck up “My Miss American Beauty.” The dogs leaped forward. So did Auntie Mame. So did I.

As I say, the exact details elude me. I was blinded by the light and deafened by the applause. It was said that not since Josephine Baker appeared there ten years before had such an ovation been accorded any American star. But I wasn't thinking about ovations. I was thinking about sucking in my bare stomach and thrusting out my bare chest and not falling ass over elbow down those steps. They seemed longer than the stairs from the top of the Eiffel Tower but eventually my feet touched ground. The lesser stars had taken their bows and there was nothing now but for the counterfeit Vera Charles to make her circuit of the orchestra and call it a night.

The six wolfhounds—seasoned troupers, it seems—capered off across the footlights in smart single file and blazed a trail along the yard-wide runway that surrounded the orchestra pit. Auntie Mame followed, clutching their six leashes in one hand while with the other she flapped her big monkey-fur fan, trying ineffectually to cover as much of her torso as possible. I followed in the caboose, so to speak, the monkey-fur train leaving a gap of some fifteen feet between us.

The crowd rose to its feet, stamping and cheering and roaring its adoration. The air was thick with cries of “
Brava
” and “Vera.” And from the first row I heard a voice shout, “Yo, Queenie! Take it off!”

And just then I saw a shooting stick thrust out onto the runway in front of Auntie Mame. “Look out, Auntie Mame!” I called.

It was too late.

The shooting stick caught Auntie Mame around the ankle. She paused. She faltered. She swayed. And then she plummeted down into the first row, dragging the wolfhounds with her, snarling and yelping at the ends of their leashes as her mask flew into the air. I followed, having been too stunned by the whole thing to let go of her train. In a second we were all struggling and thrashing there in the first row, Auntie Mame, Sascha, Jascha, Vanya, Pavel, Boris, Morris, and I in a hopeless tangle of dog hair and monkey fur. I heard Auntie Mame cry, “My God! It's
Dwight Babcock
!” Then she fainted.

That seemed like a splendid idea, so I pretended to faint, too. The crowd did the rest, for the French are fiercely loyal to their stars. With cries of “
Cochon
!” “
Brigand
!” “
Voleur
!” they fell upon Mr. Babcock and dragged him bodily from the theater. Opening one eye, I saw him being buffeted and pummeled all the way up the aisle. I hated Mr. Babcock like poison, but I didn't like to think of his being lynched.

BACK AT THE HOTEL VERA POLISHED OFF A TUMbler of cognac, yawned, and said she thought she'd turn in. It had, Vera allowed, been one hell of a day.

“Just a moment, Vera,” Auntie Mame said, rubbing her bruised thigh, “there is a little favor I would like to have you do for me.”

“Well, not tonight, de-ah,” Vera said. “Openings take so much out of a star.”

“Sit down, Vera,” Auntie Mame said. “Before any of us goes to bed we are going to find out just which jail Mr. Babcock is in and then you and I are going to see him.”

“Are you out of your mind, dulling?” Vera asked haughtily. “Just give me one good reason why I, a Great Star, should go to see some old masher who is, after all, your problem and not mine.”

“I can give you an excellent reason, Vera,” Auntie Mame said. “It is this: Mr. Babcock may or may not know that it was
I
who went on for
you
tonight. He can still take Patrick from me. I want you to go to him and assure him that it was you he pulled down into his nasty lap this evening.”

“And if I refuse?” Vera asked haughtily, but not with her old confidence.

“If you refuse, Vera,” Auntie Mame said calmly, “then Mr. Babcock will not be the
only
one to know just who was the Great Star tonight. I'll talk, Vera. I'll talk plenty. I'll talk to Time, Life, Paris Soir, Reuters, A.P., U.P., I.N.S.—I'll talk to anyone who'll listen and
you'll
be not only out of work, but also the laughingstock of . . .”