The Dud Avocado - Elaine Dundy [67]
“I’ve lost my passport,” I said to him when I felt my knees touching his desk.
The Man in Charge swiveled away from me in his chair and looked at a poster on the wall of happy natives dancing around a village in Switzerland. He seemed lost in thought.
“Where did you lose it?” he finally asked me.
“If I knew it wouldn’t be lost, would it?” I replied facetiously.
“I see.” He seemed very sorry. “I don’t know,” he mourned, “if you young people realize in what a serious predicament you put the United States government with your carelessness.”
I tried to cheer him up. “Oh now, it can’t be as bad as all that. I mean look—I’ve reported this—well—practically immediately, so how could anyone else use it, if that’s what you’re worrying about?”
“Forgive me,” old Pince-Nez cut in smoothly. “Forgive me, but we have only your word when you lost it, and the same applies as to how, doesn’t it?” And he gave me a long sad smile that said if he’d heard I’d sold it for a consignment of marijuana, it would in no way be taxing his credulity.
“Sold it!” I exclaimed suddenly. “You think I’ve sold it, don’t you!” I called out to my friends on the benches, “Hey come here, he thinks I’ve sold it!”
Beard Bubbly was the first one over. “But didn’t you sell it?” he asked me innocently. “I remember your telling me they get double the price for baby actresses outside American Express these days—” and then of course they all joined in and there was a lot more of the same.
“Shut up,” I said, when I saw how old Pince-Nez was taking this. “They’re only kidding, of course,” I told him exasperatedly, and I tried to explain how after Opening Night, in the general hoopla of celebration, I’d gone to a lot of different places and that I could have lost it at any one of them. The entire Hard Core expedition was clustered around me by now, nodding and shoving and shouting “Yeah, that’s true, Gorce, that’s so true!” at every opportunity during the narrative, in an effort to strengthen my case.
When I finished the Man in Charge looked at all of us. “I’m glad I’ve got you all here together to state the official position,” he said at last. “It must be brought home to you people that as long as an American passport is at large and unaccounted for your country has been placed in grave peril——” Lost, sold or stolen, it seemed, they could never be sure that at that very moment it wasn’t working its way back to the States to do irreparable harm and so on, and so on—and then the blow came— “Therefore the American Embassy in Paris,” he said quite calmly, “is not authorized to issue you another regular passport. We can, however, issue you one which will return you directly to the States.”
“Not on your sweet life,” I said.
“Then I suggest you apply immediately to Washington for a new one, stating exactly how you happened to discover that it was—hmm—missing, though honestly I can’t hold out much hope as to the outcome. However, my secretary, Miss Bowen, will type it out if you like.”
“How long will it take Washington to decide?”
“Some time, I’m afraid—six months——”
“Six months! But I want one right now. Suppose I should want to go to some other country?” This was my second encounter in France with the law, and it was not mellowing me any. “I see what I should have done,” I snapped, “I should have told you I’d thrown it in the fire. It wouldn’t be at large then. I suppose it would have been all right then!”
I regretted the words the moment they flew out of my mouth, and looking at those bright glasses flashing into the silence around us, I knew he was going to make me regret them even more.
“I beg your pardon?” He said it mildly enough, but with a persistence that was forcing me either to repeat my outburst or back