The Aviator's Wife

by Melanie Benjamin

  “Yes.”

  “Well, then, goodbye,” Charles Lindbergh said in a faint, almost strangled tone, and he hung up the phone.

  I did not. I remained holding the receiver to my ear, the transmitter to my mouth, for at least a minute; long enough for Dwight to knock softly and stick his bushy head—he was in dire need of a haircut; his hair stuck up all over his scalp—inside the doorway.

  “Anne? Was that really Colonel Lindbergh?”

  “I believe so.” In a daze, I replaced the receiver.

  “What did he want?”

  “He wanted me.”

  “You? I thought he was supposed to be interested in Elisabeth.”

  “I know—I thought—I told him she wasn’t here! Right off! Dwight, I think he really wanted to speak to me, but—oh, it’s only because he once made a promise to me. That’s it.”

  “What kind of promise?”

  “He promised to take me flying again. He’s coming tomorrow at ten.”

  “Ten? Huh. You sure he meant you?”

  “Yes, Dwight!” How many times did I have to say it before we both believed it? I couldn’t even count that high.

  “Hmmm.” Dwight scratched his head, then patted his stomach. “Anne, now I’m hungry. What were you going to have Cook make for dinner?”

  “Dinner?” I stared at my brother. “Dinner?”

  “Well, Anne, you were just asking me—”

  “Oh, go ask Cook to make you a sandwich.” Finally sliding off the desk, I brushed past my brother. “I can’t help you; I must find something to wear!”

  “But he’s not coming until tomorrow morning!”

  “I know! I hardly have any time!”

  I left Dwight standing in the hallway, still scratching his head and saying, in a disgusted tone, “Women.”

  “Men!” I called over my shoulder, already mentally going through my closet.

  But I paused once, on my way to my room, to shake my head in wonder at my brother. How on earth could he think of food at a time like this?

  “HELLO,” I SAID, opening the door. Then I looked up. Charles Lindbergh was standing before me, blocking out the bright morning sun. I’d forgotten how tall he was.

  He had changed. He didn’t look like a boy any longer; he had a slightly wary look in those piercing blue eyes, and he appeared much more comfortable in civilian clothes—tweed trousers and a white shirt and tie, although he did have that battered leather jacket over his arm. In place of his helmet, however, he wore a fedora that was just like every fedora I’d ever seen on any banker, my father included.

  He also had a pair of sunglasses in his pocket; he donned these quickly as he led me to his car.

  “I’m afraid it’s a bit strange,” he explained, as he held the door open for me. Once I was settled, he went around and slid into the driver’s seat; as he did so, he pulled his hat brim low over his eyes.

  “What is?”

  “This—this getup.” He gestured to his face. “Sometimes I can manage to fool the press, if they’re not already on my tail. I don’t think they are today, fortunately. The moment they see you with me, they’ll have us engaged. I’ve been engaged to any number of women lately.”

  He then appeared to think about what he had just said; his hand, poised to flip the ignition switch, froze. “I didn’t mean—”

  “That’s all right,” I said hastily. “I understand.”

  “Yes.” He nodded, then started the car; with a roar he drove down the circular driveway to the private road that led to the main street. We were in a new cream-colored Ford open roadster, so I pulled my cloche hat farther down on my head, holding on to it, praying it wouldn’t fly off. His hat remained mysteriously tethered to his head.

  He did not drive fast, much to my surprise. For a man who loved to fly, he appeared cautious and careful on the ground, constantly looking over his shoulder in case cars approached from behind. Nor did he talk; after a few minutes of total silence, I began to feel as superfluous as the small green spider that had hitched a ride on the windshield. And so, as we drove through the city, then out into the country of Long Island, down roads I’d never before discovered, I had a long time in which to wonder if, indeed, he had called the wrong Morrow sister. Half an hour passed, then forty-five minutes, and still he spoke not a word to me, nor even looked my way. Months had passed since we’d seen each other, but obviously he did not feel compelled to explain what he had been up to, and so, out of defiance and a prickly sense of pride that made me set my mouth a certain way, neither did I.

  I glanced at my wristwatch, then at the immobile face beside me, the eyes hidden by those round smoky lenses, the brow obscured by that magical hat.

  But if he didn’t talk, neither did he give any indication that he expected me to. So I gave myself over to the purity of simply being, with him, on a fine summer day. Only once did I break the silence; it was when we drove along a lane bordered on either side with young birch trees.

  “Oh, look! It’s like they’re bowing to us!” I couldn’t help but laugh, pointing as the tops of the trees shimmied ahead of us, bending in the light breeze. Charles nodded but kept his eyes on the road, and so I retreated once more, embarrassed by my outburst.

  Finally we turned down a long gravel road that led to an open field. There, two planes were waiting; an enormous white French Normandy–styled house rose up in the distance, along with several barns and smaller dwellings.

  Charles braked the car, and the engine sputtered off. He turned to me.

  “Well, that was fun,” he said with a sudden, surprising grin, and I had to laugh.

  “You like to drive?” I fingered the leather upholstery, dusty now. But it was certainly a fine automobile.

  “I’m afraid I do. I used to have a motorcycle—an Indian—back when I was barnstorming. She was an extraordinary little machine, but I sold her to pay for my first plane, a Jenny.”

  “Do you name all your machines after people?”

  “I—oh, no. A Jenny is a type of plane—war surplus, they were used overseas and then refitted. We used them to fly the mail.”

  “Oh.”

  “Anyway.” He removed his sunglasses and his hat, and ran his hand through his sandy-colored hair. “Here we are.”

  “Where are we, exactly?”

  “Friends of mine happen to have a private airfield. So far, none of the press has found it out.”

  “Oh.” I could see the water of the sound glittering in the distance, beyond a thicket of slender trees. “It’s lovely.”

  “Yes. The Guggenheims have been good to me in all—this.” He waved his hands vaguely, and I understood him to mean everything that had happened to him after. After landing in Paris. “Harry lets me use his planes; I have a new one on order. The Spirit’s in mothballs now, I’m afraid. The Smithsonian has her.” There was a definite note of sadness to his voice, a wistfulness; like a small boy who had been forced to part with his favorite treasure.

  Then he cleared his throat and got out of the car. “It’s a good day for flying,” he said, pausing for a moment to survey the sky before he walked around to open my door. “Clear sailing, as far as we might want to go.”

  “Good.” I scrambled after him as he strode toward the two airplanes, both silver and gleaming in the sun. He did not shorten his stride for me, and so once again, I had to run to keep up.

  “You’ve not been up since I took you?” We reached the larger of the two planes, an enclosed monoplane with a longer wingspan. It was already pointed toward the flat airstrip.

  “No.” And then I remembered that I had. I wondered why that memory had escaped me. Was it because it didn’t count, without him? Or because I felt oddly disloyal for flying with someone else?

  “This is different than what we went up in before—more comfortable. For long-haul passenger flight, this is the type of plane we’ll be using, only even bigger. You don’t have to wear goggles.” And he opened a small door and helped me climb up into the cabin
. The interior was hot—baked, actually, from sitting in the sun, and so I slipped out of my jacket, grateful for the short sleeves of my cotton blouse. I needn’t have worn jodhpurs; there were four wicker chairs bolted to the floor, two in front, two in back, all cushioned. I took my place in the front passenger seat as daintily as if I were at a tea party.

  Charles climbed in on the pilot’s side and took a quick look at all the controls, pushing a few buttons, playing with some toggles and pedals on the floor. Then he handed me a stick of gum—that awful spearmint, but I accepted it gratefully, and started chewing away. He started the engine and it sputtered, the propeller whirling, but this time it seemed so far away; not at all like my first flight, when I could feel the choppy air on my face. Enclosed as we were, I could see only out the front and a limited bit to either side. The whine of the engine was muffled, although still loud; already my head was pounding with it.

  “Here we go,” Charles said, and moved the control stick gently; the plane taxied down the field, picking up speed bit by bit until, once more, I felt suspended in a grand leap—before the wind caught us and propelled us up, up, up.

  The moment we took flight, I noticed that Charles looked quickly out the side of his window, did a double take, and looked again. His hand gripped the stick, muttering something under his breath.

  “What?” I asked, trying my best not to squeal in delight as we skimmed the tops of pine trees, so close I could have sworn I felt them tickling the soles of my feet.

  Charles didn’t reply, so I shrugged and enjoyed the scenery; the sound, glittering with white birds—sailboats, that is; the vast estates, many of which I recognized now as the homes of some of Daddy’s banking associates; the vivid green undulating below. The plane bumped and bucked as it gained altitude, causing my stomach to do its own jittery acrobatics, but then it smoothed out so suddenly that my heart soared. My worries about Dwight, questions about my future, doubts about my purpose in life, all fell away. I was light, translucent; luxuriously, I stretched my arms and legs, wondering if the sun’s rays could pass right through me.

  Then I turned to my companion. Instead of the sure, carefree grin I expected to see, Charles’s mouth was set in a straight line, and those startling blue eyes were narrowed in steely concentration.

  “We lost a wheel,” he shouted over the pulsating drone of the engine. I realized conversation was going to be difficult, if not impossible.

  “What?” I shouted back.

  “On takeoff. I thought I felt something. We left one of the wheels on the ground.”

  “So?” We were up in the air now; what did we need wheels for?

  “Landing. A bit challenging,” was all he said. Then he flicked some switches with his thumb, muttered something that sounded like a complicated mathematical equation, and nodded to himself.

  I wanted to ask more but felt ridiculous, shouting so.

  “Loud!” I said instead, pointing to my ears.

  Charles nodded. “Some people use cotton. In their ears.” He pointed to his. “I don’t. That’s not flying.”

  I nodded, as if I understood.

  We flew for a while in silence. Then he turned to me again, his brow wrinkled in concern, as if something had just occurred to him. “We should stay up awhile to burn off fuel so landing is safer,” he shouted. “Do you have other plans today? I’m not keeping you from something?”

  For some reason, this last question struck me as hilarious; he seemed more worried about my social schedule than he was about the plane! And so I surprised us both by laughing.

  “No!”

  “Good,” he said, his eyes widening and his grin deepening. “Although that means you’re stuck with me for a while.”

  “I can’t think of anyone else I’d rather be stuck with,” I replied. And although I said it flippantly, I meant it. Who else would I rather be with in this situation? No one.

  Was I afraid at all? It’s incredible to believe now, but I was not. I had such confidence in Charles; as we flew on and on, the relentless clamor of the engine giving me a slight headache but nothing more, I honestly forgot about the “challenging” landing coming up. Instead, I was almost grateful for the situation. We were trapped alone together in the sky for hours. We would have something remarkable to share; something to bind us to each other. I seized this realization greedily, and, hoarding it, forgot all about the danger.

  “You take the controls,” he suddenly called, almost an impish gleam in his eyes.

  “What?”

  “Take the control stick.”

  “I—I can’t!”

  “Why not? You want to learn, don’t you?”

  Why he assumed this of me, I had no idea, but as soon as he said it I realized he was right. This, at last, was something I could do. Right now; before I had a chance to think about it and analyze it until I was no longer even sure what it meant.

  “You fly,” Charles shouted. “Don’t be afraid. You can do it.”

  So I leaned over, reaching with my left hand. His hand was still on the stick, but I grasped it, just above his, and for a moment both our hands were flying the plane, we were steering our path together. And while we didn’t even glance at each other, I felt a charge jolt through me and knew that he felt it, too. His breathing quickened.

  Then he let go. And I was flying the plane myself. At first smoothly—I was still thinking of his hand, touching mine, unaware of what I was really doing. Then, however, I was aware—aware that I was actually, really, flying an airplane!—and I overcompensated by gripping the stick tighter, which caused it to jerk right. And so did the plane. Steeply, it began to bank, and as my entire body was blanketed in a cold sweat, my hand shaking, I overcorrected and it banked precipitously left.

  Charles didn’t exclaim, didn’t even suck in his breath. He simply sat with his arms folded across his chest, allowing me to find my own way, somehow confident that I would. And finally, my hands still clammy but my heart now steady, I did. We flew in a straight line, and I felt the plane tug against me, like a horse, and I remembered how sensitive a horse is to his bit, and that’s how I finally learned to fly. As if I were holding reins instead of a stick; as if I were riding. Even the little pockets of air that we hit began to feel no more dangerous than jumping a horse over a gate.

  I don’t know how long I flew; my shoulder began to pinch, however, and Charles flipped a switch on the dashboard, looked at his watch, and tapped his head. “I’ll take over now. Landing.”

  “Oh.” After he grasped the stick, I let go. Charles suggested, his voice so reasonable even as he had to shout, that I gather the cushions from the two rear seats and place them on either side of me, which I did.

  “I’m going to take us down over there.” He gestured to a field with a longer airstrip than the one we had taken off from. “We’ll need the extra space.”

  “All right.” I was calm. So was he. The air inside the plane suddenly felt heavy, pressing me into my seat, and our voices sounded deadened to my ears. Still, I was not afraid. I trusted Charles Lindbergh, the man who had conquered the sky, to bring me back safely to earth.

  We circled the airstrip a couple of times, lower and lower. Several people ran out of a small shack and a neighboring house to look at us. They waved, and I waved back.

  “They’re telling us not to land.” Charles had a grim smile on his face. “They can see we’re missing a wheel.”

  “They’re in for a treat, then!” I continued to wave at the figures, jumping wildly below.

  “Brace yourself, and as soon as we stop I want you to unbuckle and exit the plane. If the door won’t budge, push the window and crawl out. Then run as far away as you can. Can you do that for me?”

  It was that last “for me” that stirred me from my eerie calm. It touched my heart; truly, as if the words wormed themselves into my flesh, between my ribs. I felt adrenaline tingling my every pore, and I nodded, holding on tight to the edges of the seat. As the ground came rushing up at us, I instin
ctively ducked my head, feeling, not seeing, the plane hit the ground. For a suspended breath, I thought we were fine—but then I felt something break beneath us. “The wheel,” I said—or maybe it was Charles. It was the only word either one of us, or both of us, spoke.

  And then I was upside down.

  The plane had stopped, and I was upside down and then I wasn’t; I heard a crash and then a rip, and then I had pushed myself through a window and I was running, just as Charles had told me to do, away from the plane. Which was upside down, the propeller still turning like a child’s whirligig.

  Finally I stopped running, pain pinching my side, but I knew it was only because I was out of breath. I had done it! I had done what he had asked of me and I was all right, he was all right—

  Wasn’t he? Where was he? I looked around, panicking; there were people—the same people to whom I had just waved so carelessly—hurrying toward me, farmers with pitchforks just like in a motion picture—but there was no Charles. I shouted his name, heard nothing, and then started to run back to the plane when I felt a hand on my arm, pulling me back.

  I spun around, and he was there. Disheveled, a bleeding scratch on his cheek, a huge grin on his face. We grinned stupidly at each other for the longest time, until we were surrounded by people jostling us, asking if we were okay, and Charles was wincing. Only then did I see that he was cradling his left elbow with his right hand.

  “Are you hurt?” I asked, wanting to touch him but strangely unable to take a step in his direction.

  “I think I bruised it.” He shrugged, followed by a grimace. “But it’s nothing.”

  “We should get you to a doctor—” I began, but was interrupted by shouts of, “It’s him! It’s Charles Lindbergh himself! Lucky Lindy!”

  And soon more people were running toward us; from where, I had no idea. They all wanted to touch him, shake him, ask if he was all right. A few men headed toward the plane, but Charles, in a startling, harsh voice, yelled for them not to. A few souls realized that I was there, too, and asked me my name. “Miss Morrow,” I replied, over and over, in a daze. I didn’t have a scratch on me, however—my clothing wasn’t even torn—and soon enough they turned back to Charles, who was trying to organize some men to help flip the plane back over, once the engine had cooled.