Villa America

by Liza Klaussmann

  “So how’s the piloting business going?” Dos asked him at dinner.

  “Busy,” Owen said. “It’s crowded down here now. Used to be only the winter season, but this summer’s been pretty good.”

  “Still over in…” Dos snapped his fingers, trying to remember.

  “Agay,” Owen said. “Yes. But I’m thinking of expanding a bit, looking for some land of my own.”

  “What did your folks do?”

  “Farmers,” Owen said.

  “Farmers,” Dos said. “Bad time for it. What do you think of what’s going on with Coolidge? He’s making a lot of farmers pretty angry.”

  Owen shrugged. “All farmers are gamblers,” he said. “Double down now and hope next year’s better. Just the way they are.”

  “So it’s the farmers’ fault?” Dos found his indifference a little provoking.

  “It’s nobody’s fault. It’s bad choices. Like most things that go wrong.”

  “Yes,” Dos said, “but, so, what—you throw them to the wolves? Compound it with negligent policies?”

  Owen looked at him; he seemed a little surprised by Dos’s vehemence. “Your family, are they farmers?”

  “No,” Dos said.

  Owen nodded. “Well, I don’t know that much about Mr. Coolidge’s policies, but it’s always been tough, farming, for most of the people I knew, anyway. It’s the nature of the thing. But I think people have choices,” Owen said.

  “Some people,” Dos said, “don’t.”

  Owen was quiet; either he’d had enough of the debate or he was thinking. Dos couldn’t tell which.

  “Are they still at it? Your family?” Dos asked.

  “No,” Owen said. “They’re dead now.”

  Noel, sitting on his right, turned to him. “Dos, are you expounding on your political theories? He’s been very political this year,” she said to Owen. “His new book is coming out soon.”

  “Dos has always been political,” Esther said from across the table. “He’s one of those men that had his conscience shaped by the war, among other things. And now he’s an optimistic revolutionary.”

  “I am not optimistic,” Dos said.

  Noel laughed. “I don’t know. You called us all a lot of fake bohemians at Pamplona last year. And yet you went back. If that’s not optimistic, I don’t know what is.”

  “Not all of you,” Dos said. “Just a select few.”

  “You all talk so much about Pamplona,” Sara said. “It sounds wonderful.”

  “It’s pretty bloody,” Dos said. “And Gerald, if you go with Hem, he’ll make you get face to face with a nasty bull.”

  “Yes,” Sara said. “And when are we going to meet Ernest Hemingway? We read his story in the Transatlantic Review last year. It felt very…new, I suppose.”

  “He’s definitely got something,” Dos said.

  “Something is right,” Noel said caustically.

  Dos chuckled. He knew Noel liked Hem just fine, but she made him nervous: a beautiful, tall blond woman who had absolutely no interest in his macho antics. And this, in turn, made Noel feel superior. It was a good show, watching the two of them together.

  Noel rarely talked about Fred’s death—all she would say was that she still loved him. She’d bought a place just outside Paris so that she could be near the cemetery where he was buried. But she spent a great deal of time with Esther these days, and there were rumblings from that quarter. She was apparently much admired by her sister-in-law’s Sapphic circle.

  “His book of short stories is very good,” Esther said, lighting a cigarette and bending in on her knee, a favorite pose of hers when she was about to get going. “It’s about childhood. Or the childhood of a time we’ve lost.”

  “Did you fight in the war, Owen?” Noel asked.

  “I did.”

  “Do you feel that we’ve passed some age of innocence that can never be regained?” she asked, taking one of Esther’s cigarettes. “That seems to be the working theory these days.”

  “It didn’t feel very innocent to me before.”

  “No, it did not,” Dos agreed. “That’s a myth.”

  “I don’t know,” Gerald said. “I think we all have an inherent innocence inside of us.”

  “You would say that,” Dos said.

  “Gerald’s a romantic,” Esther said. “Look at this Garden of Eden he’s created for himself.”

  “Maybe it is invented,” Gerald conceded. “But can’t something invented also be real?”

  “I don’t even know what that means,” Dos said.

  “I do,” Owen said.

  Dos looked at him, surprised.

  “About the innocence, I mean. I don’t think we’re more or less innocent than before we all started killing each other. It was always part of our nature. But so is the other side. What are we supposed to be guilty of, anyway? I don’t understand that.”

  “This from the man who believes in free will,” Dos said.

  Owen seemed to think this over. “Choices, even bad ones, don’t make you less innocent. And maybe you’re right; maybe some people don’t have a choice.”

  Dos noticed that Owen was looking straight at Gerald now.

  “I’m not sure what we’re talking about anymore,” Dos said. “Am I drunk?”

  “Gerald is talking about inventing your own reality that you inhabit as fully as if it were naturally occurring,” Esther said. “And Owen is talking about humanism.”

  “That doesn’t help, Esther,” Dos said, laughing.

  “Speaking of one’s nature,” Noel said. “Have you heard what André Breton and that gang are up to? They’ve taken it upon themselves to hold a summit to discuss their feelings on homosexuality.”

  “And what are their propositions?” Sara asked, amused.

  “The surrealists have decided,” Esther said, “that they approve of Sapphism, but between men, such love is both morally and physically repugnant, and they condemn it.”

  “I know some people who do more than just condemn it,” Noel said somberly.

  “Jesus,” Dos said, “this is taking quite a turn. I don’t think I can keep up with all this big thinking.” What he actually felt was damn uncomfortable.

  “I agree,” Sara said, throwing her napkin on the table like a white flag. “Let’s dance instead. Gerald, my darling, will you choose us a record?”

  “With pleasure,” Gerald said, but it took him a few moments before he was able to tear himself away.

  They were all dancing to Jelly Roll Morton—even Owen was doing a sort of shuffle—when Hoytie made her reentrance.

  She stood, framed by the French doors leading out to the terrace, and dropped her case noisily on the black tile. “Well, I’m glad to see that my welfare hasn’t been any cause for concern here,” she said loudly.

  Sara looked up from her dancing, obviously startled. “Hoytie,” she said. “What…”

  “It seems there are no trains back to Paris after five p.m.,” she sniffed, looking down at her feet.

  “Oh, Hoytie,” Sara said and started laughing. “Honestly.” She held out her arms to her sister. “Come out here and join us.”

  “Come on, Hoytie,” Dos said. “Don’t stand on ceremony.” She could be highly irritating, Sara’s sister, but he had to admit she had comic value.

  “I’m not dressed for dinner,” Hoytie said.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sakes,” Sara said. “I think we’ve had enough of that for one evening. Just kick off your shoes and come join the below-the-salts.”

  “Oh,” Hoytie said, sighing like a world-weary traveler. “Oh, all right.”

  Owen picked up one of the hurricane lamps and made his way down the steps to the darkness of the garden. The beam from the lighthouse on the hill above swept at intervals over the grounds, lighting up the sea beyond, catching the tips of the waves rolling in.

  No one seemed to have noticed that he’d taken himself off, or at least no one called out to question him. They were all dancin
g and drinking cocktails and pulling Sara’s sister around the terrace in some mock punishment.

  He walked down another flight of steps and was now well and truly away, the music coming to him only faintly on the breeze. He ran his hand over the tops of the plantings he passed, thinking about his farm and how he used to know every stalk, every blade, kernel, bale, bug, burn, and quickening. Dos’s questions had brought it back. He didn’t like to think about it or feel pity or any of the things Dos seemed to want him to feel, because it hurt him, and now he felt a sadness, despite his enjoyment of the evening.

  Owen hadn’t been sure whether he should come to the dinner or not. He’d sensed that Gerald hadn’t wanted that friend of his, Monty, to invite him. But when a card followed, signed by both Sara and Gerald, renewing the invitation, he’d decided it was all right.

  Gerald had clearly been avoiding him this summer. He wasn’t exactly sure why, but he guessed that it had something to do with Whit. Whit, who’d changed everything for Owen. The feel of skin beneath his hands, the lips on his lips, real desire, the kind that didn’t stop to see if something was wrong or right, that just was. Whit had given Owen his body back. He’d never thought about things in those terms before, but the experience had overwhelmed him, almost as if it had altered parts of his brain.

  They hadn’t seen each other since Whit returned to Paris, although they’d exchanged letters. They were of the friendly sort, though; Owen didn’t want anything more than that one moment.

  It had, however, made him more conscious of other people like him. He began to be aware of signals that before hadn’t appeared obvious to him, like music finally penetrating radio static.

  Owen wandered over to the far edge of the garden, to a large shed standing under a maple tree. He held up the lantern to the small window and looked in. It was a studio: he could see jars of brushes and the large easel, a canvas leaning against it. He opened the door and walked inside.

  Holding the light up to the painting, Owen saw the parts of it, as if one by one.

  A large red fountain pen crossed with a safety razor, like a coat of arms. Then behind it a box of matches, painted yellow and red and black with three red stars in the center. All against a raised platform.

  His mind clicked over as he looked at it. Gerald’s red pen. The Three Star safety matches, the ones Owen always carried instead of a lighter ever since he’d been told during the war that the three stars meant luck. The ones he always had on his nightstand, next to his razor. He thought back to that morning when Gerald had shown up, unannounced, looking through his open door. He’d never known what Gerald had come to ask him, and all this time, Owen had figured that Gerald had been disgusted by what he’d seen. But now, in his mind’s eye, he could see Gerald’s shyness, his embarrassment, then his shock, as if he’d been burned.

  “What are you doing in here?”

  Owen looked around and, in the light of the hurricane lamp, saw Gerald standing in the doorway. He turned back to the painting. He heard Gerald cross the floor to him, and then they both stood looking at it.

  “I haven’t been able to get it right,” Gerald said quietly. “I’ve tried so hard, but somehow I’m not capable.”

  It was that kind of moment, and Owen knew it. He recognized the feeling, the same one he used to get before making a dive on the front lines. His hands shook. He tried counting in his head. His hands kept shaking.

  He gave Gerald the lamp. Then he said, “I have to go,” and he walked out before the momentum became too much.

  Gerald caught up with Owen in the driveway. Owen seemed to be searching for something, checking his pockets.

  “Owen,” he said.

  Owen turned.

  They were standing very close, and Gerald thought back to the time in the hangar, his thigh brushing against Owen’s. And the way he’d felt with him in the plane. And the way he’d felt with him ever since he’d met him.

  “It’s just a painting,” Gerald said. And for some reason, he felt so sad.

  Then, from one moment to the next, Owen was kissing him, his tongue in his mouth, his stubble against Gerald’s own shaven skin. And in that dizzying step from nothing to flesh, from before to after, Gerald knew he would never be able to say no again.

  1926

  Owen was having the dream again, the one he always had about being a blade of wheat, rooted, stuck, at the mercy of the sun and the rain. But this time when he woke, drenched in sweat, he found Gerald’s hand in his.

  Owen had to look at him for a while before he could believe that Gerald was really there, lying next to him. It had been nine months since that kiss—that kiss, the taste of saliva, salty, like the taste of the sea in his mouth—had illuminated everything for him, had made him see what he’d been blind to: he was in love. And in love with a man who was not only married to a good woman but also so different from himself that it rattled him when he thought about all the ways they weren’t the same. And yet he loved Gerald anyway. Who could say why this happened to anyone? How one chose or got chosen?

  He looked at the slim hand resting in his own. They’d never spent a whole night together before; he’d never had the comfort of being unconscious next to someone he loved. But Gerald had fixed it—a trip to Paris had been cut short a day early. Just one night. Owen stared out of the window; it was still dark. He wished the morning would never come.

  They drove in a cavalcade up to the Villa Paquita in Juan-les-Pins: Sara and Gerald in their car, Ada MacLeish in her little Citroën, Scott and Zelda behind Ada. The sun was over the yardarm, meaning it was time to drink seriously, and they were on their way to cheer up Hadley Hemingway with quarantine cocktails.

  May was such a beautiful time of year on the Riviera, Sara thought as they drove along the cliffs. Paris was still gray and damp, the mold practically seeping into one’s bones, while here it was all warm days and cool nights. In the hills, the lavender was coming back to life, and the olive trees had shed their old leaves, the young, darker ones burgeoning with sap.

  Sara put her hand through her new short hair. She’d had it bobbed and she loved the feel of her fingers sliding through it, slipping out fast at the blunt ends. When Mrs. Pat, all of her theatrics still intact, had come to stay with them at Villa America, she’d remarked sadly: “Just think, all that tender weight gone.” But Sara felt cleaner, sexier, happy to be rid of it.

  She felt freer this spring than she had in so long. Perhaps it was because the house was finished or because the children were just that much older and getting less needy. Whatever it was, she felt a kind of boundlessness at forty-two that she’d never felt at twenty.

  And now they had Ernest’s arrival to look forward to. Hadley’s visit hadn’t panned out all that well so far. Sara and Gerald had invited Hadley and her little boy, Bumby, to stay at Villa America while they awaited Ernest’s return from Spain. But while they were there, Bumby had come down with whooping cough. It had sent a jolt of terror through Sara, the danger in her own home, her own children at risk. Luckily, Scott and Zelda were leaving the Villa Paquita for a larger house, and they gave it over to Hadley and her son as quarantine quarters.

  Sara knew that Hadley thought her slightly hysterical for pushing them out, but she didn’t set much store by Hadley’s smarts. Anyway, it seemed Bumby was out of any real danger now, thank goodness, and their English doctor—the best, she and Gerald had assured Hadley—had said it would definitely be safe by the time Ernest arrived in Antibes.

  In the meantime, the Hemingways’ good friend Pauline Pfeiffer, who’d had whooping cough as a child, was coming down tomorrow to give Hadley some moral support. Until then, they just needed to keep Hadley’s spirits up, and Sara’d enlisted Ada and the Fitzgeralds to help her carry on a daily cocktail hour through the wrought-iron fence of the Juan-les-Pins villa.

  When they arrived, they parked in a line on the other side of the road.

  Ada slammed her car door and blew out her cheeks. “Oh, I hate this thing,” she said
cheerfully. “Only Archie knows how to drive it.”

  Sara loved Ada, loved her sunny face, and she had the happiest smile of anyone she knew. A singer with a clear voice, high and light, that reminded Sara of champagne. They’d been introduced to Archie and Ada in Paris a couple of years ago through Don Stewart, and they’d all slowly become fast friends, as Sara liked to say. Archie, a poet, had started his professional life as a lawyer, a skill he was currently putting into practice in Persia, where he was doing something or other with the League of Nations’ Opium Commission. Really, he’d told Gerald, it was a way to see the country.

  “I love our car,” Zelda said laconically, and Sara had to laugh.

  “Scott, do you have the shaker?” Gerald asked.

  “Ada and I don’t want cocktails,” Sara said. “We brought lots of different wines to try. We’re going to open every one and take just a few sips.”

  “That’s right,” Ada said. “We’re going to be sinfully wasteful.”

  Zelda clapped, delighted.

  Across the road, Sara could see, Hadley had already arranged a chair and a table inside the fence.

  From the backseat, Sara retrieved the cuttings she’d brought from the garden while Gerald pulled out camping chairs for the ladies. Then they all traipsed over to the fence—near, but not too near—and set up shop.

  Scott, who said he wasn’t afraid of whooping cough, took a green glass bottle of wine and slid it through the fence to Hadley.

  “It’s German,” Sara said, raising her voice a bit so Hadley would be sure to hear her. “Owen discovered it.”

  “Oh,” Hadley said.

  “How’s Bumby?” Gerald asked.

  “Much better, I think.”

  “Scott,” Sara said, handing him a bunch of cuttings from her pile of flowers and vines. “Take these and twine them through the fence. I’ll direct you.”