Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald

by Therese Anne Fowler

  “What is he on about?” Sara asked me, while Larionov was telling Scott, “It is nothing, all innocent—”

  Now Gerald had joined us; I could hear him murmuring apologies to Larionov while Scott said, “You’ve got no business out running around Paris at all hours. I won’t have it, Zelda.” The music had stopped and his voice was now the loudest sound in the room.

  “You’re hardly in a spot to complain,” Gerald said impatiently. “When are you ever home?”

  Scott looked shocked. Gerald had never spoken harshly to him before. “I am the husband!” Scott yelled, poking his own chest and stumbling backward a step.

  Everyone in the room was watching him, watching us. My face and neck and ears were so hot I thought they’d catch flame.

  Abruptly, Scott sat down on the gold-and-black-patterned carpet, just plopped down like a child worn out from a tantrum. In a voice that was almost a whimper, he said, “I am the husband,” and started to cry.

  * * *

  The next day, he seemed to have blanked out everything except his suspicion. His first words when he joined Scottie and me at the table were “You can forget going out without me.”

  “Says you,” I told him, not caring that both the cook and the nanny were in the room. I’d used up all my tolerance the night before, barely keeping my head high while Gerald and two other men practically carried Scott out to a cab. “I’m not giving up my interests just because you drink too much and have irrational jealous fits. Come along, if you don’t like me going by myself.”

  “You know I can’t stand the ballet.”

  “Well, I love it, so I’m going.”

  “Then you’ll come straight home after,” Scott said.

  Scottie popped strawberries into her mouth and watched us volley as she chewed.

  I said, “When did you decide to become my father?”

  “If your father had kept a tighter rein on you, I wouldn’t have to worry about your behavior.”

  “Who says you need to worry in the first place?”

  “You seem to be forgetting our friend Édouard Jozan.”

  What defense did I have against that? Game, set, match.

  But Scott went on, “They all want you, Zelda. Every man out there. What happens when you’ve had a few drinks and then some man tries to—”

  “You think that doesn’t happen when you’re right there? It does. And I handle it, same as I’ve always done. You don’t need to act like some crazy, overprotective ogre.” I raised my arms and curled my hands in an ogre imitation, and Scottie giggled.

  “I don’t want to be an ogre,” Scott said. “But what can I do? I love you beyond reason, I can’t help myself.”

  Scottie tugged his sleeve. “Daddy, you do an ogre. Be a growly one,” she added, climbing out of her chair. “And I’ll be the princess in the forest and you chase me!”

  “Really, can you blame me, Zelda?” Scott said, and then he went running after Scottie.

  I let it go at that. It wasn’t wise to let him excuse his bad behavior with apologies and declarations of best intentions and helpless love. I knew that every time he got away with it, there was an increasing chance he’d behave badly again. I knew it, and yet I went along, as helpless to resist a bad choice as he was.

  33

  The next time I went to the ballet, Scott and I didn’t rehash the argument; we just made plans for me to meet him afterward. So when the performance was over, I left Sara and took a cab to the Dingo, where Scott was supposed to be playing cards.

  The night was warm, the air scented with roasting chestnuts, and my head was aswim with the sights and sounds of Flore et Zéphire. The cab let me off at the corner of rue Delambre; I leaned into the window to pay, and then when I stepped away from the car, there was Hemingway walking in my direction, toward the boulevard du Montparnasse.

  “The incomparable Zelda Fitzgerald,” he said, embracing me and then kissing both my cheeks. He smelled of soap and sweat and whiskey. “Fine night, isn’t it?”

  “I’ll guess it has been for you. You seem jolly.”

  “Yes, now that your husband has graciously lent me a hundred so that I can make a trip to Pamplona to see the bulls. We went a couple of rounds in there,” he said, raising his fists while he inclined his head toward the bar. “I almost let him win.”

  “So he’s here, then. Good.” I wondered how badly bruised Scott was going to be. What is it with men, I thought, that the ones who don’t instigate these stupid contests can’t seem to resist a challenge?

  “He’s a real sport, your husband. Gifted. Lucky. Soused, I should add. He’s right now holding court on the bar—note that I say on and not at or even in.”

  “My English teachers always did stress the importance of prepositions.”

  I imagined Scott seated on the bar, legs dangling, a coterie of the also-soused grouped around him on barstools. “Where’s Hadley tonight? Be sure to tell her hello for me.”

  “Insecure, though, isn’t he?” Hemingway went on, as if I hadn’t spoken. He put his hand out against the wall and leaned on it, blocking my path forward. “Obsessive. Can’t stop worrying about Gatsby’s sales and make progress on a new book. A writer’s life is a difficult one. He should accept this and embrace it fully. No greatness is possible without failure and sacrifice.”

  “We’ve sacrificed plenty for the writer’s life he’s living—sleep, mostly,” I joked.

  Hemingway put his free hand on my shoulder, then slid it down my arm to my wrist, which he gripped tightly. “All the men want you, you know.”

  “And speaking of sleep,” I said, trying not to let my annoyance show, “seems like you could use some.”

  “But you’re discriminating. You think most men are fools, I’ve seen it in your eyes. I know you’re devoted to Scott and I admire that and it raises you up above many women. No one would say he’s manly, though, and I see your passionate nature and wonder if you’ve ever been truly satisfied.”

  He’d been drinking, which excused his behavior somewhat—and certainly I was accustomed to excusing the poor behavior of inebriated men. This man, though, had crossed a line no one had crossed with me before. There were no best intentions here.

  How could he disregard his wife like this, not to mention his supposedly great new friend who also happened to be my husband? What made him think he could approach me this way? I’d certainly never encouraged him—but then, he didn’t need encouragement. I stood there for a moment, looking into his eyes. A glint of humor told me this wasn’t the first time he’d behaved this way with someone else’s wife, which only made me angrier.

  “Is this what you do? You can’t box with women, so you try and seduce ’em?”

  “I am a man.” He maneuvered us so that my back was pressed against a door and he pressed against me. His interest in me, or at least in sex, was plain. He put his palms on the wall, bracketing me between his arms. “It’s man’s nature to prove himself, to take what he desires.”

  Bad enough that he’d spoiled what had been a gorgeous night of music, dance, and art; I was not about to become one of his conquests. Thinking my anger would only amuse him, I decided to turn the tables on him instead. I reached between us and put my hand on his erection through his pants. I rubbed the length of it, taking my time, letting him think he might yet take advantage of both Fitzgeralds tonight.

  “Not bad,” I said, my mouth real close to his ear, and he chuckled. “But,” I added as I ducked beneath his arm and slid out, “here’s yet another area where Scott’s got you beat.” Laughing, I hurried away toward the Dingo’s door, sure that I’d gotten the better of him.

  “Bitch,” he said with such calm assurance that the hair on my neck stood up, and I knew right then I’d made a mistake. “Go on. Go make sure you tell your half-impotent hero what a cocktease he’s married to. I can’t wait to hear how he takes it.”

  I’d underestimated how astute Hemingway was, how much he already knew about us: He had seen into Scott�
�s soft heart and knew what hapless prey he’d be if he should decide to attack. And he knew that I wouldn’t tell Scott what had just gone on between us, that I would want to avoid provoking another bout of jealous misapprehension. Whether Scott had told him about Cole’s party or not, he knew.

  I continued on to the Dingo without looking back, without replying. My step never faltered but my stomach lurched, as if it understood better than I did just how awfully stupid I’d been, and what it was going to cost me.

  34

  “I’m eager to see Villa America done,” Scott said as we cruised along the coast road en route to Antibes. “It’s a damn shame my father didn’t make something of himself the way Gerald’s old man did, and Sara’s; imagine having a place like they’ve built here—and two fantastic Paris apartments. All because old man Murphy knew that belts and shoes were at least as lucrative as saddles and such, and Sara’s father—what’s his name? Wiborg?—liked mixing chemicals. Do you know he was a millionaire before forty?”

  This early-August trip was the first time in ages that Scott and I had been absolutely alone together. The daylong trek to southern France gave me a chance to really look at my husband, study him, assess him—and what I saw worried me. He’d grown soft in the face and neck and middle, blurring him, you could say. His hands were stained yellow-brown with nicotine, his hair was losing its luster; he looked ten years older than the almost twenty-nine he was.

  I’d marked my twenty-fifth birthday a week before the trip. Twenty-five not being a milestone, I hadn’t expected anything—though I couldn’t help recollecting, as I did on every birthday, the party Scott had devised for my eighteenth. He sure had obsessed over me in those days; now he was obsessing over Ernest Hemingway.

  —“I’m meeting Ernest for lunch.”

  —“Ernest and I are going to the fights.”

  —“Go ahead and go to bed without me; I told Ernest I’d read some of his stories before I see him tomorrow.”

  —“Gertrude wants Ernest and me to come ’round tonight.”

  —“Ernest thinks…”

  —“Ernest says…”

  —“Ernest wants…”

  Every time we saw Hemingway, he’d smile at me like we shared an evil secret, something worse than if I’d succumbed to his manly charms. My mind would urge, Tell Scott! but my gut said, Wait—suppose he takes Hemingway’s side? Better to let it be.

  For the first time in my life, I chose to avoid confrontations. I’d hidden out for most of June and July, and I told myself that I was doing it more because of my stomach trouble than because Hemingway intimidated me.

  As we drove, Scott went on talking about Mark Cross leather goods and about the Wiborg’s Ohio ink empire and about how wise we’d been to send Scottie and the nanny to Antibes by train.

  “Ernest said he wished he could make his trip to Spain this way: just a man, a car, and a road.”

  “At what speed do you s’pose it’s safe to jump?”

  “What? Oh! I’m sorry, darling, I’m lost in my own head is all. Are you looking forward to the beach? Hasn’t it been forever since last summer and Jozan? Gad—there’s something absolutely mystical about how time behaves in Paris. Oh, speaking of Jozan: I told Ernest our tale about Jozan being tragically in love with you. This time, I said he couldn’t bear the thought of your rejection, and killed himself in his plane by crashing it into the sea.”

  “What did Hemingway say?”

  “That he could understand a man wanting to kill himself over you. It makes a grand tale, don’t you think? I can see it as a stage play, or even better, a movie…”

  What was it about Paris, what had happened to us, that our crisis of the summer before could now so easily be reimagined for entertainment, our renewed connection not put aside, exactly, but not tended to, either?

  Scott would later record in his ledger that the year had been “1000 parties and no work”; that summarized it for sure, but it didn’t explain a thing.

  * * *

  On the Riviera, my stomachaches were no more frequent than they’d been—which is to say, one every week or two—but they’d begun to hurt more. There we’d all be, us and the Murphys and Dottie Parker and Esther and Archie MacLeish and his wife, say (there were so many people there that month), strolling through Villa America’s seven lush acres of terraced groves and gardens, or down at la plage de la Garoupe on what everyone called Gerald’s Beach, and the cramping would sneak up on me and strike without warning. Within minutes I’d be hobbled by the pain or need to quickly use the toilet, and have to abandon the group. The walk back to the guesthouse took all of time and beyond, that’s how it seemed.

  Once there, I’d swallow one of the pills from after my surgery and stay shut away inside the bedroom, curled into a ball on the bed while I waited for the medicine’s too-slow relief. Every time it happened, I’d tell myself, It’ll pass, it’ll pass … and it would, and then I would sleep for an hour or two and awake as fine-feeling as if nothing had ever hurt to begin with. A couple of times the drug didn’t work at all, though, and then Scott would get a doctor in, an angel, a savior bearing a hypodermic bearing morphine.

  I found that if I ate carefully and avoided drinking, I could minimize the symptoms. I didn’t want to be involved with all the group’s activities, but neither did I want to be “Fitz’s sick wife,” so I made every effort to at least be present for luncheons on the terrace, afternoons on the beach, evening cocktail hour in whichever scenic spot Gerald was inclined to hold it.

  After dinner there were games of cards and charades and, once Cole and Linda joined us, long evenings spent playing our favorite game of the previous summer—except with Cole at the piano instead of me. Scott said he could sometimes see a pinched look in my eyes and around my mouth, and Sara said she’d know I was uncomfortable because I’d get stiller, and quiet. I was glad to know that they were paying attention and that they cared.

  Care, of course, can materialize—or not materialize—in so many different ways. Scott and I hadn’t made love since arriving in Antibes. We hadn’t made love since well before that, in fact, though I couldn’t place quite when the last time had been. Given how often I felt poorly, I should have viewed Scott’s not approaching me as a blessing; if he didn’t ask, I didn’t have to beg off. What I felt, though, was rejected and undesirable. There was none of the sweet affection that signaled his interest, none of those cues that married couples develop—the flirtations, the significant gazes—to help me know that he still wanted me whenever I did feel well.

  I guess pitiful and insecure is what I was feeling when we went to dinner one night in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, at a restaurant set right into the rocky hillside overlooking the sea. It being August, the sun still graced the sky well into the evening. It washed the stone orange, then rosy, then lavender, while we sat on the outdoor patio eating fish and olives and drinking a local wine Gerald was excited about.

  “It’s extraordinary,” he said as the waiter filled our glasses. “Not at all the table wine you find everywhere—and not that peasant stuff they like to serve on the Left Bank, so thick you just about have to chew it. This will transport you.” And because he was Gerald and, being Gerald, never exuberant without good reason, I had not one, not two, but three glasses of that wine before the sun had finished its descent, even knowing that I would pay later.

  At about the time I was draining that third glass, someone—who can remember just who it was?—noticed, aloud, that the glamorous and beloved dancer Isadora Duncan, one of my own idols, was having dinner at a table across the patio.

  “What? Really?” Scott said, and then he was out of his seat and in seconds had either fallen or collapsed or thrown himself onto the ground at her feet; I wasn’t equipped at this point to comprehend the finer details.

  Miss Duncan reached for him, petting his face and smoothing his hair while he beamed up at her. “How lovely and golden you are, my faithful centurion!”

  “My life is but to serve you,
” Scott said.

  What the hell? I thought. She was mine. He was mine. I got up out of my chair and, seeing that the shortest path to the steps that led down the hill away from the patio was across our table, I got up onto my chair, walked across the table, stepped onto the stone wall, and jumped into the stairwell.

  If only the steps had been a fountain, like the one in Union Square—but no. No, they were old, solid stone, and my high heels were not so good for making an upright landing. Next thing I knew, I was on my throbbing hands and knees and Sara was there with her arm around me, helping me to my feet. Blood trickled down my shins, and I remember being glad I hadn’t worn stockings.

  “I purely hate it when he does shit like that,” I said.

  I remember, too, that Scott was far less distressed by my actions than the Murphys and MacLeishes were. In fact I think he appreciated the display—which might well be why I made it.

  * * *

  We were near to the end of our stay when, late one night after everyone was asleep, sharp pain woke me from a dream in which I’d been arguing with Alice’s Mad Hatter about whether cloche hats were still in style. (Feathers! he’d kept shouting. Brims!) I was disoriented for a moment, then got my bearings and tried to relieve my discomfort by rolling onto my side. When that didn’t work, I got up and headed to the bathroom.

  The guesthouse was a sort of loose U of a building curled around a courtyard. To get to the bathroom, you went outside along a breezeway, to a door beside the kitchen. I’d hardly gotten there when the pain sharpened, making my knees buckle. It was as if someone had cut into me with a wide butcher knife and was digging around my belly with it, just cutting and twisting.… I thought I was going to die, wished, almost, that I would. I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, could hardly breathe without the knife twisting more.

  When one pill didn’t seem to be helping, I took a second and waited, doubled over, breathing, breathing, waiting, breathing … “Please, God” was my refrain this time, and when it seemed as if forever had passed and still no relief, I took more pills, desperate for the damned things to do their merciful job. Just a little letup, and then I’d go wake Scott and have him get a doctor.