The Aviator's Wife: A Novel

by Melanie Benjamin

  I smiled, looked at my shoes—caked with the dust of travel—and nodded, although my mouth was set in a particular prickly way, my only outward sign of rebellion. After almost four years, I still wished I’d been allowed to go to Vassar, as I’d so desperately wanted.

  But I swallowed my annoyance and dutifully recited grades and small academic triumphs, even as my mind raced ahead of the two sleek embassy cars. Colonel Lindbergh. I hadn’t counted on meeting him so soon—or at all, really. I’d thought his visit was merely an official stop on some grand tour of Latin America and that he’d be gone long before my vacation started. My palms grew clammy, and I wished I’d changed into a nicer frock on the train. I’d never met a hero before. I worried that one of us would be disappointed.

  “I can’t wait for the colonel to meet Elisabeth,” Mother said, as if she could read my thoughts. “Oh, and you, too, dear.”

  I nodded. But I knew what she meant. My older sister was a beauty—the beauty, in the parlance of the Morrow family, as if there could be room for only one. She had a porcelain complexion, blond curls, round blue eyes with thick black eyelashes, and a darling of a nose, the master brushstroke that finished off her portrait of a face. Whereas I was all nose, with slanty eyes like Mother’s, and dark hair; while I was shorter than Elisabeth, my figure was rounder. Too round, too busty and curvy, for the streamlined flapper fashions that were still all the rage this December of 1927.

  “I’m sure I won’t be able to think of a thing to say to him. I’m sure I won’t be able to think of a thing to say to anyone. Oh, what a lot of bother this all is!” Gesturing at the plush red upholstery, the liveried driver, the twin flags—one of the United States, the other of Mexico—planted on the hood of the car, I allowed myself a rare outburst, meeting Mother’s disapproving frown without blinking. Christmas was special. The rest of the year we might all be flung about, like a game of Puss-in-the-Corner. But Christmas was home, was safe, was the idea of family that I carried around with me the rest of the year, even as I recognized it didn’t quite match up with reality. Already I missed my cozy room back home in Englewood, with my writing desk, my snug twin bed covered by the white chenille bedspread my grandmother had made as a bride, bookshelves full of childhood favorites—Anne of Green Gables, the Just So Stories, Kim. Stubbornly, I told myself that I would never get used to Daddy’s new life as a diplomat, his ability to attract dashing young aviators notwithstanding. I much preferred him as a staid banker.

  “Anne, please. Don’t let your father hear you say this. He’s very fond of the young man, and wants to help him with all his new responsibilities. I gather Colonel Lindbergh doesn’t have much of a family, only his mother. It’s our duty to welcome him into our little family circle.”

  I nodded, instantly vanquished; unable to explain to her how I felt. I never was able to explain—anything—to my mother. Elisabeth she understood; Dwight she entrusted to my father. Con was young and bubbly and simply a delight. I was—Anne. The shy one, the strange one. Only in letters did my mother and I have anything close to true communion. In person, we didn’t know what to do with each other.

  And duty I understood all too well. If a history of our family was to be written, it could be summed up with that one word. Duty. Duty to others less fortunate, less happy, less educated; less. Although most of the time I thought there really couldn’t be anyone in this world less than me.

  “Now, don’t worry yourself so, Anne,” Mother continued, almost sympathetically; at least she patted my arm. “The colonel is a mere mortal, despite what your father and all the newspapers say.”

  “A handsome mere mortal,” Con said with a dreamy sigh, and I couldn’t help but laugh. When had my little sister started thinking of men as handsome?

  But at her age, I had started to dream of heroes, I recalled. Sometimes, I still did.

  The cars slowed and turned into a gated drive; we stopped in front of an enormous, showy palace—the embassy. Our embassy, I realized, and had to stifle an urge to giggle. I followed Mother and Con out of the car and hung back as Daddy marched up a grand stone staircase covered in a red carpet. A line of uniformed officers stood on both sides of the staircase, heralding our arrival.

  “Can you believe it?” I whispered to Elisabeth, clinging to her hand for comfort. She shook her head, her eyes snapping with amusement even as her face paled. The flight of steps seemed endless, and Elisabeth was not strong, physically. But she took a deep breath and began to climb them, so I had no choice but to follow.

  I couldn’t look at the uniformed men; I couldn’t look at the landing, where he was waiting. So I looked at the carpet instead, and hoped that I would never run out of it. Of course, I did; we were done climbing, finding ourselves on a shaded landing, and Mother was pushing Elisabeth forward, exclaiming, “Colonel Lindbergh, I’m so glad for you to meet my eldest daughter, Elisabeth!”

  Elisabeth smiled and held out her hand, so naturally. As if she was meeting just another college boy, and not the hero of our time.

  “I’m happy to meet you, Colonel,” she said coolly. Then she glided past, following Daddy into the embassy.

  “Oh, and of course, this is Anne,” Mother said after a moment, pushing me forward as well.

  I looked up—and up. And up. Into a face instantly familiar and yet so unexpected I almost gasped; piercing eyes, high forehead, cleft chin, just like in the newsreels; a face made for statues and history books, I couldn’t help but think. And here he was suddenly right in front of me, amid my family in this unexpected, almost cartoonish, opulence. My head swam, and I wished I had never left my dormitory room.

  He shook my hand without a smile, for a smile would be too ordinary for him. Then he dropped it quickly, as if it stung. He took a step back and bumped into a stone pillar. His expression never changed, although I thought I detected a faint blush. Then he turned to follow Elisabeth and Daddy into the embassy. Mother bustled after them.

  I stood where I was for a long moment, wondering why my hand still tingled where he had held it.

  COLONEL CHARLES LINDBERGH. Lucky Lindy. The Lone Eagle. Had there ever been a hero like him, in all of history?

  Breathless, reeling from the blinding, golden brilliance of his presence, I could not imagine there had. Not even Christopher Columbus or Marco Polo in their time—a time when the world was different, larger; people, countries, entire continents hidden from one another. But suddenly the world was another planet entirely; much more compact, everyone now within reach. And it was all because of one young man from Minnesota, only four years older than me.

  I had been in the library at Smith last May, writing a paper about Erasmus, when a total stranger grabbed me by my arm, laughing and crying both. “A man named Lindbergh flew across the ocean!” she shouted, and that was the first time I heard his name. She pulled me from my desk and we ran out into the quad, where the entire student body and faculty had gathered to link arms, whoop, and yell as we celebrated this person unknown to most of us until just half an hour before. It seemed incredible, like something from mythology, or from H. G. Wells; this boy flying across the Atlantic Ocean like a bird, like an eagle—and doing it alone. At the age of twenty-five, he had conquered not only the entire planet but all the sky above it.

  I lived in a world of remarkable thinkers and dreamers; people whose greatest achievements usually involved the writing of books, the handshake of diplomacy, the paper chase of academia. Heroes were figures from history or from literature: knights errant, brave explorers crossing oceans fully aware that there might be dragons at the end of the rainbow. There were no heroes in these modern times, I had sincerely believed—until I found myself bumping elbows while doing the Charleston in a sea of collegiate humanity, shouting “Lucky—Lucky—Lin—DY!” at the top of my lungs.

  And now, because I was the ambassador’s daughter—miraculously! astoundingly!—I was going to spend my Christmas holiday with him, this doer of all doers, this hero of all heroes, amen.

&n
bsp; That first evening, he and Daddy left immediately for an official reception, while the rest of us unpacked on the second floor of the embassy; the “family quarters,” Mother explained, sotto voce, as she showed us all to our respective rooms.

  “We have fourteen servants,” Con enthused, as she followed me into my grand suite, complete with a private bathroom. “Fourteen! Mother doesn’t know what to do!”

  “I’m sure she’ll find something to occupy her time,” I said wryly. Our mother was as tightly wound as a bedside clock; gongs going off every hour as she filled her days with meetings and charitable dinners and fund-raisers and writing letters upon letters. I envied her energy, even as I resented it for taking her away from us. But it seemed to me that the hot, pulsating force of it affected me negatively when we were together, as if the two of us were a science experiment. It pushed me away so that I was always looking for dark corners and silences, space to think and feel and worry but never, ever, to do, despite—or, perhaps, in spite of—my mother’s shining, bustling example. Contemplation, rather than action; that seemed to be my lot in life, and I was ashamed of it even as I craved it.

  “Oh, she does! There’s a party tomorrow, you know.”

  “On Christmas Eve?”

  “Yes, she says it’s intimate, just for the staff and all of us, but that probably means fifty, at least!”

  “Oh, bother!” I sat down in a heap, putting the finishing disastrous touches to my crumpled traveling dress. A party. With Elisabeth. Old worries and doubts and paralyzing fears stole over me; no one would pay any attention to me, the colonel would dance with her, she’d look exquisite, I’d be a brown lump next to her, I wouldn’t be able to think of anything to say, maybe the colonel would dance with me, but it would only be out of pity…

  But it wasn’t Elisabeth’s fault, I scolded myself. My sister was simply one of the golden people, like Colonel Lindbergh: effortless, graceful creatures, like unicorns. The rest of us could only look at them in awe, through no fault of their own.

  “What are you going to wear?” I asked Con wearily. She wrinkled her snub little nose.

  “Something glamorous,” she said, with such assurance that I had to laugh, even as I envied her as well. Why couldn’t confidence be bottled, like perfume? I’d sneak into my sisters’ rooms at night and steal a few spritzes, just as I sometimes stole their clothes.

  “Well, you’d better help me find something,” I told Con, moving toward my trunk.

  “Something to catch an aviator’s eye?” she retorted wickedly.

  I shrugged. But I didn’t contradict her.

  THE NEXT EVENING, I hesitated outside the entrance to the formal reception room, calming my breath. For the first time since arriving, I noticed that the embassy wasn’t really as glamorous as it initially seemed. It was like a grand dame’s moth-eaten dress desperately covered in jewelry and gay scarves; the shining chandeliers and elaborate velvet portieres did not quite disguise the worn upholstery, the faint, spidery cracks in the ceiling. It was clean—I was sure Mother had something to do with that!—but shabby. I wondered how Mother liked her new home, or even if she did. She’d been planning a grand new house in Englewood when Daddy got his appointment; they were still going ahead with the building of it, but it would be years, now, before they could live in her dream home. Typically, she never allowed herself to voice a moment’s remorse about it.

  As I held my breath, I could hear her fluty laugh, Daddy’s excited voice, Dwight’s hoarse chuckle, Elisabeth’s throaty murmur, and Con’s bubbly giggles. Also, a strange new instrument: a high-pitched yet masculine voice, offering only monosyllabic answers. Colonel Lindbergh. I felt my face flush, the bodice of my evening frock strain tightly against my breasts, flattened down as much as possible by a very hot, very uncomfortable rubber brassiere that Elizabeth Bacon, my roommate at Smith, had convinced me to buy.

  “Wherever can Anne be?” Mother asked, and I imagined her looking at her watch, her mouth a thin line of impatience. So I took a deep breath—but not too deep in that cursed brassiere—and cleared my throat before entering the room.

  “Here I am, Mother. I’m sorry—I’m afraid I got lost.”

  The room was brilliant—so many chandeliers and candles—that at first I had to blink, adjusting my vision. Then I saw the forms of my family huddled around an enormous grand piano at the far end of the room. I had to cross that room somehow, and I blushed to think that they would all be staring at me. Oh, why hadn’t I arrived earlier? I could have slipped in unnoticed, not causing such a fuss—I felt the heat of their collective gaze upon my cheeks as I hurried toward them, my eyes staring only at my brocade evening shoes, the heels sinking into the plush carpeting. At last I reached them—I felt my father grasp my hand—but when I looked up, I saw that no one was watching me. And then I almost giggled at the absurdity of my vanity. I had made no grand entrance, after all. How could I, when he was in the room?

  For every member of my family was turned toward Charles Lindbergh, and so I could easily slip behind my father, taking my usual place at the edge of the crowd. As I did so, Mother murmured, “Then leave a little earlier next time, dear.”

  “Yes, sorry, Mother.” I peeked over Daddy’s shoulder; Colonel Lindbergh was standing on the other side of the piano, next to Elisabeth. While Daddy was all pink and round in his evening clothes, and my brother, Dwight, a solid brick, the colonel was tall and slim as a knife. He looked uncomfortable in black tails with white waistcoat; he stood stiffly, his elbows askew, his shoulders pinched. In almost all the newsreels and photographs I’d seen, he’d been in his flying clothes. An entire nation had memorized his worn jacket, jodhpurs, helmet with the goggles tucked under his arm, the scarf around his throat. It was jarring to see him out of this costume, away from his airplane.

  But the face was the same—the heroic brow, stern chin, high cheekbones. His eyes were so blue as to be startling; I decided I’d never seen blue eyes before, until that moment. They were the color of morning, the color of the ocean; the color of the sky.

  He caught me looking at him, then he looked away and began to tap his fingers nervously on top of the piano, as if playing a tune only he could hear. That was when I noticed his hands, his fingers long and tapered. I imagined them gripping the control stick of his plane, steering it across that endless ocean; I thought them more than capable of the task.

  “Aren’t you, Anne?”

  Someone had asked me a question and I had no idea what it was, or who had asked it. So I nodded like an idiot and said, “Yes,” and was amazed at the sound of my own voice. It sounded normal, while inside, my heart was still beating so wildly I felt my entire body throb with each pulse.

  “That’s nice,” the colonel said after a very small, very brisk nod, affirming the answer to the unheard question. Again, he could barely meet my gaze. His fingers began to tap even faster.

  At that, my heart began to slow down. Was it true? Was the heroic Colonel Lindbergh as nervous around girls as Mother and Con said?

  Apparently, he was. For as we milled about, sipping lemonade and nibbling at sandwiches brought in by an army of butlers, conversation progressed in a series of starts and stops; hesitation followed by sudden, unexpected bursts of chatter that were over before they’d had a chance fully to take off. Only once—when Daddy asked the colonel about the difference between a monoplane and a biplane—did our guest relax. With grace and confidence, he explained the differences in a long monologue that left no room for interruption; his somewhat reedy voice smoothed into a rhythm not unlike, I imagined, the purr of an airplane engine. He leaned forward, his blue eyes glistening, his fingers finally at rest, as he expounded on the differences and advantages of one set of wings (the monoplane) versus two (the biplane).

  As none of us, naturally, could contribute anything to this subject, small talk resumed—tossed out easily by Elisabeth and my mother, while Daddy beamed and Dwight devoured enormous quantities of sandwiches. Con even dared to tease the
colonel now and then, and he didn’t seem to mind. Meanwhile, I studied my surroundings, achingly homesick for Englewood. Nothing in this cavernous hall was familiar to me, save for the tattered American flag draped over the gilt fireplace mantel: the flag my grandfather had carried, as a drummer boy, in the Civil War. There weren’t even any framed family photographs, like there were on every surface back home. Yet I was curious about the embassy, in the way that one is curious about a museum; I promised myself I’d go exploring later, after everyone else was in bed.

  “I understand you’re at Smith?” someone asked, and after a moment it dawned on me that the questioner was Colonel Lindbergh.

  Surprised—I had found a corner, a good one, out of the range of any light, and had fancied myself hidden from view—I nodded. Then I realized he probably couldn’t see me, cloaked as I was in shadows. “Yes. I am.”

  “Elisabeth graduated from Smith two years ago,” Mother said brightly.

  “Yes, you see, Colonel, it is decreed by proclamation. All the Morrow girls go to Smith, and all the Morrow boys go to Amherst,” Elisabeth explained, and I couldn’t help but admire the dry, almost bored tone of her voice, the exact same tone she used with lesser specimens of the male species. “Where did you go to school?”

  The colonel stiffened, and thrust his chin out. “The University of Wisconsin. Although I did not graduate.”

  “Really?” Dwight’s voice cracked with incredulity. “You didn’t graduate? How extraordinary—what did your parents say to that? I can’t imagine what Pa here would say if I don’t graduate!”

  I watched the colonel’s face as my brother nattered on. It was as if his features had settled into a mask; I had never seen a man so immobile—yet so proud. And, I suspected, so humiliated.

  “Oh, Dwight! Hush!” I blurted out, surprising myself and my brother, who gave me a gravely wounded look. “How could the colonel have graduated and still learned to fly and accomplish what he’s done?”