Villa America

by Liza Klaussmann

  He didn’t regard his acquaintance with the Murphys as a friendship, exactly, just the type of connection Americans had to one another down here, on the basis of being from the same place and not being tourists.

  When Sara had first introduced herself, she’d seemed genuinely interested in what he did but hadn’t asked him any questions about his past, which had been a relief. She’d ended the brief conversation by saying: “I’d like to know you, if you’d like to know us. We’ll be at the beach almost every day for the next couple of weeks. Come see us if you’d like.”

  She’d seemed frank and uncomplicated and without any real motive beyond what she’d offered. So he’d gone. Once, and then again, when Gerald was there. And then again. But he’d spoken mainly with her. There’d been long days in the sun with their friends and the children and their dogs and the nannies and Vladimir, and as much or as little conversation as he wanted. And that had been that. Until Zelda had come along, bringing Gerald like a pilot fish. And then the flight.

  He drove his Citroën through the wrought-iron gates of the Hôtel du Cap and parked just before the steps that faced towards Eden Roc and the sea. Four stories high and capped with a slate roof—what Vladimir called a mansard roof—the hotel reminded him of a tiered wedding cake he’d seen once in a shop window in Boston. It didn’t have the mass and curved flourishes of the Belle Epoque hotels in Cannes or Nice; it was more ladylike, less cancan girl, in its manner. And the grounds he could see were full of well-kept, lush-looking plants, despite the drought.

  With the records tucked under his arm, he took the steps two at a time and entered the large lobby with its shiny white marble floors. There was a young boy at the front desk. His brass nameplate read Tristan.

  “Bonjour,” Owen said. “Je passe voir Monsieur et Madame Murphy.”

  The boy looked at him and nodded before picking up the telephone at the desk. He spoke briefly into the receiver and then told Owen, “Madame Murphy arrivé.”

  Owen looked around. The lobby gave way to a grand sitting room draped in orange and blue fabrics. The hotel had the hush of emptiness to it, that out-of-season feeling of having been deserted.

  Sara came down the wide staircase, her hair pinned up and tied back with some kind of silk scarf, her white dress loose.

  “Owen,” she said as she approached. “We weren’t expecting you. We would have made more of a fuss. Gerald’s down at Eden Roc doing exercises with the children.” She held out her hands to him.

  He took them briefly. “I brought the records,” he said. “I thought you’d waited long enough.”

  “Oh, wonderful,” she said, taking the vinyls and turning them over, looking at the covers. “Oh, perfect. You found just the right ones.”

  “Good,” he said. “I’m sorry for the delay. Engine trouble.”

  “Hmmm?” She looked up. “You’ve come all this way and it’s awfully hot. Let’s have a drink of something outside. I know where we can find some shade.”

  Before he could answer, she took his arm and began leading him through the lobby to the back of the hotel. She smelled sweet. Behind him he could hear the sound of Tristan’s footsteps.

  They went through a wide set of double doors and over to a corner table on the terrace beneath an umbrella pine growing from the earth below.

  “It’s not as breezy as the ocean side, but there’s more shade here,” she said. She looked up at Tristan. “Two sherries and some biscuits sablés,” she said and then turned back to Owen. “I hope you don’t mind me ordering for us. It’s what we have every day at this time. For some reason, it’s the perfect antidote to eleven o’clock in the morning.”

  Owen smiled. He liked her very much.

  “So.” She settled back. “Tell me everything you’ve been doing.”

  “Not much, actually. Trouble with the plane. Business is slow.”

  “Can you fly through all that smoke?”

  “I can,” he said. “It’s not perfect. But it’s not the first time I’ve done it.”

  “No.” Her face clouded. “Of course not. The war.”

  She was quiet as Tristan set down the drinks and the shortbread. She went on: “Was it quite bad for you?”

  He wasn’t sure how to answer that.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, “perhaps that’s indiscreet.”

  “No, it’s fine,” he said. “It’s more…it’s as if I’ve talked about it too much. And then it just becomes a story.”

  She seemed to think about this. “That does seem to be the way. We have these experiences and then they just turn into something we tell people, to amuse them or frighten or titillate them. Like performing. It can make one feel numb, asleep…”

  “Like you’re disappearing,” he said. He’d never spoken to anyone about it in this way before, and he was surprised how easily it came with her.

  “Yes, like disappearing. Like being invisible.” She bit into one of the biscuits. “That’s it exactly.”

  On this side of the hotel, the only sound he could hear was the dropping of dry pine needles in the heat and the purring of a turtledove in the distance.

  “It’s parched,” Sara said, brushing off some of the needles scattered on the table. “You may not be bothered by the smoke, but those fires are a bit of worry.”

  “It’s strange,” he said, “I kind of like them.”

  “You would think,” she said slowly. “After everything you’ve…you would think it would be the opposite.”

  “I find excuses to fly over it.” He didn’t know why he was telling her this. “Like I want to be close to it.”

  Sara looked at him, those sloping eyes of hers fixed on him. “That’s terrible,” she said.

  “Is it? I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “To be attracted to something dangerous like that.”

  “I guess that’s not how I think about it. It’s more that it’s familiar.”

  “Intimate,” she said.

  He laughed. “I wouldn’t get that fancy about it.”

  She laughed too. “I’m being overly romantic. I can get carried away.”

  “I don’t see that,” he said. “You seem pretty level to me.”

  “Well, thank you.” She put her hand over his. “That’s a high compliment.”

  Again, he found himself withdrawing from her touch. He didn’t know when this aversion to physical contact had started, maybe in the hospital when he’d had to submit hourly to having doctors poke and prod and test his body, like it was part of an experiment. Maybe before that. He’d noticed that Gerald seemed to have it too, moving away quickly when Owen’s thigh had accidentally brushed his in the hangar.

  “Well, so no work,” Sara said, either not noticing or pretending not to notice his reaction to her touch. “But have you been having any fun? Who have you been seeing?”

  “I don’t think I’m like you. I don’t keep that much company,” he said.

  “Yes, we do like being around other people,” she said thoughtfully. “I know some people think that’s because we don’t like to be alone among ourselves. But that’s not it,” she said. “Everything is better when you share it, I think. That flow of ideas between different people, the chaos of it all, makes life so exciting. And when someone new comes in, the chemistry changes and you see things in people you hadn’t seen before.”

  She’d clearly thought a lot about this. She spoke so confidently, the way some people spoke of God. He didn’t believe in God; only in luck, good and bad. And perhaps some choices. So, listening to her, he couldn’t help but doubt this religion of hers.

  But all he said was “I don’t mind being alone.”

  “You’re not alone all the time, though, surely. Vladimir speaks of you often.”

  “Vladimir. Yes, I see him.”

  “And the Fitzgeralds? Do you see much of them? We saw them for a beach party in Saint-Raphaël a while ago, but I haven’t heard from them since.”

  He wondered how much she knew about what was goin
g on up at the Villa Marie. He pulled out a cigarette and lit it. “I haven’t seen them in a couple of weeks,” he said carefully.

  “You share a mechanic with Edouard Jozan, don’t you?”

  “I do,” he said, forcing himself not to look at her.

  “What do you think of him?”

  “He’s young. Brave.” He finally looked up and grinned. “French.”

  She wasn’t smiling back. “Don’t judge Zelda too harshly,” she said. “It’s hard for her, running after Scott all the time.”

  “I don’t,” he said honestly. “I don’t judge her at all.”

  After Owen left, Sara remained on the terrace. She knew she should prepare for the beach, and yet she stayed, toying with her empty sherry glass. She was thinking about Owen, about what he’d said about the forest fires and about his war stories.

  She’d mentioned once to Gerald that Owen reminded her of a lake: smooth, showing nothing except the reflection of its surroundings. Now she realized she’d been stupid about him.

  She’d been given a small glimpse of what was underneath, a brief allowed closeness, and it had moved her. Like when one of her children unfurled a hot little hand to reveal some precious collected treasure—a bottle cap, a beetle.

  That was what Gerald must have felt, too, when he went up in the plane with him. That unexpected vulnerability.

  Sara supposed she shouldn’t be surprised to find something softer—broken even—in Owen. She’d heard from Tristan, who’d heard from God knows who, that Owen had been in some dangerous and tragic accident during the war. Apparently saw his best friend burned alive. But she’d also heard that his nickname had been La Chance, which she regarded as foolhardy. Perhaps, she thought now, she’d expected to find a man more like Edouard Jozan. Not that she minded a man like that; in fact, some part of her found that kind of virility exciting. Clearly, Zelda did too.

  When she and Gerald and the children had gone to Saint-Raphaël for the day at the beginning of the month, it had already been evident that something was afoot between Zelda and Edouard. At least to everyone except Scott, it seemed.

  There’d been too much liquor, as was always the case with Zelda and Scott, and the nannies had been left to amuse the children, although little Scottie Fitzgerald, who’d only just arrived from Paris, seemed pleased as punch to have playmates.

  Zelda had been gay, a crown of roses on her head, speaking to everyone. But most of her attention had been fixed on Edouard, and their physicality had attracted Sara’s notice. The two spent a lot of time swimming together, racing and splashing and pushing each other. Later, as Zelda lay on her blanket, quite close to Edouard, her eyes closed, Sara noticed her pinkie reach out and twine around his.

  Scott, meanwhile, had sat under an umbrella, his skin greenish white, drinking from a bottle of gin.

  Gerald told her later, on the ride home, the children asleep in the back, that Scott was having an awful time with the book and that being away from it, even for a day at the beach, made him feel anxious.

  “But did you see Zelda?” she’d asked.

  “Yes,” he’d said. “I think you’d have to be blind not to have noticed that display.”

  “Scott didn’t seem to notice,” she said.

  “No.”

  “I suppose if it’s not about Scott, he wouldn’t,” she said. She’d begun to tire of Scott’s antics, his ferocious sociability. She’d thought he might drop some of it once he and Zelda left the melee of Paris, but he seemed to have packed it along with everything else in his trunk.

  “That’s a bit tough,” Gerald said.

  “You’re right.” She sighed. “They’re young.”

  “Still,” he conceded, “I wouldn’t want to be in Zelda’s shoes.”

  Since that day, they hadn’t replied to her invitations or correspondence. She and Gerald had both assumed, or wanted to, that it was because Scott was hard at work and Zelda busy with Scottie. But now, after what Owen had said, she wondered.

  Clearly, she’d have to try something else. She asked Tristan to bring her some writing paper and when it arrived, she set about penning two letters. The first was to Scott and Zelda, inviting them to a party on the grounds of Villa America in two weeks. The second was to Owen, telling him she hoped he’d join them “because no one should be alone all the time.” At the bottom of each letter she wrote Dinner-Flowers-Gala and underlined it twice.

  The evening of the party was dry and warm, with just a hint of a breeze rustling the plantings on the grounds of Villa America. Sara could name them all now: Arabian maples; persimmon; white and black fig trees; phoenix palms; date palms; cedars of Lebanon; desert holly; mimosa; pepper trees; lemon and orange and olive trees. Their most precious, though, was the linden tree that grew close to the house, high above the tiered terrace gardens. The large old tree with its silvery leaves would eventually shade the gray and white marble terrace that would run along the back of Villa America, and they’d given specific instructions to the architects and builders to take the utmost care with it.

  The construction on the house was coming along; the pitched red-tile roof had been removed and the third story erected. Still, the flat sunroof they’d wanted had yet to be built, and all along the perimeter of the house, the earth was turned up and untidy.

  The gardens, though, were in perfect condition, if a little dry, and that’s all the space they needed for the party. They’d had furniture brought from the hotel and set everything up on the first three terraces, each separated from the next by a small flight of stone steps.

  On the highest tier, closest to the house, was a series of small tables and wicker chairs covered in bright beach cushions, and off to the left, the gramophone and the records.

  On the next tier down, they’d set up a banquet. Sara checked the dishes—cold sliced duck with fresh plums, courgettes tartes, wild lettuce, stuffed artichokes, a few lovely fresh cheeses, and, for dessert, millasson sprinkled with castor sugar. There was also a large bar table with champagne, anisette, peach wine, and a rhubarb cocktail that Gerald had spent two days perfecting in the kitchen of the Hôtel du Cap.

  The guests had been asked to come at five p.m. for cocktails and the Salons de Jeunesse, a show of paintings produced by Honoria, Baoth, and Patrick under the tutelage of Vladimir. The children would stay for an hour and then be ferried back to the hotel for supper and bed. Sara saw them crowding around Gerald now as he arranged their artworks against a stone wall.

  Sara walked over and placed her hand on Gerald’s back. He looked beautiful in his bone-colored linen suit. He’d had it made for him in Paris in the spring, saying he didn’t want to fuss too much with dinner clothes in Antibes. “We’re not going down to mix with sheer society,” he’d said.

  Sheer society, holocausts; she smiled to think of the private language that they’d been inventing between themselves over the years.

  “What do we have here?” Sara asked now, putting her hand to Honoria’s head. She loved the feel of her daughter’s soft, cropped hair beneath her palm.

  “This one’s mine,” Honoria said, pointing to a purple and blue canvas with mounds of green dotted through it.

  Sara bent down. She could see that small flowers and bits of leaves had been pressed into the green paint. “My goodness,” she said. “That’s beautiful. What do you call it?”

  “I call it Fleurs in Antibes,” she said proudly.

  “Very ambitious,” Sara said, trying not to smile.

  “Mine’s here,” Baoth said, pulling her hand.

  Sara exchanged a look with Gerald; their middle child’s painting looked like a muddy, gloopy nothing. This one was not going to be an artist. “Very manly,” she said. “What is it?”

  “Beef stew. The way Mam’zelle makes it.” He guffawed when he saw her expression.

  Patrick was sitting in front of his piece playing with a tin soldier, marching it up and down the canvas. Sara had to squint at it. It was just a small pen drawing of a stick figure
—a man, she assumed from the hat—on what might be a beach, given that the squiggly lines resembled seaweed.

  “Who’s this, my love?”

  “Monsieur Picasso,” he said, not stopping the march.

  “Oh, I think he’ll be honored. Would you like to give it to him when he comes tonight?”

  “All right,” Patrick said, seemingly unconcerned.

  “I think you’ve all done splendidly,” Sara said. “Some more graciously than others,” she added, eyeing Baoth.

  “Yes, I think tonight you can be spared the switch,” Gerald said.

  All three children laughed and shrieked a bit at the thought, Honoria crying: “Dow-Dow, no.”

  “Well, you never know,” he said. “The switch might be produced at any time.”

  “Children, I want you to go up to the gate now,” Sara said, restoring order. “And be ready to greet our guests. Honoria, you may ask them when they come in what they’d like to drink and then tell Dow-Dow. All right?”

  “Yes, Mother,” she said.

  “Maybe they’d like the switch,” Baoth said.

  “Enough of that. Get along.” She shooed them off, then turned to Gerald. “Really, you and that switch.”

  “They must be aware of the harsh realities of life.”

  She linked her arm through his. “As if you’d ever teach them that.”

  “No,” he said, serious now. “I would never teach them that. You look marvelous, by the way.”

  Standing on her tiptoes, her Louis heels lifting off the ground, Sara put her mouth to the hollow of his neck and kissed him.