Villa America

by Liza Klaussmann

  I do think that his affliction, which we’ve discussed, goes on. I heard some whisperings from the Riviera about that American pilot, the one who was always so silent—morbidly silent, if you want my opinion. You, of course, saw it first. But you’ve always been so right about people. Still, there’s no indication that the connection survived their move to Switzerland, so that’s one thing to be thankful for, if only for Sara’s sake. Christ, the couples this universe makes up for us.

  Oh, one last note. Hoytie Wiborg’s visit coincided with ours. God, what a bitch (and I know you always thought her so). One afternoon, I’d agreed to go with the children and Hoytie in the car into town to pick up some supplies. She insisted on driving. And then, because she has absolutely no talent for it, she rammed into some Austrian fellow’s car. Well, instead of just apologizing and driving on, she got out and started yelling “Jude! Jude!” at the man.

  Whether he was a Jew or not, this really got him sore, and he leaped out of his own car and made a run at her. Sadly, Hoytie was too quick and managed to get back in and drive off before anything else happened. But when this little episode was reported to Sara, there were fireworks, as you can well imagine, knowing Sara as you do. She insisted Hoytie track down the man and apologize. We didn’t stay long enough to find out how that one ended. But I knew you’d get a kick out of it…

  Vladimir Orloff

  Chalet La Bruyère

  Montana-Vermala

  Switzerland

  December 1931

  Owen Chambers

  Chambers Field

  La Fontonne

  Antibes

  France

  My dear friend,

  I was happy to get your letter and to hear your flying business hasn’t been destroyed by what seems to be a great tide sweeping over the world and swallowing everyone’s riches. I hope you will remain safe and not take chances in the rising swells.

  I understand that you have not written to Gerald. Sometimes he asks for news of you, but I have not known what to say or if one should say anything at all. I would not like to give advice on this matter, only to tell you that I have seen with my own eyes many letters begun, with your name on them, that have ended crumpled in the basket in his solitary room.

  I am not a spy but a mere helpless observer. I remember a time, years ago, when I thought you and I had become like two old men on a porch, watching the world go by, with no stake in this game, only a search for peace after the tumult and destruction of war. But I was naive. I see that now, my friend. You were waiting to live, for once truly and fully, and I…perhaps I was just waiting to be swept along on my next adventure.

  It is sad here, to see these lives still together but now so divided. I will go away soon, to Normandy where I will pick up the new boat, the Weatherbird, named after that piece of jazz music they love so much and that they still dance to from time to time. I will sail her down the coast, through storms, no doubt, to bring her home to Antibes. You will not believe this creation—there is a refrigerator and bathtub below deck. Such comforts, after the simplicity of the Honoria. Life changes, does it not?

  Villa America will not sell, it seems, and so Sara and Honoria will go down in the spring to stay.

  Gerald is just back from America, his father lying cold in the grave. He died as Gerald was crossing the Atlantic. And while this loss seems to have been absorbed in the black hole of his spirit, he is very angry over the inheritance. It seems the company, which is all there is, was left in the charge of Mr. Murphy’s mistress of many years, a one Lillian Ramsgate. She is now president of the company, and Gerald resigned. I wonder at the prudence of this. Only time will tell.

  And Patrick…there is the heart of all this. He gets better, then he gets worse. The bad lung is very bad, and he is once again confined to his bed. But he is a brave boy and finds things to keep himself amused. At present he seems interested only in statistics, statistics of any kind: sports, hunting, any sort of probability. It is his battle with death and that probability, I believe, that has brought him to this.

  I will be sailing the Weatherbird into Antibes at the end of March or beginning of April. I will wire and let you know before I set off. Will you fly your plane over me as I come in, to greet an old friend…?

  1932

  Stella Campbell

  Beverly Hills, CA

  United States

  August 1932

  Sara and Gerald Murphy

  Villa America

  Antibes

  France

  My darlings,

  I felt I would burst if I didn’t write directly upon my return to thank you for the most glorious moments spent at your slice of heaven on the Riviera. Can you really be serious about selling it? I think not…

  When I saw the lanterns in the garden all lit up for Patrick’s visit, well, my heart just fairly grew two sizes and I am so proud to have been part of that celebration. Then all the trips on the beautiful Weatherbird—how happy I was on that yacht of yours. Rooms painted different colors for each guest (does one call them rooms on a ship? No matter).

  I just wanted to say that you both—and together—make everything cool and sweet and lovely around you. (And thank you for the check—my landlady is most grateful that I am now able to pay my rent.)

  Now, you told me to “hunch for luck for Patrick.” I don’t know what hunching is, but if it means hoping and praying that he gets better and will be up and about again as he should, enjoying life, then you will find me “hunching” all the livelong day…

  Archibald MacLeish

  Uphill Farm

  Conway, MA

  August 1932

  Gerald Murphy

  Hook Pond Cottage

  East Hampton, NY

  Dear Dow,

  I think you must have all already left for Ernest’s mountains in Wyoming. I can imagine you and Sara and Honoria and Baoth have such a damn good time there. Sorry to hear that Patrick won’t be able to be with you. He is always in our thoughts, and Ada and I would love to have him any time he needs a getaway.

  However, one of the reasons I’m writing is that we’ve been cooking up a plan we hope you Murphys will agree to: Could we possibly entice you all to Uphill Farm for Christmas? Ada (bully that she is) is exhorting me to tell you that she will do the sweet potatoes if you will bring the wine.

  I am also writing to tell you that it came to me today—as I felt the last of the summer sunshine—that it has been a long time since we sat under the linden tree together and listened to the mourning doves and spoke of the things that are important to us. This letter is mostly to say, simply, that I miss you…

  Noel Murphy

  La Ferme des Anges

  Orgeval

  France

  October 1932

  Esther Murphy Strachey

  10 York Terrace West

  London

  Dear Esther,

  In answer to your letter: yes, it is love with Janet Flanner. It is not, perhaps, the same as that I feel or felt for Fred, but it is both passionate and calm. She comes on the weekends and we have friends and I cook and we sunbathe nude and she writes while I deal with the farm. (She calls my accent Park Avenue peasant, for all the cooking and farming I do.) There are also no problems with Solita, who seems to have taken her lover’s shift in affections with a grace I’m not sure I would possess. But she has also started visiting the farm.

  I feel a little guilty writing this to you, knowing that your own marriage is coming to a rather painful end. But despite your many gifts, housekeeping and wife-ing were never going to be among them. And perhaps, although a wrench now, it was what you needed at the time, when things with Djuna were driving you mad. Now that can all be finished with.

  I wouldn’t worry about what Gerald will think. Who cares, honestly? It is your life to lead, and you know best how to do that. Besides, I think Gerald may be finished with all those judgments of his. Life has dealt a cruel blow to him, to be sure, but he wore his blindness to his
own nature like a badge of honor. I do not approve of throwing stones when living in glass houses. The world is full of more important things to be concerned with than the personal affections and private complications of our fellow men and women.

  Speaking of complications, I, for my part (and Janet agrees), was glad to see your John (or should I say, your ex-John) had broken with that Oswald Mosley and his British Union of Fascists. I don’t like that man one bit, even if he was the best man at your wedding. And if you think that’s harsh, you should hear Dos on the subject. (Marriage to Katy certainly hasn’t softened him.)

  He passed by to see us a while back, fresh from the Democratic National Convention, ranting about Roosevelt and his theme song, “Happy Days Are Here Again,” while lines of “grimy men” who “have lost the power to want” camped outside in cardboard boxes…

  Vladimir Orloff

  21 rue du Château d’Eau

  Paris

  October 1932

  Owen Chambers

  Chambers Field

  La Fontonne

  Antibes

  My dear friend,

  And so, despite my efforts, you slipped through our grasp once again. You were gone when the family arrived at Villa America, only to return, I hear, after they’d departed for America, for good this time, I fear. I am now living in Paris. I will never again return to America after the horrors I endured there. I have met someone, someone I believe who is special and nurturing to my life, but I will save that until I know more. That is for another letter.

  This letter is to do what I promised I wouldn’t, meddle in your affairs. To ask you, simply, will you not write to him? Not to bring back what it was you had and lost, but to bring comfort and light to someone you once loved. There is so little of that in the world, it is a grave sin to waste it on pride.

  I will say no more but will include their new address in America. And some news of the family.

  Sara—well, she is lost and lonely, but she is like a warrior against death. Patrick is iller than ever, the other lung diseased now as well. They believe a new climate, out west perhaps, may be the solution. Honoria is growing into a beautiful young woman, so like Sara, and getting too old for my stories. Baoth’s nature remains unchanged. He brings light to his mother, as is his way.

  As for Gerald, there was a strange scene earlier this year that I will relate. It has to do with Baoth and the German boarding school he was in. He wrote Sara a letter that disturbed her greatly, about how he and his classmates were forced out into the snow at 5:30 each morning in only their underclothes to repeat over and over “Heil Hitler.” It seems the school has some connection to this political man. Of course, after hearing that, the Murphys decided to remove Baoth immediately. So Gerald and Scott and I took the train together to retrieve him. (Scott is a fine man, an honorable man.) Once there, however, Gerald found himself in a very passionate argument with the headmaster. He railed against cruel childhoods. It was very beautiful, and a bit Russian. But also very sad, as it seems anger is the only emotion he is capable of touching these days…

  1933

  Zelda Fitzgerald

  Downstairs in the Living

  Room

  La Paix

  Towson, MD

  July 1933

  Scott Fitzgerald

  Upstairs in the Study

  La Paix

  Towson, MD

  Dear Scott,

  I know you are hard at work on Dick Diver’s Holiday, or whatever you’re calling it now. But I am downstairs and just had a question for you: Another summer is half over, and we are here, and do you think we will ever have sunburns again from sitting out too long at La Garoupe? Will there ever be sherry at noon and cocktails at yardarm time, and do you suppose they still have nightingales in Antibes? And will we ever be full of happiness—the kind when you know something is over but that it will all begin again tomorrow?

  I don’t want to go back to the clinic. But, oh, Goofo, I need you to love me, please—life is too confusing.

  Zelda

  1934

  Ada MacLeish

  Uphill Farm

  Conway, MA

  United States

  April 1934

  Ellen Barry

  Villa Lorenzo

  Cannes

  France

  Dearest Ellen,

  I am just fresh back from a tour of Key West—a very drunken tour, I might add. Sara and I ditched our husbands—lamb cutlet and drumstick—and jetted down like two debutantes to stay with Dos and Katy and visit with the Hemingways.

  Buckets of frozen lime cocktails were consumed, and Sara and Ernest and I danced like drunken sailors in the Hemingways’ lovely living room to Sara’s records, and we went out fishing and swam, and Dos and Ernest argued about politics, and Pauline cooked marvelously, and it was perfectly lovely. And dear Katy made sure we all had something nice for our hangovers in the morning.

  I know it was a relief for Sara to have some real fun. But I am still worried for her; things don’t seem to be getting any easier. There are, of course, real money problems now, and they can’t seem to move Villa America (although between you and me, I wonder if they’re really ready to let it go, even if Sara has come to refer to our times there as “the era”). Then there is the sorry Mark Cross business—it seems that fancy lady of Gerald’s father is running it into the ground.

  Of course, Patrick’s illness and the expense weighs heavily. But—and for heaven’s sakes, don’t read too much into this—it seems that there is a lack of connection between Sara and Gerald. She says very little—because Lord knows she is the world’s most loyal woman—but reading between the lines, I believe there has been a loss of, shall we say, marital affection. And it’s taken a heavy toll on her, I think. She is such a warm, affectionate sort of human, and, well, we all need to be loved…

  Owen Chambers

  Chambers Field

  La Fontonne

  Antibes

  August 1934

  Vladimir Orloff

  21 rue du Château d’Eau

  Paris

  Dear Vladimir,

  I’m writing to you at this address, but I guess you could be anywhere now. I’m glad your adventures, as you call them, have finally brought you back to the sea, where you belong. The Weatherbird sounds like a fine ship, and I imagine you happy at the helm.

  Life in Antibes goes on, but my business is failing, like so many others. Business in and out of Germany is getting more difficult, so the contacts I made there aren’t worth much. It’s hurt. As a pilot friend from Berlin describes it: “With Hitler, everything is coming under the rule of arbitrary will.” It’s not the kind of will I put much store in, not the kind I felt I’d fought for. I wonder sometimes how many more things I still have to learn about the way things are. Or maybe it’s time to just admit that there are no ideas that last, so there is nothing to learn.

  I never wrote to Sara or Gerald, as you may or may not know. There are so many reasons, and I don’t want to go into them. But your words did not go unheard…

  Ernest Hemingway

  Hotel Ambos Mundos

  Havana

  Cuba

  September 1934

  Sara Murphy

  Hook Pond Cottage

  East Hampton, NY

  United States

  Dear Sara,

  I had a tremendous dream about you and Key West. And I wanted to write immediately and tell you that I love you very much. And I often think of how fine a woman you are. You have been so brave and I guess you’ll just have to go on being brave, good kind beautiful lovely Sara. We can’t let the bastards grind us down.

  About Scott’s novel, you were right to say that the book, which is a bad one, bears no resemblance to your life. All flash with nothing important at the heart. But poor Scott.

  I am also writing because I would like to send Patrick one of the African heads we’re having mounted. Which do you think he’d like best, a gazelle or an impala? You could put
it somewhere where he could see it while lying in bed. I think an impala, all clean and light and lovely. They’re the ones that sort of slip along in the air as they move. The one I’m thinking of weighed approximately 151 pounds, was killed with one shot, 6.5 mm Mannlicher, at 217 paces. You can tell him that for his statistics collection.

  It’s raining here; I wish you were with me…

  Archibald MacLeish

  Uphill Farm

  Conway, MA

  October 1934

  Patrick Murphy

  Doctors Hospital

  170 East End Avenue

  New York

  Dear Patrick,

  Last night it was dark coming up from the pond. I was tired coming up and not paying attention and when there was a little rustling in the leaves in the woods, I hardly looked…something almost the same color as the elm leaves. It barely ran. I thought as I carried it that it was very hot in my hand but then I thought too that small animals always feel hot to us. When I came into the kitchen under the bright light over the sink, I saw what it was. It was a young flying squirrel, sick or hurt or for some reason unable to move. I went back into the woods and put it in the bole of a great maple covered with leaves. It lay still there. All night in the brilliant moon I thought of it there and wondered about it. Its fur was softer than any squirrel. My love to you…

  Owen Chambers

  Chambers Field

  La Fontonne

  Antibes

  France

  December 1934

  Sara and Gerald Murphy

  Hook Pond Cottage

  East Hampton, NY

  Dear Sara and Gerald,

  I’m not sure where to even begin with this letter. It’s very late. Is it enough, as a friend, to say something, even if you say it very late? I wish I had more words to tell you how much I’ve thought of you both, and of Patrick and Baoth and Honoria, over the years that have passed since we all last met. Especially Patrick.