“I…” Sara looked at the men.
“Your mother means that Vladimir is a teller of tall tales,” Gerald said.
“I’m never going to school,” Baoth shouted, the shark lost somewhere under the sea.
“Dow-Dow,” Patrick said. “Can I look at the map again?”
“Yes, Dow,” Baoth said. “We need to be prepared.”
“I think Owen has the map,” Gerald said.
“It’s in my bag, below deck,” Owen said.
Gerald watched Owen as he moved slowly to the hatch, his shoulders set against the cliffs in the distance, his blond hair bleached almost white from the sun.
When Owen reemerged, he sat down on the deck and the boys closed around him. He pulled out the small rusted metal box, opened it, and removed the piece of parchment with a map of the coast of France drawn in faded ink. In one spot, above a cove in Saint-Tropez, there was an X marked in what looked like dried blood.
Baoth quickly took the map from Owen but allowed his brother to look at it over his shoulder.
Above their heads, Owen smiled at Sara.
The seeds of this trip had been planted in the children’s minds a week ago, when Gerald had gathered them round one morning to say he’d received a mysterious letter in the post informing him that there was an old map buried in the garden of Villa America that showed the location of buried pirate treasure.
The children, mad with anticipation, had dug in the indicated spot, killing a few of Sara’s peonies in the process, and found the box and map.
“Hopefully, Vladimir will know how to navigate us to the right spot,” Gerald had said when they’d presented him with their discovery. “And we might get Owen to fly over the area beforehand, for reconnaissance.”
They’d spent a week preparing for the voyage, Sara buying special foods and camping kits, Gerald finding tents that they could pitch on the beach. The children had been exhorted to “say nothing to anyone. We don’t want to arouse suspicion.”
Then, very early that morning, when it was almost still night, they’d left in search of treasure buried somewhere in the hills of the Riviera.
“Do you think there’ll be jewels?” Honoria asked now, going over to inspect the map with her brothers.
“Nah,” Baoth. “Spanish bullion, most likely.”
Owen laughed. “Sounds like you know a lot about buried treasure.”
“I read about it. That’s the kind of treasure pirates carried,” Baoth said, as if everyone knew this.
“There might be jewels,” Sara said, laying out brightly colored linen towels in the cockpit. “From beautiful women captured by the rogue pirates.”
“See?” Honoria said, shoving Baoth a little.
Sara opened the picnic basket. “All right, children, Dow-Dow, Owen. Lunch est servi.”
They gathered round, the children wrapped up in the linen towels to protect them from the sun, and ate: gnocchi, salad, and fresh peaches with cream. Sara cut a pear in half and placed it on the deck, and Gerald watched as a wasp landed on it and pierced it with its proboscis, trying to drain the fruit of its sweetness.
“Isn’t that just like life,” he said, watching the wasp eat the pear.
“Isn’t what just like life?” Sara asked.
But Gerald only shrugged, unable to articulate it. Instead, he went over and picked Patrick up and held him for a minute, the notes of the Rite of Spring speeding them along on their journey.
It was evening when they reached the cove. After anchoring, Vladimir rowed Owen and Gerald and the supplies ashore, then went back for the others.
Owen and Gerald hauled the tents and food and gramophone and records and all the other necessities farther inland to escape the tide. There was a cave carved into the rock surrounding the half-circle of beach, and they put the supplies inside and pitched the tents nearby. There were two tents: one for the children, and one for Vladimir and the mate. Sara and Gerald and Owen would sleep outside under the stars, they’d decided.
Once the two of them had finished the setup, Gerald poured them each a glass of wine and they sat watching Sara and the children coming over the water in the dinghy.
“Thank you for coming with us,” Gerald said. Then, more softly: “Thank you for coming back.”
Owen nodded, not looking at him.
When they were all together, they built a fire for Sara to cook over and sat around it as the sun dipped below the horizon.
“I think it’s time for some pirate stories,” Gerald said.
The children’s faces, flickering eerily in the light of the fire, turned towards him.
“Wait,” Sara said. “We have to set the mood.”
She went inside the cave and cranked the gramophone and put on Debussy’s “Engulfed Cathedral”; its deep, haunting notes swelled inside the cave and echoed out over their camp.
“We think this treasure that we hope to find tomorrow may have been part of Captain Kidd’s loot,” Gerald said. “And that cave was most likely used to shelter the captain and his villainous crew.”
“Why were they so villainous, Dow-Dow?” Patrick asked.
“Because they were a band of vicious men. All pirates lived by a code,” Gerald said. “And the penalty for breaking that code was brutal. One of Captain Kidd’s crew was strung up by his arms and drubbed with a drawn cutlass for helping himself to a huge ruby. For others, it was the plank.”
“What was the code?” Baoth asked, chewing the cuticle of his thumb.
“A code of how to behave aboard the ship. And how much treasure each man was allowed for himself.”
“What happened to Captain Kidd?” Honoria asked, her voice trembling a little as she moved closer to her mother’s body.
“Well, that’s a good question, Daughter. By all accounts, Captain Kidd was a savage pirate, and when he knew that he was close to being captured, he began burying his treasure, either so that he could return later for it or so that he could use it as bribes to get out of punishment. But when he was tried and convicted and sent to the gallows, the whereabouts of his treasure was lost forever.”
“And this is our treasure?” Patrick asked.
“It may well be,” Gerald said. “That’s why we have to be careful not to let anyone see us when we find it.”
“Will we be sent to the gallows?” Patrick asked.
“No,” Gerald said. “But like the pirates, we must live by a code of secrecy about what we find buried. It’s our secret now.”
When the children had been put to bed in the tents and Vladimir and Henri had retired, Gerald and Owen, Sara in the middle, sat wrapped in their blankets on the sand, drinking the wine.
“The story I heard about Captain Kidd when I was a boy was a little more bloody,” Owen said.
“Really?” Sara said.
“Mmm. We used to go camping out by these swimming holes up-island and tell pirate stories. The way I heard it, when they hung him, the rope broke, and they had to do it all over again. Then they took his body and nailed it to a post and hung it over the Thames for three years, as a warning to other pirates. First it rotted and swelled, and birds pecked his eyes, and then his skin and muscle started to drop off, and rats ate it. You know, it went on like that.” Owen took a sip of his wine, laughing.
“Heavens,” Sara said, grasping Owen’s hand. “That would be enough to put me off pirating.”
“I know,” Owen said, turning to her, smiling. “You would think so. But you know how it is, somehow those stories make it even more exciting to boys. The worse they are, the more you think you’d like to be a pirate.”
“I never heard any pirate stories,” Gerald said. “At least, none that I remember.”
“Did you hear any stories, my love?” Sara said, running her hand down his arm. “I can’t see either of your parents or that horrid nurse of yours telling you anything beautiful or magical.”
“No,” Gerald said. “They weren’t ones for that kind of thing. I had a dog, and I told him stori
es.”
“Well, now you have us. And you can tell us stories.” Sara turned to Owen. “You know, we’re so glad you came back.”
Owen smiled at her. “Thank you.”
“It’s like something’s missing when we don’t have our friends around us. Promise me you’ll never stay away so long again.” She squeezed his hand.
“Your very own pirate code,” Owen said.
The next morning, the children were up before anyone else. At first they sat in their tent whispering.
“I hope we find the very large, red ruby,” Honoria said.
“Gold bullion,” Baoth said. “I’m telling you.”
“Whose blood do you think was used to make the X on the map?” Patrick asked.
“Maybe the man they killed with the cutlass,” Baoth said.
“What’s a cutlass?”
“You don’t know what a cutlass is?” Baoth laughed. “You don’t know anything.”
“It’s a sword,” Honoria said. “And you don’t know anything, Baoth. Mother said there would be jewels.”
“She said there might be.”
“Shhh,” Honoria said. “I hear something outside.”
“Do you think the pirates are here to kill us?” asked Patrick.
Baoth picked up his small harpoon. “I’ll kill them,” he said.
Honoria peeked out. “It’s Dow-Dow,” she informed her brothers. “He’s getting firewood.”
“Breakfast,” Baoth said triumphantly.
“Breakfast,” Patrick repeated.
They sat out on blankets while their mother boiled milk for their cocoa in a pan and coffee for the adults in a dented metal coffeepot.
“That coffeepot looks as old as the pirates,” Vladimir said.
Owen smiled. “It’s getting there.”
“But it’s so useful,” Sara said. “Thank you for bringing it.”
The children ate bread and jam and fruit for breakfast while their father pored over the map.
“All right, children,” he said when they had finished eating. “It’s time.”
They crowded around him while, with his finger, he traced a line on the map leading from the cove into the hills.
“We have to take this path. Everyone ready?”
Leaving Vladimir behind to “defend against marauders,” they walked up the beach and started climbing the path. Their mother held Patrick’s hand to keep him from stumbling over the rocks and roots along the way. Baoth ran ahead.
After a while, their father stopped suddenly. He pointed to the parchment map.
“I believe this is the spot.”
Owen, shovel in hand, began to dig in the sandy soil, the dry top layer skittering away. They heard a chink as his shovel hit metal. He dug around to reveal a metal box.
“That’s too small,” Baoth said. “That can’t be a treasure chest.”
“I hope we haven’t been led on a wild-goose chase,” Gerald said.
“Oh, that would be a shame,” Sara said, her face a mask of disappointment.
“Well, maybe we should just open it,” Owen said.
“Maybe it’s just one large ruby,” Honoria said, kicking dirt at her brother.
“I think Patrick should open it,” Sara said.
Owen handed the small box to Patrick, who sat down on the ground to get a better hold of it.
Patrick finally managed to pry the box open, and he put his small hand in and pulled out a skeleton key with a parchment tag attached, a skull and crossbones drawn on it.
“The sign of the pirates,” Gerald said.
“There’s more,” Patrick said.
“Really?” Sara said.
“Let me see,” Baoth said, crouching down next to his younger brother.
Patrick pulled out another piece of parchment paper.
“‘Walk two feet uphill from this very spot,’” Baoth read aloud. “‘Then five paces to the west. Then ye shall be standing directly over the spot where ye should begin digging again.’”
They carefully made their way as directed. Then Gerald handed Baoth the shovel, and the boy attacked the ground, throwing soil in every direction.
“Baoth, do be careful with all that dirt,” Sara said.
“Pirate treasure, Mother. No time for niceties.”
Sara laughed. She leaned over to Owen and said quietly: “I’m so excited I can barely stand it.”
“The moment of truth,” he said.
“I hit something hard,” Baoth yelled, his ruddy face full of joy.
Honoria stood impatiently watching the shoveling; Patrick just kept his wise little head still, focused.
And then, all at once, there it was: the pirate’s treasure chest.
The children seemed stunned to actually see it, as if they’d willed it out of their imagination into existence and were awed by the power of their own fancy.
“I think your mother should open it,” Gerald said, handing her the skeleton key.
“No,” she said, “I think Owen should open it.” She handed it to him.
Owen looked at it, turned it over in his hand, felt its weight.
“Yes,” Honoria said. “Open it.”
He bent down and fit the key into the lock. It made a small click.
“The lid’s going to be heavy,” he said. “I think we’ll need to open it together.”
The children, along with their parents, each put a hand on the lid and pushed. The lid fell back on its hinges and all was revealed: stones and beads of every color, cuffs of gold and silver, garnets and bloodstones and turquoise, deep enough to push your whole hand through, brilliant and glittering in the French summer sun.
“Rubies,” Honoria said.
“And diamonds and emeralds,” Patrick said. “How many do you think there are?”
“There’s enough for everyone,” Sara said, straightening up.
The children would never know about that treasure, how Gerald had searched out old parchment paper from the galleries on the rue La Boétie in Paris. How Sara had hunted all over the Left Bank for a treasure chest and combed the flea markets for jewelry and beads. How Owen had gathered it all up in his plane on his return from Berlin and flown it down to Antibes. How Vladimir had gone on a mission to bury the chest and the box weeks in advance.
And while Honoria and Baoth and Patrick marveled at what Captain Kidd had left behind, Sara and Gerald and Owen stood watching.
The morning had broken clear up in the hills, and they could see straight over the pines and palms and olive trees, bending like women curtsying, out over the sea to the three islands in the gulf, the Iles d’Or. The Golden Isles, shining in the distance, just out of reach.
Author’s Note
Writing a historical novel based on the lives of real people is a tricky business. Lines between the writer’s imagination and biographical fact become blurred, and the past becomes ambiguous. One of the major differences between historical fiction and biography is that, in biography, gaps in the known narrative can be filled only with supposition, whereas in fiction, the gaps are where the story lives. The author’s job is to dramatize what the biographer is permitted only to guess at. The result is a work that is framed by fact but is ultimately fiction. Villa America is such a novel.
But first, the facts—for this book wouldn’t exist without the painstaking and brilliant research undertaken by a group of journalists, biographers, and family members.
I initially became aware of the existence of Sara and Gerald Murphy while writing my MA thesis on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender Is the Night, which was—and remains—one of my favorite novels. Intensely romantic and tragic, it is dedicated To Gerald and Sara, Many Fêtes.
As I began my investigation, I realized that the Gerald and Sara to whom he was referring were the Murphys, great friends of Fitzgerald’s and the models, he claimed, for Dick and Nicole Diver in the novel. I would also discover that the Murphys themselves, particularly Sara, found that claim absurd—even slightly insulting.
Living Well Is the Best Revenge is a gem, small and perfectly formed and, for anyone interested in the lives of the Murphys, a must-read.
However, for a fulsome biography of Sara and Gerald, Amanda Vaill’s amazing Everybody Was So Young is the first and last word on the Murphys. Meticulously researched and brilliantly written, it manages to bring to life all the texture—from the delicate details to the sweeping glamour to the awful tragedies—of their lives.
Her book informed much of what I know about the early years of the Murphys, of their youth and courtship. And her thoughtful interpretation of their marriage and their family life, as well as the complicated nature of some of their friendships, greatly inspired my treatment of them in Villa America.
And it was while I was reading Vaill’s account of the caviar-and-champagne party given in honor of Ernest Hemingway that the idea of the character of Owen Chambers was born. She notes in her biography that the caviar had to be flown in from the Caspian Sea by a pilot, and it was in that small gap—an unknown pilot—that the fictional narrative began.
That Gerald Murphy struggled with his sexuality is well documented through letters he wrote to both Sara and his friends. However, what exactly that struggle consisted of is unknown. There is no suggestion that he ever engaged in a love affair with anyone outside of his marriage. The invention of Owen and their subsequent relationship is part of that shadowland where historical fiction lives; the affair is a way of dramatizing Gerald’s struggle, of writing action where only absence exists.
Villa America Page 39
