Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald

by Therese Anne Fowler

  The regimen was brutal—we were allowed no poisons in our bodies (meaning alcohol), no pollutants (meaning drugs), not if we wanted to be professionals. I loved it. I loved the strict rules, the strict diet, the aching muscles, the bleeding toenails, loved it all because Madame had answered my question “Pourrai-je devenir danseuse professionnelle?” with “Mais oui.” She said that if I hadn’t shown the potential to dance professionally, she would never have allowed me into the advanced class.

  And I loved the regimen because it had done what the appendectomy had not quite managed to do: it cured me. My colitis was now completely gone.

  Scott, however, was convinced that I adhered to the rules as a selfish excuse not to go out socializing with him. For example:

  On that birthday afternoon, I arrived at the apartment twenty minutes before he did and collapsed facedown on the bed, clothes still damp, hair escaping wildly from the tight bun I forced it into for lessons. He’d been asleep when I left that morning and, as far as I knew, had then spent his afternoon with his friends watching fights at the American Club. He was wild about boxer Gene Tunney that summer, who he’d latched onto through playwright Thornton Wilder, that’s how these things went.

  “Hello, birthday girl,” he announced when he came in. “I got us a dinner reservation at La Tour d’Argent, how about that? We’ll eat like royalty, watch the sunset color the Seine, see Notre Dame in twilight … The Murphys want us to come by afterward—Sara’s got a cake for you, and then they’re leaving again for Antibes tomorrow.”

  Too much effort for too little reward, I thought, silently apologizing to Sara. I rolled onto my back. “What I would really like for my birthday is a bath.”

  “A quick one, then.” He stripped off his tie and went to the wardrobe. “Fowler is going to meet us at the Ritz at six o’clock.”

  I watched him take his shirt off. His undershirt was doing a poor job of hiding his fleshiness, which looked all the worse when compared with the lean body I saw in my reflection.

  “Let’s do this on the weekend,” I said. “Class was really hard today. We did a lot of center work—you know, away from the barre, nothing to support you but you. Fouettés, mostly—a whipping sort of turn that begins with a plié, then a—”

  “It’s your birthday now. You need a night out; no excuses.”

  “Exhaustion’s not an excuse, it’s a reason.”

  “Whatever it is, it’s interfering with our life. I’m glad you like dancing. It’s nice that you’re still good at it. It’s taking over, though. Maybe you don’t see that. Which is why,” he said, tugging my arm, “you need to listen to your husband and get yourself ready for a birthday celebration.”

  I pulled my arm from his grip and sat up. “Since it’s my birthday, I ought to have the say—and I say all I want is a bath and then dinner here with Scottie and you.”

  “You see!” I thought he might stamp his foot. “This is why—”

  He stopped, so I said, “What? This is why what?”

  “This kind of thing is why men like Pound and Ernest take up with other women.”

  “Their wives were the opposite of me! I’m doing something—”

  “Yes, something all about you. Pauline, she understands where she should be placing her extra attention.”

  “Hadley was a slave to him! Don’t you go tryin’ to make it like his affair was her fault.”

  “Regardless. Never mind. The point is, men need compensation for the pressures they face every day. They need to know that all their effort matters to the woman in their life. We give up our freedom, devote our entire selves to one woman—”

  “—at a time, maybe—”

  “—so is it too much to want that woman to make us her favorite activity? To accept our attentions and offerings with pleasure?”

  I said, “What about Lois?”

  He looked confused.

  “Don’t you remember? ‘She’s so organized and focused,’ you said. ‘You could learn something from her, Zelda.’”

  “Completely different situation. I wasn’t suggesting you take up a career.”

  “What, then?”

  “She was … There was something … fresh about her. I admired her spirit.” His voice was wistful. “I wanted to admire yours, but you were always criticizing me, or the help. She looked up to me, just like you used to.”

  She never had to live with you.

  Tired of the argument, I got up and, as I passed Scott on my way to run my bath, said, “Please give Ludlow and Elsie my love and regrets. As for Sara, I’ll phone her and explain.”

  “No, I won’t, and no, you won’t. I’m tired of this, Zelda. You’re not a ballerina, you know; you’re my wife. You need to start devoting your time to your actual duties.”

  In the bathroom, I started the water and then returned to the doorway. In my most guileless voice I said, “Actual duties, right. We all should tend to our actual duties, that’s a good philosophy. Tell me, darling, how much writing did you get done today?”

  He looked hurt, then angry. “You know, I always defend you when Ernest says that your jealousy and disruptiveness is ruining me. But he’s right. Jesus, he’s been right all along.”

  Then he turned and left the room, slamming the door as he went.

  Still in my clothes, I stepped into the tub, got down on my hands and knees, and put my head under the faucet, letting the noise and the rush of the water on my head cancel everything out.

  42

  Ellerslie again; early December 1928. I was in the chintz-bedecked southern parlor reading an article Sara Haardt had sent about Virginia Woolf’s recent Cambridge lectures, after I’d told her I’d been writing some new things—

  Are women not subjugated, prevented by fathers and husbands from having the wherewithal to produce the stories of their experiences? Mrs. Woolf says, too, that so long as men are the primary voices of women’s experiences, Woman shall remain powerless in her own society. “False constrictions deny fulfillment of one’s talents,” Woolf claims, “and the world is poorer for it.”

  Sara, ever urging me to become a feminist. But I was writing pretty much whatever I wanted to write; I had no dog in this hunt.

  Scott was … well, he might actually have been upstairs writing something. One of his Basil Duke Lee stories, probably; the novel remained stalled where he’d left it before we’d sailed for the States—which is to say at chapter four or five.

  Scottie was playing on the parlor floor with a set of Red Riding Hood paper dolls I’d made for her, but leapt up when a knock sounded on the door. She went running to answer it. Now seven years old, she had lost most of the little-girl chubbiness I’d loved so much and was becoming a leggy little colt who wanted to be involved in everything.

  “Daddy!” she yelled from the foyer. “Telegram for you!”

  Curious, I went to the foyer while Scott came down the stairs.

  He opened the telegram and read it. “Oh, hell,” he said, then handed it to me and went to get his coat.

  PHILADELPHIA PA 6 DEC 1928

  MR. SCOTT FITZGERALD ELLERSLIE, EDGEMOOR DE REGRET ASKING. FATHER DIED AM STUCK IN PHILLY WITH BUMBY NEED CASH TO SEND HIM ON TO FL. ME TO OAKPARK. WIRE ME C/O NORTH PHILLY STATION THANKS ERNEST

  Scott put on his coat and hat, saying, “I’m going to drive up to Philadelphia—I’ll probably stay overnight.”

  “What? It’s at least two hours to Philly, why would you go there? Just wire it to him like he says.”

  “My God, Zelda, are you heartless? The man’s father just died.”

  He went off toward the back of the house where the kitchen and servants’ rooms were located, yelling for his so-called manservant, Philippe, a former boxer and taxidriver Scott had met in Paris and had imported here to work for us. “Get the car! Allons-y! We need to go help our friend Ernest!”

  Scottie tugged my arm and whispered, “Mama, are they going to bring a dead man here?”

  “No, lambkins. Daddy’s just going to
lend money to Mr. Hemingway,” who always knows just who to ask when he’s short of funds.

  I hated Philippe almost as much as I hated Hemingway. He was surly, Scott’s man only, as much a drinking buddy as a butler/chauffeur/handyman. When I practiced ballet at home, he sometimes lurked at the doorway, his expression unreadable. May and Ella, the maids, said he watched them, too; they’d begun keeping a pistol in their room, and I’d have done the same, except that if Philippe was home, Scott was, too, so there was no real danger for me. There wasn’t for the maids, either, so much as we all knew, but who could blame them for assuming the worst?

  Between Philippe and haughty Mademoiselle Delplangue, the new governess Scott had hired, I felt like an unwelcome guest in my own home. Even Scottie complained that she didn’t like Miss Del, earning a stern lecture from Scott about having proper respect for adults.

  When I later told Scott that I wanted him to send Philippe back and to replace Delplangue with someone who wasn’t a tyrant, he said, “If you’re forever too busy dancing to manage your own home, you’ll just have to live with the selections I make.”

  I was starting to worry that I hated Scott, too.

  43

  January 30, 1929

  Dear Zelda,

  We’ve just finished reading the article by you and Scott in the latest Harper’s Bazaar. “The Changing Beauty of Park Avenue” is a brilliant essay, just beautifully done! We always felt you possessed underutilized literary talents, and this proves it. We hope you’ll keep writing. Congratulations to you both!

  We Murphys have all been suffering greater or lesser versions of cough, fever, and malaise. Patrick’s lingered, but he’s well now. I’m to tell you that he misses Scottie—and will she be at Villa America this summer?

  Will she? We heard from Scott that he’s setting his novel in Paris and that you’ll be returning this spring, in order to make sure he gets the details right. As it appears that Scott is mending his ways, we will be only too happy to see all of you wherever, whenever.

  Much love to you and Scott and Scottie too—

  Sara

  Feb. 13, 1929

  Dear Sara,

  Your praise was very much welcomed—but despite the byline, the article is all mine, how about that? I have another coming in June in College Humor, and have just sold them one more. Scott and his agent feel the joint byline is what enables me to place my work with these national magazines—which I agreed to, so as to use the money to pay for my ballet lessons. It’s an uneasy compromise but a necessary one.

  Yes, we’ll be in Paris in March or April, depending on our route. I’ve been maintaining my dance lessons here, and I’m writing Madame Egorova to ask for a place again in one of her classes. I can’t afford to interrupt my training for yet another season of debauchery. Tell Patrick that Scottie can’t wait to see him—as we are awfully eager to see his parents.

  Best love to all—

  Z~

  * * *

  I think it was the painter Henri Matisse who’d told us about the Beau Rivage hotel in Nice. Scott, though he had no interest in Matisse’s work, hated to miss anything grand, so he booked us rooms for two weeks in March, as a landing point for our journey from the States. We’d go on to Paris from there.

  Who Scott spent his time with during those two weeks I can’t begin to say. I hardly saw him between sundown and sunup, except for the night the police detective phoned to say they’d arrested Monsieur for assault and public drunkenness, and did Madame wish to come post his bail? Non, Madame did not wish to—Madame wished she could leave him there until such time as he would somehow regain some self-control, not to mention self-respect; she had a seven-year-old daughter asleep in her suite. Madame put a nice young bellhop into a cab, francs in hand, on a reconnaissance mission to the jail.

  “No more,” I told Scott when I let him into the suite two hours later. His right eye was swollen half-shut and turning all sorts of shades of purple. Blood had caked along his hairline and was spattered on his shirt. Thank God Scottie wasn’t seeing him like this.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said, and looked it. “But the son of a bitch said he wouldn’t read my work no matter what, that he had no interest in anything written by a fairy. Goddamn McAlmon.”

  I felt for Scott, I truly did. “Aw, Deo, that’s rotten.” There was no lower blow for Scott than someone dismissing his work, especially for such a wrongheaded reason. “I don’t blame you for giving him what for.”

  Scott’s face bloomed with surprise. “Thank you.” His grateful smile was an amusing contrast to his beat-up face.

  “Of course. Now come on, let’s get you cleaned up. Paris tomorrow, all right?”

  He nodded, and when morning came he was in good spirits again. He told Scottie, “Look at this—I went out for cigarettes last night and had a run-in with an orangutan.”

  “Daddy,” she scolded him. “Orangutans live in Asia.”

  “They do, but they have very long arms.”

  * * *

  In Paris, we took an apartment on the rue Palatine, in the same neighborhood as our last place, which made it feel like home. The lovely stone-and-iron Gothic building, the kind Paris does so well, was right by the remarkable Église Saint-Sulpice—one of those churches I’d once imagined might exist after I’d first seen St. Patrick’s.

  Here, it was a five-minute walk to Natalie’s on rue Jacob, another five to the Seine, and a short cab ride to Madame Egorova’s beloved, timeworn studio. Perfect geography, if not perfect circumstances.

  No surprise, the Hemingways were also back in Paris. What was surprising, to Scott anyway, was that he had written Ernest for his street address and gotten no reply. Then he’d written Max, who, gentleman that he is, delicately explained that Hemingway had asked him to keep his location private. Something about avoiding late-night serenades that could wake little Patrick or, worse, get Hemingway evicted.

  Even knowing this, Scott wanted to pay Hemingway a visit first thing. So while I was once again immersed in unpacking and contacting agencies for household help that Scott would then approve or reject, Scott went out in search of Hemingway or a friend who’d lead him to Hem, whoever he found first. “It’ll be fine,” he said when I asked whether he ought to wait for the great man to find him. “He doesn’t mean anything serious by it, he’s just making a point.

  “And anyway,” he added just before he left, “I’m certain it was Pauline who made him hold back the information. He’s still pretty torn up about his father’s suicide, you know. He’ll probably do anything she says.”

  44

  I’m sure Hemingway was indeed distressed that his father had put a revolver to his head and taken his life. Anyone would be. Hadley sure had been when her father had done the same—though she’d been young when it happened, so when she told me how awful it had been, she’d described it all with a quiet detachment and gentle regret. Gentle regret described her attitude about her divorce, as well, by all accounts. The woman didn’t have an excitable bone in her. Her ex-husband, on the other hand, needed to express himself in a wide variety of ways—one of which was a new book.

  “Ernest channeled a lot of his grief into the story,” Scott said one evening in May, laying a copy of Scribner’s Magazine on the sofa next to me. “He’s calling it A Farewell to Arms, but I’m not wild about that title.”

  I had a notebook in hand and was writing what would be my third short story for College Humor magazine, “Southern Girl.” Following the sale of my essays to them, we’d sold the first story of the series in March, and I was looking forward to its July appearance.

  I glanced at the magazine, then said, “You know, this joint-byline business is making me cranky. I’m going to tell Harold to make ’em change it to just my name after the first two stories are out.”

  “But they’re all joint efforts. You rely on my critiques and my connections to get them publishable and published.”

  “If that’s so, why isn’t Hemingway’s first boo
k also by you? Why isn’t Peggy Boyd’s?”

  “You and I are a team.” Scott looked surprised that I didn’t know this answer. “You’re using our joint experiences, and what are essentially my ideas—or my themes, at least.”

  Thinking of all the ways I’d assisted with his work, I said, “Then why isn’t my name also on your stories and books?”

  “That’s not the same thing at all.”

  “No? You tell me what the difference is, ’cause I sure don’t see it.”

  “It’s the difference between the amateur and the professional. I’m a writer, it’s my profession, how I earn my living. Whereas you dabble at it, the same way you dabble in painting and dance.”

  “So all those times when you wanted my help to work out a plot or—”

  “I was trying out ideas on you. Thinking out loud, or surveying opinion. I didn’t need your help.”

  He was so convinced of his view that there was nothing more I could say. And there was no one I could go to on my own; what agent would be willing to cross a woman’s husband—especially when her husband was F. Scott Fitzgerald? Like it or not, if I wanted to see my stories in the world, I had to dress them in Scott’s clothes.

  I picked up the copy of Scribner’s, which had Hemingway’s name on the cover. They were serializing the book ahead of its publication. “Far as I’ve seen, Hemingway has put his energy into boxing, liquor, and hauling his most faithful drinking partner all around the Left Bank.”

  “It’s his right to enjoy himself, now that—”

  —his novel’s done.

  Scott couldn’t say that, though, knowing that my retort would surely be Then what’s your rationale? So he said, “The first installment’s there in the magazine. Read it for yourself.” He went to the window and looked out, up the street toward the church. “Granted, the serialization leaves plenty to be desired. I told him to give me the manuscript and I’ll help him shape it up before the book goes to print.”