Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald

by Therese Anne Fowler

  Another way of avoiding work on his own novel while asserting his role as mentor—which I suspected Hemingway was beginning to resent. In this, Hemingway and I had something in common.

  Even with my resentment, knowing that Scott was struggling with his novel troubled me. It was a dilemma: his drinking habits prevented him from working on anything that required more than a day or two’s attention, while his inability to do more than produce more short stories demeaned him in his own eyes—which made him want to drink more. Getting tight soothed the insecurities that Hemingway had cued into so quickly and so well; but they came raging back if he indulged too much. I felt bad for Scott in one way, impatient with him in a whole bunch of others. Where was the man I’d married?

  “Maybe I’ll read it when I’m done with this,” I said. But don’t hold your breath.

  Scott turned. “I’m going to have a bath. We’re meeting the Callaghans tonight, don’t forget.”

  “I did forget, and I intend to forget again. I’m tired, Deo, and I need to get this story done. Harold’s expecting it next week, latest.”

  Scott held his hand out for mine. “All work and no play makes Zelda a dull wife.”

  A dull wife. Like Hadley. Who was now a divorced wife, a replaced wife, a possibly happier but possibly destitute former wife, who now had to share her little boy with the woman who’d replaced her.

  “Dull, huh? I’m going to go, but only ’cause I don’t appreciate that adjective.” I took his hand and let him pull me to my feet.

  At Deux Magots, we ate dinner with Morley and his pretty new wife, Loretto. They’d gotten married in the spring and were still shiny with newlywed gloss—lots of hand-holding and sweet smiles and meaningful looks. Though he was short and stocky and had small teeth and a receding hairline, Morley was no question Adonis to his more attractive bride. Watching them made me sad for what Scott and I had lost. Not lost; misplaced, I decided. If it’s real, it must exist somewhere.

  “Is your food all right?” Loretto asked.

  “What? Oh, it’s fine, I’m sure. You’re real sweet to ask. Guess I’m just not hungry tonight.”

  After the dishes had been cleared, Scott took the copy of Scribner’s from his pocket, saying, “Morley, you’ll want to hear this—it’s from Hemingway’s latest,” then read a short passage using full theatrical technique:

  The town was very nice and our house was very fine. The river ran behind us and the town had been captured very handsomely but the mountain …

  On Scott went, and then after he was done, he said to Morley, “Pretty damned impressive, isn’t it? Bet you never thought the Ernest you knew back in his Toronto days could produce anything like that. I’ve been working with him since, gosh, ’25—four years, now, and I think this shows how far he’s come.”

  Morley shrugged. “Some might say so.”

  “It’s in Scribner’s,” Scott said, with the air of superiority he often assumed when he was about one drink past jolly but still several away from fully obnoxious. “They only publish top work.”

  I rolled my eyes. Probably everybody in the place did the same.

  Morley said, “Well, ‘top’ is a matter of opinion, you should know that.”

  Morley was seven years younger than Scott and had only one novel in print at that time, so Scott gave him a dismissive look. “You’ll learn.”

  “I don’t need to ‘learn,’ I already know. It’s too deliberate, too forced. He’s trying to be something he isn’t.”

  I said, “See, that’s just what I’ve been saying all along! What Hemingway really ought to be is an actor. Well, in my opinion he is an actor, and Bob McAlmon says—”

  “That’s enough, Zelda,” Scott said, and told them, “She’s not good at holding her liquor.”

  I said, “Don’t be stupid. I’m not drunk—and even if I was, my opinion would be the same.”

  “You’re hardly qualified to judge—”

  “I’ve had nearly as many things published as he has, not to mention my nine years of marriage to someone who never stops talking about writing, so how am I not qualified?” To the Callaghans I said, “Right now I’m working on a story for College Humor—they’re taking six of ’em, it’s a series, they’re about different girls who find themselves in all sorts of unusual situations and have to try to figure out what’s right and best—and they don’t always, but—”

  Scott put his hand on mine. “You’re being a bore, don’t you think, all this talk about yourself?”

  “What I am is bored with you trying to act like I’m boring,” I said, pulling my hand from beneath his and turning to the Callaghans. “Whatever you two do, make sure you avoid using the Fitzgeralds as role models. We used to be sorta like you, and then, wow, we just lost control; it was like flying a kite in a windstorm. So let that be a lesson. Now, what do you say we all go roller-skating over at—”

  “I think you ought to call it a night.” Scott grabbed my wrist. “You’re obviously tired.”

  “I’m not—” I began, and then, realizing he was handing me my escape, said, “Actually, yes, yes, I am, I’m purely exhausted—I just run on like this when I’m tired, and nice as it’s been to see you—and meet you, Loretto—I believe my dearest darling husband is right.”

  “I’ll get you a cab,” Scott said, then signaled for the check. “Morley, Ernest’s sparring with some fellows over at the American Club. Why don’t you send your lovely wife home and we’ll join him there?”

  “Another time,” Morley said.

  We were all outside at the curb awaiting our cabs when a light rain began to fall. We opened our umbrellas while, fifty feet away, a boy no older than Scottie took a newspaper from the stack he was attempting to sell and held it above his head. The rain fell harder, fast becoming a deluge that turned the paper into a soggy hat.

  Scott said, “Hang on,” and he went running off with the umbrella, leaving me in the rain.

  I ducked in with Loretto and Morley, and we watched while Scott handed the boy his umbrella, then took out his wallet, withdrew some bills, and gave the money to the boy. Then Scott picked up the whole stack of soggy papers and said, “There, you did a great job tonight, go on home.” Whether or not the boy understood English, he understood that he’d been freed. Off he went into the wet Paris night.

  As Scott started back toward us, Morley asked me, “Was that for the kid’s benefit, or ours?”

  “Honey,” Loretto scolded, “now really, what a thing to say!”

  Morley looked at me.

  “I wish I knew,” I said.

  * * *

  Some hours later, a crashing noise woke me and I bolted upright, ears straining in the darkness.

  “Shit!” Scott muttered from somewhere in the living room. Then came Scottie’s voice from down the hall, “Mama?” and the sound of Delplangue’s door opening, and then another crash as I was hurrying into the hall.

  I pushed the switch, lighting the hallway. To my right, Delplangue was at Scottie’s door. I nodded to her, then went left, toward Scott, who had pitched face-first over a table and onto the Oriental rug. Beside him was a ceramic lamp, now in pieces.

  “Are you all right? Get up.”

  He groaned and lifted his head slightly, then let it drop forehead first against the rug. “I ’it the lamb,” he mumbled. “Goddamn lamb.”

  Lamb? Oh—lamp. “Yes, it’s damned for sure. Now, come on.”

  “Ernest.” He rolled onto his side and then blinked at the light from the hallway. He squinted at me. “Oh. ’M I home?”

  “Lord knows how you made it here, but, yep, you’re home, and you need to get to bed before your daughter sees you like this.”

  “Whyza lamb there?” he said sorrowfully.

  “Never mind. Up.”

  An eternity seemed to pass while he gathered himself sufficiently to get onto his knees, then his feet. Once up, he swayed to one side, then the other, and then his knees began to buckle. I barely caught him by putting myself
in the path of his fall. “Holy Christ, Scott, how much did you drink?”

  He swung his arms wide-open, saying, “’Smuch,” and knocking us both against the wall.

  I pushed him upright, my teeth clenched with the effort. “When are you going to learn?”

  “’E said ’s okay.”

  “What?”

  Scott peered hard at me and didn’t answer.

  I helped him to the bedroom, silently promising to pay Delplangue extra if she managed to invent a convincing story to explain the commotion to Scottie.

  In bed again a while later, I couldn’t sleep. Scott was as bad as I’d ever seen him, and I was worried about alcohol poisoning. We’d all heard the stories about bums found dead in the gutters, having literally drunk themselves to death. One young fella, an artist who’d come over from Wales, had done it, too. With him it had been a drinking contest against a Frenchman twice his size. I could all too easily imagine a similar contest between Hemingway and Scott.

  Lying on his stomach, Scott snored then stopped, snored then stopped, mumbled, snored, mumbled, snored. After a good while of this I grew more annoyed than worried, and finally I gave him a shove.

  “Come on, roll over.”

  “Mmmm,” he moaned, stretching one arm up past his head. “No more, baby, I can’t…” His tone was half-protest, half-pleasure. “’S so good but ’s wrong,” he mumbled. Then he chuckled this throaty, low chuckle and moaned again, more quietly … and then nothing, just sleep-heavy breathing.

  My heart was thumping hard. No question about it: wherever he thought he was, sex was involved. I waited for him to say more. And waited. And waited. Then I got tired of waiting, and my thoughts started to drift like thoughts do when you’re not quite asleep in your bed in the dark middle of the night.

  Just as I was beginning to slide into another of my dreams about flying, Scott shifted and moaned a little, waking me. He muttered, “C’mon, Ern, no…,” and then gave a sigh of pleasure.

  All my senses snapped to attention, heart galloping, eyes wide. C’mon, Ern?

  * * *

  So there was that. And then there was this, a few nights later:

  After having dinner together at Prunier’s pub, Scott and Hemingway went to the American Club, where Morley and Hemingway were going to square off. They gave Scott a stopwatch and told him to time the rounds: three minutes per round with a one-minute rest in between. The fighters stripped down, donned their gloves, climbed into the ring, and went at it.

  The first round was mostly a warm-up, neither opponent prevailing, and Scott called time right at three minutes.

  One minute rest.

  Round two: now Hemingway was getting aggressive—more aggressive than he’d been when they’d sparred before, Morley later reported to Loretto; he wondered whether that wasn’t because Scott was there.

  Morley had some actual boxing training in his past. Hemingway’s talents, such as they were, were proudly self-taught. Hemingway was swinging hard, but mostly missing. Morley blocked and jabbed and circled and dodged, and Hemingway cursed and spat. On it went, and then Morley drew his arm back and really let Hemingway have it. One swift, hard punch to Hem’s head and down he went.

  “Oh my God,” Scott cried after looking at the stopwatch. “I let the round go four minutes!”

  Hemingway said, “If you want to see the shit kicked out of me, Scott, just say so. But don’t say you made a mistake.” Then he picked himself up off the canvas and went storming off to the showers.

  “Morley said it was like a lovers’ spat,” Loretto told me.

  * * *

  The apartment was empty, a rare event and one I intended to make the most of. I’d waited six days for this opportunity, the chance to pick the lock of Scott’s private trunk and see if proof of Bob McAlmon’s assertion was hiding inside.

  With two hairpins and a recollection of instructions my brother had shared with me twenty years earlier, I worked on that tiny steel lock. Outside, taxidrivers blew their horns and vendors called out from their carts and the wind changed direction, blowing the bedroom’s long, gauze curtains in, making them dance over me like ghosts—and still I crouched there, determined to get at the truth. Then the lock clicked open suddenly, and I tipped onto my backside.

  Gathering myself, I opened the trunk’s lid and saw, first, the ordinary things I’d anticipated, given that I’d seen Scott using this trunk for years: stacks of journals, cardboard boxes, folders, notebooks, files. His unused overseas cap was in here, along with photo albums and scrapbooks begun when he was a boy.

  The most recent journal sat on top. Inside its cover, Scott had written

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  14 November 1928—

  We’d been at Ellerslie in November. I turned the page and began scanning the scrawled musings for Hemingway’s name.

  A lot of what was there concerned Scott’s thoughts on his works-in-progress, along with reminders like Tell John to try Scribner’s mag and Harold: $400 but keep pressing, and notes such as ’Flu two weeks. Nothing real deep, and no mentions of his pal, beyond E’s father suicide $100; Re-reading in our time; E $50 for bet, lost Tunney. There were several other notes about lending E money. There were even more about the money Scott had asked Max or Harold to deposit into one account or another. I blinked at these without taking time to calculate.

  Tucked along one side of the trunk was a folder of letters from Hemingway. Here, then, would be the evidence. I sat down on the rug with my back to the bed and began to read. The letters—there were dozens—dated all the way back to July of 1925, when Hemingway had gone to Pamplona. It was no surprise that Scott had saved them; inside the trunk were other folders containing all the letters I’d written him, all the letters he’d gotten from his parents and his sister, his correspondence with Max, with Harold, with the Princeton boys, with just about every English-speaking writer on the planet. What surprised me was that Hemingway had written so many.

  In that first one, he’d said,

  I’ll bet heaven for you would be an unending cocktail party with all the best and powerful members of the best powerful families there. A wealthy and faithful bunch they’d be. Your hell would be some seedy bar that had run out of booze where the unfaithful husbands sit waiting forever for a drink.

  Whereas for me heaven has the corrida and my own stream full of trout; nearby I’d have two houses, one with my family and my most loving wife and the other full of beautiful women all seeing to my needs and I’d have all the worthless lit magazines printed on soft tissue and stocked in the toilets.

  Most of the letters were like this. They were casual, humorous, and surprisingly personal. Truly, they were the letters of a good friend. Only the more recent ones seemed edgier, critical, moody. The most damning things I found were endearments that might, through a certain lens, seem a little too chummy—but those were plainly in jest, as were the occasional closings like With salacious sincerity, Ernestine. A few times Hemingway had said things like I wish to hell I could see you—but I’d written things like that to my friends and that didn’t make me a lesbian. On the other hand, I sure do miss you. I’ve been trying and trying to get down there to see you concerned me. Did men who weren’t fairies write to each other this way?

  Occupied as I was, I hadn’t noticed the shifting daylight, nor did I hear the apartment door open and close. Not until the sound of footsteps right there in the room caught my attention did I even glance up from the letters, which I’d spread on the floor all around me.

  “Find what you’re looking for?” Scott asked.

  I was too saturated with Hemingway’s words to be startled, I guess, because all I did was look up at Scott and say, “Are you two in love?”

  He leaned down and took all the letters and tucked them back into the folder. His hands shook, and I smelled wine on his breath as he said, “He’s my good friend, Zelda. Christ, now you’re after us, too?”

  “The other night—”

  “What ab
out it?” To my practiced ear, he sounded defensive.

  “You were talking in your sleep. About him. And you sounded … amorous.”

  “That’s crazy.” He closed and locked the trunk, then turned to leave the room.

  I followed him into the hallway. “You were drunk—do you even recall coming in and breaking that lamp? Sloppy drunk.” Throat tight, the pressure of tears behind my eyes, I said, “Maybe even drunk to the point of unedited honesty.”

  Scott turned. “What did you say?”

  I was crying now, couldn’t seem to help it. “I said, maybe McAlmon isn’t the ‘goddamned liar’ you two call him.” Scott’s eyes widened. “Maybe you’re both … fairies, and, and”—I drew a breath as his eyes widened even farther—“and it could be you just hide the truth in plain sight the way so many of the other fairies try to do.”

  Scott shook his head as if to clear it. “You really are insane. You don’t have one shred of evidence—”

  “You said his name a couple of times, and you said, ‘No more, baby,’ and you were moaning, and you’ve been just, my God, consumed with him and his career—”

  “Stop it.” He grabbed my upper arm. “Do you hear me? I am not a fairy. Ernest is not a fairy. If I ever…” He paused, then swallowed and said, “If you ever so much as even accuse us in your thoughts, let alone suggest such a thing to anyone, I swear I will take my daughter and you’ll never see her or me again.”

  “I’m sorry,” I cried. “It just seemed like … I mean, you don’t want me anymore.”

  He released my arm. “What man would want a woman who thinks he’s a secret homosexual? Not to mention all you talk about is ballet and artists and—Jesus, Zelda—”

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” he said, his voice swollen with disgust. “I’m going out.”

  He left me standing there in the hallway, the whole encounter spinning in my head. I had to brace my hands against the walls, could barely walk a straight line to the sofa.

  When my emotions finally settled, though, I thought I understood what was probably true: When it came to Scott’s affections, I’d been displaced if not replaced and had only made the situation worse by confronting him. Probably, Scott loved Hemingway truly but platonically. Probably, he couldn’t see that Hemingway’s feelings weren’t so clean. That was the thing with Scott: if he loved you truly, he had trouble seeing your flaws. What a gift, I thought. What a curse.