by Paula McLain
With Ernest’s endorsement, Pauline began coming by the sawmill in the afternoons to keep me company. We’d have tea while Bumby played or napped, and sometimes she went with me to the music shop when I practiced at my borrowed piano.
“You really do play beautifully,” she said one day when I’d finished. “Especially the Busoni. I thought I was going to cry. Why is it you never played, really?”
“I couldn’t break through. I just wasn’t good enough.”
“You could still. You should.”
“You’re very dear, but it’s not true.” I stretched my fingers and then closed my music book. “This is my life now, anyway. I wouldn’t want another.”
“No, I wouldn’t either if I were you,” she said, but later, when we were walking home from the shop, the scheme was still on her mind. “You might not have to give anything up to take music more seriously,” she said. “A concert wouldn’t have to be terribly traumatic. Everyone loves you. They want to see you succeed.”
“It would take so much more time and effort,” I said. “And I’d need my own piano.”
“You should have your own anyway. Surely Hem knows that. I can talk to him if you’d like.”
“We’ll see,” I said. “I’ll give it some thought.”
The rush of anxiety about performing in front of others never diminished much, but more and more I began to wonder if a concert might be good for me after all—particularly now, when Ernest was so absorbed by his novel. The book blotted out every other thought and crept in even when we were making love. I could feel him there one moment, with me, inside me, but then gone the next, simply vanished into the world he was making.
My playing wouldn’t change anything about his habits—I wasn’t naïve enough to think that—but I thought it might give me my own focus and outlet, beyond the details of Bumby’s feeding schedule and exercise regimen. I loved being his mother, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t have other interests. Stella managed it beautifully. In fact, she was the new model of a wife, and I was the outdated, provincial variety.
It was ironic to think that nearly all of the women I knew now were direct benefactors of the suffragette work my mother did decades ago, right in our own parlor, while I curled up with a book and tried to be invisible. It was possible that I was never going to catch up with the truly modern woman, but did I have to hide my head so willfully? Couldn’t I experiment just a little to see what else might feel right, especially when I had good friends who loved me, as Pauline had pointed out, and wanted me to succeed?
In time, Pauline introduced us to many of her finer, Right Bank crowd, like Gerald and Sara Murphy. Gerald was a painter, but more than this, he was an icon of good taste and the good life. He and Sara had come to Paris in 1921, and though they had a beautiful apartment on the Quai des Grands-Augustins, they were gradually migrating to the South of France, where they were building an estate on the Riviera, at Antibes. Gerald had studied architecture and the estate, Villa America, would be the Murphys’ joint opus, the most beautiful thing they could imagine and afford—and they could afford a great deal. Pauline also introduced us to the poet Archibald MacLeish and his lovely wife, Ada, who sang well, professionally even, and wore the most beautifully beaded dresses I’d ever seen.
I was surprised at how tolerant Ernest seemed of these new acquaintances. In private he snidely called them “the rich,” but he couldn’t help but respond to the attention he got from them just the same. In Our Time came out in the States in early October, and not long after, copies could be found at bookshops all over town. The reviews were all tremendously positive, calling Ernest the young writer to watch. His prospects seemed brighter and brighter, but these new friends weren’t simply hangers-on. They wouldn’t be content warming their hands at the edge of Ernest’s success; they wanted to fan the fire.
In the meantime, Pauline began coming to the sawmill for dinner several nights a week, and sometimes Ernest would meet her in one or other of the cafés. I was so relieved that the relationship felt natural and mutual. I’d never liked fighting with Ernest about Kitty, but he wouldn’t budge. She was and would always be “that gold-plated bitch” to him, but Pauline brought out his kinder, more fraternal side. He began to call her Pfife, and so did I. To Bumby, she was Tante Pfife and she had nicknames for us, too. Ernest was Papa or Drum, and I was Hash or Dulla. Together we were her adorables, her cherishables.
As fall turned to winter, and the Paris damp seeped in through the windows and under the doors, Ernest made a decision to put the Pamplona novel away.
“I can’t see it at all anymore. I don’t know what’s good or where I’m failing. It has to simmer on its own awhile.” He sighed and scratched his mustache, which had gotten thick and unruly lately, handsomely uncivilized. “I’ve been thinking about starting something wholly different. Something funny.”
“Funny seems to suit Don and Harold, but I’m not sure it’s the thing for you.”
“The first thing you ever saw of mine was funny. You’re saying that wasn’t any good?”
“Not at all. Only that your work has more of a spark when it’s dramatic.”
“I don’t know about that,” he said, and began working immediately. I had no idea what he really had in mind, or how quickly he would cast it off. Within two weeks he had an entire draft of The Torrents of Spring, a parody-satire of Sherwood Anderson’s latest book, Dark Laughter. But having written the thing didn’t make the next step any easier. He wasn’t sure what he had or whom to let in on it. Someone might get the wrong idea and think it mean-spirited.
“I’d love to read it,” I said. “I can keep an open mind.”
“Sorry, Tatie. I’m not sure you can.”
“Is it that bad?”
“I can’t say. I’m going to show it to Scott and maybe Dos, too.”
Unfortunately, they weren’t at all keen on the project and told him to leave well enough alone. Anderson’s book might well be silly and sentimental, they agreed, but he was a great talent and had done so much to secure Ernest’s future, it wouldn’t be fair to lambaste the man. What would be the point?
“The point,” Ernest said, “is that his book is rotten and deserves to be harpooned, and if someone’s going to do it, why not a friend?”
“That’s a damned funny way to see it,” Scott said. “I tell you, lay off.”
Undeterred, Ernest had taken the manuscript over to the Murphys’ apartment and read it aloud while Gerald tried very hard not to be shocked, and Sara fell asleep sitting straight up on the sofa in a pale silk dressing gown. I listened with slow-growing dread. When Ernest finished, Gerald cleared his throat several times and, ever the diplomat, said, “It’s not for me, but someone might think it’s just the thing.”
“You’re killing me,” Ernest said.
Gerald turned to me. “What do you think, Hadley? You’ve a good head on your shoulders.”
“Well,” I hedged. “It’s not entirely kind.”
“Right,” Gerald said.
“It’s not meant to be kind,” Ernest said. “It’s meant to be funny.”
“Right,” Gerald said again.
I had a secret theory that Ernest had really written the book to distance himself from Sherwood and come out from under his shadow. Friends and reviewers both were often comparing Ernest’s prose to Anderson’s, and this made Ernest crazy. He didn’t want to be lined up against anyone, especially not a good friend and champion of his work. He was grateful for Sherwood’s help, he swore he was, but not indebted to him. Not indentured. His work was his own, and he would prove it once and for all.
Desperate to get someone to agree with him about The Torrents of Spring, Ernest finally went to Gertrude, but things hadn’t been good with those two for some time and this was the last straw. When he told me how it had gone, I felt heartbroken. She nearly threw him out of her flat, saying, “It’s detestable, Hem, and you should know better.”
“Should I?” He tried to laugh it off.
“I thought so once. You used to be committed to your craft. Now you’re mean and hard and only care about positioning yourself and about money.”
“Don’t be such a hypocrite. You’d love to be rich.”
“I’d love to be rich,” she agreed. “But I won’t do all the things it takes to get that way.”
“Like cutting down your friends, you mean?”
She was silent then.
“I get it. You’ve painted a real nice picture of me here.”
He stormed out, and when he came home he wouldn’t even talk about it at first. But he shut the book away in a drawer and I was relieved to see him done with it.
It was nearly Christmas by this time. We were preparing to return to Schruns and stay through until spring, and Ernest put all his energy into making plans.
“Why don’t we ask Pauline to join us,” he suggested. “It will be so much nicer for you if she’s there.”
“I’d love that. Aren’t you sweet to think of me?”
We invited Jinny, too, because the two sisters often came as a matched set, but Pauline assured us that Jinny would go to Nîmes with other friends. She herself was delighted to come. She couldn’t wait.
THIRTY-FOUR
fife came off the train looking pink and well. There had been two feet of snow the week before, but the weather had grown steadily warmer and it was all soft now, impossible for skiing. Ernest had promised to teach her to ski, and she carried her skis awkwardly when we met her on the platform, but didn’t seem disappointed when we pointed out the thaw.
“It will be enough to be near you two pets,” she said. “And Bumby, of course.”
Bumby stood holding my hand. He wore his winter togs and looked like a proper Austrian baby and was very brave about the train, which thrilled and terrified him.
“Say hello to Tante Pfife,” Ernest said to Bumby, who hid behind my skirt and peeked curiously out again, making us all laugh.
Pauline seemed charmed by Schruns and by her room at the Taube, which stood at the end of the long hall, just next door to where Ernest worked. “It’s smaller than yours,” she said when she saw it, “but I’m not so big really.”
I sat on the bed to watch her unpack while Bumby played with the fringe of the bed quilt on his hands and knees, singing a little Austrian folk song Tiddy had taught him. Pauline opened her bag and began to take out long wool skirts and well-made stockings. She picked up a butter-colored cashmere sweater, held it against her, and folded it into thirds.
“You have the loveliest things,” I said, looking down at my own trousers and thick wool sweater. “But you’ll embarrass all of us if you actually wear any of this.”
“Embarrass myself is more like it,” she said. “I guess I have overdone it. Hem said there was the best society ever here.”
“He must have meant the chamois. Or maybe the fat Austrian butchers and woodsmen he plays cards with, each one smoking a bigger cigar. You might find yourself a husband in that lot if you’re not careful.”
“The goats would fall easier than the woodsmen, I’d wager,” Ernest said from the doorway. He filled the frame, and the hall was dark behind him.
Pauline smiled. “I’ll try not to set my cap too high, then.”
We all laughed, and then Ernest went back to work, locking his door with a click. I was relieved to see him writing again. He’d spent our first two weeks at Schruns in bed, nursing a sore throat and harsh cough. So it was very good that he seemed ready to get to it now, and better that I had a friend to entertain and talk with while he was occupied.
After Pauline was well moved into her room, we dressed Bumby warmly and then pulled him through the town on his little sled so I could show her everything—the small square with its shops and Gasthäuser, the bowling alley and the sawmills and the stream, Die Litz, which split the town several times and was covered over with sturdy wooden bridges.
“I just love it so absolutely already,” Pauline said with a sigh.
Right then Bumby’s sled hit an iced-over trough and dipped low to one side, tumbling him out in the snow. He squealed with delight, stood, and quickly climbed onto the sled again. “Again, again, Mama!”
“Again, again!” Pauline echoed and stamped the snow around her happily with her pretty, impractical boots.
Back at the hotel, she followed me into my room while I changed.
“Nothing I’ve brought will do here,” she said. “Do you mind lending me some of your things?”
“You can’t be serious. I’m twice your size.”
She frowned. “Not twice, surely. What about shops? Is there anything nearby?”
“If you’re not too choosy. There’s nothing like a Right Bank boutique for several hundred miles.”
“That’s just what I came to get away from. I intend on being only practical the whole while, with sensible, no-nonsense trousers and men’s shirts, just like yours.”
I couldn’t help laughing. “Are you sure you know what you’re getting into?”
“Absolutely. And I want slippers just like yours, too. They simply have to be the same.”
“You’re a funny one. You can have these,” I said, taking off my own and handing them to her. “I’ll wear Ernest’s. That’s what marriage does to you, by the way. Somewhere along the line you discover you have your husband’s feet.”
She smiled. “I wouldn’t mind that.”
“Don’t tell me you’re getting soft on marriage. Is there someone new?”
“No, no. I’m just in love with the way you and Drum are together. There are things I didn’t see before, like how nice it is to have someone around. Not the white knight whisking you away, but the fellow who sits at your table every night and tells you what he’s thinking.”
“They don’t always do that, you know. They don’t always talk even.”
She smiled again and said she didn’t care and then put my slippers on her feet. They were standard Alpine fare, bulky and warm, lined with fleece, but she swore she loved them anyway. “I want to die in these,” she said. “You won’t be able to pry them off me.”
The conditions stayed too warm and wet for skiing, but we fell into a lovely routine anyway. Pauline was my shadow, and because I’d never had one before, I enjoyed the attention and her company. She took to watching me play the piano every afternoon, filling the space in between songs with encouragement and praise. She’d become my most important collaborator since she’d begun to push me toward the idea of a concert, and I was surprised to find I liked having her champion my cause with Ernest, who now had earmarked a portion of his advance for a rental piano when we returned to Paris. I didn’t know I’d needed her help until it was there, and I could rely on it—and then I wondered how I’d done without it.
Maybe it was the proximity, the way we three were thrown together so much, but at Schruns, Pauline began to take on a crusading role for Ernest’s work, too. She’d always admired it and thought him a great talent, but now that took a more personal turn. He’d just begun working on the Pamplona novel again, and one afternoon when Pauline and I were lunching, he came down from his studio with a clear and buoyant look in his eyes.
“Your work went well,” I said. “I’m so glad.”
“Very well. I’ve moved them on to Burguete.”
“I don’t suppose you’d let me read a little,” Pauline said.
“It’s not in any state. You’re just being polite, anyway.”
“Not at all. I just know it’s brilliant. It is, isn’t it, Hadley?”
“Of course it is,” I said. And it was. But I didn’t feel I could share, at least not yet, the breadth of my complicated feelings about the book. Even hearing her ask to read it brought a flaring of discomfort. She was a shrewd girl. What would she think when she saw I wasn’t even the smallest character? Would she believe Ernest and I were on shaky ground? Would she see something I didn’t or couldn’t?
“The Pamplona novel will wait,” he said. “It’s got mo
re cooking to do.” He dug heartily into his plate of sausage and nice potatoes, pausing to say, “I have something else you can see if you’re really serious.”
“I’m only serious,” she said. “Didn’t you know?”
After lunch, when Ernest brought the pages down and handed them to Pauline, she said, “This is such an honor.”
“We’ll see if you feel that way when you’ve read the damned thing,” he said, and then readied himself for billiards with Herr Lent.
It was only when I walked around to read over her shoulder that I realized the manuscript he’d give her was The Torrents of Spring. I felt a small wave of nausea as I realized he’d never really stopped considering the project. He’d only been biding his time, waiting for the right reader.
After Ernest went off to his game, Pauline curled up in the nice red chair by the fire, and I went back to my piano. It was hard to concentrate because she was laughing out loud as she read. I finally decided I needed a long walk and it wasn’t until dinner, many hours later, that we all met up again.
“It’s all so hilarious,” she said to Ernest before he’d even gotten comfortable at the table. “Damned smart and very funny. You have my vote.”
“I thought it was funny, too,” he said. “But my very good friends seem to see it differently.” He looked at me pointedly.
“I just think it’s nasty to Sherwood,” I said.
Pauline could clearly see her cause now. “If the book is good, isn’t it kind of a tribute to Anderson?” she said. “No press is bad press, right?”
“That’s just what I thought,” Ernest said again, and the two kept egging each other on, growing more emphatic in their agreement.
“There’s no other way to see it, is there? Mightn’t he be flattered after all?” she said.
“No one with any stuff could be wounded by satire,” he said.
“Well, I think it’s great. It’s a damn fine book and you should submit it right away.”
It wasn’t until that moment that I fully understood how hurt he’d been when everyone, including me, had disparaged the book and shut it down. He loved and needed praise. He loved and needed to be loved, and even adored. But it worried me to have Pauline bolster him this way just now. With her encouragement, he would send Torrents to Boni and Liveright, and nothing good would likely happen then. Anderson was their most important author, and because it was his encouragement that had gotten Ernest a contract in the first place, I couldn’t imagine the book wouldn’t offend them. When Anderson heard, he’d be more than offended. My guess was we’d lose his friendship for good, the way we were clearly losing Gertrude’s. It was so hard to watch Ernest pushing these mentors away, as if striking deep blows was the only way to prove to himself (and everyone else) that he’d never really needed them in the first place. But I felt my hands were tied with this book. I couldn’t say anything else against it.
