Villa America (22 page)

That night in bed, Sara read her
Transatlantic Review
while Gerald lay on his back thinking.

“You know,” she said, putting the magazine down, “I read the piece by that writer Scott’s always going on about, Ernest Hemingway. It’s very good. Different.”

“Mmm?” He turned to face her.

The bedside lamp cast a golden light across her already tan face, making her look lit from the inside, like a Vermeer.

“You aren’t listening.” She placed her hand on his cheek.

“No,” he said. “Sorry. I was just thinking about being in the plane.”

“Yes. You’ve been rather quiet about that. I go to Nice and you get to go up in an airplane. Very unfair.”

“I said too much about it already,” he said.

“What do you mean?” Her eyes had the quizzical look they took on sometimes when she was worrying about him.

“Just earlier. When we ran into Vladimir at the café. I went on in this awful way.” He rolled over onto his back again. “I don’t know why I have to be like this.”

“Oh, Gerald. You’re you. That’s enough.”

“You say that. But we both know. All the things…”

She slid down in the bed, propping the pillows under her head. “I’m sure Owen understood. He’s very…he doesn’t seem to judge people very much.”

“The things I want to say…” He suddenly felt furious. “Christ, what the hell is wrong with me?”

“Stop it,” she said sternly. “You’re working yourself up. Everything is fine. Life is good. Don’t spoil it.”

“Is it? Sometimes it seems to be, but then there’s this emptiness inside of me. How is that possible?”

“Gerald,” she said. “Maybe Fred’s death—”

“No.” He felt full of all the things he couldn’t say, even to himself. Unarticulated, dark things, suspicions about his nature, his character, his abilities…God, he could go on forever with that list.

“Darling,” Sara said after a few minutes. He felt her fingertips against his face again. “Tell me,” she said. “Tell me about the plane.”

He thought back to the afternoon, of climbing into the passenger seat behind Owen in the cockpit. Watching the mechanic turn the propeller, the calls back and forth between Owen and the Frenchman, a mysterious language. The sound of the engine, louder than he’d expected. The feeling of adrenaline in his blood before they’d even begun to move. From behind, seeing Owen’s arm working the lever, tapping the controls. The tan line where his neck hit his collar. His head bent in concentration. The plane moving along the runway, past the other hangars, gaining speed, lifting, lifting, just before the beach. His stomach muscles working against the pull of the ground. Gliding, whirring over the short strip of sand, and then out over the sea.

“What you see from up there,” he began. “All the places you thought you knew, you never knew them. What they really looked like. All the pieces make a whole, Sara.”

“Go on.”

“I could hear my heart in my ears, as if it had traveled up my body. And then there’s the feeling of being pulled in two; part of you wants to go higher, and another wants to come crashing down.” He looked at her. “And something else: I felt so close to him, and alone at the same time. It’s one of the most perfect feelings I’ve ever had.”

“I see,” she said. She held his gaze for a while. “I’m glad. I’m glad you did that. And you express it just right. I’m happy you told me about it.”

He smiled. He felt overcome with love for her, and then gratitude, and then desire, as if in telling her, it all became true, as if nothing were real until he told her. He looked at the white of her gown against the white of the sheet, and the brown of her skin. He took her face in his hands and kissed her. So much love, and so much gratitude.

By late July, forest fires had broken out in the Esterel Mountains, and the morning air was tinged with the smell of burning pine and eucalyptus as Owen drove along the coast to deliver the records Sara had requested.

The cliffs above the coast were a tinderbox. Owen had seen the ravages of the flames when he’d flown over, black pockmarks where trees and scrub had been eaten away. The visibility was bad inland; the fire threw up pink and violet smoke. At night, the sky glowed orange in the distance.

It had been a bad month for Owen, although the summer season was always slow. But then there’d been trouble with the plane’s engine, that so-called instrument of precision, which had grounded
That Girl
and delayed the few runs he did have. He’d managed only three trips in four weeks: Switzerland and Belgium and London. Mostly for edibles and dry goods that the foreigners in the grand hotels in Nice and Cannes couldn’t seem to live without. So he’d been glad of Gerald’s errand, if only for the extra cash.

He drove through Antibes and down the boulevard du Cap, which ran the length of the peninsula below the old town. He’d never been up to the hotel where the Murphys lived. The few meetings he’d had with them late last summer had been on their preferred beach, La Garoupe, sometimes with small gatherings of their friends, who treated him kindly but mostly left him to his own devices. He couldn’t be sure if that was his doing or because their friends didn’t really know what to make of him. He wasn’t an artist or an intellectual or rich. Nor was he a servant. That must confuse them, he’d decided. Either way, it didn’t bother him. Not really.

He didn’t regard his acquaintance with the Murphys as a friendship, exactly, just the type of connection Americans had to one another down here, on the basis of being from the same place and not being tourists.

When Sara had first introduced herself, she’d seemed genuinely interested in what he did but hadn’t asked him any questions about his past, which had been a relief. She’d ended the brief conversation by saying: “I’d like to know you, if you’d like to know us. We’ll be at the beach almost every day for the next couple of weeks. Come see us if you’d like.”

She’d seemed frank and uncomplicated and without any real motive beyond what she’d offered. So he’d gone. Once, and then again, when Gerald was there. And then again. But he’d spoken mainly with her. There’d been long days in the sun with their friends and the children and their dogs and the nannies and Vladimir, and as much or as little conversation as he wanted. And that had been that. Until Zelda had come along, bringing Gerald like a pilot fish. And then the flight.

He drove his Citroën through the wrought-iron gates of the Hôtel du Cap and parked just before the steps that faced towards Eden Roc and the sea. Four stories high and capped with a slate roof—what Vladimir called a mansard roof—the hotel reminded him of a tiered wedding cake he’d seen once in a shop window in Boston. It didn’t have the mass and curved flourishes of the Belle Epoque hotels in Cannes or Nice; it was more ladylike, less cancan girl, in its manner. And the grounds he could see were full of well-kept, lush-looking plants, despite the drought.

With the records tucked under his arm, he took the steps two at a time and entered the large lobby with its shiny white marble floors. There was a young boy at the front desk. His brass nameplate read
Tristan.

“Bonjour,” Owen said.
“Je passe voir Monsieur et Madame Murphy.”

The boy looked at him and nodded before picking up the telephone at the desk. He spoke briefly into the receiver and then told Owen, “Madame Murphy
arrivé
.”

Owen looked around. The lobby gave way to a grand sitting room draped in orange and blue fabrics. The hotel had the hush of emptiness to it, that out-of-season feeling of having been deserted.

Sara came down the wide staircase, her hair pinned up and tied back with some kind of silk scarf, her white dress loose.

“Owen,” she said as she approached. “We weren’t expecting you. We would have made more of a fuss. Gerald’s down at Eden Roc doing exercises with the children.” She held out her hands to him.

He took them briefly. “I brought the records,” he said. “I thought you’d waited long enough.”

“Oh, wonderful,” she said, taking the vinyls and turning them over, looking at the covers. “Oh, perfect. You found just the right ones.”

“Good,” he said. “I’m sorry for the delay. Engine trouble.”

“Hmmm?” She looked up. “You’ve come all this way and it’s awfully hot. Let’s have a drink of something outside. I know where we can find some shade.”

Before he could answer, she took his arm and began leading him through the lobby to the back of the hotel. She smelled sweet. Behind him he could hear the sound of Tristan’s footsteps.

They went through a wide set of double doors and over to a corner table on the terrace beneath an umbrella pine growing from the earth below.

“It’s not as breezy as the ocean side, but there’s more shade here,” she said. She looked up at Tristan. “Two sherries and some
biscuits sablés,
” she said and then turned back to Owen. “I hope you don’t mind me ordering for us. It’s what we have every day at this time. For some reason, it’s the perfect antidote to eleven o’clock in the morning.”

Owen smiled. He liked her very much.

“So.” She settled back. “Tell me everything you’ve been doing.”

“Not much, actually. Trouble with the plane. Business is slow.”

“Can you fly through all that smoke?”

“I can,” he said. “It’s not perfect. But it’s not the first time I’ve done it.”

“No.” Her face clouded. “Of course not. The war.”

She was quiet as Tristan set down the drinks and the shortbread. She went on: “Was it quite bad for you?”

He wasn’t sure how to answer that.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “perhaps that’s indiscreet.”

“No, it’s fine,” he said. “It’s more…it’s as if I’ve talked about it too much. And then it just becomes a story.”

She seemed to think about this. “That does seem to be the way. We have these experiences and then they just turn into something we tell people, to amuse them or frighten or titillate them. Like performing. It can make one feel numb, asleep…”

“Like you’re disappearing,” he said. He’d never spoken to anyone about it in this way before, and he was surprised how easily it came with her.

“Yes, like disappearing. Like being invisible.” She bit into one of the biscuits. “That’s it exactly.”

On this side of the hotel, the only sound he could hear was the dropping of dry pine needles in the heat and the purring of a turtledove in the distance.

“It’s parched,” Sara said, brushing off some of the needles scattered on the table. “You may not be bothered by the smoke, but those fires are a bit of worry.”

“It’s strange,” he said, “I kind of like them.”

“You would think,” she said slowly. “After everything you’ve…you would think it would be the opposite.”

“I find excuses to fly over it.” He didn’t know why he was telling her this. “Like I want to be close to it.”

Sara looked at him, those sloping eyes of hers fixed on him. “That’s terrible,” she said.

“Is it? I don’t know. Maybe.”

“To be attracted to something dangerous like that.”

“I guess that’s not how I think about it. It’s more that it’s familiar.”

“Intimate,” she said.

He laughed. “I wouldn’t get that fancy about it.”

She laughed too. “I’m being overly romantic. I can get carried away.”

“I don’t see that,” he said. “You seem pretty level to me.”

“Well, thank you.” She put her hand over his. “That’s a high compliment.”

Again, he found himself withdrawing from her touch. He didn’t know when this aversion to physical contact had started, maybe in the hospital when he’d had to submit hourly to having doctors poke and prod and test his body, like it was part of an experiment. Maybe before that. He’d noticed that Gerald seemed to have it too, moving away quickly when Owen’s thigh had accidentally brushed his in the hangar.

“Well, so no work,” Sara said, either not noticing or pretending not to notice his reaction to her touch. “But have you been having any fun? Who have you been seeing?”

“I don’t think I’m like you. I don’t keep that much company,” he said.

“Yes, we do like being around other people,” she said thoughtfully. “I know some people think that’s because we don’t like to be alone among ourselves. But that’s not it,” she said. “Everything is better when you share it, I think. That flow of ideas between different people, the chaos of it all, makes life so exciting. And when someone new comes in, the chemistry changes and you see things in people you hadn’t seen before.”

She’d clearly thought a lot about this. She spoke so confidently, the way some people spoke of God. He didn’t believe in God; only in luck, good and bad. And perhaps some choices. So, listening to her, he couldn’t help but doubt this religion of hers.

But all he said was “I don’t mind being alone.”

“You’re not alone all the time, though, surely. Vladimir speaks of you often.”

“Vladimir. Yes, I see him.”

“And the Fitzgeralds? Do you see much of them? We saw them for a beach party in Saint-Raphaël a while ago, but I haven’t heard from them since.”

He wondered how much she knew about what was going on up at the Villa Marie. He pulled out a cigarette and lit it. “I haven’t seen them in a couple of weeks,” he said carefully.

“You share a mechanic with Edouard Jozan, don’t you?”

“I do,” he said, forcing himself not to look at her.

“What do you think of him?”

“He’s young. Brave.” He finally looked up and grinned. “French.”

She wasn’t smiling back. “Don’t judge Zelda too harshly,” she said. “It’s hard for her, running after Scott all the time.”

“I don’t,” he said honestly. “I don’t judge her at all.”

After Owen left, Sara remained on the terrace. She knew she should prepare for the beach, and yet she stayed, toying with her empty sherry glass. She was thinking about Owen, about what he’d said about the forest fires and about his war stories.

She’d mentioned once to Gerald that Owen reminded her of a lake: smooth, showing nothing except the reflection of its surroundings. Now she realized she’d been stupid about him.

She’d been given a small glimpse of what was underneath, a brief allowed closeness, and it had moved her. Like when one of her children unfurled a hot little hand to reveal some precious collected treasure—a bottle cap, a beetle.