Villa America (24 page)

“Bad luck,” Dos said.

“Not for them,” the man said.

“No.” Dos laughed. “Not for them. They do like an audience. You’re American. Sorry”—he held out his hand—“John Dos Passos.”

“Owen Chambers,” the man said, taking his hand.

They stood in companionable silence for a while, the last of the evening light and the newly lit hurricane lamps making everything sort of glow. Then Dos said: “It’s kind of like being in heaven, isn’t it? You can bear it for only so long.”

The man smiled. “I’m not in it very often.”

“Ah,” Dos said. “Do you know the crowd? Do you want a rundown? I’ve had just enough to drink to be indiscreet.”

“Go on, then.”

Dos could tell he was amused, if only slightly. “Okay, do you know the Picassos?”

The man nodded.

“Right. And you know Scott and Zelda. And I assume you know Gerald and Sara.”

“Yes, I know them.” The man stubbed out his cigarette.

“So, the tall weird one over there, the woman? That’s Gerald’s sister, Esther. Sapphic. Smart. They say she’s in love with Natalie Barney. Follows her around like a puppy dog. Do you know who that is?”

Owen shook his head.

“Never mind. I digress. So, the tall one over there by the gramophone…the one with the glasses? That’s Don Stewart. He’s a writer. Funny stuff. One book about a tourist. We just got back from Pamplona together. Bullfighting with some fake bohemians. He cracked his ribs, that’s why he’s standing funny.” Dos looked around. “Where’s that bottle?”

The man handed him the peach wine.

“Thanks. I don’t know who that young guy talking to Don is. The woman by the tree, with the dark-braided do? That’s Ellen Barry, she’s a portrait painter, and that,” he said, jutting out his chin, “is her husband, Phil. Playwright. You’ll like them. Or I like them.” He sipped his wine. “I think that’s it…”

“It felt very complete,” the man said, finishing his second glass of anisette.

“It did, didn’t it?” He liked this fellow. “Here, have some more anisette. Wait. What are you drinking out of? That’s way too small. Have a wineglass. It’s a party.” He filled a wineglass with anisette and passed it over. “So—Owen, is it?—your turn to tell a story.”

“What kind of story would you like to hear?” Owen took a large gulp from the glass.

“One about car trouble and Scott and Zelda.”

“I don’t know how interesting it is.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” Dos said.

“All right. Scott crashed the car into a post next to the café where I live,” Owen said.

“Where’s that?”

“Agay.”

Dos nodded; he knew vaguely where that was.

“Zelda knocked on my door and said they needed a lift. I was coming anyway, so…”

“How did Scott crash it?”

“He says that Zelda asked him to light her cigarette on a turn.”

“And did she?”

“I don’t know,” Owen said, tipping his wineglass back. “She says he did it on purpose. She seemed pretty upset.”

“What’s your theory?”

“I don’t really have one.”

“You’re not very good at this,” Dos said, refilling his glass.

Owen laughed. “No, I guess I’m not.”

“Never mind, we all have our talents,” Dos said. “So, what’s your talent, Owen?”

“I fly planes.”

“Damn good talent. Do that in the war?”

“In the Lafayette Flying Corps.”

“You flew for France. I was with Norton-Harjes. You know, the ambulance corps.” Then, before he could stop himself, he added: “Fucking mess, that war.”

“Yes,” Owen said.

“Well,” Dos said, wishing he hadn’t started this topic of conversation and wondering if he was obliged to finish it. “Well.”

He was saved from continuing the thought about the fucking mess of a war by the arrival of Don Stewart and that younger man, the one he didn’t know.

The sun had almost dipped completely below the horizon and Sara was trying to reason with Scott or at least calm him down enough so that she could release him back into the party. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Tristan’s brother, hired to help out, lighting the last of the scattered hurricane lamps, which Gerald had painted all different shades of blue and silver. High above them, the lighthouse blinked on and off, and the wind was beginning to be audible.

She’d taken Scott down to the last level of the garden, away from the guests, and he was now sitting against an Arabian maple, hanging his curly head like a dog.

“Scott,” she said gently. “It sounds like it was all a misunderstanding. You love Zelda and I know she loves you. That car was worthless, anyway.”

“Oh, it’s not the car,” he said with a moan. “You don’t understand.”

“What don’t I understand?”

“She wants a divorce,” he said, lifting his mournful eyes to her. “She doesn’t love me.”

“Nonsense,” Sara said.

“It’s that Jozan. She’s fallen in love with him.”

“I think she just needs a bit of attention, that’s all, with you working so hard.” Sara did think this, but she was also slightly alarmed by Scott’s words.

“No, no, no.” Scott shook his head.

“She’s young, Scott. It’s only natural that men will be attracted to her.”

“You’re not listening.” He started banging the tree with his fist. “She
doesn’t
love me, she loves
him
. She wants a divorce. She’s had carnal knowledge of him. She
told
me.”

“Scott…”

“She said he made love to her like a man.” He looked like he was about to cry now.

“When was this?” Sara took Scott’s fist in her hand. “And stop that or you’ll hurt yourself.”

“I dunno.” He hung his head again.

“Scott, when did she tell you this?”

“A week ago, maybe more. It’s all over. The dream is over. It was there for a while, but now it’s gone…”

“What did you say to her?” Sara wanted to keep him to the concrete details, away from the hysteria that seemed to be threatening.

“I forbade her to see him again,” he yelled, hitting the tree once more.

“And did she?”

“She couldn’t,” Scott said. “I made sure she couldn’t.”

Sara wondered what exactly had been happening at the Villa Marie. “What do you mean, Scott? What do you mean, you made sure?”

“I need a drink,” Scott said, and he suddenly stood and swerved towards the stairs.

From his spot next to the gramophone, Gerald saw Scott heading unsteadily in the direction of the bar.

He turned back to Zelda. “You’re sure you’re all right?”

“I’m marvelous, Dow-Dow. Whatever do you mean?” She looked like a pale pink tulip, her silk dress cut in the shape of petals from the waist, like a dancer’s skirt.

In an effort to separate her from Scott, he’d asked her to help him pick out a record. But he hadn’t been able to get much out of her. Gerald had to admit that was one of the things he liked about Zelda: she didn’t talk behind Scott’s back.

Zelda held out an Al Jolson record. He put it on and then said, as nonchalantly as possible: “You and Scott. You’re getting along?”

“Swimmingly,” Zelda said. “We’ve spent so much time together lately. More than ever.”

“That’s wonderful,” Gerald said warily. “And the car?”

“Oh, the car? I’ve forgotten about the car. What happened to it?”

“I don’t know,” Gerald said. “That’s why I’m asking you.”

“Well, I’m sure I don’t know.” She looked at him incredulously.

“Oh,” Gerald said. “But you’re all right.”

“Of course I am,” she said, putting her hand gently on his forearm. “Why wouldn’t I be? Scott’s been keeping me locked up in the villa.”

“Excuse me?” He couldn’t have heard her correctly. The wind was picking up somewhere on the other side of the hill, and it carried some of her words away from him.

“It’s been like a dream, Dow-Dow. Although Scott says it’s the end of the dream. Beginning, end, who knows?” She looked off in the direction of the half-finished house.

He didn’t know what to say; she must have been out of her head with drink.

“Dow-Dow.” She turned back, those eyes leveled at him. “Don’t you think Al Jolson is just like Jesus?”

“I’m sorry? Like Jesus?” He was confounded. Still, he couldn’t help loving her. She was like someone who was perpetually moonstruck.

“May I have one of your lovely cocktails, please?” she asked sweetly.

“Of course,” he said, offering her his arm. “Of course you may.”

“I’m Whit Clay,” Don Stewart’s friend told Owen.

Owen guessed he was around twenty-two, twenty-three, perhaps. Young. But maybe the man seemed so young to him because he felt older than his twenty-eight years. He’d heard someone say once that you were born a certain age and that you remained that age in spirit all your life. Who’d said that?

Owen realized he was getting drunk. Then he realized that he’d been just standing there mutely staring at this Whit Clay. “Sorry,” he said. “Owen Chambers.”

“Don Stewart.” This from the tall bespectacled man who reminded Owen of a young Mr. Cushing, his old schoolmaster. He who’d saved him from…from what exactly? Ruin? Shame?

“We’ve been swapping talents,” Owen’s new friend John Dos Passos said. “It turns out I’m damn good at summing up party guests.”

“And filling wineglasses,” Owen said.

“Yes,” Dos Passos said. “Owen here was drinking out of a thimble. I was forced to step in and rectify the situation.”

“Good for you, Dos,” Mr. Cushing/Don Stewart said. “A useful man in a crisis.”

“And what do you do?” Dos Passos pointed a finger at Whit Clay.

“I’m a writer,” he said. “Working for the
Transatlantic Review
.”

“Christ, who isn’t?” Dos Passos laughed.

The young man shrugged and returned his attention to Owen. Owen looked away and then couldn’t help looking back. Whit Clay was slim, slight almost, with smooth, clear skin and a strong mouth. He reminded him of some of the college boys he’d flown with.

“What do you do?” Whit asked him.

“I’m a pilot,” he said. “I run a business…”

“Pleasure flights?”

“Sometimes. I mostly fly in goods.” He shifted under the young man’s gaze.

“I’ve never been up in a plane. I’d like to.”

Whit’s eyes were green, he noticed. “Oh,” Owen said finally.

Whit smiled. “How much do you charge?”

“Well, well,” Dos Passos said, entertained. “Quite the journalist there, Whit. Big interest in flying?”

“Leave it, you idiot.” Don Stewart laughed.

“Sorry,” Dos Passos said. “Peach wine?”

“Thanks,” Whit said. Then, to Owen: “Do you live down here?”

“I do,” Owen said as Dos Passos refilled his glass too.

“It’s beautiful. I can see why you would. Paris is a swamp this time of year. And then cold in the winter.” Whit drank from his wineglass, wind catching his hair.

“I liked Paris,” Owen said. “Sometimes.”

Whit shrugged. “It’s fine. Lots of Americans. Some of the bad kind. But lots here too.”

“I guess.” Owen looked around. Dos Passos and Don Stewart had moved off, were now in their own conversation.

“I’d heard about Sara and Gerald Murphy,” Whit said. “Seems they know everyone.”

Owen didn’t really understand the comment, what it meant, where it was leading. He put his glass down. He never overdrank, and now he was definitely drunk.

“You look like…”

Owen could see Whit’s jaw, the outline of the muscles and tendons and bone. He wanted to touch it, run his thumb along the contours. Whit smelled like cologne, but it was a good smell. The two men seemed very close together, and Owen was wondering if they were too close when he felt a hand shove him aside.

“Excuse me, excuse me.” It was Scott. “Excuse me, Owen. I saw you two talking and I thought…”

“Hello, Scott,” Owen said, moving closer to the table, hoping to brace himself a bit.

“I saw you two talking…” Scott looked like he could use a table also.

“This is Whit Clay,” Owen said.

“I thought, I just had to ask this young man…Whit Clay, is it?” Scott peered rudely into Whit’s face.

“Yes,” the young man said.

Scott nodded, looking very satisfied for some reason Owen couldn’t fathom. “So, my question is this: Are you or are you not a homosexual?”

There was a brief moment where Owen felt it hadn’t happened. It couldn’t have happened. He looked at the two men staring at each other and there was only the sound of the wind coming over the hill, loudly, it seemed to him.

But then Whit said in a calm, friendly tone: “Yes, Mr. Fitzgerald, I am.”

Scott’s face seemed to shrink back into itself.

Then Dos Passos and Don Stewart were there and Dos put himself between Scott and Whit, blocking Scott, and said to Owen: “I just remembered a few people here I forgot to mention…”

Over Dos’s shoulder, Scott looked strange, miserable, embarrassed. Sick. Owen thought he might be about to vomit, but Scott just mumbled something unintelligible and scuttled away.

“The comte and comtesse de Beaumont,” Dos Passos continued affably. “I think I saw her smoking opium in the hedgerow. And those are the houseguests…”

Owen looked at Whit, who smiled at him.

“What are their names again, Don?” Dos asked.

“I only remember the lady.” Don put his hand on Whit’s shoulder. “I’m sorry about that. That was ugly.”

“Right.” Dos Passos snapped his fingers. “Flora Glass. Some kind of American heiress.”

Something surfaced slowly from the drink-soaked recesses of Owen’s mind, like a fishing cork bobbing up in a lake. Owen turned to Dos Passos and asked: “What did you say?”

“An American heiress,” he said.

“Where?” Owen turned around, scanned the people now dimly lit in the flickering light of the hurricane lamps.

“Over there, by the gramophone,” Dos said, pointing to a group of people above them. “The thin one. Well, the young one. Not the other one, that’s the comtesse.”

Sara was standing with Zelda and Gerald, the comtesse de Beaumont, and one of the comtesse’s houseguests when she saw Scott stumbling up a flight of steps towards them.

She leaned her head in and whispered to Gerald: “Is this party getting quite bad?”