Villa America (35 page)

When Owen touched down onto the field, Gerald was waiting for him. Seeing him there, Owen knew what happiness felt like: it was the person you loved finally returning to you.

Gerald felt it too, saying with a kind of surprise or wonder in his voice: “My God, it’s you. I can’t believe you’re real. Are you real?”

“I’m real,” he said, pulling his overnight bag out of the cockpit.

“Are you still mine?” Gerald asked quietly.

He turned to him. “I’m still yours.”

“Thank God. Thank God for that.”

They started walking to the barn.

“How was Spain?”

“Horrible, wonderful,” Gerald said. “As Sara said on the train back: ‘Isn’t it a relief
not
to know how we feel about it?’”

“Do you not? Know how you feel about it?”

“I’m not sure. It was a pageant, a beautiful, bloody circus. There were things…but then, of course, there was also Ernest. He was wonderful to us, I’m not saying he wasn’t. He knew everyone. Took us everywhere. But I felt, more than ever, a sort of contempt coming off him like a bad smell.”

“Fuck him,” Owen said.

Gerald smiled. “What about you? What have you been doing?”

“Took a run to Berlin,” he said. “Met a man who flew with the Lafayette Corps. Not in my escadrille, but we knew some of the same people. He’s a pilot now for a new German airline. Doing runs to Paris and Zurich. And making a lot of money at it.”

Gerald stopped. “But you wouldn’t want to do that. You have this, the business to run.”

“I know,” he said. “But still. It’s a lot of money. Not many pilots know how to fly these planes.”

“If you need help…” Gerald said.

Owen looked at him. “Don’t.”

“I’m sorry. That was arrogant.”

They started walking again.

After a moment Owen said: “It’s not that I don’t appreciate it. You know that, G. But it can’t be like that between us. Like it is with you and Sara and all those artist friends of yours. I’m not a collectible.”

“I’m sorry,” Gerald said. “I’m sorry this is all so difficult.”

Owen shook his head. “It doesn’t have to be.”

But Gerald just looked down at the ground.

This wasn’t how Owen had wanted this to go. He’d missed him, he’d wanted to see him on the edge of that field every goddamn day since Gerald had left for Spain. “Forget it,” Owen said. “Come on. I have some German wine in my bag.”

Afterward, they lay on the blanket on the ground, their bodies entwined. He could still taste Gerald’s sweat, his insistence. Owen sat up a bit and studied his lover’s body. He ran a finger over Gerald’s lips, his eyelid. He ran his hand down over his hip bone, over his thigh.

“I wonder if I measured every inch of you and added it up what it would come to.” But what he really meant was: Would I know you any better if I could add the sum of your parts?

Gerald smiled at him. “I shudder to think,” he said softly.

Owen lay back. He was thinking of the evening he’d spent with the pilot he’d met in Germany. It had been an easy time, a few beers, talking about planes, about how it was during the war—not the bad stuff, just the funny stories. It had been a relief to meet someone like himself after these people who weren’t his own kind. These people who courted complication, who made a life—made a religion, really—out of their confusion.

It was Gerald who was studying him now.

“You look like the matador I saw in Pamplona,” he said. “Nicanor Villalta. Magnificent. When he was fighting, he arched his back from here.” Gerald slid his fingers under the small of Owen’s back and pressed on his spine. “His rooms were across from ours at the hotel and when I came back one afternoon during the siesta, his door was open and he was lying there on this cot, still and straight like you, but his hands were folded over the counterpane…like this.” Gerald took Owen’s arms and crossed them over his chest.

“He was surrounded by candles, with a sheaf of gladioli next to him, and statues of his saints. We’d watched him perform the day before. The bull had pierced his jacket without touching him. They have these outfits with hundreds of gold bullion coins sewn into the silk, and they call them suits of light.”

And, listening to him, Owen began to forget all the reasons why this thing, this passion, was too complicated, wasn’t right. There was only this handsome, lean man next to him who could find beauty amid ugliness, who found such joy in pageantry. Who wanted to make him happy and tell him all the things he’d seen since they’d been apart. Wanted Owen to be able to see the visions in his head, wanted to share those things with him. And then his hands on his body and the way that made him feel.

“Next to him, on a stool, his sword boy, his
mozo de espada,
was mending the suit. And he showed us the hole. And when I held that jacket in my own hands, its weight was startling.”

Owen pulled Gerald to him. “Enough. Enough talking,” he said.

When Gerald and Sara arrived at the Casino Hollywood in Juan-les-Pins, Scott and Zelda were nowhere to be seen, so Gerald arranged a table by the doors to the terrace and led Sara through the main room with its columns and flashy chandeliers.

They each ordered a champagne cocktail and Sara drummed her fingers on the tabletop.

“I hope they’re not going to stand us up,” she said.

They hadn’t seen the Fitzgeralds since they’d returned from Spain and Gerald knew that they were both a little nervous about what they would find. May and June had stretched their patience with Scott. Zelda, however, had been a sort of question mark; she hardly ever came to the beach or to the house, and when they did see her, she was somehow still strangely absent.

Zelda and Scott had left for Paris before he and Sara departed for Pamplona. Scott had said they were going because Zelda needed an appendectomy, but the way he’d said it made Gerald think that it wasn’t an appendix she was having removed. Of course, he hadn’t pressed the matter.

Sara picked the maraschino cherry out of her coupe and popped it in Gerald’s mouth. He loved them; she thought they tasted like sweet gasoline.

“Thank you,” he said, chewing.

She was wearing a dress he’d had made for her in Paris: blush and silver-colored beaded chiffon, floor length, with large draped sleeves and a sash. When she ran her hand through her hair, the tips of the sleeves dropped down her arm to her shoulder in a lovely fluid movement.

“There they are,” she said.

Gerald followed her gaze and saw Zelda and Scott crossing the casino towards them. Zelda, in a white satin gown, looked like she was floating above the ground. She had a pale pink rose, fat and open with what looked like a hundred petals, pinned to her shoulder. She looked like that rose, Gerald thought.

Scott’s head leaned into hers and they were obviously talking as they walked. Gerald could see that they had that look, that tonight they were companions, drawn together, inseparable; they were waiting for something to happen, expecting it. Something had to happen, something extravagant.

He looked at Sara and he knew she’d seen it too; she looked tense.

When they arrived at the table, Scott said: “No, no, no. We have to have a table outside. All the good people are outside.”

“Oh, all right,” Sara said, standing. She kissed Zelda, looked at her. “There are those eyes,” she said. “I’ve missed them.”

“Oh, Say-ra,” Zelda said. “How come you look like something to eat?”

Gerald embraced her as well. “
You
look like something from the garden.”

“Dow-Dow,” she said. “Oh, Dow-Dow. Where have you been all our lives?”

“We
have
missed you,” Scott said. “Paris was dull and expensive.” He looked at Sara, then caught her wrist. “Can I have this wrist?”

Sara gave in and kissed him on the cheek.

“Have you forgiven me?” Scott asked her.

“Don’t give it another thought,” Sara said. “I haven’t.”

And then the four of them went out to take a table on the terrace under the stars of the Riviera.

They drank—or, really, Gerald and Sara and Scott drank—copious champagne cocktails, too many, and Gerald was glad they’d brought the driver with them. Zelda hardly touched hers, although somehow she seemed high too.

Scott had been telling them about the new book he was working on, “World’s Fair,” but in the middle of a moderately torturous explanation of the plot, he stopped and turned to Sara.

“So, how rich are you?”

Gerald nearly spat out his drink, but Sara continued sipping hers calmly, eventually answering: “Oh, my father knocked over the Federal Reserve, didn’t you know?”

“Seriously, how rich, really?”

“Oh, and then, of course, he was in on the World Series fix. That’s how we could afford Villa America.”

“I
need
to know,” Scott said, whining a little.

“Scott,” Gerald said. “Let’s put it this way: you’re richer than we are.”

Scott shook his head, saying, “That’s not possible.”

“Don’t be a bore,” Gerald said.

Zelda put her head on Scott’s shoulder. “My husband is never a bore.”

Sara shrugged. “You’re a good woman, Zelda. A better one than I.”

Zelda lifted her head. “Say-ra, did I tell you I’m thinking of taking up ballet again?”

“Again?” Sara said.

“I was very good as a child. Everyone said so.”

“Everyone at the playground in Montgomery, Alabama,” Scott said.

“I think that’s wonderful,” Gerald said, more to stave off a fight than because he believed in the wisdom of this endeavor.

“Well,” Sara said, “if that’s the case, then you might be interested to know that Isadora Duncan is sitting at that table over there.”

“Where?” Zelda asked breathlessly, and Sara used her glass to indicate the dancer.

“Her?” Zelda said. “But she’s fat and old…and her hair is purple.”

Gerald burst out laughing. It was true that the famous dancer’s hair seemed to match her purple dress, and maybe she did look a little shopworn, but she wasn’t exactly
old
.

“Well,” Sara said, “nonetheless, it is she.”

“Oh, Say-ra,” Zelda said, putting a hand over her mouth, “I’m not going to look like that when I’m a dancer.”

“I think she looks wonderful,” Scott said, his gaze fixed on the woman.

They watched in amazement as he rose and walked over to her table. He couldn’t hear what Scott was saying to the dancer, but whatever it was, she nodded, and he sat down at her feet, gazing up at her adoringly.

Then, improbably, Isadora Duncan started running her fingers through Scott’s hair, and above the chatter, Gerald heard her calling him “my centurion.”

“Is this just about the weirdest thing you’ve ever seen?” Gerald said, turning to Sara.

“I’m at a loss,” Sara said. “Zelda, darling, do you want me to retrieve your silly husband? Or shall we leave him where he is and run up his tab?”

They were both watching Zelda, but she was watching Scott. When she did turn to face them, she had a peculiar look in her eyes. Vacant, almost, Gerald thought. She got up slowly and stood on her chair, and before either he or Sara could say anything, she leaped—a ballerina’s grand jeté—across their small table, clearing Gerald’s lap, and over the parapet behind them, the tip of her white satin sash fluttering after her.

“Oh my God,” Sara said, and she was up in a flash.

Gerald, whose back was to the small wall, looked over it and saw her crumpled on a steep stone stairway leading from the terrace to gardens below.

“She’s landed on the stairs.” But when he looked back, Sara was already running to her.

He rose and went to where Scott was sitting. “I think you might want to get up. Your wife’s just thrown herself over the wall.”

To his credit, Scott did look alarmed and he followed meekly behind Gerald. When they reached the top of the staircase, Sara was helping Zelda up the stairs, blood seeping through Zelda’s white dress at the knees.

“She’s fine,” Sara said. “A little bruised and bloody, but in one piece. You are in one piece, aren’t you, darling?”

Zelda didn’t respond, just looked at Scott, then she pushed Sara away and walked straight past them and into the casino.

They were all quiet as they drove down the coast to Antibes. Zelda had informed them that she and Scott were staying at the Hôtel du Cap. When Sara had asked about their villa, Zelda replied that there were bats living there, and no one said much after that.

Gerald looked out into the darkness. He was thinking about how still it would be now in Owen’s barn. No one would be drunk or jumping off parapets or interrogating friends about their finances. And yet…he couldn’t help remembering his last conversation with Owen, lying on that blanket on the ground.

“You call it a circus,” Owen had said. “But could you live without it?”

“What do you mean?” he’d asked, pretending he hadn’t understood what Owen clearly meant.

“Without the spectacle and the costumes and the fucking disguises. The
ideas,
Jesus, the endless conversations about ideas, and the misunderstandings. Could you live without that? Could you, G.? Because I could. I can. I do.”

Gerald had felt angry and had turned away. “Why are you asking me impossible questions?”

“Well, then, what are we doing here? Is this it? Me here in this field, you in your house?
Your
house.
Your
life. And what? I get to stand at the window and press my face against the glass, like some beggar? I’m not a beggar, G.”

At that point, Gerald had risen and begun to dress.

“You know,” Owen said, standing too, naked, “you pretend like you built that house and that wall around it to keep your family safe. But you’re lying to yourself.”

Gerald had turned on him. “What about you? Oh, forgive me, I forgot, you’re in control of everything. No good luck, no bad luck, just choices. Isn’t that what you say? And look how far you’ve come,” he’d said, gesturing at the barn, at the shoddy camp bed. “Have you told anyone what you are? Not just
what
you are, but
who
you are? And don’t presume to talk to me about family. What on earth would you know about family?”