The Paris Wife (9 page)

This place had never once let him down, but he felt slightly outside of it tonight. Tomorrow, at four o’clock in the afternoon, he and Hadley would be married in the Methodist church on Lake Street. He felt a surge of panic about it, as if he were a fish thrashing in a taut net, fighting it instinctively. It wasn’t Hadley’s fault. Getting married had been all his idea, but he hadn’t told her how very afraid of it he was. He seemed to need to force his way through it anyway, as he did with everything that scared him terribly. He was afraid of marriage and he was afraid of being alone, too
.

Rising up from the cool bottom of the lake on the night before his wedding, he found it hard not to turn away from Hadley or grow confused. He loved her. She didn’t scare him like Kate did or challenge him to touch her with green eyes in the dark, saying, “Go on then, what are you afraid of, Wemedge?” With Hadley, things felt right almost all of the time. She was good and strong and true, and he could count on her. They had as good a shot at making it as anyone did, but what if marriage didn’t solve anything and didn’t save anyone even a little bit? What then?

Now that he was on the surface, he could hear Dutch and Luman again, talking of stupid things, not understanding anything at all. The water felt flat and cool against his skin, holding him and letting him go at the same time. He looked up into the black whorl of the sky and took a single deep breath into his lungs, and then he kicked hard for the dock
.

September 3, 1921, dawned clear and balmy and windless—a perfect day. The leaves were just beginning to turn on the trees, but you wouldn’t have known it to feel the lake, which was still warm as bathwater. Ernest had arrived in Horton Bay that morning in a stormy mood after three days of fishing with bachelor friends. He was sunburned along the bridge of his nose and his eyes were lined with exhaustion or anxiety or both.

“Are you ready for this?” I asked when I saw him.

“Damned straight,” he said. He was bluffing, but wasn’t I bluffing, too? Wasn’t everyone dead terrified on their wedding day?

While Ernest spent his last hours as a free man in a cottage on Main Street in Horton Bay, passing a whiskey bottle back and forth with his groomsmen, I took a long swim after lunch with Ruth and Kate, my bridesmaids.

It hadn’t been an easy road getting Kate to agree to even come to the wedding. There’d been a string of strained and difficult letters, nearly all of them going her way at first. But after many weeks, she finally confessed:
I’m afraid I was very in love with Ernest at one time. Not sure why I haven’t been able to say this, except it’s been painful to see him fall for you instead, and terribly embarrassing to think the two of you might have laughed at my expense
.

I felt a sharp sympathetic twinge reading her words. I knew well how low someone could be driven by unrequited love, and yet here was Kate, showing what a very good friend she was. She had loved Ernest and lost him to me, and was still willing to stand up for us both in front of our family and friends.

I was full of admiration for her that afternoon and couldn’t help swimming over to where she splashed in the shallows, saying, “You’re a good guy, Kate.”

“You too, Hash,” she said. Her eyes brimmed with tears.

If we had only known then that eight years ahead of us, in a Paris we hadn’t begun to imagine, John Dos Passos would fall victim to Kate’s sparkle and pursue her with force until she agreed to marry him. That Dos was a figure nearly as dashing and important to American letters as Ernest was would have softened this moment ever so much—but we never know what waits for us, good or bad. The future stayed behind its veil as Kate gave me a wan smile and paddled away into the reeds.

The water was so warm and ideal that afternoon, we swam until three, when I realized with a kind of panic that my hair would never dry before the service. We rushed back to the cottage where I tied it up with ribbons and then stepped into the ivory lace dress, which fit me so perfectly I thought it made up for the damp hair. There were creamy silk slippers for my feet, a garland of flowers, and a veil to trail down my back. I carried a spray of baby’s breath.

At four-fifteen, we entered the little church, which Kate and Ruth had decorated with swamp lilies and balsam and goldenrod picked from a nearby field. Ribs of sunlight pierced the window and scaled the wall. Ernest and his ushers stood at the altar, all of them flush and gorgeous in white trousers and dark blue jackets. Someone sneezed. The pianist began playing Wagner’s “Wedding March,” and I began to walk, led down the aisle by George Breaker, a family friend. I had hoped my brother Jamie could come out from California to give me away, but he was very ill with tuberculosis. My mother’s brother, Arthur Wyman, was my second choice, but he was also too unwell to attend. I felt sad that more of my family couldn’t be there with me, but wasn’t I getting new family that very day?

On my way toward the pulpit, I passed Fonnie, stiffly dressed with a small, tight navy hat. Roland stood beside her and gave me a dear smile, and then my niece Dodie grinned and pointed to Ernest’s knees, which were shaking slightly in his white flannel trousers. Was this just more evidence of cold feet, or something else? I honestly didn’t know, but it was too late to be asking these questions anyway—too late to stop or take anything back, even if I wanted to. And I didn’t want to.

The ceremony was quiet and beautiful and went off without a hitch. We walked out of the little church into the last of the day’s sunshine. Later, after a chicken dinner and sticky chocolate cake and too many pictures in the yard with everyone squinting into the sun, Horney offered to drive us out to nearby Walloon Lake, where we would be honeymooning at Windemere, the Hemingway family’s summer cottage. Grace and Dr. Hemingway had offered to put us up for two weeks as a wedding gift. It was dusk when we stepped into the rowboat and began our journey across the lake. Our luggage bumped around our knees, and a sweet nervousness fell between us now that the business of the day was over.

“Are you happy?” he said softly.

“You know I am. Do you need to ask?”

“I like asking,” he said. “I like to hear it, even knowing what I’m going to hear.”

“Maybe especially, then,” I said. “Are you happy?”

“Do you need to ask?”

We laughed lightly at one another. The air was damp and still and filled with night birds and feeding bats. By the time we beached the boat in the shallow cove at Windemere, it was fully dark out. Ernest helped me scramble onto the sandy shore, and then we walked up the hill holding each other close. We opened the door and lit the lamps and looked into the cottage. Ernest’s mother had taken it upon herself to wax everything within an inch of its life, but though the rooms were clean, they were chilly. Ernest opened a bottle of wine that Grace had left in the icebox for us, and then we lit a fire in the parlor and dragged mattresses from a few of the beds down to make a nest in front of it.

“Fonnie was in rare form today,” he said after a while. “A perfect tank.”

“Poor Fonnie,” I said. “Her own marriage has been one big bust. It’s not surprising she’s so stingy with us.”

“Aren’t you a good egg?” he said, stroking my hair. And I was reminded of my afternoon swim.

“Kate behaved awfully bravely, don’t you think?”

“Yes, she did, but I’m glad that’s all behind us now.” He got up and crossed the room to turn on the lamp. “I should have mentioned this before, but I always need to sleep with some light. Will that be all right?”

“I think so. What happens if you leave it off?”

“You don’t want to know.” He climbed back into our nest and squeezed me tight. “After I was shot, when my head was still in pretty bad shape, a very wise Italian officer told me the only thing to really do for that kind of fear was get married.”

“So your wife would take care of you? That’s an interesting way to think about marriage.”

“I actually took it to mean that if I could take care of her—you, that is—I’d worry less about myself. But maybe it works both ways.”

“I’m counting on that,” I said.

Three traveling clocks
Tick
On the mantelpiece
Comma
But the young man is starving
.

E.H., 1921

“We’re hardly starving,” I said to Ernest when he showed me his newest poem.

“Maybe not, but you couldn’t call us flush,” he said.

Our first apartment was a cramped and dingy two-floor walk-up on North Dearborn Street, a dodgy neighborhood on Chicago’s North Side. I hated it there, but it was all we could afford. We were living on about two thousand dollars a year—money from a trust fund that had been set up for me by my grandfather. There was or would be a little more money coming from my mother’s estate, though that was still tied up with various lawyers. Ernest had been making almost fifty a week writing for the
Co-operative Commonwealth
, but he resigned just a few weeks after we returned from our honeymoon, when gossip began circulating that the paper was involved in crooked financial dealings and was quickly going bankrupt. Ernest didn’t want to be caught up in any of that ugliness, and I understood why, particularly if he was going to be a famous writer, but our plans to travel to Italy seemed more and more impossible.

The squalor of our living situation didn’t bother Ernest as much as it did me because he was gone all day, writing in restaurants and coffee shops. I was stuck in the apartment—two rooms, the bath down the hall—and had very few ways to keep myself busy. At another time it might have occurred to me to find work, but I’d only ever volunteered, and the idea, at least, of throwing myself into domesticity was appealing. I missed the energy of the Domicile, but Kate had gone off to journalism school in Buffalo, and things were strained between Ernest and Kenley. He still owed Kenley back rent from well before the wedding, but as time passed, Ernest only dug in more stubbornly, saying that Kenley was trying to gouge him. He wasn’t paying, and Kenley was livid, finally sending a letter saying that Ernest could come get his things from storage.

Ernest sent a brutal reply back, sacrificing the friendship as if it meant nothing. I knew he was hurting over the loss and his own mistakes, but he wouldn’t admit it. His mood was pretty low during this time. He’d gotten several more rejections on stories he’d sent to magazines, and it hurt his pride. It was one thing when he was writing part-time and having no success. But now he was devoted to his craft, working every day, and still failing. What did that mean for the future?

Certainly there’d been moments in our courtship when Ernest’s spirits flagged and he got down on himself. A dark letter from him could seem pretty ominous, but then a few days would pass and his tone would grow more buoyant and positive. Seeing his mood turn at close range was more trying. In fact, the first time, which came shortly after we were married, disturbed me more than I could comfortably confess.

He’d come home from working in a coffee shop one day looking simply terrible. His face was flat and drawn; his eyes were pink with exhaustion. I thought he might be ill, but he shrugged off this concern. “I’ve just been too much in my head. Why don’t we take a walk?”

It was November and quite chilly, but we bundled up and trudged along for a good while, moving toward the lake. Ernest was quiet and I didn’t force the issue. By the time we reached the shore, it was growing dark and the water was rough with chop. Still we could see some brave or stupid soul, maybe half a mile out, in a small rowboat that tipped ominously, taking in water.

“What would Darwin think of this rube?” Ernest said, cracking a wry smile.

“Aha,” I said. “I was worried I wouldn’t see those lovely teeth at all.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” He put his head in his hands and sighed. “Goddamn it,” he whispered fiercely, and then struck his forehead sharply with his fists.

“Ernest!” I said, and then he did it again.

He began to cry, or at least I think he was crying; he hid his face in his hands.

“Please tell me what’s wrong,” I said. “You can tell me anything.”

“I don’t even know. I’m a wreck. I didn’t sleep at all last night.”

“Are you having regrets about getting married?” I tried to meet his eyes. “If you are, I can take it.”

“I don’t know. I’m just so lost.” He rubbed his eyes hard against the sleeves of his wool jacket. “I have these nightmares and they’re so real. I can hear mortar fire, feel the blood in my shoes. I wake up in a sweat. I’m afraid to sleep.”

I felt a wave of maternal love for him, wanting to wrap him tightly in my arms until the cold feeling in his heart went away. “Let’s go home,” I said.

We walked back to our apartment in silence. When we got there, I steered Ernest straight to the bedroom and undressed him the way my mother always did for me when I was sick. I pulled the blankets tightly around his shoulders, and then rubbed his shoulders and arms. After several minutes, he fell asleep. I found a blanket and went to a corner chair to watch over him. It was only then that I let myself feel the whole weight of my own anxiety.
So lost
, he’d said, and I could see it in his eyes, which reminded me of my father’s. What did it all mean? Was this crisis related to his experiences in the war? Did those memories descend to plague him from time to time, or was this more personal? Did this sadness belong to Ernest in the fatal way my father’s belonged to him?

From across the room, Ernest made a small animal noise and turned to face the wall. I pulled my blanket more tightly around my shoulders and looked out our bedroom window at the stormy November sky. It had started to rain hard, and I hoped that poor soul in the rowboat had found his way to shore. But not everyone out in a storm wants to be saved. I knew that myself from the summer Dorothea died. My summer friend and I had made it safely out of Ipswich Bay, but that was happenstance. If the raging waters had reached out to swallow me, I would have let them. I wanted to die that day—I did—and there’d been other times, too. Not many, but they were there, and as I watched Ernest twitch in an uneasy sleep, I couldn’t help wondering if we all had them. And if so,
if
we survived them, was it by chance alone?