The Paris Wife

the baby.

“You’ve surprised me,” Ernest said, near the end of the day.

“Have I?”

“You weren’t brought up to know how to watch something like this. I guessed you’d go weak. I’m sorry, but I did.”

“I wasn’t sure how I’d feel, but I can tell you now. Safe and strong.” I’d come to the end of a row of stitches and tied a neat, flat knot, the way my mother had taught me to do when I was a girl. As I smoothed the floss with my fingertips, satisfied with my work, I couldn’t help but think how shocked she would be to see me in this passionate, violent place and not cringing the least, but weathering it like a natural.

“When I was very young, I used to be fearless. I’ve told you.”

He nodded.

“When I lost it, I think my family was happy.”

“I don’t know that you ever really lost it. I see it in you now.”

“I’m stronger because of the baby. I can feel him moving when the pipes sound and the crowd roars. He seems to like it.”

Ernest smiled with obvious pride, and then said, “Families can be vicious, but ours won’t be.”

“Our baby will know everything we know. We’ll be very honest and not hold anything back.”

“And we won’t underestimate him.”

“Or make him feel terrified of life.”

“This is getting to be a very tall order, isn’t it?” Ernest said, and we laughed happily, buoyed by our wishing.

Late that same night, when again we weren’t sleeping for the fireworks and the drumming and the riau-riau dancing, Ernest said, “What about Nicanor as a name for the baby?”

“He’ll be a fine torero with that name. He can’t help it.”

“We’ve had some fun, haven’t we?” He squeezed me tightly in his arms.

“It’s not all over.”

“No, but I figure I have to be steady when the baby comes. I’ll earn the bread and be the papa and there won’t be time to think about what I want.”

“For the first year, maybe, but not forever.”

“A year of sacrifice, then. And then he’ll have to take his chances with the rest of us.”

“Nicanor,” I repeated. “It rings, doesn’t it?”

“It does, but that doesn’t mean the little bugger gets more than a year.”

TWENTY-FIVE

I wanted muskmelons and a really nice piece of cheese, coffee and good jam and waffles. I was so hungry thinking about this I couldn’t sleep.

“Waffles,” I said to Ernest’s curled back near dawn. “Wouldn’t that be lovely?”

When he didn’t rouse, I said it again, louder, and put my hand on his back, giving him a friendly little shove.

“Oh, for crying out loud,” he said, rolling out of bed. “It’s gone now.”

“What’s gone?”

He sat on the edge of the thick mattress, scratching one knee. “The right words for the sketch.”

“Oh, sorry then,” I said.

I watched him dress and move toward the kitchen. Within minutes I could hear the coffee boiling and smell it and it made me hungrier. I heard him get his coffee and then heard the chair squeak back as he sat at the table. Silence.

“Tiny?” I said, still in bed. “What do you think about the waffles?”

He groaned and pushed his chair back. “There it all goes again.”

The months were closing in on us. Our baby was due at the end of October and we were set to sail for Canada in late August. That would give us six or seven weeks to find an apartment and prepare. As the time grew closer, Ernest worked hard and worried harder. He was panicked he’d never have time to set down the rest of the miniatures for Jane Heap and the Little Review. He was working on five new ones simultaneously, each describing some aspect of bullfighting. When he came home from his studio, he often needed several drinks back to back before he could tell me about his work, which was going well, but seemed to be taking everything he had.

“I’m trying to keep it alive,” he said. “To stay with the action, and not try to put in what I’m feeling about it. Not think about myself at all, but what really happened. That’s where the real emotion is.”

This was one of his newest ideas about writing, and because the miniatures would test it, he was killing himself to get them right. I had no doubt they would hit and be perfect, but in the meantime, it was hard to see him so overworked.

He was also slaving over proofs for Bob McAlmon. Even after their prickly time in Spain, Bob had made good on his offer to do a book for Ernest through Contact Editions. The volume would be titled Three Stories and Ten Poems, and although Ernest was crowing with excitement at the prospect, he was worried he’d never get the proofs corrected on time. He worked by candle late into the night; when he’d finally finished his notes and mailed everything back to McAlmon, it was time for good-byes.

In a series of sad dinners, we saw the Straters, the Pounds, Sylvia, Gertrude and Alice-each time saying we’d be back in a year, when the baby was ready to travel.

“Mind it’s not longer,” Pound said ominously. “Exile weighs on the mind.”

“It’s not quite exile, is it?” Ernest said.

“Limbo then,” Pound said, retreating slightly.

“A softer word only if you don’t bring in the Old Testament,” Ernest said with a grumble.

Ten days later, we sailed.

It was early September when we arrived in Quebec, and by the time we got to Toronto, there was an enthusiastic note waiting from John Bone and another from Greg Clark, a reporter friend from Ernest’s past, welcoming us warmly to town. All seemed to be boding well, but when Ernest reported for work on September 10, he learned that Bone wouldn’t be his immediate supervisor, as he expected, but Harry Hindmarsh, who was the Star’s assistant managing editor. After one meeting, Ernest knew the relationship would be a troubled one. Hindmarsh was heavy physically and also in word and deed; he liked to throw his weight around.

“Right off, he sized me up,” Ernest said when he returned to our room at the Hotel Selby. “I hadn’t said three words before he decided I was too big for my britches.” He paced the room, scowling. “What about him? If he weren’t married to the publisher’s daughter, he’d be sweeping sidewalks.”

“I’m sorry, Tiny. I’m sure he’ll come around to your wonderfulness,” I said.

“Fat chance. He seems bent on treating me like some cub reporter. I won’t be getting a byline, and he’s sending me out of town.”

“When?”

“Tonight. To Kingston to cover some escaped convict. It’s only five or six hours on the train, but I don’t know how long the story will keep me there.”

“Does Hindmarsh know this baby could turn up anytime?”

“I don’t think he cares.”

I sent Ernest off with a kiss and repeated assurance that all would be well. He made me swear to find reinforcements, and I did. Greg Clark had a lovely wife, Helen, who warmly agreed when I asked her for help in finding an apartment. Money was as much of a concern for us as it had always been, even more so because we were putting away every possible dime for the baby. We couldn’t afford some of the nicer neighborhoods she recommended, but we did find something that would do on Bathurst Street. It was a railroad flat on the fourth floor,