The Paris Wife

“Well,” Roland said. “Was Chi-Town everything you imagined?”

I nodded, spreading marmalade on toast.

“And did you conquer dozens of new beaux?”

Fonnie made an almost inaudible huffing noise, but said nothing.

“I wouldn’t say dozens,” I said.

“You must have made at least one conquest. This letter just arrived for you.” He pulled a crumpled-looking artifact from his suit pocket. “Special delivery,” he said. “It must be serious.” He smiled and handed over the letter.

“What’s that?” Fonnie said.

“Special delivery,” I repeated in a kind of trance. Ernest’s name was on the envelope, scrawled but clear enough. He must have mailed it just after he put me on the train, paying the extra ten cents to make sure it arrived first thing. I’ll write to you. I’ll write you. I fingered the envelope, half afraid to open it.

“What’s your fellow’s name?” Roland asked.

“I wouldn’t call him my fellow, but his name is Ernest Hemingway.”

“Hemingway?” Fonnie said. “What kind of name is that?”

“I have no idea,” I said, and carried the letter out of the room to open it. It was as clutched and creased as if it had spent days in his pocket-and I already loved that, no matter what the letter held. I found a quiet corner in the sitting room near my piano and discovered that inside the pages were rumpled, too, and scratched at with dark ink. Dear Hasovitch-it began-You on the train and me here and everything emptier now you’re gone. Tell me are you real?

I put the letter down because I almost couldn’t bear the feeling that he’d crawled into my head. Are you real? I wondered exactly the same about him-and had more right, too, I thought, particularly after Kate’s warning. I was as solid as the ground he walked on, too solid probably. But what about him? His attentions to me had never faltered during my visit, but that didn’t mean he was reliable, only that for the time being he thought I was worth pursuing. The truth was I didn’t know what to think about him, and so I kept reading, devouring the rest of his letter very quickly, all he had to say about what he was doing and wanted to do, his work, his thoughts. He said there might be a job for him at a monthly magazine called the Co- operative Commonwealth if he’d give in to doing the whole thing himself-as writer, reporter, editor, the whole ball of wax. Not crazy about the terms but will probably take it, he wrote. Though there was a good deal of unquiet chatter in my mind about him, I couldn’t help liking his voice and vibrancy and how his words on paper sounded like the Ernest who invented reasons to pop into my room in Chicago. His letter was doing that now, bringing Ernest into the sitting room that had been dark and airless a moment before.

“Well?” Fonnie said, coming into the room with a swish of her somber wool skirt. “What does he have to say?”

“Nothing out of the ordinary,” I said, but of course that wasn’t true. Everything about Ernest Hemingway was out of the ordinary.

“Well, it’s nice to have new friends, anyway. I’m happy you’ve found a pleasant distraction.” She sat and took up her lacework.

“Are you?”

“Of course. I want you to be happy.”

That was probably true, but only if happy meant I was locked upstairs for the rest of my life, the lonely maiden aunt.

“Thank you, Fonnie,” I said, and then excused myself to my room, where I started in on my answer. I didn’t want to be too enthusiastic. I didn’t want to make my reply mean more than it did-but I found that I liked writing to him. I made my reply last all day, putting things down as they happened, wanting to be sure he could picture me moving from room to room, practicing the piano, sitting down to a perfect cup of ginger tea with my friend Alice Hunt, watching our gardener prune the rosebushes and swaddle them in burlap for winter. I miss the lake tonight, I wrote. Lots of other things too. Do you want to meet me in the kitchen for a smoke?

My mother had kept a snapshot of me in a bathing suit, splashing knee-deep in the Meramec River with Alice, both of us happy and washed over with sunshine. This version of Hadley hardly ever made an appearance these days, it was true, but I thought Ernest would like her open face and anything-goes smile. I tucked the photo into an envelope with my letter, and then, before I could have second thoughts about anything, walked down the street to the letter box at the corner. It was dark out, and as I walked, I looked into houses as if they were glowing bowls. Everything glowed faintly-and for a moment I could imagine light speeding over all the knobby cornfields and sleeping barns between St. Louis and Chicago. When I arrived at the box, I gripped my letter, kissed it on impulse, and then pushed it into the slot and let it go.

SIX

I have so many schemes about writing-so much I want to see and feel and do. Say, do you remember playing the piano with your hair glinting full on and how you got up and came over to me on the davenport and said, “Do you gather me, Begonia?”

Do you gather me, Hash?

Will you come up here already and give me some of that dead-sure stuff that’s you?

His letters came crushed and strangled, full of deliciousness, sometimes two and three a day. I tried to be more reserved at first, vowing to write only once a week, but that fell apart immediately. Before long I found myself in a real bind. The letters were flying back and forth, but what did they mean? Kate’s voice often filled my head- He likes women, all women, apparently-and I debated over whether or not I should tell her about our quickly progressing friendship. I couldn’t imagine her not feeling hurt and angry; I was blatantly, willfully disregarding her advice after all. But if I confessed everything, she might give me more advice, and then I’d have to listen and perhaps act on it.

I was torn between wanting to know if I could trust Ernest and wishing I could stay blind enough to keep things exactly as they were. His words already meant so much-too much. Each of his letters was a perfect tonic and writing him, too, was a tonic, and before long I learned I could hear the mail boy on his bicycle from several blocks away even if he didn’t ring his bell. I told myself that Kate didn’t know everything about Ernest. Who knew everything about anyone? There were qualities coming through in his letters-tenderness, for instance, and palpable warmth-that she might never have seen in all those summers in Michigan. It was possible. It had to be, because the happiness that grew out of Ernest’s interest in me was seeping over into the rest of my life. I was suddenly busier and more content at home than I’d ever been. Two friends, Bertha Doan and Ruth Bradfield, had moved into the upstairs apartment with me as boarders, and for the first time in almost a decade, I wasn’t lonely in my own house. I also had young men interested in me, and even if they weren’t anything extraordinary, they were a nice diversion. I let them take me dancing or to the theater and even let a few of them kiss me good night. Not one of them had Ernest’s great big square head or padding feet and hands; not one asked his wonderful questions or made me want to say, Do you gather me, Begonia?

I kept up with it, though, going out with nearly anyone who asked because Ernest, dear soul that he was, was theoretical-a lovely hypothesis-and hundreds of miles away. In St. Louis, where I was fated to live my actual life, there was Dick Pierce, the brother of a good friend. I liked his company and knew that if I encouraged him at all, he’d fall in love with me and perhaps even propose, but I felt little or nothing for him. There was also Pere Rowland, a pleasantly rumpled boy who knew a lot about books and music, but romantic dates didn’t appeal to me as much as when a group of us would jam into someone’s car and go to a movie in town or the dance hall where everyone was happy and free. Afterward, Ruth and Bertha and I would sit up in our nightgowns with tea and talk through the events of the night.