The Aviator's Wife

toward the waiting reporters and photographers. My grief wasn’t the only thing chasing us down that narrow path; frustration, disgust, and horror pushed us across an ocean as well.

Two months before we left America, an intruder had been caught outside Jon’s nursery window, ladder in hand.

Two months before that, I had been besieged when, on a whim, I dashed, unaccompanied, into Macy’s after a doctor’s appointment. Silly, but I’d had a notion that a new hat might perk up my spirits. Just as I reached for a red felt model with a feather, I found myself surrounded by a crowd of shoppers, all staring intently at me, waiting for me to do something—break down, I supposed. Some began to murmur sympathy, others started squealing my name, and even in my fear—for they surged forward, trapping me against the glass counter—I envied them. Passionately. For these were women for whom a new hat—or the sight of a stranger whose face they recognized from the newspaper—might bring happiness. And as the police came to my rescue just as my coat was torn by grasping, seeking hands, I knew that I would never again be that kind of woman.

The breaking point, though, occurred on a parkway just outside of Manhattan. Charles was driving Jon and me back from a pediatrician’s appointment in the city. Suddenly a car pulled up behind us, too close. And then another pulled alongside, before swerving in front of us. Cursing, Charles had no choice but to veer off the road. Our car hit a tree with enough force that I bit my tongue, tasting blood along with fear. The child on my lap was unhurt; Jon started to cry only when I hugged him to my chest, trying to protect him from the men surrounding our car.

With a mad cry, Charles leaped out, swinging at them, and at that moment a flashing light went off just outside my window. Photographers, I realized, bending my head down over my child, and my relief that they weren’t kidnappers was swiftly eclipsed by my outrage at their reckless tactics. Charles shouted at them, asking them if they had no shame, no decency, but all he received in reply were more flashes, strident questions about how we were handling our grief, how we were raising our second child in the shadow of his brother’s death.

All I could do was remain where I was, my arms so fiercely wrapped around Jon that they would have had to rip them off to get at him, while Charles warned that anyone who tried to get in the car would be shot, no questions asked. At one point our gazes locked through the car window, grimly acknowledging the truth; once again, it was the two of us against the world. If grief couldn’t bind us, self-preservation would.

That night, we surrendered. We packed our bags and left in the dead of night for the Guggenheims’. There, we holed up, deep in the bowels of their enormous estate, deciding what to do next. Harry and Carol were sympathy itself, welcoming a squalling baby into their orderly world without a raised eyebrow or shrug. Carol delighted in pushing Jon about her manicured lawns in his pram, walking with me for hours without speaking, her undemanding companionship a balm to my soul.

Despite the Guggenheims’ endless kindness, we knew we couldn’t stay there forever. Finally we decided to sell the house in Hopewell to the state for a pittance. After that May we had tried, halfheartedly, to reclaim it as a home, but there were too many ghosts.

We kissed the Guggenheims and my mother and Con goodbye; we gave Dwight control of our financial interests in the United States. And we booked passage on a freighter bound for England, the sole paying passengers. The night before we sailed, Charles wrote a letter to The New York Times explaining why we were leaving the country for which he had done so much. In measured words nevertheless tinged with anger, he decried the lack of morals, the depravity he saw becoming part of the character of every American. He blamed the press—and those behind it—for our son’s death. He expressed the desire to return to the nation that he loved, but only at such a time when he could once again call himself a proud citizen of a good and useful society.

Now we were renting an estate just outside of London, Long Barn, where it seemed, finally, that we had found peace. Charles could walk the sooty streets of London, only occasionally garnering a startled look. No strangers ever showed themselves at our door; the village constables made it their business to know every car, every bicycle, within miles. I could put the baby to sleep upstairs with the two nannies and three guard dogs, and only feel the need to go up and check on him four times a night, instead of forty.

Best of all, Charles and I took long walks outside in the garden at night, just like we had when we were first married, when he tried to teach me the stars. He didn’t try to teach me anything now, and I was no longer quite so willing to learn. We walked in silence, mostly; afraid, or unable, to share our thoughts but finding a measure of unity simply in breathing the same air, admiring the same moon.

We were always at our best, together, when we were looking at the sky.

His days were still filled with scientific endeavors—working with aviation experts to improve fuel efficiency and range, as well as his continuing work with Alexis Carrel, who followed us across the ocean with his wife, living on a small island in Brittany. And one day I read an article in a magazine about a man named Goddard, who was working on something called a rocket; I showed it to Charles, who was now corresponding with him and helping him find funding.

Eventually the world found him, even in our farmhouse in the English countryside. Invitations blew across the channel from the various governments of Europe to inspect their new commercial airliners and airports, just as he had done in the United States. When he started to accept them again, I dusted off my goggles with a resigned sigh. It is difficult to explain how I could leave Jon behind, after all that had happened, to be cared for by strangers in a strange country. It was fear, I suppose—that powerful emotion that Charles so disdained but which I could not resist. Fear pulled me toward my child, and pushed me away from him, too; fear of getting too attached, of having to lose him. Just as I had lost the brother he would never know.

Fear that, having hidden us away so neatly, Charles might forget to come back.

So, him in the front seat, me in the rear, we flew to every European capital, inspected every airplane factory, every new airport. We even charted a few passenger routes, although more and more, these were already established. The age of the aviator/explorer was over, and nothing was more evident of that than the increasing number of military planes we saw on our tours.

And no country had as many as we’d seen at the Staaker airfield outside of Berlin this week; I wondered if Charles had been as stunned by the display as I had.

“THIS IS AN EXTRAORDINARY OPPORTUNITY,” Truman Smith had said when we first arrived in Berlin, inhaling a cigarette greedily. He snapped the lid on his silver lighter with an expert flourish, and put it in his breast pocket. He was the very image of a military man; it was difficult to imagine Truman out of uniform, and indeed, I never saw him in street clothes. His figure was tailor-made for dress uniform; tall, broad shoulders, slender waist.

“What is?” Kay and I were returning from a quick tour of their apartment, where we were staying. It was on a clean, neat street, just as all the streets in Berlin seemed to be; I’d never seen a city that appeared to be so scrubbed.

“Goring’s invitation to the colonel, to inspect the Luftwaffe. Astounding, really. We may not get another like it.” Minister Goring had met us when we landed and assured us the government was eager to grant us our every wish, even though this was not an official diplomatic visit. He’d even invited Charles to tour their military aircraft facilities, the notion of which seemed to intrigue Truman.

“I’m here at the invitation of Lufthansa, not the Nazi government,” Charles reminded him. His lanky body was folded up so that he could perch on a satin-covered gilt chair; Kay had exquisite, if not entirely practical, taste in decorating.

“Yes, but, Colonel, the Nazi government has not been forthcoming about its military development to anyone. Obviously they’re building it up, but we’ve been unable to ascertain anything concrete. This might be a wonderful opportunity to learn more.”

“I’m here as a civilian,” Charles insisted. “I’m no politician, and I’m not on any kind of military mission.”

“Times are changing. Quickly—more quickly than perhaps you two are aware.” Truman smiled sympathetically at both of us, and I understood what he meant. On our recent trips to the various European capitals I’d felt it, too—that for the last few years Charles and I had been so absorbed with our own lives, so locked together in a protective shell of our own making, the world had passed us by. Changes were occurring, swiftly, even violently. Royalty was out; dictators were in. Mussolini and his Black Shirts controlled Italy—and now Ethiopia, as well. Stalin was making noises about the spread of Communism. Living in Europe, it was impossible not to hear