The Tale of the Rose (32 page)

T
HE EXCHANGE OF OPEN LETTERS
with Maritain
*
in the newspapers that winter was very painful for you. You felt misunderstood. It was a series of mistaken impressions that you couldn’t seem to clear up. I didn’t know how to distract you anymore. I suggested we take a walk through Central Park; we went to see the tigers, the lions, the chimpanzees—and even though you didn’t much care for monkeys, I managed to win a smile from you as you watched them eating peanuts out of my hand.

All those weeks, since 1943, you’d been living with a cloud over your head, so you would pick up a large pair of scissors and make little airplanes. One day, a police officer came up to the house to tell you that you were littering the streets of New York City!

You smiled and told him, “I have an even better story than that. One day, after making a phone call, I forgot to hang up. I fell asleep and snored so loudly that they were afraid at the central exchange that something had happened in this building. They thought it was a fire and sent a whole ladderful of firemen!”

Another charming incident took place at Greta Garbo’s house, which we had rented. Our neighbors were Mrs. Guggenheim, the mine owner, and her daughter Peggy, who was full of admiration for Tonio. She would lend me a hand with little things around the house. Our dog, Hannibal, a bulldog, was ill natured, but he very much liked Peggy, who was beautiful and blond: he would take her arm between his teeth and then wouldn’t let go.

One day when we had some friends over—Jean Gabin,
*
Marlene Dietrich, Garbo—our refrigerator couldn’t hold all the bottles of champagne, and Peggy had the idea of burying them in the garden, under the snow.

“Very well, young lady,” said Tonio. “You do the work!”

When the time came to serve the champagne, Peggy announced, in front of the assembly of beautiful ladies—all with their white gloves on, even during the meal!—“I can’t remember where I buried them. Does anyone want to go out and look with me?”

Gabin agreed to help her look for the bottles, which had been swallowed up by the snow. The two of them were freezing out there in the garden, and we could hear them laughing, especially Peggy, with that young laugh of hers. Then everyone went outside and joined in the hunt for the bottles: what a joyous moment in our lives!

That was how our stay in Garbo’s house began. I was content, but I saw that you weren’t at all happy. You wouldn’t be happy, I knew well, until you had been authorized to rejoin your squadron—Group 2/33—to go back and fight, so that you could come under enemy fire once more.

At that time Peggy had taken in Max Ernst, whom she had snatched from the clutches of the Nazis. Then Max Ernst married Peggy. Without ever speaking of happiness or unhappiness, he would come to take refuge at our house. Like you, he was sad. You didn’t like to have a lot of people over all at once, and I remember that one day you suggested to Max Ernst, “If you’re alone, come to our place tomorrow evening.”

He came, after having confided to Peggy, “I’m going over to Saint-Ex’s, he’s expecting me. He’s only invited men—his wife will be the one woman there. He’s getting ready to go off to the war, and he’s a little worried about leaving her alone in New York.”

I never complained about the loneliness I could foresee. Or the sadness to come. You had to leave, I knew that. “I have to come under enemy fire in order to feel washed, to feel clean, in this absurd war.” Those were your words.

Tonio trained the bulldog, in anticipation of his departure. He would blow soap bubbles, and the dog would pop them against the pure white walls of Garbo’s house.

“When I come back,” he would say, “when I see you again, with your dog, I won’t beat him if he doesn’t recognize me. Instead I’ll blow soap bubbles, and he’ll know that I’m his master, who has returned.”

O
H
T
ONIO, MY BELOVED
, it is terrible to be the wife of a warrior. Tonio, my love, my tall tree of a husband, it’s decided: you’re leaving. You know, Tonio, that you are my son, too. I know that you saw a woman before your departure and told her, “Thérèse, I will not kiss you. Because I will carry on my lips, until the end of the war, my wife’s lips and her last kiss.”

When you held me tightly in your arms, when you told me good-bye before flying off to Algeria, your voice stayed in my ears. I hear it now, just as I hear the beating of my own heart. I will always hear it. “Don’t cry,” you told me. “The unknown is beautiful when you are going off to discover it. I’m going to war for my country. Don’t look at my eyes, for I’m weeping as much with joy at carrying out my duty as with pain over your tears. I could almost thank heaven for giving me a treasure to leave behind: my house, my books, my dog. You will keep them for me.

“Every day, you’ll write me two lines, three lines—you’ll see; it will be like a phone call, and we will not be separated since you are my wife for eternity. We will weep together across the distance of all the passing days during which we are not together, looking at the same things.
Petite fille,
don’t cry, or I will cry too. I look strong because I’m tall, but soon I’ll be swooning, and then, if my commanding officer or my general is at the door, he won’t be too proud of his soldier!

“Straighten my tie instead. Give me your handkerchief so I can write the next part of
The Little Prince
on it. At the end of the story, the Little Prince will give this handkerchief to the Princess. You’ll never again be a rose with thorns, you’ll be a dream princess who always waits for the Little Prince. I will dedicate that book to you. I can’t forgive myself for not having dedicated it to you. I’m sure that while I’m gone our friends will be kind to you. When I’m here they prefer my company, but that’s not particularly flattering to me. Those who love only the famous man in me make me sad. I will forget all those who don’t extend all of their favors to you. When I come back, my wife, the two of us will be with the true friends of our hearts. Only them.”

Oh, how I would like to lie here a little longer next to you, without saying a word. A rush of images from my childhood comes flooding into my mind at times like these. But we have to go. What time is it?

“Tonio,” I said, “you’re breaking my heart. You ask me to be nice to your friends who are staying behind, but since you received the authorization to go, not one of them has made any effort, even jokingly, to keep you here, to explain to you that fast planes require very young pilots. I forgive them their cowardice since they love you sincerely, they think of you as one of their own, going off to war, and they know it’s what you wanted. It’s what you need to do.”

“
Pimprenelle,
don’t make war on everyone, my love. Everything you’ve just said is true.”

“Yes, I know. Perhaps I’d do better to show you how I organized your luggage.”

“
Oh la la,
no instructions, please! You’ve given me too many handkerchiefs, pins, pills—and that underwear is too small for me.”

“You’ll lose weight,” I said flatly.

“No, no, I’d rather get fat,” he protested with a laugh. “But if I go mad, if I mix together all these pills, all these vitamins, into a nice explosive meal for a day when I have no bread, I’ll start to swell up like the boa in
The Little Prince
! Don’t be jealous of that band of doves in exile here who have cooed with me in French and have driven me, along with all our friends, to your door. I couldn’t shake them off. Don’t treat them badly. All rootless love is clamorous and clinging. Besides, I’m leaving: it’s over. When I’m far away there will be other faces, other friends, and even other doves, you know. But this is different. My home is in your heart, and I will be there forever.”

“Still,” I said, “I can’t exactly welcome them in with a smile. It isn’t a party, your departure. And I have a fever.”

“Ah!
Pimprenelle,
it’s getting late and I have to catch my boat. It will go past our house tomorrow, perhaps even tonight. Take care of yourself. Write me, even if your letters are silly. I say silly because you are often mistaken in your judgments about some man or some woman. Don’t forget what I told you: you’re a better judge of men than of women. You are never mistaken about men, you’re almost clairvoyant, but about women, you’re always wrong!”

He left at last. I lay on the bed for hours in despair, as if paralyzed. I couldn’t fall asleep. I listened for your submarine. I didn’t hear any noise, but at every moment I could feel you going through the water, because you were not in those waters but in me, deep inside me. You know, Tonio, you are right, I was your mother, too.

Oh, how vain our little disputes seem to me now! How can I tell you—with everything I feel right now, thinking of you shut up inside that fragile vessel, though I know you are escorted by other ships—that I am protecting you? For I know you will reach your destination, my love, and I remember the secret you murmured in my ear when I was weeping hot tears, “Cloak me in your love, Consuelo,
ma Pimprenelle,
and I won’t be touched by the bullets.” I am making that cloak for you, my darling. May it enfold you for all eternity.

No, I didn’t try to watch your boat go by through the waters of the Hudson that flow out toward the sea. You told me I wouldn’t see you anyway, because of the fantastical reflections of the electric lights against the steely water. But you promised me you would hold me so tightly in your heart at that moment that I would feel your arms around me for the rest of my life. And you promised that if you didn’t come back, the river would whisper to me about the strength of your kiss—and about you, about us.

Lake George, late June,

the day of your birthday

Tonio, my love,

I woke up at six o’clock this morning. I ran to the lake in my pajamas, to dip my feet in. The water is delicious. A reddish purple sun is rising from behind the neighboring mountain. I dream of you, my beloved. And I am happy to think of you, to dream of you. Despite the fear I feel, knowing that you are the oldest pilot in the world,
mon chéri
—imagine if all men were like you!

I have to run to the village, to a little Catholic church where mass is held at 7:30 every day, and it’s the only mass—very few Catholics and very few Catholic priests here. I want to go sit in the church’s empty pews today, the day of your birthday. That is all I can give you. So I’m running, my husband, I must get dressed—it’s half an hour’s walk to the church.

Good-bye for now. If I do not see you again on this planet, know that you will find me with the good Lord, waiting for you, truly you will.

You are in me as the vegetation is upon the earth. I love you—you are my treasure, you are my world.

Your wife,

Consuelo

June 29, 1944

[The same day Consuelo wrote this letter, Antoine wrote her a very somber love letter, with a note in the margin mentioning that he had just turned forty-four. A month later, on July 31, 1944, he disappeared while flying a reconnaissance mission over southern France. Neither his plane nor his body was ever found. In 1998 a bracelet engraved with the words “Consuelo” and “Antoine” was recovered from the Mediterranean.]

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (third from left) with fellow aviators Henri Guillaumet, Léon Antoine, and Marcel Reine at Cap Juby in Morocco in 1926.

Saint-Exupéry (center, in flight gear) with his plane in Rio in 1928.