Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald (44 page)

*   *   *

In August, on a day when Scott was upstairs working and my kitchen was aflutter with me, Scottie, and three of her friends attempting to make “gen-u-ine Southern biscuits,” the telephone rang.

I hurried over to the nook and answered before the ringing could disturb Scott further. Tootsie was on the line. “Zelda, listen, honey, something’s happened. It’s Tony.”

The girls were still chattering away, so I plugged my free ear. “What? What happened?”

“I know you and Mama have been corresponding about his treatment since he took ill last month; thank you so much for trying to help.… You spoke to him, didn’t you?”

My heart was beating wildly. “Yes. God, he was a wreck.” He’d been depressed about losing his job and was hearing voices, he said, or maybe they were waking dreams, what did I think?
Something
was urging him to kill Mama, he said, and he was desperate to make it stop. After seeing doctors in Charleston, Asheville, and finally Mobile, he’d checked into the sanitarium there.

“He was bad off,” Tootsie said. “Baby, is anyone there with you? Is Scott home?”

“Just tell me,” I said, choking out the words. The girls, all as flour-covered as I was, had gone silent and were watching me.

“He had a fever, he was delirious, he—God, Zelda, he climbed out his window and jumped. The fall killed him. He’s gone.”

I swallowed hard and blinked back my tears. Delirium? Had that really been the case, or was that the story Tootsie was telling in case the operator listened in? Had he just been desperate?

Then Scottie was next to me, saying, “What’s the matter, Mama?”

“Oh. Aunt Tootsie has some awfully sad news.”

“Is it Granny?”

“I’ll call you later,” I told Tootsie, then placed the handset in its cradle, saying, “Not Granny, no. Uncle Tony. He had an accident. He … he … He passed. Uncle Tony is dead.”

What dread filled me then! It was as if my saying the words had turned my blood to a thick, cold fog. Gooseflesh covered my arms; I wrapped them tight around myself and thought,
Tony and I, aren’t we two of a kind?
There was no escape for either of us, no escaping our bad blood, our bad fate, those moody ghosts that had followed one or another of us all our lives. No escape, except the ultimate one.

I looked at Scottie, her budding loveliness, her kind eyes, and before I could stop the words that were rising like a bubble in my chest, I said, “Oh, sweetness, we’re doomed.”

We both started at a noise from the corridor. Scott was there.

“No one is doomed,” he said, his voice firm but soft, too, a salve for me, a raft for Scottie to climb onto. “But we will all be sad for a while. Girls, I’m sorry, I’ll need you to wash up and get your things, and Scottie and I will drive you home.”

They all got busy cleaning up. Only I saw in Scott’s eyes the fear and dread that he’d managed to keep out of his voice. He’d understood what had happened without my having to tell him. That’s how obvious it was, how easy for any thinking person to spot the rotten strain running through our family.

He caught me watching him. “Zelda,” he said quietly, coming over to me. “No. His troubles were different from yours.” He took my hands. “Look at you—having a perfect day in a perfect home with your charming, happy daughter. I could hear you all from upstairs; the girls were having a grand time. You were the life of the party.”

I nodded and drew a deep breath; my heart felt heavy as a brick in my chest. “Yes, okay. Okay.” In my ears, though, my pulse thumped away,
Doomed, doomed, doomed
.

52

I asked Scott, “Why do you suppose we haven’t gotten divorced yet?”

It was Christmas Eve 1933, not long after we’d moved from La Paix to a cheaper residence, a redbrick row house in Baltimore. Scottie had fallen asleep during Scott’s discussion—lecture, really—on
Ivanhoe
and was now in bed awaiting Santa Claus. Scott and I sat in wing chairs facing the fireplace, both of us with one glass of double-strength eggnog in hand and another already in our bellies—my first drink in ages, and it was having an effect.

Back in the fall, Scott had checked himself in for treatment at Johns Hopkins a few times, which would have impressed me greatly if he had admitted it was to get help with his drinking. What he
said
was that his old lung ailment—mild tuberculosis he claimed he’d caught in 1919—kept flaring up. Still, he managed to finish
Tender Is the Night,
his novel about the psychiatrist in love with a patient, and then sold the serialization to
Scribner’s Magazine
. He had written Hemingway to share his news, and Hemingway had written back,
I’ll bet you feel like you’ve shit a boulder finally
. Scott was disappointed; he’d hoped for something a little more congratulatory. He excused the slight, saying how Hemingway was occupied with his new baby, a new novel, and an African safari. (The new wife was yet to come.)

With Scott’s book finished, I had again asserted my desire to write mine. I’d been reading every psychiatric tome I could find, learning all about the complex interplay of brain matter and chemistry and environment, trying to chase away
Doomed
by telling a story about it. Scott, though, insisted, “If you want to use anything about psychiatry, you’ve got to wait until my novel has carved its place into the American consciousness.” He told my doctor that regardless of subject matter, he believed another attempt at a novel would only harm me. The doctor, not wanting to take any risk that might compromise his own reputation for success, agreed. We’d been fighting a lot about that.

Gazing at the fire, I continued, “I mean, I sure do hate you. You aren’t anything like the man I thought I was marrying.”

“I’m exactly the man I was. The real mystery is why I don’t divorce you.”

“Why would you want to? I’m smart and talented and I can be loving and devoted. I definitely have it in me.”

“Remember the night we went riding down Park Avenue with you on the hood of that taxi and me on the running board, hanging on to the roof?”

I smiled. “Didn’t we meet Dottie that night, at the Algonquin?”

“Mm. That dinner that Bunny arranged … New York sure was a blast.”

“Lord, we had fun.”

Scott reached for my hand. “Damn it all, you are the love of my life.”

*   *   *

Warm words, though, are no panacea. Our ruts were now so deeply cut into the landscape, and we were so tired and worn, that neither Scott nor I could steer ourselves anyplace new.

In early February I trudged the six blocks over snow-crusted concrete to Sara Haardt Mencken’s house, thinking,
Gray, cold day, gray, cold month, gray, cold life
.
Tony’s body was gray and cold when I viewed it, same as Daddy’s was when he left me behind. Gray cold awaits every living thing
. Even the light-falling snow appeared gray to my eyes. The wind whipped bits of paper trash about my feet. A delivery truck sputtered past, spewing oily smoke into the air in front of me.
God, why have you drained all the color from Baltimore? Isn’t it enough to steal all the warmth?

At Sara’s stoop, I looked up at the dozen steps I’d have to climb to reach the door and sighed as if I’d come to the base of Mont Blanc. It might be easier to turn around and go home.

Except, inside one of those windows up there is Sara.

And I needed to see my darling good friend, my touchstone. It wasn’t as if I had any particular complaint to share, no particular crisis, no event to fuss about. My list of Scott’s offenses had grown so long that the devil himself would grow bored hearing it. But with Scottie gone all day at the Bryn Mawr School, our house was an inanimate space, lacking color, warmth, inspiration, purpose—or maybe that was just me.

“It’s awfully cold and gray today,” Sara said, after her maid had shown me into the parlor. She coughed, then said, “I shouldn’t have asked you over when it’s so raw out.”

“No, I’m glad to see you.”

“Goodness, you’re so thin! Are you eating? Your hands are like ice! Here, sit by the fire. How about some hot broth?”

“Fine, sure,” I said dully. Trying harder, I added, “Where’s Henry today?”

“At the office. It’s Tuesday.”

“Of course.” I stared into the grate.
Tuesday. Of course
.

“And Scott?”

“I haven’t seen him since yesterday.”

“Ah. Zelda … that’s partly why I wanted to see you.”

I turned toward her. “You know where he is?”

“No.” She shook her head. “We saw him on Friday, though. Henry was having a couple of friends in. A quiet gathering—you know how he is.” She paused to cough. “No liquor, no music, just a lot of book talk. There was a commotion downstairs, then next thing we knew, Scott was stumbling up the stairs and calling out to ask if they’d started without him.”

“But he wasn’t invited.”

“Yes. So there was a bit of an argument. He’s been coming by a lot—late at night, sometimes, long after we’ve turned in. Henry was losing patience. He said, ‘Scott, can’t you see this isn’t your sort of gathering?’ And Scott said, ‘Right, right,
I
may have a new
novel
being serialized by
Scribner’s Magazine,
but I haven’t got the
exalted qualifications
to be a part of this esteemed group. What I do have, however’—and he undid his pants, then dropped them, saying—‘is
this
.’”

“He
exposed
himself?”

Sara nodded. “I looked away, of course. We were all terribly embarrassed for him, and Henry hauled him out of the room. Later, Henry said there’d be no more socializing with either of you. He had steam coming from his ears, I swear to you, and that never happens.”

I felt sick. “Who can blame him?”

“He eased up regarding you, though. Really, he has nothing against you. But Zelda, Scott has got to get help. How can you bear to stay with him?”

I shrugged.

“When did
you
last see a doctor?”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “They can’t cure me, and Scott can’t afford to pay them anyway, and I can’t pay for myself.” I glanced out the window. The view was of pale gray clouds and medium gray buildings and the dark gray water of the bay.

“Maybe you should go stay with Tootsie or Tilde.”

I shrugged again.

“Are you writing at all?”

“I’ve been forbidden. The doctors agree with Scott that it’s harmful for me. Maybe they’re right.”

Sara began to cough, a cough that seemed endless and left blood on her handkerchief.

“When did
you
last see a doctor?” I asked when the spell was past.

“Henry makes me go twice a month. Though of course there’s nothing anyone can do.”

*   *   *

Those words, that truth about her life and my life and all of life, seeped into my head and played themselves over and over and over.
There’s nothing anyone can do
.

I used them as a mantra after reading the serialization of
Tender Is the Night,
which I’d expected to be a perhaps tragic but certainly romanticized, well-fictionalized story that used our experiences as a frame at most. But, no, no, Scott had used whole passages of tortured letters I’d written him from Prangins. He’d made his not-me into a half-homicidal incest victim whose eventual health comes only through the complete destruction of her once-exalted husband’s life. I couldn’t get any distance from it, couldn’t separate myself from his Nicole.

I said nothing.

I poured a drink.

I poured another.

There’s nothing anyone can do.

I guess the words showed up on my face and in my eyes, and at some point Scott noticed, and then somehow I found myself in a hospital room at Phipps.

—
Tell us what you’re feeling.

—
Tell us what you’re thinking
.

—
Are you angry / hurting / fearful / sad?

I told them nothing. I was blank.

*   *   *

Phipps wouldn’t take on such an uncooperative patient. Scott consulted Dr. Forel, and then off I went to Craig House, an institution in Beacon, New York.
Another long train ride to nowhere,
I thought.

At first, all I could see—when I was alert enough to see anything at all—was a landscape of frozen, barren everything. I welcomed the slow, sucking haze of sedation. I lay prostrate for the team of nurses who prepped me for my insulin-shock therapy, anticipating the bliss of absence that would follow the convulsions. I didn’t speak to anyone; what was there to say?

Spring was breaking, though, and soon the ground began to shiver with shocking-white snowdrops and agonizingly blue gentians that, the moment I noticed them, demanded I render them with watercolors.

“I’d like paper, paints, and brushes—and an easel,” I told Dr. Slocum, my new dungeon master, when he came by on rounds one morning.

Startled, he said, “Beg pardon? You can speak?”

“You’re a sharp one,” I told him, and I even tried out a smile. “Those flowers outside are beautiful, see? I have an itch to put them in a picture.”

He glanced out the window, then back at me. “Suppose you get dressed and come tell me more about this itch when I finish my rounds.” So I did, and during that first session we struck a deal: painting supplies in return for the sort of conversational minutiae psychiatrists thrive on.

As the weeks went by, within those minutiae I tucked my requests for milder sedatives, and fewer insulin treatments, and biscuits with peach preserves. My days began to look like a lady of leisure’s; Craig House was resort-like for patients who didn’t have to spend their days sedated, or bound to their beds, or both. Plenty of new friends and recreation, little stimulation. I could only guess at what it was costing Scott to keep me there.

“I’d like permission to do some writing,” I said one morning, when I’d been there for about a month. I told Dr. Slocum, “I have some short-story ideas nibbling at my brain.”

He tented his fingers on his ample stomach. “It’s important that you not overtire yourself.”